Taters to Taters

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Boro

Agreed. Where is the massive bribing?

Perhaps if I named a starting price it would jump-start things?

There's the obvious "pick-mine-and-I-pick-yours" bribe, but I worry that would undermine the spirit of the game.

How about a tribute signature? As an example, Nog is currently receiving tribute in my signature. If you would agree to, say, three days of "Phantom is my hero!" that may tip the scales.

Originally Posted by me

I'm not sure how to spin this one at all. Possibly someone just getting rid of a card to get a new one.

Originally Posted by Lhuna

You had me pinned.

Nice to know I can still spot a Wolf in Ordo's clothing.

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by the phantom

How about a tribute signature? As an example, Nog is currently receiving tribute in my signature. If you would agree to, say, three days of "Phantom is my hero!" that may tip the scales.

Phantom is my king,
Phantom is my king,
He always likes my Tater pick,
Phantom is my king.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by the phantom

How about a tribute signature? As an example, Nog is currently receiving tribute in my signature. If you would agree to, say, three days of "Phantom is my hero!" that may tip the scales.

It would be only decent for me to carry a sig with "the phantom is my hero" for a few days. So you should just pick mine - even if I'm not allowed to tell you which it is you probably know it already.

[Nogrod]

Green tater: Extraordinary (distinguished, dignified, acclaimed)


Now the perennial question, I think, is whether something is extraordinary in a qualitative way aka. that there is nothing like it in principle, or whether it is "only" extraordinary quantitatively aka. there are things like it, but it is just a noch more of whatever it is.

Thinking of that I would say that the Void and the Music of the Ainur are on a class of their own with "extraordinariness".

Now some might think the Girdle of Melian could give them some competition. I mean it's not the nature of forests to lose you as such. If you get lost in a normal forest it is you who are stupid (or bad in orienteering), but the forest doesn't actively make you lose your direction. But... and the obvious counterargument to Melian's Girdle would be that also other forests in the ME seem to be both able and willing to do just that. So the Girdle of Melian maybe was extraordinary in being better in that than the Old Forest, The Fangorn, the Mirkwood, but it was only better at doing a thing others did too.

Like Lembas is better keeping hunger away than other foods which also keep hunger at bay - or Mithril that protects you more with lesser weight and brighter shine than other mail but still does the same thing... and you can see where the argument goes from here if we consider Thuringwethil, Isildur, Arwen, Gondolin or the Green Dragon... although with the latter five you could actually make an argument there were better examples than those named in their specific doings... Like Luthien giving nice competition to Arwen, Prancing Pony competing the Green Dragon, Armenelos competing Gondolin in grandeur or Menegroth in secrecy, Carcaroth competing with Thuringwethil, any great hero of old "out-heroing" Isildur...

Many of those points sure are open to argument. But that's exactly the point: the fact that you can argue whether Aragorn was a more distinguished or acclaimed hero than Isildur, or whether one should consider Beren as still more extraordinary, proves the point them being not extraordinary in quality but only in quantity.

How could one argue the relative extraordinariness of "being itself" or "not-being" in regards to something else, like a teapot, Minas Tirith or Helcaraxë?

No way. You don't compare "coming-in-to-being" or "existing" or "non-existence" or "void" with anything. Like Immanuel Kant said: existence is not a predicate you can attribute to something, but it is the condition via which some thing can have an attribute in the fiorst place: if something doesn't exist it can't be blue, white, mushy or lovable... existence comes first, then qualities an existant being can have. like heroism, being able to delay hunger, protecting you from blades or arrows, making you lost etc.

But you can possibly at some level compare existence and non-existence against each other as the primordial issues...

Most religions start with the obvious state of nothingness (like in Judaism, Christianity and Islam) often described as a void (fex. in Scandinavian and Babylonian mythologies). Then comes the extraordinary thing: creation!

And the thing is quite clear in our everyday speech as well: we talk of the "miracle of birth" and the "naturalness of death" ("nothing in this life can be trusted but taxes and death" ).

So: why is there something rather than nothing? That is the extraordinary thing!

[the phantom]

Good arguments, Nog, about whether things are comparable or not. Of course if one chose to interpret "extraordinary" in a different way it would undermine everything. If we say it means "beyond ordinary" then the object must have an ordinary reference point and then surpass. But if we say "uncommon" then perhaps that which has no comparable moves to the forefront.

And honestly I like the second version, and as you can see with those I ruled out that is what I've been going with. And with that in mind...

Mithril is now out, as it is essentially super-silver. As cool as it is, it doesn't quite stand alone as much as I want it to.

