The Spren are Cognitive Aspects

[Mad_Scientist]

I'm finally getting to my big spren theory. I've been wanted to post this for a while, but I figured I needed to finish re-reading Way of Kings first, to make sure things made sense and to iron out some aspects of my theory.

So here it is: the spren are the cognitive aspects of various parts of the Roshar, usually the cognitive aspects of things not considered living beings by most people, such as air or stones or the like. They have been enhanced by something(which I'll explain later), which has made them a bit closer to being sentient than normal, though they are still far away from being truly sentient. The spren that are visible to people are cognitive aspects that have become mostly disconnected from their physical aspects, ones that have a much stronger connection to Shadesmar, and thus, the minds of people.

Now, before I go any further, I should say that much of what I post here is based upon cognitive aspect concepts I talked about in detail in the "Why Nightblood can read thoughts... thread. I hate to force you to read a giant theory thread before you can start to read yet another giant theory thread, but I'm afraid you won't be able to follow a some of what I say if you don't.

Now, when discussing why I came to this conclusion about spren, let's first consider a conversation a young Kaladin has with his mother Hesina back in chapter 37, edited slightly for space.

"Spren live in everything," Hesina replied.

"They can't live in everything, Kal said, dropping a peel into the pail at his feet. He glanced out the window, watching the road that led from the town to the citylord's mansion.

"They do," Hesina said. "Spren appear when something changes--when fear appears, or when it begins to rain. They are the heart of change, and therefore the heart of all things."

"This longroot," Kal said, holding it up skeptically.

"Has a spren."

"And if you slice it up?"

"Each bit has a spren. Only smaller."

(Kaladin's thoughts on the lack of taste of longroots omitted)

"So we eat spren," Kal said flatly.

"No," she said, "we eat the roots."

"When we have to," Tien said with a grimace.

"And the spren?" Kal asked.

"They are freed. To return to wherever it is that spren live."

"Do I have a spren?" Tien said, looking down at his chest.

"You have a soul, dear. You're a person. But the pieces of your body may very well have spren living in them. Very small ones."

Now, it's possible that Hesina is completely wrong about things, but her comments on how everything has a spren, and those spren are split into smaller sprens when the objects are broken up, are quite intriguing. Consider what Syl says at another point. I don't know the chapter or page number off the top of my head, but fortunately Chaos posted the quote in another recent thread.

People are discord," Syl said.

"What does that mean?"

"You all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that -- Animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense virtually the same individual. There's harmony in that. But not in you -- it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that's why you so often want to kill each other."

Hesina's comments about what happens to spren when the objects they are in are broken up really seems to fit well with Syl's comment about spren being virtually the same individual. Afterall, if you take a stone that has one spren and then break the stone in two, and those now both have spren, they would be virtually the same individual.

So let's say for the moment that Hesina is right, at least in most respects. How would spren fit into realmatic theory? We know that generally, everything has 3 aspects. A physical one, a cognitive one, and a spiritual one. On Roshar, does everything have 4 aspects? Physical, cognitive, spiritual... and spren? And spren would somehow be separate from the other 3 aspects? Unlikely. It seems that if everything does indeed have a spren, spren must be related to one of the 3 aspects. In fact, they may essentially be one of those 3 aspects.

Given the way spren appear, with their constantly changing forms that are sometimes only visible to one or more people, they probably are linked to either the spiritual or cognitive aspects of things. Also, considering Hesina equates the spren of an object with the soul of a person, that also implies spren are cognitive or spiritual in nature. But which? Well, consider Shallen's encounter with Shadesmar when she accidentally soulcasts a goblet. In chapter 48, she thinks about what she did.

I visited another place, she thought. I think... I think I spoke with the spirit of the goblet. Did a goblet, of all things, have a soul? Upon opening her pouch to check on the Soulcaster, she'd found that the sphere Kabsul had given her had stopped glowing. She could remember a vague feeling of light and beauty, a raging storm inside of her.

She'd taken the light from the sphere and given it to the goblet--the spren of the goblet--as a bribe to transform.

Please note that the empthasis on the "spren" of the goblet was in the original book, not added by me. Now, if one goes to Shadesmar, the cognitive realm, and communicates with an aspect of a goblet, one would assume that it would be the cognitive aspect that one would communicate with. That just makes sense.

Of course, Shallen could be wrong about it being a spren she gave the light to, but when we consider her thoughts alongside Hesina's words and the behavior of spren, I think it all comes together.

Spren are cognitive aspects. In fact, the two terms are pretty much interchangable.

Now, the first big question this theory brings up is why certain spren exist. Fearspren? Gloryspren? Painspren? Nothing in our current understanding of realmatic theory says that things like "glory" or "pain" have cognitive aspects.

