The Intent of Autonomy

[Jondesu]

I started looking around at things that different religions (primarily monotheistic ones) have consider to be divine attributes, as a way of possibly guessing some of the other Shards we haven't seen yet, but instead, I found a different take on the idea of Autonomy that I think makes sense to me.  Here's a quote from one of the sources I found:

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Impassibility. Various views have been held as to whether God can be affected by outside influences. Because Aristotle regarded change as inconsistent with perfection, he concluded that God could not be affected by anything outside himself. Furthermore, God engages not in feeling, but thinking, and he himself is the object of his contemplation. God is thus unaffected by the world in any way.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/god-west/#H3

The implication there is a God that is completely self-contained when it comes to making decisions; totally autonomous.  I believe that the Autonomy of Adolnasium was split off from the whole, much like his Hate, Honor, etc, and that is the Shard now held by Bavadin.  In light of that, she has very few restrictions on what she can do: she literally holds the Shard that's only Intent is to keep her from being affected by other people.  That could come with a downside of not being able to change her perspective and understand others the same way, making her a meddling influence, but one that is not empathetic to those she is meddling with.  I think that could fit well with her (Arcanum Unbounded spoilers):

Spoiler

creating multiple religions and pantheons, as a way of actually debating things with herself since she would be virtually incapable of considering anyone else's viewpoint.

It doesn't explain why she might have worked with Odium, but I think we don't know for sure that they were actually coordinating, or if they simply ended up working at complementary purposes.

Alternatively, Brandon could be drawing on a less severe form of Autonomy:

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Richard Creel defends impassibility as being uncontrolled by outside influences. He says, among other things, that: God has emotions but they are not controlled by anything outside himself, he takes into account the ultimate good that will come from suffering, suffering does not make love more admirable, a God who suffers would be more appropriately an object of pity than of worship, justice does not require passibility because it need not be based on emotion; and omniscience does not require passibility because God need know only that a person has an emotion, he does not need to experience it. A mediating position would allow emotion in God but not control of him in any way by creatures. God would be affected by the world but only in the way and to the extent he allows.

That would also fit well with Autonomy as the Shard we know, but with less of a drawback in that area.  She'd still be able to take into account other's desires, suffering, etc, but could also choose to not be affected by them.  That seems to me like Autonomy or Impassibility only in the context of a whole, however, and that removed from the other Divine Attributes, it would be much more controlling of it's Vessel.

EDIT: A similar concept, drawn from Wikipedia:

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Aseity

The aseity of God means "God is so independent that he does not need us." It is based on Acts 17:25, where it says that God "is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything" (NIV). This is often related to God's self-existence and his self-sufficiency.

 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Jondesu

[+Extesian]

I like this. I had only thought of Autonomy add being an intent for others but I like it as an intent for the Shardholder.

And your idea of Bavadin promoting varying religions as a way to almost learn more about the Cosmere and it's people gave me an idea that perhaps Ym's religion, that originally there was only One and One divide itself into many people to live different lives and feed back individual experiences into One's experience, could be a religion of Bavadin. It's my favorite religion in the Cosmere so far so I'd love for that to be one of Bavadin's!

[HavoKinetic]

So Preservation is the shard of keeping things other than yourself the same, and Autonomy is the shard of keeping yourself the same? 

Does this mean Autonomy is naturally resilient to the machinations of destructive shards like Ruin or Odium?

If the red haze is Autonomy and it is the shard of self-Preservation, that interplay of Autonomy, Preservation, and Ruin could get messy. Relationship status: it's complicated.

[DarkJester]

Ok. I'm not sure what all we know of Autonomy. I haven't really looked into it much, but while reading this, it struck me. Have we already heard from Autonomy? I have seen posts that suggest that Autonomy is actually a dragon. I was also told the other day that the letter to Hoid in WoR was wrote by Frost, a dragon. Let's look at the letter... (Forgive me, I'm getting this from the audio version so I will probably butcher it a quite a bit...)

