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Concerning Spren


Shallan's Ward

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I've been pondering over the nature of spren recently and have come to this question/theory that I would like to propose.

We know that the races of spren are not finite in number and new ones can come into existence.

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AllomancerSam[PENDING REVIEW]

Are there a finite number of types of spren, or can new ones be created?

Brandon Sanderson[PENDING REVIEW]

New ones can be created.

source

We know that spren come into existence because men think of a concept as alive, giving loose investiture life, though I cannot find a wob on this after searching.

My question/theory (hypothetically speaking) is that if all of Roshar became Cosmere-aware would spren such as investiturespren and and Shardspren (as in the shards in general) eventually develop?

What do the great minds of the shard think?

 

Edited by Shallan's Ward
Grammatical/spelling correction
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I wouldn't consider myself a great mind, but.

 

I imagine it could be possible. Who knows how long something like this would take? I have wondered in the past if we have seen something like this happen already with the Stormfather. Perhaps he existed originally as just an entity created by people thinking of the Highstorm and as cultures developed and began to know name him interchangeably with Honor, he became some sort of shard spren. Because people viewed Honor and the Stormfather as the same, it eventually changed him and started to make him more like what we know him to be today.

Understanding the process of making a new cognitive entity or a change in the cognitive realm is something I have found interesting. Depending on how easily it would be to create things there by thinking of them, you could do some interesting things. Maybe even carve out some empty space to build an academy of sorts. 

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I think the problem with an Investiturespren is that it's, uhm, investiture personified by investiture? Plus, Investiture is simply more basic than the things that are personified; we don't have matterspren or energyspren either.

As for the Shards, they are, in a way, already spren. The definition of spren is... quite broad.

 

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2 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

I think the problem with an Investiturespren is that it's, uhm, investiture personified by investiture? Plus, Investiture is simply more basic than the things that are personified; we don't have matterspren or energyspren either.

As for the Shards, they are, in a way, already spren. The definition of spren is... quite broad.

 

Do we not have something like matterspren or energy spren because there isn't enough influence on the cognitive realm to create them or is it just not possible to create them?

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Dont think we'd get literal Investiture Spren or Shardspren, because as others have said that's a bit of lingual paradox.  But as the populace as a whole became more realmicly aware you might get things like IdentitySpren or ConnectionSpren, though there's a very real possibility that those are basically covered with like Honor-spren or something.  You could definitely get more specific subsets as technology develops, I could see thinks like Shipspren or even gunspren. Starspren would become more prevalent to a space-fairing culture, etc. 

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18 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Dont think we'd get literal Investiture Spren or Shardspren, because as others have said that's a bit of lingual paradox.  But as the populace as a whole became more realmicly aware you might get things like IdentitySpren or ConnectionSpren, though there's a very real possibility that those are basically covered with like Honor-spren or something.  You could definitely get more specific subsets as technology develops, I could see thinks like Shipspren or even gunspren. Starspren would become more prevalent to a space-fairing culture, etc. 

There's also the point of, we modern day humans like personifying things like death or fire or whatever, but have you ever heard about someone personifying quarks or the First Law of Thermodynamics?

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14 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

There's also the point of, we modern day humans like personifying things like death or fire or whatever, but have you ever heard about someone personifying quarks or the First Law of Thermodynamics?

I dont know about the First Law, but the Third Law of Thermodynamics is Entropy, and that one gets personified every other week. 

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1 hour ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Do we even have a rigorous definition of what a Spren is? Because the term is used so broadly in SLA that it basically includes absolutely everything that’s Investiture-based, including Shards themselves.

That's basically the only definition there is, as "spren" is Rosharan in origin.

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1 hour ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Do we even have a rigorous definition of what a Spren is? Because the term is used so broadly in SLA that it basically includes absolutely everything that’s Investiture-based, including Shards themselves.

I think this is the WoB that people are talking about, which states that Rosharans would call Nightblood, Shards, and even Adonalsium spren.  However, that definition is super broad, and probably based off of the lack of Realmatic knowledge on the part of the Rosharans.  We already have a term for a chunk of Investiture: splinter.  In my opinion, it makes sense to use spren to refer to just the Rosharan version (which is, I think, how most people use it).  

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23 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I think this is the WoB that people are talking about, which states that Rosharans would call Nightblood, Shards, and even Adonalsium spren.  However, that definition is super broad, and probably based off of the lack of Realmatic knowledge on the part of the Rosharans.  We already have a term for a chunk of Investiture: splinter.  In my opinion, it makes sense to use spren to refer to just the Rosharan version (which is, I think, how most people use it).  

Even that seems too broad though, since that would make the Unmade a type of ‘spren’ as well, and they seem more like their own category altogether.

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2 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Do we even have a rigorous definition of what a Spren is? Because the term is used so broadly in SLA that it basically includes absolutely everything that’s Investiture-based, including Shards themselves.

There is that WOB that calls them specifically Investiture that has gains sentience, including Spren and Aons, and to a weirder degree Nightblood.  But to my mind that would not include the Shards, the Returned, or the Heralds whom all have the full set of physical, cognitive, and Spiritual Selves. 

