[OB]The Spirit Realm- A Complete Explanation

[Steeldancer]

The Spiritual Realm is probably the least understood piece of Realmatics within the Cosmere. As such, much of this is speculation upon how the Spirit works. However, I am pretty sure that I am at least onto something with this.

   To understand the Spiritual Realm, you first must understand Investiture. It is a third state of “Stuff”, like Matter or Energy. But Investiture is first and foremost the “stuff” that constructs the Soul of all things. As such, all things have an aspect in the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual realms. All things have a Soul, which is usually called sDNA, or a Spirit-Web. These terms are what define most of this speculation upon the Spiritual Realm. The Spirit Web may be defined as a web that is you, composed of structures that represent yourself, or it may be also explained as threads connecting various Spiritual Ideals, which are also represented in the Spiritual Realm, which come together to form the web that is you.

In this, I will attempt to explain multiple functions of the Spirit, some mundane, others magical. This will help to outline how the Spirit actually is affected by daily life, rather than just the dramatic magical events that happen occasionally with our main characters.

The Spiritual Realm itself is not a place, like the Cognitive Realm could be defined as being. One can visit the Cognitive Realm, but to our knowledge, the Spiritual Realm has no Where, and therefore you cannot truly be There. It is an infinite and yet an infinitesimal realm. Where and When have no real meaning there, besides some things that I will go into later.

I will also go into basically every Cosmere novel to some degree, to address various things there. So, spoilers.

Furthermore, this obviously is mainly speculation, even if it is (in my own mind) very educated speculation. If Brandon comes along and says I’m all wrong, then obviously I am wrong. But I don’t think I’m completely off my rocker, so bear with me.

First, addressing normal functions of the Spirit Web. As stated before, investiture is the stuff that makes up a soul, and therefore the Spirit Web is made of investiture. The Spirit Web is our perfect ideal. This is reflected in the Light Filter Realmatics model, where the Spiritual Realm is the Light, and the Cognitive Realm filters our perception of the perfect ideal, and the Physical Realm is how that manifests. However, clearly things change. As I addressed in the Spiritual Digestion topic, even in eating things we are changing things. Furthermore, over time our ideals can change, not counting that where do these spiritual ideals even come from in the first place? Clearly, the Spiritual Realm does change, and therefore it is subject to Time. HOWEVER, it is NOT subject to time in the same way the Physical Realm is, or the Cognitive Realm. Instead of it being a 4^th dimensional construct like in our own universe, it is more of a 3-dimensional object in the spiritual realm, as much as the Spiritual Realm can even be defined as “3 dimensional.” This is evident in the Spiritual aspect of Fortune, the ability to see the “webs” of the future. This is what Elend sees at the end of HoA, what Kelsier sees in SH, and what Renarin sees in OB. The Spiritual Realm is reminiscent of the “Flame on a String” model, where Time is the string and the present is the flame. The past is set in stone, but there is a myriad of possibilities in the future. Preservation comments on how hard it is to make sense of these futures in SH. Clearly, in this sense, time is represented in the Spiritual Realm, even if the Spiritual Realm itself does not experience Time.

This is similar to how Location is represented in the Spiritual Realm, although Location is a bit easier to explain. Location is mainly explained by the Spiritual aspect of Connection. When one is in a location, you become Connected to it. When you are born and from a location, you become more heavily connected to it than if you merely visited a location. This Connection is expressed in the Spirit Web, so if you identify as a Scadrian because you were born on Scadrial, that would make itself manifest in your sDNA. This is particularly important for Sel, where magic systems are entirely dependent on where you are from. It is also how Worldhoppers can use native languages without having to learn each one. They do so by tapping into connection, although exactly how is not entirely clear. We do have a clear example of Connection in BoM, where the medallions of the Southerners allow Wax and Co to speak with Allik. So, while there are no actual locations in the Spiritual Realm, location is still represented.

Clearly, all things, and all parts of an individual, are somehow represented in the Spiritual Realm. This entire shape, the key thing of it being a particular person is the Spiritual aspect of Identity. Your Identity means that it is you. No matter how much you change as a person, your core Identity does not change, as evidenced by the fact that Feruchemists are still able to use metalminds they filled a long time ago.

A few things about general Spirit Web function before I move on to discussing how the various Magics utilize the Spirit. First, digestion and destruction. By eating things, you are destroying them and turning them into yourself. As such, the Web of the items you eat are changing. They are no longer meat or an apple, they have now partially integrated into your own Web, adding to your strength and general livelihood. This also gets into the key idea of a Spirit Web acting somewhat like an Enzyme, which I will address more later.