I'll address this letter to my old friend as I have no idea what name you're using currently. Have you given up on the gem stone now that it's dead? And do you no longer hide behind the name of your old master? I'm told that in your current incarnation, you've taken a name that references what you presume to be one of your virtues. This I suspect, a little like a skunk naming itself for it's stench. Now look what you've made me say. You've always been able to bring out the extreme in me old friend. And I do still name you a friend, for all that you weary me. Yes I am disappointed, perpetually, as you put it. Is not the destruction we wrot enough? The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain. My path has been chosen very deliberately. Yes, I agree with everything you have said about Ryse, including the sevier danger he presents. However, it seems to me, all things have been set up for a purpose. And if we as infants, stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing the problem. Ryse is captive. He can not leave the system he now inhabits. His destructive potential is therefore inhibited, wether  this was Tanivast's design or not. Millennia have passed without Ryse taking the life of another of the sixteen. While I mourn for the great suffering Ryse has caused, I do not think we could hope for a better outcome than this. He bears the weight of gods own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be old friend, and that is what he unfortunately wished to become. I suspect he is more a force than an individual now, despite your insistence to the contrary. That force is contained and an equilibrium reached. You however have never been a force for equilibrium. You tow chaos behind you like a corpse, dragged by one leg through the snow. Please, harken to my plea. Leave that place and join me in my oath of nonintervention. The Cosmere itself may depend upon our restraint.

Here we have a letter from a dragon, begging Hoid to remain autonomous in the events of the Cosmere. To join him/her in Autonomy... Like I said, I'm not exactly up to date on Autonomy and the info on him/her, but it was something that struck me. Am I off the mark on this one?

["Kale"adin]

 @DarkJesterThe recipient of Hoid's letter is believed to be Frost, a dragon from Yolen( planet from Dragonsteel). Autonomy is held by Bavadin who, if I remember correctly, is a woman, although she has multiple personas of both genders.

Edited January 13, 2017 by "Kale"adin

[emailanimal]

On 1/11/2017 at 8:21 PM, Jondesu said:

It doesn't explain why she might have worked with Odium, but I think we don't know for sure that they were actually coordinating, or if they simply ended up working at complementary purposes.

We have no confirmation that Autonomy actively collaborated with Odium. All WoBs have been very evasive on this point. My theory is that in situations where we suspect collaboration between the two (Sel, e.g.) Autonomy did something in pursuit of its own agenda, independently of Odium, but the side effects of her actions wound up being highly beneficial to Odium.  

[Jondesu]

3 hours ago, "Kale"adin said:

 @DarkJesterThe recipient of Hoid's letter is believed to be Frost, a dragon from Yolen( planet from Dragonsteel). Autonomy is held by Bavadin who, if I remember correctly, is a woman, although she has multiple personas of both genders.

We know Bavadin has most recently been referred to as female (though an early WoB used "he"), but not that she's a woman. Could be a female dragon or another species.

[Pagerunner]

I really like the approach, @Jondesu - it's one I've been slowly researching, as well, trying to fit all the Shards we know to either attributes or traditional names of God and then extrapolate the others. I've even considered applying Aseity to Autonomy, myself.

Impassibility, however, I stuck with Immutability, and lumped those together in Preservation. God never changes, nothing can change God, and therefore the extreme embodiment of Immutability would want nothing to change as well.

I like the concept of Autonomy's Intent not being extremely proactive. A phrase in the Chronicles of Narnia that describes Aslan might also apply to this view of Autonomy: "He's not a tame lion." Bavadin does what she wants, and the Vessel might be the driving factor behind her actions, not so much the Shard, because of the nature of the Shard itself. Which gives her the freedom to meddle in other worlds.

However, I must admit that I think the evidence stacks up a little better for a different interpretation, one that we were discussing in another thread (I can't recall if you were there or not, so sorry if I'm repeating myself), that Autonomy's Intent has to do with giving mankind free will. I don't know of a theological term for it, but it's God limiting his sovereignty to allow man to make their own decisions. When taken to an extreme, you would get a 'divine clockmaker,' who sets the world in motion, and then doesn't interact with it ever again. That could describe why Bavadin is trying to overthrow Harmony, to remove his influence from his world. It would make her mission and Odium's somewhat compatible, in destroying other Shards. And it might mean that the various anti-magic religions that pop up around the cosmere are all from Bavadin, trying to eliminate the use of Investiture. (I don't want this explanation to be true, because right now I want to ascribe that particular Shard to Frost, actually, as the hide-and-survive Shard, like the point @DarkJester was making. But a lot of Autonomy's actions fit the bill.)

