Visions page

[Ixthos]

I made the Visions page earlier today, and I would like to thank those who have assisted already in adding and formatting content. With that said, @King of Herdaz mentioned in their edit that they didn't think the page should exist, and while I disagree with that - and would like to discuss that - I realise I may have overstepped myself in making the page, and while I still would like to petition for its continued existence, if it is decided it should go and its content be merged with another page, I understand.

 

With that said, I feel Visions should be their own page. They are both a power Shards and non-Shards (such as Renarin) possess, as well as being locations in the Spiritual Realm. Thus they are present on multiple worlds (at least Roshar and Scadrial), have been used by at least two Shards (Honour - I will keep using Honor in coppermind pages though - and Odium), by at least one non-Shard (Renarin, and arguably Dalinar), have affected multiple people (Gavilar, Dalinar, the people Dalinar has pulled into visions, Kaladin, Taravangian, Moash, Spook, and arguably what the Stormfather does when he speaks to people and spren), can have various properties such as being predefined or broken into and altered by Shards and other individuals such as Lift, and aren't just a power but a type of location, as Brandon has implied they are a pocket dimension or pocket universe in the Spiritual Realm, and one can even interact with objects there, such as Nightblood and the now vessel-less Shard of Odium.

Contrast that with other pages, such as Cognitive Anomaly, I feel there is enough distinctiveness to the topic to justify it having its own page. I hope I have made my case well, though I will accept whatever the consenses on this topic is.

[Quantus]

I think at minimum I would make separate pages for Internal Temporal/Precognition Visions like Renarin or some of the metals, and the External Prepared and Interactive Visions that Honor made or the Place Between Moments effect that the Stormfather can more freely use. The latter ones seems to fit the pocket dimension effect you mentioned, but Renarin's visions (along with Electrum, Gold, and Atium) are a more classic one-way Visions.  

[Chaos]

Let's slow down a touch and make sure we discuss new pages. Pages such as "Visions" and separate pages like Quantus suggested need to be very carefully thought out so that their title is easily understood and searchable. If it is too vague, then that is problematic. If we have a term like Cognitive anomaly, that helps a lot, whereas visions I find is vague. So I and the Keepers are totally down to discuss pages and potential new pages, but we would prefer we discuss these so we can sort this stuff in the right place.

I think one could rightly argue this is a subset of Spiritual Realm shenanigans and could just go in a section there.

[Ixthos]

24 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Let's slow down a touch and make sure we discuss new pages. Pages such as "Visions" and separate pages like Quantus suggested need to be very carefully thought out so that their title is easily understood and searchable. If it is too vague, then that is problematic. If we have a term like Cognitive anomaly, that helps a lot, whereas visions I find is vague. So I and the Keepers are totally down to discuss pages and potential new pages, but we would prefer we discuss these so we can sort this stuff in the right place.

I think one could rightly argue this is a subset of Spiritual Realm shenanigans and could just go in a section there.

Visions do seem to be used consistently though, as I think every example of someone being pulled into such a construct is referred to by the characters as a vision - I would argue Renarin's visions are similarly taking place in the same type of environment Dalinar's and other's have, especially as we've seen those in the visions will act them out or talk about them, as shown with Spook when he spoke with Kelsier. 

For being added to the Spiritual Realm page, I can see and agree that would make sense, but Visions are also stated to be filtered through the Cognitive, so they don't belong purely to the Spiritual, and we know even less about Cognitive Anomalies, so wouldn't it make sense for them to likewise be added to the Cognitive Realm page?

Again, I'm happy to go with whatever gets agreed on by the majority, and I do apologise if I jumped the gun in making that page. I just would like, regardless of the outcome, to understand where the distinction comes in, as I do feel there is less to recommend Cognitive Anomaly as a page than Visions, though again if Visions is to be folded into the Spiritual Realm page and Cognitive Anomaly remains its own page I will accept that too.

