Problems with Shardic Lens Theory

[Joxy97]

Correct me if I am wrong...

I’ve been contemplating Shardic Lens Theory (SLT) and its implications for the nature of Intent, Investiture, and Adonalsium itself. Initially, I was under the impression that Investiture—as the third manifestation of matter in the Cosmere—was intrinsically tied to an underlying physical quantity called Intent. I thought of Intent as something that could be described by a 16-dimensional vector state space, where each dimension corresponded to a Shard’s essence. This would mean that all human intents and Shardic Intents could be represented within this 16-dimensional framework, and the Shattering of Adonalsium merely chose basis vectors for this space, possibly influenced by the personalities of the 16 individuals involved.

But this framework faces a serious challenge: 16 isn’t intrinsic to Adonalsium. If Hoid had taken up a Shard, there would probably have been 17, which doesn’t fit the neat 16-dimensional structure. This raises questions about whether Intent and Investiture are truly bound to a discrete space or if the 16 Shards represent something less fundamental to Adonalsium’s nature, and more a consequence of the Shattering process.

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How SLT Addresses This Issue

Shardic Lens Theory suggests a way to resolve this problem by reinterpreting Intent as part of an infinite, continuous spectrum. In this view:

• Adonalsium represents the full spectrum of Intents, embodying everything possible.
• The 16 Shards are filters, each aligned to a pure frequency within this spectrum. These frequencies represent idealized versions of fundamental Intents, such as Honor, Cultivation, and Preservation.
• Magic systems emerge from the harmonic content of these pure frequencies, with the Shard’s Intent shaping how Investiture interacts with the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms.
• Hybrid systems (e.g., Warlight or Towerlight) arise when two Shards’ filtered frequencies combine, producing interference patterns and new effects.

This framework works well for explaining magic systems and the interplay between Shards, but it introduces a new problem:

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The Problem with 16 Frequencies

If Adonalsium represents everything, a full spectrum of Intents, then how can 16 discrete frequencies sum up to the entirety of that spectrum? Even with infinite harmonics, 16 notes cannot produce every possible sound, just as a 16-note music system cannot replicate the richness of an infinite soundscape. This creates a tension between the idea of Adonalsium as a representation of totality and the finite nature of the Shards.

One way to address this is to hypothesize that Intent doesn’t correspond to a pure singular frequency but rather to a narrow band of frequencies. For example:

• Honor wouldn’t be a single tone but a narrow range of frequencies that are qualitatively "Honor-like."
• The 16 Shards collectively would cover the entire spectrum of Adonalsium, filling in all gaps through overlapping bands of Intent.

This approach provides flexibility and aligns with how Shards and Investiture manifest in the Cosmere, but it faces its own contradictions.

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The Contradiction of Pure Tones

We know from Navani’s experiences that there are pure tones of Shards, like the tone of Honor or the steady pulses of Preservation heard by Vin. These observations suggest that Shards do resonate with specific, singular frequencies, not bands. If Intent were a spectrum, we wouldn’t expect these discrete, steady tones.

This leaves us with four potential explanations:

1. The Cosmere is intrinsically 16-based: Adonalsium’s Shattering was shaped by something fundamental about the number 16. If Hoid had participated, someone else would have been excluded to maintain the symmetry. The divisibility by 4 might connect this to the Dawnshards, which were crucial to the Shattering.
2. Adonalsium is not the only God: The full spectrum of Intents might belong to a broader metaphysical structure, with Adonalsium representing only part of it. There could be other "Adonalsium-like" entities or external systems shaping the Cosmere.
3. The Shattering damaged the Cosmere: If Adonalsium truly represented everything, then the Shattering might have rendered parts of the spectrum unreachable. Infinite frequencies might now lie beyond the reach of Shards, leaving the Cosmere inherently incomplete.
4. Shards represent narrow bands with uncertainty: On a quantum level, even a "pure tone" like Honor’s would involve uncertainty, manifesting as a range of frequencies too small to detect but significant enough to allow hybridization and flexibility.

