Difference between Growth and ReGrowth

[Unknowingly]

So I was reading through the Lift interlude again and I noticed that Wyndyl says that Lift can't do Regrowth yet, but then she grows those vines from the seeds to break into the room. So she used Growth to grow some plants and that didn't seem to phase her, but Wyndyl says that Regrowth is beyond her abilities at the moment. Then to revive her friend she does use Regrowth but only after saying(thinking) another Radiant ideal, essentially making her more powerful.

 

What I was wondering is why is it harder to use Regrowth than normal Growth. When you get down to it you are speeding up the cellular growth process at a microscopic level in living tissue. Both vines and human flesh are made of cellulose, mitochondria, nuclei and so forth. Different cells but essentially the same thing. also when you get even further down both living tissues are made of the same elements; Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Calcium, ect...

 

what are your thought on this, could it possibly have something to do with investiture of basic life by that planets Shard/Shards?

 

Also if Lift, instead of decreasing her friction, increased her friction could she theoretically Spider-man crawl up a wall? 

[Kurkistan]

Well, magical healing in the cosmere isn't just a matter of spurring cell growth. It has to meaningfully interact with Cognitive aspects and other sorts of rather nuanced stuff, so I'd imagine it's a more difficult process to heal someone back to life than to just make a plant "grow" however it may.

 

Also, I agree on her Spider-man abilities. Especially given Darkness' comments about how Edgedancers could run on ropes and whatnot.

[Argent]

She should be able to go all Spiderman, yes. Edgedancers (and all the other Orders, I imagine) will have their own equivalents to the Windrunners' Lashings. 

 

On the Growth vs Regrowth... I would imagine that when you are growing something, you are not really changing anything about the object, you are just kind of giving it time. You let your target do what it already knows how to do - you can grow an entire vine from a single seed because the information on how to do that is already encoded in the seed. Now, if you were regrowing something, you are imprinting your own ideas on how the thing is supposed to work. Your buddy gets a severe case of cheststabbing, you can't just grow tissue around the wound, that's not how the body naturally works. Tissue repair is not the same as tissue growth, even though the two sound very similar. So you need to imprint your idea about what constitutes a healthy (human?) body on your Surgebinding - and that, I expect, takes either experience, or power, or both.

[Kurkistan]

I must beg to differ on the healer needing to imprint her idea of health on her patient. As I linked to, the idea of what constitutes health is determined by Cognitive aspects; beyond that, the Regrowth fabrial in the Starfalls interlude seemed to work just fine when used by a non-Growth-holding KR.

[Argent]

I am not sure I understand the distinction. The healer's idea of health is "stored" in their Cognitive aspect, it being an idea and all. Feruchemical healing works this way - it restores the Feruchemist to what he or she (subconsciously?) believes their natural state to be. I don't think my response contradicts yours, it's just less... technical.

[Kurkistan]

Perhaps I misread you, then.

 

I see you as saying that Lift needs to imposer her idea of Gawx's state of health onto his body for her Regrowth to work. What I say, however, is that Gawx's Cognitive aspect is what governs how he is healed, not Lift's. That the patient governs how the healing works, not the healer.

 

So, for instance, if Gawx happened to be missing a toe (for awhile) and Lift didn't know about it (or at least didn't know it had been gone for a long time), the fact that his Cognitive aspect includes him lacking his toe means that her Regrowth wouldn't grow it back. What I read you as saying, however, is that Lift thinking Gawx to have a full complement of digits could result in that toe being grown back.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Shardlet]

The difference between what you and Kurk are saying (as near as I can tell), Argent, is that you are saying that the cognitive definition of 'health' comes from the healer while Kurk is saying that the cognotive definition of 'health' comes from the person being healed.

