Healing using Hermalugical Spikes and Regrowth

[MountainKing]

 Regrowth can heal wounds only when you have accepted them (they are encoded in your spiritweb) as a part of you, so if we had someone who accepted being one armed, someone uses Hermalugical spoke to steal someone's spiritweb piece for an arm, and then attached that piece of the spiritweb to the one armed man, and then use regrowth to the one armed man, the one armed man should grow a new arm. This could be used to restore any type of physical and maybe mental issue

[RShara]

The acceptance thing is actually part of the Cognitive, rather than the spiritweb.  The spiritweb knows that an arm should be there, but because the cognitive self doesn't believe that an arm should be there, the arm doesn't regrow.

It *might* work with an arm that's been cut by a Shardblade, as long as the person believes that their arm will regrow as well.

Edited February 8, 2018 by RShara

[MountainKing]

Then could I use the transformation surge to convince the body is should have an arm, and then use regrowth or transmute it an arm

[RShara]

Soulcast it, you mean?  I think there are too many different things that make up an arm in order to soulcast it, and I have no idea how you could attach it to the body in any of the Realms.

It's also not convincing the body, but the person and how they see themselves.

Edited February 8, 2018 by RShara

[Weltall]

I don't believe that's something you can steal, hemalurgically. We know there are 'human attributes' that can be stolen and they're what make kandra and koloss spikes, but they relate less to 'having an arm' and more 'strength of body', 'strength of senses' etc. There is a known spike that grants enhanced mental capacity including an increased resistance to insanity which might be useful in treating mental illness, but given the side effects I doubt that experimental hemalurgic psychiatry would be approved under whatever the Scadrian equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath is.

48 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Then could I use the transformation surge to convince the body is should have an arm, and then use regrowth or transmute it an arm

Transformation doesn't work that way; it takes one Cognitively whole thing and transforms it into another thing. Conservation of mass appears to be the rule as well, meaning that you can't create more flesh and bone from nothingness. You might if you possessed an exceptional degree of knowledge (and I emphasize might, the human body is an amazingly complex thing and I'm only assuming this degree of precision is possible) manage to soulcast a full arm out of sufficient mass but that wouldn't be attached to you Physically (I suppose you could sew it on, Frankenstein's monster-style...) and it certainly wouldn't be a part of your Cognitive or Spiritual self.

In any event, I believe you're overthinking this. If you want to use the Metallic Arts to create a universal healing system, all you need is a medalllion granting F-Gold and a sufficiently full metalmind. Brandon has said that Bloodmakers can heal the body so that it reflects their Spiritual ideal, which would cover missing limbs whether 'killed' by a shardblade or removed through purely Physical means. As long as the user knows what the power will do and believes their limb will regrow, it should work.

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hagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Weltall

[RShara]

3 minutes ago, Weltall said:

I don't believe that's something you can steal, hemalurgically. We know there are 'human attributes' that can be stolen and they're what make kandra and koloss spikes, but they relate less to 'having an arm' and more 'strength of body', 'strength of senses' etc. There is a known spike that grants enhanced mental capacity including an increased resistance to insanity which might be useful in treating mental illness, but given the side effects I doubt that experimental hemalurgic psychiatry would be approved under whatever the Scadrian equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath is.

Transformation doesn't work that way; it takes one Cognitively whole thing and transforms it into another thing. Conservation of mass appears to be the rule as well, meaning that you can't create more flesh and bone from nothingness. You might (if you possessed an exceptional degree of knowledge) manage to soulcast a full arm out of sufficient mass but that wouldn't be attached to you Physically (I suppose you could sew it on) and certainly wouldn't make it a part of your Cognitive or Spiritual self.

In any event, I believe you're overthinking this. If you want to use the Metallic Arts to create a universal healing system, all you need is a medalllion granting F-Gold and a sufficiently full metalmind. Brandon has said that Bloodmakers can heal the body so that it reflects their Spiritual ideal, which would cover missing limbs whether 'killed' by a shardblade or removed through purely Physical means.

 

They still need to Cognitively see themselves as healed for that to work, though.

[MountainKing]

Okay, but to soulcast something you have to convince it to become something else, so can we convince the fat of the body to become an arm, while convince the body not the person that it has a arm, then use regrowth to attach the arm. 

Weknow that we can soulcast the body without the person approval because Jasnah does it.

[RShara]

Right but she soulcasts it into one homogenous thing (and an essence at that).  I don't think you could build an arm with blood, bone, marrow, tendons, ligaments, nerves, muscles, fat and flesh. They can't even manage decent tasting grain.

And again, for *any* kind of cosmere healing to work, the person has to perceive themselves as whole.  That's the stumbling block that you're going to keep running into.  Regrowth will not work to attach an arm, soulcast or otherwise, or grow an arm, or anything like that, if the person doesn't see themselves as having that arm.

