Is spiritual identity shaped through the cognitive

[AonOmi]

Disclaimer: It has been a while since I read the Cosmere (around a year). If what I ask is stupid please tell me

On my most recent reread of Words of Radiance I stumbled into Jasnah explaining her theory on spren to Shallan. specifically when she said "I think some of them died, though how a concept can die, I do not know." (about spren and what we know as the recrence). this had me thinking about the spiritual identity/connections of the deadeye spren being "deleted" due to the destruction of their Nahel bond. But this leads me to a contradiction in my thoughts. I had been led to believe not just by Jannah, but by others as well (real or not)- that spren specifically are fragments of honor/cultivation's investiture left in the cognitive realm and then shaped by the "dawn-singers" cognitive enforcement of those fragments (mostly) according to Jasnah's theory. 

However, This got me musing about a contradiction. from here and the copper mind I thought that spiritual aspects as investiture and our spiritual (connection and identity) flowed from the spiritual realm filtering through the cognitive, then manifesting in the physical realm. I know that the cognitive filter can affect how that spirit web manifests in the physical realm (ex: kaladins brand). but this seems like a paradox. in short, can cognitive aspects (perception in this case) affect spiritual aspects (identity)?

 

 

i realize now this might be a stupid question but I'm curious to see what you guys have for me.

[Treamayne]

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32 minutes ago, AonOmi said:

Disclaimer: It has been a while since I read the Cosmere (around a year). If what I ask is stupid please tell me

On my most recent reread of Words of Radiance I stumbled into Jasnah explaining her theory on spren to Shallan. specifically when she said "I think some of them died, though how a concept can die, I do not know." (about spren and what we know as the recreance). this had me thinking about the spiritual identity/connections of the deadeye spren being "deleted" due to the destruction of their Nahel bond. But this leads me to a contradiction in my thoughts. I had been led to believe not just by Jannah, but by others as well (real or not)- that spren specifically are fragments of honor/cultivation's investiture left in the cognitive realm and then shaped by the "dawn-singers" cognitive enforcement of those fragments (mostly) according to Jasnah's theory. 

However, This got me musing about a contradiction. from here and the copper mind I thought that spiritual aspects as investiture and our spiritual (connection and identity) flowed from the spiritual realm filtering through the cognitive, then manifesting in the physical realm. I know that the cognitive filter can affect how that spirit web manifests in the physical realm (ex: kaladins brand). but this seems like a paradox. in short, can cognitive aspects (perception in this case) affect spiritual aspects (identity)?

i realize now this might be a stupid question but I'm curious to see what you guys have for me.

Investiture exists in all three realms, and Sapient investiture, such as Spren, still have a Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm (just as the quote you gave from M:SH mentions how people's Spirit Web in the SR filters through the Cognitive to their Physical self). So, while we know that the broken bonds do cause damage to the Spren's Spiritweb (just as a Shardbalde kills because it cuts the Spiritual Self, not the Physical shell of a person), we do not yet know if that damage is based on Connection, Identity, both or some other combination of Spiritual Attributes. We do know the damage is enough that just saying new Oaths will not usually be enough to revive them (espcially if it is not the original bonded Radiant). 

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

TomereK

So Shardblades. When they cut off the victims, the eyes burn up. And deadeyes have their eyes scratched out in Shadesmar. Is there any relation between them?

Brandon Sanderson

There is indeed a connection there.

TomereK

Is it RAFO?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a RAFO, but there is a connection. You got something out of me there.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)

Quote

Questioner

The dead Shardblades, could you possibly get Stormlight into them to reawaken them?

Brandon Sanderson

Dead Shardblade, could you pump enough Stormlight into them? That alone would not be enough.

Questioner

So you would have to find someone to re-swear with oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

There is something broken on the Spiritual Realm because of the broken oath and simple Stormlight will not fix that.

Questioner

So say--

Brandon Sanderson

If the person were still alive and could re-swear the oath then yes.