[Unknowingly]

Ah, thanks for the link Kurkistan, I thought it probably had something to do with the Cognitive realm but wasn't sure how. Your link describes that. So yes, she is essentially getting the body to revert to its original form(as viewed by the cognitive realm)

[Scott]

Upvote for "severe case of cheststabbing"

 

On Regrowth, I would think it's similar to soulstamping.  You can very easily heal a wound that just happened because the person would easily believe that they're whole again.  Healing a toe that's been gone for a long time should be possible, but may take a more skilled Regrower or more stormlight.  The less believable the transformation the harder it is.  

 

e/ just read Kurkistan's link.  Looks like BS says you can't fix chronic things.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Scott

[Argent]

@Shardlet, you are correct.

 

I see. You definitely understood me correctly, and I suspect I was mostly wrong then. I am yet convinced, however, that it's entirely up the patient. Wyndle seemed to imply that Lift lacked the training or practice, not the power, for a Regrowth. Assuming that Regrowth is up to the target, what kind of training would Lift need? All she had to do was dump some Investiture (of Honor) into Gawx, maybe add some healing intent, and voala!

 

I think you draw your conclusions from Scadrial, while I was originally thinking of Sel (despite my Scadrialian example). Elantrian healing is very much Elantrian-oriented. Raoden couldn't really get away with just drawing Aon Ien with power modifiers to heal Roial - I remember he complained that the power was too unfocused. So while a general Aon Ien would heal a little bit of everything (implying that a target-heavy healing does work), a more directed healing Aon is much more akin to the type of Regrowth Lift wanted to do (and that's much more "caster"-heavy).

[Kurkistan]

@Shardlet, you are correct.

 

I see. You definitely understood me correctly, and I suspect I was mostly wrong then. I am yet convinced, however, that it's entirely up the patient. Wyndle seemed to imply that Lift lacked the training or practice, not the power, for a Regrowth. Assuming that Regrowth is up to the target, what kind of training would Lift need? All she had to do was dump some Investiture (of Honor) into Gawx, maybe add some healing intent, and voala!

 

I apologize for the confusion.

 

You make a good point about why any training is needed at all. However, I think it might still be a bit more nuanced than just "pour on power" on LIft's part. Perhaps she needs to be sure to aspect and direct that power towards direct, Cognitively-driven healing?

 

I think I'll fall back on Darnam's excellent insight into the parallels between stormlight and Allomantic pewter. If we go forward assuming that the stormlight held by a surgebinder is just acting like Allomantic pewter instead of like Feruchemical gold whenever it heals them, then it seems that we have an answer for why Lift just can't throw stormlight at the kid and have done with it.

 

A simple infusion of stormlight wouldn't get the job done, I don't think. Moreover, Lift doesn't possess a "infuse stormlight into others" Surge, she possesses "Growth." So her stormlight is going to be aspected towards growth of some kind. The training she would need, then, would be to ensure that the "growth-light" she infused into her patients was aspected towards the actualization of Cognitive aspects, rather than "GROW, PLANT, GROW!!!" that it normally produces.

 

Just a few thoughts, I'm not 100% on any of this.

 

I think you draw your conclusions from Scadrial, while I was originally thinking of Sel (despite my Scadrialian example). Elantrian healing is very much Elantrian-oriented. Raoden couldn't really get away with just drawing Aon Ien with power modifiers to heal Roial - I remember he complained that the power was too unfocused. So while a general Aon Ien would heal a little bit of everything (implying that a target-heavy healing does work), a more directed healing Aon is much more akin to the type of Regrowth Lift wanted to do (and that's much more "caster"-heavy).

 

Actually, I draw some of my conclusions from another part of Sel: Forging. And that's where I think we can highlight the weirdness of Elantrian healing.

 

One thing to note: I believe that Raoden could have healed Roial with just Aon Ien if he'd had enough time to draw it over-and-over before Roial died and/or if the Aon had been at full strength.

 

That said, I agree that Elantrian magic seems like it can be focussed down to "heal that organ" rather than "heal everything", kind of like the difference between the types of healing in the WoT.

