Artifabrians Creating New Shardblades?

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

So, we know from WoB that Ashir and Geranid's discovery that spren can be "forced" to maintain a specific shape/characteristic if measurements of their dynamic properties are quantitatively documented is going to have profound and lasting consequences across Roshar; I believe his wording was something along the lines of: 'Ushering in a new Age of Legends.' (not a direct quote)

My understanding of the phenomenon is basically that, as creations of the cognitive realm, spren's properties can be manipulated by people's perception; ie: Geranid strongly believes that her measurements are legitimate, accurate, and meaningful, so when she measures a spren's length, her presence in the cognitive realm is dominating and forging that spren into a static shape.  If she used a length of string that she thought looked to be six inches long to measure a spren, its form probably wouldn't be locked because she wouldn't truly believe that the measurement was meaningful and accurate, even if it later turned out that the string was precisely as long as she thought.  More powerful spren could probably resist being changed by a single measurement...but my theory is, if enough ardents, scientists, artifabrians, ect. weighed in and contributed observations that they aggregated, analyzed, or averaged, they could gradually lock even powerful spren into a static form through their collective presence and power over the cognitive realm.

We also have WoB that a minor spren, like a flamespren, could theoretically be bonded, though doing so would be difficult (he might even have implied that it just isn't going to happen); I assume the bond would work the same way it does for highspren, in that the minor spren would slowly be granted a sense of identity and personality.  Maybe it's a stretch, but I would think that if any spren can be bonded, then that would mean that any spren, theoretically, has the capacity to become a shardblade.  Not all spren are equal, it's possible that a weak spren could only produce a greatly weakened shardblade; ie, one that experiences much more drag when cutting through objects, or might be hopeless at cutting very hard materials or even weakly invested objects.  Still, even a "weak" shardblade would be a tool of immense power.

Even Dalinar notes how useful shards would be for normal people and expresses regret that they must be utilized only for defense, so I can't imagine that artifabrians and ardents are going to be giving up their quest to develop artifical shards, even as new and miraculous fabrials are developed.  I was wondering if anyone had had similar thoughts or perhaps a different understanding of how this phenomenon works.  Does anyone have any thoughts on how something like a flamespren, or maybe a riverspren since they're supposed to be relatively large, powerful, and possibly intelligent, could be gamed into taking the form of a blade?  I'm thinking repeated observations by a group of people to selectively create and release constraints; maybe even granting the spren sentience by repeatedly attempting to communicate with it while it's "trapped."  Then it would just need to be convinced to adopt the desired form, at which point it could be measured, defined, and locked in place.

[Yata he/him]

38 minutes ago, hwiles said:

We also have WoB that a minor spren, like a flamespren, could theoretically be bonded, though doing so would be difficult (he might even have implied that it just isn't going to happen); I assume the bond would work the same way it does for highspren, in that the minor spren would slowly be granted a sense of identity and personality.

Why did you think this would happen ? A Radiant Spren didn't become more more sentient with the Bond. He returns sentient, He simply regains what He was uncapable of take on the physical Realm.

A minor Spren isn't sentient in the Cognitive Realm and has nothing to regain....Therefore I find very unlikely that a minor spren would gain Sentience with the Bond (after all a Splinter develops a Mind when he has no one who manages it)

[Sand Master]

2 hours ago, hwiles said:

but my theory is, if enough ardents, scientists, artifabrians, ect. weighed in and contributed observations that they aggregated, analyzed, or averaged, they could gradually lock even powerful spren into a static form through their collective presence and power over the cognitive realm

I find this interesting, because from what I understand, if this were true it would mean that people could change spren like Syl, just by thinking about it. I don't particularly like this, for a couple of reasons. First, it would mean that a character's personality and physical form could be changed by other people, without that character having any control over it themselves. It would remove (in this case) Syl's free will, and I have a hard time seeing that happen. Secondly, at one point in Words of Radiance, Kaladin and Syl have this conversation:

Quote

"Doesn't that bother you?" Kaladin asked. "That you might be a creation of human perception?"

"You're a creation of your parents. Who cares how we were born? I can think. That's good enough."

To me, this would seem to imply that, in the same way as parents can't control what their offspring do (not in the way we're talking about the spren, anyway), humans also can't control what an already-sentient spren can do. Even though Syl was created by human ideas, she is beyond that stage where they can affect her.

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed that way when reading it to me.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

Quote

QUESTION
Could any type of spren bond with a person (even if the results wouldn't be a Knight Radiant)? Or only the ones associated with a branch of the Knights?
BRANDON SANDERSON
Ooh, that's an excellent question. This is something theoretically possible for a lesser spren to achieve.