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Conclusion

The relationship between Adonalsium, Shards, and Intent is clearly more complex than a straightforward division into 16 parts. If Adonalsium represents the full spectrum, then 16 pure frequencies cannot account for everything, even with harmonics. The idea of Shards as narrow bands makes sense for filling the spectrum, but the evidence of pure tones complicates this theory.

So, is the Cosmere intrinsically 16-based? Was the Shattering imperfect, leaving the universe broken? Or is there a deeper structure to Intent and Investiture that we don’t yet understand? Please, hit this post with references, WoBs and other good stuff I missed.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Joxy97

[alder24]

10 hours ago, Joxy97 said:

But this framework faces a serious challenge: 16 isn’t intrinsic to Adonalsium. If Hoid had taken up a Shard, there would probably have been 17, which doesn’t fit the neat 16-dimensional structure.

There wouldn't have been 17 Shards, he would have taken one of the Shards we know of (Virtuosity). But there could be created a different number of Shards during the Shattering.

Spoiler

Paladin Brewer

We know that Hoid was offered a Shard and turned it down. Was he offered a specific Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

He was. There is one of the Shards that he would've-- yeah.

Paladin Brewer

Would he have been the 17th person or did someone take his place?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Someone took his place.

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

 

Spoiler

James Furr

If, instead of the 16, there had been 20 members at the Shattering of Adonalsium (with the same level of involvedness)...could it have Shattered into 20 pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

It's quite possible that a different number could have ended up working.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

 

It's an interesting theory (with its own problems which you pointed out yourself) and I think you might be onto something. Brandon did say that Shards represent a singular personality with an attached force of creation of Adonalsium and investiture of Adonalsium was aligned with those forces/personalities before the Shattering and it went with those alignments during the Shattering. So those intents certainly existed within Adonalsium before the Shattering in one form or another, but maybe they were kind of in a superposition and the Shattering collapsed it into a discrete pure Tones or something like this? No idea, but it's certainly interesting to think about it now.

Spoiler

Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way. 

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument. 

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Chaos

So, at the Forbidden Planet signing you said that when Adonalsium was Shattered, all Investiture in the cosmere was associated to one of the Shards... So, what happened with Adonalsium's spren on Roshar? Were those associated to Honor and Cultivation? What happened with them?

Brandon Sanderson

So they were very-- They were already associated to certain parts of Adonalsium and they went with those associations. There's a lot of Cultivation in all of the spren, particularly the natural spren.

Footnote: Chaos is referencing this exchange.
Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

[Joxy97]

Thanks for pointing this out!

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

There wouldn't have been 17 Shards, he would have taken one of the Shards we know of (Virtuosity). But there could be created a different number of Shards during the Shattering.

Then, to me it sounds more like leaning towards the idea of Investiture being described by a discrete 16-dimensional state space, as originally proposed in the post. Personally, I've always felt like Brandon conceptualized the Cosmere magic as an attempt to model abstract ideas of everyday life (like soul, mind, emotions, perception, etc...) as strict physical phenomena, and thus use fictive physics to describe them. I am not sure whether this was his original intention, but he sure made it look that way

Those well-versed in some advanced physics concepts can clearly see how all this could neatly be described by the tools we have in IRL physics. I even had the audacity to take this a step further and formulize a sort of a Standard Model of Investiture which may include SLT and other theories as well. If I have enough time, I might even write a short essay about it and post it on the forum, but in short it goes something like this:

We define Investiture as a form of matter in an equivalence relation E=mc^2=kI where k is energy-investiture conversion constant.
On a fundamental level, Investiture is described by an fermionic Investon field with an SU(16) internal symmetry and a quantum number called Intent, while the interaction is transmitted via gauge bosons called Mentons (mens = mind). The idea is that all the abstract emotions and intents can be desribed by superposition of 16 orthogonal intents, and to why these specific 16, upon the Shattering of Adonalsium, this 16-dimensional state space spontaneusly chose basis based on some specifics of the Shattering process.

