Oudeis

I think you're still missing my point. The extrapolation can see as far into the future as it likes; that part requires no more magic than a Highwarden guessing when the next storm will be. Sak could have detected: You carry a knife, which you might plunge into your own eyeball right now. There's a low pressure system out to sea that might turn into a storm, and bloat your body. Or maybe it'll damage part of the tree, exposing you to predators/the elements, in which case you'd skeletalize. Or maybe it'll blow over in which case your body would look like this, or a thousand other variables that produce a thousand other bodies in various states." The 'magic' comes from the fact that Sak can know all of this information about right now and magically deduce which are relevant to his bonded's death. Once the information is obtained, the various states it might leave his body in are easy to determine. Next time I read it, I'm going to keep my eye on his various bodies, and see if we get any hints that support "this is clearly never once showing his body any farther ahead than twenty minutes," versus, "hey, that one clearly showed how he might look after being dead a week." Right now, I don't think we have a baseline to know, for sure, how long any of Dusk's corpses look like they might have been dead. I KNOW, RIGHT? They tease us with, "there are dozens if not hundreds of Aviar powers!" Then we meet Vathi and "Oh look, a different breed of Aviar! With... THE EXACT SAME POWER!" Whiskey tango, Mr. Sanderson. Whiskey. Tango. Sure, he stopped the Vanishers... but not before they had the chance to do anything wrong. And even then, all he did was give those opposing the Vanishers a chance in the form of Wax. As much as he'd be against exploiting a new culture (as in, a culture with laws like the Prime Directive), it's similarly against his own philosophy to directly intervene just because he disagrees with what's happening. Like he's said, he wants people to have as many choices as possible, and part of that means not just stepping in because people do something you don't like. He might aid someone like Wax who is opposing it, but first, that could easily be happening off-screen, since we don't get to see anything on the One Above ships, and second, that person could have tried and simply failed. All this said, I actually am not sold on Scadrians being the Ones Above. I think it's one option, based on the fact that they're the only race we've ever heard confirmed, "they will have space travel," but that's pretty much the only reason to assume it's them. And since we know for sure that the Ones Above hint at other space-faring races, there has to be at least one other option, by default. An interesting quibble with this.. Vathi eventually got around to an interesting point that she should have made earlier. At one point, she makes it plain. Someone is going to exploit these islands; if it hadn't been inevitable before, the Ones Above would have made it so now. We can respect them as much as we want and leave them alone, but that just means those jerks over there will exploit them in our stead; tragedy of the commons. At the time, she expresses genuine sympathy for Dusk and the fact that his way of life is simply becoming unsustainable. But earlier in the book, she was way too callous about it. "We're going to take over your island and shred everything that makes it interesting and unique! Why aren't you happy at this?" I'm all for tension, I realize she couldn't have been too sympathetic off the top, but first of all, the tension is generic and blase, and second of all, she finally reverses herself for no apparent reason. It felt like, "It's time for Vathi to look sympathetic now, so let's give her the new script." It felt orchestrated, fake, and practically cliche. ... wow I'm coming across as harsh. The rest of the book was great! Sixth of the Dusk drinking game: read this book, and take a shot every time some plant or animal is named "death-something".

It's been suggested before, and I don't know that it was ever settled. It's certainly plausible. My personal opinion is more like the other kind of compounding. Basically, we already know that allomantically, you can burn steel and get either steelpushing or, under certain circumstances, physical speed. I suggest that in a steelmind, you can store either physical speed or, under certain circumstances, steelpushes. In other words, if a steel twinborn holds a steel bar while burning steel, I suspect he could store the allomantic steel. He would not, at the time, be able to push on metal or see steellines, but later he could draw on an hour's worth of steel at once, for an effect reminiscent of duralumin. But that's just my two cents.

Sorry to both double-post and necro, but I have new information. I'm re-reading now and I'm at chapter 43. Vasher, who is at the fourth Heightening at least, looks at Vivenna and guesses "You're prolly at the Third Heightening, maybe more." ... Shouldn't he know? Isn't that what perfect aura recognition means? And I don't really buy that he COULD tell, he just doesn't care. He's a scholar of BioChroma. This fact is most of how history remembers him. How could he possibly not care to get at least accurate down to the Heightening, even if not to the exact Breath? This is a discrepancy, it disturbs me and I do not like it.

