[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Marhwini, as I said what you are doing is fine if you treat it as a game or a curiosity or an academic exercise, understanding that there can never be a true, final answer in the absence of an underlying reality. Even if you do manage to come up with an internally consistant model, you can't test it against a reality that isn't there.

Yes and no.

We have no ABSOLUTE Foundational Theory for the universe in which we inhabit now.

And much of the Theory upon which it rests is wholly untestable unless we find some way to get outside of it.

But this does not mean that we do not have a whole system of Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Sciences that support the ability to make consistent predictions about our reality, or to understand how almost everything within our universe works that is not either:

• Very Massive.
•*Very Fast (and thus very massive).
• or Very Small.

Once you get into these realms, the bottom (or top) races away from you.

But within the Mesosphere (the "Middle World"), you have the Life we see around us, and a System of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (and Genetics, Social Sciences, History, etc.) that grows directly out of these.

And out of the Reductionistic Sciences grow the Systems Sciences.

These, in our universe are based upon what is known as "Monistic Materialism."

There is a small clustering of other Philosophical designations that also include the basic Sciences we see in our world, and the predictions and observations that are accounted for by these Sciences.


But within Middle-earth.... Monistic Materialism isn't enough.

There is Something else.... Mainly because Tolkien was a Catholic, and like a good Catholic, he believes in God, Angels, Saints, Demons, The Devil (Tolkien was a Pre-Vatican II Catholic. The Devil wasn't some metaphorical or allegorical entity - How many people know that this is one of the reasons Tolkien hated Allegory so much? You have to go to CS Lewis to discover this, though), Souls, Heaven, and Hell (among other things). But Tolkien's beliefs are not a necessary component to creating a world in which property dualism is true. Anyone can create one.

Tolkien's beliefs are important because they are largely reflected in his creation of Middle-earth.

And... Some account for HOW a "Soul" WORKS needs to be accounted for. Because we see that the Fëa (what Tolkien called the "Souls" of things in Middle-earth) has a PHYSICAL EFFECT upon the world.

And when you have a physical effect upon the world, that means that whatever it is that Tolkien is calling "The Soul/Fëa" is affecting the molecules, or "Matter" that is in Middle-earth.

In fact, we can even calculate the bare minimal interaction of this effect.

Gandalf lights a bundle of wood on the side of Caradhras.

Lighting Wood on Fire takes Energy.

We can calculate EXACTLY how much energy if we know what kind of wood it is, and an approximate energy given just a list of possible wood types they might have had available in Alpine Foothills (Pine, Cedar, Spruce, Aspen, Larch, Birch, Yew, etc.).

Wood burning is a chemical reaction. It is the sugars in the wood (Cellulose, Sucrose, and Fructose, all of which are combinations of Glucose) oxidizing.

In fact, we have the formula:

C6H12O6 + 6(O2) → 6(CO2) + 6(H2O) + Heat + Light

Technically the formula for the Cellulose is:

2(C6H10O5)_n + 11(O2) → 6(CO2) + 10(H2O)

But the final results are fairly the same, and there is a LOT of math coming up

First Gandalf has to raise the temperature of the wood he is going to light from roughly 0ºC to 500ºC (the ignition temperature for cellulose). We can calculate that amount of energy with great specificity if we wanted to get down to actually looking at what it takes to light wet-frozen wood down to the conditions of how much water it has absorbed per cubic volume, how it was carried, etc.

But we can estimate the amount of energy to a very high degree of confidence just with some rough guesses.


The Energy to raise the Temperature of the Wood from 0ºC to 500ºC, is easily computed for 1kg of wood.

This is a simple equation: Q = cmΔT

Q is the Heat Added
c is the Specific Heat of the Substance (for the Sugars in the wood burning, it is 218.7 J/K•mol (joules per ºKelvin times moles))
m is the Mass of substance (guessing about 1kg would be needed to create enough energy to keep the entire thing burning)
ΔT is the change in temperate celsius.


So, for getting the temperature raised to 500ºC, which is needed to even complete the above Gibbs Free Energy calculation, you need to have:

Q = (218.7J/ºK•mol)(1kg)(500ºC - 0ºC)

Convert ºC to ºK, so that our Temperature will cancel in the equation (Simply add 273.15 to ºC to get ºK):

Q = (218.7J/ºK•mol)(1kg)(773.15ºK)

Now cancel the mass (convert 1kg of wood to mols of Glucose - To get the grams per mol of Glucose: C (12) * 6 + H (1) * 12 + O (16) * 6 = 174g/mol or 1mol/174g of Glucose, and Wood is roughly 80% Cellulose, so 800/174≈4.6mol)
and cancel like terms

This gives us:

Q = (218.7J)(4.6)(773.15)

Or.

