Where do elves get metal?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

If you have your own Foundational Postulates and Coherent Metaphysical and Theological Systems upon which Middle-earth operates, please feel free to elaborate.

*Blinks*

*Blinks again*

Ummm....

And now for something completely different:

Excerpt from Monty Python's Two Towers --

Chapter II: The Rally of Rohan

By now they had made their way into the realm of Rohan, the verdant, rolling land of revisionist Anglo-Saxon horsemen who would have defeated William the Bastard and his nasty Normans at Hastings if, by Tolkien's Francophobic approximation, King Harold and his housecarls had had a standing cavalry; thus, the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy would have remained in England to subjugate, overtax and generally make miserable the lives of the peasantry, rather than have foreigners do the same more efficiently. In any case, the Three Hunters crested a hill and below them lay a green valley where they espied the first sign of trouble. Hundreds of protesters were milling about carrying placards and signs (most of which had X and O symbols, or spatters of paint mimicking writing, as very few folks were literate at the time). The mob was listening to the exhortations of a rather unkempt demagogue trying to rally the masses with his shrill oratory. Stealthily, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli scrambled down the goat paths that scarred the hillside, and then mingled with the crowd in order to hear what the fuss was all about.

"A spectre is haunting Dunland," the shaggy speaker shouted through a megaphone of sheepskin, "the spectre of Rohirrism!"

"Wha's a spectre?" One old gaffer asked a shrewish hag standing next to him.

" 'Ow should I know?" The shrew replied. "Just quit yer yammerin' an' wave yer sign! I've 'eard they'll be 'andin' out prizes for the most enthusiastic demonstra'ors."

"All the old powers, that of Gondor and Rohan, have entered into an unholy alliance to quench the bright flame of Liberty lit for the Dunlendish people," the orator bellowed with contempt. "Where is the party that would oppose these reactionary adversaries?"

"Yes! Yes! The party!" several oblivious protesters cried. "Where is the party?"

"To this end, the Executive Administrators of the Council of Propaganda and Pasturage, duly endowed with plenipotentiary powers by the General Secretary for Bureacratic Affairs, were sanctioned to form the first Revolutionary Constitutional Congress of DUFF, the Dunland United Freedom Fighters. And by the gracious invitation of Saruman, both of them gathered at Orthanc and completed a Manifesto!"

"Wha's a manifesto?" the geezer wheezed. "Is tha' an Eye-talian dish? Sort 'o' like Manicotti, but wi' pesto?

"I should 'ope so," the hag replied, "I'm starvin'!"

"The history of society has been one of class struggle!"

"Ye got 'at roight, guv'nor," a shepherd shouted. "I aint ne'er made it past first grade, wha' wi' conjugatin' verbs 'n' danglin' me par'iciple at recess!"

"Freeman and slave, lord and serf, in other words, oppressor and oppressed, have continually opposed one another in a nearly uninterrupted fight that each time has ended badly for we, the mute masses. There has been no revolutionary reconstitution of society at large for us - on the contrary, it usually resulted in the utter victory of them what has, as opposed to them what has not. Now Dunland sits alone in chains of degradation; but, at the turn of fortune's wheel, we can become the oppressors and the hated Forgoil of Rohan the oppressed! We can become that which we hate!"

"This is, like, so-o-o-o boring!" a teenage girl whined.

"Like, we should have so gone to the mall," her BFF chimed in.

"I wish they'd serve the manifesto," the gaffer grumbled. "Me tummy's rumblin'."

"To that end, we shall join with Saruman the White, our sorcerous friend and benefactor, who has offered us his wizardly assistance in ridding Dunland of the hated horsemasters. Join us now! Join us in this righteous rebellion! We may be casting off one master for another even more tyrannical despot; but he has such a pleasant, fatherly way of making our gullibility seem noble - almost intelligent. Besides, we shall get a brief glimmer of freedom before our hopes are ruthlessly crushed, which is all we peasants could possibly expect at this juncture in history, given the inadequate means of mass communication only made possible by the printing press, which will not be available, technologically speaking, until the time of Herr Gutenberg. But enough of anachronistic platitudes, what say you, people of Dunland? Shall we fight for freedom, however short-lived?"

There was a prolonged, dumb silence punctuated by sneezing, rheumy wheezing, lip smacking and tubercular coughs. The speaker sighed in defeat. Despite his best efforts and his Ciceronian dialectical rhetoric, he felt he was losing the mob. And so, as with all demagogues past and present, he decided to plumb the depths and cater to the crowd's basest emotions. "Of course, there will be other benefits…" he said with a polished smile.

"Wha' benefits?" the old hag shouted.