 

Now there are two ways we can go from here:

 

1) The normal person way. It's possible that all that targeted Elantrian healing is doing is saying "heal this person to their Cognitive specifications insofar as those specifications refer to <AREA OF INTEREST>." In that case, we might have some ground to stand on when saying that Lift needs to focus a bit to get the most bang for her buck with her application of Regrowth.

 

2) And then there's crazy-theory-interesting land.

 

You see, the two types of healing in WoT are actually of a fundamentally different types. One is just "get better" while the other is "change the body in some specific way". Note that the second type needn't necessarily help the patient, if it's done wrong.

-Just a note: I draw the parallels for explanation's sake, not because I think Brandon is deliberately aping WoT in Elantris.

 

I've discussed this in the past, but I will summarize my thoughts here:

 

What if Elantrian healing—at least of certain types—is not actually "healing" as we normally discuss it in the Cosmere, but instead more akin to surgery? So instead of applying "Health-power" to a person and letting their Cognitive aspect guide how it's used, it actually makes brute changes to their physiology such that they are physically a different way?

 

So instead of Cognitive/Spiritual changes that trickle down to the Physical, we get a rather thuggish Physical change that the other two realms just have to deal with. If an Elantrian cures your chronic heart condition, he makes your heart better. AonDor, then, doesn't care about whether your body thinks it has a working heart, because you have one now.

 

---

 

EDIT: Or, a third way could be that it's a combination of those two. So an Elantrian can either "heal that organ as the Cognitive tells you to" or "Dory, we're fixing that heart," depending on what he wants to do.

 

EDIT 2 (Lots later, 12/10/2013):

Option 3 it is, it seems.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Shardlet]

I would not be surprised if regrowth fell somewhere between AonDor healing and Scadrian Feruchemical gold.  Those are two good examples of the apparent endpoints on the spectrum of who is responsible for the actual cognitive healing blueprint.  I would expect that regrowth is closer to the Feruchemical gold side of that spectrum though.  Lift and the amber KR do not appear to need any particular physiological knowledge or understanding.  In contrast, you don't need to be a physician to heal using AonDor, but it sure would help a lot.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Shardlet

[Gloom]

eh, Devotion is likely to aid the cognitive and spiritual in repairing the physical. Dominion is more likely to dictate the actions of the cognitive and spiritual through the physical. Preservation is likely to restore a person to how they were to preserve their residual self image on the Cognitive plane.

 

If this is the case, then each of these Shards would approach healing differently. Preservation's power would actually be the least flexible of the three, which is why you can't heal something that has already affected the patients cognitive form. I don't think were going to find a set method for all Shards. Cultivation seems like it would be a mix between Devotion and Dominion because cultivation is about removing the bad and nurturing the good. Honor is a tricky one. I believe Honor doesn't heal so much as it makes whole. This would help explain why Kaladin is healed by Stormlight, but can't actually use Stormlight to heal.

[Kurkistan]

@Shardlet

 

A fair analysis.

 

eh, Devotion is likely to aid the cognitive and spiritual in repairing the physical. Dominion is more likely to dictate the actions of the cognitive and spiritual through the physical. Preservation is likely to restore a person to how they were to preserve their residual self image on the Cognitive plane.

 

If this is the case, then each of these Shards would approach healing differently. Preservation's power would actually be the least flexible of the three, which is why you can't heal something that has already affected the patients cognitive form. I don't think were going to find a set method for all Shards. Cultivation seems like it would be a mix between Devotion and Dominion because cultivation is about removing the bad and nurturing the good. Honor is a tricky one. I believe Honor doesn't heal so much as it makes whole. This would help explain why Kaladin is healed by Stormlight, but can't actually use Stormlight to heal.

 

I seriously doubt this theory, particularly given the explicit WoB about healing in the Cosmere that I linked to: "In a lot of my magic systems, dealing with the Cosmere I work into healing as a... Healing you back to the form of yourself that you know yourself as, and the world knows yourself as." This makes most of the healing in the Cosmere follow some Cognitively-guided model. Beyond that, I see little beyond supposition to support any separation of "kinds of healing" based on the Shard the Investiture came from.

