[RoW and Cosmere] The number of possible Lights

[Ixthos he/him]

There are three pure Lights on Roshar. Now, this opens up a large number of possible questions - firstly, that there aren't more pure lights, such as ... sixteen? It seems to tie to which Shards are bound to the system. However, this raises questions, along with the mixing of Lights and the anti-Lights.

• Could another Shards rhythm, tone, etc. be used on Roshar, even if that Shard isn't present? Could their appropriate Light be made if their tone, rhythm, etc. were used? Would shattering a Shard prevent it - this one I suspect wouldn't stop the Light from being possible, mainly due to Honour being gone but the Light and Rhythm remain, but it is still a question for Shards which don't have the release valve of spren
• Are any Shard's hypothetical Lights also the anti-Light of another Shard, or are they all their own type (i.e. if Ruin and Preservation's Lights - possibly the mists - were to interact, would they respond like a Light and its anti-Light, given what happened at the end of Hero of Ages just before Sazed took up both? Is Ruin's Light/mist Preservation's anti-Light/anti-mist, and vice versa, or do they each have a Light and anti-Light, a rhythm and an anti-rhythm?
• Can a Light of one type (call it A) and an anti-Light from another type (call it B') combine together (Light C), and how would that light respond to either the anti-Light of A (A') or the Light of B' (B), or to the combined Light of both A' and B (C') - indeed, if A+B' = C, would A'+B = C', or D - that is, would, for example, would the hypothetical mixing of Stormlight and anti-Voidlight produce a form of Warlight we can call Warlight-B, and would its opposite - it's anti-Light - be produced if anti-Stormlight and normal Voidlight were to combine into Warlight-B'? Further, would normal Warlight, lets call it Warlight-A, match as the opposite of Warlight made from anti-Stormlight and anti-Voidlight, lets call it Warlight-A', or would that instead produce Warlight-C?
• How many Lights can combine, and does the sequence of those added matter? Does the amount of each used when making a compound matter? 

 

Each possibility increases the number of possible Lights immensely resulting in a combinatorial explosion. The simplest possibility is as follows:

• Three (3) pure Lights, no other possible pure Lights
• Three (3) anti-Lights, one for each anti-Light (so anti-pure-Lights
• Three (3) hybrid Lights, one for each pair of pure Lights (third not proven but I will stretch to add this one)
• No combination of all three Lights (I doubt this - I think all Lights can be combined, but lets go with that for now)
• No anti-Lights for each hybrid (Again, I doubt this, but this is the smallest number)

Therefore the smallest number would be nine - Odium would like that.

 

At the other end ... oh boy.

• Sixteen (16) possible pure Lights
• Sixteen (16) anti-pure-Lights
  • (We are are thirty two (32) Lights)
• One hundred and twenty (120) normal hybrid Lights between two pure Lights (based on 1+2+3+...+14+15, or on n choose k with n=16 and k=2)
• One hundred and twenty (120) anti-hybrid Lights, which may or may not be the same as hybrid anti-Lights - or in other words, from either combining anti-Lights, or inverting hybrid Lights)
• Two hundred and fourty (240) Light and anti-Light hybrids, excluding annihilating pairs - some of which are possibly also the anti-Lights to one another (determined based on (1+2+3+...+30+31)-2*120-16, with 2*120 being for the previously mentioned Lights, and the 16 for the annihilating pairs)
  • (We are now up to five hundred and twelve (512) Lights)
• Five hundred and sixty (560) hybrids of three pure Lights (16 choose 3)
• Five hundred and sixty (560) hybrids of three anti-Lights
• One thousand six hundred and eighty (1680) hybrids of two Lights and one anti-Light that doesn't annihilate one of the components (14*120, 14 because it's 16 minus the two which would annihilate with one of the components of the hybrid Lights)
• One thousand six hundred and eighty (1680) hybrids of one Light and two anti-Lights that don't annihilate with it
  • (We are now up to four thousand nine hundred and ninety two (4992) Lights)
• One thousand eight hundred and twenty (1820) hybrids of four Lights (16 choose 4)
• One thousand eight hundred and twenty (1820) hybrids of four anti-Lights
• Seven thousand two hundred and eighty (7280) hybrids of three Lights and one anti-Light which doesn't annihilate one of the component Lights (13*560, 13 because it's 16 minus the three that would annihilate with one of the components of the hybrid Lights)
• Seven thousand two hundred and eighty (7280) hybrids of one Light with three anti-Lights that don't annihilate with it
• Ten thousand nine hundred and twenty (10920) hybrids of two Lights with two anti-Lights that don't annihilate with the hybrid Lights (91*120, 91 being 14 choose 2)
  • (We are now up to thirty four thousand one hundred and twelve (34112) Lights)
• ...