Yes. An aura isn't something you sense, it is a distortion on the color around you. Anyone can see it, even a Drab. It may be caused by Investiture, but it remains a physical effect upon the world.

Not proof.

We've still got several other instances of people, Denth among them, "storing" Breath in clothing when choosing to suppress it would be much easier. With enough emotional control (or possibly by storing in a duraluminmind) you might be able to dampen the aura, the way strong emotions seems to increase it, but I really suspect that since we see two of the three greatest living scholars on BioChroma choose not to "suppress" their Breath when they would have every reason to, we can say with a measure of confidence that no one alive knows how to do it.

I perhaps had not explained what I initially meant here. I didn't meant haywire as in, "simply went wrong." Rather than "looking farther into the future" (partially cuz I doubt it's actual precognition, more on that below), I think it just expanded the definition of "plausible" to the point of uselessness. Like, rather than "here's how you could reasonably die if you're incautious," for a second there were thousands of bodies as "plausible" expanded to "here's one body for every point on your body where you might randomly choose to stab yourself right at this moment," and slowly narrowed the scope of "plausibility" as fewer and fewer random bodies appeared. Why I don't think it's precognition, and be aware this is rampant speculation and "how it feels" to me, so I make no claim that it's actually correct. I think it's far more likely to be I Ching. If I understand the art correctly, I Ching never claims to see the future. The sticks presumably reveal to you enough of the world as-is that it can reasonably be deduced what is likely to happen next. I get the sense that this is how Sak works. She has a sense of the world around her, perhaps a spiritual or cognitive sense, and it lets her see things that are potential threats. Her method of revealing this threat is rather visceral. How do her perceptions differentiate "likely death" from "unlikely"? Who knows. Perhaps the same mechanism that decides whether a Forgery is Plausible enough or not. Just my two cents. I'm coming up with the alternate theory based mostly on what is insinuated in Mistborn, that true future-sight (of anyone other than yourself) is a thing Of the Gods. I'm not sure I'd believe a Splinter could (or would) grant futuresight willy-nilly, but the general impression I get is that it's not something bandied about at random. I could be wrong, maybe it was just how they see it on Scadrial and it has nothing to do with actual Realmatics. There were inconsistencies, after all, like the fact that Preservation could see the future better than Ruin, yet it was Ruin's metal that allowed allomancers to see any but their own future. Final conjecture: I wonder if the dead One Above was a Kandra. They could prolly fake dead better than most.

Two thoughts to add. First, we have one instance where Lightsong's aura gets stronger in response to emotion. I'm not sure where you want to put this on the scale of pulse, flicker, or flare. Second, recall that Vasher can ONLY suppress his Divine Breath. When he gains his Aura from Vahr's Breaths, he projects the aura, even though he clearly states it is an inconvenience; presumably, if he had the capacity to suppress it, he would do so. Just some random thoughts to add to your mix. I'm not sure what I think about these theories as a whole, or if I agree. Just wanted to add more data.

Scadrians is the first place my mind went, but that's based entirely on the fact that they're the only culture we've ever been told, "they will explicitly have space travel one day" (as far as I know). As for the corpses... I mean, I have one random theory, which is that Dusk made an entirely faulty assumption, which happened to lead him to the correct conclusion. It seems reasonable to assume that the Machine had something to do with Investiture. Perhaps when it was opened, some energy contained inside was released for a brief period of time, and it simply made every Aviar's power go haywire. He was only using two at a time, and he wouldn't have noticed if Kokerlii suddenly made his brain SUPER hidden, so all he saw was Sak's power making him look SUPER destined to die. Dusk saw the visions, and assumed it meant "something that happened has made me universally guaranteed to die" when actually it was just "this is what an Aviar on duralumin looks like". Ironically, the event happened to be universally dangerous in an abstract sort of way, but that's just coincidence. This is, let me re-state, just a huge speculation on my part. It's just something that I think would explain all the "huh?" moments. Even why as morning dawned, all the extra death-visions went away; the side-effects of the pulse finally wore off. Another thought I had; to correct my earlier impression, I guess the lesson of Patji wasn't, "I'm tough to make you stronger," it's "anything that looks too easy is a trap." Which... is an odd lesson, since nothing on Patji was ever "too easy" unless it was a trap set by a human Hunter, so it really wasn't a lesson of Patji itself. Does anyone know, do we have any promises of future books set on First of the Sun? Or could this be all we ever get?

