Kurkistan

Also, we know that Seer mistings coming about instead of Cadmium was just Preservation messing with the system (though I'm having some trouble finding the original source). Preservation made it so that Atium/Malatium mistings snapped instead of Cadmium/Bendalloy.

No no, that's actually quite interesting. I don't think it's right, since that seems to mean that a piece of plate whose gems all got depleted would vanish, but it is a novel idea that explains KR's ability to vanish their helmets. Although, on that point, it just now occurs to me that KR might not actually be capable of vanishing their helmets, but instead that happening in Dalinar's vision could be a "glitch in the Matrix" where they're helmets were "off" just for dramatic effect, so far as the efficacy of the vision's ability to impart information goes. Probably not, but still...

It was!? That's very interesting... EDIT: Ok, done talking about that on this thread. Sorry, me, for going off-topic. I promise I won't do that to me again.

So far as power sources go, I tend to hold that Blades have some kind of fairly powerful self-regenerating power source, like Breath, Shards, or even just souls in general. So say that your Shardblade has an "power level" of 100. If it is capable of producing 10/s, then it can expend up to 10 units of power per second without any long or short term harm. So if normal slicing costs 1 and hitting another Blade cost 5, then we're still good because the power produced is still more than the power drained. If this is the case, then each Blade that connects is expending power against the other, it's just isn't enough to be meaningful. @Azul I have a whole thread (with evidence and whatnot) saying that shardplate is itself Invested, which I find fairly convincing.

Legit lol here. Also, yes, "pimp" is the right equivalent.

I already linked you to a (very grainy) picture of the Feruchemy chart, and here is a hi-res Allomancy chart.

^Well put Leuthie, and exactly how I see it. In fact, if more of the "surges" on Roshar all turn out to be fundamental forces like gravity and pressure already are, and are manipulated in the same way, we'll have pretty strong evidence to that effect. P.S. Also, sorry Phantom for accusing you of intellectual dishonesty. Looking back, I imagine that you were just in a hurry when you read the Hemalurgy quote, so didn't grasp the fact that he wasn't responding Chaos' to question properly.

As an aside, my entire "Notifications" window is now just a series of "Phantom Monstrosity replied to Motivation, Execution, Consequence: A Realmatic Theory"

Except that the quote I linked to at the beginning of this page, and that you pulled later, is in the context of Brandon talking to a fan about how it really works, not "well, they think..." That is interesting. Phantom, I have started far too many threads already: you are charged with this task. EDIT: Nevermind, I think the mystery we were supposed to unravel was the fact that Atium is a God metal, not Temporal

So one 8-metal "segment" and two 4-metal ones? I guess they could have, but the two physical quadrants act in fairly different ways, Feruchemists have the other two arts' division to look at that say that everything works in groups of 4, 4 is significant because of 16 and all, and we even have Brandon in his god-mode-voice calling it two quadrants of Physical.

Well yeah, you aren't going to have a Physical quadrant and then a "2nd Physical" quadrant, and "Hybrid" (though I would have called it "Life", personally) is more descriptive. Regardless, they had good calls on Cognitive and Spiritual. According to the AoLAAA, and they have at least some idea if they've got the terminology and Realmatics right. They might not know exactly what Investiture is or how to use/manipulate it, but they likely have about as good an idea as we do. I can understand your reluctance, but we're not left in a good place if the Spiritual doesn't have any "natural" inroads into he other two Realms, and there are good reasons for giving them to it. P.S. I also "edit-replied" to your edit in my previous post.

1) Please see my edits to my previous post. Weird distribution of bindpoints doesn't exactly scream implications for what powers the metals have. 2) I might buy that interpretation if the quote stood on its own, but then you have to look at how the MAG, Ars Arcanum, and Feruchemy chart all break them down the same way Realmatically. By the time we're using the word "Cognitive" instead of the more natural "mental" and calling Connection and Investiture Spiritual (aside:ooh, another very firm clue that magic power is fundamentally Spiritual), I think we can give the Terrismen a bit more credit here. I also doubt that we'd see a printing of such a fundamentally wrong Feruchemical chart, if only for the sake of pride and avoiding confusion ten years down the line if everything is turned on its head. EDIT: Though this retroactive edit discussion is odd, okay, you started it. EDIT 2: Clarified a few things a few minutes after "edit-posting". Brandon's entire response is about bindpoints and where spikes are placed in the body. Chaos was asking about the quadrants, but Brandon wasn't answering about them (recall that this was a public Q&A, so some miscommunication likely happened). We can have a separate discussion about Hemalurgy's distribution of metals, but that quote won't be of any use to it. If you want to discuss Hemalurgy's breakdown, yes, it is a bit odd so far as correspondence across quadrants goes, but it looks as if the 4-metal quadrants are all intact. And even if they weren't, I have all that other stuff about the believability of the current breakdown of Feruchemy's quadrants, so Hemalurgy can just go off to a corner and be weird by itself in another new and interesting way.