I disagree with Thuringwethil being compared to Carcharoth however, as he is a Werewolf and she a vampire. Ever since encountering Thuringwethil for the first time all those years ago, I craved to learn more about her. I wished for her to be featured more prominently in a story. What did she look like? Did she shape-shift? Could she create more like her? What were her other duties and powers? I see her standing rather alone in Tolkien's works.

And yes indeed- the Void and the Music belong. I can tell you that my instinct is to favor something over nothing, particularly with music involved. But I'll leave this just a bit longer to see if anyone else wishes to hop in with something.

[Galadriel55]

You do like Immanuel Kant, don't you Nog?

I just want to point out that things like "Void" and "Ainulindale" can also be quantitative (if i got your definition right), in the sense that there is lots of music but none as grand as Ainulindale, or spaces with little in them but the Void is the most empty of all of them. You can quantify such things not only by their innate qualities but by an event or role they play or etc. There is an infinite number of categories you can look at. You can also say that things existed for a long time, but the Void is the oldest still - which also gives it a quantitative "extraordinariness".




Personally, I'm not enthralled with the people/living beings, because there's too much to argue about regarding who is greater/stronger/taller/etc. So out go Arwen, Isildur, and Thuringwethil. Then, despite its importance to the story and unique quality, I'm not a big fan of Melian's Girdle. It just doesn't seem to do it. Neither does the Void or Gondolin. Just not the right ring, ya know. I think Lembas and Mithril can have a silly side to them as well as the radical reasoning of why they are extraordinary, so they would be pretty high on my list. Music of the Ainur is quite fitting by definition, and it resonates with me, so had I been the judge I would have considered it. And the Green Dragon is comically true, since, as Mr. Sandyman was quick to notice, "there is only one Dragon in Bywater, and that's Green".


So, for my money, mithril, lembas, Music of the Ainur, and Green Dragon are worth consideration.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

You do like Immanuel Kant, don't you Nog?

Well, he's not exactly my favourite philosopher but I do agree him being one of the sharpest minds there ever has been... and he has good points on certain areas - like the one in my sig and what I quoted there from his argument against the ontological proof of God's existence against St. Thomas Aquinas (as a North-European protestant he thought the thing with God was "belief" and not "knowledge" - that the point of religion was to believe in something that can't be known instead of trying to prove something that was beyond proof).

I just want to point out that things like "Void" and "Ainulindale" can also be quantitative (if i got your definition right), in the sense that there is lots of music but none as grand as Ainulindale, or spaces with little in them but the Void is the most empty of all of them. You can quantify such things not only by their innate qualities but by an event or role they play or etc. There is an infinite number of categories you can look at. You can also say that things existed for a long time, but the Void is the oldest still - which also gives it a quantitative "extraordinariness".

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.

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.

Only that which is, which exists, can be something - and the Music of the Ainur is the very thing that caused existence to exist, the most extraordinary thing that made it possible for fex. itself to be such an extraordinary thing.

And if we humans have gotten anything right in our myths and religions, then it must be that non-existence is the primordial norm which was overcome by divine creation - which is the wonder, the miracle, the extraordinary thing.

Originally Posted by tp

Of course if one chose to interpret "extraordinary" in a different way it would undermine everything. If we say it means "beyond ordinary" then the object must have an ordinary reference point and then surpass. But if we say "uncommon" then perhaps that which has no comparable moves to the forefront.

I agree with what you say but still think the division between the two is both reasonable and defendable in this case... Like I said - when you have two things (or more) you compare between each other (with shared reference points) you mostly end up in arguments where one side is more or less as right as another. And basically yes, this whole game is partly about just that: how you compare things trying to find a reference between some of the choices... and which reference points you think are noteworthy in any individual case. But on this round we have two pretty extraordinary things in play, namely nothnigness and the coming forth of being from nothingness. And those two just surpass any other comparison as they are the basis from which any comparisons can be made in the first case...

[Galadriel55]

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by the phantom

I disagree with Thuringwethil being compared to Carcharoth however, as he is a Werewolf and she a vampire.

It doesn't actually matter whether you like or dislike the comparison. The point is that a comparison can be made: which was the most extraordinary servant of evil? Or should we bring Ungoliant to the game, or Gothmog... Or if we want to go to a more specific choice: which one was the more extraordinary servant of Sauron: Draugluin, Thuringwethil ot the Witch King? I mean it is possible to find a common ground for these comparisons even if some are easier or more natural than others.

But you just can't compare existence (or the lack of it) to any existant (or non-existant) thing because existence (or non-existence) are the conditions by which you can make a comparison in the first place...

And thus, especially while speaking of extraordinariness, the two fight in the class of their own.