Pech: I'm never sure I got an answer to my question. Would you mind spelling out for me so I'm sure I don't misunderstand: How do you think Type III Entities perceive the world?

I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly with Tempus. This book was fine, but that's it. It wasn't amazing. Almost I feel like he tried to do too many things for a short story. We get a tiny taste of Investiture, and then it's over. We get a glimpse of this Splinterworld, and then it's done. We get a hint of worldhopping, but no more. It was so short, he could maybe have developed one or two of these themes to some sort of satisfaction, but instead he did a whole lot of things, very simply. I don't think it's a bad twist, but not one of his better ones. I mostly saw it coming, but I have to admit it felt more like a guess on my part; I turned out to be right, but I wasn't sure until the reveal. The newest thing he did was show two shardcultures interact on a massive scale, and it makes me REALLY want to know when this happens relative to all the other books out there. Is this happening while the Stormlight Archive is happening? Third Mistborn trilogy? I normally dislike wishy-washy villains, but I liked the idea he planted that the Ones Above aren't necessarily bad guys. They plan to use humans the way humans use Aviar... yet, Dusk and Kokerlii have a good relationship, and he's got genuine affection for Sak. ... despite naming her Sak. In addition, we get the tease that the Ones Above are worried about other Ones, Ones who will not be as kind. Perhaps this is the lesser of two evils? We can either sit back and obey our own rules, and watch while our rivals show up and enslave your people, or we can cheat a bit, cause irreparable harm to your culture and way of life, but ultimately save at least some of it. Perhaps I don't mind the ambivalence because he's pointing the finger to other, FAR WORSE villains. And yeah, the "Father is hard on us to make us stronger and smarter" trick at the end was... groan-inducing. It was worth reading. I mean, it's Sanderson. If he wrote my eulogy, I'd applaud from the casket (and ask a question about hemalurgy). But if it was going to be a short, mostly-pointless story that's a filler episode, I sure wish he'd at least dropped a few interesting Realmatics tidbits in. (If we got anything concrete out of this, I didn't see it.)