If you read the Brandon quote I gave last post, the implication is quite clearly that the breakdown in the books was accurate, insofar as how stuff was grouped. EDIT: I believe that that new Chaos quote is referring to bindpoints, not "spots" on a table. EDIT 2: Storm it Phantom, that's actually a quote mine. Shame. Link

Yes, but it has a more convoluted history than that: Link Where before Brandon was going to have Feruchemy have a "mental" section, now it has a "cognitive" section. I suppose there's an interesting question to ask on how Brandon managed to make Brass's effects work Cognitively, but that's for another day, and Brandon is settled quite firmly on things breaking down properly as they are now, if you think Realmatically. So Brass works Cognitively and Determination Physically. P.S. Not that I couldn't explain away even mental determination. Top two options are as "trickle down" from lessened Spiritual power, or as Determination as actually being a straight-out expression of your Spiritual self. Recall that "mental" doesn't demand that it be Cognitive.

I'm still trying to work out what exactly having "more cognitive stuff" even means, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit vague here, and/or laughably wrong in hindsight. Taking some inspiration from Windy's "Shardic Constructs Corollary" thread, I would suggest that you need certain "structures" before you can access Spiritual power. In this case, I would suggest that the Cognitive aspects of Returned are augmented such that they have a relatively full and rich access to a certain number of Forms. The ones we care about in this case are the "Returned" Form that determines what Returned look like (Fat vs. Athletic) and some Form that defines ideal and complete Human-Health, both of which I have posited as explanations for certain effects of Divine Breath in the past. Now, though, with Divine Breath incorporating Cognitive components, we can explain exactly why those with Divine Breath both have access to these Forms and the ability to be so strongly influenced by them. The Cognitive components of Divine Breath, then, seem such that they augment Cognitive aspects in order to both grant access to and enable responsiveness to these particular Forms. Am I just whistling in the the dark here, or are you catching what I'm throwing? You have a point. I would guess that we might see some odd effects if a Returned ever Awakens something with their Divine Breath. Or it could all just be rolled into giving that Awakened object the single most robust and responsive Cognitive aspect ever. Or nothing could happen and the extra Cognitive stuff is just inactive when used for Awakening. I don't know. Anyway, if you're actually right and all Breath have the same proportion of Cognitiveness as Divine Breath, then Awakening should work the same, though I suppose that's your point. At that point, I just have to point you to the entire War of Nepene and the many good reasons I give during its course for Breaths not being significantly Cognitive. -- Despite the ruckus it has caused you to raise, I do think that this revelation of Splinters as being partially Cognitive is a boon for our understanding of BioChroma. It explains why Returned are so different in a very tidy manner. I don't find it very enticing to abandon this plausible explanation for the nature of Returned, along with all the insight it can give us into what exactly it means for something to be "more cognitive". And all for the sake of arguing that all Breath are qualitatively identical to Divine Breath, only then to be forced to either come up with another explanation for why Divine Breath are special or wallow in ignorance once again. EDIT: In reply to your edit: Huh. *Looks up* My mistake, then. Actually, it's part of the Hybrid metals, and thus technically Physical if it still holds that Feruchemy breaks down on P/C/S/P lines. Boom! Wrong but still right . And if it isn't Physical, then I would say that Determination still sounds more akin to something like Identity than it does to Memory or other such clearly Cognitive things, so it's still an acceptable, if not even highly plausible, interpretation.

