|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MartyB
Rivendell
Jun 25 2012, 9:08am
Post #1 of 75
(2194 views)
Shortcut
|
|
I Believe Middle Earth Exists (Well Sort Of)
|
Can't Post
|
|
Now, before you think i'm a mental person let me explain.This might get deep. First of all you have to ask yourself what is the Universe and Conciousness? We don't understand. Or are even close to understanding. I think it might be all very simple, but we are not wired up to think in these terms. For example, everyone thinks the Universe is really big, actually we are just really, really small. If you look at the way stars and planets are formed with orbits etc. It looks very much like Atoms/Electrons.
Maybe our reality is just something elses dreams or thoughts. It all seems very real to us (Like the Matrix), but in fact we are just a product of something elses conciousness. To get to my point. Amongst all the endless Dimensions/Universes maybe our dreams/thoughts exist somewhere else? Right now i have to go and take my medicine. :)
(This post was edited by MartyB on Jun 25 2012, 9:08am)
|
|
|
Thorins_apprentice
Rohan
Jun 25 2012, 9:36am
Post #2 of 75
(1240 views)
Shortcut
|
New zealand is Middleearth. as Ian Mckellen will agree.
We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
|
|
|
imin
Valinor
Jun 25 2012, 9:38am
Post #3 of 75
(1222 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Thought Europe was Middle Earth, with England being the Shire? :P /
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
|
|
|
Thorins_apprentice
Rohan
Jun 25 2012, 10:16am
Post #4 of 75
(1178 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Maybe that's the way Tolkien seen it.
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
However Tolkien never saw New Zealand before.
We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
|
|
|
DanielLB
Immortal
Jun 25 2012, 10:31am
Post #5 of 75
(1170 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Another way of looking at it...
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
*If* the universe goes on for infinity, in some place or another, perhaps a "being" has created a Ring to rule over all others. The same could apply for a world in an alternate reality, where the laws of science are not the same as they are here.
|
|
|
Gimli1252
Bree
Jun 25 2012, 10:43am
Post #6 of 75
(1135 views)
Shortcut
|
I highly recommend you, stop watching '' Through The Wormhole '' 
''There is one dwarf yet in Moria, who still draws breath''
|
|
|
dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jun 25 2012, 10:54am
Post #7 of 75
(1169 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Tolkien considered himself a "sub-creator"
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
He believed that he could not write about Middle-earth, if it were not already "existing" elsewhere. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
|
|
|
imin
Valinor
Jun 25 2012, 12:29pm
Post #8 of 75
(1137 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Whose word do we take, the authors or an actors?
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Its Europe or New Zealand or anywhere else people want.
Being from England i agree with the author who imagined it as a mythology for England, with its rolling hills etc.
But i guess it doesn't really matter as people from all over the world imagine it as there country or near to them, hence how the books are so popular around the world.
New Zealand doesn't have a monopoly on beautiful scenery, though i very much want to travel there to go hiking etc..one day!
As for the universe being just a thought, that reminds me of Men in Black, where the little dog has a collar on with a ball or something and that is another universe, haha.
|
|
|
Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jun 25 2012, 1:41pm
Post #9 of 75
(1118 views)
Shortcut
|
|
I remember a writer who proposed a multiverse...
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
I think it may have been Philip José Farmer who posited a multiverse where at least some alternate realities matched the fictional worlds of other authors. One of those parallel universes included Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom (the Mars of John Carter). That is opposed to the world of Alan Moore's Leauge of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where numerous fictional characters all co-exist in the same universe.
"Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house." - Aragorn
|
|
|
sevilodorf
Tol Eressea
Jun 25 2012, 2:35pm
Post #10 of 75
(1102 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Robert Heinlein's Number of the Beast
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
uses the premise as well. Out literature is someone else's reality and our reality is their literature.
There are a few 'verses I would sooner not visit.
Fourth Age Adventures at the Inn of the Burping Troll http://burpingtroll.com
|
|
|
JWPlatt
Grey Havens
Jun 25 2012, 2:37pm
Post #11 of 75
(1102 views)
Shortcut
|
You're either young or high, as these thoughts are common to both. You'll get older, or come down, and reality will reveal itself to you for what it is. Fleeting before death.
