[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

To answer that, I would like to emphasise the "free" part of free will: freedom implies a lack of constraints, or -- put another way -- an infinitude of possibility. One's will is unfettered by all considerations other than what the will desires.

But this cannot be the case in ANY world that our humans minds can imagine existing. In this world, and pretty much any world that we can fictionally pattern on it, we are constrained.

You say that in a perfectly free world, one's will would be unfettered by ALL considerations. Therefore, in that world, if I so WANTED, all I would have to do is WILL it so that I had whatever girlfriend I wanted. Or say that I wanted to forget a relationship. Zap! It's gone, never happened.

In this world, and Arda, people and their wills are subject to various constraints. The contraints of time, physical constraint (restraint? ), the constraints of money, the constaints of character.

Or, in the context of this thread, the constraints of a human mind, which cannot exactly grasp some things... like free will.

Originally Posted by Fordhim

This is clearly not the case in Middle-Earth. In the world of Eru, one does have choice, but it is extremely limited -- do what Eru/Providence commands or demands of you (the "good") or don't. And even then, choice is limited insofar as the Will or Eru or the Providential Plan will still work out to its conclusion.

I would say that if you feel this way about Arda, you must feel the same way about your own life. If those constraints exist in Arda (of time, physics, brains), they also exist in our world.

Originally Posted by Fordhim

That is why I say there is no free will in Middle-Earth. 'Free' in the sense that nobody is completely unfettered of the plan or design of Middle-Earth's creator. This is, I would add, an essentially Medieval view of the world -- no surprise givien the Professor's imaginative debt to that world. The absolute freedom of the individual to choose to become or to be or to act in whatever way or form as desired by the individual was unimaginable to the Medieval mind: it was much simpler than that -- do good/what God commands or don't. So the will is operative, but not within a very wide or "free" scope.

To recap, highlighted are the words I am questioning the most. The plan and design of Eru includes (in Arda) gravity, linear time, and the limitations of sentient minds.

So does this make one have no free will? The same conditions exist in our world, and I would say that I have free will. Would you say that you do?

In essence, that is what I would say this entire question boils down to. If you feel that you, yourself, have no free will, then one would probably say that the inhabitants of Arda have no free will. If one feels, as I do, that he/she has free will, then they would probably agree that those in Arda do. Or so I read it.

So what of it, Master Fordhim: do you say that YOU have free will?