Theory: the nature of spren

[Telcontar]

This is going to be a huge post, I fear. I was already doing some research about Investiture in general, Investiture on Roshar, spren and Stormlight. Then I stumbled about this quote

BS:

Objects with almost sentient behavior like nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the Spren from tWoK. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.

and I realized that I HAD to understand spren. I can't be sure that I do now, of course, but I think I have found a reasonable explanation about their nature.

Again: I'm aware that probably most of what I am going to say has already been discussed, mentioned or discarded somewhere in these >30.000 posts. If you have a problem with that, I invite you to read the epilogue of tWoK, especially Wit's thoughts about what men value most.

Like everything posted on these forums, ideas are based on some premises. The lack of one will completely undermine everything I say, that's sure. That's the premises I base my explanation upon:

I will be open to discuss these with you, if you feel the need. Still, I think that I will give you enough to discuss anyway.

1 – The energy used in every magic system is basically the same: the power of creation (herafter referred to as 'Power'). Its use is influenced by the Shard who is responsible for the magic system.

2 – The Power is spiritual energy. It can manifest in solid, liquid or gaseous form, though.

2 – An Investiture is a transfer of the power of creation from subject to subject or from subject to object.

3 – There are two forms of Investiture: primary Investiture is the transfer of Power from a Shard to subject or object. Secondary Investitures are transfers from human to subject or object.

4 – For the sake of argumentation I will only refer to Honor as being the Shard involved with Surgebinding. If it's Cultivation instead, this won't change anything because of premise #1.

The starting point of my argumentation is the bond between a spren and a human which gives the human access to magical abilities. I believe Nohadon called it the Nahel Bond. I will speak of the 'Bond'. (James' Bond. not funny, I know) The Bond is the best thing to give us some clues to understand spren.

How the Bond works

Any human living in the Cosmere needs to get invested before it can perform any magic. On Roshar people get invested because of how they act. The process of getting invested is in fact a Primary Investiture. Ie the transfer of the Power from Honor to a human.

Which means that the Bond is a Primary Investiture.

Primary Investiture in Allomancy is the swallowing of Lerasium. Learasium is Power in solid form. In other words, you get an amount of spiritual energy from Preservation directly. This rewrites one's spritual DNA (sDNA). In the terms of the author of the Ars Arcana, it rewrites your Spiritweb. The sDNA is thereafter transferred by genetics.

In AonDor, Primary Investiture would be the Shaod. The Shaod being some surge of Dor coming upon you. The Dor is, of course, nothing else than the Power (premise #1). So you are invested with the Power, with spiritual energy. You even receive that much Power, that you start to glow and heal quickly.

So somehow, through the Bond, Power is transferred from Honor to bondee.

The bondee is a human of course. Humans have three parts: body, mind and spirit. In the cosmere however, spirit is nothing else than Power:

Power is spiritual energy

AonRao is the Aon for Spirit. If used, the Aon releases a burst of energy or 'power'. Also, the huge AonRao which is Elantris and the four outer cities, makes the Aons much more powerful.

I say that the spiritual part of a human (the soul) is made from the Power. I also say, that humans in the Cosmere, in order to gain sentience, and become human, absolutely need to have a soul. That's why Preservation needed to put some part of his own Power (spiritual) in every human so that they could gain sentience. (This also is an Investiture, but not one sufficient for magical abilities, see below)

So the human is made of his body (physical aspect), his mind (cognitive aspect) and his soul (spiritual aspect). The soul would be nothing else than some of the Power itself.

From the HoA annotations to chapter 49 part 2, we know that even though every Scadrialian has a bit of Preservation in them, it is generally not enough for Allomancy. This means that you have not enough spirit. You can gain enough spirit by Lerasium, reaching the sufficient level of spirit required for magic.

If you apply this to humans on Roshar, then I'd say that every human has a part of Honor in them ('creator of mankind'). This spiritual part, which is required for sentience, is not enough for Surgebinding though.

That's where spren come to play their role. If you gain magical abilities through the Bond, then this means that the spren procures you enough spirit to reach the required level.

A spren is able to do so, because it itself is spiritual energy. That's not new at all, I know. But. By forming the Bond the human gets the spirit he needs. The spren mingles itself with the human, becoming a part of him. While touching the human spirit, it also touches the human mind, thus gaining intelligence in return.

So, in summary, as the result of the Bond, the human raises his spirit-level from like 30% to 100%. That's how he gains enough spirit, which is nothing else than the Power of creation.

