[davem]

Apart from what’s been said so far, I think we also have to take into account who’s writing the accounts - ie the ‘internal’ authors.

It seems to me that we’ll have a range of approaches in these accounts, & a range of ‘scientific’ theories to account for events. Silmarilli, Palantiri, Elven cloaks, Lembas, etc., will all be developments of Elvish ‘science’, but is Elvish ‘science’ equivalent to human science?

What I mean is, Elvish brains, & therefore Elvish perceptions/experiences may be profoundly different - for instance, they cannot, apparently, distinguish between humans & hobbits! Clearly this is not because they’re blind - they could, obviously, tell that Aragorn was taller than Bilbo. The only explanation for their difficulty in telling the difference between the two must be that they perceive the world differently. Tolkien says they live in both worlds at once; mortals, generally live only in one world - the one we know.

But isn’t science objective; isn’t it about ‘facts’? I think this is the problem.(Let’s put aside for a moment the ‘fact’ that Ainulindale is based on an account given to the Eldar by the Valar)

Its entirely possible that from an Elvish perspective Ainulindale could be literally true, because they experience reality differently from us. Human ‘science’ reconstructs the origin of the universe, based on our science, & comes up with the Big Bang theory; Elvish ‘science’ comes up with Ainulindale.

Its also possible that the reason the Elves can still find the Straight Road is that for them the world is still ‘flat’, or perhaps its the case that in this world the earth is round & in the otherworld its flat. If Elves can exist in both worlds, possibly they can switch ‘frequencies’, like changing channels. Perhaps there are two ‘sciences’ in M-e - a flat earth ‘science’ & a round earth ‘science’.

Mythic worlds tend to be flat - not because of ignorance, but because a flat earth is (potentially) infinite - it can contain anything imaginable - endless forests, purple oceans, green suns, a man in the moon, mountains which reach to the stars. So, because what they (potentially) contain is unlimited, their extent is also unlimited. Round earths, however big, are finite - there is a limit to what they may contain. Flat earths may be ‘unscientific’ but they are magical - you could actually meet [anything there. Basically, science sets limits on how far you can go, how fast, by what means, who you’ll meet, what is (& more importantly) what isn’t possible.

Back to M-e: I’ve seen various maps of M-e by different illustrators, & there are some I have a problem with (some are by Tolkien himself, unfortunately). The problem is these maps show he regions beyond the maps in TH, LotR & TS - some even attempt to show the whole extent of M-e, even to laying out the locations of Aman, & the far eastern regions of M-e. This destroys the magic of possibility by setting limits. A round world is a limited world - but its not simply physically limited its also imaginatively limited.

In short, its not Faerie, because Faerie cannot be fitted within limits. So, Faerie may actually have its own ‘science’ but it will not correspond automatically to our ‘science’. What’s interesting is the way Faerie ‘science’ (magic) seems to work in this world, while our ‘science’ seems not to apply there - Elven cloaks don’t simply camouflage the travellers while they’’re in Lorien, Elven swords don’t simply glow blue while in the otherworld, palantiri work anywhere. It seems that once an otherworld object is created it simply works wherever it is. This would seem to imply that Faerie ‘science’ is more ‘correct’ than our ‘science’.

Lalwende has made some interesting points - wasn’t it the case that for a long time scientists denied the existence of meteorites, reasoning, basically, ‘There are no rocks in the sky, therefore rocks can’t fall out of the sky!’ (Robert Anton Wilson, anyone?).

‘Round world ‘science’ is principally about defining limits, Faerie ‘science’ is without limits, because round worlds are ‘limited’, & Faerie is not.