 

55 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I think at minimum I would make separate pages for Internal Temporal/Precognition Visions like Renarin or some of the metals, and the External Prepared and Interactive Visions that Honor made or the Place Between Moments effect that the Stormfather can more freely use. The latter ones seems to fit the pocket dimension effect you mentioned, but Renarin's visions (along with Electrum, Gold, and Atium) are a more classic one-way Visions.  

Hmmm ... I think Renarin's visions are likewise still visions, especially as they tie to Odium's sense of the future. A key thing is that, in the chapter just before Odium is killed, Dalinar is in a vision with Odium that very much seems to parallel the description of what Taravangian experienced, looking out over the horizon at possibilities, albeit with more sunrises. As seeing the future is tied to the Spiritual Realm in the cosmere, and as I recall Glys was also with Renarin in the vision, I feel they are still the same category.

 

[Edit] To support my claim Visions are more than just Spiritual Realm: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332/#e9562

Quote

Argent

How do visions in the cosmere work? And I'm thinking Realmatically.

Brandon Sanderson

So almost always [it's] glimpsing into the Spiritual Realm. But you are often seeing it through the Cognitive, and so like a vision that...

So like the vision that Dalinar sees. What's going on is-- being pulled, and kind of stretched a little bit through the Realms, into the Spiritual Realm.  Where a Cognitive construct is adding a framework to seeds that are set in place.

Argent

So that you can kind of comprehend the Spiritual?

Brandon Sanderson

You can comprehend-- and also there's a little bit of a life to it. Meaning it can respond to you and things like this, to an extent. So imagine, it kind of works like an AI. Imagine there's some-- You've got that power in the Spiritual Realm and you're adding a framework to it, that it is shining through, and that is giving you the vision. Complicated, I know. Spiritual Realm is supposed to be weird, and we aren't supposed to quite comprehend it, but that's why we've got the Cognitive framework there.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Ixthos

[Chaos]

Yep, I'm aware of that WoB. Still, it's primarily Spiritual. Either it goes on the Spiritual Realm, or the Realmatic Theory page. Many visions are predominantly Spiritual, looking into the future and such, though Dalinar's visions are somewhat an exception. Still, the Spiritual mumbo jumbo is the true core of this. The Spiritual Realm under Access seems pretty reasonable. 

Looking at the page itself, I can see what Quantus means. By collecting these here, there's an implication these are all the same, but there's distinctions in each one. Also, this is a pretty listy article. Generally, we don't really want list-icles like this. By itself, I don't think there's a huge use for simply listing out all the different visions in detail. Renarin's visions are very cool, but his one in Rhythm of War seems like just the sort of accessing the Spiritual Realm. Dalinar's visions (which has a page already) is a different thing and so I think a page going into detail on that makes sense. 

Realistically, you could write the list of characters who experience visions in a compact format that isn't split into sections with a sentence or two in a greater article and then go into the mechanics of how visions work--as well as how Dalinar's are a bit different--in a short section. As it currently stands, there isn't that much content on the Visions page that would be lost with restructuring in this way. So moving this to a separate page has a few advantages: it avoids a vague article title on Visions, which collect some slightly different effects and avoids a listy article. Then the mechanics of visions can be discussed in context of wider effects on Fortune, future sight, etc.

[+Oltux72]

3 hours ago, Chaos said:

Yep, I'm aware of that WoB. Still, it's primarily Spiritual. Either it goes on the Spiritual Realm, or the Realmatic Theory page. Many visions are predominantly Spiritual, looking into the future and such, though Dalinar's visions are somewhat an exception. Still, the Spiritual mumbo jumbo is the true core of this. The Spiritual Realm under Access seems pretty reasonable. 

To me this WoB looks like there is a division here, like you need to look at the source and the mechanism of the visions differently. The source is indicated to be primarily spiritual and the method independent of that.