Because the human has a spirit-level of 100 from then on (until the Bond breaks), he will be able to perform Surgebindings.

This is why Surgebinding is not genetic.

About the nature of spren

We'eve seen so far that Syl is spiritual energy which can gain sentience by bonding with a human and tapping into his mind.

I say that this is the requirement for sentience in the Cosmere: cognitive and spiritual aspects bound together. While everything has a cognitive aspect, there is only some few things that have spiritual aspects. Humans, mainly. Which makes sentient beings.

Now, a short excursion about Nightblood. Nightblood is an 'almost-sentient' object. It is made of steel. Steel has a cognitive aspect but no spirit. However, if you give enough spirit (in the form of Breath- yes, Breath is spiritual energy, a part of Endowment) to it, the mix of cognitive aspect and spirit will produce sentience.

But why then does BS speak of an 'almost-sentient' object? I theorize that cognitive aspects can be big or small. While humans have very big cognitive aspects, objects have much smaller ones. The fewer life is in an object, the fewer cognitive aspect is there. That is not that hard to believe, I'd say.

Now. In order to bring sentience to something with a very small cognitive aspect, you'd need to put much more spirit in it. On the other hand, humans, with a big cognitive aspect would only require a tiny amount of spirit to gain sentience.

As steel or stone probably have the smallest cognitive aspects possible, even a huge amount of spirit (like 1000 Breaths) would not be enough to give them complete sentience. So they remain 'almost-sentient'. Dead people, corpses would keep their cognitive aspect, but the spirit left them (the soul is gone). But as they are super-cognitive, a single Breath is enough to awaken them. Organic things, like animals or rope need more Breath than a Lifeless but much less than Nightblood.

Back to spren. If my theory is right so far, then whereever a cognitive aspect meets spirit, sentience would form.

Now imagine what would happen if there is a huge storm carrying Power (Stormlight) all over the world. Yes, cognitive aspect would meet spirit. It would mingle and sentient beings would form. They would glow, because the Power glows. And because the cognitive aspects are so small, the little amount of Power coming with a Highstorm wouldn't be enough to form complete-sentient beings but would remain small things barely conscient enough to stay with whatever attracted them.

This explains why there are no spren in Shinovar.

So that's the nature of spren. They are cognitive aspects of things which came in contact with Stormlight forming an 'a-little-bit-sentient' being.

Of course, spren can only show themselves, when the cognitive aspect is released, by destruction or change. That's why they appear when something changes (emotion, weather etc.)

This would require that emotions have cognitive aspects on their own, as would music have, for example. I'm somewhat unsure about that.

About honorspren

I now try to figure out if honorspren are the same as normal spren or if they are something different.

"[Humans] all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that – animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense, virtually the same individual. There's harmony in that. [...]"

"But not all windspren act alike.[...] You're proof of that."

"I know", she said softly, "Maybe now you can see why it bothers me so."

This quote also is useful to illustrate what I have said so far. Humans all act differently because they are sentient beings, nothing else is like that (like in: nothing else has a soul). Spren are all the same individual because they all are made from spirit.

Of course there is something special in Syl and her presumed relatives. She acts not alike. But that's only because she has already formed a bond with Kaladin which made her very sentient. So she starts acting on her own, like humans.

She had been bonded to a KR in the old days, when the Bond broke, she lost sentience to the low level of normal spren. She says that before the Bond she was only able to remember things for some minutes. So there was something left. Which brings me to the conclusion that she has a cognitive aspect on her own.

This is the first possibility. Syl is a normal spren and any spren could Bond with a human

The other possibility is that Syl is special and only spren of her type could Bond.

One would think that a normal spren wouldn't have enough spirit to form a Bond, if only small cognitive aspects are bound with small amounts of spirit (Stormlight). So Syl would have much more spirit. About the Splinter-idea. This would make sense:

If honorspren are Splinters of Honor, Surgebinding would be much more of his own magic system than if he only sent Highstorms every now and then. Honor would create Splinters so that they only Bond to special people, depending on how those act. (Of course this has been compromised. Maybe he wasn't accurate enough in his creation, like Vasher with his 'Destroy evil'-Command). As they are Splinters, naturally, they have a large amount of Power, ie they are large amounts of Power.