Now, think of this analogy: quarks in real life are described by color charge (red, blue and green) and they interact by exchanging gluons which also carry the color charge. These colors can be in superpositions, they have anti-colors. etc. Same goes with Investiture, it has an Intent charge, but instead of having 3, there are 16 flavours. We still can observe mixing (as in Harmony or Warlight), and anti-charge (anti-Voidlight, etc...) and it interacts by excahnging intent-flavoured Mentons (like gluons). This is where it gets interesting, hear me out


The same way the electrons on fundamental level interact electrodynamically by exchanging photons, and that manifests macroscopically as an electromagnetic field influencing charges, excahnging mentons results in a Command field influencing invested matter. This means that creating a Command with a certain Intent basically produces Mentons which, on a fundamental level, interact with Invested matter based on the rules of Intent flavours described by SU(16) symmetry.
What's even more crazy is that physics of this symmetry group leads to, what I would call an Intent-confinement. In quantum chromodynamics, color charged particles cannot exist free (unless stabilized by external factors) and must be color-neutral to be stable. This effectively can be described as a force acting on the color charged particles getting stronger as they try to move apart from eachother. Same would hold for Investiture and Intent-charged particles which would explain why invested entities are confined to their planets (yeah, planets as foci points act as stabilizers).

This could lead to potential theory on how mixing various Investitures can lead to entites being able to traverse Cosmere without usual Intent-confinement problems, and eventually, what Thaidakar is up to.

There might be even more things I forgot to point out here, but that is the core of it. Sorry if it sounds unwrapped, I just spat this out of my head on the go.

Edit: I forgot to mention the idea of String theory where elementary particles are described as vibrating strings of different fundamental frequencies. This would perfectly fit into this model and explain the SLT, where different modes of vibrations might be related to the various manifestations of specific magic systems.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Joxy97

[MischiefIsMe He/They]

On 11/29/2024 at 10:01 PM, Joxy97 said:

Shards represent narrow bands with uncertainty: On a quantum level, even a "pure tone" like Honor’s would involve uncertainty, manifesting as a range of frequencies too small to detect but significant enough to allow hybridization and flexibility.

This whole post was great to read, but I believe this particular line holds the key.  I've mentioned in one of my big theories that I believe each Shard is coded to a certain allomantic metal (sort of like how you said the Shards might represent the 16 base dimensions of the Cosmere) and part of my theory is that being coded to the metals still gives some amount of wiggle room.  This is also implied by the fact that there could be different Shards if a different group of people Shattered Adonalsium (my go to example is we could have Mania instead of Odium as the zinc-coded Shard). As such, I believe that each Shard is associated with a narrow band of frequencies as you've postulated but that depending on the circumstance--such as the group that Shattered Adonalsium and a given Shard's current vessel--one of the hyper-specific frequencies within that band becomes the dominant or "pure" tone associated with that Shard.

[Treamayne]

On 11/30/2024 at 9:25 AM, Joxy97 said:

Personally, I've always felt like Brandon conceptualized the Cosmere magic as an attempt to model abstract ideas of everyday life (like soul, mind, emotions, perception, etc...) as strict physical phenomena, and thus use fictive physics to describe them. I am not sure whether this was his original intention, but he sure made it look that way

Indirectly maybe. Much of the Cosmere was based on Philosophy - especially Plato's theory of Forms (and what that might look like if it were true).

Spoiler

Quote

Nepene

You've mentioned several philosophical concepts used in the writing of your books, like Jung's collective unconsciousness, Plato's cave. Could you expand a bit on your use of those in your books, and whether you think it is necessary to use philosophy to make a good fantasy world?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't think it's necessary at all. The writer's own fascinations--whatever they are--can add to the writing experience. But yes, some philosophical ideas worked into my fiction. Plato's theory of the forms has always fascinated, and so the idea of a physical/cognitive/spiritual realm is certainly a product of this. Human perception of ideals has a lot to do with the cognitive realm, and a true ideal has a lot to do with the spiritual realm.