3 hours ago, Chaos said:

Looking at the page itself, I can see what Quantus means. By collecting these here, there's an implication these are all the same, but there's distinctions in each one. Also, this is a pretty listy article. Generally, we don't really want list-icles like this. By itself, I don't think there's a huge use for simply listing out all the different visions in detail. Renarin's visions are very cool, but his one in Rhythm of War seems like just the sort of accessing the Spiritual Realm. Dalinar's visions (which has a page already) is a different thing and so I think a page going into detail on that makes sense. 

Right. And arguably that pages is misnamed, if you want to add the mechanics there.

3 hours ago, Chaos said:

Realistically, you could write the list of characters who experience visions in a compact format that isn't split into sections with a sentence or two in a greater article and then go into the mechanics of how visions work--as well as how Dalinar's are a bit different--in a short section. As it currently stands, there isn't that much content on the Visions page that would be lost with restructuring in this way. So moving this to a separate page has a few advantages: it avoids a vague article title on Visions, which collect some slightly different effects and avoids a listy article. Then the mechanics of visions can be discussed in context of wider effects on Fortune, future sight, etc.

I am afraid there are mechanics unique to at least the Stormfather's visions that need to go somewhere, like the manipulation of time, the extent they are interactive and the languages they temporarilly teach.
You could add these aspects to Dalinar's visions, but I am afraid you'd get an article that mixes two distinct topics.

[Chaos]

The time manipulation aspect of the Stormfather's visions can just go on the Investiture page as that's a function of high Investiture density really. I'm not worried about that.

One thing to elaborate on as to why list articles are not optimal: by having a list, then you kind of get into arguments of "what is a vision" and I feel like that's best to avoid.

[Starwatcher]

16 hours ago, Chaos said:

Yep, I'm aware of that WoB. Still, it's primarily Spiritual. Either it goes on the Spiritual Realm, or the Realmatic Theory page. Many visions are predominantly Spiritual, looking into the future and such, though Dalinar's visions are somewhat an exception. Still, the Spiritual mumbo jumbo is the true core of this. The Spiritual Realm under Access seems pretty reasonable.

Looking at the page itself, I can see what Quantus means. By collecting these here, there's an implication these are all the same, but there's distinctions in each one. Also, this is a pretty listy article. Generally, we don't really want list-icles like this. By itself, I don't think there's a huge use for simply listing out all the different visions in detail. Renarin's visions are very cool, but his one in Rhythm of War seems like just the sort of accessing the Spiritual Realm. Dalinar's visions (which has a page already) is a different thing and so I think a page going into detail on that makes sense. 

Realistically, you could write the list of characters who experience visions in a compact format that isn't split into sections with a sentence or two in a greater article and then go into the mechanics of how visions work--as well as how Dalinar's are a bit different--in a short section. As it currently stands, there isn't that much content on the Visions page that would be lost with restructuring in this way. So moving this to a separate page has a few advantages: it avoids a vague article title on Visions, which collect some slightly different effects and avoids a listy article. Then the mechanics of visions can be discussed in context of wider effects on Fortune, future sight, etc.

Yeah, I would agree that the consistent core of visions that we're after here is Spiritual, and that Spiritual Realm under Access would be the best place for that information; that will put things in context nicely. I'm also not a fan of the vague title of Visions, though it could be good to keep as a redirect to the section on Spiritual Realm for anyone who puts Vision(s) into the search bar.

13 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Right. And arguably that pages is misnamed, if you want to add the mechanics there.

I am afraid there are mechanics unique to at least the Stormfather's visions that need to go somewhere, like the manipulation of time, the extent they are interactive and the languages they temporarilly teach.
You could add these aspects to Dalinar's visions, but I am afraid you'd get an article that mixes two distinct topics.

