The L-Theory of Realmatic Strings

[skaa he/him]

(Warning: The following contains inexact and possibly completely wrong descriptions of certain Physics concepts. I am not a physicist. Do not base your Physics homework on the Wikipedia-based ramblings of a code monkey on a fantasy fiction forum on the Internet.)

Lately I've been thinking about generalizing my Unified Surge Theory into a theory that encompasses every single type of Investiture. The basic idea for this is that Adonalsium's Power of Creation is akin to the theoretical unified force of Physics, a force that splits into multiple separate forces under specific conditions. This means that each Invested power is like some sort of quantum field, and there's a way to unify all those magical fields into a single field.

But that sort of theory generalization is just too simple for me, I'm afraid. It doesn't have that bullje ne sais quoi that I've come to expect from my own pet theories. So now I'd like to do something a little bit more... fancy.

 

The idea of the fundamental forces is a cool thing to me... I wanted to go off on it in a fancy way.

As I said before, it looks to me that Brandon is really into modern physics. I think it's possible that he based some fundamental Cosmere concepts on certain modern scientific ideas like quantum mechanics. If you think this is unlikely, let me show you this quote from his recent Q&A in Chicago:

 

[00:33:20]

I'm fascinated by quantum mechanics and I have worked them into the way that-- Remember in my worlds, my books, the magics are a new branch of physics, in these worlds. And so they interact with our normal physics, it's not like they are ignoring them, so they obey the laws of thermodynamics, even when they appear to be breaking them, and they interact with quantum and all the stuff. It's just very natural that they are going to, to me if that makes sense? It would be weird if they didn't interact with them.

That makes a lot of sense. If your world follows the laws of quantum mechanics, and at the same time has magic, then it's natural that the magic in your world will have quantum properties. I love this concept of making magic an integral part of the physics of a fantasy setting, breaking down the barrier between "natural" and "supernatural". Since quantum field theory is part of quantum mechanics, and since the unified field theory is considered by many as the ultimate goal of quantum field theory, this therefore lends credence to the unification of "magical fields" in the Cosmere that I described above.

But... there's more to modern physics than the quantum field theory. In fact, many physicists seemed more excited about another theory (at least until recently when the Large Hadron Collider gave disappointing results) that promised to unify the entirety of what we know about General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into a single mathematically and conceptually elegant framework, a "theory of everything" where all particles are just specialized versions of a single type of object. I'm talking of course about String Theory.

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Part I: The Lightweaving of Strings

I know many of you already know what "string theory" means (I checked), but for the rest here's a quick summary: A string theory is any proposition that the fundamental elements making up the things around us are not point-like or zero-dimensional, but are instead one-dimensional vibrating elements. For the sake of convenience, physicists call these things strings. In a string theory, each string has certain properties (e.g. how it vibrates/oscillates, its length, its orientation, whether it is closed in a loop or open-ended, etc.) that differentiates it from other strings. This is cool because it can give us a clearer picture of what makes one particle different from another aside from vague concepts like "charge".

As a kid I watched a Discovery Channel show about String Theory featuring Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku is a popularizer of science, meaning his presentations are often not very technical and are meant for a wide audience. I remember him comparing the vibration of a fundamental string to the musical note coming from a stringed instrument. He then described the whole universe as a grand orchestra of fundamental strings all vibrating together. That, of course, was a rather fanciful way of looking at it to say the least, but it most definitely worked on me. The notion of a musical universe, that everything is made of music, is just so fascinating that it makes String Theory seem almost... magical.

In fact, it sounds like the creation myth used in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth stories. Ainulindalë, a holy music performed by angelic beings called the Ainur and their god Eru Ilúvatar, was how Arda (Earth) was created. I'm not saying that Tolkien borrowed from string theory (obviously not, as his stories were written before the earliest string theories were developed). What I'm saying is that the concept of a musical universe, or at least a universe where waveforms have a fundamental role, is not alien to the world of fantasy. It's possible to create a String Theory-based magical setting.

Could this be what Brandon plans for the Cosmere? I say yes. After all, we already have one possible manifestation of waveform magic: We know that Lightweaving can affect waveforms other than light, including sound and possibly other oscillating manifestations, e.g. vibrating strings. If the Cosmere exists in a universe that follows a string theory of Physics, then the Power of Creation could simply be the ability to manipulate these strings. In other words, the Power of Creation is just Lightweaving applied to fundamental vibrating strings.

Before you barrage me with a stream of objections to the crazy idea that Adonalsium was just a glorified Lightweaver, read this curious little WoB:

 

Lightweaving is a long-established power in the cosmere. Very early books, in fact one of the very first stories I ever wrote, Lightweaving was the magic. (That story is unpublished, written long ago--long before Liar of Partinel).

So even before Brandon wrote about Hoid's backstory, even before the other Yolish magic systems were developed, the manipulation of waveforms (a.k.a. Lightweaving) was already on his mind. If everything is made of vibrating strings, it's not too farfetched to think of a god-like being as someone who can manipulate the waveforms represented by these strings, like a divine musician using the Cosmere as his stringed instrument.

This is what I call the L-Theory of Realmatic Strings (not to be confused with the L-theory of mathematics). One thing that "L" stands for is "Lightweaving". I'll explain the other meanings of "L" (there are several) later on. But meanwhile let us talk about a possible implementation of Realmatic String Theory.

