Hoom hmmmm....to start with, I believe people here, in their enthusiasm for Tolkien, have rather misunderstood the meaning of his statements that 'Middle Earth is here'. He means that the place of his stories are Earth, the same Earth we live on...but the events there-in, and the time in which they take place, are creations of his own. He explicitly stated in several letters and essays that his purpose and love was myth-making. To create a history and mythology that was distinctly 'English' in flavor. Of course, he was a master philologist, and used inspiration from the mythlogies and languages of several different cultures to make his own history.
There is no doubt that he was 'inspired', and has also said that he felt that once he began the creation, things just came to him, falling into place. His mythology captures archetypes that have been a part of our being from time immemorial. This is why it all feels so 'real' to us. In a sense it is...what is 'real' about it is the emotions and soul 'memory' that it resurrects.
It seems more 'real' because Tolkien took the archetypal myth a step further, and created a history and continuity to his stories. I believe fully in the great vehicle which is the Human imagination. I do not believe Tolkien 'found' some other world or dimension or history, and simply recorded it, or translated it. Not in a literal sense. In a manner, we all do this, all the time, in the harnessing of our own imaginations. There are whole 'worlds' within, as of yet undiscovered, just waiting to be brought to life.
Middle Earth is 'real', in that it is a discovery from the depths of Tolkiens own soul, that resonates with all of us whos imaginations are likewise moved by his visions.
As for the 'scientific proof' of parallel universes, in the way which was described above, citing the phenomena of gravity, etc...that is all very nice speculation, but no real evidence or 'proof'. No way for such a theory to be tested, at least it has not been yet...so it is not proof. It is hardly irrefuteable...people have come up with hundreds of other pseudo-scientific explanations that connect all the phenomena that were given as 'evidence'. The idea that Middle Earth in all its detail, as it was written about by Tolkien, is one of these parallel universes is not even close to a 'scientific' theory.
Perhaps one might say that everything ever imagined is 'real' somewhere in the universe, or universes. Nothing wrong with daydreaming about such possibilities...but to claim that it is REAL without doubt is foolish.
How do we choose what to believe in? Is our beief, our 'reality' governed by escapist fantasies? reactions to a way of living which is stressful or unsatisfactory? a will to be 'special' and to know something more than the 'common' person next us? A need or desire to have something 'more' in one's life, apart from what we experience every day?
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