Immortality through insanity?

[NameIess]

While I was reading through the Wax and Wayne trilogy, there is a part in it were Wayne thinks to himself about how it seems illogical to him that people would die when they are old, as that is the time when they should have the most experience staying alive. This caused me to consider: What if a bloodmaker or gold compounder actually believed themselves to be immortal, or that they should be a certain age forever? Would their cognitive aspect then interfere with their spiritual aspect enough to extend their lifespan, would it just not age them while they healed, or would it do nothing?

Edited March 22, 2020 by Nameless

[Chiberty]

I don't think that that would work because Lift believes that she shouldn't age, but does anyway, despite having very strong healing.

Of course, that explanation assumes that regrowth or stormlight healing would work the same way as gold in this situation, but that seems like a safe assumption to make.

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I don't think that that would work because Lift believes that she shouldn't age, but does anyway, despite having very strong healing.

Of course, that explanation assumes that regrowth or stormlight healing would work the same way as gold in this situation, but that seems like a safe assumption to make.

Radiant healing is very different, as it is dependent on both the perception of the Radiant and the Spren. Wyndle most certainly did not believe Lift would stop aging.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

Brandon has stated that age is a fundamental part of spiritual identity which why healing cant heal damage from aging. And gold F does work on the same principles as stormlight healing.

[NameIess]

7 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Brandon has stated that age is a fundamental part of spiritual identity which why healing cant heal damage from aging.

Yes, the spiritual aspect. the Cognitive aspect can interfere, however:

Spoiled for length

Spoiler

Questioner

Given Sanderson's Laws about limitations...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

What would you say are any spiritual, cognitive, and or physical limitations to a Returned's healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

That they can do it once.

Questioner

That they can do it once, and that's it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, right? The Returned get one heal and then they die. That's a pretty big limitation. Like you have to choose really well. However, what they can heal is bounded by cosmere limitations on healing, but it is a supercharged version.

Questioner

Okay. Could you define more cosmere limitations on healing?

Brandon Sanderson

Cosmere limitations on healing can be affected by your own perception.

Questioner

Okay. Cognitive stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Cognitive stuff. And so there's a part of that, and... But that's really-- cognitive interferes. And if your spirit is gone? Right? Cosmere healing, you know, if your spirit is passed on you just get a dead body even though you've healed it.

Questioner

So potentially Vasher, having a much greater cosmere knowledge than others could potentially have a much greater usage of that healing than regular--

Brandon Sanderson

Well the healing-- What I mean by that is yourself. You impose limits. So the person being healed can impose some limits on the healing working. It doesn't happen as often as I'm making it sound. But, you know-- why Kaladin's scars have not healed, right? So Kaladin being hit by a Returned would still not heal his scars. He's got a major hangup about those scars.

And also:

Spoilered for length again

Spoiler

Doom-Slayer

So how do the exact mechanics of Feruchemy in relation to Compounding work?

This confusion is primarily around how [the Lord Ruler] gets his near infinite age.

Okay. So first off, I understand the concept of how they work. Feruchemy is net zero, Allomancy is net positive, combine them and you end with a net positive Feruchemy ability.

So how Feruchemy normally works... you take say weight, store half your normal weight and then you can access it whenever you want. So you (originally X weight) are taking A weight, storing it, and then you are at (X-A) weight, with access to A. So we have a metalmind that store magnitude with the efficiency of how its received based on how quickly or slowly it is drawn upon.

All the metalminds except atium seem to act this way. Atium seems to work as storing magnitude/time rather than just magnitude. The way I understand it is that say a 30 year old person becomes 50 years old for 1 day, this would give access to 20 years difference for a 1 day period.

The Lord Ruler then exploits this by gaining access to say 20 years difference over 10 days (magnification by Compounding) which he then slowly feeds into himself to lower his age.

Why this difference? I'm assuming its to maintain a neutral "body age" because with just magnitude a person could permanently make themselves younger by Compounding.

With just magnitude of "20 years of youth" being stored, if the Lord Ruler magnified it, he could turn it into "200 years of youth" and then he would never need the constant stream off youth (and wouldn't have died without the bracelets)

Hope this makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.