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Part II: The Cosmere as a Braneworld

What kind of cosmology would a hypothetical Stringed Cosmere have? Many string theorists in real life believe that the fundamental strings of nature move in ten- or eleven-dimensional hyperspace. Eleven dimensions! That's a lot more than the three spatial dimensions that we experience with our human senses. Some believe these extra dimensions are too small and "curled up" to detect. Others say that the space that we humans can see is just a large three-dimensional "D-brane" existing in a hyperspatial universe with other D-branes. A D-brane, by the way, is a part of theoretical hyperspace that serves as a boundary for fundamental strings that aren't closed loops. Like the bridge part of a guitar, D-branes are where these strings are attached to.

I believe Brane cosmology is the perfect candidate for our Stringed Cosmere cosmology.

Imagine the Spiritual and Physical Realms as multidimensional D-branes. All fundamental strings in the Cosmere originate from the D-brane called the Spiritual Realm. These include not just the strings that make up the fundamental Physical entities (leptons, quarks, etc.) but also strings that make up fundamental Cognitive entities and the fundamental Spiritual entities (whatever those are). All these strings begin their existence from the Spiritual Realm. This corresponds to our understanding of the Spiritual Realm as the place where conception and motivation happens.

Some of these strings begin and end in the Spiritual Realm, but some extend outward and connect to another D-brane, the Physical Realm. Since only the endpoint actually exists on the D-brane (meaning the rest of the string is oriented away from the Physical Realm's dimensions), such strings only appear as point-like particles in the Physical Realm. These are the fundamental components of what we call matter (i.e. things with rest mass, like quarks and leptons).

What about the Cognitive Realm? I propose that the hyperspace between the Spiritual and the Physical Realm, where all the actual string vibrations occur, is the Cognitive Realm. I'll explain why in Part III.

From this description of the Three Realms, it's easy to understand how objects can exist in the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms simultaneously by visualizing an object as a bunch of strings vibrating between the Spiritual and Physical D-branes. Well, it's sort of easier. Admittedly it's kind of tricky for us humans to imagine more than three dimensions. This might be why Brandon said only Shards or Splinters can truly comprehend Realmatics; beings with three-dimensional senses cannot imagine hyperspace except via analogies.

Nonetheless, a stringed model of Realmatics makes it easier to grasp many Realmatic concepts. For example, the Spiritweb can be seen as an actual web of Spiritual strings making up the soul of a person. The bindpoints of the Spiritweb are simply the points where the Spiritual strings and physical strings are joined.

A Connection (with a capital "C"; a Spiritual attribute) can be seen as a string connecting other strings to each other in the Spiritual Realm. This means we can consider stuff like Nahel bonds, Duralumin Connections, Ironlines (basically every single type of connection in the Cosmere) as actual entities. The only reason these entities aren't normally visible is because they only exist on a D-brane outside of the Physical D-brane.

Note that some things that are usually considered "physical" in the real world, like gravity, electromagnetism, and other "physical" forces could simply be Connections on the Spiritual Realm in the Cosmere. For example, as the WoK Ars Arcanum says, the gravitational pull between objects is spiritual in nature:

 

A Basic Lashing involved revoking a being's or object's spiritual gravitational bond to the planet below, instead temporarily linking that being or object to a different object or direction.

(We'll return to physical forces in Part IV.)

Realmatic strings can also explain Identity. When the Connection strings between a bunch of strings is strong enough, the oscillations of all the strings in the bunch can result in a single complex oscillation, like a musical chord. This is how Identities emerge. An Identity can therefore be defined as a single oscillation arising from the different oscillations of multiple Connected strings. This implies that there can be nested Identities, emergent oscillations making up an even bigger emergent oscillation (which is how, for example, Soulcasters can transform just the blood of a person instead of his whole body; the blood is a sub-Identity within the person's Identity).

Interestingly, a stringed Cosmere can even explain why solid land appears as ever-moving on Shadesmar. What actually happens is that the mind of a Worldhopper interprets the complex hyperspatial oscillations of Identities into something compatible with human senses. For example, on Roshar he would see it as an undulating sea of glass beads. This fancy way of seeing the Cognitive Realm is therefore just an illusion, a Cosmere-wide Lightweaving created by Adonalsium and targeting every single "thinking" object in the Cosmere (more on this in Part III).

As for why bodies of water appear as a solid mass on Shadesmar... well, I'm not sure. My best guess is that the gravity waves on the surface of lakes/oceans/etc. might be making oscillation in the Cognitive Realm less apparent somehow, but I have no idea how that would work conceptually. (Edit: SmurfAquamarineBodies has an alternative explanation here.)

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Part III: Loops and Consciousness

Speaking of the Cognitive Realm, how about things like sentience and intelligence? How would a string theory explain the phenomenon of consciousness? Unfortunately, physicists do not yet have a model to explain this, but Douglas Hofstadter, a professor of Cognitive Science (also a Ph.D.-holder in Physics), has some very interesting speculative thoughts that he first published back in 1979 regarding why people have subjective experience, and it involves loops.

