Aradel

On 11/19/2022 at 1:54 PM, Nick_Nack_Patty_Whack said:

My aluminum foil hat theory that I have no way of backing (and I look forward to being wrong as usual):

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Harmony is going to take a page from Autonomy's playbook and learn to split himself into two even beings: Harmony who has both Preservation and Ruin's power but with more of Preservation, while Discord will also have both Preservation and Ruin's Power, but with more power from Ruin.

 

It's not as crazy as you think. I've been considering the same idea but haven't finished putting all my evidence together. We know that having a champion (sword) didn't solve all of Harmony's issues the way he hoped, Discord may be plan B.

My thought is that Sazed's plan is to create a new sword that won't break on him. One that isn't mortal.

I think that Discord isn't a problem Sazed is trying to suppress, Discord is an Avatar he's choosing to create that he can play off of and against. Like the original Ruin and Preservation but split across different lines.

Also: he is absolutely lying to Kelsier and probably Marsh. Telling them means they'd try to stop him.

I'm willing to believe it was Pattern's blade that killed Tyn. I have a pet theory that Testament's blade is in someone else's hands. After all, when the recreance happened all the spren got stuck as blades in the physical realm.

Shallan still has a connection to Testament, but we never see her appear when Shallan crosses into Shadesmar like Mya does with Adolin.

I'm already here.

Well, Restares might not be working with any of those other 6.

EDIT: Also Stone Shamans, maybe?

I'm not sure the stone shamans count. They seem to be well known in Shinovar.

So when at the signing, I asked Brandon just how many secret societies were on Roshar.

The answer: THERE ARE NINE CURRENTLY WORKING.

So far, I've worked out about six. Again: Slight Spoilers!

1: The 17th Shard (Brandon Confirmed)

2: Ghostbloods

3: Mr. T and the followers of the Diagram

4: Sons of Honor

5: Skybreakers

6: Envisagers? (Teft's family)

7: ?

8: ?

9: ?

Did anyone catch any I missed?

Count me in.

I would think that tin wouldn't help much with seeing spren unless it helps the user see into the cognitive realm.

The mist, so far as I know, exists in the physical realm. So there's no precedent for tin helping see anything cognitive, even if "tuning in" works on Roshar as well as it does on Scadrial.

O_o !!!!!!!! I never thought of that! Plus, Brandon has let us know that it is a quirk of Feruchemy that lets him know where to go and when to be there.

Luck I'd bet! Storing luck with Feruchemy can make you less likely to be involved in important events, the reverse is true when you draw on it. Also:rolling dice or spinning weapons ala Matt (Towers of Midnight) to decide where to go sounds like a very Hoidish thing to do.

Edit: actually, that would be an Atium piercing wouldn't it? Oh well, for all we know, he might have one of those too.

Alloy of Law: Where Wax spys a tassel hanging out of a chest. "You're Welcome."

Mine is simple, Brandon knew my uncle from college and based captain Goradel on him. My username here was Goradel's nephew until I'd showed up to enough signings that Brandon dubbed me Aaradel. This is the only place I use it as my forum name though. I use different usernames all over the place.

Kirk, you're forgetting spanreeds. If stormlight infused gems and spren can sync to each other across vast distances, there may be a functional equivilant for Scadrial. Especially considering the "Magic Technology" Brandon has said exsists there.

It might work, but I'll bet it's more than a little tricky.

I can agree with them being seperate things, but the problem with poopspren isn't that isn't that we lack a cognitive Ideal for poop, it's that poop doesn't stay poop long enough for an Identity to be established.

What I was trying to say (and failing) was that individual cognitive Identities are the source of "fact checking" in regards to shardic interactions, but cognitive Ideals are what shape and influence Identities. Cognitive Ideals being a set of perceptions held in common by a group of people.

Spren are a bit trickier, so I'll have to explain more what I mean when I finally get my Realmantics theory posted.

I still don't like the idea of a centralized form for cognitive ideals that you seem too be suggesting. (maybe I'm wrong.) I've always felt that it's more direct than that.

 

The example I used before was: a window's concept of itself comes from the window-maker. Its initial cognitive form is slightly different from even a similar window if it was made by a someone else. From then on, the window is somewhat influenced by everyone else who makes contact with it.

 

This would mean that every window has it's own independent cognitive identity, and the cognitive ideals of windows are only similar because people who interact with windows share perspective.

