If a feruchemist filled a nicrosilmind with enough investiture, could the nicrosilmind gain sentience?

[Spacerunner]

Essentially creating a spren. 

Imagine if the Lord Ruler went to Roshar and became a Knight Radiant, stopping by Nalthis on the way to get some Breaths, he could fill a nicrosilmind with different types of investiture and create unique spren already keyed to his identity. 

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Spacerunner said:

Essentially creating a spren. 

Imagine if the Lord Ruler went to Roshar and became a Knight Radiant, stopping by Nalthis on the way to get some Breaths, he could fill a nicrosilmind with different types of investiture and create unique spren already keyed to his identity. 

A metalmind can only hold so much of a charge.  You can only pack so much into the thing before it just can't take any more.  What you are talking about is theoretically possible but practically is just a no.

[+Invocation]

Theoretically? Yes. Practically? No. That's a process of a very long time (we're talking thousands of years here) and even atium compounding can only get you so far before you get too stretched to make up the difference.

There was a thread on this a while back, but I can't find it now.

[Scion of the Mists]

I believe that if you were to pack enough Investiture into the metalmind, it would eventually gain sentience. One of the broadsheets from Era 2 mentions talking pieces of metal. 

[+Invocation]

15 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I believe that if you were to pack enough Investiture into the metalmind, it would eventually gain sentience. One of the broadsheets from Era 2 mentions talking pieces of metal. 

That was not about Scadrian magic, though. That was Kriss and Nazh looking for Nightblood. They even signed it with "Ask for K or N."

[Spacerunner]

You could store breaths with a specific intent and get a metalmind with a personality like night blood, but bonded to you by the feruchemy. Maybe become something like a Nahel bond

[HSuperLee]

This question is kind of like asking if you put enough proteins into a water bottle and let is sit in place long enough, would it develop life. Just creating conditions where life can form does not guarantee it will form, in fact statistically it's almost guaranteed it won't. Similarly, creating the conditions where investiture can become sentient does not guarantee it will.

[Quantus]

Hard to say.  In general we've been told that if you have enough unclaimed Investiture concentrated in a single place, it can eventually gain sentience.  But there are some caveats to that, there are practical limits.

For one thing, Investiture gaining sentience is a lot like INvesture Creating Perpendicularity: it can happen but to happen naturally takes an astronomic amount of investiture, and feruchemy does have limits to how much can be placed in a given volume of metal.  

The "gaining sentience if left alone" bit is usually referenced in discussion of Devition&Dominion, where the Investiture in question is part of a 1/16th Bucket of ALL Investiture that is not currently held by a Shardic Vessel, so I dont know if the same would happen to a large enough pile of claimed Investiture (like an atium hoard, shardpool, etc).  Rosharan Spren are very specifically Created by something (first Adonalsium, then the Shards, then the Stormfather) so they dont really qualify as spontaneous Sapience the way Seons would, any more than Nightblood is a spontaneous development.  I think we CAN reasonably say that it wouldnt work via Metallic Arts within about 300 years or so, or else I think the Bands would have qualified.  

 

That's all about the whole Naturally emerging intelligence, though.  Like perpendicularities vs Elsecalling for realmic travel, there are certainly ways to make it happen willfully with far less Investiture involved, with the example we've seen being Awakening.  

[Scion of the Mists]

16 hours ago, Invocation said:

That was not about Scadrian magic, though. That was Kriss and Nazh looking for Nightblood. They even signed it with "Ask for K or N."

We’re they talking about Nightblood though? They specifically asked “metal tools.” 

Also, there’s this WoB that directly confirms its possible. 

Quote

Questioner

Can a metalmind be made into a sentient object?

Brandon Sanderson

It's already got Investiture in it? Yes.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

[+Invocation]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

We’re they talking about Nightblood though? They specifically asked “metal tools.” 

They were either looking for Nightblood or another Awakened bit of metal, probably. That's the only real explanation I can think of, given that she has to know that due to Nicrosil being new-ish to Scadrial, there'd be no chance for it to have coalesced into sentience yet, or the long-standing Aon light engravings would have also done that and would have really been a better bet to look for.

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Also, there’s this WoB that directly confirms its possible.

I never disputed it was possible, just that it would take a really long time and a whole lot of Investiture.

Quote

Argent

You've said that Investiture tends to develop sapience on its own. Is this a function of the amount of Investiture alone (i.e. any pile of Investiture large enough will develop sapience eventually), or does the process require extra effort (e.g. a Command from an Awakener, an action by a Shard, etc.)?

Brandon Sanderson

Under the right circumstances, a pile of investiture will eventually become self-aware. But there is no specific timing. The more investiture clumped together, the more likely--and the closer to human-level intelligence it is likely to obtain.

Of course, if you leave matter alone long enough (on a galactic scale) it will eventually end up becoming sapient too. So this isn't that different. (Well, okay, it is.)

Boogalyhu34

Are humans already sapient and intelligent because their Spiritual DNA tell their innate investiture what connections to make or what weird soul pattern to go into.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's RAFO that for now.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 4, 2016)