[OB] Spren's Intellect and How it Relates to Power

[MountainKing]

This theory is about how the spren's intellect is proportional to a spren's power.

Definitions

Spren- Living Rosharian Investiture (Investiture of Odium, Honor, and Cultivation)

Intellect- The ability to live, gain sentience, and keep sentience in the Physical realm, Spren's Cognitive Maximum Potential

(I added definitions because when I write Intellect I don't actually mean Intellect, but a Spren's Cognitive Maximum Potential)

On 1/30/2018 at 0:10 PM, MountainKing said:

There are five types of spren:

Object Spren: The voices of the spheres in Shadesmar

Emotion/Condition/Nature Spren: Like Anticipationspren, Hungerspren, and Windspren. These spren are bascailly the animals of Shadesmar, and behave as such.

Radiantspren: These are the spren of radiants. They populate the cities of Shadesmar and is its civilization.

Voidspren: Spren of Odium

Unique Spren: Spren of immense power, that also have consciousness, and all have unique names: Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling.

 

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There are five types of spren:

Object Spren: The voices of the spheres in Shadesmar

Lesser (Emotion/Condition/Nature) Spren: Like Anticipationspren, Hungerspren, and Windspren. These spren are bascailly the animals of Shadesmar, and behave as such.

Radiantspren: These are the spren of radiants. They populate the cities of Shadesmar and is its civilization.

Voidspren: Spren of Odium

Unique Spren: Spren of immense power, that also have consciousness, and all have unique names: Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and the Sibling.

( In this post I won't be talking about Object Spren because they are the exception to my theory, so this theory only applies to free-roaming spren)

Spren's intellect is directly proportional to their power(or manifestations of power.) In the Physical Realm.

Lesser Spren have almost no power or manifestations in the physical world at all. They can not even manifest completely in the physical world and only a portion of there body can appear in the physical world. Or they are spren that only appear in the Physical world, but almost never in the cognitive. Life spren can really only detect plant life and float, while windspren, who can bind things together, have enough intellect to recognize and follow certain people for a short time.

Radiant spren have the intellect of humans, but when normally crossing into the physical realm without a human partner, they suffer cognitive/mental damage, and also suffer cognitive damage just being in the Physical Realm for an extended amount of time. They can manifest themselves in a small form in the physical world and they can grant the power of surges to humans.

Unique non-void spren seem to be able to stay manifested in the Physical Realm without a human partner, and they don't seem to suffer cognitive damage of recent memories, but memories of hundreds to thousands of years ago become foggy. Their manifestations greatly affect the world without a human partner. The greatest example was when the Stormfather caused a Highstorm to appear earlier

(I think the void spren behave the same way, except for the Unmade.)

Okay I think the Unmade's powers are inversely proportional to the Unmade's intelligent, but all Unmade are very power. (I will add more details when I have more time)

Nergaoul- causes the Thrill. He forcibly creates Connections with individuals spanning multiple countries at once causing them to fall and an almost irresistible battle rage. But intellect wise he behaves like a lost puppy.

While Ba-Ado-Misram- can provide voidlight and grant forms of power, but only if the Parshendi agree to it. He is most famously know who his intellect and his battle strategies, not his raw power.

I think this is the affect of being Unmade, they behave in some cases opposite of normal spren.

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by MountainKing
Finishing the Post

[RShara she/her]

What about Cusicesh, the Oathgate spren, and non-Radiant sapient spren?

(Also, you probably mean sapient instead of sentient).

[MountainKing]

Those are all regular spren so their power is directly proportional to their sapience. Its basically a graph, and the examples I pointed out were just points on the line.

A point I didn't make in the OP is that after so much power the spren become sapient, and then after that any more power, just let's the spren live in the Physical Realm without aides, take less damage from being in the physical realm, and have more power and stronger manifestations in the physical and cognitive realm.

[RShara she/her]

I'm still confused, because I'm pretty sure there are non-Radient spren that are sapient.

[MountainKing]

So non radiant spren can be sapient, sapience is just a threshold where stormlight will stop making you closer to sapience, and instead improve a spren's resistence to the damage of the physical realm, and strengthen their manifestations. I only used radiance spren as my example as the threshold to sapience, because they are the weakest sapient spren we have seen so far.

[RShara she/her]

I guess my mind isn't working because I still don't understand.  I'll check in again later.

[MountainKing]

So basically if you had a certain amount of investiture in a spren they would gain sapience, but if you had a spren with say half that investiture it would not sapient, but if you kept giving that spren investiture it will become sapient 

If you had a spren that was already sapient, then giving it more investiture won't make it more sapient, but instead it would make it harder for the spren's mind to be damaged when crossing over to the physical realm and staying there. The more investiture a sapient spren has the more influence it can have on the physical realm and the less damage being in the physical realm does to it's mind 

[RShara she/her]

Okay I think I'm starting to understand now, sorry.