Hofstadter believes that consciousness arises from self-referential abstract concepts he calls "strange loops", which he claims naturally emerge from the neural activity of humans. Feel free to read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" and "I Am a Strange Loop" to know the details, but here I'll present a simplified and "Cosmerified" interpretation of Hofstadter's idea by defining a strange loop as a type of Connection that connects an Identity to itself, forming a literal loop. Under the cosmology I described in Part II, this self-referential Connection loop also vibrates in the Cognitive Realm, but its vibration is more dynamic than other strings because it reflects the dynamic thoughts of the thinking Identity. This dynamically vibrating strange loop, I believe, is what consciousness is made of in the Cosmere.

(Sidenote: A probably-unimportant but interesting thought just came to me regarding loops. String theorists predict that gravitons are closed loops that can freely travel between D-branes. I don't know how this can be incorporated into L-theory, but I'm leaving this note here in case someone else thinks of a cool idea for it.)

If you look closely, it appears that every Identity in the Cosmere has some level of consciousness. The window in Shai's prison was aware of the concept of beauty. The Wind's Pleasure was aware of its crew and was loyal to them. Somehow, objects in the Cosmere all have strange loops. This fact should be no surprise to us Cosmere theorists because Shai already revealed it to Gaotana in the Emperor's Soul:

 

Each object sees itself as something.

One important consequence of this is that Shadesmar is a much wider place than it would be if only "living things" had thoughts and perceptions, because the Shadesmar "reality" (more like the Shadesmar illusion) only exists where thoughts exist, and now things like rocks and sticks and even planets can participate in this galactic play (or a galactic musical, one might say).

But wouldn't it be nice to know why everything in the Cosmere has this awareness? Is Identity and Consciousness necessarily linked by some fundamental principle? Or is consciousness intentionally being given to each Identity by some outside force?

In order to solve this mystery of pan-Cosmere consciousness, we need to delve deeper into Lightweaving. There is one aspect to Lightweaving that was shown in Liar of Partinel that was not apparent in WoK and WoR:

Lightweaving can grant consciousness.

I won't go into spoilery specifics, but suffice to say Hoid can create illusions that can think for themselves. Somehow, a Lightweaver not only can make strings oscillate whichever way he likes, he can also form strange loops, granting consciousness to things.

So imagine what a Lightweaver with an Adonalsium-level of power can do. Can he, perhaps, grant consciousness to every single Identity in a very large area? Say, a whole galaxy?

Imagine that event in the early Cosmere when billions upon billions of objects of all shapes and sizes suddenly gained self-awareness. It must have been as if the whole galaxy suddenly awoke from slumber, turning its cognitive night into day, its blindness to vision, its opacity to clarity, its darkness to light.

This is the second meaning of "L" in "L-Theory": Strange Loops. It could also mean Lucentia, which has philosophical associations with eyes, clarity, and transparency. I believe that one of Adonalsium's greatest acts is to grant "eyes" to everything in the Cosmere. By that I mean he made everything able to perceive things. And he did this via a special Lightweaving that constructs strange loops for every Identity that appears in the Cosmere, a Lightweaving that still persists even after the Shattering.

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Part IV: The Investiture of L Bosons

At long last, we arrive at the most important part of L-Theory: What is magic in the Cosmere made of? If everything is made of fundamental strings, then naturally magic would also be made of fundamental strings. These strings would serve as the "quanta" of magical energy. Since magic is a force, these quanta of magical energy would be force-carriers, and are therefore gauge bosons. Let's call them the L bosons.

One important characteristic of L bosons is that they can interact with any type of string, whether physical or not. When a string absorbs or emits an L boson, its oscillation mode changes depending on the energy and the waveform of the L boson it absorbed or emitted. Interactions involving some L boson waveforms can transform matter, similar to weak interactions. Except unlike W bosons, an L boson is stable and massless (and therefore a luxon). You could say the L boson is a photon-like thing with W boson-like effects. (Coincidentally, photons and W bosons carry forces that physicists have already unified under a single electroweak force.)

Other waveforms of the L boson can transform Connections in the Spiritual Realm, including strange loops (which means they can also change the cognitive aspect of things). It's possible that the only limitation for L boson-based transformation is the energy requirement for a particular transformation, since energy is still conserved in the Cosmere.

Again, all this is possible because everything in the Three Realms of a Stringed Cosmere is defined by the properties of strings and their various fundamental interactions. We are simply theorizing that magic is just another fundamental interaction of a string, a transformative interaction mediated by the L boson. But this raises the question of how these L bosons come about. Where do L bosons come from, and how do they obtain their different waveforms?

I propose that the waveform of L bosons can be "shaped" by strange loops. In classical Cosmeric terms, Intent comes from a Cognitive aspect. This Intent determines not only the type of transformation being carried by the L bosons, but also the target of the L bosons, shaping them to only interact with a particular type of Identity in a certain way. The Intent could theoretically be anything as long as the strange loop has absorbed enough L bosons to meet the energy requirement of the intended transformation. After shaping the L bosons with an Intent, a strange loop can then emit them upon a target. This is what is classically known as Investiture.

The relationship between strange loops and L bosons is two-sided. They shape each other. An L boson's initial waveform could affect the strange loop absorbing it, but the strange loop might in turn change the waveform of the L boson, or even reject the L boson completely. This is why objects can reject Soulstamps, and why Shardworlds can influence the Investiture of Shards.

On the flip side, given enough L bosons, the Intent of Investiture can be powerful enough to override any resistance offered by a strange loop. This is why Shard holders eventually succumb to the Intent of their Shards, and why a mist-powered Ironpull can affect pierced metals that normally resist Ironpulls.

