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Cognitive Realm


Lurky McLurkerson

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So I've been trying to imagine the cognitive realm for Taldain. If Scadrial is mists and Roshar is spheres, would Taldain be sand? Or maybe only Dayside is sand, while the other side is something else entirely? Given how distinct the two places are, I could see a dramatic difference in their cognitive portrayal.

 

 

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We know too little to try to figure how the Cognitive are on Taldain.

 

We don't even know how the magic work there, or what is its focus (for example to me is wood) and this may change very deeply how the Cognitive Realm are there.

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We know too little to try to figure how the Cognitive are on Taldain.

 

We don't even know how the magic work there, or what is its focus (for example to me is wood) and this may change very deeply how the Cognitive Realm are there.

Entirely agreed. I am not expecting concrete answers. It was just something I considered to be worth pondering and discussing. This forum would be a very different place if we only discussed the things about which we had certainty.

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Since the sun is what makes the sand white, and when power is taken out of the sand it turns black, I would think that sand is the focus of the shard, but sunlight has something to do with it all. Maybe the cognitive realm is very bright, but I think it's more likely that it has something to do with rays.

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The focus doesn't necessarily have to do with the shape of the Cognitive Realm. Scadrial has the focus of metal, but it's Cognitive Realm is smoky and misty. I'm sure that Scadrial has the most obvious focus, though.

Perhaps the focus is water. Water is used in sand mastery, and possibly has something to do with Skycolors and definitely the grundlefish (bioluminescent fish that need a daily change of water to survive). It's probably been changed, but water was probably the focus his mind was going in.

As for light the magics are probably all powered by some form of starlight.

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Since the sun is what makes the sand white, and when power is taken out of the sand it turns black, I would think that sand is the focus of the shard, but sunlight has something to do with it all. Maybe the cognitive realm is very bright, but I think it's more likely that it has something to do with rays.

Well I just had a thought. I think the sandmasters do something to the sand when they use it that is not innate to the sand itself. Basically if the investiture was in the sand, and when the sand is used to attack a terken sandling, it turns black and loses its power, then why don't terken sandlings create a black trail of sand wherever they go? So something changes the sand's nature when a sandmaster uses it. At least in my opinion

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It's not like spheres have anything to do with stormlight. It's the gems inside of them that contain investiture. Which tells me that it is human perception that really defines the building blocks of the cognitive realm (CR). That isn't entirely consistent since Scadrial's misty CR doesn't really involve metal. Why does the large weather pattern in Scadrial define the CR while that doesn't happen on Roshar?  And what does that imply for Nalthis? Breath as a building block?

 

Why do items on Roshar present themselves as spheres anyway?  Aren't things more or less in their normal physical form in the CR for other worlds?

 

I'm not sure we have enough info to come up with a solid theory.

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Theory is for the birds. We're talking supposition, philosophy, pedantry, and maybe calumny if I am feeling bored.

 

The questions are good ones, let us break this down:

Highstorms on Roshar: Given what happens during Highstorms, I can't imagine there NOT being something crazy going on in the CR as well. We just haven't seen it.

 

Highstorms vs Mist: I think the mist being present in Scadrial is a manifestation of something inherent to Scadrial. The mist being a specific focus of some sort for Scadrial, just as gemstones/gemhearts are for Roshar.

 

Nalthis: Flowers, colors, and breaths are all significant. Sounds like a fun place to be.

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The idea that I find most interesting from this discussion so far...what happens in the CR of roshar when a highstorm passes?

Side note...in both CR for Scadrial and Roshar, water = solid ground...implications? Is this universal, or coincidental?

How might this influence the investiture / anti-investiture nature of (very rare) water on Taldain?

Food for thought...scadrial has spren in it's CR but not physical (yet)...what's the spren situation on Taldain?

Edited by hoidhunter
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Water allows things to travel through it. Solid things don't.

You travel through the parts where it's easy, and avoid the parts where it isn't.

If you've ever watched a moving crowd, it's often like a river of some sort. A disturbance in the path will cause a similar division and reuniting as is seen in a river. If a large crowd is trying to get out of small exits, they often form funnels that behave not unlike hourglasses.

We like to think of ourselves as being independent, but often, we aren't. I personally use my knowledge of how people travel by finding the paths that aren't taken, and use those, allowing me to get ahead of the crowd.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Also agree! 

 

I don't think that the cognitive realm is water though. I am actually starting to think that it's sand. Comparing it to Roshar, stormlight seems like sunlight, and so spheres would become sand.

 

I'm glad someone mentioned this, because it's exactly what I'm thinking. Highstorms pass and infuse gems with Stormlight. Sun shines on the sand and infuses it with...sunlight? Not sure what. But more and more things like this are fitting into a theory I'm working on that has to do with Investiture and Connection.

 

On the current topic though, it's definitely not the inhabitants of a planet that determine what the realm looks like. It has to be a result of something larger than the collected individuals, otherwise it would manifest differently for each person. Or you'd probably see parts of it appear differently than other parts, depending on the ratio of what people believe. The only thing I can think of that would determine it would be the forces who created the physical location, their Intent and desire.  Which might also be part of why Sel is difficult to get to via the Cognitive. There's no one there to keep holding it together. There's no Cognitive presence working to maintain that realm. And only people like Hoid, who are quite adept at traversing the cosmere and doing the impossible, are able to find their way through.

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I don't think the cognitive realm is solely a function of the individual perceptions, but I think a component is the collective unconscious as filtered through aspects of each realm specific to each realm. Places without conscious thought simply don't exist in the cognitive realm, bringing everything much closer together, afterall.

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