First, is that magics can be hacked together. You'll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here--where you're essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)

The piece you're missing is the nature of a person's Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea--the idea that there's a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It's a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw Investiture. The soul, you might say.

(Note that over time, a person's perception of themselves shapes their Cognitive aspect as well, and the Cognitive aspect can interfere with the Spiritual aspect trying to make the Physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your Physical self with your Spiritual self--making the Physical regrow. More powerful forms of Investiture can repair the soul as well.

However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul "knows" things, like where you were born, what Investiture you are aligned with, and--yes--how old you are. When you're healing yourself, you're restoring yourself to a perfect state--when you're done, everything is good. When you're changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.

So the Spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this Compounding hack, you're not changing connection; it's a purely Physical Realm change.

This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won't matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use Compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul's attempt to restore you to how you should be.

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.

Though this is the point where I ping [Peter Ahlstrom] and get him to double-check all this. Once in a while, my fingers still type the wrong term in places. (See silvereye vs tineye.)

So the cognitive aspect can interfere, the question is how much?

18 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

And gold F does work on the same principles as stormlight healing.

It works on the same principles, but both the spren and the Radiants perception matters, which is why it didn't work for Lift, Wyndle did not believe that she would stop aging.

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Nameless said:

So the cognitive aspect can interfere, the question is how much?

It might make some difference but to completely stop aging seems a bit much for "interpherence".  You would probably need to do some major SR surgery to get that kind of effect.

[Dancer]

 

4 hours ago, Karger said:

It might make some difference but to completely stop aging seems a bit much for "interpherence".  You would probably need to do some major SR surgery to get that kind of effect.

SR surgery sounds a lot like Hemalurgy. I wounder could you steel youth with Hemalurgy. That sounds like something it would do.  

[Frustration]

7 hours ago, Nameless said:

While I was reading through the Wax and Wayne trilogy, there is a part in it were Wayne thinks to himself about how it seems illogical to him that people would die when they are old, as that is the time when they should have the most experience staying alive. This caused me to consider: What if a bloodmaker or gold compounder actually believed themselves to be immortal, or that they should be a certain age forever? Would their cognitive aspect then interfere with their spiritual aspect enough to extend their lifespan, would it just not age them while they healed, or would it do nothing?

Hoid is the only person insane enough for that to work and he is already immortal.

[Karger]

Another point is that Wayne does not think being drunk is an impairment and is arguably crazy yet still gets healed from tapping gold.  This means you need someone crazier then Wayne!

7 hours ago, Dancer said:

SR surgery sounds a lot like Hemalurgy. I wounder could you steel youth with Hemalurgy. That sounds like something it would do.  

That is definitely the kind of thing hemalurgy is good for.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Karger

[NameIess]

14 hours ago, Karger said:

It might make some difference but to completely stop aging seems a bit much for "interpherence".  You would probably need to do some major SR surgery to get that kind of effect.

I don't think you could get true immortality, but you could probably slow the aging, or perhaps stop it entirely until the spiritual interference gets too strong.

[Karger]

Just now, Nameless said:

I don't think you could get true immortality, but you could probably slow the aging, or perhaps stop it entirely until the spiritual interference gets too strong.

I think it would be a bit more like aging really well.

[NameIess]

Just now, Karger said:

I think it would be a bit more like aging really well.

I can just imagine someone pulling this off, end then someone asks them "How do you do it? You're over a hundred years old, and you look in your sixties!" And the guy just turns to him and says: "Simple. I just consider myself immortal."

[Karger]

Just now, Nameless said:

I can just imagine someone pulling this off, end then someone asks them "How do you do it? You're over a hundred years old, and you look in your sixties!" And the guy just turns to him and says: "Simple. I just consider myself immortal."

Some people are like that in real life(the bastards).

[18th Shard]

I think it is evident that cognitive perception can inhibit healing but not strengthen it - and "FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging " would probably mean methods such as reaching the appropriate heightening, or delaying your aging in another method. If you can decrease the rate at which you age, the atium compounding becomes far more effective. The reason the TLR method is inefficient is because you need an exponential quantity of investiture. If you can get yourself to age slower, then even if you now need only multiplicatively more investiture, it is still far more efficient. 

