The machine

[Siri]

Was any one else bothered by the machine's invention? 

Like,  as far as we can tell,  there has never been any other kind of machine invented.  All the innovations are done by the spirits and yoki-hijo. Ofcourse,  we only see that world from yumi's perspective,  but if you think about the complexity of that machine,  there must have been more machines previously invented leading up to it. 

Just think about it.  It has to first sense where a rock is,  pick the rock up,  assess the weight and balance of the rock.  Place the rock on a stack in such a way that it doesn't fall (in other words it can't just make a pile,  and has to remember the aspects of the other rocks and their balance,  etc.).  All of that requires very precise sensors and precision motors,  levers,  etc. 

Then it has to sense when a spirit comes,  have the mechanisms to capture it, then convert it into energy and output that energy.  

All of that is very complex and isn't likely to have been achieved in the first machine ever invented, even with a prototype. 

So,  how did they come to develop such a complex machine with no evidence of other technological advancements leading up to it? 

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, Siri said:

Was any one else bothered by the machine's invention?

<snip>

So,  how did they come to develop such a complex machine with no evidence of other technological advancements leading up to it? 

May I ask what other Cosmere stories you have read?

These answers were implied in the text, but if you had not read the other story reference you may not have noticed them. (Slight Spoiler)

Spoiler

The references were to Warbreaker. YNP Ch 39:

Quote

Let this be a lesson. When you Awaken a device like this, be very, very careful what Commands you give it to follow.

If you have not read that (available free on Sanderson's website); then doing so may clear up many of your questions. The annotations are also linked free, but I normally suggest you read those after the novel (though Brandon did spoiler tag items for those that read them concurrently). Note - the eBook also has the annotations, but they are not spoiler tagged there because it's generally not supported on most platforms.

To get into more detail we would need to ask an Admin to move this thread to the Cosmere Spoilers version of the Yumi Forum.

To address the other aspect of your question - we do know they had already built at-least-one prototype, because we see it in Yumi's "world" (The scholars and their "machine" was confirmed as an actual event recreation by Father Machine - before they built the large version for the fair, they had been working on small prototypes and travelling with them). There was probably a significant amount of other tech before Father Machine was turned on, but it didn't even need to recreate that unless a specific Yoki-hijo's prison required it for "authenticity." Yumi was so sheltered, she would not have known of any other tech before Father Machine was turned on.

[Guest]

We can also reasonably assume that many original parts of the machine were made from spirits. The spirits have some level of sentience so could theoretically handle what we would need to use AI for; they're such a key part of society that it would be weird to not engineer using them; we would need to speculate that just one of the 12 reformed yoki-hijo to also be one of the scholars; and most of the parts were later replaced by spirit components so we know that spirits could actually make most of the components. This would mean that the scholars would need to fine-tune and coordinate a few dozen spirit components instead of secretly inventing AI and robotics more advanced than our own. 

[king of nowhere]

On 3/8/2023 at 7:37 PM, Siri said:

Was any one else bothered by the machine's invention? 

Like,  as far as we can tell,  there has never been any other kind of machine invented.  All the innovations are done by the spirits and yoki-hijo. Ofcourse,  we only see that world from yumi's perspective,  but if you think about the complexity of that machine,  there must have been more machines previously invented leading up to it. 

Just think about it.  It has to first sense where a rock is,  pick the rock up,  assess the weight and balance of the rock.  Place the rock on a stack in such a way that it doesn't fall (in other words it can't just make a pile,  and has to remember the aspects of the other rocks and their balance,  etc.).  All of that requires very precise sensors and precision motors,  levers,  etc. 

Then it has to sense when a spirit comes,  have the mechanisms to capture it, then convert it into energy and output that energy.  

All of that is very complex and isn't likely to have been achieved in the first machine ever invented, even with a prototype. 

So,  how did they come to develop such a complex machine with no evidence of other technological advancements leading up to it? 

the fact is, it's not a technological machine. I'm not sure we ourselves could build one like that. It was a machine made by magic.

specifically, hoid mentions that the machine was awakened, which refers to a specific type of creation, mostly used in warbreaker. can't spoiler it in this thread. suffice to say that made it possible without any sensor and motor, because the magic was providing that. the machine only needed to be able to bend in the proper ways, the investiture would take care of the rest.

anyway, we see no other instance of awakening in yumi's world, so it is pretty clear those scholars were advanced in manipulating investiture and had access to magic yumi had never seen. so,  yumi had a limited perspective on her world. she never saw the capital, where probably was the most advanced stuff.

it's also possible those scholars got their extra knowlege from a passing worldhopper, or from a spirit

[Duxredux he/him]

Am I the only one that thought The Machine was built from spirits? At least in part? When Yumi summons the spirits the first time in the book, she asks some of the spirits to basically turn into a remote control aerial drone. So long as she could describe the function of the object adequately, just about anything could be made from a spirit. In fact we know that the prototype was powered by Hion - which is spirit. That seems like a pretty good indicator of Awakened tech, given it's objects with at least semi-intelligent Investiture operating according to a set of instructions (a Command if you will). In this case it's getting a lazy(er) yoki-hijo to sponsor some spirits with the promise that you are trying to build a machine to stack rocks so they can escape the life of a yoki-hijo. In fact I wouldn't be surprised at all if the whole fiasco with the Machine and the Shroud was caused by well-meaning friends and family members of one or more yoki-hijo that were disturbed by the life style they had been made to live.

[king of nowhere]

15 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Am I the only one that thought The Machine was built from spirits? At least in part?

very possible, yes. it would explain how they would awaken a machine without deeper knowledge

[Colors]

On 8/3/2023 at 1:37 PM, Siri said:

Was any one else bothered by the machine's invention? 

Like,  as far as we can tell,  there has never been any other kind of machine invented.  All the innovations are done by the spirits and yoki-hijo. Ofcourse,  we only see that world from yumi's perspective,  but if you think about the complexity of that machine,  there must have been more machines previously invented leading up to it. 

Just think about it.  It has to first sense where a rock is,  pick the rock up,  assess the weight and balance of the rock.  Place the rock on a stack in such a way that it doesn't fall (in other words it can't just make a pile,  and has to remember the aspects of the other rocks and their balance,  etc.).  All of that requires very precise sensors and precision motors,  levers,  etc. 

Then it has to sense when a spirit comes,  have the mechanisms to capture it, then convert it into energy and output that energy.  

All of that is very complex and isn't likely to have been achieved in the first machine ever invented, even with a prototype. 

So,  how did they come to develop such a complex machine with no evidence of other technological advancements leading up to it? 

I think the biggest aspect here is how sheltered Yumi was. She didn't talk to other people, she didn't interact with them, she barely saw them beyond when they came to watch her and petition her. She also seemed to mostly visit smaller, outer cities/towns. It was probably unlikely she would have had much interaction with technology even if it existed for some time in Torio, particularly the larger cities.

It kind of reminds me of the fact I know family members who remember a time when they didn't have indoor plumbing in their homes, and they aren't that old. Rural areas are often far behind the times technologically.