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Motivation, Execution, Consequence: A Realmatic Theory


Kurkistan

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She removes her soul. As you said, she creates several fully functional souls out of soulstone and sticks them into people.

I think you owe me some shoe eating. As an honorable man I am sure you will not try to avoid the eating of shoes.

You're more than a bit off on the meanings here, Nepene. Here is the full line of conversation, in case you forgot.

If you tell me there is a dragon terrorizing the English countryside, I would ask you which papers you were reading, the muggle ones or the wizarding ones. The strength of evidence depends on the totality of evidence.

The quote clearly does say most aspects aren't brought along, but does imply many aspects are kept but just not brought along.

If my idea about Endowment wiping souls clean when they are transferred is right say, it might well take people with a new soul a while to train them to function properly emotionally.

I agree that it's circumstantial evidence, but that doesn't mean we should simply ignore it, especially when there's little reason to think that anything else is the case.

Also, there's simply no need for it to work that way, and Awakeners seem fine and dandy going between Breath-states at a fairly quick pace, never having problems when the Breaths they get back are "emotionally scrubbed."

The awakeners have oodles of breaths mostly so any weaknesses in the breaths would be less because they have so many. In the sequel the author said he wants to go back to basics with less soul usage so they can be more skillful. Then these issues with souls may become more prominent.

Anyway, we really don't have enough evidence to say exactly what would happen. It's worth looking out for any evidence confirming or denying this theory though with the emperor's soul.

Even after her Les Mis experience, during the final sequence, if I recall correctly, Vivienne basically goes from flush to drab to flush to drab to semi-flush without reporting any ill-effects.

She did have a lot of breaths. Any weaknesses in them would be covered. With the emperor's soul we will be dealing with a single emperor soul, so any issues in transferring a single soul should be covered.

It actually won't be "transferring" in TES: it will be Forging, creating a new soul out of whole clothe. Quite a different process under any interpretation.

Forging will probably involve transferring a soul into a body, or removing a soul from a body.

I will eat my shoes if it involves removing a soul. Read the descriptions we have on TES. It's all about creating a fully functional new soul and sticking it into an empty shell.

You were talking about taking a full, living human soul from one person and sticking it into another, claiming that such a process could show whether or not your theory of Breath having "emotional memory" held true. I said that that soul would be artificially created. I was right. Forging doesn't pull out peoples real souls, just puts in artificial ones which can then be removed. And, coincidentally, their emotions seem to work just fine.

Our discussion did cover some useful ground. For example with reference to the rpg and breaths you can steal a lot of attributes- strength, emotional fortitude. We also talked about how breaths worked- a lot of quotes about how they imitated human form.

I don't recall us agreeing on either emotional fortitude or physical strength, although I agree we had a bit of useful discussion on the human-form behavior of Awakened objects.

EDIT: First of all, I tweaked my response to Nepene a bit to be a bit more thought out and detailed, since I was rushed when I first wrote it. Sorry about that. Second:

Curses! My entire theory-jack undone in a single line :P/>/>

I'm still curious as to exactly where the theory differs from the correct interpretation - as you listed in the main thread that Sanderson has said you're 'along the right lines' then perhaps a minor tweak somewhere is all it needs. I'll keep trying I guess :P/>

I read "along the right lines" a bit pessimistically, to be honest. Kind of like "sure, Columbus, you can definitely get to China by sailing West. Good luck with that." Okay, maybe not that bad. But still.

I was definitely wrong on the specifics of how the Spiritual Realm's "ruleset" worked, since it appears to be through manifold individual connections rather than simple laws.

I also had a laughably unclear division between the Cognitive and Spiritual, which TES has hopefully cleared up a bit. I am pleased that my supposition that objects in the Cosmere are treated as aggregates turned out to be true, although I didn't guess at the Cognitive Realms as being what defined when a group of objects were to be treated as a whole

Also, it's important to recall that Brandon said that in reference to an exceptionally condensed summary of the theory, so could drastically disagree on many of its details.

Edited by Kurkistan
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You're more than a bit off on the meanings here, Nepene. Here is the full line of conversation, in case you forgot.

You were talking about taking a full, living human soul from one person and sticking it into another, claiming that such a process could show whether or not your theory of Breath having "emotional memory" held true. I said that that soul would be artificially created. I was right. Forging doesn't pull out peoples real souls, just puts in artificial ones which can then be removed. And, coincidentally, their emotions seem to work just fine.