 

I'm sure I don't need to go on much further. That is a lot of possible combinations.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Ixthos
fixed a few notion and figure errors

[Kacman]

I feel like it’s the second one. We know every shard has its own god metal, and that combined shards form a new god combined metal. It makes sense that every shard would then have its own light, which could then combine in to different named lights, that seems pretty analogous.

 

How the anti-lights work seems a bit more complicated, but it also seems like it would take the combined anti-light to neutralize a light, not just one of the individual components.

[Ixthos he/him]

6 minutes ago, Kacman said:

I feel like it’s the second one. We know every shard has its own god metal, and that combined shards form a new god combined metal. It makes sense that every shard would then have its own light, which could then combine in to different named lights, that seems pretty analogous.

 

How the anti-lights work seems a bit more complicated, but it also seems like it would take the combined anti-light to neutralize a light, not just one of the individual components.

Agreed. Perhaps one of the elements in future cosmere stories will be scholars trying to catalogue and experiment with each type.

I also agree with that second point - I also think you can't combine a hybrid Light with a Light that counters one of its components, as that seems to me like it would remove that component and leave you with the other base Lights again, so Warlight mixed with anti-Voidlight would turn back into Stormlight.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

I think the Shards form a double rainbow, one black- color and one white-color, with Ruin and Preservation at either end as black and white. We do know R&P are black and white.

[Ixthos he/him]

8 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I think the Shards form a double rainbow, one black- color and one white-color, with Ruin and Preservation at either end as black and white. We do know R&P are black and white.

That would make a lot of sense. Though true rainbows actually are six main colours, not seven despite what Newton thought. I wonder if, assuming this is correct, the colours could be used to tell the relations between shards?

[Honorless he/him]

Hmm... Preservation and Ruin's power repulsed each other but they can interact without annihilating one another. They are not each other's anti-Investiture.

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

I feel like we'll know a lot of these sooner rather than later. It seems like a very obvious next step to try a lot of these, some of which may even be tried in the next 10 days. I wouldn't be surprised if Brandon was willing to answer a lot of these at some point soon.

Also, I'm wondering if Preservation's light is the same as the mist. (And don't forget about Harmony's light! Harmonium is distinct from lerasium + atium so I assume light would work the same)

[Brgst13]

I ran the numbers of all possible combinations, excluding any combination that included both a light and its anti-light, for a grand total of...84,254,356 different Light combinations when light and anti-light are included.

[Jofwu he/him]

I think it's worth noting that the real answer is probably not the mathematical one. To create a "two-Light" they had to shift the tones slightly to put them in harmony with one another, if I'm not mistaken. I don't expect this is feasible with every combination. Particularly when you start trying to add more than two at a time.

Granted, that could have been some music theory handwaving on Brandon's part that doesn't mean much.

[Brgst13]

16-part harmony anyone?

On a related note, could Harmony's name be a double entendre relating to both harmony between Ruin and Preservation as well as the musical harmony necessary to balance them?

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

51 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

16-part harmony anyone?

On a related note, could Harmony's name be a double entendre relating to both harmony between Ruin and Preservation as well as the musical harmony necessary to balance them?

Also, speaking of this (and earlier about Harmonium being distinct from atium + lerasium) I think Harmonium is a discordant (eyy), forced blend of the two Intents, rather than Warlight being a harmonious blend of the two Intents. That's why Harmonium FREAKING EXPLODES and Warlight doesn't.

Or Ruin and Preservation's intents are somehow the Anti of each other and it's like voidlight + anti-voidlight.

(p.s. is there a good shorthand notation for "anti"? like we could just do "-Voidlight" but that seems kinda weird to me and a bit too vague.)

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

1 minute ago, Halyo_Alex said:

(p.s. is there a good shorthand notation for "anti"? like we could just do "-Voidlight" but that seems kinda weird to me and a bit too vague.)

It doesn't work with specific terms, but I'm a fan of the term antivestiture

[Ixthos he/him]

On 11/24/2020 at 6:01 PM, Brgst13 said:

I ran the numbers of all possible combinations, excluding any combination that included both a light and its anti-light, for a grand total of...84,254,356 different Light combinations when light and anti-light are included.

Thanks :-) That certainly is a lot of possibilities. I wonder if that will be a plot point, what no-one could catalogue them all, but they still try.

 

On 11/24/2020 at 7:15 PM, Jofwu said:

I think it's worth noting that the real answer is probably not the mathematical one. To create a "two-Light" they had to shift the tones slightly to put them in harmony with one another, if I'm not mistaken. I don't expect this is feasible with every combination. Particularly when you start trying to add more than two at a time.

