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A Confused Guide to Spren


Confused

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Like the SLA characters themselves, we often take spren for granted. I thought I’d add my own definition. (What a concept!)

 

Shallan calls spren “living ideas” (WoR, Kindle p. 41). Jasnah describes them as the personification of some natural force or emotion. In Cosmere terms, spren are the Physical Realm manifestations of Cognitive Realm ideas.

 

1. A quick review of realmatic theory: Sazed, Shai and Jasnah each say that all things exist in three “forms,” three realms. These realms are the Physical, Cognitive and Spiritual – Body, Mind and Spirit. (See the “Origin of the Cosmere” post for a fuller discussion of this subject. You might also look at “Plato, Spinoza and Jung’s Contributions to Realmatic Theory” for background  information.)

 

a. I believe all things exist simultaneously in each realm. Except for what I’ll call an “inchoate idea” (defined below), there is always a one-to-one-to-one correspondence for each object or idea in each of the three realms. How an object or idea appears in each realm – its “presence” – may differ from realm to realm. But the one-to-one-to-one correspondence is always there. (Some disagree with this idea.) If there is such a thing as a “unit of investiture,” each gob of investiture would hold the same number of such units in each of the three realms regardless of how the gob appears in a realm. (Some also disagree with this idea.)

 

An “inchoate idea” is an idea that hasn’t been sufficiently clarified in Physical Realm sentient minds to form a Spiritual Realm “ideal.” Thus, it does not yet (and may never) exist in the Spiritual Realm, though it does exist in the Physical and Cognitive Realms.

 

b. Example: Tozbek’s boat The Wind’s Pleasure exists in the Physical Realm. It also exists in “the thoughts of the people who served on it, knew it, thought about it” – in the Cognitive Realm. (WoR, Kindle p. 119.) Because it exists in the Physical Realm, for reasons expressed in the linked post The Wind’s Pleasure also exists as a Spiritual Realm ideal, an “essence.” One object, defined by its three points of contact – Body, Mind and Spirit.

 

c. As stated in the “Origin of the Cosmere” post, I believe all magic begins in the mind that directs it. (There is an ongoing debate whether this “rule” applies to “unconscious” magic, like healing when you’re asleep; but I think there may be agreement on the conscious exercise of power.)  Cognitive investiture – the mind – is required to create Physical Realm magical effects.

 

2. Before spren manifest in the Physical Realm – before spren become “living” ideas – they begin as simple ideas created by the collective minds of the Physical Realm’s sentient beings. A simple idea’s Physical Realm presence is the bodies of the sentient minds that hold that idea – us.

 

3. “Living” ideas in the Physical Realm – spren – come in different sizes. Rainspren are smaller than riverspen are smaller than Cusicesh. These size differences reflect the different amounts of investiture comprising each spren. Shallan says lesser spren like rainspren are mindless, while riverspren and windspren are mischievous and can mimic human voices. “Powerful spren” like the Nightwatcher have greater presence and powers. In-between are the so-called “Radiant spren” – splinter-size fragments of power, Pattern says.

 

4. Regardless of size, spren are characterized by their “sentience” – their capacity to feel, the lowest level of consciousness. For a “pre-spren” idea to transition to the Physical Realm and attain sentience seems to require additional investiture. My analogy is the addition or subtraction of energy to cause matter state-changes. Shallan gave Stormlight to The Wind’s Pleasure to enable it to turn to water (after it first harrumphed at her over what it perceived was a bribe of the Stormlight.)

 

5. I speculate that the type of investiture involved in the transition is relevant. Power only invests consistent with its mandate (intent). Syl required Honor’s investiture to manifest, as Pattern and Wyndle required some combination of Cultivation’s and Honor’s. A mandate-consistent idea plus the same mandated investiture (lock and key) determines the nature of the spren manifesting. (When the investiture is Stormlight, this consideration is irrelevant. I believe Stormlight consolidates the investiture of each of the three Shards, so Stormlight by itself can animate any spren’s transition.)

 

6. Syl is a splinter-size fragment of Honor’s power. Syl “dangerously” enters the Physical Realm as a mere windspren, however, and only with a windspren’s “sentience.” (WoR, Kindle p. 132.) If she can’t find Kaladin, she will remain a windspren. When Syl does bond with cognitively like-minded Kaladin (i.e., whose Spirit Web reflects the Windrunners’ “Divine Attributes” of protection and leading), her mind develops further and she attains “sapience” – “wisdom,” the capacity to make judgments.

 

7. A bonded spren is a bit of a god's mind attached to a human mind. A bonded spren remains as cognitive investiture. The Nahel bond turns a Knight Radiant into the Shard’s avatar and enables the Knight to direct the Shard's power in the Physical Realm. That little bit of Honor’s cognitive investiture called an honorspren is what combines with Kaladin's mind to enable his direction of magical effects.

 

That’s the Confused version of spren. See if you can straighten it out for me a little...

Edited by Confused
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Seems mostly supported by what the text suggests (except maybe #5). My main question would be:

 

- If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make a spren?

