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Originally Posted by Lalwendė
This does not mean that the Ring is sentient; that is only one way of looking at the meaning of those words. Of course Gollum would never have "forsaken it, or cast it aside", it was his precious; what happened was that he lost it. And fate so happened that Bilbo found it. This is a way of explaining to Frodo how such things happen, how he came to be in the situation he was left in, as a Ringbearer. Yes, the Ring left Gollum, and yes, the Ring decided the future course of Bilbo and Frodo's lives, but it did not do so sentiently.
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I believe that Kuruharan is not using this passage so much to prove the Ring's sentience as he is using it to prove that it was the Ring, not a divine force, which prompted the Ring to abandon Gollum.
That does not leave Divine Force out of the picture! Bilbo was, after all, "meant to find it", but the Divine Force element seems more visible in Gandalf's sudden inspiration to send Bilbo along, than in any move the Ring makes.
It's really getting into that age-old question of Free Will and Divine Intervention again...