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Type III Senses


Oudeis

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So itslifesense is apparently enough to feel the fisherman, feel his location and possibly lift his direction from his head. Or possibly, his  lifesense is varied enough to act like Inquisitor's Steelsight, feeling variations inside the body enough to tell where a person is facing. It is his major sense, so it is probably that it is better developed than in human, who has other senses overshadowing it.

 

Which does not explain how  a straw figure would be able to even walk - two-legged (I assume) walk requires a lot of senses to properly pull off - balance, touch, relative positions of body parts, something  for navigation. Part of it is probably carried over from the fact that Breaths were originally human, and so fit better to human patterns. Other... Yes, I would probably have to go with "Shadesmar sight." It is one of my currently dominant opinions that Spiritual realm does not have...Distance and time resolution, for lack of better word. For me, it contains more of the history and interactions of the object than the object itself (as if THAT makes any sense :) ), past, present and future. 

OK, my head is a mess. Anyway. IMO (current): Breaths have at least some cognitive component, with even more being added by Command, and the object uses that for senses. Depending on command, it can filter the input in different ways.

 

I'm not totally sold on the "he knew it was grass by lifesense." It's one explanation, but it could also be, "he felt simple life below him in a relatively thin plane, looked and saw grass, and connected the two" the way you can hear a person and see their lips move and connect that it is that person talking. Again, it's totally possible, but I'd like to see stronger support for the idea before I subscribe to the theory.

 

I agree with you partially on spiritsight... I think it contains a lot of stuff normal sight doesn't, and there are things physical sight can do that spirit sight cannot. That said, I'm not so certain there isn't overlap. Perhaps the straw man, because he was sent to fetch the keys, had a "I am looking for you" thread attached to these keys, and then found one for "I am in the same room from the keys I am looking for" thread. I am standing in a library right now, and I agree with you that someone looking at me from a spiritual standpoint would see a stronger connection between me and you, reading this, whoever you are and wherever in the world you reside, than in the people to my right and left. That said, if I look over and realize it's my friend's ex-girlfriend, I would suddenly have a different spiritual connection to her (woman I am now thinking of, woman I am conversing with, woman in the same room as me) as I did before, or as I did with anyone else in the room.

 

Like I said. You're right, I doubt that it's as clear-cut as "right seven feet" as it would be with physical sight, but I still believe there's enough overlap with physical sight to allow someone to find a pair of keys. Just my two cents.

 

And I have to run, I'll respond more later.

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First off, my apologies if I came off confrontational.  Not my intention.  I probably read more into that 1 sentence than you ever intended, to boot.  But nevertheless, it brings me to a simple belief: No matter how strongly tied a system is to one realm over the rest, it will use the assets it has.  I just realized this isn't the Cosmere Theories boards, so I will keep this brief and put it in Spoilers:

 

Stormlight Archives analogy

If Soulcasting were powered by Breath and were, as you say, more Spiritual than Cognitive, would it take users to the Spiritual Realm instead?  Would there be a sea of Identities there as well?  This sense of self, where a Stick is a stick, and Groovin' was groovin', already exists in the Cognitive Realm.  So it's easier for a Spiritual system to tap into Cognitive Identity than for the universe to store that information again.  So I submit: no, there is not a sea of Spiritual beads as well.  We just don't need it.  As I said, this may be how you already feel on the topic as well and I read far too much into a single sentence taken out of context.  It is not my intention to Strawman (even with extremely complicated Commands) your statement or put words in your mouth.

 

 

Moving onto other things... well, no.  My mind is changing.  I do believe Nighblood understands identity, and I would not be surprised if he were using Cognitive Identity to do this.  But the more I think about it, the more I want to fixate on my 1-line, edited-in counterpoint from before:

 

Life sense probably tracks Spiritual Connection, and it is my strong belief that Lifesense from Breath is passed onto the Awakened Object created.  This could potentially feed into why it only takes 1 Breath to create a Lifeless, but so many to awaken a human-shaped cloak (complete with hair bits and cut-out features to emulate your form).  It needs a LOT of life sense if you want it to intercept punches, whereas Clod already has eyes.  

