lifesense Lifesense as the better Ironsight

[Nightstar The Bright]

So apparently everything alive contains investiture, or maybe it’s better to say: everything that contains investiture is alive, this includes plants and animals.

Lifesense senses everything that is alive, or, as a popular theory states, it senses investiture. Wait, bacteria are considered alive, so you can probably sense bacteria as well. 

Basically everything around you has bacteria growing on it, by sensing bacteria you will sense the contours of everything around you,. And the best thing is that unlike with ironsight you don’t even have to be ‘looking’ at it. 

So, do we have another version of Ironsight?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

3 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

So apparently everything alive contains investiture, or maybe it’s better to say: everything that contains investiture is alive, this includes plants and animals.

Lifesense senses everything that is alive, or, as a popular theory states, it senses investiture. Wait, bacteria are considered alive, so you can probably sense bacteria as well. 

Basically everything around you has bacteria growing on it, by sensing bacteria you will sense the contours of everything around you,. And the best thing is that unlike with ironsight you don’t even have to be ‘looking’ at it. 

So, do we have another version of Ironsight?

While lifesense is my favorite of all of the magical senses we just don't know a ton about it.  Brandon didn't ever go into great details about how it was used. We didn't see any daredevil style blind fighting thanks to it or anything.  Perhaps this is because drabs off set it so well. 

Even perfected, lifesense seems to have a limit.  It is interesting that there is no added benefit to lifesense past the 4th heightening. There must be some AoE style cap on it.  

I have wondered if (Mistborn spoilers)

Spoiler

Compounded tin could multiply it past the perfected level.   Sadly we have WoBs stating that copper would do a good job at blocking it. I don't recall if that was specified past that as something like "lifesense is useless inside of a copper cloud" or more of a "someone burning copper will be treated like a drab to someone with lifesense".  

It is definately my favorite magical sense but I don't think it works quite to that level.

[alder24]

3 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

So apparently everything alive contains investiture, or maybe it’s better to say: everything that contains investiture is alive, this includes plants and animals.

Lifesense senses everything that is alive, or, as a popular theory states, it senses investiture. Wait, bacteria are considered alive, so you can probably sense bacteria as well. 

Basically everything around you has bacteria growing on it, by sensing bacteria you will sense the contours of everything around you,. And the best thing is that unlike with ironsight you don’t even have to be ‘looking’ at it. 

So, do we have another version of Ironsight?

No, because once you give up your Breath and become a Drab, you're undetectable to life sense. Life sense detects innate investiture - part of the soul - and something like plants would be only detectable with high amounts of Breaths - Vasher could faintly sense grass but not lichen. Microorganisms are impossible to detect - they're too small and have almost no soul at all. Life sense caps at 1000 Breaths, which Vasher had (not in the quote below as he Awakened something).

Ch 21:

Quote

Although it was dark, Vasher’s life sense was strong. He could just faintly feel the grass growing below and knew how far away it was. With more Breath, he might even have been able to sense the lichen growing on the palace stones.

Mistborn spoilers:

Spoiler

Steelsigth isn't the alternative to life sense, it's the replacement to your normal, physical sight. With it you can not only detect trace amounts of metals, which is everywhere, but also investiture and even the axi (atoms) and fundamental forces in the most powerful applications (like we saw in BoM). Moreover, Steelsight allows you to detect not only the color of an object, but also its composition - basically what your eyes can do. With life sense you can't sense if what's coming at you is a pillow of a brick.

Spoiler

Argent

Mechanically speaking, how does steelsight work? The scientific definition of "metal" gets a little murky in the middle of the periodic table-

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Argent

-and we see that powerful enough Allomancers can see more than just metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Argent

Are Connection and perception significantly involved here?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, but the science of it also is. I feel like the stronger steelsight is getting, the more it is detecting things like electromagnetic bonds and even, you know, the strong and weak force and some of these sorts of things that is just in everything, right? And I do think that in strongest applications, Allomancy is going to be moving beyond metals and moving toward things like fundamental forces. So there you go.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

A better alternative to life sense is Allomantic bronze, but that detects only kinetic investiture, the investiture that is being used. To be fair both A-bronze and life sense would work quite well together, one would allow you to detect people, other would allow you to detect invested arts. It would work even better with the 7th Heightening as that gives you Invested Breath Recognition, which allows you to detect most likely static investiture (like metalminds) - you would be able to detect all 3 kinds of investiture: kinetic, static and innate. That's the best combination, plus steelsight to see the very axi of Cosmere.

 

[Nightstar The Bright]

12 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Even perfected, lifesense seems to have a limit.  It is interesting that there is no added benefit to lifesense past the 4th heightening. There must be some AoE style cap on it.  

