Difference Between Cognitive and Spiritual Self for Healing

[logicalpencils]

From what I can gather, Investiture healing is an act on the Physical self to align it towards the Spiritual self. The three big limitations are access to Investiture, the magic system's particular rules for healing (e.g. all Radiants can self-heal but only two Orders can heal others via Surge of Progression), and the Cognitive self.

What I'm wondering is the distinction between the Cognitive and Spiritual selves. Stormlight Archives frequently comments on wounds being too old to be healed, because the person's Cognitive self has changed to consider the wound part of oneself. Kaladin's scar wouldn't heal itself, again because of a Cognitive impediment: he couldn't let go of what the scar meant to him. Lopen, meanwhile, could heal back a whole arm because he never saw himself as a one-armed Herdazian, and therefore his Spiritual ideal came through.

So we've seen good and bad examples of perception filtering the Spiritual properly or else hindering it: but can the Cognitive harm as well, rather than just hinder? For example, you see yourself as one-armed such that attempting to heal takes your arm off instead?

I believe Kaladin's scar is in fact a minor example of this idea, but it makes me wonder: how can a person tell whether a healing has worked "correctly" (i.e. the Cognitive is well-aligned to the Spiritual), or if there's been an impediment? Because either way, the result will ultimately align with the person's perception and expectations, so judging by what the person "wanted" to happen isn't a foolproof metric.

What's even the difference between the Spiritual and Cognitive self if healing always fits to the Cognitive over the Spiritual when the two are misaligned?

Edited March 14 by logicalpencils

[Treamayne]

50 minutes ago, logicalpencils said:

But it actually goes like this?

Cognitive: "I am a cow."

Spiritual: "I view myself as a cow; I will heal to this ideal."

I don't think that's how it works. It's more like:

Spiritual: I am a human.

Cognitive: I view myself as this kind of human.

Spiritual: I am this kind of human.

 - or - 

Spiritual: I am a human.

Cognitive: I view myself as <something other than human>.

<Inject investiture to alter spiritweb> (quantity based on type/kind/qty of change)

Spiritual: I am <something other than human>.

That's why Forgery can change some things, but cannot change other things without outside investiture (because the amount inherent to Forgery is too small for amny changes)

Spoiler

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

So, yes, there is a plausibility range to what can be affected. There are also other factors (such as Returned, being Cognitive Shadows, can more easily change some things than a normal person) - but that plausibility range is also affected by how invested the person/soul is (e. g. Yumi in Painter's body - her Spiritweb was so massively invested that it just overwrote his body while she inhabited it). 

Edited March 15 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

11 hours ago, logicalpencils said:

I'm surprised to hear that sex and species are easier to change than adding wings - though maybe that's generous to the human-to-Singer scenario. Sanderson does say it would require "a specific set of circumstances", one of which would be believing yourself to be a Singer. And that's about as likely as believing your body ought to have wings.

I think the difference is that humans and Singers are genetically and Spiritually very close to each other - they can intermix and both Horneaters and Herdazian are descendants of that. They aren't that different from each other, they are both humanoid. Wings on the other hand is a completely different story. There are no humans with wings, a human soul doesn't have wings in them, there are no sapient humanoid species so closely related to humans which also have wings. Wings are as far away from humans as birds are - and that's why it requires messing with your Spirit Web to add wings.

Spoiler

HorseCannon

I didn't realize Horneaters had parshmen blood, didn't even realize that was possible. How closely are humans and parshmen related, do they have a common ancestor? Or is one an artificially created version of the other?

Brandon Sanderson

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)

Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

ccstat

Are there Aimian-Human hybrids as well? (Either type of Aimian) If so, are the Thaylen people one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Blightsong

*via private message*

Some of us believe that you are saying that humans and listeners existed pre-Shattering while some of us believe that you are saying that Horneaters and Herdazians existed pre-Shattering (you have mentioned that humans had been on Roshar since before the Shattering recently). What were you trying to say here?

Brandon Sanderson

Humans (other than those on Yolen) existed pre-Shattering, as did parshmen.