You were very adamant on it being an artificial, though I didn't care that much about that (what is a real soul? In a way, are her souls not more real than our silly natural souls?) - I was concerned if it took time to train a new soul. In the book the new soul grafts onto your old soul, and if compatible your soul has no issues melding with it and it is like you have a whole new soul but better. Presumably breaths likewise just bring out the beauty of some of your natural soul. Whether the souls are artificial or not is immaterial to the argument- souls are transferred, removed and given, and contrary to my theory there are no ill effects. The soul is accepted or rejected. And contrary to your ideas, souls are removed.

I don't recall us agreeing on either emotional fortitude or physical strength, although I agree we had a bit of useful discussion on the human-form behavior of Awakened objects.

We didn't agree on that, but we had a side discussion about the mistborn rpg which list a quite wide range of attributes you can steal from the soul which we agreed on. Aka, your spiritual essence involves many innately human things. So as a consolation prize to Senor Feesh spiritual particles do probably act somewhat like protons and neutrons. They can be arranged into useful attributes which may well be controlled by how you see yourself.

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You were very adamant on it being an artificial, though I didn't care that much about that (what is a real soul? In a way, are her souls not more real than our silly natural souls?) - I was concerned if it took time to train a new soul. In the book the new soul grafts onto your old soul, and if compatible your soul has no issues melding with it and it is like you have a whole new soul but better. Presumably breaths likewise just bring out the beauty of some of your natural soul. Whether the souls are artificial or not is immaterial to the argument- souls are transferred, removed and given, and contrary to my theory there are no ill effects. The soul is accepted or rejected. And contrary to your ideas, souls are removed.

Is this another "sentience" problem of different meanings? I took you as saying that Forging would be capable of removing person A's original ("real") soul and placing it in person B. "Forging will probably involve transferring a soul into a body, or removing a soul from a body." When you say "transferred", what do you mean? Do you mean that a soul goes from A to B, or that a soul is created out of scratch and then "transferred" into B?

And, once again, I took "removed" to mean that you actually remove someone's original soul (and then possibly put it in someone else), and that was how I spoke of it. And that does not happen in TES.

Edited by Kurkistan
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I suppose this might be another "sentience" problem of divergent meanings. I took you as saying that Forging would be capable of removing person A's original ("real") soul and placing it in person B. "Forging will probably involve transferring a soul into a body, or removing a soul from a body." When you say "transferred", what do you mean? Do you mean that a soul goes from A to B, or that a soul is created out of scratch and then "transferred" into B?

And, once again, I took "removed" to mean that you actually remove someone's original soul (and then possibly put it in someone else), and that was how I spoke of it. And that does not happen in TES.

I had presumed that the magic would work either by rewriting some object's soul with magic and transferring it into a person, temporarily or long term, to give an impression. Edit. Then would the original soul be kicked out? Would the object you transferred the soul from lose its soul? I wasn't particularly picky about it being a person since I was aware even back then that everything in Brandon Sanderson's world seemed to have a soul. I am just as happy with removing the soul of a soul stamp from a person as a person.

Edit. The red smoke of a soul resisting a forging tastes as sweet as the black smoke of nightblood removing a breath.

Edited by Nepene
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^So you think that the souls of soulstamps are modified and then passed on to stamped objects? If so, that seems patently wrong.

EDIT: (reply to your edit):

"Tastes as sweet"? :huh:

Edited by Kurkistan
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^So you think that the souls of soulstamps are modified and then passed on to stamped objects? If so, that seems patently wrong.

EDIT: (reply to your edit):

"Tastes as sweet"? :huh:/>/>

She has refereed to the soulstamps in totality as the emperor's soul, and the souls of stamps does touch the objects. She does say she rebuilt the emperor's soul.

Edit. I had to leave mid post. I don't believe that most soulstamps work purely by that method, though prebook I suspected they may. I imagined some sort of sacrifice might be needed to make the emperor. A soul for a soul. The emperor's soul was repeatedly called a soul, so I think that is a soul.

Anyway, on our discussion. Your original point was that there would be no human soul removal. My point is that your phrasing didn't specify human soul removal (and nor did my intent) and the emperor's soul was removed, with red smoke smiliar to the black smoke of a shardblade removing a soul, and placed on Gaotona repeatedly. Agree to disagree I guess? And perhaps you should be more precise with your shoe eating phrases in the future.

Edited by Nepene
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She has refereed to the soulstamps in totality as the emperor's soul, and the souls of stamps does touch the objects. She does say she rebuilt the emperor's soul.