Also, Brandon has said that we have seen Splinters on Roshar. The only things I can think of being Splinters apart from honorspren are Shardplate and -blade. But those are Invested objects. I don't know if there is a difference between an invested object and a Splinter, but we have this:

Does Szeth have metal on him? Szeth's Shardblade would be mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, as it's an Invested object. But he'd still have trouble getting to them if he had a clasp on his shoes, for example. He doesn't carry a lot of metal, but he might have some.

and this:

(me) b4dave:

My question is, why are they called Shardblades/Shardplate? Is it because they are a splinter of the the Shard Honor, or is there something more to them than that?

(BS): As for your question, you are on the right track.

So I believe that Blade and Plate are not Splinters. So I'm going for honorspren being the Splinters we've seen on Roshar.

EDIT:

I found this quote.

Louise wrote: "Is spren lost their memories and personalities because of the loss of their attached radiants? But retain a basic attraction to things associated with the radiants they bonded to previously?"

Not all types of spren bonded to Radiants. You will find out more about this in the future. However, if you're speaking specifically of spren that were bonded to Radiants, then yes, you're on the right track.

yeah, not the best quote, it could either mean "not all types of spren bonded in general" or "not all types of spren bonded to Radiants"

But I don't believe every spren could bond, but merely those who are Splinters.

Summary

This was very long but I hope you enjoyed it. I'll just point out my conclusions.

The soul as the spiritual aspect of a human is spirit which is the power of creation.

Sentience is gained when cognitive aspect and spirit are joined.

Spren are power of creation that has come into contact with a cognitive aspect.

Stormlight is power of creation in the raw form.

Honorspren are probably Splinters

As to the first quote about similarities between spren and Nightblood, I think it's about gaining sentience when spirit meets cognitive aspects and about how much of either is required. The sentience part could prove useful in further Realmatic theory.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Telcontar

[Odium's_Shard]

One would think that, by very definition of the word, the Cognitive Aspect would determine intellect, and intellect (or lack of it) is what forms comprehensible sentience. The Cognitive ties the two Realms or Physical and Spiritual together. Thus, even if the object possesses it (Cognitive), then without a Spiritual Aspect, the Cognitive has no purpose (as the bridge between Realms) and so isn't used. So I take your point that Power is necessary for sentience, just not in the way you stated.

Your welcome.

[Telcontar]

One would think that, by very definition of the word, the Cognitive Aspect would determine intellect, and intellect (or lack of it) is what forms comprehensible sentience. The Cognitive ties the two Realms or Physical and Spiritual together. Thus, even if the object possesses it (Cognitive), then without a Spiritual Aspect, the Cognitive has no purpose (as the bridge between Realms) and so isn't used. So I take your point that Power is necessary for sentience, just not in the way you stated.

one would think that, indeed. One would also think that a stone does not have a cognitive aspect. Yet in the Cosmere it does.

I see a difference between the notions of sentience and intellect. This is mostly based upon the christian idea that the soul is what makes us human. (I can only guess, of course, that Brandon may be influenced by such ideas) In the cosmere that is the spirit which only made humans sentient, distinguishing them from animals etc.

I do not really get why you think Power is necessary, could you please rephrase that?

[Odium's_Shard]

As the Cognitive is the bridge between Spiritual and Physical, if there is no Spiritual Aspect, there in no need for a bridge, or it would at least be dysfunctional. Think about having two floating islands. They have a bridge between them. Imagine if one of the islands disappeared. Simply vanished. What would happen to the bridge? It would cease to have a functional existence.

The only problem with this theory is that in Warbreaker, Drabs are still sentient. Sure, they have no life sense, but they are still sentient, even though they have no 'Breath'/Spiritual Aspect. One can only assume that they all have slight presences of Endowment in them, if only residual from their creation in the first place.

[Aradel]

I've always guessed that the Nalthians would call everyone else in the cosmere drabs. The single breath every Nalthian is born with is added to the normal level of primary investment required for sentience.

[Triasmus]

This whole theory makes sense to me. I'm willing to espouse it .

[Aradel]

Actually, while I'm thinking about could the plates and blades be smaller peices of adanalsium? Ones not part of the sixteen shards?

If adonalsium didn't break cleanly, there'd be a bunch of tiny peices that don't behave in the same way as larger shards.

[Windrunner]

I think a drab is similar to someone who survived having their powers removed via Hemalurgic spike, only less so. A large portion of their spiritual aspect is gone, but by no means all of it.

[Telcontar]

As the Cognitive is the bridge between Spiritual and Physical, if there is no Spiritual Aspect, there in no need for a bridge, or it would at least be dysfunctional. Think about having two floating islands. They have a bridge between them. Imagine if one of the islands disappeared. Simply vanished. What would happen to the bridge? It would cease to have a functional existence.

ok. then your premise is, that there has to be a spiritual aspect in everything? Might be. But if everything has a spiritual aspect (which I think unlikely, as to the special status of humans, having a soul) then the spirit-level of anything not human is very very low.