 Second, heritage. As per WoB and common sense, heritage is reflected in the Spirit Web. After all, who your parents are is part of who you are, and therefore part of your Identity. Also, Allomancy and Feruchemy are both inherited, which means parts of the Spirit Web are passed on. This is probably not a cut and paste method of inheritance, but more an adaptation of the Child’s Spirit Web to start forming an Identity. It seems reasonable to assume that at birth, one has very little Identity. But, one of the first things that truly Identifies you is your parents. At that age, there is not much more that really makes you you. As such, the Spirit would Connect to the parental Spirit, and as such take on some of its attributes. This would include genetics, looks, philosophies, and magical abilities, although clearly it is not a perfect copy. This is also not a perfect model of how the Spirit would develop from birth, because clearly orphans don’t develop ideas similar to the parents if they were never raised by them. However, certain Connections to things around them should explain how a child develops the way they do.

Finally, beginning to move into the more magical side of things, there is Snapping. This is a matter of some debate on how it works. Clearly, trauma of some kind causes snapping. Harmony also made snapping easier in Era 2, which shows that it can be affected by a Shard. I will attempt to explain my own hypothesis on how snapping actually works. I believe it is simply a change in who you are. As mentioned before, your core identity never changes. You are always who you are. Bu who you identify as does change, and this should reflect in the Spiritual Realm. The thing about trauma is that it changes you. You are not the same before and after being beaten bloody. You are not the same after killing your mother. But you can change in smaller ways too. This change in who you are would “Snap” your spirit web. Perhaps the first time you see poverty. Or the first time you lose someone. Perhaps just breaking an arm, or getting a nasty illness. You don’t have to commit murder just to become Radiant. It is probable that virtually every individual in the Cosmere is Snapped, to some degree or another. And once a crack in your Spirit Web forms, it is possible for more Investiture to enter in. What kind depends on where and who you are, and it is not entirely evident how each of these magical systems work. But, I will do the best to explain how what we have seen might be reflective of the Spirit Web.

I will start off with Allomancy. As we all well know, a typical allomancer ingests the metal they are able to utilize, and then “burns” it to gain access to the power associated with that particular metal. I will address two important Spiritual ideas in Allomancy. First, the idea of something being a “part of you.” From many WoB’s asking whether various metal things within the body would be burnable, it is evident that in order to burn a metal, you must consider it to be “inside” of you. As soon as this is the case, the Spirit Web of the metal is now part of your Spirit Web, although still as a metal. Here’s where the other idea enters in: the ability of a Spirit Web to interact with other webs in a particular web. This is why I explain it as being like an Enzyme. The Spirit Web (according to my speculation) has a particular part that is the “active site,” which has a particular shape to fit exactly to a particular metal. The metal has to be the correct alloy because it needs to have the exact spiritual shape to fit into the “active site”. Once this takes place, an allomancer can then burn the metal. At this point, the “active site” consumes the metal’s spirit web, also consuming the metal itself, which then takes power from Preservation to power the particular ability the metal provides. It is likely that this active site has some sort of connection to Preservation which allows this connect to take place. The reason there are no 2 metal Mistings is that a Mistborn, instead of having 16 separate “active sites,” has one active site that handles any allomantic metal. A Lerasium Alloy could be imagined as creating the active site for that specific metal, while straight Lerasium would create the complete active site. How aluminum fits into this is not entirely clear, although I suspect that when one burns Aluminum, it all goes away because it’s the power of Preservation destroying the metallic spirit web, turning it into (useless) investiture. Also, Allomancy’s abilities could be imagined as Connecting to a particular idea or object, and then pulling or pushing on that connection. This gives further evidence to the Time being a Spiritual Object idea, as this would suggest that Bendalloy and Cadmium connect, and the push or pull on Time.

Next, Feruchemy. Again, the active site thing works the same, except this time you are putting investiture from your own spirit web into the metal you can store into. Yes, into the Spirit Web of the metal. So, you store part of your ideal Health, or Strength, leaving that part of the spirit web that identifies your Strength or Health weaker. Of particular interest is the Spiritual quadrant of Feruchemy. Unlike Allomancy, the abilities of Feruchemy are all ones you have naturally, just used at a different rate than one normally would. Investiture is particularly interesting, as it means you store the stuff that makes up your spirit web- therefore weakening it- to tap it and make it stronger at a later date. How this is useful is not quite clear, unless you have another ability to pair it with. Storing Identity is also interesting, as you can become more of a blank slate. This also has some regard to metalminds, although exactly how Unsealed metalminds, like the Medallions, work yet is not entirely clear. Connection stores your ability to make connections, which might have some very interesting implications on a developing child. But of most interest of me today is Fortune, or the ability to see the future. Atium worked with Fortune on a very small scale, allowing one to see slightly into the future. Only slightly, because when you look only slightly into the future, usually there are not a lot of branches. However, as Vin so dramatically illustrated, sometimes one can force branches of change. Fortune probably just is the ability to choose which path they want to take, at the cost of having no foresight whatsoever when storing. Fortune on a grander scale is something that needs to be addressed, as a complete topic.