 

Allow me to list all of the "healing" magics I can recall at the moment:

Feruchemical gold - Return to the form of yourself.

Regrowth - Return to the form of yourself, as we saw with the fabrial used on Dalinar and Lift's fumbling success.

Resealing - Return to the form of yourself (at least for the permanent kind of Resealing).

 

AonDor - Mixed. Combination of "return to the form of yourself" and a possibly more assertive version. Discussion is ongoing.

 

Divine Breath - Achieve a state of ideal health, to the point of instant mastery of a new body part.

-This one is weird, but then again that's why I have a whole theory that discusses it. Which theory complies with the idea of outside guidance flowing from the Cognitive/Spiritual.

 

Shardically, every single one of these systems of healing is from a different source. Heck, Feruchemical gold is technically all from the Feruchemist, so there's that too.

 

---

 

Also, your breakdown requires that AonDor, of all magics, be Dominion-based, assuming you buy some of my analysis.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Gloom]

Eh, you're probably right. I'll have to steal Brandons laptop someday then I'll have all the answers .

 

As far as AonDor goes, I believe Seons existed before the Splintering, and that the Splinters attached themselves to whatever they could. Seons were the only spren like investiture that we know of on Sel. They were almost certainly created by Devotion, but due to the severe lack of existing conduits, it's possible, though I'll admit it's unlikely, that splinters of Dominion attached themselves to the Seons after the fact. I'm unaware of any type of Dominion splinters existing independently. I believe that at least some of his power may have tried to attach itself to something stable in hopes that it could dominate the entity. In this case they would have failed to take control. Shardic power can be combined. We see spren with a mixture of Honor and Cultivation, and Feruchemy is a mixture of Preservation and Ruin.

 

In a lot of my magic systems, dealing with the Cosmere I work into healing as a... Healing you back to the form of yourself that you know yourself as, and the world knows yourself as

 

This statement definitely leaves Brandon with wiggle room. The goal appears to be ensuring that healing is balanced. It also leaves him with the option of finding a different method of balancing the system. I read this as meaning that the end goal is to reach a state of equilibrium with the previous state of being, but that exceptions can be made so long as the system remains in balance. He said "in a lot", not "all". Brandon was talking in generalities to some extent, but appeared to be focusing on forging. I would encourage an open mind when it comes to theorizing.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Gloom

[Argent]

I would urge you to find a quote or WoB that suggests Seons existed before the Splintering of Aona. I don't remember seeing anything like that, and your entire idea after this hinges on that assumption.

[Meg]

I beg for your pardon -- I didn't really read those theoretical postings above.

 

As for the question of the topic I dare refer to TWoK: 

 

The woman reached out and touched Taffa. The flesh on her arm regrew in an eyeblink; the torn muscle remained where it was, but other flesh just grew where the chunks had been torn out. The skin knitted up over it without flaw, and the female Shardbearer wiped away the blood and torn flesh with a white cloth.

(...)

(Dalinar) glanced down at his arm, pulling off his makeshift bandage. He had to wipe free blood and some torn skin, but underneath, the skin was perfectly healed.

 

TWoK, Chapter 19, Starfalls

emphasizes mine

 

Though I don't know whether that torn muscle of Taffa was healed, too, at least the skin was healed through Regrowth.

 

So I believe that

• Growth = Growing/raising something new (from seeds for example), what means changes to the object (seeds, shoots, and so on, things that gardeners do, if we stay with plants).
• Regrowth = Recondition something that was damaged (like Taffa's and Dalinar skin in the vision).

(I'm not sure if my wording is understandable, I have problems to express myself here.) 

 

Unfortunately Lift's Interlude doesn't help regarding Regrowth.

 

I know, this is quite boring compared to the above postings, but I wanted to add it to the discussion although.

[Gloom]

I would urge you to find a quote or WoB that suggests Seons existed before the Splintering of Aona. I don't remember seeing anything like that, and your entire idea after this hinges on that assumption.