I was referring to the ability of Divine Breath to completely and perfectly heal any ailment under the sun when Returned sacrifice themselves. Specifically, how Susebron not only got a new tongue, but the ability to use it properly. "Normal" magical Healing in the Cosmere is restricted to actualizing the Cognitive aspect of the target, which for Susebron would not include a tongue, and would definitely not include the ability to talk properly. EDIT: I may have misread you. If you are saying that normal disease immunity is a result of some Cognitive endowment, no. I'm honestly not even sure how you can model magical Healing and Health as dependent upon some infusing of Cognitive something or other. It's restricted and guided by existing Cognitive aspects, sure, but it's also quite clearly a case of pouring extra power into someone, not altering or augmenting their Cognitive selves. I don't care how powerful your conception of yourself as having a whole hand is, you need some extra magical (i.e. Spiritual) power if it's going to matter. So normal Healing and disease immunity doesn't "mess with" Cognitive aspects, it just works based on them. It's the difference between pouring into a mold and changing the mold itself. -- Generally, I just wanted to point out that Divine Breaths give you quite different results from when you just get enough normal Breaths together to get the Fifth Heightening, suggesting that something special is going on. Since we know that Splinters are Cognitive as well as Spiritual, the extra Cognitive presents itself as the obvious explanation. What do you mean by this?

Actually, I don't think anyone is saying that humans had anything to do with Joel not being chosen the second time. Other non-Rithmatists didn't see the chalkling, so presumably Joel seeing it but not being chosen was the "underterminable" part referenced in the book, and human intervention wasn't going to interfere at that point. If humans were involved in Joel's second inception, then it was likely either through not actively preventing his chance or through Melody/Fitch pulled some strings to get the Shadowblaze into the room with him.

Ooh, I like that. Especially since Shadesmar is all about Cognitive activity, and the area between the polse is kind of a fiery desert of death pre-AoL. That means there wouldn't even really be plant life anywhere but the poles.