Fortune is an ability demonstrated by Shards and those who see significantly into the Spiritual Realm. The branching of possible futures is clearly quite frustrating, and not always easy to interpret. Hoid does have a way of manipulating fortune, but it is NOT through Feruchemy. He does not store and then tap fortune, he has another way of manipulating it. It allows him to know where to go where he is needed.

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Xyrd (paraphrased)

You've mentioned before that Hoid ends up where he needs to be.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, and usually without knowing why.

Xyrd (paraphrased)

Is chromium involved in that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Well, he's not necessarily using chromium, but the underlying mechanic, yes.

Source

The Spiritual Realm manifests all possible futures, with some being more likely than others. However, it only takes one path in the end. Shards who’s intents are better aligned with foresight are better at seeing into the future. The ability to see possible pasts is also there, as shown by Malatium. However, this ability is clearly less useful than being able to see possible futures.

While on the topic of Shards, I might as well get in a little speculation before I move on to addressing the Surges and the other smaller magic systems. What we call a Shard’s intent, is more than just an arbitrary name, despite what Odium says to the contrary in OB. It is, to some degree or another, a Spiritual Ideal. A Shard is a massive soul, given that it has an immense amount of investiture composing it. It is no wonder that a Vessel’s identity would be warped by so much Investiture that composed an ideal of Ruin, or Honor. I have speculated before that what we call “Intents” are pieces of Adonalsium’s original identity. However, after some more thought, I think it is also possible that Adonalsium came about as a natural creation of the untapped Spiritual Realm that was birthed at the beginning of whatever universe the Cosmere takes place in. Without life, the Spiritual Realm would not be used much, because it is living things that have large amounts of investiture in their soul, compared to the soul of a potato or a table. This may have led to friction between the realms, where the untapped Investiture of the Spiritual Realm became a single entity. No, according to this theory, Adonalsium wasn’t ever a human. But it was a mind. A living being, with more soul energy than anything else will ever have. As such, it’s Spirit would be the perfect ideal Spirit- A God. As for why relative Infinity would shatter into 16, or why anyone would want to Shatter Adonalsium, it is not entirely clear, besides a WoB or two.

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For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

What about Ruin and Preservation's Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture,the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Source

 However, it does seem clear that what we call the Intent is more or less how the Vessel interprets the Spiritual Ideal the Shard represents. Furthermore, I speculate that it is due to these ideals that make Shards subject to certain laws- they cannot easily violate ideals they represent.

Moving back to magic systems, we address Surgebinding. Surgebinding, in Spiritual terms, seems to be harnessing what are considered to be the 10 elemental forces on Roshar, according to the part of real interest- Spren bonds. A Knight swears Ideals or Truths- things that bring them closer to a Spiritual ideal of the Honor that their Order represents. Furthermore, the Spren integrates itself into the person’s Spiritual cracks. As such, the spren become more human, and the human becomes more sprenlike. This symbiotic relationship takes place all over Roshar, with a myriad of species. Of spiritual interest, the most important surge would probably be Transformation, which uses Stormlight to change an object into another type of thing, which means it is changing the Spirit Web of an object into a different shape. Most dramatically, Jasnah is even able to do this to people, changing them from human into a person shaped crystal statue. Of other significant note are the Singers, who are able to bond with spren to alter their bodies- and therefore their Spirit Web- into different shapes and purposes. This probably also has something to do with Active Sites being able to take in a spren. The Rhythms are likely Spiritual pulses, ideals of particular emotions. This probably comes from making small emotional connections to these Ideals, which then have this “rhythm” of investiture flow. How this works is not entirely clear. Also of some Spiritual importance is the fact that Highstorms constantly drag a perpendicularity across Roshar, which I theorize to be why spren are able to appear, because that much being driven together would likely leave the realms closer than if a perpendicularity never moved over Roshar. In fact, I think it has something to do with the entire ecology of Roshar, although how Shinovar fits in is not clear, due to a recent non-answer from Brandon on the question. Also of some interest is that fabrials have no identity, so they can be used by anyone. This contrasts greatly with your standard metalmind, which requires all sorts of extra steps we don’t understand in order to be used by anyone.

Of some importance to address at this point are resonances. While I have been describing them as webs, they still are not technically a web. The Spiritual Realm is still a non-dimensional thing. Therefore, one’s spirit is both a web and a point. And in a point, all parts of it are on top of each other. Therefore, different magical abilities interact with one another, in ways that have not been fully explained yet. However, I am pretty sure that resonances are a direct result of the Ideals that different Orders identify with. How Twinborn resonances work, I have no idea. Until we get some actual examples, it is really hard to speculate on how the feruchemy and allomancy interact with one another.

Moving on to less important magic systems, I will address the Selish magics as a whole. Basically, it appears that due to the Dor being in the cognitive realm, that practicioners of them forge a connection (haha accidental pun) by creating the shapes of the land they are from, whether through Aons, in your Dakhor bones, a weird sword kata, or in a Soulstamp. The Soulstamp is probably the most interesting spiritually, as it basically uses investiture to rewrite a spirit web. The closer the stamp is to the ideal, the better the stamp works.