Footnote: Blightsong's parenthetical statement is mistaken; there is no source claiming that humans had been on Roshar since before the Shattering.
General Reddit 2015 (Nov. 16, 2015)

 

11 hours ago, logicalpencils said:

One of the WoBs says that one's self-perception is recorded in the Spiritual Realm, too, not just in the Cognitive, which further blurs the distinction for me. If the Spiritweb is supposed to be the framework that limits the range of possible states, but then "the way you view yourself" is part of that very framework, the Spiritweb doesn't seem to put limits on the Cognitive at all — healing will always result in "what you think you are", so the Spiritual part is redundant. Well, except that Hemalurgy or Forgery can mess with your self-perception that way.

I thought the Spiritual would work like this.

Cognitive: "I am a cow."

Spiritual: "No, I'm a human, here's all the Connections and Identity confirming that."

But it actually goes like this?

Cognitive: "I am a cow."

Spiritual: "I view myself as a cow; I will heal to this ideal."

Yes, it's confusing, but I don't think that's it. That mental picture existing in SR is not the Spiritual Ideal of yourself, it's just a recording of how you view yourself separate from your Spiritual Ideal. The cow example is a good one because I believe no amount of perception will actually allow you to become a cow - that's the framework limitation imposed by your Spiritual Ideal which knows you are a human. 

For example a Forgery has to be believable to stay - you can fool your soul to believe you were born with just one hand, but not that you are a cow - your soul will snap back immediately. At best you can actively fight against your own spirit that tries to snap back by constantly using investiture - that was what Rashek was doing with his age change. He had to constantly tap F-Atium to push against his soul's attempt to snap him back to his original age, which eventually happened when Vin removed his metalminds and investiture stopped pushing against his soul. While your age is a bit different from your health (you can't heal your age), the mechanism should be the same when you go extremely against your Spiritual Ideal. 

 

9 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Close enough. Just keep in mind that for Example type 1, the Spiritweb is not changing at all. The Spiritweb is based on the concept of the Platonic Ideal - so if your Cognitive Identity (filter) is within the range of the Spiritweb's Ideal, then things flow and healing matches the filtered Ideal.

It's only when the Cognitive Filter is outside of that Ideal that some method is required to change the Spiritweb.

That's it. I was just about to post that WoB too. For the second part, either you alter your spirit web directly (Hemalurgy), or you use some invested art and kinetic investiture to constantly push against your spirit web's attempt you restore your body to your Spiritual Ideal (Rashek tapping F-Atium, it didn't change his spirit web, it fought against it).

[Treamayne]

Welcome to the Shard. Please let us know in your profile (or an Intro Post) what you have or have not read (whichever list is shorter) so that we can avoid spoilers (if necessary). 

1 hour ago, logicalpencils said:

So we've seen good and bad examples of perception filtering the Spiritual properly or else hindering it: but can the Cognitive harm as well, rather than just hinder? For example, you see yourself as one-armed such that attempting to heal takes your arm off instead?

<snip>

What's even the difference between the Spiritual and Cognitive self if healing always fits to the Cognitive over the Spiritual when the two are misaligned?

Well, that might depend on your definition of "harm." Have you read Dawnshard? (Spoilers)

Spoiler

Ral-na was the Reshi king introduced in WoR Interlude 3, and it is releaved in Dawnshard Ch 3 that since bonding an Ashspren and becoming a Dustbringer, he has transitioned to his Cognitive Gender (born female). 

But "healing" can absolutely cause significant changes to a body. YatNP Spoilers:

Spoiler

Yumi is so heavily invested that when her Cognitive Identity inhabits Painter's body, it "heals" the body to her gender and features.

In fact, it might be better to say that Invested Healing isn't actually healing as applied to oneself, it is simply investiture changing the Physical based on the Spiritual Ideal filtered through the Congnitive Identity. It is implied (but not yet confirmed IIRC) that (Warbreaker Spoilers)

Spoiler

The Royal Locks and Vasher's "body" both originate in this same mechanic

Hope that helps

Edited March 14 by Treamayne

[logicalpencils]

I was going to include Yumi in my line of thinking but forgot. I have read everything except White Sand, I'll put that down in the profile. And I would see Ral-na's situation as harm but didn't include it because Brandon doesn't see it that way.