L bosons can of course be very beneficial to a strange loop target, expanding its abilities in one Realm or another. For example, there is an L boson waveform classically called "the Spark of Life" that can allow a strange loop to affect its host Identity's motion. This ability to move at will, granted by a certain type of L boson, is what differentiates "living things" and other types of objects.

In other words, Life is a form of Lightweaving. The phenomenon of living things is caused by a special interaction between Lightweaving and a Cognitive aspect.

---

Part V: The Lightweaving of Godhood

By now it should pretty obvious what Adonalsium is under a Stringed model of the Cosmere: He was an Identity whose strange loop once contained a huge portion of all the L bosons in the Cosmere, granting him three divine properties:

• The sheer amount of energy contained by Adonalsium allowed him to emit large numbers of L bosons shaped with arbitrarily complex Intents, making him omnipotent.
• Adonalsium's strange loop is incredibly vast in size, meaning his consciousness and intellect is incredibly vast as well. This makes him practically omniscient.
• Omniscience and omnipotence rendered physical presence completely optional. Adonalsium could detach his Identity completely from the Physical Realm, or he could attach a part of his Identity to the Physical Realm in any physical form anywhere in the Cosmere (i.e. omnipresence).

When Adonalsium Shattered, the gigantic strange loop suddenly separated into sixteen big strings representing sixteen huge segments of Adonalsium's mind. Since a strange loop vibrates dynamically, each of these sixteen loop remnants would have its own vibration mode different from the rest, reflecting sixteen different cognitive states. The L bosons coming from these remnants would have Intents based on the remnants' vibration mode, and would also be very powerful given the size of each remnant.

This was of course an extremely dangerous situation, and the fastest way to avert galactic catastrophe was for sixteen individuals to take up these remnants, becoming part of these powerful Identities and experiencing the same three divine effects described above, though to a lesser degree.

Thus, the sixteen Shards of Adonalsium came to be.

But what of Adonalsium's origins? It's possible that he had always existed as a divine being from the beginning of time, like the gods of most theistic religions. On the other hand, there is another possibility related to Brandon Sanderson's own religion, and I would like to explore this one further.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that God was once a man. Here's a relevant quote from the religion's founder Joseph Smith:

 

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know...that he was once a man like us.

Or as Mormons like to phrase it: "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be."

If we conjecture that Adonalsium was also once human, like the seventeen humans (sixteen from Yolen, one from Scadrial) who Ascended to Godhood later on, then we must ask how this person obtained so much power. I am working under the assumption that the conservation of energy still applies in the Cosmere, so the L bosons that were absorbed into this person must have come from somewhere. I think the idea of a person using hyperspatial technology to harvest the Spark of Life of other people to gain power is possible, but this method seems more fitting for the supposed enemy of Adonalsium.

I think another possibility is that he transformed something that was inside himself. Specifically, I think he turned part of his bodily energy into magical energy by manipulating photons emitted by the particles inside his body into becoming L bosons containing his own Intent. Now, this wouldn't normally work on regular types of particles because you'd need pre-existing L bosons to manipulate these particles, but what if (and here's another major speculative leap)... what if photons aren't regular particles at all in the Cosmere? What if photons are L bosons?

If a photon is just an L boson with a "null Intent", this means light can directly be shaped by a strange loop into other L boson waveforms. Once this secret, that a person can turn light into magic, was discovered (perhaps via some sort of Buddha-like Enlightenment process), it was only a matter of time before our hypothetical pre-Adonalsium guy would start continuously converting photons into active L bosons, until finally he reached a critical point and became the first Ascendant Being in the Cosmere.

In other words, a man wove Light to become the god known as Adonalsium.

---

Conclusion: Why "L-Theory"?

More than two decades ago, string theorists had a problem. They wanted string theory to be a single "theory of everything", but they've ended up with as many as five versions that seemed to be self-consistent but also very different from each other, which was kind of embarrassing. They tried to find ways to reconcile these differences until finally, in 1995, a guy named Edward Witten conjectured that the five superstring theories were all just limiting cases of a single theory he called "M-theory" that used an eleven-dimensional hyperspace. This spawned what is now called the "Second superstring revolution".

When asked what "M" stands for in "M-theory", Witten said it could mean "magic", "mystery", or "membrane" (referring to brane cosmology). People were free to choose whatever meaning they wanted.

While working on this Cosmere theory, I was thinking of just naming it the "Realmatic String Theory". But after reading about M-theory and Witten's explanation for the name, I decided to err on the side that's awesome and name my theory "L-theory" instead.

In this post I've tried to describe the various meanings for "L":

• All magic systems in the Cosmere are just specialized forms of fundamental string Lightweaving.
• All Identities in the Cosmere are granted Strange Loops via Lightweaving that give rise to conscious perception.
• This reality of all things having strange loops that act as "eyes" is symbolized in Cosmeric philosophy by the Essence of Lucentia.
• The fundamental force carrier of Lightweaving is a Luxon (which I call the L boson) whose properties can be shaped by strange loops.
• The Spark of Life is a form of Lightweaving granting intentional motion to an Identity with a strange loop.
• Light particles (photons) are just neutral L bosons. Knowledge of this secret is what allowed a person in the Cosmere's distant past to become Adonalsium.

