The Final Surges: Division, Cohesion, and Tension (and Unity?)

[Pagerunner]

On 1/15/2019 at 3:58 PM, Ciridae said:

I have a small question regarding the differences between using Cohesion and Division on people. 

There is this:

And then we have this from OB chapter 107:

So the way I understand it both Cohesion and Division work by directly affecting the molecules of an item instead of its representations in the Cognitive (unlike Soucasting for example). So why would one work on living flesh when the other does not? 

I expect the crux of the issue is narrative in nature. The powers of all ten Surges should be roughly balanced (until you start Ascending and doing weird stuff like Dalinar does). Cohesion has its utility in manipulating surroundings. Division has its utility in destroying things. If they could both work on people, then Cohesion would have essentially all the utility that Division has.

Realmatics is less a deterministic foundation, and more a descriptive framework. Brandon takes an effect, and figures out how he can create a system to accomplish that effect. In this case, it's the nature of this particular Surge that it is less able to overcome native Investiture, which lets it accomplish what Brandon wants it to do without encroaching on the territory he's allotted for Division.

On Roshar in particular, this may be close to the actual in-universe explanation, too. If the Surges are drawn out of human perception, what they believe the fundamental forces are (which is why I've laid these out as behaving thermodynamically identically in some cases), then the Rosharans believing that the Cohesive force is less able to overcome Investiture than the Divisive force would be enough to make it so in application. This was the line that I used in my OP: "The magic of Surgebinding, in turn, provides specific alterations to the electromagnetic force in order to match the common perception of Roshar." It's not the electomagnetic force that is being resisted; it's the magic itself. And because Division and Cohesion are two different magics, that's why similar alterations in electromagnetic force can be resisted to different extents by the Investiture of objects.

A long-winded way of saying "Brandon wants to magics to behave differently, so they do." A little unsatisfying, but no more unsatisfying in my mind than reconciling rocks burning and wood crumbling to dust.

[+Oltux72]

On 10/2/2018 at 3:07 AM, Pagerunner said:

So, what Dustbringers do, is they break the bonds between atoms. They can burn things without making them hot first; which is how Malata caused the table to burn. To go back to the ball-and-hill analogy, using Division bores a tunnel through the hill, letting the ball roll straight from one spot to the other without having to be carried up the intermediary height

If that were the case, division wouldn't work in vacuum or in an atmosphere of nobel gases. Now we cannot rule it out, but that looks strange.

The burning really is a side effect of breaking the bonds and generating so many free radicals. You should also smell ozone.

[Jofwu]

The recent Shardcast episode covering the last 4 orders of the Knights Radiant dug into Tension and Cohesion, so I ended up back in this thread to review everything we know. Two fresh thoughts on this topic.

Axial Interconnection?

First, I don't think the original post ever mentioned Khriss's definition of these Surges in the Ars Arcanum. Khriss might be wrong of course (she has been wrong before), but I think her perspective is valuable regardless. I've been wondering how to make sense of these. They actually fill a bit backwards, but I think I see a way to rationalize them.

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Cohesion: The Surge of Strong Axial Interconnection

Tension: The Surge of Soft Axial Interconnection

Just to reiterate, these are based on the Rosharan concept of the "ten fundamental forces of the cosmere". So whether Khriss is wrong about the magic or not, I think we can assume that the Rosharans view Strong/Soft Axial Interconnection as two distinct fundamental forces that govern nature. This is a cultural thing that requires basically no research on Khriss's part. It's not science. It's just how Rosharan's perceive the world. And not just Rosharans. Khriss herself seems to have no trouble connecting these Surges to natural forces in her own words in her essay on Roshar:

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This magic has strong roots in natural physics, with the spren being personifications of the forces themselves (called Surges locally). Gravitation, the strong axial force, surface tension . . . these things have come alive, as have more abstract notions such as transformation and transportation.