"Yes, yes, what's in it for me?" A one-eyed, legless beggar cried as he shifted nervously on his stumps. "Please, I can't stand the suspense!"

"And when do we get our manifesto?" the grizzled geezer grumped. "Will it be at th' party you was mentionin' earlier?"

…"There will be rape and pillage."

And there was a great cheer that arose from the throng, and they immediately fell into beating each other with cudgels, staffs and canes.

"NO, NO, NO!" the orator shrieked through his megaphone. "I was referring to raping and pillaging the people of Rohan!"

"O-o-o-oh!" the bloodied crowd cried in unison and stopped their infighting, except for one stout shepherd who punched the shrewish hag again for good measure.

"Now, I want the folks to my left to start right in on the raping, and the ones on my right to go off and pillage."

"Well, why can't we just do both?" the shepherd shouted in dismay, his staff clinched tightly in his left hand and his other staff now gripped firmly in his right.

The speaker gave the suggestion some thought and then finally shrugged. "Sure, why not!"

The mob screamed in a blood-curdling frenzy and scattered off in all directions to practice their raping and pillaging skills, leaving the Three Hunters alone in the valley.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

*Blinks*

*Blinks again*

Ummm....

And now for something completely different:

Excerpt from Monty Python's Two Towers --

...

Haha lovely stuff Morth! I have missed this place.

As for Marwhini, just do what you wanna do I guess. *shrugs*

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Haha lovely stuff Morth! I have missed this place.

As for Marwhini, just do what you wanna do I guess. *shrugs*

That is my plan.

I hadn't much hope that anyone would understand the issues I am trying to address to begin with.

It would be nice to have a bit more help in creating a detailed Foundation for the Operation of Middle-earth than the current Four of us (and I am currently the only one with much time to spend on it, while the fake bone in my leg grows into the real one).

And when I can regularly walk again, it will be back to studying Intestinal Villi and Oligosaccharides and Glycoproteins.

It is difficult to find people with a strong enough Science background to begin with, much less a deal of Interdisciplinary Study as well.

And while that isn't necessary to Enjoy Tolkien's work, it is important in figuring out how Middle-earth would function were it an actual place (what would necessarily be True if Middle-earth existed as described).

We have worked out the basic Philosophical/Theological/Metaphysical Structures that would be True if Middle-earth was an Instantiation of some sort (i.e. "It existed"). But getting the varying specifics is a tedious lot of work.

Fortunately, having the basic Foundation allows for much of the rest to simply fall out of the workings. It is exploring these for any more complex interactions or Contradictions that is the hard part (not being able to actually set up functional experiments is a bit of a draw-back).

Eventually Wolfram Research will have a World Modeling (other than Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha - which could be used if I wanted to spend 5 to 10 years hard-coding the physics) tool that will allow for simulating such experiments. But Stephan Wolfram has said they are about 5 years from having the basic structure set up, much less an API that would allow for the addition of other Physics to operate within the Simulations and Models as well.

MB

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

And while that isn't necessary to Enjoy Tolkien's work, it is important in figuring out how Middle-earth would function were it an actual place (what would necessarily be True if Middle-earth existed as described).

I'm all for theorizing about Middle-earth matters Tolkien took for granted, as long as those posited ideas are in line with what he say about his world.

At the end of the day though, Middle-earth is a fictional world very similar to our own. It's different enough though, with the open presence of the supernatural, that purely scientific analysis of it is, in my opinion, a lost cause. And dear Gandalf had that saying about not breaking a thing to find out what it is...

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'm all for theorizing about Middle-earth matters Tolkien took for granted, as long as those posited ideas are in line with what he say about his world.

That is kind of my point

At the end of the day though, Middle-earth is a fictional world very similar to our own. It's different enough though, with the open presence of the supernatural, that purely scientific analysis of it is, in my opinion, a lost cause. And dear Gandalf had that saying about not breaking a thing to find out what it is...

Fictional or not, the "Supernatural" is explainable given the assumptions Tolkien makes about the world.

Nor does it make it a lost cause. That it is similar to our own world provides a starting point.

Thus the quote I provided earlier from Tolkien regarding Biology within Middle-earth.

Nor does it need to be "Broken" to find out what it is.

No more than one needs to "break" an Exoplanet to discover what the Atmosphere is composed of, nor to discover its mass, even though the Closest of the Exoplanets yet discovered is roughly a dozen Light Years away (Gliese 15Ab - Gl 15Ab: 11.7LY - and most are hundreds of LY from Earth).

I get the feeling people are actually afraid to ask these questions.

That the "Supernatural" exists within Middle-earth, as I have pointed out elsewhere, simply means that something other than Baryonic Matter exists within Middle-earth; that there exists some-thing... some "stuff" that is not composed of normal molecules that we find in our Universe, yet is just as capable of affecting normal "molecular matter" (Baryonic Matter) as is molecular matter.