As for more examples, they're spread through my fiction. Spinoza is in there a lot, and Jung has a lot to do with the idea of spiritual connectivity (and how the Parshendi can all sing the same songs.)

Nepene

Not completely sure where Spinoaza comes in. I guess the shards are part of the natural world and have no personality without a human wielder.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes on Spinoza there, and also the idea of God being in everything, and everything of one substance. Unifying laws. Those sorts of things. (Less his determinism, though.)

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 15, 2013)

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Sebtub

I've you say in other interviews that the Stormlight Archives was your go at a big epic everything's-on-the-table fantasy series. But was there any particular series or religion or myths that inspired the story?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a whole bunch going on. You will find a whole lot of Eastern shamanism, like shinto or things like that, built around the idea of everything having a spren. That is one obvious influence.

Another one is Plato's theory of the Forms (from the Phaedrus, I believe it is), and this idea of different realms of existence directly became Realmatic theory, which is the Physical, Spiritual, and Cognitive of the books. He just had two; I ended up with three. But you can directly trace that to Plato.

A lot of the Alethi culture came from me wanting to build something based off of my research into the Mongol people, particularly during the time of Genghis Khan. But I took away the horses; you don't have cavalries on Roshar to the extent that you would on Earth. And I thought that was really interesting, because most people who base anything on the Mongols go with the whole horse lords things to the point that it's become a cliche. So I'm like, "What if I strip that away, and I'm forced to look at other nuances of their culture?" Particularly, I love the moment (trying to remember what the name of the dynasty was) where the Mongols conquered China, and then basically became a dynasty in China and became basically another Chinese government. The Chinese were used to this idea, that different people take over, the bureaucrats start serving them instead, and the big machine that is China keeps going with a new Dynasty in charge; now they're Mongols. That's really cool to me. And this idea of the Alethi as this famous infantry, this conquering infantry, that (also kind of you see this in Dalinar) have to, in some ways, settle down and rule an empire now that they have one. That's really cool to me, that's really interesting. And that's probably one of the most direct things you can point to Mongol culture for, is this idea. But also kind of, I feel like when people do a warrior culture in fantasy, too often 1) they all feel alike in some ways, and I didn't like that. I wanted to do where you were reading through the eyes of people who were from what I thought was a nuanced, realistic warrior culture. And you didn't realize until you were partway through the book, you were like, "This is a warrior culture! This is, like Klingons. These are the bad guys to a lot of people's eyes!" But it's more nuanced, it's not one note, and so you've got a lot of variety in the culture and a lot of people to it, and a lot of different opinions and perspectives that you may not even notice.

I love doing stuff like this. Like, Elantris is a zombie story. The original premise for Elantris is a zombie story. And I hope that a lot of people don't even realize that. Because I'm trying to strip away some of the trappings and use some of the core concepts. I like it when people get done with Elantris, and they're like, "Wait, zombie story? Oh, yeah!" And I like it when people are reading the Alethi, and they get to the end and they're like, "Oh, those are the Mongols? This is a warrior culture? I didn't even get that! I was through their eyes, and I didn't understand that these are the scourge that everyone else is afraid of, because I was seeing through their eyes and just seeing them as people." That's a greater sort of worldbuilding and storytelling philosophy that I have.

The highstorms came from tidal pools. A lot of the ecology on Roshar was, "Can I create something that looks like a tidal pool or a reef that's, like, a break for the waves, where things are crashing into it a lot." Just kind of building this idea around that.