The meaning of "axial interconnection" seems fairly trivial to me. We know that axi is is more or less a cosmere term for some fundamental unit of a substance. So "axial interconnection" or "axial force" seems very clearly to refer to the forces which hold matter together. So the real question at the bottom of all this that bugs me is, "why 'strong' and 'soft'?" Why is "strong" axial interconnection used to describe Cohesion-things and why is "soft" axial interconnection used to describe Tension-things?

Apparently they interpret inter-molecular forces in two separate ways. The best I can figure, they see "solid" things as being held together by some "strong" axial force. They think there's this force that holds matter together in a "strong" way such that it holds it's shape and resists deformation. It's not hard to see why they think this is different than the force that causes water to stick together. And maybe it's a bit of a stretch, but I can also see why they think it's different than the force that holds solids together in a loose way. If they pick up a piece of flexible rubber, they think, "Not a lot of "strong force" in this substance." That's where the "soft" axial force kicks in. It's this force that explains these weaker, flexible connections between matter. The "soft" axial force is going to be "overpowered" by the "strong force" when that one is present. BUT the "soft" force allows for more flexibility. So the idea is probably that both of these are considered to be involved with most physical matter, to varying degrees. If I have a cup of water, there is little to no "strong force" between axi of water, but there is a bit of "soft force" which you can see in the form of surface tension. A block of clay has more "strong force" holding it together than water, but much less than a block of stone.

So how do the Surges of Cohesion and Tension come into the picture? My natural inclination is to say that the naming feels backward. If we turn rock into putty, we're dealing with something more in the realm of "soft axial interconnection". If we make cloth as rigid as steel, aren't we increasing the "strong axial interconnections"?

Well, for Cohesion this perspective actually makes a lot of sense I think. Manipulating the "soft force" inside a block of stone doesn't make the "strong force" go away. So I can absolutely see why Cohesion is about "strong force" manipulation. It's about reducing the "strong axial forces" in a piece of matter. Tension still feels awkward to me. Reducing the "soft axial forces" in a thing isn't very interesting, and isn't in line with what Brandon describes. Honestly, making cloth rigid sounds like we're increasing "strong forces", right? The only way I can see to rationalize this is if Tension is about increasing soft axial forces. Doing this with a stone isn't interesting, but if you do it with something like cloth then it is. Can either Surge be manipulated in the opposite direction? We'll have to see. (Throw that in with the question of whether Abrasion can be used to increase friction.) I'm a little skeptical because it seems like they'd overlap too much... But maybe not. Maybe increasing the "strong axial interconnection" in a piece of flexible cloth merely leaves you with something brittle? Not really sure.

Anyways, I was just trying to make sense of how Khriss defines these two separate "forces", and wondered if we can make sense of what it implies and how it relates to the Surges. Sorry, I blabbed a lot longer than I expected to. Thoughts?

The "Unity Surge"

Second item of this post...

The last thing @Pagerunner delved into was the weird magic that Dalinar does in three separate instances. (once fixing temples/statues, once holding together a structure during a Stormfather vision, and once at the end with his unification of the realms) He poses some questions about whether these are related to a Surge, but didn't come to any particular conclusion. I thought about it a little and wanted to voice my own opinion.

Concerning the last item in that list, I'm very skeptical that it's clearly a Surge because of the way Stormfather is completely surprised by it. To be fair, earlier in the novel we see Syl confused by a novel use (in her experience) of what seems to be Adhesion by Kaladin. But I think the context is very clear that Dalinar's action is HEAVILY tied to the fact that Stormfather is now Honor's Cognitive Shadow. There's some really weird spiritual things going on there which I think Dalinar is tapping into. Shardic abilities which... IF they are related to a Surge, I'm not sure they will fit into the Surgebinding construct very well at all.

The other two instances seem much more mundane however. The second case could be something unique... But at the very least, if Dalinar was doing something truly unusual when he repaired structures in Thaylen City then I would expect the Stormfather to comment on it like he did for the Unity moment. Even if it was something small, I think he'd be surprised/curious if Dalinar did something "new" there. I have to conclude that Dalinar is using a Surge there. As for the second case, it's hard to speculate on. We're in a vision there, so things are weird. We see Surges working on Dalinar's visions, but we also see completely weird stuff happen in those as well. It's entirely possible that Dalinar is using a Surge... If he is, it seems to be similar to the statue-fixing Surge. But it could also just be a Cognitive battle of wills. Or, with Stormfather distracted as he was, it could be some low-level usage of his unique Honor-related, "Unity powers". Too many variables here.