A- That is metaphorical. There is no serious evidence to support this theory. Please either correct me in some grave misinterpretation of what you meant or start your own thread in the TES section so as not to clog this thread up. To be clear, I am currently reading you as saying that Forging works by altering the soul of any given soulstamp through carving and then transferring that soul out of the soulstamp and into stamped objects.

B- I am still waiting on what you meant by "The red smoke of a soul resisting a forging tastes as sweet as the black smoke of nightblood removing a breath". Although you can just throw that into your new thread as well, I suppose. Be sure to drop a link.

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A- That is metaphorical. There is no serious evidence to support this theory. Please either correct me in some grave misinterpretation of what you meant or start your own thread in the TES section so as not to clog this thread up. To be clear, I am currently reading you as saying that Forging works by altering the soul of any given soulstamp through carving and then transferring that soul out of the soulstamp and into stamped objects.

B- I am still waiting on what you meant by "The red smoke of a soul resisting a forging tastes as sweet as the black smoke of nightblood removing a breath". Although you can just throw that into your new thread as well, I suppose. Be sure to drop a link.

I was not saying my original, pre book theory that all souls would be made with modified souls of another was correct.

The man, Vasher, stepped forward. He undid the clasp on that deep, black sword, and Vivenna felt a strange nausea strike her. A thin wisp of black smoke began to curl up from the blade.

The red smoke of the soul stamp was similar to the black smoke of the sword destroying breaths, and likely had a similar origin.

Edit. I had to leave mid post. I don't believe that most soulstamps work purely by that method' date=' though prebook I suspected they may. I imagined some sort of sacrifice might be needed to make the emperor. A soul for a soul. The emperor's soul was repeatedly called a soul, so I think that is a soul.

Anyway, on our discussion. Your original point was that there would be no human soul removal. My point is that your phrasing didn't specify human soul removal (and nor did my intent) and the emperor's soul was removed, with red smoke smiliar to the black smoke of a shardblade removing a soul, and placed on Gaotona repeatedly. Agree to disagree I guess? And perhaps you should be more precise with your shoe eating phrases in the future.[/quote']

Edited by Nepene
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^That strikes me as a somewhat contrived way to define "removed", but if that's how you read it, then okay.

As for everything else, I think that you are profoundly wrong, as I have said several times by now. But now is the time for you to start your new thread, if you want to continue this line of discussion. I don't feel like burning an entire page of a thread about Realmatics on a side issue for a second time.

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Double Post!

I stumbled across part of the following quote when looking at Satsuoni's Cosmere Thermodynamics thread (I just had to click on that enigmatic link in the "espoused theories" part of his sig). I then used my Amazon-skills to find the context.

(Elantris, pg 222)

"[The Dor is] hard to explain, sule," Galladon said [...] "Dor is the unseen power--it is in everything, but cannot be touched. It affects nother, yet it controls everything. Why do rivers flow?

"Because the water is pulled downwards, just like everything else. The ice melts in the mountains, and it has to havea a place to go."

"Correct, Galladon said. "Now a different quesiton. What makes the water want to flow?

"I wasn't aware that it needed to."

"It does, and the Dor is its motivation," GAlladon said. "Jesker teaches that only humans have the ability--or the curse--of being oblivious to the Dor. Did you know that if you take a bird away from its parents and raise it in your house, it will still learn to fly?"

Raoden shrugged.

"How did it learn, sule? Who taught it to fly?"

"The Dor? Raoden asked hesitantly.

"That is correct."

Raoden smiled; the explanation sounded too religiously mysterious to be useful.[...]

So a bit more evidence for "Spiritual as motivation," assuming the Dor is mostly just an ocean of Spiritual power, and Galladon is making a bit of a theological misstep in saying that all Spiritual matters are the related to the Dor. Since other shardworlds lack a Dor and water still flows, I'll assume he is.

The "bird" part might be wrong (instincts ftw!), something I haven't addressed, or the result of some Bird Form imparting knowledge onto the chick.

P.S. A general note on double-posting: I find double-posting to be appropriate when I can reasonably expect that everyone who was following the thread has already read my previous post, and so has no reason to look in again and see an EDIT to it. I also find it appropriate when the second post contains significantly different content from the first; so not an "oh, and also..." but an "oh, something new!".

Edited by Kurkistan
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I believe new an pertinent information falls within the realm of allowable double-posting, as it adds to the discussion.

As for the Dor - do we have confirmation that the Dor can't be accessed on another world? Is the Dor actually Devotion's power, or a focus for it?

