The souls in the pattern cannot be fixed in number.

[Scarloc99]

So I have always assumed that as reincarnation happens in WOT and there is a defined pattern, that there must be a finite fixed number of total souls that exist. Each one being reincarnated at different points. 
 

However this can’t be true, new souls must be being created, otherwise the total number of souls would steadily deplete. 
 

Balefire is the first cause for this depletion. Not so much an issue now but we know the in the war of shadow it was being used to eradicate entire cities. Millions of souls removed from the pattern to never be reincarnated, 

 

The DO  may be the other reason, he removes the souls of various of his tools now we do not know if these souls are then destroyed, or if they get spun back into the pattern once the original body has been destroyed. 
 

Over the course of turning to turning, if there is a finite resource of souls to start with, both of these things will steadily remove more and more souls. So last shadow war may not have exhausted it, but there will be another one and, balefire will be re learnt in one age and used to eradicate more souls. Over turn after turn the souls steadily trend down. 
 

So do you believe that new souls are created and not everyone is a reincarnation. In return is it possible that some souls do in fact pass on to whatever there is after, spinning out of the pattern? Or is the only way souls are removed the active intervention of other people? 

[SinisterDeath]

1 minute ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Balefire is the first cause for this depletion. Not so much an issue now but we know the in the war of shadow it was being used to eradicate entire cities. Millions of souls removed from the pattern to never be reincarnated, 

 

Balefire is not the eternal death of the soul, they can be reincarnated just not for awhile. 

[DojoToad]

28 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

Balefire is not the eternal death of the soul, they can be reincarnated just not for awhile. 

Well, that's a new one for me.

[SinisterDeath]

31 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Well, that's a new one for me.

I mean, it's not new information. 😉 (That quote is nearly 25 years old!)

The Main reason Rand uses it on Forsaken is so the DO can't bring them back. The DO has only a short window to transfer the "soul" to a new body.

Since Balefire burns the thread backward in time, it prevents the DO from retroactively transferring the soul.
If there's a quote in the books that state the "soul" is forever destroyed by balefire, it comes down to unreliable narrator territory. 

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

I mean, it's not new information. 😉 (That quote is nearly 25 years old!)

The Main reason Rand uses it on Forsaken is so the DO can't bring them back. The DO has only a short window to transfer the "soul" to a new body.

Since Balefire burns the thread backward in time, it prevents the DO from retroactively transferring the soul.
If there's a quote in the books that state the "soul" is forever destroyed by balefire, it comes down to unreliable narrator territory. 

Ahhh ok so you would have to balefire the soul right back to the point of creation I guess you are saying? So the person is gone, but the soul that created them is waiting to be reborn. That makes sense and allows for the creator to know there will never be a soul shortage. 

[SinisterDeath]

38 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Ahhh ok so you would have to balefire the soul right back to the point of creation I guess you are saying? So the person is gone, but the soul that created them is waiting to be reborn. That makes sense and allows for the creator to know there will never be a soul shortage. 

If Person A balefires Person B, and 5 minutes go by. 

 

Person C would have to balefire Person A with enough power, that Person A's thread is was burned back 5+ minutes to a time before they balefires Person B.

 

As for reincarnation, balefire doesn't prevent it.

It mainly prevents the DO from grabbing souls as they die. 

 

[DojoToad]

If John Wick were in Randland, the DO would be busy.  😝

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

It is suggested by characters that souls can be destroyed:

- by becoming a grey man

- being killed by a draghar bite

- being exposed to Machin Sin

- dying while physically in the dream world

 

but due to the possibility of unreliable narrators the truth is not known.

 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

Second law of thermodynamics states something like a closed system eventually breaks down, so even though WOT isn’t based on our laws of physics i would still think creation/creator would need to add more energy/souls from time to time to ensure creation doesn’t implode on itself 

[Scarloc99]

1 hour ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Second law of thermodynamics states something like a closed system eventually breaks down, so even though WOT isn’t based on our laws of physics i would still think creation/creator would need to add more energy/souls from time to time to ensure creation doesn’t implode on itself 

RJ stated that WOT does not follow the 2nd law, he said the sun will never change in his world. So the wheel will never have to contend with it expanding and destroying earth. 