 

Or, is it actually accurate that all spren (or pre-spren) are created by sentient minds? I'd suggest that there are different kinds of spren, some which are tied to sentients (and thus require sentient beings to exist and/or reproduce) while others may spontaneously arise (or may require an observer, but not necessarily a sentient one). It's pretty clear that the other direction has to be true (it seems impossible to have e.g. gloryspren without something to understand what glory is).

 

Also, the concept of the pre-spren seems at odds with the idea that everything exists on all Realms at the same time (barring the specific exception mentioned). Wouldn't pre-spren by definition not exist on the Physical?

 

My general gut feeling was that the spren are Cognitive beings that exist independently of sentients, but require a 'template' from something that straddles the Physical and Cognitive to cross over into the Physical (could be objects or could be a creature). 'Crossing over' doesn't seem to actually remove the spren from the Cognitive (based on the experience of Shallan during her stick->fire fail) so crossing over might not actually be a good term for it (bleeding over?).

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In Cosmere terms, spren are the Physical Realm manifestations of Cognitive Realm ideas.

Gonna have to disagree with that. We learn in Elantris that, for example, a river runs down because the Dor makes it so, at least according to Galladon. In our world, this is done because gravity pulls the water down. Or the hot air moves up, and more air rushes into the vacuum below, creating wind. In cosmere, there is a spiritual component to these things, namely the power of Adonalsium or Investiture. The way I see it, when the wind blows in the Physical Realm, there is Investiture in the Spiritual Realm that's correspondent to that Physical manifestation backing that, and a Cognitive element that's correspondent to that Investiture. Over time, sapient beings shape this Cognitive element that's specific to the Investiture that creates the wind, giving us the windspren. And sometimes, these windspren leak into the Physical Realm.

 

I think that Brandon's been trolling us with that "do windspren cause wind or are they attracted to it" question. I think it's both. They're inseparable and simultaneous.

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...

 

The way I see it, when the wind blows in the Physical Realm, there is Investiture in the Spiritual Realm that's correspondent to that Physical manifestation backing that, and a Cognitive element that's correspondent to that Investiture. Over time, sapient beings shape this Cognitive element that's specific to the Investiture that creates the wind, giving us the windspren. And sometimes, these windspren leak into the Physical Realm.

 

I think that Brandon's been trolling us with that "do windspren cause wind or are they attracted to it" question. I think it's both. They're inseparable and simultaneous.

 

I don't quite follow the argument between the paragraphs; the first seems to suggest that spren are in fact caused by Physical phenomena, and not the other way around. Doesn't that answer the second question pretty directly?

 

As far as I can tell, there appears to be no instances of spren actually causing what they're associated with (there are many, many counterexamples, while the only example Kaladin can provide are rotspren, which, given understanding of microbiotics, is easy to explain as a misconception).

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As far as I can tell, there appears to be no instances of spren actually causing what they're associated with (there are many, many counterexamples, while the only example Kaladin can provide are rotspren, which, given understanding of microbiotics, is easy to explain as a misconception).

 

A big example: fabrials. Stick a spren in a gem, give it Stormlight, and it creates its phenomenon on demand. Or at least, that's how things seem to work as far as we can tell.

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A big example: fabrials. Stick a spren in a gem, give it Stormlight, and it creates its phenomenon on demand. Or at least, that's how things seem to work as far as we can tell.

 

That's a good point. I'm not sure that it works exactly in that manner, though, since there are reducer fabrials as well as the augmenters; the augmenter fabrials could be explained just as you said, but it's unclear how e.g. a pain reducing fabrial would work in that sense (what is the spren for lack of pain?). Also, the conjoiner, reverser and alarm fabrials don't seem to have any obvious spren analogues. It seems likely that there's something more involved besides just sticking a spren in a bottle with stormlight to make the fabrials work.

 

Still, augmenter fabrials do seem suspiciously like spren creating their associated phenomena. The main example, though, is that heating fabrial Navani installs; this fabrial doesn't seem to actually create a flame, but instead seems to augment heat. If the associated spren was a flamespren, it seems like we'd expect it to actually create a fire - but that does not appear to be how the fabrial actually works.

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It seems likely that there's something more involved besides just sticking a spren in a bottle with stormlight to make the fabrials work.

 

Gem type and gem cut, if we go by Navani's journal. I imagine a certain cut of gem can create a reversal effect and a different cut/type will create an augmentation. A pain knife could work with a trapped painspren and a reversal fabrial cut.

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Gem type and gem cut, if we go by Navani's journal. I imagine a certain cut of gem can create a reversal effect and a different cut/type will create an augmentation. A pain knife could work with a trapped painspren and a reversal fabrial cut.

 

Seems reasonable. I don't think the fabrials ultimately disprove that spren do not in of themselves cause their associated phenomena, but the relationship implied by the fabrials seem to suggest at that very least, there is a way to invert the casual relationship between spren and their phenomena.

 

That in turn seems to imply the possibility of a feedback cycle - phenomena -> spren -> more phenomena. Possibly interesting implications (related to spren reproduction? Are fabrials essentially the equivalent of forced KR bonds?).

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