And anyways, you're right that health vs harm is an irrelevant question to Invested "healing". It's a matter of Spiritual ideal through Cognitive identity. But that's my key question: I thought Identity was a Spiritual attribute, not Cognitive? And if the Cognitive perception is what ultimately matters, what's the Spiritual doing?

[Treamayne]

24 minutes ago, logicalpencils said:

I thought Identity was a Spiritual attribute, not Cognitive? And if the Cognitive perception is what ultimately matters, what's the Spiritual doing?

Identity is (likely) a component of all three realms - Spiritual, Cognitive, and Physical. This is most easily seen in Warbreaker, because of the nature of BioChroma (but also referenced in Emperor's Soul and seen in the Cognitive Identity of Beads in Roshar's Shadesmar).  For Example: 

Spoiler

Quote

Djarskublar

I'd like confirmation/denial of a theory of mine. Is the reason people can recall breaths from objects but not Lifeless or sentient awakened objects because they no longer have the same Identity as the awakener?

Brandon Sanderson

You are on the right track.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 20, 2016)

Breaths are a PR investiture (Divine Breath is Spiritual), and it will key off of the Physical Identity of the Lifeless.

Quote

Oudeis16

If Bob the Awakener Awakened fifty straw men to dance around, then died, then Returned as FormerBob the Appropriately Named, would FormerBob be able to reclaim the Breath from the straw men in the normal fashion (once he learned the "Your Breath to Mine" Command)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He has enough of his original Identity, and the spiritual connection would remain.

sonofstannis

What if he instead were reincarnated as a lifeless? Is there a way he could reclaim it then?

Brandon Sanderson

Lifeless have someone else's investiture replacing their own. (As opposed to Returned, who are augmented.) Depends on how much of them is left, and if they can achieve sapience again, but I'd say this is unlikely.

WeiryWriter

What if the Lifeless is Awakened with their own Breath? (i.e. they gave it away right before they died and the person they gave it to then used it in the Awakening)

Brandon Sanderson

This has happened already in the world, and it does help.

-Nayrb

Did this happen "on screen"?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 30, 2015)

Quote

Joeh42

In Warbreaker, is Clod the Lifeless body of Arsteel? I like this idea because Arsteel would have had some Breaths within him when he died, as this is how Vashir defeated him and Denth, and this could help explain why he seems to be a little more self-aware than most Lifeless. Could you respond to this idea?

Brandon Sanderson

I confirmed in the Warbreaker annotations that Clod is Arsteel.

Clod is more self-aware than most Lifeless. There is something left of Arsteel within Clod. The Breaths that Vasher gave him when he killed him do have an effect on this.

Tor.com Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Jan. 10, 2011)

So, in theory, because Arsteel dies with the breath granted by Vasher, and was then awakened with breath that a Connection to Arsteel's Cognitive Identity resulted in Clod's awareness. Physical and Cognitive Identity, but with the artificial "Soul" (Spiritual Identity) created by the Awakening. 

24 minutes ago, logicalpencils said:

I have read everything except White Sand

You may want to check out this post.

Edited March 14 by Treamayne
Clarity / SPAG

[alder24]

4 hours ago, logicalpencils said:

From what I can gather, Investiture healing is an act on the Physical self to align it towards the Spiritual self. The three big limitations are access to Investiture, the magic system's particular rules for healing (e.g. all Radiants can self-heal but only two Orders can heal others via Surge of Progression), and the Cognitive self.

What I'm wondering is the distinction between the Cognitive and Spiritual selves. Stormlight Archives frequently comments on wounds being too old to be healed, because the person's Cognitive self has changed to consider the wound part of oneself. Kaladin's scar wouldn't heal itself, again because of a Cognitive impediment: he couldn't let go of what the scar meant to him. Lopen, meanwhile, could heal back a whole arm because he never saw himself as a one-armed Herdazian, and therefore his Spiritual ideal came through.

So we've seen good and bad examples of perception filtering the Spiritual properly or else hindering it: but can the Cognitive harm as well, rather than just hinder? For example, you see yourself as one-armed such that attempting to heal takes your arm off instead?