I would have assumed that, much like the power of preservation, the Dor is raw power, whilst the Aons are a focus (in the same way metals are). In that sense, perhaps the Dor can be accessed from elsewhere - if the raw power of a Shard exists in the Spiritual realm, then physical distance (across star systems) may be irrelevant. (I know that distance affects Aons, but again, that's due to the issue of the focus. Other methods of accessing the Dor, which do not use drawn components, may also work, and could be immune to the diminishing effect of distance).

Also, I'm assuming here that the Dor IS preservation's power, and not just Spiritual energy - if the latter was true, I see no reason why other Shardworlds need lack a Dor under a different name.

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In reference to the Dor, here are a couple of quotes regarding its nature from the Q&A:

[*]Why does Devotion's Shardpool act so differently from Preservation’s?

For similar reasons to why the Dor acts so differently from Preservation's essence...

[*]Is the Dor made up of both Devotion and Dominion’s power?

The Dor's nature, and why it acts as it does, is in part related to this question.

Source:

Post #71

I don't know as if either of this definitively tell us anything, but they are definitely relevant information.

Edited by NewbSombrero
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Haha I literally just got back from searching Theoryland for relevant info and found the same quote - Lo and behold, you beat me to linking it :P (the one about Dominion and Devotion that is). As you say, I don't see anything definitive, but it gives another line of speculation - how would Dominion effect the nature of the Dor, if the two are in fact combined within? Is this something to do with the fact the Shards are Splintered? Perhaps now that Dominion and Devotion have been Splintered, their power is without direction, and more prone to mingle?

Ooh, there's a thought - Galladon (I think) describes the Dor as like a force built up wanting to push through into reality (I don't remember the exact terminology, but I remember it being akin to water behind a dam). What if the power isn't trying to push through because it's filled to burst, but instead because Dominion's power is trying to exert influence in the Physical realm? (I don't know how much credence I even give this thought myself, but it occurred to me so I give it to you for speculation).

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I don't know. Taking those two quotes together almost suggests to me that where the question about the Dor being both Devotion and Dominion may be off is the inclusion of Dominion, if that makes any sense. But at the same time, Dakhor, which certainly seems to be tied to Dominion more than Devotion also seems to draw its power from the Dor. I almost wonder if the pushing doesn't have something to do with the Shards not having holders to direct them, maybe sort of combining a couple of the ideas you presented.

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Nice to get some life back into the old thread.

I think the Dor is very specific to Sel, and is most likely consists of the majority of the power of Devotion and Dominion after their holders were killed. We know now that Seon's are Splinters of Devotion (meaning that Skaze are almost certainly Splinters of Dominion), and they don't exactly appear to hold god-like powers. I would hazard, then, that a mind/body split--similar to Ruin and Preservation--occurred when Odium rolled through town, with Splinters, and their Intents, being divorced from the power of the shards themselves. Odium may even have done this on purpose, come to think of it: what better way to ensure that those Shards never challenge him again than to cut off their power from their Intent, their essence?

So, functionally, I think the Dor serves as simply a well of Spiritual energy, but it has its origins in Devotion and Dominion. I don't think those origins actually matter much, though, since their Intents seem to have been neatly partitioned off into Seons/Skaze, leaving the power all by its lonesome.

As for "distance" in the Spiritual Realm, I hazard that there is some kind of distance constraint. Odium arriving on Roshar after Honor and Cultivation seems to be more of a case of him "physically" moving than simply changing where his attention was focused. If the Spiritual Realm was truly spaceless, then I imagine that all the "benevolent" Shards could have gotten their minds together and Splintered Odium in half-a-second without ever leaving their own shardworlds. Instead, they are separated by physical and, it seems, spiritual space.

As for the "dam" quote, it's sitting on Nepene's shiny new thread:

Elantris, Raoden reading books on magic

The Dor was as Galladon had described it: a powerful reservoir just beyond the normal senses. Its only desire was to escape. The books explained that the Dor existed in a place that was full of pressure, and so the energy pushed its way through any viable exit, moving from an area of high concentration to one of low.

However, because of the Dor's nature, it could enter the physical world only through gates of the proper size and shape. Elantrians could create rifts with their drawings, providing a means for the Dor to escape. and those drawings

would determine what form the energy took when it appeared. However, if even one line was of the wrong proportion, the Dor would be unable to enter-like a square trying to force its way through a round hole.

Some theorists described the process using unfamiliar words like "frequency" and "pulse length." Raoden was only beginning to understand how much scientific genius was held in the library's musty pages.