While I do agree with you here I think it is weird, it says perfect Lifesense, maybe an in-universe error? 

 

12 hours ago, alder24 said:

No, because once you give up your Breath and become a Drab, you're undetectable to life sense. Life sense detects innate investiture - part of the soul - and something like plants would be only detectable with high amounts of Breaths - Vasher could faintly sense grass but not lichen. Microorganisms are impossible to detect - they're too small and have almost no soul at all.

That’s fair I suppose, although it does make me wonder whether or not you can sense the charged microorganisms on white sand. If this is possible lifesense would work better on Taldain.

 

12 hours ago, alder24 said:

Life sense caps at 1000 Breaths

Where did you get this information? I don’t remember reading it in the book. Is it in a wob somewhere?

[Treamayne]

8 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

While I do agree with you here I think it is weird, it says perfect Lifesense, maybe an in-universe error? 

Well, the Ars Arcanums for each series are in-world documents by Khriss. It is likely she meant "at this heightening the range of lifesense stops growing" (because we know that more breaths beyond 4th Heightening allows one to sense smaller and less complex lifeforms). 

Quote

Where did you get this information? I don’t remember reading it in the book. Is it in a wob somewhere?

The same Ars Arcanum - 1000 breaths is the level to reach H4.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

That’s fair I suppose, although it does make me wonder whether or not you can sense the charged microorganisms on white sand. If this is possible lifesense would work better on Taldain.

I think they are charged with static investiture, as this investiture comes from the sun, thus you wouldn't be able to sense them. It isn't part of their soul.

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Where did you get this information? I don’t remember reading it in the book. Is it in a wob somewhere?

Warbreaker Ars Arcanum, and somewhere in the book it was generally explained. With every Breath you improve Breaths' "static abilities" like color recognition or life sense until you reach a specific Heightening where you have a perfect version of it. From that moment forward this ability will not improve. You get the perfect life sense at the 4th Heightening - 1000 Breaths.

Quote

Note Four: Each additional Breath grants some things, no matter which Heightening an Awakener has achieved. The more breath one has, the more resistant to disease and aging a person is, the easier it is for them to distinguish colors, the more naturally they can learn to Awaken, and the stronger their life sense.

Perfect Life Sense: At the Fourth Heightening, an Awakener’s life sense achieves its maximum strength.

 

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

because we know that more breaths beyone 4th Heightening allows one to sense smaller and less complex lifeforms. 

Now I have to ask you for a source on this one. 

[Nightstar The Bright]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

Well, the Ars Arcanums for each series are in-world documents by Khriss. It is likely she meant "at this heightening the range of lifesense stops growing"

Yeah fair.

 

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

The same Ars Arcanum - 1000 breaths is the level to reach H4.

Oh true, thanks

 

37 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I think they are charged with static investiture, as this investiture comes from the sun, thus you wouldn't be able to sense them. It isn't part of their soul.

That’s sad, isn’t that detectable with bronze, bassicly making Taldain inhospitable for Seekers (the constant pulsing).

[alder24]

17 minutes ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

That’s sad, isn’t that detectable with bronze, bassicly making Taldain inhospitable for Seekers (the constant pulsing).

No, A-bronze detects kinetic investiture, it would detect Sand Masters and their ribbons of active sand, but not the White Sand laying static on the desert.

[Nightstar The Bright]

Alright thanks.

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, alder24 said:

8 hours ago, Treamayne said:

because we know that more breaths beyond 4th Heightening allows one to sense smaller and less complex lifeforms

Now I have to ask you for a source on this one. 

You're right - "know" is the wrong word there. It was heavily implied by:

Spoiler

Prologue: (emphasis mine)

Quote

Being void of Breath did change him. Colors didn’t seem as bright. He couldn’t feel the bustling people moving about in the city above, a connection he normally took for granted. It was the awareness all men had for others—that thing which whispered a warning, in the drowsiness of sleep, when someone entered the room. In Vasher, that sense had been magnified fifty times.

And now it was gone. Sucked into the cloak and the straw person, giving them power.

Ch 21:

Quote

Although it was dark, Vasher’s life sense was strong. He could just faintly feel the grass growing below and knew how far away it was. With more Breath, he might even have been able to sense the lichen growing on the palace stones.

Ars Arcanum:

Quote

Perfect Life Sense:

At the Fourth Heightening, an Awakener’s life sense achieves its maximum strength.

Quote

Note Four: Each additional Breath grants some things, no matter which Heightening an Awakener has achieved. The more breath one has, the more resistant to disease and aging a person is, the easier it is for them to distinguish colors, the more naturally they can learn to Awaken, and the stronger their life sense.

