Everstorm Posted February 2, 2014 Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 Hi everyone, The I-8 interlude chapter(Geranid) of The Way of Kings shows two characters talking about how the act of measurement seems to freeze spren. This is very similar to (and almost definitely inspired by) something in quantum mechanics called "the collapse of the state vector". Although this has been discussed on this forum before, I'll go over it briefly at the end of this post for completeness' sake (so scroll down first if you haven't come across this idea before). So reading the Kaladin chapter from Words of Radiance got me thinking that perhaps the afore-mentioned concept wasn't the only thing in Spren theory inspired by Quantum Mechanics. Kaladin uses stormlight on the rock, but when it has stuck to the wall, it turns out that there are spren holding it together. What if this is the spren-equivalent of the Wave-Particle duality of nature. In the same way that Light can be described as photons (particles) or rays (waves), and the way all particles have an associated wavelength, maybe spren (or some spren) are just a manifestation of Stormlight. This is kind of pointless I know, but one of the biggest reasons I love Brandon's books are because of the amazing magic systems, which is not common in most other fantasy novels I've read so far. Seeing the quantum interlude in Way of Kings blew my mind, and I can't help but obsess over the magic system now. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How this works is, that an atom (or a spren in this case) has some probability of being in one of many states. But once you make a measurement, it can collapse into any of the states with some probability. Now if you make the measurement again immediately after this, you get the same answer because now it is collapsed into that particular state. The second part of the spren experiment relates roughly to quantum entanglement (or spooky action at a distance). You can have two or more atoms with "entangled" states, which means that measuring the state of one of them can collapse the others into deterministic states as well. These are both very hand-wavy explanations of some really beautiful physics. I can go into more detail if anyone's interested. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted February 2, 2014 Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 Hm, interesting possibility. Personally, I assumed that Spren are pretty much omnipresent and merely become visible when the appropriate conditions are met. Of course, if we do have duality, that means implications. Because the thing with light's wave-particle duality is that it can act like either or both and this can be exploited. So if the same holds for stormlight and spren, that would mean that it would be possible to alter a lashing by interfering with the associated spren, or spren could be used to fill dun spheres. ---- Just as a reminder to everyone, one key difference between the spren experiment and actual quantum mechanics is that the spren was affected by writing down the measurement while in quantum mechanics it's taking the measurement that has the effect. This probably means something really important to do with cognative aspects. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted February 2, 2014 Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 These are both very hand-wavy explanations of some really beautiful physics. I can go into more detail if anyone's interested. What you wrote got me thinking about how KR's shards lost their glow and that sprens were betrayed by them in way yet unknown. If you can add more, please do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted February 2, 2014 Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 How this works is, that an atom (or a spren in this case) has some probability of being in one of many states. But once you make a measurement, it can collapse into any of the states with some probability. Now if you make the measurement again immediately after this, you get the same answer because now it is collapsed into that particular state. The issue is that just seeing a spren is measuring it. The two ardents who discovered the weird effect measured it and nothing happened as well. What mattered was writing it down. I can see some vague similarities to quantum entanglement and decoherence here, but I think it is odd to say that the spren act in a manner similar to QM. You can't set up a spren system like this famous experimental setup so far as we know. (For those who have never seen it before, the lightbulb from A produces photons, but the photons never reach the detector at G. If photons were like particles, we would expect half the photons to arrive at G and half to arrive at F, but they all arrive at F. Welcome to quantum mechanics!) It could be due to the nature of sentience in the Cosmere that seeing something and remembering it is not sufficient, but I'd prefer to not have to go down in that direction. Something about writing it down locks the spren in place, as if the mere act of writing it down defines the spren. What you believe influences reality in the Cosmere. I suppose it just takes writing something down to 'convince' yourself that the spren is the thing you wrote down. I would predict that Shallan taking a Memory of a spren or else drawing a spren should similarly lock it down based on this musing, but we know that doesn't happen with the Cryptics. Perhaps it's because Shallan expects the spren to keep moving and hasn't convinced herself that the act of drawing locks a spren in place? Sounds like science requires a lot of mental gymnastics in the Cosmere. Reproducing experiments is probably a nightmare... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morsk he/him Posted February 2, 2014 Report Share Posted February 2, 2014 Just as a reminder to everyone, one key difference between the spren experiment and actual quantum mechanics is that the spren was affected by writing down the measurement while in quantum mechanics it's taking the measurement that has the effect. This probably means something really important to do with cognative aspects.I've always seen that as such a huge difference that I never went for the QM analogies. QM has many different interpretations, which it's currently and maybe always will be impossible to decide between. The spren we see in the interlude follows something like the Copenhagen interpretation, only on writing down the measurement instead of taking it, like you said. With a little more knowledge about realmatics, and knowing whether spren would show up in a photograph, we could settle on a single "correct interpretation", something that never happens in QM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daishi5 Posted February 4, 2014 Report Share Posted February 4, 2014 The issue is that just seeing a spren is measuring it. The two ardents who discovered the weird effect measured it and nothing happened as well. What mattered was writing it down. I can see some vague similarities to quantum entanglement and decoherence here, but I think it is odd to say that the spren act in a manner similar to QM. You can't set up a spren system like this famous experimental setup so far as we know. (For those who have never seen it before, the lightbulb from A produces photons, but the photons never reach the detector at G. If photons were like particles, we would expect half the photons to arrive at G and half to arrive at F, but they all arrive at F. Welcome to quantum mechanics!) It could be due to the nature of sentience in the Cosmere that seeing something and remembering it is not sufficient, but I'd prefer to not have to go down in that direction. Something about writing it down locks the spren in place, as if the mere act of writing it down defines the spren. What you believe influences reality in the Cosmere. I suppose it just takes writing something down to 'convince' yourself that the spren is the thing you wrote down. I would predict that Shallan taking a Memory of a spren or else drawing a spren should similarly lock it down based on this musing, but we know that doesn't happen with the Cryptics. Perhaps it's because Shallan expects the spren to keep moving and hasn't convinced herself that the act of drawing locks a spren in place? Sounds like science requires a lot of mental gymnastics in the Cosmere. Reproducing experiments is probably a nightmare... Reading your post made me think of something. Would writing them down be a form of contract, or maybe binding them? For that matter, why is magic called surgebinding, what and how are they binding a surge? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaa he/him Posted February 5, 2014 Report Share Posted February 5, 2014 I can see some vague similarities to quantum entanglement and decoherence here, but I think it is odd to say that the spren act in a manner similar to QM. Yeah, but I still think the concept of spren was probably inspired by QM. We might not be able to deduce anything about Surgebinding just by studying the various interpretations of what a wavefunction collapse is, but it would be kind of cool to know that Roshar has a particle-spren duality, and I'm excited to see what Brandon does with it. Come to think of it, Roshar might even have a particle-wave-spren... trinality? We better ask Brandon. Reading your post made me think of something. Would writing them down be a form of contract, or maybe binding them? For that matter, why is magic called surgebinding, what and how are they binding a surge? The ten Surges (Pressure, Gravitation, Division, Friction, Growth, Illumination, Transformation, etc.) are the fundamental forces on Roshar. They are the Rosharian (perhaps even Cosmeric) equivalents of the four we have IRL (gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force). Surgebinding is just the process of manipulating those Surges. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to think that it does have something to do with contracts. After all, Syl calls gravitational attraction "an agreement between friends". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_warko he/him Posted February 5, 2014 Report Share Posted February 5, 2014 The issue is that just seeing a spren is measuring it. The two ardents who discovered the weird effect measured it and nothing happened as well. What mattered was writing it down. I can see some vague similarities to quantum entanglement and decoherence here, but I think it is odd to say that the spren act in a manner similar to QM. You can't set up a spren system like this famous experimental setup so far as we know. (For those who have never seen it before, the lightbulb from A produces photons, but the photons never reach the detector at G. If photons were like particles, we would expect half the photons to arrive at G and half to arrive at F, but they all arrive at F. Welcome to quantum mechanics!) It could be due to the nature of sentience in the Cosmere that seeing something and remembering it is not sufficient, but I'd prefer to not have to go down in that direction. Something about writing it down locks the spren in place, as if the mere act of writing it down defines the spren. What you believe influences reality in the Cosmere. I suppose it just takes writing something down to 'convince' yourself that the spren is the thing you wrote down. I would predict that Shallan taking a Memory of a spren or else drawing a spren should similarly lock it down based on this musing, but we know that doesn't happen with the Cryptics. Perhaps it's because Shallan expects the spren to keep moving and hasn't convinced herself that the act of drawing locks a spren in place? Sounds like science requires a lot of mental gymnastics in the Cosmere. Reproducing experiments is probably a nightmare... Blast, I was hoping for Schrodingers spen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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