Worldhoppers and immortality/time travel

[aneonfoxtribute]

Is there some element inherent in worldhopping that can make you immortal, or a way to travel through time? I've been thinking about this for a while, and upon researching stuff at Coppermind, I couldn't see any reference to it. Discounting Hoid, we see Khriss both during the time of Mistborn Era 1 and Era 2 and she doesn't seem to have aged a day, let alone died, in the three hundred years like a normal human. 

[Wander89]

22 minutes ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Is there some element inherent in worldhopping that can make you immortal, or a way to travel through time? I've been thinking about this for a while, and upon researching stuff at Coppermind, I couldn't see any reference to it. Discounting Hoid, we see Khriss both during the time of Mistborn Era 1 and Era 2 and she doesn't seem to have aged a day, let alone died, in the three hundred years like a normal human. 

There's a WOB on the matter, seems there are a few ways to make yourself "immortal" through the magic systems:

Quote

 

Question

So you mentioned earlier that a lot of the characters who are in multiple books are functionally immortal. But some of them when we saw them in actual just books, before they started jumping between worlds, they were not functionally immortal at that time. So can we then take that to mean that they somehow became functionally immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

You can take to mean that.

Question

Correctly?

Brandon Sanderson

You can correctly. Now here's the distinction. Some of them are not. Some of them are using tricks of...um..uh...no....relativistic time travel to move forward in the future. Some of them are not aging and others are just aging really slowly. And those are three separate things among characters you have actually seen. I will give you hints as you read the books.

 

[aneonfoxtribute]

I see, interesting. Thank you for the reply

[Weltall]

5 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Is there some element inherent in worldhopping that can make you immortal, or a way to travel through time? I've been thinking about this for a while, and upon researching stuff at Coppermind, I couldn't see any reference to it.

For the record, most of the Seventeenth Shard uses the same method that greatly slows aging but doesn't stop it completely. We can assume that Galladon is one of the exceptions since as an Elantrian he's naturally immortal. We also can infer that the method the Seventeenth Shard uses doesn't require any specific powers because Baon has lived for as long as Khriss has and yet Brandon would say he's non-Invested. Khriss and Nazh presumably use it too.

As an aside, Brandon would consider A-Cadmium to be a form of relativistic time travel and someone with sufficient metal reserves could get themselves 'pretty far' with it..

[Wander89]

6 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I see, interesting. Thank you for the reply

You're very welcome, these are all good questions though. The way Sanderson writes his magic contains limits so there must be a cap to this method somewhere, too.

[aneonfoxtribute]

So I assume each world will have its own unique way to achieve immortality. We already know a few, such as having enough Breath, becoming an Elantrian, and combining Allomancy and Feruchemy. We also know that Roshar has to have something like that, since the Heralds are immortal (assuming that their immortality is unrelated to the Oathpact). I really like his systems because you can see the common threads, which makes sense because it really is just one system that just manifests differently where you are. 

[Inky]

Well; the Heraldic immortality comes from them being cognitive shadows, which isn't something unique to Roshar

[Weltall]

9 hours ago, Wander89 said:

You're very welcome, these are all good questions though. The way Sanderson writes his magic contains limits so there must be a cap to this method somewhere, too.

The age-slowing one has one built-in if you think about it: You're still aging, just nowhere near as fast. Even if the rate slows to something extreme like 'one year of realtime equals one day of aging' then you're still aging. If you were fifty when you started and live to ninety (which doesn't seem too unlikely if you have any sort of access to Cosmere healing) then you'll hit that limit in 14,600 years. That's an enormously extended lifespan and would be enough to cover everything from the Shattering to the present day with room to spare, but it's still finite.

The same element that makes atium compounding not a method of 'true' immortality is probably ultimately going to come into play here as well: Your Spiritual aspect stil knows how old you should be and eventually even if you're otherwise perfectly healthy you'll just drop dead once your time is up. This is the reason that people with healing magic like Bloodmakers and Knights Radiant aren't immortal. Some methods are just better at handling the Spiritual aspect than others. To be completely immortal you need some way to completely stop your Spiritual aspect from recognizing that you're aging, or you need to be a race that is that way naturally.