I'll agree with Sombrero that the "pressure" may be because the power is undirected.

Edited by Kurkistan
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If most things on Sel were created by Devotion and Dominion, wouldn't it stand to reason that the power used to create those things would either have dominion over the creations or the creations would have a devotion to the power? So a river requiring Dor to provide intent to flow would be a natural result of the limits of power of creation inherent in the shards doing the creating.

Edited by Leuthie
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Thanks for that quote, Kurkistan! It triggered a couple of thoughts from me, so I thought I'd repeat it here.

The Dor was as Galladon had described it: a powerful reservoir just beyond the normal senses. Its only desire was to escape. The books explained that the Dor existed in a place that was full of pressure, and so the energy pushed its way through any viable exit, moving from an area of high concentration to one of low.

However, because of the Dor's nature, it could enter the physical world only through gates of the proper size and shape. Elantrians could create rifts with their drawings, providing a means for the Dor to escape. and those drawings

would determine what form the energy took when it appeared. However, if even one line was of the wrong proportion, the Dor would be unable to enter-like a square trying to force its way through a round hole.

Some theorists described the process using unfamiliar words like "frequency" and "pulse length." Raoden was only beginning to understand how much scientific genius was held in the library's musty pages.

Remember from HoA how the Mists flooded into Vin, knowing that they needed a host? Sazed speculates that the power actively seeks a host. If this is true for the other Shards powers as well, and if they were somehow separated from their cognitive aspect, like Preservation's was, isn't it likely they would be just as desperate and seeking?

Consider Dominion and Devotion. With the cognitive aspects long since shattered, and the powers themselves perhaps splintered, what would happen? Presumably, the powers would seek out hosts in any form they could find. Thus you would get Elantrians (vessels of Devotion), probably some of the other magic users, etc. The powers would also probably leak out in other forms as well in a misguided attempt to find a host.

Thus the Dor could simply be the pieces of the powers left over, trying to find hosts in any way they can. The Elantrians would be one way they could leak out. Aons would be another. Presumably, forgeries are yet another. Etc. Perhaps Galladon is right: Perhaps in their natural state, they even seek out and fuel the natural world. All in an attempt to get used in a way compatible with what is left of their nature.

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@Leuthie

Not necessarily, no. We know that Shards' Intents only affect the use of magic systems in how the magic is acquired, not necessarily how it is used. The same likely holds true for other uses of the power: the "Power of Creation" that the Shards wield is likely fairly free of Intents or anything, while the ability to utilize it is more limited.

Vin could burn the world by accident because she hadn't internalized Preservation's intent, while Leras was too restricted to fight Ruin. They both wielded the same power, though, so I would hazard that things created by Shards through that power don't particularly care about their origin: a rock made by Devotion (barring some special effort on her part, ala humans on Sel) would then look the same as a rock made by Odium. So we don't need to appeal to Intents to explain the behavior of independent objects.

@happyman

A good thought. I can see that being the case.

Edited by Kurkistan
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But would not Devotion seek to make even a river devoted to Her? Would it not be possible for a shards intent to lead that shard to create things that fulfill that intent? A river that requires instruction from Dor (assuming Dor is a power directly related to Devotion) to flow could be a result of intent run amok.

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^I doubt it. First of all, the Intent of Shards seems to be directed outward, "Preservation, as a Shard, is about preserving life, people, and the like. Not about self. No more than Ruin is about destroying self, or Cultivation is about growing herself" (source). So it would be more likely that Devotion would be devoted to the river than the other way around; devoting herself to things instead of demanding devotion from them.

Second, I'm not sure how that would even work. How is a river somehow being robbed of its normal interactions with other objects really a meaningful act of "devotion?" When you build a chair, your not making it so that it's "devoted" to being sat upon--that's its purpose, but isn't really a meaningful state of being from the chair's perspective. And I don't see any reason why Devotion would create such a contrivance out of nature in the first place.

Edited by Kurkistan
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  • 2 months later...

Honestly I am not onboard with gravity being spiritual.  The whole theory about this is based on these quotes:

ZAS
I’ve got a question kind of based off of the train fight. If you have a time bubble, and you were to make it while you are on the train, would the time bubble move with the train, or would it stay at the same spot relative to the planet?
BRANDON SANDERSON
Time bubbles don’t move, so it would pull you out of it, then it would vanish.

MI'CHELLE
If you were to pop up a time bubble and someone were to be stuck halfway in and halfway out, would they go splooch?

BRANDON SANDERSON
No, they would be in the time bubble. The time bubbles will move with the planet but not with the train.