In other words, I can't think of an example of cognitive perception that would actually make your healing work better. See the below WoBs.

Quote

Spoiler

Iceblade44

So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

Spoiler

Questioner

Given Sanderson's Laws about limitations...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

What would you say are any spiritual, cognitive, and or physical limitations to a Returned's healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

That they can do it once.

Questioner

That they can do it once, and that's it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, right? The Returned get one heal and then they die. That's a pretty big limitation. Like you have to choose really well. However, what they can heal is bounded by cosmere limitations on healing, but it is a supercharged version.

Questioner

Okay. Could you define more cosmere limitations on healing?

Brandon Sanderson

Cosmere limitations on healing can be affected by your own perception.

Questioner

Okay. Cognitive stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Cognitive stuff. And so there's a part of that, and... But that's really-- cognitive interferes. And if your spirit is gone? Right? Cosmere healing, you know, if your spirit is passed on you just get a dead body even though you've healed it.

Questioner

So potentially Vasher, having a much greater cosmere knowledge than others could potentially have a much greater usage of that healing than regular--

Brandon Sanderson

Well the healing-- What I mean by that is yourself. You impose limits. So the person being healed can impose some limits on the healing working. It doesn't happen as often as I'm making it sound. But, you know-- why Kaladin's scars have not healed, right? So Kaladin being hit by a Returned would still not heal his scars. He's got a major hangup about those scars.

Footnote: The questioner seems to have been asking about cosmere healing in general for Returned, but Brandon focused on their ability to give up their Divine Breath to heal somebody else.
Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

Spoiler

Leinton (paraphrased)

So for Kaladin's depression and Stormlight's healing abilities, does Kaladin remain depressed because of his view of himself, or is it a limitation of Stormlight's abilities to heal, or something else?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Disorders like depression are a part of a person's personality, and thus aren't diseases and cannot be cured. He talked a lot about this, and he talked about how a hyper kid annoys people but that doesn't mean there's something wrong.

Firefight San Diego signing (Jan. 20, 2015)

Spoiler

Kurkistan

So, could you give us some examples of how the ideals that spren represent work in other magic systems, like we have Forging where you get plausibility, or Returned how they're beautiful or any other systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, one more time on that.

Kurkistan

Okay, so you know the ideals the spren are manifestations--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

How-- Do those have impacts on other magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes, in the same way the Returned- that's the exact same system at work there.

Kurkistan

Is it the same reason why the Lord Ruler has to die of old age, and why you can't heal yourself into being an octopus or something?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... Yes, that is all connected in the exact same way.

Kurkistan

Okay, so it's all like these highfalutin Spiritual ideals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

And are there like, median Cognitive ideals that gradually kind of influence these, or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they transcend between the three. I mean the original concept for the Three Realms is Platonic philosophy.

Kurkistan

So it goes up *makes absurd reverse-waterfall hand gesture*

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it goes up and it comes back down. A lot of the Cognitive is-- So like, the Cognitive has a bigger effect on how you can heal and things like that. Does that make sense?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

But the power to heal is a actually a Spiritual thing.

Kurkistan

So it's like the Spiritual says "I want to be like this" and the Cognitive is like "Okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit."

Brandon Sanderson

Right. Right. Filtered through how you see yourself, yeah.

Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015)

 

 

[Karger]

29 minutes ago, 18th Shard said:

I think it is evident that cognitive perception can inhibit healing but not strengthen it

That is not evident.  This line

30 minutes ago, 18th Shard said:

You impose limits

Means what you think.  Your limits are to some degree what you think they are.  It does not mean that if you think your limits are less then they might become less.

[teknopathetic]

21 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I don't think that that would work because Lift believes that she shouldn't age, but does anyway, despite having very strong healing.

Of course, that explanation assumes that regrowth or stormlight healing would work the same way as gold in this situation, but that seems like a safe assumption to make.