It has been bothering me a little that the page is named Dalinar's visions, since they aren't strictly his. I don't think that's a problem for what's covered on the page though; if we have a series of notable visions like this, it seems pretty natural to cover everything about them, including both their contents and the mechanics that underlie them, on their page. Unless I'm misunderstanding and you're talking about the visions involving the Stormfather that aren't part of the ones left by Honor? Details about those should probably be at Stormfather#Visions (which only seems to discuss the Bondsmith visions right now); Highstorm#Centerbeat should maybe also have a little bit more info.

4 hours ago, Chaos said:

The time manipulation aspect of the Stormfather's visions can just go on the Investiture page as that's a function of high Investiture density really. I'm not worried about that.

And yup, the Investiture page should definitely talk about its time distortion properties more; that page is in need of some love in general.

On 11/30/2021 at 5:12 PM, Ixthos said:

Again, I'm happy to go with whatever gets agreed on by the majority, and I do apologise if I jumped the gun in making that page. I just would like, regardless of the outcome, to understand where the distinction comes in, as I do feel there is less to recommend Cognitive Anomaly as a page than Visions, though again if Visions is to be folded into the Spiritual Realm page and Cognitive Anomaly remains its own page I will accept that too.

Also, just to address the Cognitive anomaly comparison briefly, yes there probably is a bit more information on visions than Cognitive anomalies--I'd probably say maybe one sort of mental category of information quantity higher for me. But, especially with these more abstract topics, quantity of information isn't the only thing to consider in what gets a page. In general, more precise or formal terms are more likely to get their own page, which seems to be more the case here: Cognitive anomalies seem to be a fairly well defined thing, even though we don't know much about them yet, while visions feel more like a common theme on generic Spiritual Realm properties, and putting that information in context on the Spiritual Realm page feels like the best approach to me. And on that structural note, there are also some pragmatic considerations that have a little bit of weight, like the fact that the Spiritual Realm page is in good shape to include this information, whereas the Cognitive Realm page doesn't really have the structure for that and looks like it needs some devoted attention from an experienced editor (I went to take a look and, uh, it's changed very little since it was first written in 2016). Or at least, that's some of what's going through my head; unfortunately, I think some of these structural things are more instincts that develop over time and even when Keepers agree, we may be approaching things from different angles.

[+Oltux72]

10 hours ago, Starwatcher said:

Yeah, I would agree that the consistent core of visions that we're after here is Spiritual, and that Spiritual Realm under Access would be the best place for that information; that will put things in context nicely. I'm also not a fan of the vague title of Visions, though it could be good to keep as a redirect to the section on Spiritual Realm for anyone who puts Vision(s) into the search bar.

Tanavast's recorded monologues are hardly from spiritual realm, are they?

10 hours ago, Starwatcher said:

It has been bothering me a little that the page is named Dalinar's visions, since they aren't strictly his. I don't think that's a problem for what's covered on the page though; if we have a series of notable visions like this, it seems pretty natural to cover everything about them, including both their contents and the mechanics that underlie them, on their page. Unless I'm misunderstanding and you're talking about the visions involving the Stormfather that aren't part of the ones left by Honor? Details about those should probably be at Stormfather#Visions (which only seems to discuss the Bondsmith visions right now); Highstorm#Centerbeat should maybe also have a little bit more info.

Well, we are running into conjectures that way. Apparently the Stormfather can share his perception of the land his storm crosses over. Yet, the assumption that he does so by the same mechanism he uses to transmit the visions Honor recorded is strictly speaking conjecture.

In fact we have no proof that Dalinar got all the visions. The Stormfather may very well have orders to tailor the selection of visions to the recipient.

 

[Starwatcher]

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Tanavast's recorded monologues are hardly from spiritual realm, are they?

My reading of the WoB referenced earlier is that (almost) all visions are in the Spiritual. Brandon even explicitly refers to Dalinar's visions there:

Quote

So like the vision that Dalinar sees. What's going on is-- being pulled, and kind of stretched a little bit through the Realms, into the Spiritual Realm.  Where a Cognitive construct is adding a framework to seeds that are set in place.