At which point, it'd be much simpler to get that person to perceive themselves as whole than to try and get parts of a sapient being to change into other parts of a sapient being, that you might not know the composition of in the first place.

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by RShara

[MountainKing]

But you can convince the body to become something else without the conscious person to agree with soulcasting the body into something, so could we convince the body's cognitive aspect that it has an arm and then use regrowth on the cognitive aspect of the body and not the body's soul.

[Weltall]

6 minutes ago, RShara said:

They still need to Cognitively see themselves as healed for that to work, though.

Yeah, I edited a comment about that in. I think that knowing it could work (perhaps helped with a demonstration, Miles-style) would be sufficient.

2 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Okay, but to soulcast something you have to convince it to become something else, so can we convince the fat of the body to become an arm, while convince the body not the person that it has a arm, then use regrowth to attach the arm. 

Weknow that we can soulcast the body without the person approval because Jasnah does it.

It's not a question of approval, it's a question of Cognitive self-image. The fat in your body isn't going to 'see' itself that way, it's going to see itself as an indivisible part of you, which it is, biologically-speaking. And it probably doesn't even have an independent Cognitive image such that you could soulcast it. Maybe Doctor Strangelove's hand...

[RShara]

7 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

But you can convince the body to become something else without the conscious person to agree with soulcasting the body into something, so could we convince the body's cognitive aspect that it has an arm and then use regrowth on the cognitive aspect of the body and not the body's soul.

In a sapient being, the body doesn't have a separate cognitive aspect.  It's just the mind.

If you recall, in Shadesmar, people are represented by flames.  There's not a separate bead for the body, and a flame for the mind.

[Calderis]

9 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

But you can convince the body to become something else without the conscious person to agree with soulcasting the body into something, so could we convince the body's cognitive aspect that it has an arm and then use regrowth on the cognitive aspect of the body and not the body's soul.

The body is the physical aspect, the person is the Cognitive aspect. There's no convincing the Cognitive aspect of the body. 

[MountainKing]

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The body is the physical aspect, the person is the Cognitive aspect. There's no convincing the Cognitive aspect of the body. 

But then how does Jasnah soulcast Sadeas's troops at the end of Oathbringer, I don't think she convince the actual mind to have its body become a gem stone.

[Calderis]

12 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

But then how does Jasnah soulcast Sadeas's troops at the end of Oathbringer, I don't think she convince the actual mind to have its body become a gem stone.

We have no idea how soulcasting is done on sapient/sentient beings. It has to be a different mechanism. Because as states above, the Cognitive entity of a person in Shadesmar is the flames that we see. There's no bead for the body, and the flame is the mind itself. 

Without more information, I don't have an answer for you. 

[RShara]

The flame isn't the exact same as the sapient mind.  It's the cognitive representation of the mind and the body.  So with enough stormlight and concentration, you would be able to Soulcast it, in a similar way to anything else.  There's a passage in one of the books where someone touches one of the flames (having trouble finding it) that describes this.

[Yata]

Probably you could Soulcast stuffs without have to persuade them but it would be a real brute force approch with a very high Investiture's cost. (And Soulcast is already Investiture intensive also with the easier applications)

[dbulick]

Perhaps you could use a soul stamp first and then regrowth might work?  Seems like an awful lot of work though.

[RShara]

3 hours ago, dbulick said:

Perhaps you could use a soul stamp first and then regrowth might work?  Seems like an awful lot of work though.

You could probably Flesh Forge them into never having had the arm cut off in the first place, depending on how much investiture that will cost and how plausible it is that the arm wasn't cut off.  You wouldn't need Regrowth in that scenario.

[Rustbringer]

It seems to me like you're forgetting the obvious. It's not about how you see yourself really. Lopens arm grew back not because he believed it should. Its because he percieved its loss as an injury, a damage to the body.  Kaladins brands are yet to heal because he has accepted them into his cognitive self as a symbol of the bitterness he still holds for the wrongs done to him. Thats the difference. Healing through investiture will fix something that is perceived as wrong. 

Also on the soul casting an arm thought. I think maybe it'd be theoretically possible. Probably not. But isn't stormlight from gems part of soul casting? So couldn't the investiture be traded off to create flesh blood and bone from thin air and craft a compatible arm. Then use Dalinars surge of cohesion to attatch the arm to the person physically?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Rustbringer

[RShara]

26 minutes ago, Rustbringer said:

It seems to me like you're forgetting the obvious. It's not about how you see yourself really. Lopens arm grew back not because he believed it should. Its because he percieved its loss as an injury, a damage to the body.  Kaladins brands are yet to heal because he has accepted them into his cognitive self as a symbol of the bitterness he still holds for the wrongs done to him. Thats the difference. Healing through investiture will fix something that is perceived as wrong. 