Sand Mastery is odd. How it works spiritually is not entirely clear, but also doesn’t matter to me too much, because as Khriss says, it is a low investiture system.

Threnody is mainly weird because everybody has been invested to the point that they can turn into shades if they die in the right way, but no actual magic is taking place, so I’ll leave it at it being interesting that the Investiture has the ability to completely corrupt the identity of a person into whatever a Shade is.

Awakening is not entirely interesting from a Spiritual standpoint, besides the dramatic exceptions of Divine Breaths and Nightblood. Nightblood is interesting because they made a super-invested death sword that is now alive. Divine breaths allow a person to come back from the dead, highly invested, at the cost of consuming some investiture each week or so. Creating sentient entities from investiture is definitely the more unique ability of this world, although I would recommend not trying that at home.

I’m going to be honest and say that First of the Sun might be realmatically interesting, but at this point, I’m kind of done theorizing. It also appears to be a low investiture system, however. Why the worms only cause abilities in birds, well, probably some Spiritual shape stuff. Until we see more of that world it is hard to determine why particular species demonstrate particular abilities when the eat the worms. Also, it is notable that Sak uses some sort of form of Fortune when she shows Dusk possible places where he could die.

Finally, I kind of forgot about one of the most important Spiritual magic systems: Hemalurgy. Hemalurgy is a leaky, low investiture system. But most importantly it is able to rip off pieces of a spirit web and attatch it onto another one. This is absolutely fascinating, as Khriss expresses in the Ars Arcanum. The uses for Hemalurgy seem to be mostly up to the imagination of the user, as long as one is ok with the grisly work of spiking people.

A couple more spiritual things I should probably mention. A spiritual corpse lasts for a while, probably due to connections to living people. Aluminum’s total spiritual aspect seems to resist investiture, and has an aura that can be overwhelmed with enough investiture, even if the actual aluminum itself is not overwhelmable. However, its Spirit web can still be accessed, because Feruchemy and Allomancy still work with it, however useless destroying your own metals may be. This is why I think that Allomancy is indirectly working with the investiture and the aluminum, compared to directly targeting aluminum with a steelpush or a soulcasting, which just has no chance of working.

Finally, I realized today that in the Cosmere, a Frankenstein’s monster is downright likely to appear at some point. Not a Frankenstein’s spren, like Nightblood, or like whatever Kelsier is now. I speak of creating an entirely new person, which is indicated to be possible from this WoB about creating a sentient space ship from hemalurgy.

Mark my words. Mistborn Era 3, Hemalurgic Mistborn Cyborgs and Frankenstein’s monsters are coming.

Edit #1. The Law of Investiture Saturation. Basically, a spirit web can only hold so much investiture, accounting for things like mistpoint, or a full metalmind. The amount it can hold is directly related to how complex the spirit web is. As a spirit web comes closer to saturation, it becomes harder exponentially to apply more investiture to the spirit web. The reason a shard works is because it adds to the web, not just inflating it. Savants happen when this state happens too often, leaving the "Strands" of the Spirit web perpetually "dialated", thus warping the spirit web.

Edit #2. Eyes are weird in the Cosmere. Between eyes turning red due to shards hacking other magic systems, and the fact that your eyes burn out when you get stabbed by a shardblade, it's pretty evident something weird is going on. I propose that eyes are somewhat a reflection of the Spiritual Realm. Not a perfect one. But think about it. When you look out of your eyes, that's *you*. Its you behind those eyes, more so than being behind your fingers, or your ears. So it kind of makes sense that eyes could be "windows to the soul." Eye color change appears to occur when a sentient spirit web overlays your own. Namely, spren on Roshar. I'm pretty sure eyes change permanently once you reach the 5th oath, and Nale seems to reflect that, because even when he summons both Blades, Szeth never mentioned any eye color change. However, this needs to be confirmed by WoB. The 5th oath thing would explain why bonding a dead blade changes your eyes as long as you are bonded to it, rather than only when you summon it, like the Sylblade or the Honorblades. Furthermore, Lighteye Radiant not changing colors makes sense, because they are descended from radiants. Rather than needing a Spren, when they were born, their spirit web imitated their parents- with Radiant eyes. From that point on, it would be genetic/spiritually genetic. This does lend some credence to my theory on how children's spirit webs develop. It needing to be a sentient spirit web explains why your eyes should not change color when you get spiked, or get a divine breath, or get a forging. The red eye thing makes sense, as a shard hacking the magics system would reflect in the spirit web. Although, I do wonder why red. Why not purple? In world, why does the red occur? I don't have any good ideas for explaining that, so I'll leave that alone. Oh, and I just had the idea that perhaps Radiant eye color reflects the color of their spren, but I would have to double check that to see if I'm just making that up. It certainly would work for Kaladin though. Also, Preservation has weird eyes, but this makes sense given that he literally has a SHARD on top of his once human spirit web. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, the eyes would definitely show something like that. One problem with the whole sentient spirit web idea is the Singers, but I think because the Singer's spirit webs are specifically made to adapt to spren, that unless you have a hacking thing (like Voidspren) the color of eyes won't change. Although, I will be VERY interested to see what color Venli's eyes will turn. 
Ok, now I get to the weird one. Shades. I *think* that the splinter of Ambition that hit Threnody is somewhat sentient, but usually doesn't actively control the shades it has invested. But when somebody breaks the rules (which I still don't have an explanation for), then the splinter takes over, turning their eyes from green to red. Also, I think the big chunk of the Splinter is the Evil, but that no longer pertains to the Spiritual Realm.

