Question About Spren

[Anonymous12]

Is it possible for a person to become a spren? 

[alder24]

On 4/27/2024 at 4:26 PM, Anonymous12 said:

Is it possible for a person to become a spren? 

Could you please tell me what books have you read? I don't want to spoil you anything.

It depends on your definition of a spren. If you mean literally then no, they are separate. A spren is raw investiture that gained sentience and became alive - they don't have a physical body nor a flesh, they are just investiture, raw power. A person is nothing like a spren.

But by some loose definition of a spren, you could argue that Cognitive Shadows like Heralds or Returned are some kind of spren. A Cognitive Shadow is made when a person dies and their soul is heavily invested in the moment of their death. It's like a fossilization, their soul is replaced with raw power. And because of that some in Cosmere argue that Cognitive Shadows are more similar to spren than to people - they're like raw power masquerading as humans. Just like spren they are very invested, perception affects them over time, they can change their appearance (at least some of them can do that) and just like spren they are generally unable to leave their planet, because they are Connected to it through their heavily invested soul. It's even theoretically possible for a Cognitive Shadow to form a Nahel Bond in which they would act like a spren. So while they definitely don't look or behave like spren, by their nature they are the closest to spren, even though they have a fleshy body and all this stuff (not every Cognitive Shadow has a physical body). That's the closest you can get to becoming a spren as a person. 

Some WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner

I think there's a flaw in my understanding of Cognitive Shadows. I assume that... they would have more visibility into the Cognitive Realm, like a Herald would be able to see spren more easily, that kind of thing. Is that incorrect?

Brandon Sanderson

That is incorrect. A Cognitive Shadow simply means a copy of the Cognitive side made by a deep amount of Investiture. And everybody has a Cognitive side. Basically it's a fake soul. Or, fake is the wrong term. Fake is the wrong term. Even in-world they don't know if it's really them or not. It is Investiture has replaced the Investiture that is fleeing from them as they die, or enhancing it in some way to keep it around. So some Cognitive Shadows trapped on the Cognitive Realm are going to be-- have a lot of Cognitive-- I mean, they're there, right? But some Cognitive Shadows inhabiting a body in the same way that your mind inhabits your body, the way the cosmere works... So a Herald is going to feel like they are alive just like-- but their soul has been somehow transformed. It's not really transformed, it's been reproduced or copied by an injection of Investiture...

And I'll say for the purpose of the recordings, I haven't canonized any of that terminology that I just used about Cognitive Shadows. I'm just talking about it, I'm not necessarily saying that this is how you are supposed to refer to it. You can refer to it however you want. I've often used the metaphor of how fossils get made. When a fossil is made there is a pattern and it is slowly replaced with another substance that is stronger and more endurant, and has the shape of it, but is it still the bone? When you have a fossil bone is it the dinosaur bone? In most cases no, but yes. It's the ship of Theseus sort of thing again. Is this the bone or is it not? Is this the soul? Is this the person or is it not? That's the same sort of thing is happening with Cognitive Shadows. And it's happening on all three Realms to an extent, though of course the body is not. The body stays. It's happening on two Realms. It's happening Spiritually, mostly Cognitively.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Spoiler

dark-winter-knight

What is the difference between a person's Spiritweb and their spiritual DNA? Is there a difference?

Brandon Sanderson

Soul, generally used in the cosmere, is a spiritual or philosophical term. It refers to the part of a person that continues to exist after death, or to the "being" of the person in a philosophical term.

A Spiritweb is a measurable, quantifiable thing in the cosmere. (Granted, it's not easy to do either to one, but it can be done.) It is a scientific term, though because the cosmere hasn't reached modern scientific understandings yet, there is a lot of overlap between science, philosophy, and spirituality.

This way, acknowledging that a person has a Spiritweb does not require an atheist/humanist to affirm religious ideas or concepts--like acknowledging that the Vessels/Shards exist does not require also affirming that a capital G God exists.

The separation of the two is necessary to allow people like Jasnah to not be undermined by the text. It wouldn't be right of me to work for having representatives of viewpoints contrary to my own if the very foundation of the magic systems and physics proved them wrong.

So, in short, you can measure a Spiritweb. Whether a person actually has a soul or not (even in the cosmere) is subject to your own personal philosophy on the idea. Even ghosts and other persisting personalities after death, like certain individuals who shall remain unnamed, have a very real and rational magic system explanation for their existence.

aravar27

Is a Cognitive Shadow essentially Investiture filling in the molded pattern of a Spiritweb to the point where it resembles the initial person?

I'm interested in the implications with respect to personal identity--the "soul" would be one of the competing answers for the question "what am I," but some argue for psychological continuity and others for biological continuity. A Cognitive Shadow seems like it might better fit the Psychological Criterion, since it seems like Investiture replaces the biological body as the source of living and experiencing things.

Brandon Sanderson

You're getting into things that are subject to debate among people in the cosmere. Most shadows would insist that they're the same person. Others would dispute this, saying they're essentially a spren--a bit of the power that came alive like you said, taking on the personality of the person when the person themselves died.

BipedSnowman

Like uploading a brain to a computer. Made of Investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

A fitting analogy.

Aurora_Fatalis

Does it matter what kind of power it was that filled the gaps? Like, if you were a normal human and made a Cognitive Shadow fueled by AonDor, would you be more able to "possess" a modern computer than if you were made a Cognitive Shadow by - say - Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

This can matter. Shades from Threnody, for example, work differently from Returned, who are different from Heralds. But all are Shadows.

General Reddit 2019 (Nov. 27, 2019)

 

Spoiler

danimalod

I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and loved it. How did the first shade come to be? Are there shades in other worlds? Do shades have bones?

Brandon Sanderson

Shades are what we call "Cognitive Shadows" in the cosmere. They're basically "spren" or "[seons]" created from human souls. (Where Investiture--or magical power--keeps a consciousness alive after it has lost its Physical connection.) Yes, shades all once had bodies.

Think of them like petrified souls, where instead of stone replacing the tissue of a corpse, magical power replaced the parts of a soul that connect that soul to the Three Realms.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 4, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Spren are reflections of how people in the Physical Realm see things. So if you have a Cognitive Shadow, would their personality change based on what people in the Physical Realm see them as?

Brandon Sanderson

The short answer is, not as much as you're worried about, no more than we tend to change based on what people say to us and how we interact with the people around us.

The long answer is, over a long period of time, it can happen. And it's gonna depend on a number of factors. But we're talking a matter of centuries not years. The same sort of thing you see happening to Vessels of Shards can happen to Cognitive Shadows.

So, the long answer is yes, but it's not an immediate worry. It's not like people start thinking of you and it shifts you because your perception of yourself is enough strong usually that it rebuffs these sorts of things, being self-aware does that. And a lot of the influence to spren and things like that happen during kind of formative not-quite-self-aware times, if that makes sense.

If you were to become a Cognitive Shadow right now, it wouldn't be a major concern, but in a thousand years, you may look back and say "wow, I was shaped by public perception in ways that I wasn't expecting".

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

Spoiler

WeiryWriter

Can a person who dies but somehow hasn't passed Beyond the Three Realms [...] serve in place of a spren for Radiant purposes?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible, but it would require an unusual sequence of events.

[...]

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 3, 2015)