So, yes, I do think the visions Tanavast left for potential Bondsmiths are from the Spiritual Realm. Maybe I'm missing something though; is there something that makes you think otherwise?

 

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Well, we are running into conjectures that way. Apparently the Stormfather can share his perception of the land his storm crosses over. Yet, the assumption that he does so by the same mechanism he uses to transmit the visions Honor recorded is strictly speaking conjecture.

In fact we have no proof that Dalinar got all the visions. The Stormfather may very well have orders to tailor the selection of visions to the recipient.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply they all used the same specific mechanics. Just that all of the different visions the Stormfather has been seen to do should be covered somewhere in his Attributes and Abilities section; I did miss last night that some of the non-Bondsmith visions or appearances he does are currently mentioned in the Highstorm and Dreams sections, so, if we want to leave the Visions section there to just be about the Bondsmith ones and put the other stuff he has going on somewhere else under Attributes and Abilities, that's fine by me too.

I'm confused as to why it matters that maybe Dalinar didn't get all the visions? Sure, it's maybe possible, but if there were some he didn't get, we'd know close to absolutely nothing about them and I don't see how that would change how we write about the visions we do know about.

[Ixthos]

Thank you all for clarifying this for me, and I have a better idea of my mistake now. For future reference, how do you go about broaching the topic of making a new page? I feel like I've overlooked something essential in that regard. I likely won't make a new page again, just general edits in future, not without clearing them first at least, and once again I apologise for my impulsive action.

 

On 12/1/2021 at 7:13 AM, Chaos said:

Looking at the page itself, I can see what Quantus means. By collecting these here, there's an implication these are all the same, but there's distinctions in each one. Also, this is a pretty listy article. Generally, we don't really want list-icles like this. By itself, I don't think there's a huge use for simply listing out all the different visions in detail.

That wasn't my intention with the page, as I wanted to collate some of the properties the visions shared rather than just go into detail, such as the emphasis on requiring connection and being able to ride someone else's connection to pull someone one otherwise isn't connected to into one, as is what happened with Kaladin when Odium used Moash, and how Lift, Odium, and Hoid broke into different visions, as well as the implied physicality - such as Kelsier chewing on a blade of grass, Nightblood's powers transferring in with a Spiritual or Cognitive component in the vision, etc. - and with that can be done within them and how actions can still partially bleed into what one does in the physical realm. Still, that is moot at this point - I'll wait until someone with more experience than I either deletes the page or turns it into a redirect, and then work on the visions topic as a subsection of the Spiritual Realm page. This likely is for the best anyway, as this had started to become a distraction to me from my work - I think my making the page was partially a stress response to real life responsibilities, but that is neither here nor there, nor relevant to this discussion, though I felt like I needed to justify myself. Again, I am sorry, and I hope this hasn't been an inconvenience for anyone.

 

18 hours ago, Starwatcher said:

Also, just to address the Cognitive anomaly comparison briefly, yes there probably is a bit more information on visions than Cognitive anomalies--I'd probably say maybe one sort of mental category of information quantity higher for me. But, especially with these more abstract topics, quantity of information isn't the only thing to consider in what gets a page. In general, more precise or formal terms are more likely to get their own page, which seems to be more the case here: Cognitive anomalies seem to be a fairly well defined thing, even though we don't know much about them yet, while visions feel more like a common theme on generic Spiritual Realm properties, and putting that information in context on the Spiritual Realm page feels like the best approach to me. And on that structural note, there are also some pragmatic considerations that have a little bit of weight, like the fact that the Spiritual Realm page is in good shape to include this information, whereas the Cognitive Realm page doesn't really have the structure for that and looks like it needs some devoted attention from an experienced editor (I went to take a look and, uh, it's changed very little since it was first written in 2016). Or at least, that's some of what's going through my head; unfortunately, I think some of these structural things are more instincts that develop over time and even when Keepers agree, we may be approaching things from different angles.