Annotations:

Quote

Life Sense as Part of the Magic

The ability of the Heightenings and Breath to give people an added dose of life sense was part of my attempts to make Awakening, as a magic system, feel more visceral and real. Allomancy is a great magic system, but I wanted a different feel here. In Allomancy, the powers granted are more like superpowers; with Awakening, I wanted something that felt…well, closer to what people already do.

Perfect pitch and perfect color recognition are two things that I think resonate this way; the ability to bring inanimate objects to life may seem wildly superpowerish, but I think it’s a part of our own superstition and mythology—or at least the superstition and mythology of our past. Life from things inanimate, like spontaneous generation, was long assumed as something real. Witches were often thought to be able to bring sticks or bundles of cloth to life.

I think that there’s still a lot of superstition in our modern world regarding how it feels to have someone watching you. We are more aware of our surroundings, sometimes, than we realize. I think we attribute a supernatural connection to some of these things. Who knows? Maybe there is one. I don’t know, perhaps I’ve got a bit of it myself.

Enhancing this and making it part of the magic was a way to get the visceral feel I was looking for. It also plays off the idea that by giving up your Breath, you give up part of your life. The fact that Drabs can’t be noticed by life sense allows me to show that they have taken one more step toward being objects themselves.

BioChroma. It turns objects into living things, but turns living things into objects as well.

 

Maybe I read too much into it, but it seemed to me that Khriss (who is not an Awakener as far as we know) terms "Max Strength" around the documented perception of Life Sense allowing an Awakener to sense the regard of other people (which is how we are introduced to it, through Vivenna sensing Vasher at the Court). But Khriss also notes that each breath makes some addition to the combined total. Than we have Vasher (who actually has experience with the upper heightenings) note that, with Intent (and enough breath), you can sense things like the grass and lichen. The conclusion that seemed most logical to me (so much so, I thought it as the conclusion most people would draw) was that Vasher's comment in Ch 21 was exactly what I said in my fist post - at the Fourth Heightening the range for sensing somebody's regard (or sensing people in general) is at it's maximum - more breaths beyond that allow the awakener (who knows how to use Life Sense) to sense smaller and less complex life within that range. 

If just anybody at 1000 breaths could sense all life, I feel we would have seen (or heard mentioned) more about it in Vivenna's or Lightsong's chapters. 

Edit: Added Prologue reference

Edited November 20, 2023 by Treamayne
Ref

[Nightstar The Bright]

35 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Each additional Breath grants some things, no matter which Heightening an Awakener has achieved. The more breath one has, the more resistant to disease and aging a person is, the easier it is for them to distinguish colors, the more naturally they can learn to Awaken, and the stronger their life sense.

I took this to mean that the more breath, the more Lifesense, all the way until it caps at the fourth Heightening.

 

39 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Than we have Vasher (who actually has experience with the upper heightenings) note that, with Intent (and enough breath), you can sense things like the grass and lichen.

Where does he note this? The quote you gave only says that he could do it with enough breath not necessarily intent.

 

42 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

If just anybody at 1000 breaths could sense all life, I feel we would have seen (or heard mentioned) more about it in Vivenna's or Lightsong's chapters. 

Lifesense may only be able to sense investiture above a certain threshold, this way it could still be perfect, but Lightsong or Vivenna wouldn’t go crazy.

[alder24]

17 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Than we have Vasher (who actually has experience with the upper heightenings) note that, with Intent (and enough breath), you can sense things like the grass and lichen.

That's not what the quote said. His life sense was strong but not perfect. He could sense grass because he has enough Breaths but not lichen. This means that he wasn't at 1000 Breaths at that point, which would be easily explainable if he simply Awakened something off-screen earlier. A coat to protect him for example? A rope? Something else that allowed him to get on the top of the palace, like a banner? Or maybe he hid some of his Breaths? That's the simplest explanation, which makes perfect sense with what we know about life sense (pun intended).

The general rule of Heightenings, explained also in the book somewhere, is that each Breath makes you a bit closer to that perfect state, but remains perfect once it reaches a certain level. People with 20000 Breaths aren't more ageless then those of 5th Heightening. 600 Breaths doesn't make your hearing better than 200 Breaths. It's already perfect since 200 Breaths. The word perfect means it's the most you can get from it, it can't get any better. Life sense is perfect once you have 1000 Breaths, any more of them won't change or add anything. That's not how Heightenings works.

28 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

If just anybody at 1000 breaths could sense all life, I feel we would have seen (or heard mentioned) more about it in Vivenna's or Lightsong's chapters. 

Vivenna had 600 Breaths, Lightsong was inside the court walls, separated from all animals. Vasher mentioned it once. Only once he said he can sense grass. Vivenna mentioned it as well in the Epilogue, with 200 Breaths - even with 200 Breaths you can sense strong animal and plant life - not grass but why not a giant tree or a tiger? 