Questioner

But someone like [...] could go [...] the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not outside of reason but it would be very, very, very difficult.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

Hope that helps

[alder24]

11 hours ago, AonOmi said:

I had been led to believe not just by Jannah, but by others as well (real or not)- that spren specifically are fragments of honor/cultivation's investiture left in the cognitive realm and then shaped by the "dawn-singers" cognitive enforcement of those fragments (mostly) according to Jasnah's theory. 

However, This got me musing about a contradiction. from here and the copper mind I thought that spiritual aspects as investiture and our spiritual (connection and identity) flowed from the spiritual realm filtering through the cognitive, then manifesting in the physical realm. I know that the cognitive filter can affect how that spirit web manifests in the physical realm (ex: kaladins brand). but this seems like a paradox. in short, can cognitive aspects (perception in this case) affect spiritual aspects (identity)?

Everything in Cosmere exists in 3 Realms - Physical, Cognitive and Spiritual - and everything has 3 versions/Ideals of self in those Realms. There is the Physical version, the Cognitive version (your self-perception), and the Spiritual Ideal of self (the ideal version of yourself). Yes, your physical appearance is manifested as your Spiritual Ideal filtered through your Cognitive Ideal, which is your self-perception and that's how healing works in Cosmere - your physical body is trying to match your Spiritual Ideal filtered through your perception.

Perception can also affect other entities, entities that are living investiture - Spren and Cognitive Shadows like Heralds, or Fused. Because they are made entirely out of investiture they are susceptible to perception of others and they can slightly change based on how people view them. So yes, perception can affect others' Spiritual ideals. Spren were made how you said - pieces of raw investiture gained sentience either on its own, or because Shards made them sentient and they were shaped by perception of Singers and humans over a long period of time. There was even an interlude in either WoK or WoR in which ardents were measuring sizes of Flamespren, which locked them in the size measured by ardents - perception of observers affects the appearance of those spren. 

Identity is something else. We're not sure what it is, but it seems to be like a pointer in investiture which tells it to whom it belongs. It may be related in some way to the Spiritual Ideal, but we have little information about Identity. Identity is a property of investiture and the Spirit Web. Connections are bonds between people, objects, places and even time - they exist within the Spirit Web.

Lot's of WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner

I wanted to ask whether cake has a soul? In Realmatic theory, stuff has souls. So, somebody turns wheat into flour, and flour has a soul. Do they come together when I bake the cake?

Brandon Sanderson

...So, this gets into some weird cosmere theory stuff. The level that if you are a student of philosophy, you'll recognize just wearing on the sleeve where this one came from. This is a mashup of Shinto beliefs and the theory of the forms by Plato, and kind of its own weird thing, that became Realmatic theory in the cosmere...

So, in the cosmere, things take on an Identity and a soul based on how people perceive them. It's human perception that is creating a lot of this, because the various powers that made the universe have this sort of desire to be sentient. And power left long too long in the cosmere starts thinking, that's just how it goes, and starts thinking of itself the way it is perceived. So, that cake, as soon as its created, the disparate parts of the souls start being thought of as a cake, and start gaining some traction as a cake. If you left that cake alone long enough, which wouldn't take too long for a cake because people don't look at cake and think "Oh, a bunch of wheat and flour." They think "Cake." That thing will start having a combined soul of the various bits of power, and the longer you leave it, the more permanency it's gonna have as a Spiritual artifact in the cosmere.

So, yes, cake has a soul.

Oathbringer Glasgow signing (Dec. 2, 2017)

 

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

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

Questioner

If you write down a measurement of a firespren, it locks into that. If you write down a measurement that's not true, will that still work? Can you just write down the measurements of a firespren and quadruple its size?

Brandon Sanderson

Let me just say this. Human perception of spren has an intrinsic effect on how they act, react, and interface with the world.