Granted, that could have been some music theory handwaving on Brandon's part that doesn't mean much.

True, it probably is more than just mathematical, but as far as I am aware it is possible to make multiple notes come into harmony with one another. That is certainly something to look into. The main point I think is that once two are in harmony, they likely are a third unique thing that is roughly as complex as the individual components, and so likely could then combine with another which would be equally complex. So adding them doesn't make it grow too complex, in theory

[Golstar]

I think that light is less closely tied to shards than most assume.

This is my theory on the nature of Stormlight and Voidlight - and "anti-light":

Stormlight is investiture from the Spiritual Realm which has "leaked" out via Honor's Perpendicularity. It's "tinted" by Honor due to this route of entry, but it's not actually "Honor-energy". It's really just investiture manifesting as light and a Connection to Honor.

Voidlight has an unknown source, and while it could theoretically be leaked from a Perpendicularity belonging to Odium, I think it's not the case. Instead I think Odium has the power to co-opt raw investiture and re-tint it.

Lifelight is rare - Cultivation doesn't usually manifest investiture in this form - we've seen it with Lift, where it "overflows" when she converts food into investiture, and split from Towerlight. I think it can reasonable be classified as a "not naturally occuring".

So I think there are four known methods of creating Light, and I hypothesize a fifth and a sixth:

1) Shardic tinting: When a Shard facilitates a flow of investiture from the Spiritual Realm to the Physical (be it via a Perpendicularity, a metabolic process or something else), it is tinted by the intent of the Shard and colored accordingly. This is the only method which creates new light.

2) Merging: Using an emulsifier, existing light is combined. The Shardic tints are preserved, but take on a hybrid color and intent.

3) Splitting: This can only be done to hybrid light and is simply breaking said light into constituent Shardic tints.

4) Inversion: Anti-light created by isolating light from Shardic intent and then manipulating it to "vibrate" with the inverted intent. 

Now the hypothetical methods:

5) Modulation: I suspect this is how Voidlight is created. After absorbing stormlight (or any investiture) using Raysium, some method is used to overwritten the original intent with Odium's intent. I think Odium and BAM are capable of this through their powers - but there are likely 'technological' ways to achieve the same effect, as it's very close to inversion which we have seen done with some fabrial+fused technology.

6) Purification: If we consider 'raw' investiture with no Shardic intent at all, I don't think that can exist currently in the Cosmere, as Shards are the only link between the Realms, and they invariably imprint their intent on any investiture they channel. However, I think that if all Shardic intents were merged, it would create a pure light - essentially full-spectrum investiture. This could be done by taking for example Stormlight and then splitting it into 16 instances, modulating each of those, and then merging them (possibly in stages, as not all intents may have an emulsifier). At the end one has pure investiture.

Now assuming I'm correct that 6) is possible - might it then be possible to invert this light and create pure anti-investiture? If so, I think this would incredibly destructive.

A final musing on anti-light:
I don't think anti-light is directly capable of destroying investiture at a fundamental level. Using it to destroying investiture that has been manifested in the physical realm, certainly destroys that manifestation (and thus prevents it from re-manifesting via the Cognitive Realm), but there's still an infinite store of investiture in the Spiritual Realm. So new investment can still happen. I think it's impossible to use it to close a perpendicularity or destroy a shard. The source of anti-light is manifested investiture - which is finite - and the thing it's trying to cancel out, has an infinite reservoir on the other side. So I think anti-light is a devastating weapon against invested beings and cognitive shadows in particular, but it's not an existential threat to a shard.

 

[Rorzikel]

On 11/28/2020 at 8:29 AM, Golstar said:

A final musing on anti-light:
I don't think anti-light is directly capable of destroying investiture at a fundamental level. Using it to destroying investiture that has been manifested in the physical realm, certainly destroys that manifestation (and thus prevents it from re-manifesting via the Cognitive Realm), but there's still an infinite store of investiture in the Spiritual Realm. So new investment can still happen. I think it's impossible to use it to close a perpendicularity or destroy a shard. The source of anti-light is manifested investiture - which is finite - and the thing it's trying to cancel out, has an infinite reservoir on the other side. So I think anti-light is a devastating weapon against invested beings and cognitive shadows in particular, but it's not an existential threat to a shard.

Agreed that it’s utterly futile against the infinite majesty of the Shards, but I do think it would be a potent tool against perpendicularities and vessels. Essentially anything that Nightblood could do (and I’m not saying that Nightblood is made of antiLight because they behave differently and I hate that theory), enough antiLight could also destroy.