pocket realms in the Cognitive

[Honorless]

I always thought the Cognitive Realm was cool. The use of the Platonic idea of the Ideal Realm (separated into two Realms: the Cognitive realm of the mind and the Spiritual realm of the ideal/perfect objects & beings) in fantasy was awesome!

I was also very sad that we won't get to see something like a character's own personal pocket dimension. The Cognitive Realm seemed like the perfect candidate for hosting pocket realities: it is the realm of the mind, space is malleable here being shaped by collective belief & perception.

I thought that the fortress of the Ire would be as close as it gets

Then I realized we have seen this:

1) Stormfather's imagined place, where he took Dalinar, which he was very defensive about explaining saying that "it is no place!" before explaining that he imagined it and explaining the nature of the Cognitive Realm and the objects in it

2) the visions sent by Honor, I didn't realize it was a real (ish?) place, simply imagining it taking place within Dalinar's mind. Then I remembered that:

A ) Dalinar shared these "visions" with other people

B ) Odium broke into one

 

I imagine it's very Investiture-intensive to create a pocket world, given the characters who've shown the ability to do so. I wonder if any Investiture system we've seen can be used to do this

[TrдVψLшR 0115]

Which chapter does the stormfather talk about his “no place”? What do you think about this idea in relation to the visions that Dalinar sees that the stormfather didn’t send? Maybe it’s something similar.

[Ixthos]

There is also Kelsier talking to Spook in Secret History, and also when Odium spoke to Taravangian - but this is something I like as well :-) There also is an implication that when Ruin was sealed by Preservation that that prison was in some way either spiritual or cognitive, and when Kelsier looks at it and seems to be looking in another direction.

[RShara]

This might be of use to you

Quote

Argent

How do visions in the cosmere work? And I'm thinking Realmatically.

Brandon Sanderson

So almost always [it's] glimpsing into the Spiritual Realm. But you are often seeing it through the Cognitive, and so like a vision that...

So like the vision that Dalinar sees. What's going on is-- being pulled, and kind of stretched a little bit through the Realms, into the Spiritual Realm.  Where a Cognitive construct is adding a framework to seeds that are set in place.

Argent

So that you can kind of comprehend the Spiritual?

Brandon Sanderson

You can comprehend-- and also there's a little bit of a life to it. Meaning it can respond to you and things like this, to an extent. So imagine, it kind of works like an AI. Imagine there's some-- You've got that power in the Spiritual Realm and you're adding a framework to it, that it is shining through, and that is giving you the vision. Complicated, I know. Spiritual Realm is supposed to be weird, and we aren't supposed to quite comprehend it, but that's why we've got the Cognitive framework there.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

 

[Honorless]

@RShara, thank you for the WoB. So Dalinar's visions were a fair bit complicated to construct

@Ixthos, good point! The Well of Ascension is definitely among the most closest to what I was looking for

@TrдVψLшR 0115, I don't remember where this was, I'm afraid

RShara, help?

Edited April 17, 2020 by R J

[RShara]

4 hours ago, Honorless said:

@RShara, thank you for the WoB. So Dalinar's visions were a fair bit complicated to construct.

@TrдVψLшR 0115, I don't remember where this was, I'm afraid

RShara, help?

What am I looking for?

[TrдVψLшR 0115]

Yay  I found it! It’s chapter 34 in Oathbringer.

[Honorless]

7 hours ago, RShara said:

What am I looking for?

There's a scene where Dalinar asks Stormfather about what appears to be an empty space between Visions. The Stormfather insists that it is no place. But eventually explained the place hosts the minds/souls of objects.

Quote

TrдVψLшR 0115

Yay  I found it! It’s chapter 34 in Oathbringer

Awesome! could you quote or type out the relevant sections?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Honorless

[Eternal Khol]

46 minutes ago, Honorless said:

But eventually explained the place hosts the minds/souls of objects.

It doest really host them. Its what the Stormfather imagines those objects "second death" is like. When they go to The Beyond or wherever

I think its like if a vase broke. That would be its "first death"

Its "second death" would be when its soul stops seeing itself as a vase and starts seeing itself as just the smashed pieces

Edited February 16, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[TrдVψLшR 0115]

     “All went dark around Dalinar, and he entered a place between his world and the visions. A place with a black sky and an infinite floor of bone white rock. Shapes made of smoke seeped through the stone ground, then rose around him, dissipating. Common things. A chair, a vase, a rockbud. Sometimes people.”