[Sabio]

Souls not being perm destroyed I always viewed it as a failsafe built into the Pattern so someone like Ishy, who wants to end it all, can't get a hold of a powerful artifact and just balefire everyone.  Thus making it impossible for life to go on.

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

On 2/28/2023 at 11:54 PM, Sir_Charrid said:

RJ stated that WOT does not follow the 2nd law, he said the sun will never change in his world. So the wheel will never have to contend with it expanding and destroying earth. 

Thank you for the info! I’m amazed at how much you all know about the universe and what RJ has revealed outside the books. I’m so glad I came to this forum recently when I started rereading…I have learned SO much from you all. 

[DojoToad]

3 hours ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Thank you for the info! I’m amazed at how much you all know about the universe and what RJ has revealed outside the books. I’m so glad I came to this forum recently when I started rereading…I have learned SO much from you all. 

True.  I've learned tons by being on these forums.  Be interested to see how much it changes my enjoyment of the books on my next read-through...

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

21 hours ago, DojoToad said:

True.  I've learned tons by being on these forums.  Be interested to see how much it changes my enjoyment of the books on my next read-through...

It will definitely be interesting to see if it impacts your enjoyment. It could enhance your experience or even potentially diminish it somewhat by reducing the mystery. For me it’s enhanced my enjoyment, only on my second read of the books and I appreciate filling in some gaps that now having the context increases my understanding. You’ll have to let us know if it changes things for you when you embark on your reread!

[Red Eagle]

Souls have to be eternal in the WoT:

 

Otherwise, if Channeler A balefired Channeler B, only for Channeler C to then balefire Channeler A, how would the Pattern reconstitute Channeler B's soul?

Edited April 26, 2023 by Red Eagle
Different Idea.

[Aan-Alone]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:43 AM, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Second law of thermodynamics states something like a closed system eventually breaks down, so even though WOT isn’t based on our laws of physics i would still think creation/creator would need to add more energy/souls from time to time to ensure creation doesn’t implode on itself 

Are you describing Entropy?

[Bugglesley]

I really think trying to describe cosmology in an explicitly magical world with physics is a mistake. Not for nothing, but there billions of real-life people who believe in reincarnation; a cursory look at various Hindu or Buddhist theologies will give you a bevy of ways to answer these questions.

 

One of them is that souls are held in the Beyond until they're ready to be woven back in. It isn't a "closed system" in Randland itself, because there's an unknowable amount of souls hanging out (in Buddhism this is in a multitude of heavens, hells, pure lands, etc) waiting to be woven back in. Your soul will come back after you're gone, but not necessarily immediately. For Vajrayana Buddhists, if you're really important it is immediate (Lamas, for example), but not necessarily for anyone else. The other idea that's not uncommon is that souls are not species-specific; this is the logic Jains follow when they sweep the ground in front of them to avoid crushing an insect. So there's also "slack" in the system as you consider not just the souls of humans, but of every possible living thing.

 

When it comes to WoT-specific, I think many are overstating the "eat your soul" levels of danger the Dark One's chicanery can create. As mentioned, balefire makes it impossible for the DO to resurrect his favs, but their souls are still in the Pattern. Grey men are an abomination for sure, but their soul has been transformed and not removed, presumably once the Grey Man is destroyed that soul returns to the pattern. Wolves are a special edge case; but again, the Wolf Dream is basically just an extension of wolf life. Best Boy Hopper's soul will come back one way or another, he just won't exist as Hopper in the Dream. Machin Shin again is pretty bad, but again it's holding onto and torturing those souls; very unpleasant for them, but nothing in the Pattern is forever and eventually the Wheel is going to get them back.

 

Even something like Brigitte being ripped out of TAR too early is only breaking  a particular relationship with the pattern and not pulling her thread out.

 

Overall, I just really don't think this is a going concern. Physics works on a Western conception of linear time, but if you're on the Wheel (or operating in a theological/cosmological context that sees time as circular) this question really doesn't even make sense. Everything that will happen has already happened, and everything that's happened will happen. There will always be enough souls because time is circular (like some kind of Wheel. Of Time). There are souls this Turning because they were already there, and there will be for the next one because those are the ones for this one. There are no beginnings or endings, it's the first paragraph of every single book!