I'm basing the fact that I call this spiritual concept by the term "Identity" based on one simple fact; in the AoL Ars Arcanum, the author says that feruchemical aluminum stores "a spiritual sense of identity." That's the only reason I try to only use the word identity to refer to the spiritual sense of it, and it's a pretty arbitrary reason. The stuff you're calling "identity" I would just call your "definition". Like, my "cognitive self" the bead that would represent me in Shadesmar, would say things like "human being," "six-foot-one," "brown hair," and stuff I see about myself, and some things for how the rest of the world perceives me. When I speak of spiritual Identity, I'm not talking about a person's sentience. I think I was speaking at one point about two different things, Identity and sentience, and I wasn't very clear and I made it look like both topics were the same to me. I do think that it would take sentience to recognize Identity, which is some overlap, but sentience is NOT Identity. I would suspect that only things with sentience have Identity, and I think anything with sentience will have Identity. My identity, for example, would contain things like "my father's son," not just because it's genetically true, but because it informs way more of my life than I like to admit. It might contain things like the fact that I prefer to sleep in pitch darkness, that I will never do drugs, and the fact that when I'm drunk I get hungry for ramen. It would be the part of me that thinks of my grandmother whenever I have clam chowder, the part that connects with my best friend, the part that gets nervous before talking to a pretty girl at a bar. None of these things are what makes me sentient, but I don't think any of them would be part of my cognitive aspect. Add them all up, however, and you've got a big part of who I am. And I think it includes a lot of your connections to the other people around you. It's also the part of me that my sister carries around, that makes her think of me when she passes a chess shop. It's the part in my cousin that makes him drunk dial me. But again, this is largely speculative. I personally see this as Spiritual things, and I think they define "who I am," so between that and the WoB about Identity being spiritual, it's how I view Identity. Until we get more specific WoB on the subject, which looks like it won't happen until Shadows of Self, at least, I don't know that anyone can say, "this isn't just what I think, it's actually correct." However, if you want to discuss identity, we really should pick some definition of what that is so we can discuss it, or else we'll just confuse each other like we've been doing. To recap, and to tie it in with what you said: I agree that your cognitive self is "what you are," as you say. However, I think that each Realm has its own "what you are", and the three together end up making you. Your physical body has a "what you are" in your DNA and the actual state of your body. I can affect you in all three realms by sticking a physical sword through your physical body in this one. You cognitive self has "what you are" which might just be I am a glass goblet, and with the right Investiture you can change that so instead you're a volume of blood in the shape of a goblet, at which point gravity takes over (unless Kaladin is there.) ...interesting tangent, it'd be hilarious for the two of them to work together, if Kaladin half-lashed a goblet upwards to make it wholly weightless, and then Shallan Soulcast it into blood, so it would turn into liquid blood, but without gravity it would stay in the shape of a goblet... So, by extension, i think that there's also a part of your spiritweb that defines "this is who you are," the same way there's a part of your body, and a part of your cognitive self. I personally call that scrap your Identity, and I call the cognitive scrap your Definition. So, rather than say, "the stick identifies itself as a stick," I would say, "The stick is Defined as a stick." I... think I understand now what you're saying. I actually agree that Stormlight is as Spiritual as Breath; in point of fact, I personally believe (speculation, again) that almost all raw power for Investiture in the cosmere comes from the Spiritual realm. You are correct that things powered by the Spiritual can still construct mechanisms in cognitive; Soulcasting as a case-in-point. So you're right, it was an assumption on my part that a Spiritual artifact like a Breath would necessarily use spiritual senses to perceive the world. That said, the whole point is largely irrelevant. We've gotten a lot of good supporting arguments in favor of the idea that Awakened Type III Entities simply gain mundane senses, bypassing the biological mechanisms, so their senses are most likely physical, not Spiritual or Cognitive. But, you were right to interpret what I was saying as, "I believe a spiritual thing will have spiritual senses," and you're also right that it was a faulty assumption on my part. ...I think we're almost on the same page. This is a new and unfamiliar feeling for me and I don't know if I like it... I'm gonna go read sixth of the dusk and eat pizza now.

...Slow clap, sir. Slow. Clap. Also, sorry if I sounded like I was taking offense to anything. I'm getting more and more confused (see below) but not at all upset. I'm sorry if I came across as upset, or if I said anything to make you upset. My appreciation of your humor aside... I still feel like you and I are talking about vastly different things. I think most of our disagreement and confusion is from the fact that we're defining things in HUGELY different terms. Correct me if I'm mistaken... do you define the glass beads in Shadesmar as "Identity"? Because I do not. If you think those are what I'm talking about any time I say Identity, it's possible this is the source of our confusion. Also, minor point, but I absolutely believe Nightblood understands identity, and that he is sentient and aware of his own identity. I do not think this fact is relevant to discussions of the Type III entities, which are non-sentient. Words of Radiance spoilers. I'm not totally sure I understand your point in asking about using Breaths to power Soulcasting. We know so little about it that it's impossible to do more than speculate. Hopefully, if we clear up our confusion on terminology, the question will become irrelevant, because I have absolutely no idea what jury-rigged Soulcasting would look like. As far as I know, we have only seen one jury-rigged system ever, and we know next to nothing about the mechanics of how it works. So, can you please tell me how you define the term "Identity"? I feel like we're up against a roadblock until we are speaking the same language.