Like M-theory, my aim for L-theory is to become a "theory of everything" for the Cosmere... at least until WoB comes along saying string theory has nothing to do with Cosmere cosmology (which I sure hope won't happen soon! ). Also like M-theory, L-theory is still incomplete. I welcome any comment, suggestion, or constructive criticism that might help me develop it further.

Edit: Added stuff suggested by SmurfAquamarineBodies and Emerald101.

Edited April 20, 2015 by skaa

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

 

 

As for why bodies of water appear as a solid mass on Shadesmar... well, I'm not sure. My best guess is that the gravity waves on the surface of lakes/oceans/etc. might be making oscillation in the Cognitive Realm less apparent somehow, but I have no idea how that would work conceptually.

 

I think it is a little simpler than that. So land is a bunch of beads because dirt is composed of lots and lots of different elements and compounds. Where as water is composed of water. ( There are of course trace amounts of other things but mainly its H2O ) So using your vibration theory because such a large amount of the ocean is vibrating to the same 'tune', I suppose, it is interpreted by the mind to be solid. 

 

I'll need a quote but I'm pretty sure that the fish were represented by lights under the surface of the ocean? 

[king of nowhere]

when I read  "L-theory" I assumed it was connected to the L-space of discworld. Now I expect nut shells to turn up in the palaneum.

 

Anyway, I think there's certainly probably truth about your theory. We know that all magic systems in the cosmere are just different manifestation of a single magic system, and that the unification of the surges is indeed possible.

 

As for the "hard science" part, my scientist self think that's way too easy, and real science would never be like that. Science popularization is necessary, but it has the drawback that it makes science seems much more simpliffied than it actually is, and turns it into a sort of fairy tale. Science is extremely rigorous, with every piece having to fit with each other piece just exactly, and explanations always involve complex mathematics and complex interactions with other things. So, I would say that long discussion did not look like real science and is unlikely to be truth. On the other hand, we are discussing the cosmere, not the real science, and I totally expect brandon to have done something like that theory. I really doubt he wrote a full mathematic for his magic theory.

 

Even then, my main reason for not liking that is that I don't like string theory. The physical community is divided over it, with people loving it and people hating it. I myself am a chemist, but my best friend is a physicist, and he hates it, for reasons I can agree with. I mean, there are 11 dimmensions, but we don't see them except on the strings? II am sure they can make the mathematics fit in that way. You always get a better fitting of the data if you add  more degrees of freedom to a system, but that does not mean the degrees of freedom you added represent a real physical property. And you should be extremely wary especially when you don't have a good explanation for what they are and you are not seeing them anywhere else.

There is also a long hystory of theoretical physicist looking down their noses at chemists because  they think the schroedinger's equation already explains all chemistry (theoretically true, but the calculations involved are so complex that you cannot use that equation to predict anything from any meaningful chemical system, so you have to get your hands dirty in a chemical lab - metaphoricallly, cause you use gloves - if you want some results), and string theory proponents are particularly bad in that aspect, probably because string theory is so detached from experimental results and so deeply shrouded in mathematics (there is also a long hystory of mathematicians lookind down on scientists for using things like experimental errors and approximations. There is a well-known correlation in the scientific community between level of mathematics used and snobbishness. I've never seen a biologist look down at anyone).

So, I just cannot like anything based on string theory.

[Left he/him]

You didn't happen to have hacked Brandon's laptop of everything did you Skaa? Because I have to say that I am seriously impressed by this theory and the amount of work put into it than probably any other one I've seen by you or any one else on here.

[skaa he/him]

I think it is a little simpler than that. So land is a bunch of beads because dirt is composed of lots and lots of different elements and compounds. Where as water is composed of water. ( There are of course trace amounts of other things but mainly its H2O ) So using your vibration theory because such a large amount of the ocean is vibrating to the same 'tune', I suppose, it is interpreted by the mind to be solid.

That might work. I think I'll use that explanation (or something similar to it) later when I do a major revision of the theory after I get enough good suggestions. Thanks, man!

 

I'll need a quote but I'm pretty sure that the fish were represented by lights under the surface of the ocean?

I think anything with a Spark of Life will manifest as a flame in Shadesmar, even underwater creatures. If my model for Identity is correct, sea creatures are component Identities of a much larger sea Identity, which is why they exist inside the solid obsidian Shadesmarian "land". I wonder what happens if you try to grab a fish underwater while being half inside Shadesmar. I don't think my model has an answer for that, unfortunately.

---

@king of nowhere: I did read a bit about anti-string scientists, and I cannot fault you for your misgivings. The fact that we still haven't detected any evidence for supersymmetry is obviously a big drawback for the more popular "superstring" theories. There's also the issue of string theory not being falsifiable, and it being more useful to mathematics than to experimental physics.

But I wasn't really trying to advocate string theory as a good scientific theory. Rather I'm advocating it only as a popular scientific theory that Brandon may have used in his Cosmere worldbuilding. The hyperspatial nature of string theory lends itself well to multi-dimensional fantasy worlds, I think, especially when you include the concept of branes.

Similarly, my use of Hofstadter's "strange loop" idea and the "God was once a man" doctrine of Mormonism in L-theory does not imply I believe in those concepts. I just thought they were a good fit for this particular Cosmere theory.

---

 

You didn't happen to have hacked Brandon's laptop of everything did you Skaa? Because I have to say that I am seriously impressed by this theory and the amount of work put into it than probably any other one I've seen by you or any one else on here.