There's a few of them for you. There are tons more. Stormlight Archive, it's hard to point out one idea for. In fact, it's really hard to point out one idea for the plot premise at all, because telling people what The Way of Kings is about is really hard. Mistborn's easy, right? This is why I think it would probably be wise, if we're going to do any media, is to start with Mistborn. Because we can pitch Mistborn. "Hero failed. Gang of these rob the Dark Lord." Easy pitch. What is Way of Kings about? "Uh... it's about this guy who's trained as a surgeon and he finds out he's really good at killing people and he goes to war but he doesn't actually get to fight, he gets put in the bridge crews, but it really about him building a team of friends among these people in this terrible situation... But it's actually about restoring lost Orders of Knights from long ago... But it's actually about an impending war that they were set up to fight, these Knights, that they told everyone that they'd won, but they really didn't win, but they kind of did..." It just gets really convoluted. It is hard to explain what The Way of Kings is about. This is why The Way of Kings has three prologues. (Don't do that, by the way. One prologue is bad enough; you don't need three. Unless you're writing Way of Kings. Then it was totally necessary.)

YouTube Livestream 1 (Jan. 11, 2020)

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Austin

How did you go about making all of your magic systems together in the context of the wider Cosmere in a way that feels natural?

Brandon Sanderson

I (like a lot of things related to the cosmere) had a leg up because I had written so many books before I got published. I had written thirteen novels before I got published, and among those novels were six or seven pretty decent magic systems. And I started to notice fundamental things that I did when building a magic system that were very common to my writing. And for a while, I'm like, "I want to make sure I'm doing lots of variety, so I'll push this further."

But I also kept noticing these connecting tissues, such as Intent being important behind the scenes to how the magic works, to the idea of the Three Realms. Realmatic theory showed up in Dragonsteel, which is the second Cosmere novel that I wrote and is based a little bit on Plato's theory of the Forms and things like that, but kind of taken my own way. And I always kind of start thinking of magic in that context.

And because I had designed all of these things and was noticing themes, I always asked myself, "Where does the power for the magic come from?" I'm going to bend the laws of thermodynamics, but I'm not going to break them; I'm going to have a different sort of power source. That's just fundamental to how I like to do magic. Where does the energy come from? So building a common energy source to all of these was the first thing that I started to do, just very naturally. And it's part of what made me want to link the Cosmere together. I kept having these stories where I wanted to tell stories about these kind of divine forces, the powers of gods put in the hands of mortals: what does that do? That's a common theme that started showing up in the stories that I was writing before I got published. And I said, "Well, if it's a theme, it's something you're really interested in, why not build it into the entire continuity?" And that's where the idea of the Shards came from, and creating Shadesmar and all of that. It grew out of things I did naturally and saw as themes in my writing.

And the linking then was very natural because they all were coming from the same essential power source, and they all had a few fundamental rules they were following. Mostly because that's how I build magic systems, right? If I have a problem, it's that when I try to build something that ends up not in the Cosmere, like Rithmatist, it still just basically works with Cosmere magic because that's a way that I build magic systems.

Good question, but like a lot of things, a lot of my career's success can be traced back to the fact that I was really bad at this when I started, and I got a long time to practice before I went pro.

YouTube Livestream 14 (July 30, 2020)

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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)

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MoriWillow

In the Spiritual Realm, does there exist an ideal of tables that is a separate entity from the spiritwebs of all extant tables? If so, did that ideal always exist, even before the invention of tables? Or was it born out of the people inventing tables?

Brandon Sanderson

The answer is no. This is where we diverge from Plato’s Theory of the Forms. Again, Theory of the Forms was a conceptual benchmark for me. I thought the Theory of the Forms was awesome, and it stuck in my head for many years and eventually gave birth to Cognitive, Spiritual, and Physical. (The first book really delving into that being Dragonsteel Prime, and it’s in the opening chapters of Dragonsteel Prime.)

But where it differs is: there is not a Platonic idea of a table in the cosmere. All ideals in the cosmere are filtered through the perception of sapient beings.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 6 (Dec. 19, 2023)

 

Hope that helps