Source. Number 67 on the list. As you can see, the quote is actually very specifically about how you prolly would not start liking chicken just because you took the Breaths of those who did. EDIT: Format

I'm not totally sold on the "he knew it was grass by lifesense." It's one explanation, but it could also be, "he felt simple life below him in a relatively thin plane, looked and saw grass, and connected the two" the way you can hear a person and see their lips move and connect that it is that person talking. Again, it's totally possible, but I'd like to see stronger support for the idea before I subscribe to the theory. I agree with you partially on spiritsight... I think it contains a lot of stuff normal sight doesn't, and there are things physical sight can do that spirit sight cannot. That said, I'm not so certain there isn't overlap. Perhaps the straw man, because he was sent to fetch the keys, had a "I am looking for you" thread attached to these keys, and then found one for "I am in the same room from the keys I am looking for" thread. I am standing in a library right now, and I agree with you that someone looking at me from a spiritual standpoint would see a stronger connection between me and you, reading this, whoever you are and wherever in the world you reside, than in the people to my right and left. That said, if I look over and realize it's my friend's ex-girlfriend, I would suddenly have a different spiritual connection to her (woman I am now thinking of, woman I am conversing with, woman in the same room as me) as I did before, or as I did with anyone else in the room. Like I said. You're right, I doubt that it's as clear-cut as "right seven feet" as it would be with physical sight, but I still believe there's enough overlap with physical sight to allow someone to find a pair of keys. Just my two cents. And I have to run, I'll respond more later.

Or if a Seeker could store their Bronzedar...

I just wrote a very long post disagreeing with you, but I think it basically comes down to, a difference in how we each define Identity. Also I have no idea why Identity is something we're talking about on this thread. If all you mean by Identity is knowing that people look different and they all have names... then you and I have very, very different definitions of the term in the cosmere. I don't know why we're talking about Identity, but if we are we should figure out what each other means. Please provide your definition of Identity, as I am doing below with mine. To me, Identity is a spiritual concept. It's what drives you, it's what you care about, it's the things about yourself you hate but can't let go of. It's what makes you do thing that are irrational, it's where madness and love both come from. It's your mother's voice in your head every time you make a spelling mistake, it's what makes you wake up from a nightmare and reach across the bed, only to realize your girlfriend left you a month ago. It's the will to go on when your heart and brain and sinew are screaming to give up, and it defines the one thing in life you would kill to protect. Just because Vivenna was able to Awaken Tonk Fah's cloak and let it distinguish facial features well enough to "Attack and grab Denth", does not mean even slightly that the cloak understood that Denth has hopes and dreams and loss and love, or that those concepts exist. None of them were required for the cloak to be provided a definition of, "that dark-haired guy wearing clothes over there." One big point I want to address: "I see no reason to assume he operates on a fundamentally different level than an Awakened curtain." The reason is, Vasher said so. He told Vivenna that there is a fundamental difference. I realize that Mr. Sanderson has played this trick in the past, telling us "this is what people believe about arcanum" when in truth it was an old wive's tale. However, he's never pulled that trick when the person saying it was a literal accredited scholar of Type III and Type IV entities, and is in fact the man who created Nightblood and has been wielding him for three centuries. There might not be a single fact in all of BioChroma more well-established than this; if we disbelieve this just because there's a chance that it's wrong, where does it end? We'd be throwing literally everything revealed in the text out the window. Lastly... I'm not sure what you're saying when you discuss the three realms. I think I agree with your underlying sentiment; the fact that things exist in all three Realms, and that's important. In fact, I've often been on your side, trying to convince people I'm talking to that Miles's spiritweb and cognitive aspect are both parts of the definition of "Miles." So... yeah, I'm not sure what you're saying here. Aaaaaand you get around to addressing the main topic. So we've got one more vote for, "Awakened Objects are simply granted mundane human senses, bypassing the mechanisms." Am I correct in my interpretation of your position?

Also, The Only Joe: Yes. Some people do read the tags.

...and by changing the emphasis to the other half of the sentence, we have expressly here in the coppermind the fact that this is INCREDIBLY atypical for an Aon.

