From what I can gather, Investiture healing is an act on the Physical self to align it towards the Spiritual self. The three big limitations are access to Investiture, the magic system's particular rules for healing (e.g. all Radiants can self-heal but only two Orders can heal others via Surge of Progression), and the Cognitive self.
What I'm wondering is the distinction between the Cognitive and Spiritual selves. Stormlight Archives frequently comments on wounds being too old to be healed, because the person's Cognitive self has changed to consider the wound part of oneself. Kaladin's scar wouldn't heal itself, again because of a Cognitive impediment: he couldn't let go of what the scar meant to him. Lopen, meanwhile, could heal back a whole arm because he never saw himself as a one-armed Herdazian, and therefore his Spiritual ideal came through.
So we've seen good and bad examples of perception filtering the Spiritual properly or else hindering it: but can the Cognitive harm as well, rather than just hinder? For example, you see yourself as one-armed such that attempting to heal takes your arm off instead?
I believe Kaladin's scar is in fact a minor example of this idea, but it makes me wonder: how can a person tell whether a healing has worked "correctly" (i.e. the Cognitive is well-aligned to the Spiritual), or if there's been an impediment? Because either way, the result will ultimately align with the person's perception and expectations, so judging by what the person "wanted" to happen isn't a foolproof metric.
What's even the difference between the Spiritual and Cognitive self if healing always fits to the Cognitive over the Spiritual when the two are misaligned?
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logicalpencils
From what I can gather, Investiture healing is an act on the Physical self to align it towards the Spiritual self. The three big limitations are access to Investiture, the magic system's particular rules for healing (e.g. all Radiants can self-heal but only two Orders can heal others via Surge of Progression), and the Cognitive self.
What I'm wondering is the distinction between the Cognitive and Spiritual selves. Stormlight Archives frequently comments on wounds being too old to be healed, because the person's Cognitive self has changed to consider the wound part of oneself. Kaladin's scar wouldn't heal itself, again because of a Cognitive impediment: he couldn't let go of what the scar meant to him. Lopen, meanwhile, could heal back a whole arm because he never saw himself as a one-armed Herdazian, and therefore his Spiritual ideal came through.
So we've seen good and bad examples of perception filtering the Spiritual properly or else hindering it: but can the Cognitive harm as well, rather than just hinder? For example, you see yourself as one-armed such that attempting to heal takes your arm off instead?
I believe Kaladin's scar is in fact a minor example of this idea, but it makes me wonder: how can a person tell whether a healing has worked "correctly" (i.e. the Cognitive is well-aligned to the Spiritual), or if there's been an impediment? Because either way, the result will ultimately align with the person's perception and expectations, so judging by what the person "wanted" to happen isn't a foolproof metric.
What's even the difference between the Spiritual and Cognitive self if healing always fits to the Cognitive over the Spiritual when the two are misaligned?
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