    “”What was that place” Dalinar asked.   IT IS NO PLACE.”

    “I IMAGINED IT, the Stormfather said more softly, as if he were admitting something embarrassing.”

    “Dalinar had never heard anything so philosophical from the Stormfather. He hadn’t imagined it was possible that a spren—even a mighty one of the highstorms—could dream in such a way.”

[RShara]

3 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

It doest really host them. Its what the Stormfather imagines those objects "second death" is like. When they go to The Beyond or wherever

I think its like if a vase broke. That would be its "first death"

Its "second death" would be when its soul stops seeing itself as a vase and starts seeing itself as just the smashed pieces

This is how I see it too.

[Honorless]

@TrдVψLшR 0115, thanks!

@Eternal Khol, that's not my thoughts on the Cognitive, that's me trying to remember what was said in that scene; thanks!

Edited February 17, 2020 by Honorless

[Eternal Khol]

6 minutes ago, Honorless said:

@TrдVψLшR 0115, thanks!

@Eternal Khol, that's not my thoughts on the Cognitive, that's me trying to remember what was said in that scene; thanks!

Gotcha. 

I wonder how Dalinar's bondsmith abilities play into this. Can he fix stuff(like the statue in thaylen city) that no longer sees itself as a whole?

[Honorless]

4 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

I wonder how Dalinar's bondsmith abilities play into this. Can he fix stuff(like the statue in thaylen city) that no longer sees itself as a whole?

I think he can't. Restoration in the Cosmere seems to work via a thing or being's perception of itself.

[Bigmikey357]

1 hour ago, Honorless said:

I think he can't. Restoration in the Cosmere seems to work via a thing or being's perception of itself.

This raises a question for me, slightly off topic so forgive me. Say someone broke a vase a century ago and everyone who thought of that vase as a vase has long died. Then someone else comes along,  sees the shards and reconstructs the vase. Does that reconstructed vase get its same soul back via Spiritual Realm shenanigans or does it get a new soul? 

[Pathfinder]

7 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

This raises a question for me, slightly off topic so forgive me. Say someone broke a vase a century ago and everyone who thought of that vase as a vase has long died. Then someone else comes along,  sees the shards and reconstructs the vase. Does that reconstructed vase get its same soul back via Spiritual Realm shenanigans or does it get a new soul? 

I think it gets a representation of the vase as the person who reconstructs it. Brandon has discussed this I believe in the "ship of theseus". If you replace a piece of the ship, but still see the ship as the ship, then it will still be "the ship". This will continue till over time every single piece of the ship was replaced with a different part, till technically no part is original, but since it is still seen as the ship of theseus, then the cognitive aspect will still be the ship of theseus. But in your example, all knowledge that it was the ship of theseus was lost, so even though you reform it with still the same component parts, if the ship is now referred to as the ship of bart (lets say), it would gain the new cognitive self of the ship of bart, regardless whether it looks exactly like, is made up of and functions the same as the ship of theseus it once was. 

[Eternal Khol]

11 hours ago, Honorless said:

I think he can't. Restoration in the Cosmere seems to work via a thing or being's perception of itself.

But that being/things perception of itself relies on the perception of others to make it what it is. 

So Could Dalinars abilities with Connection change the way the soul sees itself.

He was able to fix the statue cause it was recently broke and still saw itself as a whole.

But if, say the vase, from the earlier comments, stops see itself as a vase. Would Dalinar be able to do some connection mumbo jumbo and "fix" its soul, then its physical form?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Honorless]

10 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

But that being/things perception of itself relies on the perception of others to make it what it is. 

So Could Dalinars abilities with Connection change the way the soul sees itself.

He was able to fix the statue cause it was recently broke and still saw itself as a whole.

But if, say the vase, from the earlier comments, stops see itself as a vase. Would Dalinar be able to do some connection mumbo jumbo and "fix" its soul, then its physical form?

Yes, I think that might be possible

[Friendshipspren]

Huh I hadn't even thought they actually existed anywhere except between brain synapses. 

Like I thought they were actually constructed dreams. 