6 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

We also know that Roshar has to have something like that, since the Heralds are immortal (assuming that their immortality is unrelated to the Oathpact). I really like his systems because you can see the common threads, which makes sense because it really is just one system that just manifests differently where you are. 

As mentioned (and Brandon discusses it in the WoB I just linked to) the Heralds are a kind of Cognitive Shadow, which means that their souls became so saturated with Investiture either in life or immediately after their first death that they're able to resist being pulled Beyond whenever they die. Exactly how the resurrection part of their deal works we're not yet certain of (though it probably involves forging a link back to the Physical Realm, at which point their Cognitive self-image makes sure that their new bodies look right) but the basic fact of their immortality is a mechanic that's shared on other worlds. The Shades on Threnody are manifestations of the same phenomenon and the Returned are as well, with the latter having their Cognitive/Spiritual aspects 'stapled' back into their Physical bodies via the Divine Breath. Something similar to this is how 'The Sovereign' got a body back.

Oh, that reminds me that Brandon mentioned something interesting about Rashek's (quasi) immortality that might be a hint as to other ways it can be attained:

Quote

Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It's a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn't have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult. General Reddit 2015 (Nov. 20, 2015)

 

 

[aneonfoxtribute]

7 hours ago, Inky said:

Well; the Heraldic immortality comes from them being cognitive shadows, which isn't something unique to Roshar

Is that from a WoB? I don't recall this at all

Edit: The next comment answered that, alright then

Edited June 9, 2019 by aneonfoxtribute

[Scion of the Mists]

On 6/8/2019 at 10:40 PM, aneonfoxtribute said:

Is that from a WoB? I don't recall this at all

Edit: The next comment answered that, alright then

The majority of the Cosmere knowledge that we have (mechanics, etc.) is behind-the-scenes stuff from WoBs, not directly from the narratives.  It makes it very difficult for newer people to pick up on.  A good place to start, instead of reading through thousands of WoBs, is by browsing the Coppermind (the Cosmere wiki).  

[+Oltux72]

On 6/8/2019 at 9:42 PM, Inky said:

Well; the Heraldic immortality comes from them being cognitive shadows, which isn't something unique to Roshar

Yes, though Roshar also has Aimians.

[Weltall]

43 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes, though Roshar also has Aimians.

Just to throw a wrinke in here, we're not sure that the Aimians (or at least the Dysians) are actually from Roshar originally.

[aneonfoxtribute]

2 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

The majority of the Cosmere knowledge that we have (mechanics, etc.) is behind-the-scenes stuff from WoBs, not directly from the narratives.  It makes it very difficult for newer people to pick up on.  A good place to start, instead of reading through thousands of WoBs, is by browsing the Coppermind (the Cosmere wiki).  

Yeah, I browse those when I think of something, but it doesn't always have an answer, at which point I pose questions here

[+Keeper Exile]

I always thought that one of the main ways that Worldhoppers didn't age was spending most of their time in the Cognitive Realm. Because you don't age there (and have infinite endurance, as seen in Secret History). Does anyone else know anything about this, or am I just crazy?

[RShara]

17 minutes ago, Keeper Exile said:

I always thought that one of the main ways that Worldhoppers didn't age was spending most of their time in the Cognitive Realm. Because you don't age there (and have infinite endurance, as seen in Secret History). Does anyone else know anything about this, or am I just crazy?

You do age there. But there seems to be a way for people to create areas of time dilation, which would "slow down" aging.The person in Secret History was dead. He didn't have a physical body. So no need to eat, breath, rest, sleep, or age.

[Weltall]

27 minutes ago, Keeper Exile said:

I always thought that one of the main ways that Worldhoppers didn't age was spending most of their time in the Cognitive Realm. Because you don't age there (and have infinite endurance, as seen in Secret History). Does anyone else know anything about this, or am I just crazy?

To add to what @RShara said, we've seen living people traversing the Cognitive Realm in Oathbringer. They need to breathe, drink, eat and sleep just as they do in the Physical. There's an entire mini-economy set up to provide them with food and water.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Weltall