[OB] Physics in the Cognitive Realm

[Nyctef]

Was anyone else surprised by how .. 'real' the Cognitive Realm felt in Part 4? I was expecting it to be a lot more mental, but we see land, plants, animals, and travel - if you want to get from one place to another then you actually have to hike there (or take a boat) and Kaladin's Windrunner powers seem to work in the same way as well.

I think the main reason I was surprised is passages like this from WoR:

Quote

“All around us you see the physical world. You can touch it, see it, hear it. This is how your physical body experiences the world. Well, Shadesmar is the way that your cognitive self—your unconscious self—experiences the world. Through your hidden senses touching that realm, you make intuitive leaps in logic and you form hopes. It is likely through those extra senses that you, Shallan, create art.”

which suggests that the Cognitive Realm can't be 'touched, seen or heard' (although now we know that's not true) and

Quote

She nodded, alighting in the air and settling down, her legs crossed at the knees as if she were primly seating herself in an invisible chair. She continued to hover there, moving exactly in step with him.
“Giving up all pretense of obeying natural laws again, I see,” he said.
“Natural laws?” Syl said, finding the concept amusing. “Laws are of men, Kaladin. Nature doesn’t have them!”
“If I toss something upward, it comes back down.”
“Except when it doesn’t.”
“It’s a law.”
“No,” Syl said, looking upward. “It’s more like . . . more like an agreement among friends.”

which implies that spren / forces from the Cognitive Realm are somewhat responsible for what we think of as physical laws in the Physical Realm. And yet, when we enter the Cognitive Realm, all of those forces still exist, without spren to influence them.

Is this just a limitation of perception, where humans can only see the Cognitive in the way that they'd expect? I don't think the book gives us any suggestions in this direction, given that Syl and Pattern seem to interact with the realm in the same way that the humans do. Is the Cognitive Realm somehow more real than the Physical, with nature in the Physical mimicking that of the Cognitive? That definitely seems backwards, although it would be an interesting twist. The most likely explanation (which I think we've heard a few times, although I can't find a good quote) is that humans somehow created the Cognitive Realm, or at least shaped it somehow so that it would behave as a human expects the world to behave. It still feels strangely similar to the 'real' world, though, rather than being some other plane of existence like I was expecting.

What do you think?

[Nyctef]

Or to put it another way... Why does the landscape of Shadesmar reflect the landscape of Roshar (and then, why does it reflect Roshar's landscape with a land/sea inversion?) 

Do other parts of the Cognitive Realm behave the same as Shadesmar, or is this a peculiarity of the area close to Roshar?

[RShara she/her]

I always thought it has to do with the way people think of things.  When you look at a patch of ground, you see rocks, sand, grass, sticks, roots, seeds, etc.  A lot of individual things.  When you look at the ocean, you think "ocean" or "water" or "sea".  A singular entity.

So, since Shadesmar is the realm of thought, it makes sense that bodies of water are solid and landmasses are beads.

 

And yes, I'm pretty sure that the Cognitive Realm reflects the Physical Realm in the same way on other worlds too.

[Starla]

I'm also trying to understand the Physical/Cognitive connection. I can understand it as a purely mental dimension that can only be perceived through "hidden senses," but the physical body traveling into the CR is what messes me up. In this book we see our characters travel there physically via the oathgate. Both their mind and body are in the CR. When they move through the CR, their movements roughly correspond to physical locations. So they entered the CR in Kholinar and travel approximately the same route they would across physical land and exit in Thaylen City. All the same laws of physics, time, space, and magic seemed to apply in both realms.

When Shallan soulcast the goblet in WOK, she did not enter Shadesmar physically. Her body was in the PR while her mind was in the CR. This implies that the CR exists on a mental dimension, perhaps dream-like, with the physical and cognitive realms overlapping. A dream that has physical consequences on the body. Even without being there physically, she fell into the sea of beads and couldn't breath until Jasnah pulled her out.  I assume that if Shallan had "drowned" in the beads, her body would have died in the physical. Was her body in both places at once? Did she appear and disappear on the other side?

Thirdly, Pattern and Syl are physical big versions of themselves in Shadesmar when they travel there via oathgate. When they are in the PR in their small spren form, are their physical bodies still in the CR? Didn't Shallan see big Pattern in the CR when she tried to soul cast the stick at the beginning of WOR? It seems that the lesser spren can exist in both at the same time. Shallan comments that the CR spren are large versions of the PR spren, and that only the "tip" of the spren shows through the PR when they are attracted to an emotion or natural force. Does it work like this for Pattern and Syl, or do they exist fully in the PR when they are with their radiant? How about Maya... does she disappear from the CR when Adolin summons his blade or is she in both at once?

It seems like the Cognitive Realm has both physical and mental aspects, so you can travel there through either method. Soulcasting = mental connection, Elsecalling/Oathgates/Perpendicularities = mental and physical connection. My best guess is that it's a dimension adjacent to, or perhaps including, the physical realm that spans a broader range of sensory frequencies. One must widen their perception (via the hidden senses) to perceive it, and that can be done from within (being there physically) or from without (not being there physically).

And... I have no idea if any of this makes sense and I'm probably thinking way too linearly.