Q = 775.315kJ

That's a LOT of freaking energy that had to come from someplace to just raise the temperature of the wood, to say nothing of getting it lit.

For getting it Lit, that is essentially it's Heat of Enthalpy (Gibb's Free Energy):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_free_energy

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wo...eat-d_372.html

Burning wood is an Exothermic Reaction.

Yet it requires an "Activation Energy/Enthalpy" to begin the reaction.

For Sugar (Glucose - the stuff in wood that is reacting), that is -2805kJ/mol.

<<Edit>>: I forgot the link to the ΔH (Heat of Combustion) of Cellulose:

https://www.google.com/search?client...mbustion+sugar

<</edit>>

Continuing....

Since we are talking about LIGHTING the fire, that "-2805kJ/mol" is how much you have to dump into the wood to get it lit (Or, rather... It takes 2,805 kiloJoules/Mol just to get the reaction started).

We saw above that 1kg of wood is basically 4.6mols of Glucose.

So that is:

2805(4.6)kJoules

Or 12,903 kiloJoules.

So....

We now have Gandalf producing roughly 13,678kJ to light a fire.

That's a pretty significant amount of energy.

We can go even further with this to give that a mass-equivalent with Einstein's formulas...

That's the difference between Middle-earth and an exoplanet.

That isn't much of a difference.

We know that Energy had to come from somewhere.

Even saying "Magic" does nothing to answer the question. All it does is NOT answer the question, but defiantly refuses to even address the question.

Plus, a lot of your theorising is of the card-castle variety- a fantastical, elaborate and ingenious structure built on a foundation so flimsy it would topple at a breath of air. I know it doesn't look that way to you, but that's because, in my opinion, you're not sufficiently objective about your own ideas to either critique them properly yourself or allow others to do so.

Which brings me to this:

So be my guest to point out how Gandalf, or anyone, can light a fire without introducing some form of energy into the equation?

We know that Gandalf's energy he produces isn't from a source we would call "Material" (even though ultimately this is what it is. At this point it is just playing with definitions), but rather from someTHING ELSE. Tolkien calls it the "Fëa."

Gandalf somehow turns his Fëa into Physical Energy (and we see this in more additional instances than I could rattle off here without writing an actual book - not that I nearly haven't already).

What's your intention in all this? *Are* you asking for our help or input? Are you actually interested in sharing ideas? Because honestly, you just seem to work from the basic assumption that you already possess Total Knowledge on All Subjects Whatever, and that the rest of us are Ignorant Peasants who should be Grateful that you Condescend to Enlighten us with your Vast Ineffable Wisdom. <--Yes, I'm mocking your posting style, but I'm doing it in order to help you see why you're getting increasingly negative responses. That's not what you want, right?

If you demonstrate an understanding of the concepts.... Then yeah... Help would be good.

And... the "Total Knowledge...."

Nope...

But one needn't have total knowledge of a subject to recognize a wrong answer.

You do not need to know Ordinary Differential Equations to know that the Answer to:

dx/dt = x - 1

ISN'T: "Horse"



In the Sciences, and most of Academia, that is called "Not even wrong."

A Wrong answer would be something like:

"5" or "x = 1"
(the actual answer is x(t) = c e^t + 1).

And if I come off a little weird here, it might be because many of the responses I am seeing are looking to me like someone has responded with "Horse" to many of the posts I have made.

That isn't saying that "Horse" isn't the right response to something that you are thinking that I said.... But it isn't really responding to the underlying foundation of the claims I have made.

It tends to make me wonder what people's definitions of "Metaphysics" are.

And, yes... I am socially Clumsy.... I tend to be used to working with Academics and people in the Sciences (or Social Sciences - less so).

I am trying to figure out what might be missing from this explanation to illuminate it a bit better..... But I seem to have had poor luck in that regard.

And Fiction or No, Tolkien worked to try to discover the rules by which his creation would work (again: p. x of Morgoth's Ring) so that the things that occurred in Middle-earth would:

1) Have a REASON that they worked (that is to say: HOW they functioned)
2) Did not contradict themselves or other aspects of his world.

That this is a Fictional World actually aids in accomplishing this, because we can postulate rules that don't exist in this world. But the trick is to make them consistent with what we DO KNOW EXISTS (either for Our Universe, or for Middle-earth, which uses the same Physical Template, over which additional assumptions have been Layered by Tolkien.... Of course, this isn't that hard - especially with Google, these days).

We don't need an experiment, because we can dictate outcomes that align with what we do know to be true, plus what NEEDS to be True (within Middle-earth) for some event, action, or item to exist, or operate/function.

That said, please do understand that I bear you no ill-will, that I am very sorry to hear about your serious injury and that I wish you a speedy recovery.

Thank you, it is no fun to have 1-1/2 legs.

MB