Well, I say the reason for this apparant contradiction is that the names we use for spren are the names people on Roshar gave them, names generaly based on where and when the spren can be seen. There are a few different times where people speculate on the nature of spren, and wonder whether or not spren are actually created by things like fear, or actually cause things like fear, or are simply attracted to things like fear.

Many references to fearspren and painspren talk about them crawling out of the nearby ground or walls and gathering around the people who feel fear or pain. Seems to me that if they were created by pain or fear, they'd spring up from the person feeling such pain or fear, not the environment near the person. And it should be fairly clear that spren aren't causing those things (afterall, people on other worlds still feel fear and pain and the like without those worlds having visible spren). So that makes the likely option that spren are just attracted to those things. In that case, a "fearspren" has no need to be the cognitive aspect of fear.

And perhaps spren are more than just attracted to things like fear. Perhaps they are changed by them.

We know from the interlude with the ardents studying firespren that the form of a spren can change according to the things people do. Defining a spren in a certain way caused it to become that way. And so I think that fearspren are actually simply the spren of things like rocks or wood or metals or whatever, manifesting as they do because they are influenced by the strong emotions of nearby people.

It goes back a bit too what I said about Nightblood in the other thread. We know that Nightblood and spren share some important similiarties. I theorized that the reason Nightblood can read thoughts and control minds is that he has a much stronger connection to Shadesmar than most entities. Since Nightblood is a strong mind, he can use that to control other minds.

But what if there existed things like Nightblood, but of much weaker thought? Would they be able to control the minds of others? Or would they instead be controlled by the minds of others?

That is spren, or most of them. Mostly disconnected cognitive aspects that are shaped by the minds of people nearby. As to why Roshar has a bunch of enhanced cognitive aspects that are only weakly bound to the physical world, well, I have a theory. Here are some points to note.

Spren are not visible in Shinovar, at least not in the one interlude that takes place there. Highstorms do not affect Shinovar.

Spren are never seen in any of Dalinar's visions of the past, even when you would expect to see them. The only spren even mentioned are unique spren like honorspren, which I believe have a slightly different origin than other spren.

In one of Dalinar's visions of the past, he is surprised when someone mentions by how long the weather had gone without changing. In present Roshar, Highstorms regularly change seasons as they pass.

In one of Dalinar's visions, "The Almighty" mentions that some of the things he has shown Dalinar he had seen directly. So some of Dalinar's visions took place before Honor was killed.

My theory is that in the past, Highstorms did not exist as they do in Roshar now. The use of things like "storming" as curses implies they were at least a part of the world, but I don't think they were nearly as strong as they are now, and I don't think they changed the seasons in the past like they do now.

I think the greater strength of the Highstorms is a result of Honor dying, and that when he died, his power flooded the land in some fashion, affecting the area that Highstorms affect now. This infused much of the world with his power, and in line with the idea of power generating sentience, enhanced the cognitive aspects of a large part of the world.

The spren that are visible to people are probably the cognitive aspects that got enhanced the most. Being things like stone or air, though, this enhancement resulted in something similiar to what happened with Nightblood, and the cognitive aspects became a bit "loose."

And I think that it's more than just the stones and the air and the nonliving things that got enhanced cognitive aspects. Consider how all the plants in Roshar are a bit more animal like, withdrawing into things. Consider how there exists a species of horses that is WAY smarter than any normal horse. Consider how in the Shinovar interlude, that woman goes into an amusing fit about the (normal to us) plants, thinking they are stupid and drooling. Consider how another interlude with Shallan's brother has "domesticated grass" bred to behave differently than other grass. In most worlds, you can breed plants to look differently. In Roshar, you can breed them to act differently.

Now, on to Syl and honorspren. If spren are the result of Honor's power flooding the land, what about spren that clearly existed before he died? I think those spren are similiar to current spren, in that they are the cognitive aspects of various things from the world, enhanced by the power of Honor. But I think that those spren, instead of being accidentally enhanced a little by Honor's power, were purposely enhanced all the way to sentience by Honor's power.

I also think they contain Splinters of Honor. Syl in some ways probably is a windspren, that is to say, she is originally the cognitive aspect of some air, just like windspren are originally the cognitive aspects of some air. But Syl was brought to sentience, and contains a Splinter of Honor. Thus, she is an honorspren, though she is still similiar to windspren in some ways.

Now, as to why she can lose her mind, as I talk about in my Nightblood/Cognitive thread, I think that cognitive aspects are influenced by the bodies they are bound to. I think Syl, unlike the other windspren, is much more tightly bound to a body: a spiritual body that is. A spiritual body that is an actual Splinter of Honor. And said spiritual body needs a bond with another person to function properly.

Anyways, there's my idea. It seems like there might still be a few details I'm missing or am off on, but I strongly believe the general idea of spren being cognitive aspects is true.

