CryoZenith

I think that if any Unmade were to be modified to be bondsmith-able, it would have to be BAM (if any). BAM just conceptually relates to Connection so much more than Sja-Anat that it would feel narratively counterintuitive to me for Sja-Anat to get that role.

It definitely has a nice ring to it in terms of light-symmetry. With Dalinar using stormlight, Navani using towerlight/sciencelight, and Lift using lifelight, which she has already been modified to be able to do. I like the idea.

(also, from Edgedancer, Wyrdle does seem like the type of spren who is willing to be bossed around and make concessions, so if any Radiant spren is willing to be bonded to someone with multiple bonds, it's him)

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

She is a historian by trade and passion. She has shown she has studied societies across the breath of Roshar, both present and past. Not all cultures on Roshar use slaves, and further have different economic structures than the Alethi currently do. So I could easily imagine her taking lessons from other cultures and the past to arrive to her conclusions.

She pretty much says it verbatim. Excerpt from RoW chapter 17:

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

I would pull up some WoB, but the Arcanum has been a bit sketchy of late. WoB's that I know for a fact exist, I cannot locate anymore, and another individual has confirmed that they experienced the same thing. So going off of my own recollection, there were WoB that discussed how an individuals natural investiture can interfere with some magics. That the individual has like a "investiture field". We know this interferes with cohesion. I agree with you, as I said, we have WoB that soulcasters (fabrial) are experienced pushing through innate investiture to transform things. 

Nono, perhaps I wasn't clear enough about what confused me about what you said. I totally agree that innate investiture might interfere with soulcasting around a person. I also agree that soulcasting without people nearby is easier than soulcasting with people nearby. The only thing I find confusing is, as I said, the idea that soulcasting around a person is harder than soulcasting the person. That soulcasting objects, such as rope, around someone is harder than turning the person into rope.

It might be that the innate investiture field, as you called it, has a weird shape, such that its maximum amplitude is slightly above rather than below the skin, but that doesn't explain how steelpushing works. If interference worked like that, rings would be harder to Push than earrings, which is not the case.

20 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Now separate from that, we don't know if it is possible to soulcast directly around someone anything really. Bonds, stone, water, or what have you. People have asked if a person's innate investiture interferes with that.

Wouldn't it be really weird if a person's innate investiture was enough to interfere with soulcasting around them, but not enough to interfere with soulcasting them? Unless I'm missing something.

58 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Also I think El is

  Reveal hidden contents

a Human Fused

, which if true opens a lot of interesting plot paths.  

Why do you think so?

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

That is indeed relevant! It also makes me wonder if Odium, and all the other Shards, actually gain power and strength the more their values are presented by humans - that a world where people break bonds is a world Honour is weakest in, while those in conflict strengthen Odium. 

There might be something like that happening, although there also needs to be a lower bound. So, a world in which a lot of people are Connected to the values of a Shard might be a more facile world for that Shard's power, but even a world in which *nobody* is Connected to that Shard is a world in which that Shard is very powerful.

Think of Scadrial, for example. Ruin and Preservation predate Scadrial, so when they first got to that planetary system, there was *nobody* there to be Connected to either of them, in any capacity. But they still had sufficient power to create the damn thing, ecosystem and all.

So I imagine that the "empowered by belief/followers" mechanic that exists with Dungeons&Dragons gods, if it is present with Cosmere Shards, is quite modest.

7 hours ago, DiePie said:

Jasnah is about as Utilitarian as it gets among Radiants, and so we can probably say that anything she does is either to maximize the prosperity of the people under her rule, or to maintain the power of the Kholin Dynasty.

I think @Karger's point about bringing up the scene where Jasnah admits to Ivory that she lost her cool/let her emotions rule her during the OB PoV (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this, Karger) is that it's possible for her to stray from her ethical system if put under sufficient emotional duress. She doesn't see that as a good thing per se, ideally she wants to make decisions dispassionately, but that doesn't mean she's a perfect rationalist. It's not "I will follow my feelings because that's the correct thing to do even in hindsight" but rather "this can happen in the Humean sense".

It's like how, in the abstract, I do think that the correct choice to make in the trolley thought experiment is to pull the lever, but if I were actually placed in the situation, the lever one foot away from me, I genuinely don't know if I'd have the strength of character to move.

5 hours ago, Karger said:

Moash is less a person and more of a science experiment at this point.  I more interesting end for him would be TOdium just returning his feelings to him and just leaving him there.  Kaladin could then do the honorable thing and chop whatever is left of Moash at that point into nice little bits.