Edit #3. Guess what, its time to discuss the Spiritual aspects of the Surges! This also is crop full of OB spoilers, because of how much spiritual stuff happens there. Some of them are more interesting than others, but here we go. 
Adhesion- stickiness. Also allows to make connection, which is very interesting use of that surge, Dalinar. Its also not a permanent change, apparently. Furthermore, I hypothesize that this surge is why the dramatic stuff occurs. The adhesion makes the realms stick together a little more, making big dramatic glowy lightshows when our MC swears their oaths. How the windrunners use this surge to control the winds... well I think this surge is one of the closest ones to Honor. Sticking things together, and atmospheric pressure... well essentially I think the winds are highly "adhesive", and kaladin is able to manipulate them through that. But thats not really important to the spiritual realm, so I'll move on. 
Gravitation- I'm not sure what spiritual aspects this has, besides how the surge actually is applied- lashings are just manipulations of one's connection to the planet. By connecting yourself in different directions, you create the basic lashing and stuff. 
Division- I guess this is just breaking spiritually stuff? We haven't seen this much on screen, but I imagine just like soulcasting you need enough Stormlight to overcome the spirit web of the thing you are targeting. 
Abrasion- The best thing I have for this is getting along well with people- or not. Again, we don't know much about this surge's other applications. 
Progression- finally something interesting. Regrowth works like all the other healing things, healing to one's cognitive ideal. It also accelerates growth of plants, which I imagine works by boosting their spirit webs or something or whatever. 
Illumination- This one is juicy. Shallan seems to almost create false spirit webs to coat her own. Her identity is becoming somewhat fragmented by her deicisions, but that is not a discussion for this thread. The important thing is that it is a lot like Forgery. I am very, VERY interested in seeing how Hoid puts this surge to use, along with his natural Yolish lightweaving. Also, her drawings- they seem to be connected to her, slightly invested. They are somewhat of a crutch for her, but I think the gist of it is that she is creating false spirit webs, temporary ones, very transient ones. But spirit webs nevertheless.
Transformation- This is probably the most interesting of all the surges. It transforms one spirit web into another. It is also directly related to how complicated something is to make, in terms of how hard it is to soulcast. Soulcasting also seems to be a more spiritual thing- Shallan changes people. However, I'm not entirely sure how this works, or whether that is something that can even be actually harnessed. I think its most important spiritual aspect is being able to change a spirit web completely- while retaining a things shape. This is interesting, because that indicates that the "shape" is different from the identity of the object. The identity of the object is clearly changing, from rock to oil or whatever, but the volume and shape is still maintained. I imagine any differences in mass due to imperfect transformation of absolute mass (aka not every particle of mass adds up into the transformed product,) is just absorbed into the cost of the investiture. 
Transportation- I think Jasnah is using it wrong. She did something like what the corrupted oathgate did- the perpendicularity only went into the cognitive realm, NOT the spiritual. Essentially, I think she needs to figure out how to actually "bounce" off the spiritual realm, as I imagine it. In actuality, its basically just changing your spiritual aspect of "where I am right now" to a different where. I imagine once she figures this out, she will become even more OP than she already is. Also, I believe we will see more of this surge in book 4, especially as it will be Venli/Eshonai book, and her first surge she learns should be Transportation, not Cohesion. So hopefully we'll get some Roshar-hopping in whatever that book ends up being called. 
Cohesion- We basically haven't seen much of this surge, besides turning the ground to mush. I imagine it's just changing the fluidity of the object- not changing the objects identity, but making the shape part of the spirit web more moldable. Or something.
Tension- We haven't seen this surge at all. It is probably similar to how Cohesion works, besides making things more stiff instead of making them into putty. 

Edit #4. 

Well it's been a while since I updated this post, but Oversleep got this awesome WoB that is begging me to unpack it. There's already a thread to discuss it, but I want to discuss some of the important pieces of it, and how it applies to my view of the Spirit Realm. There is also another WoB regarding my theory on Adonalsium that I'll talk about after this. 
Specifically, it talks about several things, the dichotomy of how things can be everywhere and yet somewhere at the same time. How can a Shard move? How does Autonomy create these odd Aspects? (Which his rambling seems to hint that I am right about Autonomy creating more minds to expand the amount of investiture that she can access). But what we really want to talk about is this Investiture spin. Which makes perfect sense, I'm pretty sure I've thought about it before, but this adds a whole new realm to how quantum investiture works.