I believe Kaladin's scar is in fact a minor example of this idea, but it makes me wonder: how can a person tell whether a healing has worked "correctly" (i.e. the Cognitive is well-aligned to the Spiritual), or if there's been an impediment? Because either way, the result will ultimately align with the person's perception and expectations, so judging by what the person "wanted" to happen isn't a foolproof metric.

What's even the difference between the Spiritual and Cognitive self if healing always fits to the Cognitive over the Spiritual when the two are misaligned?

Treamayne answered it very well already, but I will add a few things and WoBs. Healing matches your Physical body to your Spiritual ideal but filtered through your perception (Cognitive self). There are things you can do with it if you have the right perception, but there are also some limits. Things that you ask for are possible with the correct perception, you can heal your arm out, change sex or even heal yourself to become a Singer. But if you want to grow wings, that's a bit too much for your perception to take you there, you need to first mess with your Spirit Web to achieve that - like with Hemalurgy. Is that harmful? Not really, it's how you view yourself - it's you. Healing isn't done just to your Cognitive self, the Spiritual Ideal will limit how far away you can go with it - it's like a framework in which healing is done.

Spoiler

Questioner

I notice that Stormlight seems to be a bit volatile in how well it heals or who it heals. Because it seems like Renarin's eyesight would have been a long term problem, kinda like Rysn's legs maybe and Lopen's arm. But Lopen's arm got healed, Rysn's legs didn't and Kaladin's scars didn't. So I didn't know if there was a reason for those things.

Brandon Sanderson

So Stormlight healing, there's a couple things that have to be considered. But in reference to what you're saying, the person's perception of themselves is a huge part of it.  The way healing works in the cosmere is, you've got the three versions of yourself. You've got your Physical version, your Cognitive version, and your Spiritual version, And a lot of Stormlight is taking your Physical version and matching it to the Spiritual version which is your ideal self.  But it has to be filtered through the lens of your mind, and things like this.

I almost always--probably should say always--am using it to reinforce some sort of character attribute. The fact that Lopen never saw himself, even though he only had one arm, as being disabled, as a big influence, versus whether Kaladin feels deserves his brands or not. Does that makes sense?  And those are two very different things that influence how the healing works. And you will see that as a metaphor and theme, if you watch what heals and what doesn't.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Kurkistan

Are flamespren, are they all doing their own thing, or is there some Ideal of "Fire" sitting in the Spiritual Realm that they're all based on?

Brandon Sanderson

Each spren is based on the Ideal of Fire.

Kurkistan

And is that sitting in the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, we're using sort of a Platonic Ideal, and that concept is in force, so *sounds hesitant* "yes", but [spren] are manifestations of it.

Kurkistan

So these Ideals in the Spiritual Realm: Divine Breath, does that heal by accessing some Ideal of Human Health: so a guy who had never had a tongue and doesn't know how to speak all the sudden has a tongue and can speak?

Brandon Sanderson

You are... *LONG pause* You are, um, on the right track.

Kurkistan

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Because the Breath is... eh. How can I explain this? You are, yeah... So... So each Breath is a shade of deity, right?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

And each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the deity Endowment, correct?

Kurkistan

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

And so each Breath you hold brings you one step closer to becoming like that, and so what you're saying is... is "yes", kind of true, yes.

Kurkistan

But it's like within the Breath, not sitting off by itself-

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes yes exactly.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

 

Spoiler

[...]

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)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

We know that magical healing has a lot to do with Identity, like Lopen and Rysn. Suppose someone was tapping Identity from an unkeyed metalmind, and then you tried to heal them with any kind of magical healing. What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

Most likely, that person’s perspective of themself is going to filter that unkeyed metalmind, and so what’s going to happen is what would normally happen to that person. In most instances. There are ways to get around that, but the vast majority, that’s what you’re gonna see.

Questioner

And if they were storing Identity instead?