To look more closely at the first case, I lean towards Adhesion as I mentioned on Discord. The biggest complain I see against this idea is that it looks VERY different from any Adhesion we've seen before, and I wouldn't deny that. However, I'm drawn to the relationship that Dalinar sort of draws between his actions and the Surge of Progression when he describes it as "fixing inanimate things." Progression manifests in two completely different ways: Growth and Healing/Regrowth. The ability to make trees grow in seconds is similar but also very different from healing a severed arm, no? So there's clearly precedent for a Surge to be "bigger" than what you might see at a first glance. Perhaps Adhesion works differently if you're adhering two separate, unrelated objects (e.g. a stone to a chasm wall) versus a single object that has been broken. One requires a constant supply, because the two objects ultimately have no business being united. You're forcing something unnatural. But repairing a broken object is something that merely takes some Investiture up front to make a lasting change. If I use stitches to bind my wounded skin together then it will heal and eventually no longer need the stitches. So it could be as simple as that. (note Dalinar does apparently use large quantities of Stormlight in this scene, so it isn't "cheap")

It could also be another application of Spiritual Adhesion, and there's a lot of support for this. Dalinar literally hears the voices of the spren in the stone when he does this. There's undoubtedly something Spiritual and/or Cognitive going on here. I think perhaps people are quick to write this off because "we've already seen Spiritual Adhesion" but I would dispute the notion that we've got a good picture of it. Spiritual Adhesion is a monster of an idea. It doesn't just grant Dalinar temporary communication abilities. It forges a Connection.

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Try touching one of them. With Spiritual Adhesion, you can make a Connection.

We really have little idea of how many ways this could be used. The only other example I can think of off the top of my head is when he uses it to Connect with Shallan so that she can produce a detailed map of Roshar. Now, both this and the language thing are about Dalinar Connecting himself to another person. But who's to say he can't Connect with an object? Or that he can't Connect two other people? Or that he can't Connect two other objects? So maybe that's exactly what we're seeing. Dalinar repairing the Spiritual Connection between these two pieces of a broken object.

The details of Adhesion is getting off topic of course. But I wanted to explain why I think this case IS a Surge and not just "super weird stuff."

[+ILuvHats]

@Jofwu, I hope you’re right about Dalinar using some form of adhesion and not cohesion instead. I absolutely hate the idea that the ars arcanum was so wrong, and would much rather Brandon wrote off the Stormfather as just being wrong.

[Calderis]

@Jofwu your proposed model works and may very well be the case.

I've always thought of it slightly differently, and think that "strong" and "soft" are much more clearly delineated. 

"strong" interconnection is the way that axi (or atoms) are held together in whatever matrix/latice/whatever structure the material has. It's about the actual. Structure of the material itself. Weakening that force allows the allows the molecules or atoms to slide around each other and be reshaped. 

"soft" interconnection is less about the way that those molecules align, and more about the properties of the alignment. The structure still has to stay the same in the way the the "strong force" holds them together relatively, but instead you can loosen the "tensile strength" of that structure itself, making things rubbery.

Its still a seemingly interconnected set of Surges in either case. 

@ILuvHats while what Dalinar did use is very much not confirmed (and I am totally on board with the Spiritual Adhesion explanation) it has been confirmed that the Stormfather was an error and will be corrected.

Spoilered for length. 

Spoiler

Pagerunner

I was at the Houston signing, and Brandon referred me to you on a few technical questions that I was asking him, since he he was quite "brain dead."

First was what Surges the Bondsmiths have. Based on the ordering in the Ars Arcanum in WoR and OB, they should have Tension. But the application of the shared Surge we saw for both Stonewards and Bondsmiths in OB looks to line up more with Brandon's previous description of Cohesion from the Words of Radiance tour. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/223/#e6061, although he did identify it as a Willshaper Surge there.) Brandon believed it was an error in the Ars Arcanum, and that Bondsmiths do have Cohesion, but he told me to confirm that with you.