Do you have any interesting thoughts on any divine analogues for the other Shards, aside from Autonomy? I've been struggling with what Divine Ambition is (right now, I'm going with a rather twisted Omnipotence), and with finding a particular attribute to go with Ruin.

[Jondesu]

Awesome discussion, @Pagerunner, I like those thoughts. I think Jealousy might actually be a good fit for Ambition: the desire to be and be seen as the best (and unlike for humans, it's a good thing for God, since he really is the best ever). It's not a perfect fit, so I'm still mulling it over. Not sure about Ruin either, but it's possible he drew that one more from one of the Eastern religions with a sort of yin-yang pull.

[Pagerunner]

20 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Awesome discussion, @Pagerunner, I like those thoughts. I think Jealousy might actually be a good fit for Ambition: the desire to be and be seen as the best (and unlike for humans, it's a good thing for God, since he really is the best ever). It's not a perfect fit, so I'm still mulling it over. Not sure about Ruin either, but it's possible he drew that one more from one of the Eastern religions with a sort of yin-yang pull.

I think Jealousy is encapsulated in Odium, and why he wants to kill other Shards and be the only one left. That's where you see the word 'jealous' applied to God in the Bible, when his followers start worshipping false gods. Only thing is, in the cosmere, there happen to be 15 other 'true gods,' the same level as Odium. (For now...)

[Jondesu]

Yeah, that's definitely a good fit too. I'm just not sure in Odium's case how much is due to the Shard vs the Vessel. Hoid seems to think it's Rayse, not specifically Odium, responsible for that particular course of action, and Brandon has hinted that too.

[Fezzik]

We saw that Ati was a kind and generous man, but he tried to destroy an entire planet. Is it possible that the more a shardholder's personality matches with their Intent, the more control they retain over the course of millennia? That would explain why Hoid thinks Rayse is still "in charge" and hasn't been subsumed by Odium.

[Jondesu]

5 hours ago, john203 said:

We saw that Ati was a kind and generous man, but he tried to destroy an entire planet. Is it possible that the more a shardholder's personality matches with their Intent, the more control they retain over the course of millennia? That would explain why Hoid thinks Rayse is still "in charge" and hasn't been subsumed by Odium.

That's been my assumption too, with some additional variance based on the actual Intent. Autonomy wouldn't warp the Vessel as much, while Odium could if the original Vessel wasn't hateful, but if Rayse was a nasty hateful person before, it could just nestle right in alongside his existing personality without affecting him much (just amplifying it).

[cometaryorbit]

10 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

@DarkJesterImpassibility, however, I stuck with Immutability, and lumped those together in Preservation. God never changes, nothing can change God, and therefore the extreme embodiment of Immutability would want nothing to change as well.

 

IMO Preservation is preservation of others (Preservation sacrificed himself, in fact). I think Preservation as a specifically named divine attribute isn't drawn from Christianity but from Hinduism - in the Trimurti view of the Hindu deities Vishnu is the Preserver.

8 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Not sure about Ruin either, but it's possible he drew that one more from one of the Eastern religions with a sort of yin-yang pull.

 

Yeah, IMO this is the Trimurti again - Ruin is essentially Shiva the Destroyer.

This ties into the "Ruin isn't evil" thing. Ruin is terribly destructive in HOA, but his isolated state is in a sense "unnatural", "out of balance". Incorporated into a whole (either Harmony or Adonalsium) he can be more positive. The fire that allows the forest to renew itself, overturning of structures and ways that have outlived their usefulness to allow for change and growth, killing parasites and germs to allow for healing.

[cometaryorbit]

6 hours ago, john203 said:

We saw that Ati was a kind and generous man, but he tried to destroy an entire planet. Is it possible that the more a shardholder's personality matches with their Intent, the more control they retain over the course of millennia? That would explain why Hoid thinks Rayse is still "in charge" and hasn't been subsumed by Odium.

I think Ruin/Ati was warped in an unusual way. When Ruin talks to Vin he acts like "this is how things should be, it's natural for everything to end, it's time". IMO the Shard of Ruin warped the mind of Ati so that he came to see destroying things and people as 'for their benefit'. He probably saw himself as generous and kind even at the end.