Perpetual energy

[Father Tanner]

My understanding is that the spiritual realm is a source of perpetual energy that decreases the entropy of the physical realm through certain investitures (ie. Stormlight) and shards. Do the laws of entropy apply to the spiritual realm? I studied chemical engineering in college so conservation of energy is something that i have thought a lot about while reading cosmere books. Is it possible for the energy of the spiritual realm to reach equilibrium with that of the physical realm? I guess my question boils down to: is there a finite amount of energy in the spiritual realm, or does it somehow break the laws of thermodynamics by constantly adding energy to the physical realm from an infinite source?

Edited May 15, 2021 by Father Tanner

[Frustration]

Investiture follows some form of the laws of thermodynamics

[HSuperLee]

38 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Investiture follows some form of the laws of thermodynamics

This is mostly true, but its complicated by the fact that we have reasons to believe that Shards don't necessarily have to deal with entropy, but rather, any investiture they expend will eventually return to them in a usable form. There is no inaccessible "energy" for Shards. That throws things off a bit, but otherwise yeah, Frustration is right.

 

Also, Disclaimer: I could be completely wrong about that, its not been specifically addressed and I'm making this claim based on a few inferences. If Sanderson eventually says that there is investiture completely (rather than temporarily) inaccessible to Shards, then I am wrong.

[Father Tanner]

5 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

This is mostly true, but its complicated by the fact that we have reasons to believe that Shards don't necessarily have to deal with entropy, but rather, any investiture they expend will eventually return to them in a usable form. There is no inaccessible "energy" for Shards. That throws things off a bit, but otherwise yeah, Frustration is right.

 

Also, Disclaimer: I could be completely wrong about that, its not been specifically addressed and I'm making this claim based on a few inferences. If Sanderson eventually says that there is investiture completely (rather than temporarily) inaccessible to Shards, then I am wrong.

My understanding was that the shard was a tool with the spiritual realm being the power source. Like electricity in a power drill. That is why the shards are never "used up." They aren't the energy itself, but the conduit of it's use. I could be wrong there though

[Kingsdaughter613]

6 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

This is mostly true, but its complicated by the fact that we have reasons to believe that Shards don't necessarily have to deal with entropy, but rather, any investiture they expend will eventually return to them in a usable form. There is no inaccessible "energy" for Shards. That throws things off a bit, but otherwise yeah, Frustration is right.

 

Also, Disclaimer: I could be completely wrong about that, its not been specifically addressed and I'm making this claim based on a few inferences. If Sanderson eventually says that there is investiture completely (rather than temporarily) inaccessible to Shards, then I am wrong.

I mean, one of the Shards literally IS Entropy, so...

[Honorless]

I think our universe just has more forces that accelerate entropy, Investiture being part of the equation means it would slow down entropy but not eliminate it, I think.

[Weltall]

Some relevant WoBs:

Quote

trevorade

Is investiture finite? Hemalurgy and a Return's need to consume breath seems to show us that it can be destroyed. If it is finite, is the Cosmere's magic source doomed to the law of entropy?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture can not be created or destroyed. It follows it's own version of the laws of Thermodynamics.

Joe_____

So what happens to the investiture that is lost when a person is spiked and the spike isn't set in the new person immediately? Does it return to the big pool of investiture in the sky like the power from wheel of time where if its not actively being used it returns to the source?

Brandon Sanderson

What happens to someone's body when it's not being used by a particular person? The system is built to work like that.

/r/books AMA 2015 (March 12, 2015)

Quote

emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

Quote

Questioner

For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed?

Brandon Sanderson

The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that.

Questioner

What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity...

Brandon Sanderson

So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

What this basically means for the original question is that while there is an upper limit on how much Investiture can be used at any given time, it's high enough to be essentially a non-issue and Investiture in the Physical Realm recycles back into the Spiritual Realm by design, more or less perfectly if given enough time. Nightblood seems to act sort of like an Investiture Black Hole, where the consumed Investiture gets converted into a form different from what it was when it went in but eventually gets released, similarly to Hawking radiation.

Provided you could find a way to do so, you could break Physical Realm thermodynamics by drawing power from the Spiritual realm but there are limitations on the various methods we either know of or can hypothesize about. For example, compounding breaks the rules of feruchemy by allowing your output to exceed your input, but the energy that makes it possible is coming from the Spiritual Realm and you're ultimately limited by how much of that power you can shove into a piece of metal or how much of the metal you have available. It might be possible to make perpetual motion machines with Awakening (Brandon didn't confirm the specific application, just that you can make BioChromatic machines) but you'd still have to deal with friction and the amount of work done would be limited by how much Breath is required for a given device. Stormlight can provide an effectively infinite source of light but only if you have a perfect gemstone and all applications that use Stormlight to perform work also consume it or can damage the gemstones.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Weltall