Quote

She said nothing of that; she just walked on, her life sense letting her feel the jungle around them. They’d recovered Vasher’s cloak, shirt, and trousers—the ones that Denth had originally taken from him. There had been enough Breath in those to split between the two of them and get them each to the Second Heightening.

Those are the only 2 examples of sensing something other than people I've found (there are ~140 results for the word "sense").

[Treamayne]

FYSA: I was editing a prologue reference into the previous post about the same time you must have posted this.

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

I took this to mean that the more breath, the more Lifesense, all the way until it caps at the fourth Heightening.

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Where does he note this? The quote you gave only says that he could do it with enough breath not necessarily intent.

It's possible I guess, but does not seem very likely. It seems to me that the reason why the upper heightenings are able to awaken Stone and Metal is because the "Lifesense" has gotten to the point where it can sense (and manipulate) those things. If energy-matter-investiture are all the same thing in different forms, and if Lifesense was only about sensing innate investiture then sensing a knife should be no different than sensing a bird of about the same amount of Mass. 

Since those things are different, it cannot be only investiture. There has to be a cognitive aspect (Sapient, Sentient, non-Sentient). 

Keep in mind, Ars Arcanums can be (and have been (Mistborn Spoiers)) wrong - they do not represent Sanderson explaining things to the Reader - they represent the in-Cosmere Arcanists trying to discover, test and quantify. "Perfect Lifesense" has never actually made sense. With Color Recognition, there is a finite amount of granularity in color and hue to be differentiated. With Perfect Pitch, there is a definitive note structure to sense and discern.

The Fourth Heightening has never matched those stuctures - because the lines and limits are not as definitive. It makes no sense that "at H4 you sense everything" but we never see the Godking paralysed by sensing every cell of mold, every insect, every plant spore, etc. in the Palace.

So, by deduction, there has to be an increasing level of awareness, after H4. Intent must be involved (you don't sense what you aren't trying to sense) - unless that <thing> is regarding you. And if the Ars Arcanum has defined H4 as the cap on a single axis of awareness, then further increases in granularity must be on a different axis. 

Also note, in Ch 3 Lightsong notes that even other heightenings, like Perfect Color Recognition, may improve with more Breath:

Spoiler

A lot could be done with symbols that could change shape without losing their meaning.

Getting the colors right was a delicate art, one that required the Third Heightening or better to perfect. 

So, the "Perfect" moniker may be Khriss' misunderstanding, or some arbitrary line that implies "futher advances require something other than just Breath" - like maybe knowledge, intent, etc. 

Or, Lightsong may just mean that "people of Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc. . . Heightenings"

2 hours ago, Nightstar The Bright said:

Lifesense may only be able to sense investiture above a certain threshold, this way it could still be perfect, but Lightsong or Vivenna wouldn’t go crazy.

But that's the point - if it is only a certain threshold, Vasher would not have noted he could barely sense grass and lament that with more breath he would have sensed lichen. 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Treamayne
Ch 3 Reference

[Nightstar The Bright]

45 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It seems to me that the reason why the upper heightenings are able to awaken Stone and Metal is because the "Lifesense" has gotten to the point where it can sense (and manipulate) those things.

Lifesense can’t actually manipulate things, we don’t know whether or not you could sense them at these levels, it’s more likely however that at the ninth heightening you have enough raw power to affect these ‘dead’ objects.

 

45 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Keep in mind, Ars Arcanums can be (and have been (Mistborn Spoiers)) wrong - they do not represent Sanderson explaining things to the Reader - they represent the in-Cosmere Arcanists trying to discover, test and quantify. "Perfect Lifesense" has never actually made sense

I agree with you, as I said before, perfect Lifesense is a little weird, because you can’t actually sense everything alive. Nonetheless, some people would have realised that they were able to sense more with more breath, so I doubt that that is it.

 

45 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

but we never see the Godking paralysed by sensing every cell of mold, every insect, every plant spore, etc. in the Palace.

45 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Intent must be involved (you don't sense what you aren't trying to sense) - unless that <thing> is regarding you.

Intent might play a role here, but I don’t see why it has to, it could just cap at a certain threshold of investiture, like I said before, therefore you can’t sense anything with investiture below the threshold, and the ‘perfect’ might be an in-universe error.

 

46 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

if it is only a certain threshold, Vasher would not have noted he could barely sense grass and lament that with more breath he would have sensed lichen. 

The lichen could have investiture above the threshold, although Vasher just doesn’t have enough breath to feel them. This way he could lament that he can’t feel them, but that he could if he had more breath.