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The rules: -You are in your prime. -You don’t age -You can catch sickness, and you can be hurt, and die, but you cannot directly or indirectly cause it. So this is a debate that I like to have with people. There are some great pros, but also some serious Cons, so I want to open up this to anyone. Explain your answer:

I recently read this quote, and the bold part got me thinking... Hemalurgic duralumin can steal Connection. What if you removed your own Connection, then healed just enough to leave a scare over your spiritweb, then granted yourself another duralumin spike containing the Connection of someone young as well as possibly another small source of investiture to replace the removed innate investiture that contained your Connection. Could this be a somewhat vampiric method of maintaining biological immortality? What's more, you could likely repeat this process whenever you started to grow old, and it would not grow less efficient since it's not actively fighting against your natural age, it's replacing it.

I was having a conversation in which I asked someone what their command would be if they were an awakened weapon, when I had a thought. Could you awaken metal with a command such as "Be Bob"? Obviously, the intent behind such a command would be almost impossible to pull off. After all, what and who is Bob? You would have to know absolutely everything about Bob, which would be almost impossible. However, if you were to use the command "Be me", I think it would be possible. So, what do you think? Is there some mad scientist on Nalthis with a collection of awakened tools that hold an exact imprint of his personality?

So. Becoming a Shard of Adonalasium obviously has many benefits. Instant immortality, a rapidly expanding mind, an infinite well of power to draw on. And an automatic pass into the most exclusive club in the Cosmere. Yet for all its benefits, becoming 1/16th of God carries with it significant drawbacks, as Sazed would point out. The main drawback is the power itself, forever pushing you to act in ways that promote its agenda. To go against the power is to know pain, something that should have been left behind upon ascension along with your physical body. And it's that aspect that makes a Vessel a Cognitive Shadow. They are the greatest of them but face the same limitations as the Heralds, Fused, Kelsier, Vasher, whoever. Not only is being a Vessel not all it's cracked up to be, it's also a role that former mortals are particularly unsuited for. The problem is 2 fold. The first one is as stated above, the power is always pushing, always trying to shape its Vessel. The second however is unique to mortals and it is simple. Mortals are just not built for immortality. The mind breaks out of sheer inertia. And though the power does help with the issue by expanding the mind of the Vessel, that mind was still once a mortal one. The limits of mortality don't go away, they're merely postponed. Ask the Fused how difficult just 7000 years is on a mortal mind. If you can find a sane one. It thus occurred to me that the best candidate for a Vessel, one who could deal with the endless tug of war between shard and vessel best would be someone who was naturally immortal at the time of ascension. Their will would not die out of fatigue alone because they possess minds built for immortality. And the only immortal race of beings that I know of at the time of the Shattering were Dragons. There have been 2 of those immortals confirmed in the Cosmere, Frost and the current Vessel of Cultivation, Kovari. So why is this important? Because there's a new Odium in town, one that's crafty, extremely dangerous, and holding a power that even the other Shards are wary of. And new Vessels should have major advantages over original Vessels who have long ago succumbed to Shardic Intent in terms of freedom to act and of movement. Kovari seems to have made a major misstep in putting Taravangian in position to take up that particular Shard. I admit I thought so too at first but now I'm not so sure. She's a rather crafty lizard lady herself and probably won't have completely lost her will to Cultivation's Intent due to her previous immortality. There will be some terrifying days ahead for Roshar but I have faith that Tod will not have things all his own way, that Kovari has contingencies, and that everything will mostly work out in the end. What do you guys and gals think?

Okay, important. So if you get the fifth weighting, you cannot age whatsoever. What happens when you give up some of your breath and lose the fifth heightening? Does the age catch up or do you continue aging where they left off? Also, just because every time I hear functionally immortal I become suspicious, when they say immortal, they mean immortal right? They cannot age period? Just wanna confirm that, because me planning on something, and this is vital to said plan. (Also, does anyone know what the hell is the currency used in Nathline?)

Potentially Elantrians are immortal. That means that the range of ages in Elantris will be much larger than in any normal city. You will find people who learned to speak centuries apart. How do they talk to each other? How large does a founding population need to be to preserve its state of a language? Does language still change with the older population slowly adapting? Is Elantris large enough to impose its language on Arelon?

Just wondering, since I'm somewhat new and haven't read all the wobs, how a radiant who decided to live in the countryside could ever really die ? Stormlight means they can't really die of infection or sickness, and the only things that could kill someone through age seem like they should be healed through stormlight (Various heart diseases, weak bones, weak immune system). The only thing I can think of is failing mental faculties, but it seems like they should be healed from things that they 'shouldn't' have, that don't make their personality, so they should be healed of dementia and other age related mental disease ? Another issue might be a lack of stormlight but this would mostly just mean a couple months(weeks ?) in the weeping where they'd have to survive off of a store, or not get hurt. Also if this is a total hypothetical then a windrunner could just ride just above the highstorm for investiture during weepings, or endlessly. Are there any obvious issues I'm missing or could Kaladin and Lift survive to space era

While I was reading through the Wax and Wayne trilogy, there is a part in it were Wayne thinks to himself about how it seems illogical to him that people would die when they are old, as that is the time when they should have the most experience staying alive. This caused me to consider: What if a bloodmaker or gold compounder actually believed themselves to be immortal, or that they should be a certain age forever? Would their cognitive aspect then interfere with their spiritual aspect enough to extend their lifespan, would it just not age them while they healed, or would it do nothing?