AUDIENCE
Yeah, I always thought it was relative to the person creating the time bubble.

BRANDON SANDERSON
No, you’ll see Wayne create one, then he’ll walk up to the perimeter, but if he leaves it, it ruins the time bubble.

ZAS
So is that because it’s linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet?

BRANDON SANDERSON
Yes, and you’re digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer. Time bubbles have some weirdness to them that I don’t want to dig in too deeply, but yes.

I don't think that it implies that gravity is inherently spiritual.  Personally, I think that it just implies the bubbles are just spiritually linked to the planet, which means it's forced to share a variety of traits, including its gravity. 
 
We have the WoK epigraph as well, but again it seems more like it's adding spiritual interference (it's 'effectively' creating a change, but that implies that it isn't really acting on gravity itself). It is also weird that the epigraph writer would clarify the 'spiritual gravitational bond' unless there were other kinds of gravity involved.

Basic Lashing involved revoking a being’s or object’s spiritual gravitational bond to the planet below, instead temporarily linking that being or object to a different object or direction.
Effectively, this creates a change in gravitational pull, twisting the energies of the planet itself. A Basic Lashing allowed a Windrunner to run up walls, to send objects or people flying off into the air, or to create similar effects. Advanced uses of this type of Lashing would allow a Windrunner to make himself or herself lighter by binding part of his or her mass upward. (Mathematically, binding a quarter of one’s mass upward would halve a person’s effective weight. Binding half of one’s mass upward would create weightlessness.)

 
And, we also have this:
 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=949
Viper

Hah. So in Cosmere, does physics work the same way in the physical realm as it does in our world? Specifically, particle physics; and are atoms made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and is light photons, etc?


Brandon Sanderson
Yes.

Viper
So what's at the core of an atom of Atium? Ate-teum? Also how do you pronounce it? At-teum?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes. And the matter is just normal matter, but it's wrapped in the spiritual. The Spiritual DNA [or something] is what makes it magical.

Viper
(Note: he might've said slightly more about this but I didn't write it down and I don't remember. Sorry for not bringing a tape recorder

 
 
So physics works in the physical realm. The spiritual realm makes things magical (which might include weird things like falling horizontally), but it doesn't impart physics to them.

Mass is also physical realm (we know from feruchemy), and gravity is defined by mass.

 

 

Aside from that, we know splinters are a blend of spiritual and cognitive.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ced7z/iamstilla_novelist_named_brandon_sanderson_ama/c9fs9lp?context=3

2) Are Splinters primarily Spiritual?

2) Less physical. More a blend of the other two.

Divine Breaths are splinters, so divine breaths are, at least, a blend of cognitive and spiritual.  They act exactly the same as normal breaths in terms of heightenings, and can even be used for Awakening. 

 

So I don't think you can say 'normal Breaths are purely spiritual' or even 'primarily spiritual'. 

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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Aside:
 
New quote in from the Albuquerque signing:
 
Link

StormAtlas: "Why Can Kaladin surgebind with any gem type but Jasnah and Shallan need specific types?"
 
Brandon: "A lot of that will be explained as the series comes along. It is really the difference between soul casting and the other forms of surgebinding. Its more a quark of soulcasting than a it is something that is different about about Kaladin. So you've kind of got it reversed a little bit though, Soulcasting has this additional restriction that the other ones don't

 
This is pretty much in line with how I model Kaladin's use of stormlight, and suggests that he can suck stormlight out of storms directly. Kind of a side point, but interesting none the less.

@Phantom:
Okay, lot's of stuff here:
 
Gravity:
 
No. The basic plausibility of the Spiritual Realm as enabling "physics" connections (as well as more squishy ones) and providing energy aside, there are numerous reasons to think that gravity is Spiritual.
 
The language of the Brandon quote is based off of the WoK Ars Arcanum, and Brandon quite firmly affirms that "it's linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet", saying we're "digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer." Remember, this is Brandon phrasing the terminology, so I think we can count on a high degree of precision ( :P), meaning that he says an unambiguous and intentional "yes" to ""it's linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet".
 

I don't think that it implies that gravity is inherently spiritual.  Personally, I think that it just implies the bubbles are just spiritually linked to the planet, which means it's forced to share a variety of traits, including its gravity.

