Conscious magic

[Oversleep]

We know that to perform any magic, there has to be conscious intent to do so (Elantrians have to want to draw Aons, waving around won't make any lines appear).

We know that even without knowing what they're doing or even knowing they're doing something, an effect can be produced - like Kaladin created Reverse Lashing on the bridge without even knowing he was doing something - but there was a conscious effort, sort of "I want this arrows to hit something else".

But how can an Allomancer burn metals while knocked out cold? Burning trace metals instinctively is one thing; a whole another issue is burning them while sleeping. We have evidence - Vin was unconscious after she and Kelsier run into Inquisitors in Kredik Shaw. When Sazed brings her to the hideout, they give her pewter and she starts burning it and she's unconscioud the whole time.

This is confusing :|

[Edgedancer he/him]

I have a bit of trouble of quoting on mobile but here's a relevant WoB from reddit.

Quote

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most Cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain

 

[Jondesu he/him]

There's two parts of that I think are important. Even while you sleep, you have thoughts and desires, which can be more than simply random unconscious thought (that's part of why our dreams so often play out desires or fears), so a desire to preserve or heal yourself may play into that. Elend certainly didn't want to die when he was hurt by Leras' Cognitive Shadow, so while he didn't even know he'd burned the Lerasium and then the pewter in Vin's vial, I assume his desires, possibly with some Shard-assisted Intent, caused him to burn it even while unconscious. 

The other factor seems to be habit and instinctive body functions. When an Allomancer has burned metals enough, their body seems to take over the process and do it automatically while they're sleeping in some cases. That can't be common since Kelsier told Vin to burn off her metals before sleeping, but it seems to be possible.

jW

[Argel he/him]

5 hours ago, Oversleep said:

We know that to perform any magic, there has to be conscious intent to do so

Your premise is faulty and you even invalidate it in your own post:

5 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Burning trace metals instinctively is one thing; a whole another issue is burning them while sleeping.

Definition of instinct from Merriam-Webster:

 

Quote

1. 2 a :  a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason b :  behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level

 

[Oversleep]

@Argel You're arguing semantics.

Whatever, then make assumption that I said intuitively and not instincitvely. Everyone knows what I mean, but you chose to nitpick my chose of words.

[Argel he/him]

@Oversleep  No, I did not know what you meant. Sometimes semantics do matter.  "Intuitive" never crossed my mind, and I am not nitpicking because I actually believe your premise is false. And I think you actually did provide an example showing why.

"Intuitively" makes even less sense to me. If Miles or Hoid has their head blown off, does their respective body/spiritual self "intuitively" know that it should heal? Or "Instinctively"? Instinctively makes much more sense in that context.   If anyone is arguing semantics it's you, because if something is intuitive then there is some kind of subconcious process going on. You don't "think through" intuitive.

As a side note, the birds in Sixth of the Dust are likely another example of "instinct".

[Oversleep]

@Argel

Your examples are completely wrong. Miles can only regrow his head because he started tapping before the injury; throughout the whole thing he's healing the immediate damage which was done to him. If he stopped tapping gold and then he was beheaded, he'd drop dead, his body wouldn't start tapping gold on its own. Wayne discusses this in Shadows Of Self.

BTW, we actually know that there is the requirement of an intent - you can't make a Hemalurgic spike without wanting to create a Hemalurgic spike. SImply shoving metal through someone won't make it a spike.

Magic can be done on "below the consciouss level" - as my example with Kaladin shows - but doing it while unconscious is a whole another thing. Perhaps I should replace "there has to be conscious intent to do so" with something more appropriate and we could finally start discussing Realmatics and not whether I chose right word.

[Jondesu he/him]

@Oversleep, we only know that intent is required for Hemalurgy, not other magics. Wayne says you have to heal a head wound as it's happening, because you can't tap after you're dead. However, we know both TLR and Miles were supposed to have survived beheading and that Hoid, at least, would grow a new head if beheaded per a WoB, so there's obviously something going on that doesn't require active brainwaves.

jW

Edited July 8, 2016 by Jondesu

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Not to mention that Wax was technically dead and tapped gold from the Bands. He did not need to start tapping before a life ending injury. 

[Argel he/him]

Quote

Someone was near. Zahel awoke, snapping his eyes open, knowing instantly that someone was approaching his room.

