Can animals be healed by Progression?

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

With humans, it basically works that Bob (a holy name in Vorinism) loses his hand in a an unfortunate accident (involving Horneater ale, three chickens, and Hoid, but we won't go into that). Bob sees himself as a guy with two hands. Renarin uses Bob's perception of himself as a template to regrow the hand.

So. How much self-awareness is required in the process? If an axehound loses a leg, how does that change its Cognitive aspect? If it doesn't have awareness outside of now, and now is pain and hobbling around, is healing impossible? If it is intelligent enough to remember that there was a time that wasn't, pain, would that be enough, or would it have to have some recognition that pain =\= normal?

Is Dalinar's "healing" of Taln's temple relevant in any way to this discussion? Or do inanimate objects and/or Bondsmiths just work under different rules?

[Gilphon]

I mean, pain would be pretty useless if you weren't able to recognize that it wasn't normal; the entire point of pain is to signal that something isn't right. So it can be assumed that anything that feels pain is capable of figuring that much out. 

Really unless they're utterly soulless automatons, they're gonna have some level of self-awareness. And if they don't have that, then they're just fancy inanimate objects and could be healing like Dalinar healed the temple. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Gilphon

[Honorless he/him]

I'd say so, yes, animals can be healed via Regrowth. Progression uses one's perception of oneself as a reference, so as long as the animal doesn't start to view itself as a cripple it should work, same as humans.

As for other lifeforms that don't have enough intelligence, should still have self awareness, they'll recognize reduced functionality/loss of limb.

[Quantus he/him]

For datapoints, WOB says most animals cannot be affected by Emotional Allomancy, and most cannot personally use powers because they lack the sapience (so no F-Gold).  On the other hand, Animals can be used for Awakening, and there exist Animal Shades. Those last two make me think they'd have enough of the basic spiritual structure to be healed by Regrowth, and abnormally intelligent animals like Ryshadium certainly would.  In the case of Regrowth there is actually a mix of the target's self-image and the Radiant's external one at play, which I think would be a benefit in this case since the Radiant could then supplement some of the cognitive requirements that the animal may not be capable of.  

 

Quote

 

Argent

Cosmere healing. Some magic systems have internal healing, such as Stormlight; external healing, such as AonDor. With internal ones, the perception of the magic user seems to matter a lot. Is that also a factor for the external ones?

Brandon Sanderson

So, there are various types of healing in the cosmere. We have things like Stormlight, where you get the Stormlight and it heals you, and that one is very, very influenced by your perception. How you view yourself, and what you view as being healed, has a huge influence on what actually happens to you. Externally, if someone heals someone else, like a Knight Radiant uses the power to heal someone, or an external force heals them, is it still filtered through perception? I'm gonna say both perceptions are important in that. They both are relevant.

Skyward Chicago signing (Nov. 16, 2018)