 
I actually kind of agree with you on this one, though I don't think it has any impact on gravity and other basic forces as being Spiritual. Time bubbles probably are just tied directly to the planet, mooching off of the existing Spiritual link that their casters have to the planet for just the connection to the planet itself. In fact, I would say that, once it's cast, the bubble doesn't particularly care about gravity, specifically, so far as I can tell. Give me all the gravity in the world and it won't establish a proper frame of reference unless you include some initial inertia. In fact, just give me a constantly updating shared velocity and/or spatial positioning (depending on if you're absolutist or relationalist about space) and you can keep gravity. The point is that it's akin to the spiritual gravitational bonds that Windrunners manipulate, meaning it's all tied up together all the time, not just some unnatural cheat that Windrunners use.
 
The problem for you is, though, that the existing link that Benders and Pulsers have to the planet is a "spiritual gravitational" one. Why, if gravity is not Spiritual? I can quite easily see people having firm Spiritual ties to their planet out of kinship and sDNA and familiarity and all, but it needn't be "gravitational" in that case, and such a bond would be more than enough to anchor time bubbles in the Spiritual while gravity and whatnot did their own thing all by their lonesome in the Physical.
 

We have the WoK epigraph as well, but again it seems more like it's adding spiritual interference (it's 'effectively' creating a change, but that implies that it isn't really acting on gravity itself). It is also weird that the epigraph writer would clarify the 'spiritual gravitational bond' unless there were other kinds of gravity involved.

 
As for the Ars Arcanum itself, you forgot to comment on how Basic Lashings don't only "'effectively' create a change", but are doing so by "revoking a being’s or object’s spiritual gravitational bond to the planet below". It seems that it is acting on gravity itself, then. Even if it's not acting on gravity directly, and merely preempting its energy, how exactly can that work if gravity is purely Physical?
 
Windrunners manage to preempt and reallocate this energy through reassignment of Spiritual bonds, suggesting that the energy is already in the Spiritual Realm to be manipulated. Now perhaps they could dip their toes into the Physical to steal all the energy (other evidence to the contrary about the Spiritual as the Cosmere's energy source aside), but it seems that the Ars Arcanum should mention that, instead of acting as if it's an entirely Spiritual matter.
 
As for the Ars Arcanum (not an epigraph) calling it a "spiritual gravitational bond" being weird, a two-fold response.
 
First, please tell me what "other kinds of gravity" you would like to propose. There's only one type that I can think of, and I'm not sure how another would still be "gravity" if it was functionally different on a surface level.
 
Second, recall that this is an authored work from our world. While a Cosmerian might be able to simply say "gravitational bond" without any confusion that he's talking about a Spiritual bond (because, duh guys, what other kind of gravity is there? Are you saying the whole world runs just because of stuff in the Physical Realm? Ha!!), if Brandon had simply written "gravitational bond" we would have been left in the dark. So he throws us a bone and identifies it as Spiritual, leading to a deeper understanding on our part and questions like the one about time bubbles that he most likely anticipated after giving us this Ars Arcanum.

 

So physics works in the physical realm. The spiritual realm makes things magical (which might include weird things like falling horizontally), but it doesn't impart physics to them.

 

Yeah, I don't get that from that quote. First, he was mostly talking about basic components, not their interactions. Second, on any meaningful level (until you have to start messing with it with magic), the Cosmere's physics do work the same as ours. If no one ever discovered magic, there would be no reason to posit a Spiritual or Cognitive Realm to explain how it all works, and no reason to export certain functions which we (on Earth) credit to physical interactions out to those other Realms.

 

Mass is also physical realm (we know from feruchemy), and gravity is defined by mass.

 

I address this in the OP, I think, or at least somewhere, but it's pretty obvious. Gravitational bonds can quite easily and quite sensibly work as a function of Physical mass and proximity. A lot of other stuff in physics and Realmatics depends on physical and spatial relationships, so there's not problem with the day-to-day workings of gravity as a Spiritual impetus being filtered through the realities of the other Realms. That's kind of the point of my entire theory, actually. Even purely Spiritual effects, such as life sense, can depend on physical location.

 
Divine Breath:
 
Though I am profoundly loathe to continue this discussion, I think this particular point is relatively easy to dismiss. Where before, if I recall correctly, I dismissed the body-changing and future-vision and super-healing of Divine Breath as simply a quirk of Endowment going all Endowy, now I can much more easily say that all of this is the result of added Cognitive shenanigans for Divine Breath and Divine Breath alone.
 
Normal Awakeners at the Fifth Heightening don't get any of that, so Divine Breath have something extra, all of which extra features (besides future sight, maybe) happen to manifest Cognitively--it seems plausible that both body-changing and super-healing are based in messing about with Cognitive aspects.
 