So what's this one?

[Yata he/him]

On 8/7/2016 at 4:04 AM, Jondesu said:

@Oversleep, we only know that intent is required for Hemalurgy, not other magics. Wayne says you have to heal a head wound as it's happening, because you can't tap after you're dead. However, we know both TLR and Miles were supposed to have survived beheading and that Hoid, at least, would grow a new head if beheaded per a WoB, so there's obviously something going on that doesn't require active brainwaves.

jW

As far as I remember to perform every magic you have to put the Intent:
- Allomancy: You have to want to burn metals

-Feruchemy: You have to want store or tap a metalmind

- Hemalurgy: You have to want to create a Spike and probably want to stole a specific piece of Soul

-Awakening: You need a mental images of the Awakening and therefore you can't do this for error.

- AonDor: You have to want to draw an Aon

- Dahkor: To use your attive abilities you have to want it, and to gain the passive abilities someone else (and probably you) have to want to began the trasformation

- Surgebinder: You have to want it.

If I don't remember wrong in the Elantris' Ars Arcanum, the Author says that in all magic systems all you need is "want to perform magic" (the Selish magics need also Precision, but it's not relevant in this topic)

[Jondesu he/him]

We don't know if there must be a conscious, active desire, and since the existence of the Cognitive Realm indicates that there's some different things going on in terms of minds than a strict physical existence, I'd say not needing to be awake for some forms of magic isn't much of a surprise. The examples given of Vin, Elend, and Zahel/Vasher all seeming using magic while asleep or unconscious should be taken as proof of that, and now all we need to do is figure out a likely explanation for how.

jW

[Argel he/him]

An obvious one is the desire to live. And for healing specifically, people rest, sleep, and sometimes even go comatose to allow the body to heal faster.

[Dunkum he/him]

I'm going to say my main issue is with the word "conscious."  there has to be intent, I feel like we have good evidence fore that, but the Vin and Elend examples make it pretty clear that it does not have to be conscious, in fact, I would say beginner allomancers (like Vin before she met Kelsier) and surgebinders (Kaladin in book 1) are another good example (I don't consider Zahel's waking up when Kaladin approaches to be a good example.  the life sense was always a passive thing: a benefit of having numerous breaths, not an ability that had to be actively used).  subconscious and instinctive intent seems to work just as well.  in particular, instinctively burning pewter when unconscious in order to heal is definitely not a conscious decision/intent.  and Vin using her "luck" to get things to go her way, especially very early on (i.e. before the beginning of the first book) is probably more subconscious/insitnctive as well.

[Argel he/him]

14 hours ago, Dunkum said:

I don't consider Zahel's waking up when Kaladin approaches to be a good example.  the life sense was always a passive thing: a benefit of having numerous breaths, not an ability that had to be actively used

But it's still magic, right? Doesn't that mean that intent is not always required? That's assuming he cannot turn it on/off. 

[Yata he/him]

1 hour ago, Argel said:

But it's still magic, right? Doesn't that mean that intent is not always required? That's assuming he cannot turn it on/off. 

I don't know... it's a side effect of Endowment's Investiture borned from Realmatical Reason. It's no more than the abilities of Invested beings to resist more from being manipulate by Magic.

In a Narrative's Universe where everything is made by magical essence and the cosmic rules also work as interpretaction of Magic phenomen. It's hard to say what we call magic and what it's not.

Or we may say that when a new life is made, the parents perform a ritual to steal a significative amount of Investiture to made their child's soul (well this puts the sex as "magic" to a new level )

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by Yata

[Dunkum he/him]

14 hours ago, Yata said:

I don't know... it's a side effect of Endowment's Investiture borned from Realmatical Reason. It's no more than the abilities of Invested beings to resist more from being manipulate by Magic.

In a Narrative's Universe where everything is made by magical essence and the cosmic rules also work as interpretaction of Magic phenomen. It's hard to say what we call magic and what it's not.

Or we may say that when a new life is made, the parents perform a ritual to steal a significative amount of Investiture to made their child's soul (well this puts the sex as "magic" to a new level )

 

exactly what I was getting at.  most of the heightenings work this way, and I would add that most of the passive benefits to holding stormlight seem to as well, though that isn't as good an example, since you have a lot more conscious control there.