 

I think we have a WoB that investiture will always gain sapience, and that the more investiture it has the faster it will gain that sapience.

Quote

Argent

You've said that Investiture tends to develop sapience on its own. Is this a function of the amount of Investiture alone (i.e. any pile of Investiture large enough will develop sapience eventually), or does the process require extra effort (e.g. a Command from an Awakener, an action by a Shard, etc.)?

Brandon Sanderson

Under the right circumstances, a pile of investiture will eventually become self-aware. But there is no specific timing. The more investiture clumped together, the more likely--and the closer to human-level intelligence it is likely to obtain.

Of course, if you leave matter alone long enough (on a galactic scale) it will eventually end up becoming sapient too. So this isn't that different. (Well, okay, it is.)

Boogalyhu34

Are humans already sapient and intelligent because their Spiritual DNA tell their innate investiture what connections to make or what weird soul pattern to go into.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's RAFO that for now.

source

 

[MountainKing]

So I was wrong about the lesser spren, but I think my theory still holds for already sapient spren.

Edited February 16, 2018 by MountainKing
Fixing Grammar

[RShara she/her]

The more I think on this, the more I realize how weird spren are.

Investiture usually resides in the Spiritual Realm.  Odium crammed Devotion and Dominion's power into the Cognitive Realm to prevent it from gaining sapience.  And that's a LOT of investiture.  So how do spren, who are bits of investiture in the Cognitive Realm, ever gain sapience or sentience in the first place?

 

(Note:  I'm not actually arguing that you're wrong, this is just something that came to me that is very puzzling)

Edited February 16, 2018 by RShara

[MountainKing]

Spren are probably like that because (I'm going to spell its name wrong) Adonsalium created Roshar. I forgot which WoB it was, but I think he said once that Roshar was created pre-shattering.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I think some spren might have existed even pre-shattering? It seems like spren are just a consequence of the way investiture manifests on Roshar and it's portion of the Cognitive Realm.

[MountainKing]

Some spren did. There was WoB about how pre-shattering spren got assigned to shards, mostly cultivation.

[RShara she/her]

4 minutes ago, CrazyRioter said:

I think some spren might have existed even pre-shattering? It seems like spren are just a consequence of the way investiture manifests on Roshar and it's portion of the Cognitive Realm.

Right, I believe the non-sapient spren were around pre-Shattering.  I'm not sure about the sapient ones.

[Rustbringer he/him]

The void spren are the equivalent of radiant spren that hail from the cognitive realm of Braize. So the Unmade are actually the equivalent to the Unique/greater spren of Roshar. The only difference being the Unmade are of Odium and for the most part willingly serve his will and intent. While the only greater spren of Honour we've seen so far is the Stormfather,  a very large splinter. The others seem more inline with nature and Cultivation(the nightwatcher and the water spiral axies witnessed) and seem more localised and mundane manifestations as opposed to the Unmade  going about the world like plagues

[Rustbringer he/him]

2 hours ago, RShara said:

The more I think on this, the more I realize how weird spren are.

Investiture usually resides in the Spiritual Realm.  Odium crammed Devotion and Dominion's power into the Cognitive Realm to prevent it from gaining sapience.  And that's a LOT of investiture.  So how do spren, who are bits of investiture in the Cognitive Realm, ever gain sapience or sentience in the first place?

 

(Note:  I'm not actually arguing that you're wrong, this is just something that came to me that is very puzzling)

That's because there's a difference between native investiture which is everywhere resultant from adonalsium creating everything and shardic investiture which is coloured by the intents of the post shattering shards investing their power into worlds or systems

Id say the reason Sel is the way it is, is because the combined power of two opposing shards that were thoroughly splintered is all mixed together without a mind to channel themthe way Harmony did(ruin and preservation weren't splintered at all)or the form to work with. So it's just a volitile chaotic mess

Edited February 17, 2018 by Rustbringer

[MountainKing]

25 minutes ago, Rustbringer said:

So the Unmade are actually the equivalent to the Unique/greater spren of Roshar.

But the Unmade are called unmade because Odium personally unmade them, we don't know what that means, but we know they were changed in the same way that other greater spren like the Stormfather.

[Rustbringer he/him]

44 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

But the Unmade are called unmade because Odium personally unmade them, we don't know what that means, but we know they were changed in the same way that other greater spren like the Stormfather.