Overall, this Splinter point is relatively useful to know. Thanks for bringing up that quote.

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it seems plausible that both body-changing and super-healing are based in messing about with Cognitive aspects.

 

And the disease immunity you get from normal breaths isn't?

 

 

Wouldn't having a big pile of cognitive combined with the spiritual prevent the typical cognitive realm shenanigans you're theorizing for normal awakening?

 

And when Vivenna goes Drab, the annotations mention that how she sees the world and how she acts is influenced by being a drab.  And being a drab causes depression.  Oh, hey, so does storing Determination, which is cognitive.

A lot of what happened to Vivenna—how she saw the world and how she acted—was influenced by being a Drab. As I’ve said before, the Hallandren aren’t right when they say losing your Breath does nothing to you. Most Drabs struggle with depression, and the fact that they’re almost always sick doesn’t help either.

And so, Vivenna’s time on the streets was artificially made more dreary and terrible than it truly was.

 

 

I mean, if you're sticking gravity, how people see the world, people's emotions, their immunity to disease, their memories and skills, and all this other stuff into the spiritual realm, what's the point of having the other two realms at all?  It certainly seems like this theory is over-assigning things to a spiritual realm explanation.

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And the disease immunity you get from normal breaths isn't?

 

I was referring to the ability of Divine Breath to completely and perfectly heal any ailment under the sun when Returned sacrifice themselves. Specifically, how Susebron not only got a new tongue, but the ability to use it properly. "Normal" magical Healing in the Cosmere is restricted to actualizing the Cognitive aspect of the target, which for Susebron would not include a tongue, and would definitely not include the ability to talk properly.

 

EDIT: I may have misread you. If you are saying that normal disease immunity is a result of some Cognitive endowment, no. I'm honestly not even sure how you can model magical Healing and Health as dependent upon some infusing of Cognitive something or other. It's restricted and guided by existing Cognitive aspects, sure, but it's also quite clearly a case of pouring extra power into someone, not altering or augmenting their Cognitive selves. I don't care how powerful your conception of yourself as having a whole hand is, you need some extra magical (i.e. Spiritual) power if it's going to matter.

 

So normal Healing and disease immunity doesn't "mess with" Cognitive aspects, it just works based on them. It's the difference between pouring into a mold and changing the mold itself.

 

--

 

Generally, I just wanted to point out that Divine Breaths give you quite different results from when you just get enough normal Breaths together to get the Fifth Heightening, suggesting that something special is going on. Since we know that Splinters are Cognitive as well as Spiritual, the extra Cognitive presents itself as the obvious explanation.

 

Wouldn't having a big pile of cognitive combined with the spiritual prevent the typical cognitive realm shenanigans you're theorizing for normal awakening?

 

What do you mean by this?

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I was referring to the ability of Divine Breath to completely and perfectly heal any ailment under the sun when Returned sacrifice themselves. Specifically, how Susebron not only got a new tongue, but the ability to use it properly. "Normal" magical Healing in the Cosmere is restricted to actualizing the Cognitive aspect of the target, which for Susebron would not include a tongue, and would definitely not include the ability to talk properly.

 

EDIT: I may have misread you. If you are saying that normal disease immunity is a result of some Cognitive endowment, no. I'm honestly not even sure how you can model magical Healing and Health as dependent upon some infusing of Cognitive something or other. It's restricted and guided by existing Cognitive aspects, sure, but it's also quite clearly a case of pouring extra power into someone, not altering or augmenting their Cognitive selves. I don't care how powerful your conception of yourself as having a whole hand is, you need some extra magical (i.e. Spiritual) power if it's going to matter.

 

So normal Healing and disease immunity doesn't "mess with" Cognitive aspects, it just works based on them. It's the difference between pouring into a mold and changing the mold itself.

I'm saying that blaming 'Returned can shapeshift' on having more cognitive stuff in their Big Breath doesn't really make sense.  It has exactly as much to do with the cognitive realm as being immune to disease and poison.

 

 

What do you mean by this?

You've got a theory about how awakening works, involving copying the awakener's cognitive aspect onto a blank slate.  But we know that divine breaths already have a big scoop of cognitive in them, and they can be used for awakening.  So you've got a big barrel of side cognitive stuff, which should by all rights interfere if it works like you've said.

 

 

 

Also

Side note: looking at the Warbreaker annotations, it's confirmed that Breaths affect Determination and "irritability" (Connection, perhaps).

Determination is cognitive.

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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