The only problem with this theory is that in Warbreaker, Drabs are still sentient. Sure, they have no life sense, but they are still sentient, even though they have no 'Breath'/Spiritual Aspect. One can only assume that they all have slight presences of Endowment in them, if only residual from their creation in the first place.

As the others have said, I think that the spirit level of Nalthisians is just lowered to a very low level.

About drabs. Windrunner already pointed out, that drabs are (possibly) similar to people having lost their spirit by Hemalurgy.

I'd like to point out similarities with Feruchemy. You see, there is at least four metals which allow you to store spirit:

- chromium stores fortune

- nicrosil stores Investiture

- aluminium stores identity

- duralumin stores connection

From the AoL Ars Arcanum we know that at least identity and connection are spiritual. Now, when you are storing duralumin, it reduces "other people's awareness and friendship" with you. This sounds to me a lot like drabs. You can't sense them like you can people with Breath.

So, to use the terms of the HoA annotation (chapter 49 part 2) I already mentioned, I suppose people with at least one Breath have a spirit level of around 50% (which is appearently enough for mistings). The more Breath you gain, the more you approach a level of 100% or maybe more.

If you give your Breath away, it will lower you spirit level to something like 10%. Leaving you sentient but much less than any person with Breath.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Telcontar

[Tulir]

Overall a very good theory, but there has been something about the Nahel Bomd that has always bugged me. I will try to get a theory up to explain it, and it might contradict your theory, but I like it!

[Wisdom]

Hmm, I wonder if the Nahel Bond is symbiotic. Say maybe the person and the spren "share" spiritual and cognitive aspects so both are greater than the sum of their parts. We haven't seen anyone achieve a full Nahel Bond (i.e. they've swore all 5 Ideals) in detail.

[Telcontar]

Hmm, I wonder if the Nahel Bond is symbiotic. Say maybe the person and the spren "share" spiritual and cognitive aspects so both are greater than the sum of their parts. We haven't seen anyone achieve a full Nahel Bond (i.e. they've swore all 5 Ideals) in detail.

that is what I said, actually. Syl taps into Kaladin's mind to increase her cognitive aspect, thus gaining more and more personality.

But we have seen a full Nahel Bond. Remember when Nohadon spoke about the Nahel Bond? When that vision of Dalinar's took place, there were no KRs yet. So no Bond with 5 oaths.

However, if you say that we have not seen a fully enhanced Nahel Bond, yes, you're right.

I'd say that speaking the Oaths gives you a greater access to the Power, you increase your spirit level to over 100. This grants you that much more magical abilities.

Remember the description of Radiants? Their eyes glowing, being almost white. That's because they are so full of spirit.

[Wisdom]

Ah, sorry about that. My eyes skipped over the line, I was tired at the time. It would also explain where the idea came from .

[Telcontar]

A related thought.

If sentience comes indeed from the combination of enough cognitive aspect and spirit.

I wondered if parshmen aren't something like 'super-drabs' The only time where they show a sign of sentience is when you touch their dead fellows. they don't care about themselves, would just stand around until someone tells them what to do. It's like they lack anything that makes them 'human'. And what makes beings human is the soul ie the spirit.

Parshendi would be the same with a lot of spirit, making them super-guys.

Random speculation without foundation (sometimes I like to do that )

When creating humans Honor first tried out the natives he found on Roshar: parshmen. He gave them a tiny amount of spirit, but that didn't work as he wanted. Maybe Odium interfered, unimportant. Parshendi are those where Honor did a good job. Because Honor sucked with making parshmen sentient, he created humans.

There was mention that people on Scadrial had been there before Preservation came to give them sentience. Something along this idea.

[Sweetness]

I distinctly remember Shallan coming to the conclusion that the human race created the parshmen. So maybe the humans figured out a way to remove the spirit from the parshmen?

[Telcontar]

If that's true, I have not noticed that part. could you back that up? it would surely be interesting.

My belief is that they are indeed the natives of Roshar (at least the Parshendi) as they seem more adapted to a Highstorm-determined life with their body-carapace.

[Sweetness]

The conclusion was that the parshmen were the Voidbringers. I'm looking for the passage now. "Created" was not the correct term, but rather "enslaved." Give me a second.

Got it. Page 979-980

Beings of ash and fire.