Anyone familiar with René Descartes, Augustine, or with the Early Gnostic Christians will be able to provide an answer for what this "Stuff" might be (To say nothing of the Manichaeans, Bogomils, Cathars, etc.).

From that point, it just becomes a matter of looking at the different ways in which this stuff manifests, and interacts with regular matter.

And, we know that it is just as convertible to energy as is Matter (See the Fire Gandalf creates on the side the Redhorn Stair in the snow). We know from this same incident that this conversion to energy somehow is observable by others. And we know that it is not simply limited to this one instance.

That gives quite a few observations from which to derive possible mechanisms, given what we do know about physics, the Enthalpy/Gibbs Free Energy of wet Wood, etc. for just that one instance.

We also have things such as Glorfindel's appearance at the Bruinen, Gandalf's Lightning on Feathertop/Amon Sûl, The Balrog (and Gandalf's Battle with it - twice), The flaming "Mane" of the Balrog, The "Shadow" of the Balrog (and possible "wings"), a litany of things within Lórien, a litany of things concerning Saruman (or Sauron, for that matter), Gandalf rescuing Faramir (twice), the operation of the Palantíri, the disintegration of Saruman's body, The "Bodies" of the Nazgûl, . . . and I am certain others as well... And that is JUST from The Lord of the Rings.

If we look in the other works, we can find similar things with which there are known components.

And, as Tolkien said.... The "Sciences" exist within Middle-earth. You just need to account for what you would observe within it, and the study of it is no less "worthwhile" than it would be for our world, only the products/discoveries would apply only to Middle-earth.

Some of it might be "conjecture" in that we cannot formally test it.

But that is no different than much of our own universe (we cannot test Quantum Theory, either, yet we know without a doubt that the products of Quantum Mechanics produce predictable, reliable results that are more precise than many things we can test), much of which is "Conjecture."

But that doesn't stop the study or examination of it.

MB

[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.

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

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:

It would be nice to have a bit more help in creating a detailed Foundation for the Operation of Middle-earth than the current Four of us (and I am currently the only one with much time to spend on it, while the fake bone in my leg grows into the real one).

And when I can regularly walk again, it will be back to studying Intestinal Villi and Oligosaccharides and Glycoproteins.

It is difficult to find people with a strong enough Science background to begin with, much less a deal of Interdisciplinary Study as well.

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?

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.

[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

[Formendacil]

Marhwini, I think there are couple things about your pursuit of a Unified Theory that are ruffling our collective feathers, and it seems to me worth it to pursue them:

1. Tolkien's work is art. There are things within his books that take place not because it fits within a specific physics or metaphysics, but because it is artistically appropriate. The sciences most appropriate for analysing The Lord of the Rings is and will remain aesthetics, form criticism, or philology.

Tolkien definitely aimed for verisimilitude--most writers do and especially those writers who say things like "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers." I certainly agree that thought was put into the "behind the scenes" mechanics of Middle-earth. Where I disagree is in thinking that these can be definitively revealed.

Perhaps the most apparent way of stating this part of the problem has already been made by Morthoron: how do you reconcile a Talking Purse in the Possession of Trolls to your Unified Theory?

2. And a major part of the reason for this is that Tolkien changed his mind about things! Middle-earth only exists or has a definitive form insofar as he gave it one. It's one thing for Tolkien to decide that a certain metaphysic must apply--if anything contradicted it, he was able to change it. But for the rest of us who can only study matter, what are we to do when there are competing traditions? Was Arda flat at one point? What is the nature of the stars that Varda made?

Tolkien had the freedom to reject concepts AND to completely modify texts to fit new theories. We see this especially with his linguistics (since, of course, this was the field he was most interested in), but we also see that he had a profound respect for anything that he'd already published: note how he dropped the whole "problem of -ros." And, of course, he'd forget he decided something now and again without specifically writing out that he'd done so, so you're looking at a dubious metric in using "whatever his latest opinion was."

Basically, you can't have a Unified Theory without first establishing which texts are permissible to admit as evidence, and you can't do that unless you first establish what is canon.

It may be somewhat ancient history now, but we on the Downs have fought many wars over Canonicity before (here is but one major example), and you first need to demonstrate there is a clear, unmistakable canon before you can start deriving anything approaching definitive conclusions.




To be perfectly clear, I *like* the idea of exploring some of the metaphysical or physical ramifications of Arda-as-Revealed, but it always has to be approached with the same sort of attitude as approaching a contrafactual question like "what if Melitot Brandybuck found the One Ring?": you can base it on evidence, make a clear and compelling case, but you cannot PROVE it.