The Mind and Power of a Shard

[Stormgate he/him]

In Mistborn, it is shown that Preservation took a piece of his mind and used it to craft Ruin's prison. However, Preservation's power, in the form of the mists, was still in abundance. Thus, we see that Shards can take a piece of their mind and separate it from itself. Except for a few exceptions, these pieces of the Shards mind are called Splinters. If a piece is large enough, it may gain sentience.

This event is not uncommon in the Cosmere, and many Shards do it voluntarily. Endowment regularly gives individuals Splinters, in the form of a Divine Breath. Honor, Cultivation, and Odium have all done this to create spren. Even Adonalsium did it, also creating spren. 

However, if done by an outside force (often/always another Shard), the pieces become so numerous that there is little in the way of a central mind that can, if necessary, regather the broken pieces. This happened with Devotion, Dominion, and Honor. In all these cases, there is strong evidence that the power of the Shards is still out there and perfectly good to be used, from Roshar's Stormlight-bringing highstorms to the power allowing AonDor, Forgery, Dakhor, etc to be practiced. The pieces of the Shard are seen as Seons, Skaze, and what we call Radiantspren.

The primary ability of the Shard's mind is the ability to access the Shard's power. A Shard can, without much error, be called a force of nature. The mind of a Shard accesses that force in abundance, and, if large enough, can control the force. The Seons and Skaze of Sel are so numerous and small pieces that they have no noticeable control over the power of those Shards, leaving them to fight in a highstorm-like fury of Investiture. In fact, I would not be surprised if the Cognitive Realm of Sel resembles the outcome of the Everstorm hitting the Highstorm.

And that is, basically, what I think spren, Seons, Skaze, and whatever else is.

[Eki]

I think there is a difference between a shard giving out a piece of their mind, and a piece of their power. Preservation gave up most of his mind to create Ruin's prison, but that wasn't a splinter, presumably. Similarly, I don't think Endowment loses a piece of their consciousness by giving out a splinter - just a piece of power, not mind.

And I think it's implied in many places that splinterings of shards happen because the holder dies, rather than that the holder dies because the shard is sufficiently splintered. Many (all?) splinters seem to develop a consciousness over time, but there's no evidence that that consciousness would be related to the original one of the shard (other than them being aligned with the Intent of the shard, of course).

[Stormgate he/him]

You may be correct, and Endowment does give a part of the power, not the mind. I really can't say. I'm not sure if Ruin's prison was sentient, or what else was happening.

In Secret History, it is revealed that 

Spoiler

Preservation had actually died a while ago, and only his Cognitive Shadow remained.

If the Shardholder's death causes the Splintering, then the events of Mistborn would be much different.

[Yata he/him]

@stormgate Leras dies in HoA, it's was live before that moment... It's also mentioned in the book when he died (And his corpse dropped from the sky is the reason that push me to the Cosmere to be honest XD).

Before that moment he was only serious wonded. This together with his fractured Mind, creates the Leras we saw. But it's not a Cognitive Shadow.

For make a Mortal's Example: It's like a man who took a strong hit in the head and have in his vein a lot of Arsenico (poison)... Just take his last few seconds and extends them to thousands of years.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Yata

[Stormgate he/him]

Just now, Yata said:

@stormgate Leras dies in HoA, it's was live before that moment... It's also mentioned in the book when he died (And his corpse dropped from the sky is the reason that push me to the Cosmere to be honest XD).

Before that moment he was only serious wonded. This together with his fractured Mind, creates the Leras we saw. But it's not a Cognitive Shadow.

For make a Mortal's Example: It's like a man who took a strong hit in the head and have in his vein a lot of Arsenico (poison)... Just take his last few seconds and extends them to thousands of years.

Alright, so I missed that detail and Leras died in HoA. However, in SH, Ruin does not succeed in Splintering Preservation, as would be the case if it was a direct effect of the Vessel dying.

[Yata he/him]

Just now, Stormgate said:

Alright, so I missed that detail and Leras died in HoA. However, in SH, Ruin does not succeed in Splintering Preservation, as would be the case if it was a direct effect of the Vessel dying.

sure sure the Splintering is not an automatic outcome (and indeed i didn't say nothing to that part of your post).