Consciousness is the manifestation of quantum mechanics as part the living arrangement of your neurons. The universe is big and we are small. We are not part of some atom in a giant's thumbnail. Solar systems do not behave like atoms. If they did, we'd not be here. We are built from atoms but they are not a microcosm. The ephemeral statistical effects of quantum mechanics very quickly fade to solidity and persistence for the universe at large. Also, everyone starts out their young adult lives with hubris, thinking they're immortal and they'll change the world, but find out it's almost always the opposite and life is too short. These are the simple truths.
But hey, keep on dreaming. Maybe someday you'll invent warp drive on the power of thought alone and save our planet from extinction by our red giant sun. The scientific method allows for such inventions, advancement, wrongs to be made right, and evolution. Let me know.
(This post was edited by JWPlatt on Jun 25 2012, 2:44pm)
|
|
|
Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jun 25 2012, 2:51pm
Post #12 of 75
(1062 views)
Shortcut
|
I remember reading the Heinlein book now. I only thought that it might have been Farmer because he's played around with Burroughs' characters too (not to mention Doc Savage and others).
"Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house." - Aragorn
|
|
|
geordie
Tol Eressea
Jun 25 2012, 2:59pm
Post #13 of 75
(1099 views)
Shortcut
|
said in an interview that M-e exists in the minds of the readers. I'd go along with that - the world of LotR seems very real to me while I'm reading it, then reality seeps back after I've closed the book. That's art, I suppose.
I've only once become aware of someone who believes M-e actually exists; or at least implied she believed it. The question came up ages ago in a thread on another forum. Discussion was light-hearted; in a sort of, 'well, a person would have to be daft to really believe it' sort of way. Then one came onto the forum and, 'sounding' quite hurt and angry, demanded to know what we would say to someone who actually believed that she was descended from Galadriel. I don't mean figuratively; I mean, she seemed to believe that she was an actual, flesh and blood descendant. Of a made-up character.
I didn't dare to reply; I couldn't trust myself. One or two other members of the forum, kinder souls than I, gently gave their opinion that if someone actually did believe that, then they may be said to be delusional. The descendant of Galadriel came back, a bit calmer now, and said yes, she supposed they might be right. We never heard from her again; those were her only two posts on that forum.
I wonder where she is now? Watching one of pJ's b****y movies, I expect. 
As an end-note, to the group in general: I'm often struck by how folk seem to think that Middle-earth is the sort of be-all and end-all when it comes to Tolkien. it's not - there's more to Tolkien's writings than just Middle-earth, y'know.
(This post was edited by geordie on Jun 25 2012, 3:05pm)
|
|
|
TheRealBeren
Rivendell
Jun 25 2012, 6:33pm
Post #14 of 75
(1061 views)
Shortcut
|
I believe you should go out more
|
|
|
Mordae
The Shire
Jun 25 2012, 8:25pm
Post #15 of 75
(1018 views)
Shortcut
|
Well, theoretically at least.
The universe is infinite, thus there are an infinite number
of galaxies and an infinite number of planets.
So theoretically there is a planet out there that is Arda.
Now do note that not all the things Tolkien wrote happened.
I for one think that Silmarillion would be the "Bible" or the "Quran" of the world.
|
|
|
DanielLB
Immortal
Jun 25 2012, 8:35pm
Post #16 of 75
(998 views)
Shortcut
|
|
It's a shame that world can't be this world
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
If only Tolkien had been born a couple of thousand years earlier 
|
|
|
imin
Valinor
Jun 25 2012, 8:49pm
Post #17 of 75
(1009 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Is the universe infinite if it is expanding?
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Or is it just we can only see the part of the universe in which light has had the time to get to us, so any light from up to 15 billion years ago and before that the universe expanded faster than light?
Also the galaxies are getting further apart suggesting i would have thought that there was a finite number of galaxies and therefore planets.