Come to think of it, Taravangian is definitely the kind of person to be like "This Moash dude is insanely unreliable of a tool. I know he's Connected to me and all, but it'd be better for my plan if El was my Vyre again or something" and give'em the shaft.

I'm not sure I would like his end to be *quite* like you describe, though. To me it would feel a bit off and arguably even hypocritical if Moash's death was basically a mercy kill by Kaladin, considering that we view Moash evil for trying to "mercy kill" Kaladin. Like, yes, it's not the same thing, but it's too close for comfort for me.

Moash did a lot for me even in RoW. In the indirect sense that I was emotionally invested in the well being of Teft, so his murder of Teft and Phendorana had a strong impact on me.

I guess the point I'm getting across is that a character (especially an antagonist) doesn't need to be compelling in order to make a story more compelling by acting inside of it. Ideally you'd have both (always? not sure) but... yeah.

3 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I would tend to expect Ambition to be more like "increase my own power/significance/importance" rather than simply "pursue goals" ... especially given the corruptive/contagious nature of Shades on Threnody, which I think might be influenced by an Odium/Ambition mix (expanding hatred/spreading corruption).

Yeah, I read your theory thing. It actually explained something that always confused me about shades: why they react to people starting fires, but have no reaction to a fire just being there. Like, *zero* reaction whatsoever to the fire per se. Tying it to some Ambition valence the way you did makes it way more reasonable.

Haha don't worry about it mate! I'm a law student, I wouldn't be going down this path if I didn't enjoy pedantry.

I wasn't trying to be polite, to be clear. I actually agree, on second thought, that I should've been more precise.

2 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I'd argue that there is an ethical difference between truth (in the Truthwatcher-ish sense implying understanding) and information. Truth per se is probably always good, but information even if factual can be used to deceive (out of context information being misleading, etc), partial but factual knowledge can be dangerous (we know how to do X but don't know the full consequences of doing X, eg environmental problems), as can knowledge without wisdom (not using technology wisely).

And this is why you're a Truthwatcher and I'm not. I would never say something like "truth per se is probably always good", even with all the caveats you listed. Although yes obviously the caveats do pull a lot of weight into making it safer to be a disseminator who respects them than otherwise.

6 hours ago, Karger said:

Adolin seems to have done something similar during RoW.  Rosharans have a certain amount of extra investiture which is why they are a bit healthier then normal.  Kaladin might just have a particular affinity for this which might explain his seasonal depression to some degree.  Think of it as a high radiant aptitude caused by his physiology and psychology.

Yeah, Rosharans are naturally more Invested than people from other worlds, which has effects on their health and stuff. That's not unique to Kaladin. What is unique to Kaladin, as OP pointed out, is that he might be able to... burn through that natural Investiture. This is a qualitative difference of powers rather than a quantitative difference of powers, so something like "Kaladin has *more* natural Investiture than most Rosharans." is insufficient to explain it.

5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Technically speaking, every living population evolves, all the time. A state of zero evolution (Hardy Weinberg equilibrium) involves conditions impossible to meet in the real world (infinite population size, zero mutations, etc.)

Yeah, true. I know this, I was just approximating. I didn't mean that if every individual reproduced equally, there would be literally zero evolution happening. But you are right in that my approximation was underfitting, and I agree that I should've been more precise with my language.

2 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah, Ambition's a weird one. Sort of reminds me of Honor, actually. "I want you to keep an oath." "An oath to what?" "I dunno, an oath!"

Um... sort of. Honor's pure, isolated Intent is really weird, but unlike Ambition, it's not motionless without a Vessel. If you program an AI with the utility function of maximizing the respecting of oaths, it's gonna do stuff. You go to the Honor AI, you vow that you will do X, and if you fail to do X, it will slap you (whether X is a good or a bad thing). On the contrary, when you go to the Ambition AI, no matter what you say or do, it might just... exist at you.

2 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

Very interesting!  I knew vaguely about the concept of infohazards, and loved the idea of cognitohazards whenever they came up in fiction, like people going mad from seeing Lovecraftian old gods and ofc the scores of SCP articles.  Just just spent some time skimming a few professional articles - I'd never really given a thought to the ethics of the spread of information.  Lets just say I am now very much in your camp concerning the freedom of information - lots could be much better off if there was a stricter dissemination of a lot, but I digress LOL!  Thank you for sharing!