[Silus - Shard of Flame]

I like it a lot. And I have a thought as to why emotions could have spren, an alternative to your idea that emotions change nearby spren. I think that the emotion spren are the cognitive aspect of the chemicals firing in your brain when you experience certain intense emotions. This is why certain spren are hard to identify because only one person can see them. Because those things are only viable to you, like the intoxicationspren in the Axies interlude, where things like gloryspren tend to be more of a communal feeling or something very easy to see. There are, of course, other realmatic things to take into account here, but that's the gist of my idea, anyway.

[whynaut]

Also, consider the experiments of Geranid. Spren shape themselves to what people think that they should look like. That sounds like a cognitive aspect to me.

[Asha'man Logain]

I like it a lot. And I have a thought as to why emotions could have spren, an alternative to your idea that emotions change nearby spren. I think that the emotion spren are the cognitive aspect of the chemicals firing in your brain when you experience certain intense emotions. This is why certain spren are hard to identify because only one person can see them. Because those things are only viable to you, like the intoxicationspren in the Axies interlude, where things like gloryspren tend to be more of a communal feeling or something very easy to see. There are, of course, other realmatic things to take into account here, but that's the gist of my idea, anyway.

A problem I see with this though, is the dead Greatshell spren. It seems that there are spren that form only immeadiately after a greatshell's death. These would seem to be unconnected to anyone, the only possible connection it would have would be to the greatshell, which is dead by this time.

Everything else seems to have a spren attracted to it that works on a live being. Even deathspren show up at the cusp of death not after it. Or that attracts the spren to an event currently happening, flamespren to fire etc. I seriously doubt the flame spren hang around after you put the fire out, and certainly don't only appear after it's out.

I guess these could be 'special' or important spren to the way the world works as we are given a tantilizing glimpse, then they're never mentioned again.

[Vauric]

I like the theory, though it made me immediately consider that giant spren we see in one of the interludes. The easy way out would be to say that it's a "special" spren like Syl (or potentially the greatshell spren), but if we follow your theory, there must be something huge influencing it in the vicinity.

[CrazyRioter]

the huge spren and the greatshell spren are explicitly mysterious, and treated as such in-world. I imagine we will find out about them eventually. No way Brandon would deliberately pose a mystery and then not do anything with it lateer.

[Truthless]

the huge spren and the greatshell spren are explicitly mysterious, and treated as such in-world. I imagine we will find out about them eventually. No way Brandon would deliberately pose a mystery and then not do anything with it lateer.

The giant breaching spren appears to be absorbing the emotions of its audience. It doesn't appear to be affecting their health, but it would explain its tremendous size - taking even a tiny bit of emotion from each person in a large group could still make a large sum. But why does the spren do this? It might be touched by Cultivation, or the make-a-wish-get-a-curse lady that wiped Dalinar's memory. Her names escapes me. Or it might have to do with the expectations of the local people, who once witnessed some some kind of water-spren doing something unusual and over time began to expect it would do that, thus binding it to that action.

[Asha'man Logain]

The giant breaching spren appears to be absorbing the emotions of its audience. It doesn't appear to be affecting their health, but it would explain its tremendous size - taking even a tiny bit of emotion from each person in a large group could still make a large sum. But why does the spren do this? It might be touched by Cultivation, or the make-a-wish-get-a-curse lady that wiped Dalinar's memory. Her names escapes me. Or it might have to do with the expectations of the local people, who once witnessed some some kind of water-spren doing something unusual and over time began to expect it would do that, thus binding it to that action.

Wouldn't that only happen after it's written down? Of course thinking of it this way brings a new dimension to what Shapeshifty Guy (cannot recall his name at the moment) is doing. Isn't he going around catalouging all the spren he can find? and 'writing' down his findings on his tattoos? If this is so, he could be singlehandedly binding the spren around the world... interesting.

[Jaconis]

I like your idea about the origins of the spren, and how they are cognitive aspects of emotions or objects. After what you've had to say though, I've had a thought.

What if there is actually no difference between honorspren and windspren? In other words, is it possible that all windspren are simply honorspren who are not bound to anyone and have therefore lost themselves?

This would also explain why there are no windspren or firespren during Dalinar's vision. They are all still bonded to Knights Radiant at the time of the visions, and thus wouldn't show up until the bonds are broken and the spren lose themselves.

One thing we don't know that would help this idea is if all bonded honorspren give windrunner surge powers, or if all windrunners got their powers from honorspren. If honorspren bond = Windrunner, then it makes sense they have a liking to riding he wind, would spend their time doing that when they are "dumb" and lost, and would end up mistakenly being named windspren.