Ok, so essentially the spin is a state. A state of being. It's really weird in quantum physics. But let me put Brandon's words into my own, to see if I can better explain what I'm getting at. Adonalsium had all things under one spin, one mind, one soul. And when that mind was shattered along with its power, it split into different pieces, different ideal for different traits. These ideals are something that are hard to describe, leading to the interesting subject of naming the shards. But this idea of investiture having spin explains why the Shattering was so different from a splintering. Adonalsium was truly everything, and when it died, everything changed. When a shard dies, there isn't a fundamental change in the universe, that spin still exists. So, I am declaring Adonalsium officially and completely dead. I don't think it can come back. It would require all investiture to be tuned to a single spin again, which, frankly, seems impossible. Furthermore, this makes more sense than the spirit web explanation, although...

I just had a brain wave of an idea regarding micro-spins, and that being how connection works, but I literally just thought of it, and so I'll move on and think about spin being related to connection and all that later. 
So, spin. I want to suggest that the corruption and mixing of investiture is simply a shard taking investiture thats one spin and forcing it to be another, and it not entirely working. It doesn't quite match, because the connection isn't there. Mixing investiture is weird, because you would have spins that don't sync up. But think of it this way- things that are similar are connected. So a similar spin would be connected to something else with a similar spin. These connections form the shard. And possibly, (micro spin) even human spirit webs.
I feel like I'm riffing a bit, but this WoB is seriously huge. Entire books of talking about investiture? SIGN ME UP. I will eat that stuff like I eat nutella and cheezits (no, not at the same time). I understand why Sanderson struggles with explaining it quickly, because I think I understand what he's getting at, but its really hard to put it into words. 
I'll try one more time.

With this explanation, the idea comes to mind a different way of explaining spirit webs- quantumly. Where the webs are made of Investits (the unit I just made up, don't judge), and that connection comes from being similar to one another. The more similar they are, the more connected they are. These connections make webs. Within the larger tunings, small adjustments are made that create different connections. This works in my head, and I don't still know how to describe it properly. It's like entangelment, but on a greater scale if that makes sense, where two particles are the same and so become entangled, except with connection its not just one pair but lots and lots of particles. And now I'm rambling again.

Moving on, there was a WoB that essentially addressed the idea of Investiture and Adonalsium, as some people seem to think- in world- that investiture seeks sentience because it was a part of Adonalsium. I think this is a good idea, but doesn't work with the fundamental understanding of the origin of the universe (assuming it started like our own). I just don't see that Adonalsium was all investiture from the moment the Universe began. I think that that happened over time, that raw investiture compiled into Adonalsium, forming its infinite mind and soul. It makes more sense than instant formation, to me. 
Finally, because it came up on discord, relating to the shards intents- these things are spiritual ideals, aspects of Adonalsiums personality and of the forces of the universe. Of laws, of growth, of giving and change. These cannot be accurately described by a single word. The words that we use to call shards are approximations. Much like most of my explaining. 

Anyway, I hope my rambling explains something for you. Once again, most of it is speculation, but I think it is pretty on the nose as to how it works.

TL;DR: Spirity Wirity Investy Webby Stuff.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Steeldancer
Edit 4

[Nashan’Elin]

You weren’t kidding about making a huge SR thread, wow

EDIT: okay, wow. There was a lot here. Nice job summarizing it all up, Steel. Though, about Resonances, why do you think they’re a result of the Ideals? I didn’t really get that bit, besides, Resonances happen between things that don’t require Ideals. I think they’re more like two strands of the Spiritweb crossing each other, somehow, but that’s just me. 

I do like the idea of making an entirely new entity, Frankenstein-esque, but isn’t that just what Nightblood (and presumably Azure’s sword) is? Or do you mean out of parts of other spiritwebs, using Hemalurgy? Cause that could have some fun (terrible, grisly) things there. 

Well, no matter what, my Upvote to yours, my Rep become yours. Great post 

Edited December 4, 2017 by Ookla the Heraldic

[Steeldancer]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Heraldic said:

You weren’t kidding about making a huge SR thread, wow

EDIT: okay, wow. There was a lot here. Nice job summarizing it all up, Steel. Though, about Resonances, why do you think they’re a result of the Ideals? I didn’t really get that bit, besides, Resonances happen between things that don’t require Ideals. I think they’re more like two strands of the Spiritweb crossing each other, somehow, but that’s just me. 

I do like the idea of making an entirely new entity, Frankenstein-esque, but isn’t that just what Nightblood (and presumably Azure’s sword) is? Or do you mean out of parts of other spiritwebs, using Hemalurgy? Cause that could have some fun (terrible, grisly) things there. 