"We fought with them," Jasnah said. "We fought so often that men began to speak of the creatures in metaphor. A hundred battles - ten tenfolds..."

Flame and char. Skin so terrible. Eyes likes pits of blackness. Music when they kill.

"We defeated them..." Jasnah said.

Shallan felt a chill.

"... but the legends lie about one thing," Jasnah continued. "The claim we chased the Voidbringers off the face of Roshar or destroyed them. But that's not how humans work. We don't throw away somehing we can use."

Shallan rose, walking to the edge of the balcony, looking out at the lift, which was slowly being lowered by its two porters.

Parshmen. With skin of black and red.

Ash and fire.

"Stormfather..." Shallan whispered, horrified.

"We didn't destroy the Voidbringers," Jasnah said from behind, her voice haunted. "We enslaved them."

So yes, they could well be native to Roshar. But I think this passage shows that the disparity between parshmen and Parshendi is something that the humans did, not Honor. Which I think was the point I was making. I'm not really sure anymore.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Sweetness

[Telcontar]

ok, thank you, I get your idea now.

My problem was that I don't even consider the possibility that Jasnah may be right in her conclusion that parshmen are the Voidbringers.

But you bring up an interesting point. If humans are indeed responsible for Parshendi becoming parshmen by blowing away their spirit, then that is a nice version of enslavement. Also, that would explain how every parshmen on Roshar can become wild at once. Because their spirit will be restored in some way.

intriguing

[Odium's_Shard]

I had was of the mind that the parshmen (as all slaves are) become obedient through centuries of continual torture or beatings. Eventually one learns to shut up and do as you're told. They might even commune in secret to talk, or to actually have personalities, and you would never know.

Either your theory is correct (although how can you remove the spirit? Only Hemalurgy so far could do something like that. But perhaps in the ancient days, when Radiants walked the Earth, [in accordance with the 'links between magic systems' theory] they knew of a Hemalurgy-like power that does this [sounds to unHonorable to me]) and they are without spirit, and Odium/Honour/Cultivation (random theory time: Cultivation wants to test humankind to force them to 'grow' and stop being lazy/ignorant/indulgent) restores that to them, suddenly creating 'Voidbringers', or my theory is right, and they secretly conspire to destroy the world, hearing whispers of their plot from Odium/Cultivation (like Sazed touching the minds in AoL) at a certain date. Or Jasnah is wrong.

[Sweetness]

I don't think Jasnah is wrong, personally. While we're spitting out random theories, consider this; The Knights Radiant had all sorts of cool magic that has since been lost to humanity. Why couldn't the Parshendi have had something similar? They have Shardbearers. Maybe "Voidbringer" was just a name for a sect, their elite warriors, or magic-users.

[Windrunner]

Personally I feel the Parshmen were bound using a Dawnshard. We know from the TWoK Epigraphs that one of them had the power to "bind" any creature, Voidish or human. They have been locked in a mindless states for centuries, most likely because they were Voidbringers. As for the Parshendi, I don't know exactly how they differ from regular Parshmen/Voidbringers, but they obviously are honorable, so as others have suggested, them might be under someone else's control.

[Telcontar]

I'd like to point out that my idea was pure speculation, far from anything I'd consider a theory. Just a possible application of the original theory.

So before we get too much off-topic, let's just start another parshmen-thread to discuss how one could make them like they are.

But as I'm not a very good example myself...

Maybe it was not humans but Odium who punished the Parshendi for taking sides with Honor during Desolations. As a Shard it should be possible to affect beings like this. Again, just rambling.

[Odium's_Shard]

I am with Windrunner that it could be one of the Dawnshards, but then again, eventual degradation of the spirit is just as effective (as Earth's history has repeatedly proven) as any mystical power. However i feel that Brandon will want an actual purpose for each Dawnshard, so I might consider Windrunner's theory foremost over mine, if either of them are true.

[Aethling]

Spren could be a physical representation of Cultivation.

[Telcontar]

EDIT:

I found this quote.

Louise wrote: "Is spren lost their memories and personalities because of the loss of their attached radiants? But retain a basic attraction to things associated with the radiants they bonded to previously?"

Not all types of spren bonded to Radiants. You will find out more about this in the future. However, if you're speaking specifically of spren that were bonded to Radiants, then yes, you're on the right track.

yeah, not the best quote, it could either mean "not all types of spren bonded in general" or "not all types of spren bonded to Radiants"

But I don't believe every spren could bond, but merely those who are Splinters.