Aside: New quote in from the Albuquerque signing: Link This is pretty much in line with how I model Kaladin's use of stormlight, and suggests that he can suck stormlight out of storms directly. Kind of a side point, but interesting none the less. @Phantom: Okay, lot's of stuff here: Gravity: No. The basic plausibility of the Spiritual Realm as enabling "physics" connections (as well as more squishy ones) and providing energy aside, there are numerous reasons to think that gravity is Spiritual. The language of the Brandon quote is based off of the WoK Ars Arcanum, and Brandon quite firmly affirms that "it's linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet", saying we're "digging very deeply into stuff that I now can’t answer." Remember, this is Brandon phrasing the terminology, so I think we can count on a high degree of precision ( ), meaning that he says an unambiguous and intentional "yes" to ""it's linked up to the spiritual gravitational bond between the planet". I actually kind of agree with you on this one, though I don't think it has any impact on gravity and other basic forces as being Spiritual. Time bubbles probably are just tied directly to the planet, mooching off of the existing Spiritual link that their casters have to the planet for just the connection to the planet itself. In fact, I would say that, once it's cast, the bubble doesn't particularly care about gravity, specifically, so far as I can tell. Give me all the gravity in the world and it won't establish a proper frame of reference unless you include some initial inertia. In fact, just give me a constantly updating shared velocity and/or spatial positioning (depending on if you're absolutist or relationalist about space) and you can keep gravity. The point is that it's akin to the spiritual gravitational bonds that Windrunners manipulate, meaning it's all tied up together all the time, not just some unnatural cheat that Windrunners use. The problem for you is, though, that the existing link that Benders and Pulsers have to the planet is a "spiritual gravitational" one. Why, if gravity is not Spiritual? I can quite easily see people having firm Spiritual ties to their planet out of kinship and sDNA and familiarity and all, but it needn't be "gravitational" in that case, and such a bond would be more than enough to anchor time bubbles in the Spiritual while gravity and whatnot did their own thing all by their lonesome in the Physical. As for the Ars Arcanum itself, you forgot to comment on how Basic Lashings don't only "'effectively' create a change", but are doing so by "revoking a being’s or object’s spiritual gravitational bond to the planet below". It seems that it is acting on gravity itself, then. Even if it's not acting on gravity directly, and merely preempting its energy, how exactly can that work if gravity is purely Physical? Windrunners manage to preempt and reallocate this energy through reassignment of Spiritual bonds, suggesting that the energy is already in the Spiritual Realm to be manipulated. Now perhaps they could dip their toes into the Physical to steal all the energy (other evidence to the contrary about the Spiritual as the Cosmere's energy source aside), but it seems that the Ars Arcanum should mention that, instead of acting as if it's an entirely Spiritual matter. As for the Ars Arcanum (not an epigraph) calling it a "spiritual gravitational bond" being weird, a two-fold response. First, please tell me what "other kinds of gravity" you would like to propose. There's only one type that I can think of, and I'm not sure how another would still be "gravity" if it was functionally different on a surface level. Second, recall that this is an authored work from our world. While a Cosmerian might be able to simply say "gravitational bond" without any confusion that he's talking about a Spiritual bond (because, duh guys, what other kind of gravity is there? Are you saying the whole world runs just because of stuff in the Physical Realm? Ha!!), if Brandon had simply written "gravitational bond" we would have been left in the dark. So he throws us a bone and identifies it as Spiritual, leading to a deeper understanding on our part and questions like the one about time bubbles that he most likely anticipated after giving us this Ars Arcanum. Yeah, I don't get that from that quote. First, he was mostly talking about basic components, not their interactions. Second, on any meaningful level (until you have to start messing with it with magic), the Cosmere's physics do work the same as ours. If no one ever discovered magic, there would be no reason to posit a Spiritual or Cognitive Realm to explain how it all works, and no reason to export certain functions which we (on Earth) credit to physical interactions out to those other Realms. I address this in the OP, I think, or at least somewhere, but it's pretty obvious. Gravitational bonds can quite easily and quite sensibly work as a function of Physical mass and proximity. A lot of other stuff in physics and Realmatics depends on physical and spatial relationships, so there's not problem with the day-to-day workings of gravity as a Spiritual impetus being filtered through the realities of the other Realms. That's kind of the point of my entire theory, actually. Even purely Spiritual effects, such as life sense, can depend on physical location. Divine Breath: Though I am profoundly loathe to continue this discussion, I think this particular point is relatively easy to dismiss. Where before, if I recall correctly, I dismissed the body-changing and future-vision and super-healing of Divine Breath as simply a quirk of Endowment going all Endowy, now I can much more easily say that all of this is the result of added Cognitive shenanigans for Divine Breath and Divine Breath alone. Normal Awakeners at the Fifth Heightening don't get any of that, so Divine Breath have something extra, all of which extra features (besides future sight, maybe) happen to manifest Cognitively--it seems plausible that both body-changing and super-healing are based in messing about with Cognitive aspects. Overall, this Splinter point is relatively useful to know. Thanks for bringing up that quote.

Nice work, thanks. My evil plans and theories are coming to fruition with that surgebinder quote...

Thanks for clarifying. That's very interesting. Also, the bottom-left is the Expanse of Vibrance. If I had to go around assigning worlds to all the Expanses for fun (even though we might not know any but Density), I'd say: Densities: Scadrial (because I had to pick one of the three) Broken Sky: Sel ("broken", Skai~Sky ) Vibrance: Nalthis (colors and whatnot) EDIT: Curse you Meg for preempting my baseless musings!!!! -Also, you're right about Scadrial most likely being Vapors, what with the mist. That leaves either Sel or Nalthis as Densities, so Nalthis by process of elimination if we take "broken" and "sky" as hints for Sel.

It is easy, I agree. Feel free to post it on the questions thread.

That's part of what my "You're very close here" set of questions was aiming at (although it was a tad more ambitious), and Brandon's answer was less than definitive. In all honesty, though, I don't think it's possible to doubt that Breath's are primarily Spiritual, once all the information we have is properly considered. The problem is that the information is fragmentary and sometimes misleading, and so takes a massive effort to even grasp all at once, let alone discuss. Feel free to add the question to the list if you want to, though.

Fair enough. I was mostly arguing out of hard-earned instinct from the Great War... *pauses and looks into distance* ...and a rather admirably stubborn certainty that I am right. It's very tangential to this thread.

Thanks. When you say "Expanses", do you mean the ones on the map in WoK, or some other Expanses we may not know about? Also, do you recall anything more specific about spren? Did these "perceptions" take on a kind of independence after awhile, or did Brandon say that they were constantly dependent upon an aggregate of all men's perceptions at each moment, or was he just vague?