Well, no matter what, my Upvote to yours, my Rep become yours. Great post 

What I meant by that is I think the Radiant resonances are related to their ideals, like having squires for leading and protecting, and the mnemonic ability for creativity. Not the actual ideals themselves as being the cause of resonanves

[Nashan’Elin]

42 minutes ago, Run Ookla, run! said:

What I meant by that is I think the Radiant resonances are related to their ideals, like having squires for leading and protecting, and the mnemonic ability for creativity. Not the actual ideals themselves as being the cause of resonanves

Ohh, I understand. Okay, I can see where you’re coming from on that. 

[Calderis]

This... Nicely done Steel. 

I agree for the vast majority. I'll go over it again and look for questions to discuss, but on the whole, I'm with you. As with our discussion about fortune and the spiritual realm the other night on discord, I think on most things we're attempting to say the same thing with different terminology. 

[StrikerEZ]

This is insanely good. Like, I basically agree with everything here. 

As for Resonances, a good analogy I've taken to heart is music-related:

Let's say Allomancy is the note A and Feruchemy is the note F. When you have just A, it sounds like an A. And same for F. But when you play both F and A together, you get a major third (or a minor sixth if is inverted), a completely new sound created from the two notes. I believe Resonances are basically the Investiture version of this: when you get two powers, you can hear them separately, but you also hear whatever interval (i.e. major third) the two notes make on top of it. I might some day use this to explain why Harmony is having so much struggle with his intents, but this isn't the right place.

(Also, you should tag me later to come upvote this)

[Steeldancer]

7 hours ago, Ookla the StrooklaEZ said:

This is insanely good. Like, I basically agree with everything here. 

As for Resonances, a good analogy I've taken to heart is music-related:

Let's say Allomancy is the note A and Feruchemy is the note F. When you have just A, it sounds like an A. And same for F. But when you play both F and A together, you get a major third (or a minor sixth if is inverted), a completely new sound created from the two notes. I believe Resonances are basically the Investiture version of this: when you get two powers, you can hear them separately, but you also hear whatever interval (i.e. major third) the two notes make on top of it. I might some day use this to explain why Harmony is having so much struggle with his intents, but this isn't the right place.

(Also, you should tag me later to come upvote this)

That makes sense given that resonance is a very musical term. 

[Steeldancer]

You know what? I just realized i forgot something- Investiture Saturation. As such, if I realize something about the Spiritual Realm, I'll add it in here. I might add some more examples and things. I'll mark them as being a new edit each time.

There, got it all edited in

Edited December 5, 2017 by Run Ookla, run!

[KidWayne]

On ‎12‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 7:13 PM, Run Ookla, run! said:

How aluminum fits into this is not entirely clear, although I suspect that when one burns Aluminum, it all goes away because it’s the power of Preservation destroying the metallic spirit web

I suspect that instead of destroying the "active site" of the metal's web, Aluminum blocks the active site of the allomancer.

Regarding the Frankenstein's monster... isn't that kind of what a lot of us suspect Hoid is becoming?

Edited December 6, 2017 by Ookla the Hatter

[Steeldancer]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Hatter said:

I suspect that instead of destroying the "active site" of the metal's web, Aluminum blocks the active site of the allomancer.

Regarding the Frankenstein's monster... isn't that kind of what a lot of us suspect Hoid is becoming?

...no. I'm talking a dead person, and a new soul being constructed using hemalurgy. 

[Leyrann]

This is an absolutely amazing theory.

Don't know how much more I can say. I'll probably use it as a source though, once I rework my theories regarding the workings of Investiture. I feel like you just solved several of the questions I had.

[Steeldancer]

Ok. It's time for a new update. This one is on Eyes. 

There, all set.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Steeldancer

[Runyan Firetree]

The heritage / child spirit web section brings to mind the RL-debate over nature v nurture. 

What would you expect from the following scenarios?:

1. Difference in a child's spirit web / identity if raised by biological parents or adopted soon after birth
2. Difference in identical twins (raised by birth parents) spirit web / identity at adolescence
3. Difference in identical twins spirit web / identity at adolescence if born on Roshar, but one twin is taken by a worldhopper immediately after birth and raised on Nalthis

[Steeldancer]

2 hours ago, Runyan Firetree said:

The heritage / child spirit web section brings to mind the RL-debate over nature v nurture. 

What would you expect from the following scenarios?:

1. Difference in a child's spirit web / identity if raised by biological parents or adopted soon after birth
2. Difference in identical twins (raised by birth parents) spirit web / identity at adolescence
3. Difference in identical twins spirit web / identity at adolescence if born on Roshar, but one twin is taken by a worldhopper immediately after birth and raised on Nalthis

Well, i imagine the spirit realm still acting like genetics. So you're spiritual "look" would be copied from your biological parents, as genetics works. However, identity is something that develops over time. That would be more affected by adopted parents and such. 

Identical twins? Well... i think their identity would still be slightly different, but quite similar. The spiritual "look" should be the exact same. Identity is something that develops over time. 

Good questions. 