Quote

QUESTION
I heard earlier, through people I know, that Syl will eventually develop her memories from before the Recreance. Does that mean any spren that are alive currently have been alive for that long as well? Or are they--
BRANDON SANDERSON
Not necessarily. Some spren-- The thing about spren is that when does the energy become conscious? So yes they will have all existed before but at what point is consciousness attained. That’s kind of their birth. It happens much more rarely than it does on the other-- on the Physical Realm, like regular people and things like that. But there can totally have been spren who have been born since then. And they would count most of the spren that you see as not being alive, well not being born. Not conscious. What’s the word for the difference between humans and animals, it’s not just sentience, there’s another word. Starts with a C. Sapient, you’re right it starts with an S.

Found the quotes.

@Yata Spren are, in part, manifestations of the perception of the sapient inhabitants of Roshar.  It's implied that highspren don't just pop into existence in the cognitive realm as functioning sapient beings, they grow and develop for an undetermined period of time first; is an Honorspren with no personality or memories still an Honorspren, or is it functionally indistinguishable from a Windspren?  Is there even a way to know?  It's all about perception.

Syl admits to Kaladin that she could, if he so desired, release her bond to him, implying she had some manner of choice in its initiation in the first place.  I would posit that a non-sentient spren couldn't initiate a bond; in order to bond someone a minor spren would need to achieve at least a rudimentary level of sentience, either through natural evolution, encountering lots of people who briefly treated as alive, or some other unknown process.  Once it bonded someone, I would guess that it would, over time, be shaped by that person's perception and, as a result of its increased presence in the physical realm, naturally evolve some measure of personality.  This could take a long time, and there's no telling how smart or sophisticated it could become.  Just look at Nightblood who is, in my opinion, no quite past the transition form sentience to sapience even after centuries of existence.

Not an ironclad argument, but hopefully clears up my earlier post.  

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

1 minute ago, Sand Master said:

I find this interesting, because from what I understand, if this were true it would mean that people could change spren like Syl, just by thinking about it. I don't particularly like this, for a couple of reasons. First, it would mean that a character's personality and physical form could be changed by other people, without that character having any control over it themselves. It would remove (in this case) Syl's free will, and I have a hard time seeing that happen. Secondly, at one point in Words of Radiance, Kaladin and Syl have this conversation:

To me, this would seem to imply that, in the same way as parents can't control what their offspring do (not in the way we're talking about the spren, anyway), humans also can't control what an already-sentient spren can do. Even though Syl was created by human ideas, she is beyond that stage where they can affect her.

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed that way when reading it to me.

Human beings can be killed and soulcast into glass.  I think everything is subject to perception in the Cosmere; Jasnah essentially enforces her will on others and convinces their cognitive self to adopt a new form, however, doing so requires a whole mess of stormlight.  The amount of force required to affect a change increases as a being or object becomes more Invested or self-aware, but it still isn't infinite.  Keep in mind though that making a big change, would disturb not only the cognitive identity of the thing being changed, but also the things around it, ie: the whole planet.  This is explored most thoroughly so far in soulstamping I believe, though this probably isn't an appropriate place for a discussion on that.

[Yata he/him]

Maybe I used the words poorly.

What I meant before is Sapient Spren (all the Spren are sentient at certain level).

There would be a difference between a Windspren and a Bondless Honorspren...The HonorSpren have his mind sealed or to be more precise far away from it, with the bond it may pull more and more of his true self in the physical. A Windspren instead are not Sapient in the Cognitive Realm (as many Radiant Spren pointed out) and they can't gain more "mind" than the amount they have.

I don't say it's impossible to obtain "lesser Shardblade" or something like that with minor Spren (and in the end I never touch this specific point of your post)....I would only made notice those doubty part about minor spren and Mind developing.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

I'll admit it's speculative on my part, but I disagree with your conclusion.  I don't think we have any reason to think that a minor spren is somehow fundamentally incapable of obtaining an increased sense of self.  Sure, it would probably be difficult, and maybe impossible as a natural occurrence, but, similar to how a dog can be taught to open a fridge to fetch its master a beer at a spoken command, perhaps a spren too can be made to become more than it once was.

Also, it's implied Honorspren, and indeed all spren, aren't initially created with fully developed minds, personalities, and senses of self.  I wasn't trying to compare an honorspren that has deliberately transitioned itself to the physical realm in search of a proto-radiant to a simple windspren, I was comparing an honorspren that has never before had a personality or sense of self yet to a windspren.  The terminology get's kinda fuzzy here; is an honorspren truly an honorspren before it develops a mind and personality?  By what process is it developing a sense of identity and personality?  Why should it be impossible for this process to be applied to other spren when it evolved on its own without the intervention or influence of any of the Shards on Roshar?

It's not particularly important to the theory however, and we've been promised more information on how exactly spren function, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long for some real answers.  Thanks for the input!