As we know, TLR used compounded feruchemical atium to drastically increase his lifespan. As I've come to further understand the nature of compounding, I've begun to wonder whether he would ever have run out of age? Would he not be able to say, wear an atium ring, tap a fair amount of age from his existing atiumminds, fill said age directly into the ring, swallow the ring and burn it multiplying the amount stored, then rinse and repeat? This would theoretically give him unlimited age as long as he still had some age stored somewhere. If I've gotten anything wrong or my understanding of compounding is flawed, then please let me know. Otherwise, I welcome your thoughts.

So I've been stewing about this for reasons. I was remembering the scene in WoR when Shallan hugs Wit and Adolin starts to get all jealous because she had yet to be so openly affectionate with him. Adolin responds by citing how Wit is too old for Shallan, to which he wholeheartedly agrees. He mentions that there is only one other person of the female persuasion who would even come close to his age but that she hates him (I've heard Khriss is that person but I'm not sure I believe that) But this has got me thinking about the life of a Worldhopper, especially a long-lived one. If you are familiar with Dr. Who during the Rose Tyler story arch then you will be familiar with this issue. It's the problem of falling in love. I mean, when you are 300 hundred going on infinity how could someone even see love and passion the same way? In their eyes, the people around them would be like a lovable dog. Wonderful and fulfilling, and yet their time is so short compared to our own. It's a sad fact that anyone who is effectively immortal would face the inevitable heartache of watching those they grow to love wither and die before their unchanging eyes. Now I used to think that it doesn't matter, but in reality, that prospect would probably make such relationships difficult. When thinking about this I asked Brandon in his most recent Reddit AMA if Worldhoppers had ever fallen in love and started families on other worlds. The TLDR; When Worldhoppers travel, they can and have entered into relationships and had children. This has sometimes given those children powers from another world (Think an allomancer being born on Roshar) Brand said that this has happened. Now I know what you are thinking, it's probably just Silverlight. But the question was specific and we know that Worldhoppers appear all over the place. It must have happened. It just gets me thinking. This post is mostly just me thinking about the nature of relationships for long-lived Worldhoppers. But I want to hear your thoughts about this issue. try to imagine watching those you love growing old and dying, and their children, and their children's children, while you are still the same. Perhaps these issues don't come up often because they would be too hard to bear so most avoid the issue. Or worse, imagine learning that your SO will never age and you will grow frail before their eyes. Please let me know what you think. Also, as a bonus, what are the chances that Hoid has had children before (maybe Sigzil?)

So I was Sharding the Shard when I read a topic concerning the Boons/Banes and realised that the immortality of the Heralds sounds like a Nightwatcher "gift". -They never die but, have to endure incredible pain. Another reason I have for suspecting this is the Knights Radiant. The spren fashioned themselves after the Honorblades and Heralds. They not only grant Surges but, also physical ability, as seen with Kaladin. However there is no mention of Knights having longer lifespans or going to Damnation every so often. This is why I think the ability isn't from Honor ,but from a different source (aka Nightwatcher).

As I'm re-reading WoK, I noticed a very interesting and, from what I can tell, truthful dialogue between Hoid and Dalinar in Chapter 54, Gibletish: I know that people have talked about Hoid's immortality before, but it seems, from this quote, that Hoid CAN die, but doesn't stay dead. He seems to be able to resurrect because he says even if he dies he'll return anyway. And, how he words this, it almost seems his resurrection would not be by choice, as if he'd reluctantly be returned from the dead. What do you all think? Can Hoid actually die and be resurrected? Are there any forms of resurrection in the Cosmere besides being Returned? He can't be Returned every time he dies or he'd probably lose his memories, etc. (And don't forget that he predates Endowment.) Maybe his resurrection abilities have something to do with Yolen, or maybe occurred because he was present when Adonalsium Shattered? It seems to me that he may not have acquired his Resurrection capabilities from other forms of known Investiture. Obviously this paragraph is pure speculation.

Eternal Life: Often by use of an Unaging Body and Mind. Considered Impossible Without Acsess to Atium, and Full Mistborn and Feruchemist Powers. No Longer Viable. Immortality: Eternal life of You. Your Conciousness. Body sold Seprately. All you need to have Functionaly Imortality is two Feruchemists(One super old, and one Young), 2 Aluminum Metal minds, and 2 Copperminds. Have both Feruchemists Store Their Identity in their Aluminum Minds. Have both Feruchemists Store the Entirety of their Memories. The Younger Feruchemist Now taps all of the Older one's Identity and Memories. Throw away the Younger One's Metalminds. The Identity (Personality, Morales, Emotions) and Memories of the Older now Reside in the Younger! Ta daa!