Brandon Sanderson

Then you’re gonna go back to their Cognitive picture of themselves, which is going to be what’s filtering this, how they see themselves. If you knock them unconscious, they can’t see themselves, you’re blanking them of Identity, and things like that. They still, basically, will have… it’s gonna be really hard to get that all separated. The mental picture of themselves still exists on the Spiritual Realm. Remember, Realmatics is based on Plato’s theories of the forms, but your perspective is what’s shaping that. So there’s still gonna be, like, on the Spiritual Realm, there’s gonna be some version of yourself that is deeply influenced by how you view yourself that is going to be what that Investiture is trying to match, it’s trying to bring your body into alignment with that. So you’ve gotta replace that thing if you want it to do something different. Which you can do with Hemalurgy.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

Spoiler

learhpa

Given that Stormlight healing matches to mental self-image (as shown by both the Lopen and by the Reshi monarch), could a really powerful hypnotist change someone's self-image in a way that would affect Stormlight healing? Could a powerful hypnotist use Stormlight healing to change a human into a listener?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically possible...to an extent. There is a limit to this, but the limitation is the amount of Investiture you have and access to Stormlight—or you know, Voidlight—can evidence this. Transformations that are happening in the storm to the listener forms are involved in this. That could theoretically happen to a human as well. But you would basically—what most likely would happen is it would have to involve a specific set of circumstances and then entering the storm, and then exiting as a listener—that could happen. You guys ask some farfetched things—that one's not so farfetched. It does require some specificity, but it could happen.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Krios (paraphrased)

If you have a form of manipulating your Identity and a form of healing, are you able to shapeshift or even evolve your body like growing wings?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You'd have to do some real work on your Spiritweb to make that work. It'd take more work than you're implying, but the [singers] for instance are doing this. It'll take a little more work, it's not just blanking your Identity. Hemalurgy would make it very easy, but also very evil. But what you want to achieve is possible.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

 

2 hours ago, logicalpencils said:

And anyways, you're right that health vs harm is an irrelevant question to Invested "healing". It's a matter of Spiritual ideal through Cognitive identity. But that's my key question: I thought Identity was a Spiritual attribute, not Cognitive? And if the Cognitive perception is what ultimately matters, what's the Spiritual doing?

Identity is a property of your soul and investiture. It's not divided into Physical, Cognitive or Spiritual parts - it is all Spiritual. It's related to your Spiritual Ideal of yourself, but it isn't just it. Identity is like a key - it prevents foreign investiture from interacting with you while allowing you to access your investiture (but there is more to it, it's still mostly an enigma to us). But your Identity does affect your healing, you can do more if you manipulate your identity (and have a proper perception of yourself):

Spoiler

realhitvz

Could you use the Feruchemical ability to store Identity to heal damage done to you in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... yes, but it's gonna take a roundabout method to make it happen... Yes, but Identity can be very useful for all sorts of things like this.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

 

Spoiler

[...]

Illuminarrator (paraphrased)

Oh! To follow up... because Regrowth is Spiritual... if a Cognitive Shadow was Awakened into a corpse, then healed with Regrowth, would the body be healed to appear like the Cognitive Shadow's body?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, it would heal... wait, yes, Regrowth would heal based on the Identity of the Cognitive Shadow attached to it. 

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 20, 2023)

 

[logicalpencils]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

But if you want to grow wings, that's a bit too much for your perception to take you there, you need to first mess with your Spirit Web to achieve that - like with Hemalurgy. Healing isn't done just to your Cognitive self, the Spiritual Ideal will limit how far away you can go with it - it's like a framework in which healing is done.

 

 

 

I'm surprised to hear that sex and species are easier to change than adding wings - though maybe that's generous to the human-to-Singer scenario. Sanderson does say it would require "a specific set of circumstances", one of which would be believing yourself to be a Singer. And that's about as likely as believing your body ought to have wings.

One of the WoBs says that one's self-perception is recorded in the Spiritual Realm, too, not just in the Cognitive, which further blurs the distinction for me. If the Spiritweb is supposed to be the framework that limits the range of possible states, but then "the way you view yourself" is part of that very framework, the Spiritweb doesn't seem to put limits on the Cognitive at all — healing will always result in "what you think you are", so the Spiritual part is redundant. Well, except that Hemalurgy or Forgery can mess with your self-perception that way.