 

It also makes it easier for Vasher to hide himself if people don't perceive him as returned.

I think there are multiple forms of manifestation possible. Wells and pools might be seperate things.

 

it's the "gathered consciousness" bit that has me intrigued.

So that's settled. Hoid wrote the letter.

I'm pretty sure that Rayse could have cheesed any number of people off. But I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Had another brain bender. Kurk, I'm going to start stalking you if I keep getting ideas like this when I read your topics.

I've been struggling with your 'forms' theory and how concepts and ideas can exsist tangibly in the spiritual realm. I can't help but see concepts and ideas - which may or may not have a tangible aspect in the cognitive realm, and definitly have no tangible physical aspect - as intrinsically (sp?) different from objects and beings that have a tangible aspect all three realms. Your theory does make a certain amount of sense, but I can't help but think there may be a simpler solution. Anyway, the question sparked another thought about a Shard's Intent.

We know that all Shards are tied inseperably with an Intent. For a while I thought that Intents were some kind of cognitive restiction, but what if Intents and Ideals (as mentioned by whatshisname the cook/scholar in WoK) are how spiritual energy exsists in the spirtual realms?

I'm on my mobile so I'll be breif. Intents are the tangible "lines" of spiritual energy that exsist in spiritwebs. Like a craftsman's Intent is what forms a spiritual bond between him and his materials, allowing him to define the spiritual aspect of the final product, a gardener's intent to Cultivate a garden forms a connection between them, a leader's intent to Honor his word to his subordinates helps him form a bond with them, and so forth.

Aside from Intents there are Ideals - the perfect form of something that has a Physical and/or Cognitive aspect. This Ideal is the spiritual aspect of objects and living things.

I'd post more but I'm running late.

Kurk, you ready to poke some holes?

I just had a facepalm moment. The window's spiritual aspect doesn't become a window when people look at it and think "window", the spiritual aspect is made into a window when the window is being made.

The process is started by the craftsman, who first gives the glass and wood he uses meaning, and reinforced by other people's perception of it as a window.

The original stained glass window was a work of art, and most likely took a great deal of effort by the craftsman, so the 'form' he gave it was strong. When it was repaired, it was repaired carelessly, so the original form was still strong when Shai applied her seal.

So Kurk, I had the thought that spiritual connections might extend into the cognitive and physical realms as well. Like strings holding the three aspects together.

If this is true, then your Forms could exsist in the cognitive realm as opposed to the spiritual, and still be part of the "network".

My inner OCD thinks "collective ideas" should be cognitive.

Also I wanted your opinion on whether Ashraven's headwound in TES destroyed or diconnected part of his mind or spirit. I'm waffling again.

Physics gobbledy-gook with lazy formatting

I probably don't have the background for understanding it.

Your cognative aspect is defined by what you think about yourself combined with what others think of you. Your spiritual aspect is a step further: your spirit web is your sDNA combined with your connections to others.

Think of kinematics: Position - Physical; Velocity/first derivative of postion - Cognative/ first derivative of Physical; Acceleration/first derivative of velocity/second derivative of position - spiritual/first derivative of Cognitive/ second derivative of Physical.

Okay, the first part was pretty much what we've been saying and the second part I can't make heads or tails of.

The goblet also refers to itself in the singular (don't worry about your memory, I had to check too).

I've been treating objects as having a single, coherent aspect of each kind. Objects are generally treated as wholes in magic, from Lashes to Soulcasting (it's easier to make smaller rocks into food, Jasnah couldn't just smoke-out the top half of the boulder, etc.) to Forging. Recall that Shai couldn't have Forged individual stones in her cell wall. Everything she Forges is treated as a whole.

She said that she might be able to attack each block individually, but that it would be harder. I see this as the individual aspects of the wall becoming subsumed to the "wall" identity. Yes, they still have individual aspects, but they might not be there a year from now, and they are essentially subservient to that of the wall as a whole.

P.S. I just recalled Jasnah Soulcasting the blood in Shallan's body all by its lonesome. Hmm. Do with it what you may, my noble foes, but I'm going to try to run away from this one by claiming a "blood is an essence, so it's special!" exemption.

I concede the goblet, but I don't think I'm completely wrong. Like you said, Jasnah Soulcast Shallan's blood separately from Shallan herself. Which at least means (to me) that Soulcasting can affect smaller Cognitive aspects within a larger aspect. Whether that's made easier by blood being one of the ten essences and/or Jasnah's personal skill is still up for debate.