I'm no expert on this this is just me trying to understand something that is most likely beyond me.
Doesn't really matter because eventually there will be nothing according to a science programme i watched on BBC2!
|
|
|
JWPlatt
Grey Havens
Jun 25 2012, 9:01pm
Post #18 of 75
(998 views)
Shortcut
|
There was this kind of discussion in the thread, "Which Fictional Movie Universe Do You Most Want to Live In?"
I wrote, "I do not wish to be held hostage to the fates and whims of the capricious likes of Eru and the Valor who take great liberties with their entire Universe and, specifically, Middle Earth. No thanks. But it's great to watch, like the big train wreck in "Super 8."
By "great liberties" I mean things such as the destruction of entire lands and peoples at a whim, or consciously imposing or irresponsibly leaving them at the mercy of their evil spawn like our own creation radioactive waste and pollution without the technology or political will to support it, and a completely unforgiving, ungenerous and control-freakish attitude about all of it.
I will not be a toy of the gods who couldn't grow up. I'd rather live here with the nuclear waste problem. I spit in their face. ;)
|
|
|
Mordae
The Shire
Jun 25 2012, 9:06pm
Post #19 of 75
(976 views)
Shortcut
|
It's really strange when you get into it.
The space is infinite and the expansion is just our perception from this specific point. The universe looks different if you look it from another spot, again, because of the light not reaching the point of perception etc.
And though it's known that the different parts of the universe are moving in different directions at different speeds, there have still been probably an endless amount of "big bangs" far apart from each other.
And there probably are many universes too.
And dimensions...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA
(This post was edited by Mordae on Jun 25 2012, 9:07pm)
|
|
|
JWPlatt
Grey Havens
Jun 25 2012, 9:11pm
Post #20 of 75
(980 views)
Shortcut
|
It has a size but it unbounded. Asking whether the Universe has a definite age or whether we are deceived by the horizon of the expansion is a good question. The experts seem to have the evidence to suggest the definite age and that we are simply early arrivals to something that will grow infinitely old. But I think it's also possible the Cosmic Background Radiation is the effect of the wavelengths of light from distant galaxies finally stretching toward infinity as they speed away from us faster than the speed of light to become invisible. Before you say nothing can go faster than the speed of light, while nothing travels faster within space, space itself is allowed to expand faster.
|
|
|
Mordae
The Shire
Jun 25 2012, 9:21pm
Post #21 of 75
(986 views)
Shortcut
|
But light is 3D. Take it to the fourth dimension and you have a whole 'nother story.
|
|
|
imin
Valinor
Jun 25 2012, 10:33pm
Post #22 of 75
(985 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Do you work or have any interest in physics/astronomy?
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
If so another thing that i can never really get my head around is time dilation. It just doesnt seem right than an astronaut is younger (just) for going into space than if they just stayed on earth. Makes me go 
|
|
|
JWPlatt
Grey Havens
Jun 25 2012, 11:19pm
Post #23 of 75
(975 views)
Shortcut
|
I've had an interest in cosmology and astronomy since birth. I read anything about physics and cosmology I can find, but I saw limited job opportunities when I became old enough to be aware of such things - maybe around 13 or 14. So I went into software development instead. There's plenty of that to go around.
|
|
|
Shelob'sAppetite
Valinor
Jun 26 2012, 12:17am
Post #24 of 75
(952 views)
Shortcut
|
|
But then there's theoretical physics
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
In some fields of theoretical physics, such as string theory, the possibility exists for there to be more than four dimensions (the 3D, plus time), with certain calculations suggesting the possible existence of anywhere from 11-13 dimensions. Not only that, but certain branches of the theory posit that there may indeed be multiple universes (all respecting different "laws" of physics), and that the "big bang" as we know it could potentially have been caused by another universe bumping into this one.
In short, some untested theories, that are however mathematically quite sound, offer the possibility that there's some really strange stuff out there, and we are far from understanding it all.
That's not to say it's likely that in a hole in the ground in some far off universe there really lived a hobbit, but one cannot rule it out with 100% certainty!
|
|
|
|
|
1