Questioner

So if I were to take a picture of a firespren, increase the brightness on my phone by 5000, and then write down that recording, the firespren would multiply brightness by 5000?

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't say that. I said, "Human perception of spren influences their behavior and their form."

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

 

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

Just_A_Silvereye

In the cosmere, if everyone on a planet believes unicorns exist, would some kind of unicorn shadow appear in the Cognitive Realm as a result?

If yes, could you create an actual, physical unicorn out of it?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's not going to quite work this way. What's going to happen if everyone believes unicorns exist, but they don't, there's various things that could happen. You might end up with some Investiture taking on this persona and becoming this, but it's not like you can create it, but over time you might end up with the equivalent of a spren. Then it's not going to be just a physical unicorn running around. It's gonna have more spren aspects, and my guess would be that over time these things feed each other. Right? Like people see one, and then they describe, "This is what it looked like," and that changes the public perception to better match. And then over thousands of years what you end up with is, "Hey there's things in the forest over there that are a type of mysterious creature that are transparent and look a little like a horse with a horn, but maybe fly," or things like this. You would end up with something in the middle, between the two of them.

Things wouldn't naturally pop up on Shadesmar unless there's free Investiture in that same sort of way.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In terms of discussing Identity, I know that in Emperor's Soul, they talk about Identity, and the Parshendi talk about losing their Identity, and then I was just rereading Bands of Mourning, and one of the kandra talks about how the spikes are their Identity. Are all of those things connected somehow or are they different forms of Identity?

Brandon Sanderson

They are connected, although the Parshendi losing their identity is a little more metaphorical. But yeah, the idea of these things-- Identity is an innate attribute in the cosmere that is related to your soul, your spirit, and it is one of the things that Hemalurgy can fiddle with and Feruchemy can fiddle with. It's kind of important to how the [Metallic] Arts play out, but it's important to all the magics...

Identity is involved in why you can't use another person's metalminds, right, that kind of thing. And those are all related. The Parshendi is more metaphorical. 

Questioner

I wondered because it's always capitalized, in the book.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, and it's done intentionally. Peter always asks, "Are you sure this one is capitalized?" "Yeah."

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 10/23/2024 at 9:12 PM, AonOmi said:

Disclaimer: It has been a while since I read the Cosmere (around a year). If what I ask is stupid please tell me

On my most recent reread of Words of Radiance I stumbled into Jasnah explaining her theory on spren to Shallan. specifically when she said "I think some of them died, though how a concept can die, I do not know." (about spren and what we know as the recrence). this had me thinking about the spiritual identity/connections of the deadeye spren being "deleted" due to the destruction of their Nahel bond. But this leads me to a contradiction in my thoughts. I had been led to believe not just by Jannah, but by others as well (real or not)- that spren specifically are fragments of honor/cultivation's investiture left in the cognitive realm and then shaped by the "dawn-singers" cognitive enforcement of those fragments (mostly) according to Jasnah's theory. 

However, This got me musing about a contradiction. from here and the copper mind I thought that spiritual aspects as investiture and our spiritual (connection and identity) flowed from the spiritual realm filtering through the cognitive, then manifesting in the physical realm. I know that the cognitive filter can affect how that spirit web manifests in the physical realm (ex: kaladins brand). but this seems like a paradox. in short, can cognitive aspects (perception in this case) affect spiritual aspects (identity)?

 

 

i realize now this might be a stupid question but I'm curious to see what you guys have for me.

Yes. Allomamcers can Snap as a result of rioting, (and Renarin is opened up as a Radiant through how he is treated in general...) and this is a form of permanent spiritweb deformation resulting from one's thoughts and feelings in the CR/PR and not the other way around like is normally seen. Things don't normally flow that way, which is why the resulting changes from when it does are typically classified as a form of damage, but from an alternative perspective, one could reasonably argue them to be positive things overall. Which is...very mind-bending if you focus on it too long because, yes, it is a contradiction.