 

Self-counter-counterpoint: inorganic matter.  Were the bolts fired at Vasher wood-hafted?  Does this dead-but-remembers-life feed into Connection?  Or are these just flying Sticks and your cloak "hears", on the Cognitive level, some object careening your way screaming "I WAS STICK BUT NOW I'M ARROW" and decide it should catch it?

 

I'm just muddying the waters of this thread, aren't I?  Well, put me in the "somehow Life Sense is all a Type 3 needs" camp.

 

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It is not my intention to Strawman (even with extremely complicated Commands)

 

...Slow clap, sir. Slow. Clap.

 

Also, sorry if I sounded like I was taking offense to anything. I'm getting more and more confused (see below) but not at all upset. I'm sorry if I came across as upset, or if I said anything to make you upset.

 

My appreciation of your humor aside... I still feel like you and I are talking about vastly different things. I think most of our disagreement and confusion is from the fact that we're defining things in HUGELY different terms.

 

Correct me if I'm mistaken... do you define the glass beads in Shadesmar as "Identity"? Because I do not. If you think those are what I'm talking about any time I say Identity, it's possible this is the source of our confusion.

 

Also, minor point, but I absolutely believe Nightblood understands identity, and that he is sentient and aware of his own identity. I do not think this fact is relevant to discussions of the Type III entities, which are non-sentient.

 

Words of Radiance spoilers.

 

I don't count "I am a stick" as Identity. I think Identity is something only sentient things have, and based on the ars arcanum I think it's a trait of the Spiritual Realm. I realize at this point, we're entirely into a semantic, and therefore pointless, debate. Shadesmar absolutely contains something, a set of definitions surrounding the reality of an object. I'm getting the impression that you're using the word "Identity" to describe this. It's not what I mean when I say the word "Identity."

 

I'm not totally sure I understand your point in asking about using Breaths to power Soulcasting. We know so little about it that it's impossible to do more than speculate. Hopefully, if we clear up our confusion on terminology, the question will become irrelevant, because I have absolutely no idea what jury-rigged Soulcasting would look like. As far as I know, we have only seen one jury-rigged system ever, and we know next to nothing about the mechanics of how it works.

 

So, can you please tell me how you define the term "Identity"? I feel like we're up against a roadblock until we are speaking the same language.

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Ah.  Yes.  I believe the reason Stick says "I am Stick" is the most fundamental part of the Cognitive (and perhaps this is unwitting headcanon on my part).  Not to beat a non-sentient Stick, but the very statement and repetition of "I am Stick" tells us something of what the Cognitive realm is actually built to facilitate: what you are.  Perhaps you're right and this isn't Identity at all.  But it seems to me that what you define as Identity is better described as Sentience.  Consciousness, self-awareness, sentience.  Whatever you want to call it, it gives minds flames in Shadesmar instead of beads.  This is the core of our disagreement.    The only word I can use to describe for how a stick understands itself as a stick is that it Identifies itself as Stick.  

 

I wasn't talking about using Breaths to power Soulcasting.  I mean, imagine if from the start, Brandon came out and said "Soulcasting relies almost entirely on Spiritual power."  It doesn't change the fact that it would still use the Cognitive realm for its effects.  Incidentally, I'd say Stormlight is at least as Spiritual as Breath, so this is actually a pretty firm example of my case: when you said "Breath is largely Spiritual, so the Spiritual Realm seems more likely to be how it perceives," I reacted against the idea of the power source of the system having anything to do with its operation.  Though, once again, that's out of context.  You never actually said "because Breath is a Spiritual power source" so I'm still in the wrong for acting like you did.  

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I'm basing the fact that I call this spiritual concept by the term "Identity" based on one simple fact; in the AoL Ars Arcanum, the author says that feruchemical aluminum stores "a spiritual sense of identity." That's the only reason I try to only use the word identity to refer to the spiritual sense of it, and it's a pretty arbitrary reason.

 

The stuff you're calling "identity" I would just call your "definition". Like, my "cognitive self" the bead that would represent me in Shadesmar, would say things like "human being," "six-foot-one," "brown hair," and stuff I see about myself, and some things for how the rest of the world perceives me.

 

When I speak of spiritual Identity, I'm not talking about a person's sentience. I think I was speaking at one point about two different things, Identity and sentience, and I wasn't very clear and I made it look like both topics were the same to me. I do think that it would take sentience to recognize Identity, which is some overlap, but sentience is NOT Identity. I would suspect that only things with sentience have Identity, and I think anything with sentience will have Identity.