Nah. I hacked into the laptop of a Brandon Sanderson from a parallel universe. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he may not have the same exact worldbuilding ideas as the Brandon Sanderson in our reality.

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Thanks for the kind words and upvotes, guys! Keep the suggestions coming!

Edited April 19, 2015 by skaa

[king of nowhere]

@king of nowhere: I did read a bit about anti-string scientists, and I cannot fault you for your misgivings.

But I wasn't really trying to advocate string theory as a good scientific theory.

 

Of course. I was just explaining that I have deep-seated issues with string theory (mind you, it could turn out to be true nonetheless; what I like has nothing to do with what is real, and at the moment we lack enough data one way or the other) and I cannot like your theory because of it.

That's quite ridiculous when considered that way: I cannot like a theory about some fantasy books because I heard a few theoretical physicist with a bad attitude. I got carried a bit offtopic with that expalantion, but I think it's curious enough to be worth writing.

[Emerald101 he/him]

Just one little note here: as a member of the LDS church i'd suggest you use this phrase to illustrate your point:

 

As man is God once was, and as God is, man may become.

because it's a little more clear and gives a better idea of the mormon belief. I'm unsure where the phrase originated, but i do know it was quoted by Lorenzo Snow.

 

 

Great theory. I can't imagine the amount of time and dedication this took.

[skaa he/him]

Just one little note here: as a member of the LDS church i'd suggest you use this phrase to illustrate your point:

because it's a little more clear and gives a better idea of the mormon belief. I'm unsure where the phrase originated, but i do know it was quoted by Lorenzo Snow.

Here is a page containing what is supposed to be Snow's own account of how he came up with that phrase:

According to Elder Snow, “While attentively listening to his explanation, the Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon me—the eyes of my understanding were opened, and I saw as clear as the sun at noonday, with wonder and astonishment, the pathway of God and man. I formed the following couplet which expresses the revelation, as it was shown me, and explains Father Smith’s dark saying to me at a blessing meeting in the Kirtland Temple, prior to my baptism. …

“As man now is, God once was:”

“As God now is, man may be.”

“I felt this to be a sacred communication, which I related to no one except my sister Eliza, until I reached England, when in a confidential private conversation with President Brigham Young, in Manchester, I related to him this extraordinary manifestation.”

I have included the phrase in the original post as you suggested.

Great theory. I can't imagine the amount of time and dedication this took.

Thanks! It was pretty fun to write. I wouldn't have thought of trying to unify Investiture in such a crazy pseudo-scientific way without all the cool quantum physics-related discussions in the forums, such as in Isomere's waveform thread. Strangely enough, the post that triggered me into exploring a Realmatic string theory didn't even mention strings at all. Moogle's waveform model for Allomancy made me think about how the Spiritweb can be interpreted in terms of waveforms, and the image of the Spiritweb as a network of oscillating threads just screamed "string theory" to me.

Speaking of which, I forgot to incorporate the Spiritweb in L-theory. D'oh! *fixes oversight*

Edited April 21, 2015 by skaa

[skaa he/him]

I'll just leave this here.
 

Q: Is there a quantum of Investiture? Just as how the photon (the quantum of light) is the force carrier particle of electromagnetism, is there a force carrier particle for Investiture, and do you have a name for it? (My follow up question would involve string theory, but I'll leave that one for later.)
 
A: Yes, there is a quantum of Investiture, though it acts very oddly in the cosmere.
True Investiture is a purely Spiritual Realm thing. In the cosmere, there are two alternate planes of existence, with their own specific laws. Some of them, as you've undoubtedly notice, behave similar to ideas in String Theory.
 
(Source.)

 

Edited May 25, 2015 by skaa

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

I'll just leave this here.

Nice.

[KnightGradient]

DUDE

 

• This reality of all things having strange loops that act as "eyes" is symbolized in Cosmeric philosophy by the Essence of Lucentia.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Of particular interest, what's the relevance of the Essences (which we've collectively been ignoring). In order they are: Zephyr, Vapor, Spark, Lucentia, Pulp, Blood, Tallow, Foil, Talus, Sinew. "Talus" and Lucentia" on this list are really interesting. In fact, this whole list is pretty weird. These don't strike me as the "fundamental building blocks" of a planet. I'm actually intrigued by this WoB:

 

I found this on a post regarding Voidbinding. Those up there are the ten essences. Just makes this theory more awesome.

[Leyrann]

I just want to say I think this is an absolutely astounding theory.

I think that, if I got the time for it, I might try and see if I can figure out how all different kinds of magic are related to it.

EDIT: The first version of Surgebinding is in my signature now, and I'll keep updating my signature with all theories I've posted.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Leyrann

[The Voiceless One he/him]

As a Theorybreaker, I feel obliged to find something wrong with everything.  My one question is how the cognitive realm can have different manifestations of the same general thing.  In other words, if the cognitive realm is where the strings between spiritual and physical pass through, how is it made of beads on Roshar and vapors on Scadrial?  Overall, I love this theory.  It seems to have described everything that I can think of in the Cosmere in a solid and detailed manner.

[skaa he/him]

Wow thanks for the new comments, guys!

On 10/26/2017 at 11:55 PM, Leyrann said:

I think that, if I got the time for it, I might try and see if I can figure out how all different kinds of magic are related to it.