Peter Ahlstrom

What power did you see in the book that Bondsmiths and Stonewards share?

Pagerunner

In Chapter 38:

The Shardbearer pressed his hand against the incline leading up to the Voidbringer, and again the stone seemed to writhe. Steps formed in the rock, as if it were made of wax that could flow and be shaped.

...

"And that Shardbearer I saw? A Herald?"

No. Merely a Stoneward. The Surge that changed the stone is the other you may learn, though it may serve you differently.

Which seems to align with how Brandon has previously described Cohesion in the past, as opposed to Tension.

I assume this Surge is what Dalinar used to repair the temple of Talenel in Chapter 59, but that's not actually essential to the point.

Peter Ahlstrom

I think this has to be an error in the text.

Pagerunner

Sorry, which do you think is the error? The order of Surges in the Ars Arcanum? Or the Stormfather's statement to Dalinar?

Peter Ahlstrom

The Stormfather's statement.

Peter Ahlstrom

I have verified with Brandon that what the Stormfather said here is wrong and will be corrected in the future.

General Reddit 2017 (Dec. 14, 2017)

 

[+ILuvHats]

@Calderis You know, I actually remember seeing that WoB before. But after listening to them debate about the topic vehemently in Shardcast, I'd completely forgotten it existed and assumed both sides were valid. 

Now look what you've done. I've lost my faith in the reliability of Shardcast. My world is a broken and miserable place. I hope you're happy. 

[Jofwu]

Chaos or Argent or somebody mentioned that they were very much aware of that WoB in a comment somewhere. I think they were simply skeptical of Peter's statement until a revision was actually made. (in the original conversation Pagerunner had with Brandon, Brandon was very adamant that the opposite was true--so it kind of all comes across as if maybe there's a disagreement or an inconsistency that hasn't been totally resolved)

That said, Argent was at JordanCon last weekend and, prompted by this Shardcast episode, asked Peter if there was any word on that potential revision. Peter confirmed that it should now be out on ebooks. Nobody seems to have that update yet for whatever reason, but it DOES strongly affirm the WoP Calderis cited.

I'm really itching to know what the exact revision was.

[Argent]

I like these interpretations of the strong and soft axial interconnection - strong for how "strong" an object is, and soft for how, well, soft or flexible, or weakly held together it is. 

[continuumg]

This looks pretty good!

i don’t know about using the touch/distant ranges as a way of differentiating the surges, though. I’m of the opinion that being able to use cohesion (as well as transformation) at range is a byproduct of the willshapers’ and elsecallers’ Transportation surges.

[Moonrise]

Recently started listening to choice episodes of Shardcast. And the one relating to the orders of Stonewards, Willshapers, and Bondsmiths eventually led to me to this thread to see what is known about Cohesion and Tension. I see I am not the first.

On 4/30/2019 at 9:58 AM, Jofwu said:

That said, Argent was at JordanCon last weekend and, prompted by this Shardcast episode, asked Peter if there was any word on that potential revision. Peter confirmed that it should now be out on ebooks. Nobody seems to have that update yet for whatever reason, but it DOES strongly affirm the WoP Calderis cited.

I'm really itching to know what the exact revision was.

I am curious to know the revision too. I figured that if a revision was made in the ebook, it might have also been reflected in the MMP (released earlier this month). It is about time for a re-read anyway. However after a quick glance through Ch. 38, I can confirm that the text of the MMP in that part is still of the original hardback release, in case anyone was interested. 

I also found another reference of the Stormfather referring to the Stonewards Surge, and it is consistent to Ch. 38 and therefore feels like descriptions of Cohesion rather than Tension. In essence, still confusing. 

OB Ch. 50:

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"And my other Surge?" Dalinar said. "That Radiant in the vision made stone warp and ripple."

You are not ready. Besides, that Surge is different for you than it is for a Stoneward. 

(Also sorry for the necro... seemed like the only relevant place for it)