What would a desert look like in Shadesmar?

[Irishlawyer]

So, my title is kind of a simplification of the full question, but it's the model I've been using in my head while thinking about it.

The desert would have beads for each grain of sand, but what about combinations of sand?  Sand dunes are temporary in deserts, with winds blowing about the grains, but would the sand dune itself have it's own bead?  Would it require humans/sapient beings to imagine the dune?  How do objects that aren't truly cohesive work in the Cognitive?

Did my rambling question make sense?

[Quantus]

There are a couple sides of it that I can think up, but it's all very subjective.  I think the biggest factor is how the sentient people think of it, whether their collective/popular mental image is of a dune vs individual grains of sand, or even a more all-encompassing Dune Sea.  We know that individual stones have their own cognitive aspect, which is why the soulcasters in the camps prefer larger stones to turn into food, rather than the equivalent mass of gravel.  But we've also seen a whole Keep/castle consolidate into a single bead. 

In general Terrain features like that are going to be really strange. When does a pile of rocks become a Mountain?  If the people that live on it see a pile, but people in the valley only see the single Mountain, whose mental image wins out?  Does a hill have it's own bead, and how far do you have to dig to get into a different bead?  Is there a bead for a Chasm, or just a gap between two Plateau beads?  How the bloody hell does AIR have a cognitive aspect, which it must if you can soulcast it into things?

I realize that's kind of a non-answer, sorry.  The only thing I can actually say is that there is some time-lag involved with the cognitive aspect of inanimate objects (as seen when Dalinar was repairing things) so changes would have to be somewhat lasting before they'd get reflected in the bead image.  

[Experience]

I'm pretty sure that it completely depends on the views of the inhabitants. They might view it as a desert, in which case I believe the bead would be a desert. If they just view it as a bunch of sand, I guess logically there would be a bead for each grain of sand. I'm not sure what would happen if there were two separate groups of people that lived on the desert and the both had different views.

[Karger]

That really depends of the inhabitants of the dessert.  Some desserts have fairly diverse and intelligent animals.  Others have only a few specialized bacteria.  Uninhabited planets don't yet register at all in the CR and all of these are subject to change over time.  If humans visit and or enact changes on desserts the results can be dramatic.

Quote

Questioner

How would the city of Boston change over time in the Cognitive Realm, because its harbors have been constantly filled in with dirt?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, right, right. It will change to match, but there will be a time lapse, right? They'll be lagging behind. 

Questioner

So, you could dump it full of dirt, and then it might take like five or ten years before it actually appears as land.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's exactly about how it would go.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Karger

[Wandering Investor]

It's also gonna depend on the section of Shadesmar you're in. Sel's desert would just be more fog. 

[XeGnome]

“I am a stick”

how long did the stick “know” it was a stick.   Was it a stick when Shallan “observed” it ( think Schrödinger's cat ) or was it always a sick, from a limb, from a tree, from... etc.

a desert  is many different things to whom you ask, but, didn’t Brandon say that outer space, while observed, would be empty for the most part.  If people don’t live in a desert then the cognitive realm will be “scarce “ of spren to represent it.

or would the desert just look like the seas in the CR

Edited April 16, 2020 by XeGnome