Feel free to share what you come up with! Of course, the problem about a "theory of everything" is that often it's better to use a smaller, more specialized theory instead to explain something. In the real world, some physicists brag about how Physics is the purest Science, and that a theory of everything in Physics could explain anything in the universe; but if you tried to derive, say, the Science of Immunology using just the fundamental particles of Physics, it'll take you forever to do it.

Similarly, I haven't actually used the L-theory in any of my subsequent theories because L-theory is just a bit too general to be useful most of the time. What's important is that Brandon himself has confirmed that the cosmere follows something similar to string theory, that there is a quantum of Investiture, and that there are two separate planes of existence in the cosmere that are somehow connected, which are major points of this "theory of everything in Realmatics" of mine.

 

On 10/27/2017 at 4:44 AM, The Voiceless One said:

My one question is how the cognitive realm can have different manifestations of the same general thing.  In other words, if the cognitive realm is where the strings between spiritual and physical pass through, how is it made of beads on Roshar and vapors on Scadrial?

I speculated in Part II of my theory post that the Shadesmar environments that people experience are just a Lightweaving illusion, but yeah the reason why the illusion is different for each Shardworld wasn't something I intended to discuss here. I have commented on the Shardworld-specific differences within the Cognitive Realm elsewhere, though. I speculated that it has something to do with how each Shardworld might be attuned to certain Essences. The Shardworld Essences thing is one of my theories that I'm not very confident in, but it's the best I could offer right now regarding that conundrum.

Edited October 27, 2017 by skaa

[The Voiceless One he/him]

Thanks for pointing that out to me.  Not sure how I missed it the first time.

[SilverTiger she/her]

Very well-thought-out theory. However, when I saw the title, I immediately thought about L-space from Discworld. Maybe you should change the title...

[skaa he/him]

On 10/28/2017 at 0:16 AM, SilverTiger said:

Very well-thought-out theory. However, when I saw the title, I immediately thought about L-space from Discworld. Maybe you should change the title...

Dude, anything that could potentially remind people of Discworld (no matter how unintended) is doing a service to humanity. Don't you agree?

On a more serious note, I never thought of L-space while writing the theory, but the space-warping library of Unseen University isn't that far away conceptually from the idea of multi-dimensional Realms. I guess someone might think that I'm trying to put Discworld in the cosmere (which I'm not), but that's just silly.

It's the opposite. The cosmere is clearly in the Discworld, located somewhere in L-space.

Edited October 29, 2017 by skaa

[Leyrann]

On 26-10-2017 at 5:55 PM, Leyrann said:

I just want to say I think this is an absolutely astounding theory.

I think that, if I got the time for it, I might try and see if I can figure out how all different kinds of magic are related to it.

I'm coming back to this. However, it's going to be so much (I tend to be quite extensive in my explanations) that I'm making a new thread for it. I'll link it here once it's ready.

EDIT: I'm just going to put it in right here, another reason to assume this theory is correct, is that Shallan is able to suck in the Stormlight from her illusions again, which makes sense, as Lightweaving doesn't actually do anything with the L bosons, contrary to the other kinds of magic.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Leyrann

[Leyrann]

So I'm done explaining the ten Surges, and it's actually amazing. It's. Actually. Amazing. It all fits so well. Only four of the Surges require the L bosons to be converted into energy, and two of those are related to molecular bonds (which are electron stuff and electrons can gain and lose energy if they get hit by photons) while the other two are related directly to Identity and are probably turned into energy through that, and therefore also require L-Theory. Of the other six, five directly use the L bosons to work, and the last one... Oh man, Elsecalling is beautiful. It requires the soul of L-Theory to work.

I am now going to get some sleep, however, as it's getting late, but I'll continue tomorrow. Mistborn probably has some interesting things as well and I'm gonna see what I can get done with Warbreaker and Elantris. And after that I'm gonna do some more reading first as looking up magic systems of books I haven't read could end up with some spoilers I would not want to see.

[Leyrann]

Just to make sure, I'm going to put my whole post in spoiler tags for Oathbringer, as there's a few minor Oathbringer spoilers in there. No actual plot spoilers though.

Spoiler

As you're probably aware, L-Theory has been on my mind quite a bit, and I've found myself wondering wheter it might be slightly off in a specific part. To be precise, I think that not the Spiritual Realm, but rather the Cognitive Realm is made up out of the other endpoints of the strings. The Spiritual Realm, then, is made up out of the strings themselves. I believe this solves a number of problems that I have with L-Theory in it's current form.

First of all, it would explain why distance in the Spiritual Realm is so weird. In the Cognitive Realm - which would essentially be 3-dimensional, rather than incomprehensible - things still exist similar to what we know. As we've seen in Oathbringer, up to the point of life, plants, ships, cities, etc. The Spiritual Realm, meanwhile, would be impossible to truly understand, as it consists of at least four dimensions (our 3 dimensions to allow for positions of the strings, plus a fourth to allow for the strings to actually be string-formed); I can see distances and space to at the least be totally different from how we know it in daily life.