Ahhh! Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I can see my error more clearly now, beyond just acting without checking. Though if one does wish to make a new page, how would one go about asking the other editors for their opinions and objections?

[Starwatcher]

2 hours ago, Ixthos said:

That wasn't my intention with the page, as I wanted to collate some of the properties the visions shared rather than just go into detail, such as the emphasis on requiring connection and being able to ride someone else's connection to pull someone one otherwise isn't connected to into one, as is what happened with Kaladin when Odium used Moash, and how Lift, Odium, and Hoid broke into different visions, as well as the implied physicality - such as Kelsier chewing on a blade of grass, Nightblood's powers transferring in with a Spiritual or Cognitive component in the vision, etc. - and with that can be done within them and how actions can still partially bleed into what one does in the physical realm.

Ah, yeah, I do see how some of that might not seem to fit perfectly into the Spiritual Realm page at a first glance. Digging deeper, though, since visions are generally based in the Spiritual, I feel like that's a good home for their shared properties, at least for now. Who knows, maybe some day we'll get a wealth of information that pushes past or obviates the structural factors here.

 

2 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Ahhh! Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I can see my error more clearly now, beyond just acting without checking. Though if one does wish to make a new page, how would one go about asking the other editors for their opinions and objections?

All good! There definitely can be a bit of a learning curve with the Coppermind sometimes, especially since it's something that's built up over the years. In general, the Coppermind Editors Discord, #coppermind channel on the 17S Discord, or this subforum are the places to get in touch with other editors (and that's probably the rough order of preference--someone will see a post here, for example, and if it's anything that needs reactions it'll probably get mentioned in the Coppermind staff chat, but some editors are much more on Discord than the forums).

[+honorblades]

Could I propose a page in the same vein as Death Rattle/list? Personally, I love that Death Rattle page. I find it very useful & reference it constantly. 

I know as others have said this seems to imply that all visions are related or share the same source, which is not necessarily true. But I think it may be helpful to have all the various visions we are aware of laid out together like that. And in this way I think we could keep the mechanical stuff in the Spiritual Realm page (or somewhere else), as Chaos had mentioned. 

[+Oltux72]

On 2.12.2021 at 9:03 PM, Starwatcher said:

Ah, yeah, I do see how some of that might not seem to fit perfectly into the Spiritual Realm page at a first glance. Digging deeper, though, since visions are generally based in the Spiritual, I feel like that's a good home for their shared properties, at least for now. Who knows, maybe some day we'll get a wealth of information that pushes past or obviates the structural factors here.

They have an interactive component. People also have seen into the SR. The experience has not been like the visions. Also during the visions the viewer's cognition is altered. You learn languages for instance.

Furthermore the spatial distance to the recipient matters. For a purely spiritual phenomenon it should not matter.

On the third hand you can abuse those visions as a telephone system, which is kind of cognitive.

On 8.12.2021 at 1:35 AM, honorblades said:

Could I propose a page in the same vein as Death Rattle/list? Personally, I love that Death Rattle page. I find it very useful & reference it constantly. 

Dalinar's visions exists as a page. And I guess nobody objects to a page dedicated to those visions.

Yet this is not enough. The Invested Arts of the Cosmere can make you see things that are not there. And that is not in the sense that a TV can do that. That applies only to Rosharan Lightweavers for sure, as far as we know. The phenomenon is mental. Te best examples are from allomancy.
So do you want a subsection for such phenomena with each Invested Art, or do you do a comprehensive page? The problem with a comprehensive page is to find criteria to decide what would need to go there.

 

[Chaos]

On 12/11/2021 at 1:41 AM, Oltux72 said:

Dalinar's visions exists as a page. And I guess nobody objects to a page dedicated to those visions.

Well, those visions are a much more discrete set of specific things, whereas these general Visions suggestions are much more vague and highly general.