As I said in my "Role of Cognitive Aspects" section, I see the Cognitive more as an ultimate source of fact-checkery and the burn-offer of bad stamps. Shai clearly defines the Spiritual as containing objects' "essences", and continually refers to Forgery as changing souls, so I think it's basically the opposite, or at least parallel: stick something onto the Spiritual, then watch the changes roll down to the Cognitive and Physical.

It may come down to how I'm reading Aaradel. I see him as saying that the important stuff happens in the Cognitive, then flows to the Physical, with Spiritual connections simply being used as a means to that end. I think that Hemalurgy, Forging, etc. work first through changing the Spiritual aspect on a fundamental level, then trickling down to the other Realms as a consequence.

I'm not disagreeing with you there, Forging does seem to be a primarily spiritual magic, though I think that with shardic power I see it less as "trickling" and more "flowing" or "rushing" down the line. "Tickling" works for normal non-shardic interactions though.

I guess I'm waffling (to use your own word)on how much of someone's essence is spiritual, and how much is cognitive. Cognitive is supposed to be how an object views itself, but I guess when I think about it, a person's cognitive aspect doesn't have to be correct in it's views. In fact our self-image can be inaccurate. TES suggests that Shai's success with the stained glass window may have been because the window, in spite of neglect, still saw itself as (or wanted to be) something beautiful, which helped the stamp hold.

Hold now, young grasshopper. I argue essentially the opposite about Foring in the OP. Can you persuade us of a reason to go with your version?

As for Soulcasting, what do you mean by "all the little aspects that make it up"? Cognitive aspects are necessarily aggregates in the Cosmere (else we would have Chaos).

Sorry, not wording this well. I've not been on the forums for a while and might be behind in terminology.

I mean to say that our cognitive aspects are aggragates of all the aspects for each of our parts, and soulcasting treats a given aspect like a group of aspects instead of a whole. I think in WoK (asssuming my memory is correct) The goblet that Shallan soulcast into blood referred to itself in plural.

This might explain why soulcasting one stone into smoke or a person into fire doesn't conserve mass exactly. It takes the number of little aspects and transforms them, leaving the same number of aspects but each with an adjusted mass or energy.

As for forging, I always thought it was the cognitive aspect that was altered or supplanted because the cognitive realm deals with an object's image of itself.

My "theory" is less a theory and more a change in how we look at the spiritual realm, and it was inspired by Kurk anyway. I nod to him as a superior theorist.

As to how bonds affect sDNA and/or forms, my gut says the cognitive aspect has something to do with it but I don't have an arguement worked out for it. I do have a few points to make though.

Shards are giant masses of spiritual energy, but they are limited by an intent (cognitive maybe?), and a holder (spiritual node?).

Koloss are humans who are radically changed by a hemalurgic spike (sDNA transplant) and we find out from brandon and more specifically the broadsheet for AoL that post-HoA they breed true. Could this be a permanent mutation passed down to children or a shardic hand wave from Sazed?

I think that Forging manipulates spiritual bonds to trick an object into changing it overall cognitive aspect. And that Soulcasting makes a change in the cognitive aspect directly to convince all the little aspects that make it up to change.

I think I may have to disagree with the Shardic Radiation Theory. If the Spiritual Realm is a network, than mutations to sDNA would occur through the connections, not by 'radiation'.

For example,

Let's assume that mutations to complex sDNA (people) would most likely occur during a new individual's development.

Let's also assume that the people who inhabit a world have a strong spiritual connection to it.

A Shard comes to a world and develops a connection to it. Spiritual energy leaks from the shard (high concentration) to the world (low concentration) and seeks to bind to a node (complex sDNA structure). It attaches itself to living creatures (especially humans) and starts the process of mutating sDNA over a few generations until people start being able to make bonds with the Shard directly (use magic).

In layman's terms energy moves from the shard to the world and then to living things until they can access and use magic.

Worlds like Sel and Roshar which have broken shards would have a much more active process than worlds with whole shards, due to the spiritual energy having no node or person already bound to it, so it would more activly seek a host.

This might explain how Elantrians come about, a person develops a suitably strong enough connection to the energy's intent, and the influx of spiritual energy forces an unnatural mutation in the sDNA outside of development.