Second, and this is also something I bumped into writing my Theory of Identity, Identity, as we know from the feruchemical chart, is a Spiritual property. If it is indeed caused by Connected oscillations, then it would only make sense that Identity was an attribute of the Realm where those oscillations actually happen. Additionally, it would directly allow for strange loops to also be placed in the Spiritual Realm, as those connect the strings to themselves. I have a hard time visualizing strings in the Spiritual Realm (which you used to explain Connection) if the Spiritual Realm consists of endpoints (why are there strings in what is basically a D-brane like the Physical Realm?), but if the Spiritual Realm consists of the strings themselves, then it would fit naturally.

Third, I feel like this actually gives a better foundation for the Spiritual Realm as the pure and perfect true nature of objects and stuff: that is information that is contained in the string itself, rather than in one of the endpoints. Even if you move an endpoint (break a piece off a vase and move it somewhere else) then the string itself remains the same, also because there is no distance in the Spiritual Realm; only the endpoint changes.

The one thing that goes against this theory is that the Coppermind states that the Cognitive Realm is the Realm between the Spiritual and the Physical, but it does not actually cite a source for this. If there is a source, then that means I just wasted the time I spent on this post, but I could see it being a mistake someone made because, obviously, the sorta understandable Cognitive Realm would be closer to the Physical Realm than the totally incomprehensible Spiritual Realm. Except, as I explained, I think that's a misconception caused by the nature of the Cosmere where the intermediate Realm is the one that is hard/impossible to understand.

 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Leyrann
It likes adding random lines when creating a spoiler...

[skaa he/him]

6 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Just to make sure, I'm going to put my whole post in spoiler tags for Oathbringer, as there's a few minor Oathbringer spoilers in there. No actual plot spoilers though.

  Hide contents

As you're probably aware, L-Theory has been on my mind quite a bit, and I've found myself wondering wheter it might be slightly off in a specific part. To be precise, I think that not the Spiritual Realm, but rather the Cognitive Realm is made up out of the other endpoints of the strings. The Spiritual Realm, then, is made up out of the strings themselves. I believe this solves a number of problems that I have with L-Theory in it's current form.

First of all, it would explain why distance in the Spiritual Realm is so weird. In the Cognitive Realm - which would essentially be 3-dimensional, rather than incomprehensible - things still exist similar to what we know. As we've seen in Oathbringer, up to the point of life, plants, ships, cities, etc. The Spiritual Realm, meanwhile, would be impossible to truly understand, as it consists of at least four dimensions (our 3 dimensions to allow for positions of the strings, plus a fourth to allow for the strings to actually be string-formed); I can see distances and space to at the least be totally different from how we know it in daily life.

Second, and this is also something I bumped into writing my Theory of Identity, Identity, as we know from the feruchemical chart, is a Spiritual property. If it is indeed caused by Connected oscillations, then it would only make sense that Identity was an attribute of the Realm where those oscillations actually happen. Additionally, it would directly allow for strange loops to also be placed in the Spiritual Realm, as those connect the strings to themselves. I have a hard time visualizing strings in the Spiritual Realm (which you used to explain Connection) if the Spiritual Realm consists of endpoints (why are there strings in what is basically a D-brane like the Physical Realm?), but if the Spiritual Realm consists of the strings themselves, then it would fit naturally.

Third, I feel like this actually gives a better foundation for the Spiritual Realm as the pure and perfect true nature of objects and stuff: that is information that is contained in the string itself, rather than in one of the endpoints. Even if you move an endpoint (break a piece off a vase and move it somewhere else) then the string itself remains the same, also because there is no distance in the Spiritual Realm; only the endpoint changes.

The one thing that goes against this theory is that the Coppermind states that the Cognitive Realm is the Realm between the Spiritual and the Physical, but it does not actually cite a source for this. If there is a source, then that means I just wasted the time I spent on this post, but I could see it being a mistake someone made because, obviously, the sorta understandable Cognitive Realm would be closer to the Physical Realm than the totally incomprehensible Spiritual Realm. Except, as I explained, I think that's a misconception caused by the nature of the Cosmere where the intermediate Realm is the one that is hard/impossible to understand.

 

Those are interesting thoughts! Unfortunately, we do have a source regarding the idea that the Cognitive Realm is between the other two Realms, and it's from a Shard. Here is Preservation (in Chapter 1 of M:SH) talking about the Cognitive Realm:

Quote

“It’s not the world of the dead. It’s the world of the mind. Men—all things, truly—are like a ray of light. The floor is the Physical Realm, where that light pools. The sun is the Spiritual Realm, where it begins. This Realm, the Cognitive Realm, is the space between where that beam stretches.”

Although Leras wasn't omniscient, and was severely handicapped by this point, I think his analogy must have some truth in it given that he can still see all three Realms.

Edited November 22, 2017 by skaa

[Fezzik]

@skaa, @Leyrann Jasnah makes the exact same analogy at the beginning of WoR. But, for a long time people erroneously compared atoms to solar systems, so in world explanations are not necessarily the best explanations.

[Leyrann]

8 hours ago, skaa said:

Those are interesting thoughts! Unfortunately, we do have a source regarding the idea that the Cognitive Realm is between the other two Realms, and it's from a Shard. Here is Preservation (in Chapter 1 of M:SH) talking about the Cognitive Realm:

Although Leras wasn't omniscient, and was severely handicapped by this point, I think his analogy must have some truth in it given that he can still see all three Realms.

Eh. That's a shame. It's a nice comparision though, which indeed points towards strings stretching through the Cognitive Realm. (and it once again uses light as base)