Ok so if they exist in the cognitive , then was dalinar's mind uncoupled at the time ? But he could still talk and do stuff in the physical.

 

Also isn't the spiritual associated with future sight ? Like if they were supposed to be warnings , then y even bother with the SR ??

Honor could have just imagined it and like did a analog of copper compounding or something ?

Why get the SR involved ? 

Ok maybe he was afraid odium could break it easily then. 

Still sounds like too much effort to me , seeing odium did break it anyway .

 

[Honorless]

11 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Ok so if they exist in the cognitive , then was dalinar's mind uncoupled at the time ? But he could still talk and do stuff in the physical.

It was probably similar to Soulcasting, where your body is in the Physical Realm and your mind is in the Cognitive Realm, wholly or partially

11 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Also isn't the spiritual associated with future sight ? Like if they were supposed to be warnings , then y even bother with the SR ??

Honor could have just imagined it and like did a analog of copper compounding or something ?

Why get the SR involved ? 

Ok maybe he was afraid odium could break it easily then. 

Still sounds like too much effort to me , seeing odium did break it anyway .

The Spiritual Realm is more than just Fortune, which is just one aspect of it. It is where Investiture comes from. It houses all beings' Identity. Another aspect of it is Connection, which we understand the least and still have a lot of divergent theories on.

It probably was futuresight stored into the vision, as you guessed but we don't know how any of this actually works

We don't know much about the circumstances during which Tanavast recorded them either

Edited February 18, 2020 by Honorless

[Friendshipspren]

2 minutes ago, Honorless said:

It was probably similar to Soulcasting, where your body is in the Physical Realm and your mind is in the Cognitive Realm, wholly or partially

The Spiritual Realm is more than just Fortune, which is just one aspect of it. It is where Investiture comes from. It houses all beings' Identity. Another aspect of it is Connection, which we understand the least and still have a lot of divergent theories on.

It probably was futuresight stored into the vision, as you guessed but we don't know how any of this actually works

We don't know much about the circumstances during which Tanavast recorded them either

Huh theirs still a lot of metaphysics and philosophy to unwrap.

 

Still yeah ur original point is cool. 

Individual pocket dimensions, like in that Disney movie , inside out 

Or in the locke and keeye comics .

That would have been cool. But I guess it's been done maybe even overdone before. 

[Honorless]

Reminds me of one of Brandon's non-Cosmere works

⚠ non-Cosmere work major spoiler ⚠ 

Spoiler

Perfect State

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Dreamer

[Eternal Khol]

On 2/18/2020 at 8:28 AM, Honorless said:

It was probably similar to Soulcasting, where your body is in the Physical Realm and your mind is in the Cognitive Realm, wholly or partially

The Spiritual Realm is more than just Fortune, which is just one aspect of it. It is where Investiture comes from. It houses all beings' Identity. Another aspect of it is Connection, which we understand the least and still have a lot of divergent theories on.

It probably was futuresight stored into the vision, as you guessed but we don't know how any of this actually works

We don't know much about the circumstances during which Tanavast recorded them either

I think the spiritual Realm is made of Connections;the bulk of it anyway. And the other properties--Fortune, identity-- play smaller roles in those Connections.

As Kesier says is MSH: "Time didn’t pass; time had no relevance here. It was not a place. Location had no relevance. Only Connection, person to person, man to world, Kelsier to god."

[DiePie]

Spoilers for Wheel of Time:

Spoiler

The Cognitive Realm has struck me as being extremely similar to tel'aran'rhoid, being a copy of the real world based on peoples perception of the physical. So considering Brandon's work on the Wheel of Time, it is safe to assume he may have used Robert Jordan's ideas for information.

Using that as context, I think that these visions are very similar to Dreamshards from the Wheel of Time created by dreamers; as in, they are created by people with the talent (or investiture) required to enter and leave the Cognative Realm (or tel'aran'rhoid), In this case being splinters on the shard honor (the Stormfather) creating a "pocket dimension" that "exists between the real world and tel'aran'rhoid"  In this case being the cognative realm

which also explains why Odium would be able to enter into a "Dreamshard" since that is something that would most likely be within the power of a shard, and how the Stormfather was able to bring people into a Dreamshard, since that is a thing that dreamers can do in "the Wheel of Time"

[Honorless]

Thanks @DiePie! That was a very interesting read