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The term spren is meaningless. We tend to use it for Roshar specific splinters. 

Rosharans though don't just use it for what we call spren or larger, they also use it for the "spren of objects" also known at the beads in the Cognitive. 

Spren are literally everything. How many times have we heard "everything has a spren"? 

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3 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

I also once came up with the idea of nerdspren eventually being a thing. There will be more spren as time goes on. And yeah, the term spren is only useful to a point. 

Hmm, "Nerdspren" might already be covered by Inkspren, in the way that "geekspren" would probably just be Joyspren.

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10 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

Eh Idk about that. Geeking out is different than straight up joy. 

Hmm, definitely in the same neighborhood at least, Ive often heard Geeking out described as something along the line of Juicing your Joy Gland. Out of curiosity, where do you see the distinction?

 

As on a more general note, I think that it will be FAAR more likely/common for their to develop spren of the Physical type (wind, Fire, Stars, Motorcylces, etc) that the emotional ones.  As a philosophic statement I view Emotions as more of a spectrum (or maybe constellations); they are less individual states than they are just labeled regions of a continuous spread, without actual gaps to discover new things.  Maybe they could get new ones with wholly new races (like Dragons or the Singers maybe) but I think Human emotion is pretty universal.  Put another way, I dont think they could develop/discover new emotions any more than you can develop or discover new Colors or Musical Notes. 

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Whew, I walk away for a day.

So allow me to make some clarifications: when I'm talking about spren I am talking about firespren, windspren, honorspren, etc. And when I said shardspren and investiturespren, I meant those as examples of realmatic things. Basically realmatic things getting spren. –\_シ_/–

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I don't think specific emotions or concepts are off the table at all. It's not about what people feel, but what people think about those feelings. 

Like... In reality, if we had spren, I'm sure we'd get spren for things that just didn't exist a couple decades ago. Squeespren, and Memespren, and Squickspren. 

28 minutes ago, Shallan's Ward said:

Whew, I walk away for a day.

So allow me to make some clarifications: when I'm talking about spren I am talking about firespren, windspren, honorspren, etc. And when I said shardspren and investiturespren, I meant those as examples of realmatic things. Basically realmatic things getting spren. –\_シ_/–

As people think about those concepts, I'm sure they will. If abstract mathematical concepts can develop spren, I see no reason why the same wouldn't be true of realmatic concepts 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Rosharans are good with math, because you did the whole--they're aware of the normal distribution. So, do like, complex numbers, imaginary numbers, do they live in the Cognitive Realm? And would prime [numbers] be the brighteyes of the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

We will get into this. I would say--I've actually thought about this--that right now, there are spren that kind of represent abstract mathematics but not individual concepts within abstract mathematics. Like when you draw a spren that represents creativity, it's not necessarily divided into, "Painting," even though some of them may edge in that direction. So you could perhaps find a spren where you go, "Oh!"

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

I just want to see pi and phi arguing.

source

 

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Something that it would be useful to know is rate and/or magnitude of change. How long does it take for a concept to become a spren and does the rate increase depending on how many people are thinking about that concept in similar ways? To link back to the OP, there's probably a large concentration of Cosmere aware people already on Roshar due to the easy access to free Investiture. How long does Vasher for example need to be adjacent to Roshar's Cognitive Realm before Breath Spren develop? Will the process quicken with Vivienda roaming the Rosharan sphere of influence? Another example. Sazed's kandra spy has presumably been on Roshar, or if it hasn't yet it certainly will visit at some point. Kandra are essentially immortal. How long would he have to be there before the ideas of Connection bare spren of their own? Or will existing spren start to change with the way sentient beings start looking at old concepts in new ways. There are after all bindspren already; one connects things by binding them.

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8 hours ago, Calderis said:

I don't think specific emotions or concepts are off the table at all. It's not about what people feel, but what people think about those feelings. 

Like... In reality, if we had spren, I'm sure we'd get spren for things that just didn't exist a couple decades ago. Squeespren, and Memespren, and Squickspren. 

Memespren I could go with as that's more of a cognitive classification of a Thing.  But people have always felt intense disgust or that particular brain overload that is behind the squee, the difference is more lingual than a different root concept.  But to look at another example, if it worked that way Id really expect there to be things like Duelspren and Battlespren (maybe even CompetitionSpren or Huntspren for the Greatshell Hunts), but instead there are just spren for the underlying emotions involved (or the physical things on a fairly primal level like Wind or Rot).

 

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

As people think about those concepts, I'm sure they will. If abstract mathematical concepts can develop spren, I see no reason why the same wouldn't be true of realmatic concepts

True.  Though (just spitballing here) it could be argued that Cryptics arent Mathematics persay, but rather the underlying mysteries of the universe, which is itself fairly mathematical.  Just mentioning because on a purely thematic level I tend to pair them and InkSpren in my mind, one representing Knowledge Gained and the other representing the rest that is beyond our comprehension. 

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