[Zas678]

The only trouble with that is that it seems like there a lot more than 10, or even 100 different kind of spren. There aren't that many different kinds of Knights.

[Ari]

The only trouble with that is that it seems like there a lot more than 10, or even 100 different kind of spren. There aren't that many different kinds of Knights.

Right, I'm inclined to agree that this isn't enough of an explanation for the overall lack of Spren. There are plenty of other theories that fill that hole.

What I did like, though, is the idea that taking a windspren and bonding it to a Windrunner makes an honourspren. Presumably there are another nine types of spren that could potentially become honourspren under that system. It's certainly worth keeping an eye out to see if that's consistent with the book.

[Jaconis]

What I did like, though, is the idea that taking a windspren and bonding it to a Windrunner makes an honourspren. Presumably there are another nine types of spren that could potentially become honourspren under that system. It's certainly worth keeping an eye out to see if that's consistent with the book.

I'm not sure that the other nine would become honorspren. We know that we can make Surgebinders from spren other than honorspren, or at least this is what I'm inferrfing from the following quote from Nohadon

"Our own nature destroys us," the regal main said, voice soft, though his face was angry. "Alakavish was a Surgebinder. He should have known better. And yet, The Nahel Bond gave him no more wisdom than a regular man. Alas, not all spren are as discerning as honorspren."

I know I brought up this idea, but an argument against it that I haven't been able to explain away is Shallon's magic. Her "Truthspren" seem to be very different from Syl. And as far as we know, they weren't a different kind of spren before, nor does it appear that any one of the spren bound with her.

[Unworldly]

I'd like to add something that might complicate this theory somewhat. First, see the quote from Twitter below:

FlameBrain619 Grant Hoggan

@BrandSanderson Do spren play a part in the ecology of Roshar, or are they separate?

20 Sep

in reply to ↑

@BrandSanderson

Brandon Sanderson

@FlameBrain619 They play an important part. Greatshells, for example, would not be able to grow as large without Spren.

20 Sep via web

So, if Spren are cognitive aspects of 'things' - living or not - on Roshar, how precisely would they assist a Greatshell in growing larger?

My thinking is that they can embody more than just things like rain, or rocks, but fundamental natural forces as well - in this case, I think that the Spren that BS is talking about here would be something like Gravityspren (or possibly, Anti-gravityspren, as it were). I've seen discussions before about the problems of Crustacea as large as Chasmfiends - even with Roshar's less-than-earth gravity - and I think one solution is that these spren are lessening the hold of gravity on the creatures, and thus allowing them to grow in size.

This then might explain the odd spren seen escaping a dead Chasmfiend - they escape upwards because they are actively resisting the effects of gravity, and normally their upward tendency is countered by the huge weight of a Chasmfiend, which they are somehow bonded too (possibly trapped in the gemheart?).

Of course, the problem here is why are there so many individual spren seen escaping the Greatshell corpse, if they are gravityspren - why are they divided up? Other discussions here have focused on Kaladin's mother claiming that when an object is broken up, the spren within is divided. Why would gravity be divided?

I'm probably missing something here - anyone have any thoughts on this development?

Edited September 21, 2011 by Unworldly

[Emeralis00]

-snip-

I'm probably missing something here - anyone have any thoughts on this development?

Perhaps they aren't Gravity-spren but Mass-spren? The spren floating upward could be that, due to not being in a creature with a large amount of mass, they become without mass and start floating away from not having any gravitational pull, since gravity acts on mass.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Emeralis00

[Asha'man Logain]

I have not seen that quote about the spren assisted growth before. I like your theory Unworldly. Another possibility is that whatever spren it is makes a 1/4 upward lashing on the Chasmfiends, effectively making them way only half as much as they should.

This may also mean that Dalinar not being crushed by the Chasmfiend is not quite as impressive as it would have been if it were dead and crushing him.

[CrazyRioter]

I've had the theory that the gemhearts are some kind of natural fabrial for a while, this little tidbit just makes me more sure.

[darniil]

Perhaps they aren't Gravity-spren but Mass-spren?

Heh. Iron ferring spren.

[Tortellini]

So, not to de-rail the whole theory, but why cognitive? There are physical, cognitive and spiritual sides to all things, right? Why aren't the spren expressions of the spirit of things - Shallan even says she spoke with the spirit of the goblet.

So great theory, wrong realm maybe?

[Ari]

So, not to de-rail the whole theory, but why cognitive? There are physical, cognitive and spiritual sides to all things, right? Why aren't the spren expressions of the spirit of things - Shallan even says she spoke with the spirit of the goblet.

So great theory, wrong realm maybe?

It's possible, but why would she be speaking to the spiritual aspect of the goblet when she has access to the cognitive realm? It seems more intuitive that she'd be seeing/hearing the cognitive aspects of things.