I thought the Spiritual would work like this.

Cognitive: "I am a cow."

Spiritual: "No, I'm a human, here's all the Connections and Identity confirming that."

But it actually goes like this?

Cognitive: "I am a cow."

Spiritual: "I view myself as a cow; I will heal to this ideal."

[logicalpencils]

24 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It's more like:

Spiritual: I am a human.

Cognitive: I view myself as this kind of human.

Spiritual: I am this kind of human.

 - or - 

Spiritual: I am a human.

Cognitive: I view myself as <something other than human>.

<Inject investiture to alter spiritweb> (quantity based on type/kind/qty of change)

Spiritual: I am <something other than human>.

Aha! Let me review your two examples:

The first example is saying that, if the Cognitive aspect is deemed plausible enough to fit the Spiritual ideal (e.g. "I am this kind of human" fits for "I am human"), the spiritweb will update to include that self-perception without outside Investiture. So the "filtering of the Spiritual ideal through the Cognitive" will have already happened before any Invested healing is attempted. It's just up to Brandon and general reader intuition to judge whether a certain self-perception is "plausible enough".

Otherwise, you get the second example, which is that the spiritweb must be forcibly altered via external Investiture like a Hemalurgic spike or pure Dor, in order to get the Spiritual aspect to accept a radical Cognitive view.

So the spirit will naturally try to match the mind (and we would assume, in turn, that the spirit influences how your mind thinks), but if the spirit can't agree with the mind, you need to alter the spirit to match the mind first, and then Invested healing will fit the body to the mind as well. This all assuming we have normal conditions and not something like Yumi's Invested spirit mixed with another body.

Thanks for going through all the particulars and pulling up so many sources.

[Treamayne]

20 minutes ago, logicalpencils said:

The first example is saying that, if the Cognitive aspect is deemed plausible enough to fit the Spiritual ideal (e.g. "I am this kind of human" fits for "I am human"), the spiritweb will update to include that self-perception without outside Investiture. So the "filtering of the Spiritual ideal through the Cognitive" will have already happened before any Invested healing is attempted. It's just up to Brandon and general reader intuition to judge whether a certain self-perception is "plausible enough".

Close enough. Just keep in mind that for Example type 1, the Spiritweb is not changing at all. The Spiritweb is based on the concept of the Platonic Ideal - so if your Cognitive Identity (filter) is within the range of the Spiritweb's Ideal, then things flow and healing matches the filtered Ideal.

It's only when the Cognitive Filter is outside of that Ideal that some method is required to change the Spiritweb.

Spoiler

Quote

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.)

General Reddit 2015 (Nov. 20, 2015)

Quote

Kurkistan

Are flamespren, are they all doing their own thing, or is there some Ideal of "Fire" sitting in the Spiritual Realm that they're all based on?

Brandon Sanderson

Each spren is based on the Ideal of Fire.

Kurkistan

And is that sitting in the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, we're using sort of a Platonic Ideal, and that concept is in force, so *sounds hesitant* "yes", but [spren] are manifestations of it.

Kurkistan

So these Ideals in the Spiritual Realm: Divine Breath, does that heal by accessing some Ideal of Human Health: so a guy who had never had a tongue and doesn't know how to speak all the sudden has a tongue and can speak?

Brandon Sanderson

You are... *LONG pause* You are, um, on the right track.

Kurkistan

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Because the Breath is... eh. How can I explain this? You are, yeah... So... So each Breath is a shade of deity, right?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

And each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the deity Endowment, correct?

Kurkistan

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

And so each Breath you hold brings you one step closer to becoming like that, and so what you're saying is... is "yes", kind of true, yes.

Kurkistan

But it's like within the Breath, not sitting off by itself-

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes yes exactly.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

 

Which is also why Hemalurgic Constructs have such "deformities" (Koloss warped by the damage to their Spiritweb from four Spikes, Chimerae changed by their Trellium spike, etc.) - and also why (most likely) Yumi's situation exists, because now it is her spiritweb connected to Painter's body, also passing through her Cognitive Filter - so the body just changes to match.

Edited March 15 by Treamayne
SPAG