Are the Honorblades *technically* Spren?

[Scion of the Mists]

1 hour ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I think that the difference between a living creature and a machine is fundamentally more different that between a mammal and a bird.  

I agree, but I’m not quite sure what your point is.

I was disagreeing with your stance that Honorblades and shardblades are the most similar (although I misread and thought you were saying that Nightblood and Honorblades were most similar).  Either way, my position is that the most similar blades are shardblades and Nightblood.  Their shared sentience/sapience, in my opinion, outweighs any similarities they may share with Honorblades (physical manifestation, method of creation, etc.).  

[Ripheus23]

Maybe the Honorblades are spren in the sense that they're of Honor-as-a-spren. They're his personal Shardblade-like form. He's their sapience.

/endfoil

[Nymeros]

On 10/21/2018 at 11:47 AM, Calderis said:

I don't think so. The Rosharan definition for spren basically translates to "investiture that is alive" even if thats not the terms they use. 

The Honorblades are investiture, but they're inanimate objects without a living mind.

 

^This. An Honorblade isn't "alive" and so would not be considered a spren.

[Gasper he/him]

11 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

Magic handwave, it's either Adonalsium's doing or Cultivation experimenting. There is a surprising amount of humanoid variety considering humans have been on the planet for 6,000 years maybe a little longer and were completely isolated in Shinovar for a time after they arrived.

Since the Thaylens showed up and Oathbringer really starts to show the massive variety of humans on Roshar, I have wondered if Cultivation has decided to play scientist with the Rosharian genome.

[StormblessedSurvivor he/him]

I don't think you could call Honorblades spren...if I remember correctly, a spren is a little bit of a force that people have personified-so even though spren like angerspren aren't really sentient, they've been personified by the inhabitants of Roshar.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

17 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I was disagreeing with your stance that Honorblades and shardblades are the most similar (although I misread and thought you were saying that Nightblood and Honorblades were most similar).  Either way, my position is that the most similar blades are shardblades and Nightblood.  Their shared sentience/sapience, in my opinion, outweighs any similarities they may share with Honorblades (physical manifestation, method of creation, etc.).  

The difference is that you seem to prefer to classify things based on what they do rather than what they are. And fair enough, that can if nothing else be conceptually useful, but it doesn’t capture the true identity of a thing and how it relates to other similar things. The fact that planes and birds can both fly clearly should not be seen as implying that they both belong to the same ‘family’ so to speak. I just look at the sentience/sapience the same way. But ultimately I suppose we’re just arguing semantics at this point.

@Gasper I think she probably did. Honestly, that’s really the only way of accounting for it. Most of the features we’ve seen simply would not develop naturally, and certainly not in such a short time. Though honestly, a lot of the novel features kind of strike me as being beneath Cultivation, as they’re extremely whimsical and she strikes me as being very similar to Tindwyl in terms of personality.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[Calderis he/him]

11 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

The difference is that you seem to prefer to classify things based on what they do rather than what they are. And fair enough, that can if nothing else be conceptually useful, but it doesn’t capture the true identity of a thing and how it relates to other similar things. The fact that planes and birds can both fly clearly should not be seen as implying that they both belong to the same ‘family’ so to speak. I just look at the sentience/sapience the same way. But ultimately I suppose we’re just arguing semantics at this point.

That's the main issue though. You're treating Spren as though it's a taxonomic classification. It's not. 

It's an umbrella term to cover all investiture with a mind. In the case of inanimate objects it still has a "mind" in its Cognitive aspect, hence the "all things have a spren" idea, but unless it is active and speaking it has a spren instead of is a spren. 

The Physicality of Nightblood doesn't prevent it from being a spren, just as Shallan immediately thought of the Midnight Essence as a Spren despite its ability to interact physically. 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Calderis

[StrikerEZ he/him]

7 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

The difference is that you seem to prefer to classify things based on what they do rather than what they are. And fair enough, that can if nothing else be conceptually useful, but it doesn’t capture the true identity of a thing and how it relates to other similar things. The fact that planes and birds can both fly clearly should not be seen as implying that they both belong to the same ‘family’ so to speak. I just look at the sentience/sapience the same way. But ultimately I suppose we’re just arguing semantics at this point.

I think of the word spren like this: spren is to Investiture as animal is to matter. Spren are simply sentient investiture, which includes Nightblood. Anything that is not sentient but is made of Investiture is not spren.

[Fanghur Rahl he/him]

@Calderis @StrikerEZ Then wouldn’t humans technically qualify as well? At least on Scadrial? Since it was implied that the humans that Ruin and Preservation created got their sentience directly from being ‘infused’ for lack of a better term with Preservation’s Investiture rather than merely their biological functions? Mind-brain physicalism does not seem to be true in the Cosmere universe, but at the very least not on Scadrial. That would seem to have an obvious conceptual parallel with Nightblood.

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

@Calderis @StrikerEZ Then wouldn’t humans technically qualify as well? At least on Scadrial? Since it was implied that the humans that Ruin and Preservation created got their sentience directly from being ‘infused’ for lack of a better term with Preservation’s Investiture rather than merely their biological functions? Mind-brain physicalism does not seem to be true in the Cosmere universe, but at the very least not on Scadrial. That would seem to have an obvious conceptual parallel with Nightblood.

If people were looking at it to that extent, than sure. But they aren't, and they won't. If they knew what the Heralds were at this point I think they'd be spren as well..

Basically, for a a Rosharan, I think if it reproduces sexually, than it's not a spren. If it can think or speak and didn't do that, it is.

Nightblood being physical, and Nightblood being a naturally occurring physical entity are not the same thing. 

[The Invested Beard]

Here's the weird thing about all this. No, the Honorblades were not spren that became weapons, they were formed by Honor from his power. However everything on Roshar has a spren as seen in Shadesmar because a spren is just the concept of an object given form in the cognitive realm. So this makes me wonder if Honorblades, though not originating as spren do in fact have spren that represent them in Shadesmar due to the preponderance of cognitive activity on their behalf.

Edited October 24, 2018 by The Invested Beard

[Ripheus23]

4 hours ago, The Invested Beard said:

No, the Honorblades were not spren that became weapons, they were formed by Honor from his power.

Because Honor is the equivalent of the spren who became the Honorblades (although as a Shard he doesn't have to convert all his physical presence into Blade-form).