Not to mention Raoden's description, saying that he had to expressly tie the illusion to the muscles on his face. From a point-of-view practitioner, we see that a TON about the illusion is expressly spelled out. Contrast that with your point, where someone who thinks he understands AonDor makes a reference in passing to it while talking on a completely different subject. I'm sure the author of the Ars Arcana is knowledgable, but he admits in this and in other books that he's not an expert. It's far more likely his impression is inaccurate than that Raoden's is. Also, the fact that literally every other instance we see of AonDor doesn't work like that, indicating that AonDor illusions are an anomaly among AonDor. If you could somehow make Forgery produce an illusion, well then I suppose your points might pertain to that, but I'm not sure Forgery can be used to do that (without jury-rigging, which for all we know might require direct Shardic intervention). Aon Ehe, for example, produces a column of fire, no matter what. If you want it to do something else, all the wishing in the world will not make it do another thing, you have to write out, in code that anyone conversant with Aons could decipher, what expressly you want it to do. Raoden wanted Aon Ien to heal that one guy, he even knew at the time it would have to heal each organ, seal the skin, and strengthen the body to produce more blood, but all of his knowledge and focused desire meant nothing. He needed to draw the Aon the proper way, and if he had drawn it, it would have been in a way totally understandable to what he wanted the Aon to do.

I mean, you're conflating the idea of "able to react to stimuli" with "sentience." A cow can react to stimuli. If you poke a cow with a cattle-prod, it'll move away from the cattle-prod. A fly will move towards things it wants to eat, a cockroach will flee light. Your computer. You press the "p" key, it interprets the electronic input, a bunch of other stuff happens, and then a "p" appears on your screen. You can run programs to have many, many effects. Sentience isn't simply "able to react to a variety of stimuli and obey a series of commands." Sentience is a sense of self. The definition is a little fuzzy in real life, (wikipedia defines it as the ability to experience subjectivity) but it's a fundamentally different thing than what the cloak does when it "Protects" or the straw doll does when it "fetches". Basically, the cloak is able to perceive (how, I don't know) a sharp object approaching at speed, fitting the definition of Vivenna's Command, and then react. What it doesn't appear to be capable of is to have a sense of self, to be able to recognize that it is an individual, to philosophize and to wonder about its place in the world, to have preferences or personality quirks. To politely contradict you, sentience is absolutely not required for a cloak to "protect" Vasher, any more than sentience is required for a cow to run away from a cattle prod, or for my house alarm to start screaming and notify the police (both far more complicated actions) if you open my door without inputting the code. All other things being equal, I'm willing to take the word of Vasher when he says that Type III and Type IV entities are fundamentally different, not simply a difference of degree. After all, he's not only one of three viewpoint characters in the entire cosmere who is a legitimate scholar of his own arcanum, he's also the only living person to have ever made a Type IV entity. (Though yes, apparently Yesteel now knows the secret, too.)

Imagine the hilarity of storing proprioception and having no idea where your own elbow is, and then imagine compounding hours of it into a single instant when you know EXACTLY WHERE EVERY PART OF YOUR BODY IS IN RELATION TO THE OTHER PARTS.

Hey, I accidentally posted this elsewhere instead of here, having forgotten about the original thread. Quiver said this, and I'm responding here, now. Classic Scadrial was never "entirely based" on listening to God, and when Alendi had the piercings, he didn't speak in his logbook about "directly hearing the voice of God telling him what to do." I suspect only a few priests had piercings (and pre-Alendi, I don't think we can assume the world was a theocracy), and they may have directly heard Ruin's voice, or they may have just been like Alendi, being gently guided. Either way... these pierced priests were the ones promising everyone around the world that Alendi was gonna go, defeat the Deepness, and save all mankind... and then all at once every Southern Scadrian is trapped in whatever Rashek did to keep them safe for all this time which, balance of probability, was not a 5-star hotel. Now Ruin can only influence the Priests, and the priests are presumably not the world's favorite people right now. Yes, Ruin is an excellent manipulator and would eventually find a way to either bring the priests back into favor, or find a way to start spiking a different segment of the population. Still, with his limited ability to affect the world, that'll take a while. In conclusion, by the end of the final book, I would be surprised if the southern Scadrians had grown so dependent on Ruin that the loss of his voice would devastate the population. A random question: Will we ever learn about the Seeker(s) who died to give Alendi his piercing?

Quiver: I am going to reply to you in Weiry's original thread. Please use the link provided in the second post on this thread to find it.

Also, remember that between the mists and ash, no one can ever even see stars. I guess with as many tineyes as we've seen at night, someone sometime should have noticed an aurora, but it was still a comparatively rare occurrence in the book for someone, at night, able to see the sky.