 

My identity, for example, would contain things like "my father's son," not just because it's genetically true, but because it informs way more of my life than I like to admit. It might contain things like the fact that I prefer to sleep in pitch darkness, that I will never do drugs, and the fact that when I'm drunk I get hungry for ramen. It would be the part of me that thinks of my grandmother whenever I have clam chowder, the part that connects with my best friend, the part that gets nervous before talking to a pretty girl at a bar. None of these things are what makes me sentient, but I don't think any of them would be part of my cognitive aspect. Add them all up, however, and you've got a big part of who I am. And I think it includes a lot of your connections to the other people around you. It's also the part of me that my sister carries around, that makes her think of me when she passes a chess shop. It's the part in my cousin that makes him drunk dial me.

 

But again, this is largely speculative. I personally see this as Spiritual things, and I think they define "who I am," so between that and the WoB about Identity being spiritual, it's how I view Identity. Until we get more specific WoB on the subject, which looks like it won't happen until Shadows of Self, at least, I don't know that anyone can say, "this isn't just what I think, it's actually correct." However, if you want to discuss identity, we really should pick some definition of what that is so we can discuss it, or else we'll just confuse each other like we've been doing.

 

To recap, and to tie it in with what you said: I agree that your cognitive self is "what you are," as you say. However, I think that each Realm has its own "what you are", and the three together end up making you. Your physical body has a "what you are" in your DNA and the actual state of your body. I can affect you in all three realms by sticking a physical sword through your physical body in this one. You cognitive self has "what you are" which might just be I am a glass goblet, and with the right Investiture you can change that so instead you're a volume of blood in the shape of a goblet, at which point gravity takes over (unless Kaladin is there.)

 

...interesting tangent, it'd be hilarious for the two of them to work together, if Kaladin half-lashed a goblet upwards to make it wholly weightless, and then Shallan Soulcast it into blood, so it would turn into liquid blood, but without gravity it would stay in the shape of a goblet...

 

So, by extension, i think that there's also a part of your spiritweb that defines "this is who you are," the same way there's a part of your body, and a part of your cognitive self. I personally call that scrap your Identity, and I call the cognitive scrap your Definition. So, rather than say, "the stick identifies itself as a stick," I would say, "The stick is Defined as a stick."

 

 

I wasn't talking about using Breaths to power Soulcasting.  I mean, imagine if from the start, Brandon came out and said "Soulcasting relies almost entirely on Spiritual power."  It doesn't change the fact that it would still use the Cognitive realm for its effects.  Incidentally, I'd say Stormlight is at least as Spiritual as Breath, so this is actually a pretty firm example of my case: when you said "Breath is largely Spiritual, so the Spiritual Realm seems more likely to be how it perceives," I reacted against the idea of the power source of the system having anything to do with its operation.  Though, once again, that's out of context.  You never actually said "because Breath is a Spiritual power source" so I'm still in the wrong for acting like you did.  

 

I... think I understand now what you're saying.

 

I actually agree that Stormlight is as Spiritual as Breath; in point of fact, I personally believe (speculation, again) that almost all raw power for Investiture in the cosmere comes from the Spiritual realm.

 

You are correct that things powered by the Spiritual can still construct mechanisms in cognitive; Soulcasting as a case-in-point. So you're right, it was an assumption on my part that a Spiritual artifact like a Breath would necessarily use spiritual senses to perceive the world. That said, the whole point is largely irrelevant. We've gotten a lot of good supporting arguments in favor of the idea that Awakened Type III Entities simply gain mundane senses, bypassing the biological mechanisms, so their senses are most likely physical, not Spiritual or Cognitive.

 

But, you were right to interpret what I was saying as, "I believe a spiritual thing will have spiritual senses," and you're also right that it was a faulty assumption on my part.

 

...I think we're almost on the same page. This is a new and unfamiliar feeling for me and I don't know if I like it...

 

I'm gonna go read sixth of the dusk and eat pizza now.

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Heh. I guess I don't have much to add but want to mention you make a good point about identity and realms: by assuming the Shadesmar beads represent Identity in their entirety, I neglected the possibility of it being a product of several realms.