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

But there is an interesting question that is raised by Zen Rand on Dragonmount. He comes to the conclusion that turning of the wheel is a good thing because we can try to improve ourselves.

 

I think this is a fairly common eastern concept. But if I am not mistaken, those belief systems also hold a heaven or nirvana that our souls are working their ways towards. 

 

If everything is circular, and there is no progression of souls, it does not matter how well we do - the bore will be made over and over again, the seals will be imperfect, the source will be tainted. Every victory must lead to defeat, or the victory cannot come again and the wheel is broken. Pattern will not allow the perfection of the turning of the ages, as it fundamentally does not recognise anything as an improvement, and within the pattern individual threads cannot escape. No matter how much Rand improves each life, the pattern will simply throw up more obstacles. If Ishamael managed to turn to the Light, the pattern would recorrupt him or corrupt another innocent soul. 

 

Without somewhere for saved souls to go, the inescapable conclusión is that Ishamael was right. 

 

This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Darkfriend Socialist Party, and their leader the Right Honourable Mr. D. One. 

[Bugglesley]

21 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But there is an interesting question that is raised by Zen Rand on Dragonmount. He comes to the conclusion that turning of the wheel is a good thing because we can try to improve ourselves.

 

I think this is a fairly common eastern concept. But if I am not mistaken, those belief systems also hold a heaven or nirvana that our souls are working their ways towards. 

 

If everything is circular, and there is no progression of souls, it does not matter how well we do - the bore will be made over and over again, the seals will be imperfect, the source will be tainted. Every victory must lead to defeat, or the victory cannot come again and the wheel is broken. Pattern will not allow the perfection of the turning of the ages, as it fundamentally does not recognise anything as an improvement, and within the pattern individual threads cannot escape. No matter how much Rand improves each life, the pattern will simply throw up more obstacles. If Ishamael managed to turn to the Light, the pattern would recorrupt him or corrupt another innocent soul. 

 

Without somewhere for saved souls to go, the inescapable conclusión is that Ishamael was right. 

 

This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Darkfriend Socialist Party, and their leader the Right Honourable Mr. D. One. 

 

So Buddhism holds that individuals will and should seek to escape the cycle of suffering, death, and rebirth via realizing Satori/Nirvana, but that's not a requirement across the universe like it is in Christianity. There's no rapture, there's no moment where everyone is judged. The wheel just keeps on turning, the only question is whether you as an individual are on it, and again the question of "but on a long enough time scale, won't we run out of souls as everyone joins us in nirvana?" is a nonsensical question in the cosmological framing. You're still imagining time as a line, and there's just something repeating along the line until every soul has finished the game. That isn't it at all! In this conception time is a circle, and some things (the Buddha and Boddhisatvas, heavens and hells) simply exist outside the circle, but if they're outside the circle Time doesn't exist because they're not in time. There will always be souls for the circle, because it's a loop, no matter how many people exist outside of it.

 

It's hard to wrap your head around. In many ways that's on purpose; that's why Zen koans are things that don't make any sense or why esoteric Buddhist rites are so complex. The moment it makes sense to you is when you achieve nirvana, so it not making sense actually makes a lot of sense.

 

Back to WoT itself.. it's not about improving "ourselves" --meaning the world. It's about improving "ourselves"-- individuals. It's about each human being having the right and dignity to exist in their part of the loop and make their own choices. Sure, the morality of that is part of the debate here. Rand is definitionally consigning those people to suffer, as suffering is part of living. Again and again. However, again, his fundamental decision is that it's wrong to make that decision for people. To take away ever participating in the loop again. Because he chose this, each thread will be woven back in, succeed and fail, probably suffer, die, and go eventually get woven right back in. But the point here isn't to bemoan that, it's to recognize that within each of those lives is a person, a person who deserves to have a chance to do the best they can that time around. It's not a roguelike, it's an arcade game. There's no progression system. It's a damn Wheel!

 

The whole conception that it should be Rand's job to "win" the wheel for everyone is exactly why Ishmael is evil.

 

And yeah, let's be real, of course the Dragon makes this decision every time. He will make this decision every time and he has made this decision every time. It is, and I repeat myself, a Wheel!!