Also on the soul casting an arm thought. I think maybe it'd be theoretically possible. Probably not. But isn't stormlight from gems part of soul casting? So couldn't the investiture be traded off to create flesh blood and bone from thin air and craft a compatible arm. Then use Dalinars surge of cohesion to attatch the arm to the person physically?

I'm sorry, but it IS about how you see yourself.  It's obvious throughout the books, and Brandon has confirmed it.  Lopen's arm grew back because he never accepted that he was one armed, and because he saw Kaladin heal himself with stormlight, so he knew it was possible.

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Questioner

 Why can Stormlight heal Lopen's arm, but can't heal Kaladin's scars?

Brandon Sanderson

Because *photo pause* a lot of the healing in the Cosmere works on principles of expectation and how you envision yourself. 

Questioner

So Kaladin has accepted the scars.

Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin has accepted the scars, and Lopen never accepted the one arm. It's a good question, it's one I am hoping people will ask. [...] It's one of these ties when I built the magic systems that I wanted certain threads to run through them, so when I eventually have them being used in the same books, that there will be consistency among them, that so they won't feel like everything's just thrown together. So, for instance, the intention and expectation, for instance, in Warbreaker-- What you want to have happened influences what does happen, the expectation, the way you are thinking about things. Very important for most of the Cosmere magics.

source

 

The problem is that an arm isn't a homogeneous object.  It's flesh, blood, veins, muscles, tendons, bone, marrow, fat, and whatever else.  In order to soulcast into something, you have to have an understanding of what it is and be able to picture it.  We also haven't ever seen anyone successfully soulcast into a non-homogeneous substance.  And soulcasting into something *living*?  I don't think that's possible at all. 

Cohesion or superglue could attach the arm to the body, but that doesn't mean that it will function as an arm.  There's nerves, tendons, muscles, veins and bones involved.  You would have to know exactly where and how to attach each individual part, while keeping that arm from experiencing tissue death at the same time.

I don't think Rosharans are up to that type of task.

Edited February 16, 2018 by RShara

[Rustbringer]

Yeah fair enough. The arm things silly. But to that effect. If you lost an arm you would only lose it in the physical realm. But just to put it out there. Lopen clearly accepted he had one arm, hence all the one armed herdazian jokes. But a missing arm is an injury to the physical body that doesn't quite match up with the spirit webs blue print. I think its that he never dwelt  on it and let it upset him(also he's not exactly a normal bloke by any standards). Kaladins scars on the other hand are a different story. Kaladin would have to leave behind the darkness that afflicts him from everything hes been through. The scars have attatched themselves to the part of kaladin who thinks he's a product of his past. I'm thinking his next ideal will cover those. Possibly something about "forgiveness" if i was to make a wild guess

[RShara]

1 minute ago, Rustbringer said:

Yeah fair enough. The arm things silly. But to that effect. If you lost an arm you would only lose it in the physical realm. But just to put it out there. Lopen clearly accepted he had one arm, hence all the one armed herdazian jokes. But a missing arm is an injury to the physical body that doesn't quite match up with the spirit webs blue print. I think its that he never dwelt  on it and let it upset him(also he's not exactly a normal bloke by any standards). Kaladins scars on the other hand are a different story. Kaladin would have to leave behind the darkness that afflicts him from everything hes been through. The scars have attatched themselves to the part of kaladin who thinks he's a product of his past. I'm thinking his next ideal will cover those. Possibly something about "forgiveness" if i was to make a wild guess

Joking about something doesn't mean that you've accepted it.  Actually, as a defensive reaction, it generally means the opposite.

[Rustbringer]

I meant simply that he certainly percieved his arm not being there and had absolutely no reason to expect it to grow back until it started to do so. The same reason the bridge four squires lost their brands(those who had them)  but kept the tattoo that was over it. They saw the brands as an injury done to them. While the glyph tattoo was something they chose as a symbol of their brotherhood. 

[RShara]

Again, it's about perception, not injury.  His arm grew back, as Brandon explicitly said, because he never accepted that his arm was gone.  And having seen Kaladin heal, he knew that he could heal it if he could figure out how to draw in stormlight.

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Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin has accepted the scars, and Lopen never accepted the one arm.

From the horse's mouth, so to speak.

 

Renarin's seizures and eyesight healed, even though those weren't injuries, because he never accepted them as part of him.

Edited February 16, 2018 by RShara

[Calderis]

If it were about injury then the only things that healing would exclude would be genetic, or mutations from birth. 

Kaladin's brands are an injury. There's no denying that. Renarin's eyesight is not. 

The mechanics of healing have been well explained. It's entirely about perception. In the Lopen example, as much as he made jokes about being a one armed Herdazian, he also made comments about what his lost arm was doing. He never accepted the loss.