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Perhaps it's strange in light of my comments earlier, but I'm still hesitantly in the "Life Sense to detect" category. You have a system with an unanswered question (how does an Awakened object perceive without sensory organs?) powered by a vehicle which which also provides Life Sense when it's inhabiting you instead of an object. The most efficient solution is the Life Sense gets passed on.

That said, Breath also enhances your senses. Perhaps "defines" is a better word. Given that you must give up both (life sense and increased senses)to awaken an object, perhaps the answer could come from Column C: yes. Why not both, just like the Awakener?

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Given that you must give up both (life sense and increased senses)to awaken an object, perhaps the answer could come from Column C: yes. Why not both, just like the Awakener?

 

Basically, yes. I don't think necessarily by default. I think that senses are something people don't usually think about, so by default they subconsciously gift to the object whatever senses it needs to get the job done. For example, Protect Me would require sight to notice incoming arrows which wouldn't trigger lifesense. Find Tunnels prolly required, what, touch? To notice when the ground felt different? I would not be surprised if you could properly conceptualize the mental intent and grant senses not strictly necessary to the Command. I wonder if you could restrict them? Could you make a doll, tell it to walk across the table and pick up a comb, but deliberately give it touch, but not sight? So it would have to crawl along until it felt an object and was able to determine that it was a comb?

 

I suspect this COULD be done explicitly, with the Awakener giving the object senses he chooses to give, not just default ones.

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Basically, yes. I don't think necessarily by default. I think that senses are something people don't usually think about, so by default they subconsciously gift to the object whatever senses it needs to get the job done. For example, Protect Me would require sight to notice incoming arrows which wouldn't trigger lifesense. Find Tunnels prolly required, what, touch? To notice when the ground felt different? I would not be surprised if you could properly conceptualize the mental intent and grant senses not strictly necessary to the Command. I wonder if you could restrict them? Could you make a doll, tell it to walk across the table and pick up a comb, but deliberately give it touch, but not sight? So it would have to crawl along until it felt an object and was able to determine that it was a comb?

 

I suspect this COULD be done explicitly, with the Awakener giving the object senses he chooses to give, not just default ones.

 

If you impart senses (I'm being cautious), this would make sense.  Vasher mentions ropes (I think) throwing boulders at one point.  Would any awakened rope be capable of throwing boulders?  Or is it because it was awakened with the mental image of a rope throwing boulders, so the rope was forced to assume that level of physical strength in order to perform its duty?  Afterall, we see a lot of people being grabbed and tangled in awakened fabrics, but no limb-breaking and people-mangling.  Doesn't that seem strange?

 

Feruchemy thought exercise:  Take a Windwhisperer, have them store up lots of sight.  Now blind him.  What happens when he taps his Sightmind?  What if his eyes were physically gouged out?  If he can still say, I'd say that's pretty compelling evidence of using Investiture to emulate a Physical structure.  If this poor, tortured Feruchemist could not see, this would be a point in favor (but not proof) of Awakened objects using Investiture to bypass the need for Physical input.

Edited by Pechvarry
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Just read the whole "Find Tunnels" bit before bed last night. It... really raised more confusion than it answered. Vasher himself was crawling around on the ground looking, then he makes the straw men with the explicit command, "Find Tunnels." They wander around, and then start jumping on one spot where there is a trap door "hidden by a thick layer of dirt." It's also expressly stated that this is a bolthole with a trap, so it's not a common entrance/exit, so it's not like they could have found footprints.

 

The door itself isn't described all that very much. Was there a cloth handle sticking out of the ground? Did they find it by "feeling" or "hearing" where the ground felt more hollow? Would the soil have been looser packed? Was there perhaps an outline of the tunnel where it was supported so the ceiling wouldn't collapse? The three of them split the Breath from his cloak, which had been Commanded to Protect Me; would a third of that one single Command grant strong enough lifesense for them to be able to say, "hey there's a hole below us where worms aren't digging"? If so, wouldn't Vasher have felt grass at a much lower Heightening than it apparently took? Also, if he was going to do it like that, wouldn't keeping all that Breath, tripling his ability to sense life, make it go much faster?

 

This is totally going on my personal list of questions to ask Mr. Sanderson...

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