Yup. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure lots of Elsecallers could have a mindset that makes them compatible with Lightweavers, I was just explaining how you can be in a mindspace where you're very much the former while being very little the latter.

By the way, just for fun, cognitohazards are on a spectrum of harm. On the highest level of harm, there's the mind-breaking cosmic horrors you mentioned or some SCP objects, on a high but realistic level, there's PTSD triggers, on a low-to moderate level there's scary stories that actually scare you rather than just entertain you, and then there's low level annoyances. For example, below I have spoilered a very common and relatively popular low level cognitohazard in the form of a sentence. Click at your own peril.

5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yes, and Szeth is not a Cognitive Shadow- unlike Kelsier and Fused. His soul is kind of messed up since he was close to the time limit, but not a Shadow.

Yup, I think a lot of the confusion people have is because of the conversation Vasher and Kaladin have in RoW chapter 15, where Vasher says Szeth is a cognitive shadow. It's hard to tell without context that he might be wrong on that.

34 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

A large part of Jasnah's loyalty lies with her family. We have numerous PoVs as well as WoB that confirm that. Now that is not to say she would not do something that her family disagrees with if she feels it is better for them in the long run (when things went all to braize at Theylenah, she was thinking to herself how to evacuate Dalinar and co for their safety while realizing Dalinar would be resistant to the idea)

I would be 100% with you on this if we never had the scene with Jasnah and Renarin (sure, she did spare his life in the end, but it was really close). I think she'd be willing to do things that are bad for her family (yes, even long term bad for her family) as long as it leads to substantially better long term consequences for humanity as a whole; it's just that she has a very high evidential bar for when that is a justified action.

18 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Alternatively, it could well be that if you offer Ambition an apple Ambition would instantly want it - Ambition could actually be the Shard of want, kind of like Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern, who just wants everything.

Hmmm. Haven't considered this. If that's the mechanism by which Ambition's Intent actually works, then an AI programmed with this as the utility function wouldn't be a motionless pile of transistors, it would actually do stuff. I will have to think about it, it's a very good point.

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Spoiler

Leras loved the Lord Ruler's immortality and the stability of the Final Empire, even though he acknowledged it caused people pain - admiring the lion while empathising with the lamb. Vin, however, felt the pain of each death. Those need not be contradictions, as Leras might have felt the pain too but it was overridden by his enjoyment of the Final Empire's static nature, while Vin was seeing the world being Ruined, but it is still a key point.

 

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I'd love to talk to you further on both this and that topic if you like. That too is something dear to my heart 

Sounds good. Just out of curiosity, are you familiar with Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowski?

I'm not deeply familiar with all the intricacies and complexities of MBTI, like with subtypes or secondary/tertiary modes. All I know is that whenever I take an MBTI quiz, I always get ENFJ.

I guess the reason why there's a disconnect for my mindset between Elsecallers and Lightweavers is because of my ethical stance on the concepts of infohazards and cognitohazards. I don't infinitely value truth and knowledge (although I am in favor of having more of them *most* of the time), and accept that it situationally makes us stronger/better off to deceive as well as self-deceive. For example, let's just say that I disapprove of how Khriss is operating and her radical stance on freedom of information.

10 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

I actually used the paperclip maximiser as an example with the shards (here) so I fully get where you are coming from. I think with Ambition the idea is fundamentally about prioritising oneself over others, ones own good, so fairly compatible with Dominion - Dominion wants organisation and hierarchy, and likely it at the topic, while Ambition is the ideal that everything is material to be used to achieve some goal, the goal set by the Vessel. Of course, all Shards require an external world to interact with - an empty void would have Preservation do nothing, and Autonomy likewise would likely be content to sit in isolation. We could also apply similar logic to Whimsy - do random things, but which random things should one want? I'm reminded of a G. K. Chesterton quote about George Bernard Shaw, how Shaw said "will something!" and Chesterton noted that Will requires a target, that it doesn't exist as something without a goal.

I see your point, that all shards need an external world to be there and have features for their Intent to work. But having that being said, Ambition is still unique in the sense that it seems to be the only Intent which *actively relies on the Vessel being a person*. All the other Shards seem like they would still do stuff off the Intent alone, even if their Vessel was in some physiological or magical sense catatonic, but that breaks down for Ambition.