But it's pretty easy to see this... Both Ruin and Preservation remain whole in HoA... And Preservation lost two Vessels in fast sequence.

Spoiler

Also the fact that a Cognitive Shadow may pick up a Shard is quite a clue about this.

 

[CaptainRyan he/him]

6 hours ago, Stormgate said:

Alright, so I missed that detail and Leras died in HoA. However, in SH, Ruin does not succeed in Splintering Preservation, as would be the case if it was a direct effect of the Vessel dying.

Mistborn - Secret History spoilers:

Spoiler

Kelsier picks up Preservation at the moment of Preservation's death. I believe there is a WoB out there that says Preservation would have eventually splintered without Kelsier's intervention or some such. Kelsier then hands off Preservation to Vin.

 

[Eki]

Yeah, it's not so much the holder dying that splinters the shard, but the fact that no one is holding it - controlling all that power. But that doesn't mean that the splinters all contain parts of the mind of the Vessel who just died.

Although, splinters MAYBE can contain memories in some sense - we know that Sazed came to understand some of the history of his shards after picking them up, including the name "Adonalsium", even if he didn't quite know what it was (though by W&W's time, he might have figured it out). So maybe in that sense splinters can be considered to contain parts of the shardholder's mind, personality, or at least, memories.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

2 hours ago, Eki said:

Yeah, it's not so much the holder dying that splinters the shard, but the fact that no one is holding it - controlling all that power. But that doesn't mean that the splinters all contain parts of the mind of the Vessel who just died.

Although, splinters MAYBE can contain memories in some sense - we know that Sazed came to understand some of the history of his shards after picking them up, including the name "Adonalsium", even if he didn't quite know what it was (though by W&W's time, he might have figured it out). So maybe in that sense splinters can be considered to contain parts of the shardholder's mind, personality, or at least, memories.

I would probably argue that splinters created after the death of a Vessel have nothing of the Vessel in them; not even memories. We have a WoB that while a Shard is being held by a Vessel the Intent of the Shard is filtered through the Vessel to an extent but once the Vessel is gone the filter is removed. In my opinion it is not implausible to further extrapolate that any influence the Vessel had on the Shard is also removed.

My personal head canon for Sazed learning stuff is that he exists, somewhat, in the Spiritual Realm which is not bound by time. As he learns to navigate the Spiritual Realm I bet he can learn stuff from the past in some fashion. Maybe?

[Eki]

28 minutes ago, CaptainRyan said:

I would probably argue that splinters created after the death of a Vessel have nothing of the Vessel in them; not even memories. We have a WoB that while a Shard is being held by a Vessel the Intent of the Shard is filtered through the Vessel to an extent but once the Vessel is gone the filter is removed. In my opinion it is not implausible to further extrapolate that any influence the Vessel had on the Shard is also removed.

My personal head canon for Sazed learning stuff is that he exists, somewhat, in the Spiritual Realm which is not bound by time. As he learns to navigate the Spiritual Realm I bet he can learn stuff from the past in some fashion. Maybe?

I'd think that the influence dissipates over time rather than just cuts off straight away, but who knows.

And it's a good point about the spiritual realm, but would that limit him to learning about the history of his shards in particular? Place isn't really a thing in the spiritual realm either, after all.

In just a few moments, I became familiar with the power itself, with its history, and with the ways it might be used.

Seems like memories from the shard itself. But the same epigraph mentions that the knowledge isn't the same as experience (which was the whole point about Sazed using his copperminds, to succeed where Rashek and Vin failed), so...

I guess if the shards are mostly in the spiritual realm, then their memories and looking into the past is kind of... the same thing? I guess?

[Yata he/him]

Yes nothing of the Vessel remains in a Shard after he dropped it (while some of the Shard remain in a Vessel, that in the end become a Sliver). A shard may continue to a certain degree to performe the task the Vessel put in place but it more a fact of habit than imprinting.

Sazed as every Ascended being has a great Cognitive expansion (after all also Rashek in his seconds/minutes of deity knows how to push a planet, to create a volcano, to change the biology... It's was raw but He was capable of doing this thinks) and He may see in the Spiritual... He probably simply folloy the Connections to discover things...After all if things/being/place are connected to a Shard, that Shard is connected to them.