 

Absolutely not. If I did that it would show that my previous statement was off the cuff instead of a well researched argument.

[Meg]

I don't know whether I've understood Argent's posting, but I'd like to throw those two quotes in (if I'm totally wrong, please apologize).

 

Kogiopsis

How long before the events of Elantris did Odium kill Aona/Devotion and Skai/Dominion?

Brandon Sanderson

Same time as the origins of the Seons.

 

Kogiopsis

This was the second-closest I came to getting RAFO'd. He was sort of jovially apologetic about this answer; I tried to get a solid number of years but to no avail.

 

source

 

and

 

BRANDON SANDERSON (paraphrased)

Seons are remnants of a dead Shard.

 

source

 

So it seems (!) that Seons didn't exist before Aona's  Splintering.

[Gloom]

See, that's exactly what I was trying to avoid .

[Oudeis]

I must beg to differ on the healer needing to imprint her idea of health on her patient. As I linked to, the idea of what constitutes health is determined by Cognitive aspects; beyond that, the Regrowth fabrial in the Starfalls interlude seemed to work just fine when used by a non-Growth-holding KR.

 

Are we positive that was a fabrial? I know it looked like one, but it could have been just a way to store some extra Stormlight, or something like a fabrial. Do we know the KR did not hold Growth? Did we see her use any other Surge? We didn't even technically see her fall from the sky, she was just suddenly there. Perhaps she can do Regrowth on her own, but the device makes it easier to do? A useful trick in a combat zone, something that turns "surgery" into "first aid."

 

I think I'll fall back on Darnam's excellent insight into the parallels between stormlight and Allomantic pewter.

 

You are very kind! Thank you!

[WeiryWriter]

Are we positive that was a fabrial? I know it looked like one, but it could have been just a way to store some extra Stormlight, or something like a fabrial. Do we know the KR did not hold Growth? Did we see her use any other Surge? We didn't even technically see her fall from the sky, she was just suddenly there. Perhaps she can do Regrowth on her own, but the device makes it easier to do? A useful trick in a combat zone, something that turns "surgery" into "first aid."

 

 

You are very kind! Thank you!

 

The Radiant was a member of the Stonewards which is order 9, growth is shared between Orders 4/5.  We also know that there are fabrials that can mimic all the radiant abilites so occam's razor would say it was a fabrial.

[Kurkistan]

You are very kind! Thank you!

 

It's nothing: credit where credit is due.

 

We actually had a fairly intense theory-war based on that particular theory, now that you mention it.

[Shardlet]

Are we positive that was a fabrial? I know it looked like one, but it could have been just a way to store some extra Stormlight, or something like a fabrial. Do we know the KR did not hold Growth? Did we see her use any other Surge? We didn't even technically see her fall from the sky, she was just suddenly there. Perhaps she can do Regrowth on her own, but the device makes it easier to do? A useful trick in a combat zone, something that turns "surgery" into "first aid."

 

Also, she indicated that she had a finite amount of regrowth to use.

[askthepaperclip]

"A finite amount of regrowth" doesn't sound quite like the modern fabrials we have seen. Or rather, it doesn't sound like a "regrowth fabrial" would act. My understanding/assumption is that fabrials "run out" and the gemstones crack when they use up all of the stormlight they are infused with. I'm guessing here that the stormlight is what was holding the spren captive, so when it is gone the cracking represents the spren escaping. This is why regular gemstones do not crack when they run out of stormlight. This means as long as you don't try something very powerful that requires more stormlight than you have, all you need to do is reinfuse the gems and you are good to go.

 

I wonder if the box she used was actually a "storage" fabrial that could be used to store surgebinding abilities, almost like a metalmind. This would explain why there was a finite amount; you only can get out what was put in. Like a metal mind, you might only be able to store one type of power in each type of storage fabrial, in this case Regrowth. 

 

It is a subtle distinction between a regrowth fabrial and a fabrial that stores regrowth, but I think the latter is more likely.