I've never pondered that. Sounds like they've had their spirit web tampered with. A shard can mess with anything and hemalurgy testifies to the bizarre effects of altering a spiritweb. One can only guess at what effects such would have on something primarily of the cognitive realm. But now that you mention it, perhaps the name hints at a completely different origin altogether... They may not even be spren

Edited February 17, 2018 by Rustbringer

[RShara she/her]

1 hour ago, Rustbringer said:

 

Id say the reason Sel is the way it is, is because the combined power of two opposing shards that were thoroughly splintered is all mixed together without a mind to channel themthe way Harmony did(ruin and preservation weren't splintered at all)or the form to work with. So it's just a volitile chaotic mess

No, it's because the power was yanked out of the Spiritual Realm and stuffed into the Cognitive.  So it can't gain sapience.  @Calderis reminded me earlier.

Spren are still weird though.

Edited February 17, 2018 by RShara

[Rustbringer he/him]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

No, it's because the power was yanked out of the Spiritual Realm and stuffed into the Cognitive.  So it can't gain sapience.  @Calderis reminded me earlier.

Wasn't that accomplished by the splintering of the shards that owned that power and causing the reod so the dor would be denied to the physical realm in any tangible amount?  If not, how would Odium have been able to effect such a change in 2 different shards power invested heavily across the world without holding the shards themselves or sacrificing a portion of his power to do so.. I just assumed it was difficult for one shard to interfere with another. Albiet mindless and splintered it still retains its intent. 

Unless of course he had help(bavadin) in arranging the cognitive realm condition as well as splintering the two

[RShara she/her]

Nope.

Odium Splintered Dominion and Devotion millennia ago, long before the Reod.  Before humans built Elantris.  He then ripped their power out of the Spiritual Realm, where most Shardic power is, and shoved it into the Cognitive.  In the Spiritual Realm distance isn't a factor, so most Shardic powers such as Allomancy, Breath, etc, can be used anywhere they can find or carry a source for it.

Because the Dor is stuck in the Cognitive Realm, where distance IS a factor, the Selish magic is region locked.  The farther away from its "home" region you try to use a power, the weaker it is.

As to how, Brandon compared it to Vin and Elend.  Elend is way more powerful than Vin, but Vin is more warrior minded and naturally skilled at using Allomancy, and would totally slap Elend down in a fight.

[Rustbringer he/him]

I was unaware of that chronological fact. I had assumed the shards deaths and the reod were the same event

 

Also, simply the how of it doesnt sit right with me. That odium could simply move such an amount of power. Perhaps the cognitive realm is where they fought and died after being splintered first? 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Rustbringer

[RShara she/her]

Nope.  They were waaaay back in prehistory.  Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to build Elantris or have Dakhor Monks or ChayShan or Forgery, since all the Selish magics are based on the Dor, which is a mix of D&D, and they wouldn't have been location based.

And also, Odium's been trapped on Roshar for at least.....6000 years?  (4500 since Aharietiam, and randomly guessing over a millennia since the First Desolation).

(To be fair, I thought this at one point as well)

Edited February 17, 2018 by RShara

[Calderis he/him]

@Rustbringer

Quote

Questioner

So, in Elantris, the earthquake that [???], was that [caused? counterplayed?] by Shards, by some powers...?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't really dug into that, but the number one thing people assume is that it was the shattering of Dominion and Devotion, which is not the case. They were broken much earlier. The Splintering [of them] happened much earlier.

source

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium locked the Selish Shards in the Cognitive Realm to keep them from achieving sentience or someone Ascending.

Footnote: taken from General Q&A
source

Quote

Questioner

[Can’t hear the actual question]

Brandon Sanderson

Elantris’s magic is location based because the primary source of the magic is located in the Cognitive Realm. Most of the worlds, the primary source of the magic is the Spiritual Realm, where all places are one. So for instance, Mistborn, you can go anywhere in the Cosmere and use the magic. Elantris, you can’t, because Devotion and Dominion were killed and their bodies were stuffed into the Cognitive Realm and the magic is being powered that way.

source

All of the weirdness on Sel is due to these facts.

In normal Cosmere magic, the investiture flows outward from the Spiritual, is shaped by intent in the Cognitive Realm, and manifests its effect on the physical. 

For the Dor, it originated in the Cognitive Realm and flows outward through the form based programming languages that are the different subsets of magic systems. This is why healing can go so wrong with AonDor for example, resulting in certain tragic mistakes mentioned in the book. The magic isn't shaped by thought and intention, it's directly programmed. 

Quote

Landis963 (paraphrased)

Is the programming-esque nature of the Dor a product of the power being in the Cognitive Realm or is it for some other reason?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

A mixture of the Vessels' personalities, the fact that the power's in the Cognitive Realm, and the nature of Sel's focus.

source

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Calderis

[Rustbringer he/him]

@Calderis much appreciated mate,  just saved a bunch of time and effort on Coppermind. At least I know now that I was right about their mindless splinters being contained there in the cognitive. Not forcibly pulled there. But thanks for educating me.