Other people expect her to age though. If everyone truly believed she wouldn't age then maybe she wouldn't. I am not sure if we have to include shards in the "everyone" category or not. 

[Thanatos]

Didnt Hoid get his 'immortality' from the weapon that killed Uncle Andy?

And Hoids no more immortal than say a vampire. In that a vampire can die. 

I also remember Hoid usess time dilation which help him with his age. As it seems Hoid ages really really slow and is very hard to kill. (Aka, like a vampire)

 

[Bigmikey357]

If Rashek and the Atium immortality hack shows us anything,  it's that the SR keeps track. One needs to do something to either counter that clock or make it irrelevant, and due to spiritual entropy this change must be drastic, all encompassing,  and it gets tougher the longer it goes on.

Depending on the magic system immortality is relatively easy to obtain and hard to maintain.  I say relatively easy because the methods are known and have been proven to work, because any old random someone can achieve it.  The Shards get it built in but lose their humanity as a result,  becoming more and more forces instead of people. Something similar happens to Elantrians,  though what they lose is sanity not personhood. The Returned and those of the 5th Heightening are immortal,  but one needs constant matinence with a breath a week and the other must be hoarded. We know how to achieve immortality on Scadrial, one must become something of a mythical being.  But you still have to spend an increasingly longer duration being old to stick around being young. The Heralds get immortality by basically resetting the shot clock with a new body everytime they die. The Fused must parasite their new bodies from the living and their minds get broken by the process as well.

Regardless of how one achieves immortality in the Cosmere,  simply wishing on a star and expecting the SR to agree with it would not be enough to counter the Spirit Shot Clock. One needs magic to counter the entropy of time. Then, depending on how the immortality manifests,  either one has to consistently maintain that immortality indefinitely or one gets the type that doesn't need matinence and suffers severe side effects likened to a curse. Are there people with a will strong enough to call themselves immortal and make their spiritual aspect to the line? By the rules of the Cosmere I'd determine no, but it's Brandon's universe, we just read about it. 

[DiePie]

Found something relevant to the subject searching for something on Hoid's immortality (he heals through a spiritual process, making him heal differently to other individuals, right?) <spoilered for length, and only the very end is relevant>

Spoiler

Iceblade44

So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

So I would think that your Spiritual Ideal would change based on your age (to grow older) so that this loophole didn't exist.

 

15 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

but it's Brandon's universe, we just read about it.

Amen. We'll just have to Read and Find Out.

[NameIess]

21 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If Rashek and the Atium immortality hack shows us anything,  it's that the SR keeps track. One needs to do something to either counter that clock or make it irrelevant, and due to spiritual entropy this change must be drastic, all encompassing,  and it gets tougher the longer it goes on.

Depending on the magic system immortality is relatively easy to obtain and hard to maintain.  I say relatively easy because the methods are known and have been proven to work, because any old random someone can achieve it.  The Shards get it built in but lose their humanity as a result,  becoming more and more forces instead of people. Something similar happens to Elantrians,  though what they lose is sanity not personhood. The Returned and those of the 5th Heightening are immortal,  but one needs constant matinence with a breath a week and the other must be hoarded. We know how to achieve immortality on Scadrial, one must become something of a mythical being.  But you still have to spend an increasingly longer duration being old to stick around being young. The Heralds get immortality by basically resetting the shot clock with a new body everytime they die. The Fused must parasite their new bodies from the living and their minds get broken by the process as well.

Regardless of how one achieves immortality in the Cosmere,  simply wishing on a star and expecting the SR to agree with it would not be enough to counter the Spirit Shot Clock. One needs magic to counter the entropy of time. Then, depending on how the immortality manifests,  either one has to consistently maintain that immortality indefinitely or one gets the type that doesn't need matinence and suffers severe side effects likened to a curse. Are there people with a will strong enough to call themselves immortal and make their spiritual aspect to the line? By the rules of the Cosmere I'd determine no, but it's Brandon's universe, we just read about it. 

I don't think that you could actually achieve true immortality with this, only slow or perhaps stop the aging process, until the spiritual aspect eventually overwhelms the cognitive interference.