Edited December 14, 2017 by Steeldancer

[Malphrendrius]

Wow, that was a really comprehensive summary! I pretty much agree with everything in your post, I just have a few questions that might be hard to answer since there isn't much information given about the Spiritual Realm:

Do you think there could be a "Spiritual Shadow", similar to how there are Cognitive Shadows? Could such a shadow even impact the other 2 realms, since the Spiritual Realm has a much weaker concept of location/time? Would there even be something to anchor your spirit-web to? If we are using Light Filter Realmatics, then does someone's spirit-web contain all of the information needed to produce a Cognitive/Physical representation?

 

I'm not the most versed in Realmatics, so excuse me if some of my questions have obvious answers lol.

[Steeldancer]

17 minutes ago, Malphrendrius said:

Wow, that was a really comprehensive summary! I pretty much agree with everything in your post, I just have a few questions that might be hard to answer since there isn't much information given about the Spiritual Realm:

Do you think there could be a "Spiritual Shadow", similar to how there are Cognitive Shadows? Could such a shadow even impact the other 2 realms, since the Spiritual Realm has a much weaker concept of location/time? Would there even be something to anchor your spirit-web to? If we are using Light Filter Realmatics, then does someone's spirit-web contain all of the information needed to produce a Cognitive/Physical representation?

 

I'm not the most versed in Realmatics, so excuse me if some of my questions have obvious answers lol.

I think there is a "spiritual shadow" we saw something like that in OB. I think the spirit web does have all the info required, it's just filtered through cognitive perception. 

Don't worry about it, all of us start from somewhere. 

[Nale]

Steeldancer, what do you think the effect on the Sprirt-Web would be of those who remain in the CR for extended periods of time?  Do those on Silverlight or people like Khriss begin to change in significant ways as they begin to identify more with being of the CR than of anything else?  And can the IRE escape whatever effect this may be with their castle built of Connected blocks, explaining their purpose as a way to avoid becoming less Selish (presumably) by constantly thinking of themselves as still being in Sel, or an extension of it?

[Steeldancer]

I think the only effect should be on the location part of the spirit web, which... I don't know how that would be effected by you being in the cognitive realm. But I don't think you can ever escape being connected to where you were born, at least not with what we've seen, and certainly not with an Elantrian, who would need that connection to keep them alive.

[Steeldancer]

Ok- edit 3. I did some speculation on the spiritual aspects of the Surges today. Of most interest are Adhesion, Transformation, and Transportation. The others... well they just aren't as interesting Spiritually. I also wander into some non- Spiritual speculation, but I've been thinking a lot about the winds recently, so don't blame me for rambling for a bit. lol.

[Leyrann]

On 1-1-2018 at 6:19 PM, Steeldancer said:

Ok- edit 3. I did some speculation on the spiritual aspects of the Surges today. Of most interest are Adhesion, Transformation, and Transportation. The others... well they just aren't as interesting Spiritually. I also wander into some non- Spiritual speculation, but I've been thinking a lot about the winds recently, so don't blame me for rambling for a bit. lol.

What do you think about the observation from Khriss in the Stormlight Archive Ars Arcanum?

Quote

The 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.

Edit: Nevermind, I shouldn't assume you only discussed those without actually reading the part you edited in.

Edit2: To not totally waste this post, I do have something to add: Would you think that Connection can be seen as "the distance of the Spiritual Realm", in the way that, for example, I consider my window about 4 m away right now, with a weaker Connection being a larger 'distance'? Of course, the amount of dimensions this works in is not necessarily 3 (+ time).

Edited January 19, 2018 by Leyrann

[Steeldancer]

24 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

What do you think about the observation from Khriss in the Stormlight Archive Ars Arcanum?

Edit: Nevermind, I shouldn't assume you only discussed those without actually reading the part you edited in.

Edit2: To not totally waste this post, I do have something to add: Would you think that Connection can be seen as "the distance of the Spiritual Realm", in the way that, for example, I consider my window about 4 m away right now, with a weaker Connection being a larger 'distance'? Of course, the amount of dimensions this works in is not necessarily 3 (+ time).

Sort of? You might be able to measure spiritual things in terms of connection... but without being able to find out, I'm not sure. 

[Steeldancer]

OK, I just added a fourth edit. It got a little murky halfway through. It's kind of hard to explain the ideas I'm having, but I hope you sort of get what I'm trying to explain

[Fezzik]

I am unsure about your use of "investits." I prefer investon for the fundamental particle (A la graviton, electron, etc.) and Khriss for the future unit of measurement (one milikhriss, 2.4 Gigakhriss)

[Steeldancer]

8 hours ago, John203 said:

I am unsure about your use of "investits." I prefer investon for the fundamental particle (A la graviton, electron, etc.) and Khriss for the future unit of measurement (one milikhriss, 2.4 Gigakhriss)

As I said, i was making it up on the spot to indicate that they are investiture particles. Investon is a way better name. Investit just sounds like a stupid game.