Here's how I would imagine a hypothetical conversation between me and an Ambition Vessel that held the shard for long enough to be subsumed by its Intent.

I will reserve judgment on whether Whimsy might fit this weirdness too because we don't yet know precisely what Whimsy's Intent is, and there are several ways Brandon could go with that.

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Odium and Honour together are War, and thus the idea could be that Odium would be happy with all life in conflict with other life, but no form of life - at least for Rayse's ideal world - would be able to actually attack Odium. A world of conflict while Odium itself remains immune to any attack - conflict, but no threat.

Hm. Yeah, that would actually be compatible with both our hypotheses, if Odium liked conflict but not to be in conflict himself. It's probably how Rayse saw Odium's intent, to a certain degree.

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I like your post - its pursuing a very interesting topic for discussion 

Thanks, I like how you're engaging with it. This is a topic that I care deeply about for non-fantasy literature related reasons: I have been, for years, thinking a lot about the topic/field of AI Safety and what it takes to build Friendliness into the Seed or Singularity. And the way Realmatics work with Shard and Intent are a pretty cool sandbox to brainstorm the consequences of isolating such and such Intent, or such and such Command, from things like common sense or instrumental goals.

Haha, that's so interesting. We're definitely opposites there. Lightweaver and Bondsmith were my lowest, the only two I had below 40%.

59 minutes ago, Benkinsky said:

There's also Szeth. Who, as far as I know, we still don't know how Nale "stapled" him back to his body.

It has been confirmed he used a regrowth fabrial, right?

33 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That has already happened. Abolishing slavery is a bad move economically speaking.

Yep, pretty much.

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There is no such thing as pure utility. Utility implies a goal.

I was abbreviating. Jasnah has a goal, I was just stressing that her goal is not some Randian notion of maximizing pure self benefit, nor some Richard Hare notion of maximizing the goal-fulfillment of others (such as the Alethi or the other protagonists). Her goal is to make the world, as much as possible, better for as many people as possible, according to her own meaning of better. I wanted to enunciate and stress the distinction between Jasnah's ultimate loyalty lying with Jasnah's worldview, rather than Jasnah's ultimate loyalty lying with Jasnah. She is willing to sacrifice (both others but also herself) in order to achieve what Jasnah thinks is a good idea.

59 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Mistborn: Secret History

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Well Ati did have to want to destroy everything and would even try to break nothingness according to Kelsier when he first saw Ruin, Leras loved anything that remained unchanging and if Ruin was right would actually find an unchanging empty nothing when Ruin is finished (if Ruin stopped at nothing) appealing, 

 

Again, I never disagreed with this. I completely agree that almost* every shard has one (or more) things which they, due to their Intent, care about as terminal goals, in and of themselves. Ruin likes destruction for the sake of destruction, ceteris paribus. Preservation likes stasis for the sake of stasis, ceteris paribus. Honor likes bonds for the sake of bonds, ceteris paribus. Odium has things he uncontextually likes too, absolutely, but I have reasons to doubt conflict is one of them.

*(the reason I say almost is because I don't see how this concept could possibly work with Ambition. The Intent of Ambition is to put yourself first and prioritize yourself and your drive over others. Which... is a meaningless and vacuous Intent on its own. It only means something if there are wants there to begin with. It only means something if the Vessel still has a personality. Hm, let me use the paperclip maximizer analogy. If you program an AI with its utility function concerned solely with paperclips, it will make paperclips. If you program an AI with the sole utility function to destroy, it will destroy. If you program an AI with the sole utility function to preserve, it will preserve. If you program an AI with the sole utility function to prioritize its utility function over others... it will sit there looping doing nothing forever.)

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Basically if the Shard reacts to any conflict, both towards itself or when observing conflict in shows approval - enjoying sensing conflict - that would support the idea of Odium as strongly focused on conflict.

Ok, here's a thought experiment. If Odium succeeded in his mission to Shatter all the other Shards, thus removing the avenue of inter-shard conflict from himself, do you think he would actively want one of the Shards to be restored, such that the potential for conflict is reestablished? Or would he be happy with that state of affairs? This is my biggest issue with the idea that Odium is intrinsically conflict: He seems to act in ways that utterly annihilate opposition (and when the opposition is not "utterly" annihilated, this seems to be because Odium didn't have enough information/skill, not because he wanted the annihilation to be partial). He seems to act in ways that make him win. Which is a strictly suboptimal way to act if the utility function you're optimizing for is the maximization of conflict.