Who would have thought that a Taters to Taters game would turn into a philosophical discussion about coming into being?
And now I will nitpick
Nog's post, not because it's faulty reasoning (it's solid and everything) but because I just disagree with it. :P
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Haha. That's a nice one! But The Music of the Ainur still was the act of creation - of bringing being into existence instead of letting the Void, the non-being rule supreme. It is said it was brought by means of music - but surely you can't compare the Music of the Ainur to any music we can hear or play. From the Pythagoreans onwards (about 2600 years) the latest we have "known" that the "music of the spheres", as the echoes in the physical univedrse of that creating music were called those days, was not something any human being could hear or understand.To say it is music is rather a way of trying to paraphrase something to human understanding that is by it's nature understandable: hah, creating being from nothing... pretty hard to go and figure what it is or means.
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Fair enough. Let's scratch the "music" category from the list of possible ones. How about the greatest creation that ever was? Or, if I go to the more general categories, the greatest event? The most important event?
My point is that even something that seems like it's one-of-a-kind can be classified as some sort of category that has other examples. To take a more eathly example - Thuringwethil. She's the only giant vampire bat mentioned in the legendarium, unless I have a hole in my skull and memory is leaking out. So she is unique in that sense. But she's also a part of the animal category, the evil creature category, the unknown origin being category, etc. So there's always a was to quantify it if you're willing to widen the category enough. On the opposite side, you can make something unique by narrowing the catagory down. Arwen could be considered one of many because there are many beautiful Elves, and we know she's competing with Luthien and Galadriel in the beauty contest. But she can also be unique if we narrow it down from "beautiful Elf maidens" to "daughters of Elrond", for example.
Something much less fesh-and-bone, like the Music of Ainur, is a more... "picky" matter, but as long as you're willing to place it into certain categories it's still quantifiable and comparable.
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Originally Posted by Nog
And what comes to the arguments between The Void and The Music of the Ainur there is one pretty tough one: The Void can't be extraordinary as it is - by definition - nothing. Well, one can't even say it "IS" something, even nothing (not to say it is extraordinary). Is that an argument for the Void to be the really extraordinary thing then? Nope. It's just contradiction in terms: that which is not can not be anything: honest, insane, deadly, neglected, cuddly... or extreaordinary.
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Well, I want to agrue here because I like arguing. Firstly, the Void can still be more "understandable" of a concept because it indeed IS something - it's the opposite of something (haha, very funny, go ahead roll your eyes
). But really, if Ea is something and you know there's NOTHING on the outside (a NOTHING that's called the Void), then that NOTHING can be defined as the emptiness that's not Ea, that surrounds Ea, that is outside of Ea, etc.
Secondly, even without considering the argument that it is
something, the Void is still
somewhere. It's where Eru lives. It's where Morgoth lives. It's where you come to if you go through the Doors of Night. So it's a place, even if not quite a natural one.
Last, but not least, the Void of Tolkien's work might not be as empty as it seems, since there are Ainu dwelling there. Also, it's not what we might imagine as being a Void, since in The Sil Morgoth is said to have gone
far in search for the Flame Imperishable. So there's a concept of distance, and of going
far, and therefore the opposite -
close, so it's not a mind-boggling concept we can't even fathom. I've been wondering for a time how can a Void be so unvoid of things, but all the answer I got was the same as to the question who is Tom Bombadil - it just is that way.
I suppose it all depends on how you view the world / what you believe it is. If my view has a different brick at the very foundation compared to your view, the whole structures cannot be the same, even though both could be right...or both could be wrong. Who knows?
I won't go farther into this, but I must say, I think this debate is my favourite part of the game so far, as weird as it sounds.
Quick! Post something silly before this thread gets moved to Books!!! :-D
Edit: xed with Nog. I see we agree about the earthly beings, but we still stand on different ground about existence. Well, how about the mostextraordinary event? Or most extraordinary concept?
