No.1615
Reminder that just because Manwe granted Elrond the fate of elves doesn't make him a real elf.
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No.1616
>Reminder that just because the king of Arda who can do whatever the fuck he wants and turn people into Elves that are no different from Elves from pure Elf couples granted Elrond the fate of Elves doesn't make him a real Elf
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No.1617
>>1615
In case it wasn't obvious, this is from /tv/
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No.1618
This just means the difference between Men and Elves was merely spiritual and Ar-Pharazôn didn't do anything wrong, because true immortality was just a small divine trick away.
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No.1619
>>1616
>>the king of Arda who can do whatever the fuck he wants
How come he cried to Illuvatar when the Numenoreans were coming for him instead of wrecking their shit himself?
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No.1620
>>1619
Because he really didn't want to fight the Numenoreans, something about not raising a hand against them.
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No.1621
>>1619
>implying Eru did anything and Akallabêth wasn't an inside job exploiting the deliberately in-built structural weakness of Numenor continental shelf with well-timed explosions
In order to accept this "Eru did it" narrative, we must posit that omniscient God deliberately interacted with His creation while it was running its course, arbitrarily changing the variables on which sapient minds based their decisions, making premeditated free will not only impossible but also pointless, because He could have changed everything so that nobody had any reason to go against His will (which shouldn't ever change if he was truly omniscient and unchanging).
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No.1623
>>1621
>He could have changed everything so that nobody had any reason to go against His will
But he didn't, and therefore free will exists with his permission.
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No.1624
>>1623
Ominipotent personal being existing already strains the possibility of free will existing. I can understand the concept that free will could exist in the scenario that personal being operated outside linear time and only created the original circumstances based on which the agents inside the creation acted. However, I can't see how there could be free will if the those created circumstances can arbitrarily change. Smiting of Numenorë was particularly bad case of combining relevation (before that there was no proof, and actually a precedent to the contrary, that Men going to Aman was a crime punishable with genocide) and judgement into one act. It doesn't matter if Eru consistently or inconsistently enforced His will on His creation, any one act already destroys free will and makes it pointless. Might as well smite everyone who breaks the divine law. Tolkien's commentary about role of Eru in the events of LoTR make it seem to me that He is not better than Zeus and co. arbitrarily messing with the course of Trojan War for their own amusement.
Because of this kind of bullshit, Abrahamic religions typically claim free will is an axiom, because otherwise supposedly benevolent God is creating souls just to torture them. I guess it's fine for them to believe so as omnipotent being can create free will even in circumstances it doesn't make sense, but it's not particularly interesting to talk about. It just is so.
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No.1627
>>1624
Free will is being able to make a choice, it doesn't matter if someone knows what you will do in the future, or even if they can change things so you'll make a different choice, as long as you've actually chosen something, you have free will. Unless if said god is literally forcing his way into your mind and making you do actions, you have free-will.
Imagine if a super computer could calculate every possible outcome, does that cancel out free will? If the computer used nano-machines to alter the environment, does that cancel out free will? The correct answer is no
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No.1628
>>1624
I don't want to get into a religious argument, but I'm just going to say this.
In the case of Christianity, a common idea is that the devil was once an angel right? He was once a perfect being, there was no one around to tempt him to sin, but he did so anyway. I think most people can agree that in real life people learn from mistakes, either their own or others, not to repeat those mistakes. So basically, perhaps there is no situation in which both free will exists and no one chooses evil. Perhaps if Melkor hadn't choosing evil, other valar would have. Perhaps in all the possible timelines where Eru wasn't controling the valar like puppets, the events we see in the Silmarillion are the least unpleasant
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No.1629
>>1624
>Smiting of Numenorë was particularly bad case of combining relevation (before that there was no proof, and actually a precedent to the contrary, that Men going to Aman was a crime punishable with genocide) and judgement into one act.
The men were explicitly told not to sail westward past the point where they couldn't see Numenor. Even worse, they were sailing to Aman with the explicit intention of overthrowing the Valar, and their military might was said to be strong enough that they could have actually done it. Comparing Ar-Pharazon to Beren, Tuor, or Earendil is really fucking dumb because Ar-Pharazon was the only one of those who went to Valinor with the intention of committing a great evil.
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No.1630
>>1624
This is incredibly tangential, but I never understood the "Pain, sadness and other subjectively bad things are also objectively bad, thus God is bad/evil/a torturer" opinion
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No.1635
How did a thread about Elrond being le 56% turn into this?
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No.1637
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No.1639
>>1615
Man genes are superior to elven genes anyway. Men are better at building civilizations in general so of course they're at the peak even of Elven civilization. Elves themselves are complacent and lazy because everything is given to them from birth. Men, on the other hand, were forged through fire. They actually evolved.
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No.1640
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No.1716
File: 84307d4c8004c41⋯.jpg (Spoiler Image,1.05 MB,1200x883,1200:883,3c86d300951107cea53b4954c2….jpg)
>>1640
I think that no matter what most men would have chosen to have been born an Elf, because no ageing and death.
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No.1730
>>1639
>>1716
SHITPOSTERS BEGONE
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No.1788
>>1627
>Imagine if a super computer could calculate every possible outcome, does that cancel out free will?
Yes. It proves that free will is an illusion. You feel like you were making those decisions, but in reality, you could make no decision but that one. It was not truly a decision at all.
Even Melkor's attempts to disrupt the Ainulindale with his own music actually only plays into Eru's plans, just like keikaku, and makes it even better. Eru knew he'd do it all along. But beyond that, the song is Arda itself, so everything that ever happens there was set by the music before it ever happened. It seems pretty explicit that nothing in arda is truly free will, and then Eru's reaction to Melkor's attempting to go against Eru's will makes it question if even the Ainur have free will.
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No.1790
>>1788
You're working under the assumption that any kind of determinism is the opposite of free will. And in entirely technical terms you are correct in that, if the world is deterministic, the future is not uncertain, and strictly speaking you don't have free will. But in philosophical and especially theological debates, the question is often not one of literal determinism but of agency–predetermined or no, are your actions "yours," and can you be held responsible for them?
Men have this agency, so they have free will. They can recognize themselves as the proximate cause for certain acts, and understand certain outcomes are conditional on their behaviors. Thus, men have free will, even though their actions are predicated on the same biological uges as other animals, which only act on instinct rather than free will.
Yes I'm aware this has almost nothing to do with the original debate you all were having about Eru Illuvatar.
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No.1791
>>1790
Why does a man have free will but an animal doesn't? Sounds like you're just saying that a man can claim he has free will but an animal can't, which just comes down to an animal's ability to communicate effectively with us. Animals can also recognize themselves as the proximate cause for certain acts. People who say they act only on instinct rather than having free will the same as humans clearly have never actually interacted with a dog or plenty of other animals who can communicate rather effectively with humans.
Also, all this would be moot if you were talking about Tolkien, because in that universe there is an explicit distinction between creatures given free will by Eru and creatures not given free will. Animals in that universe are explicitly very different from humans and other races that have free will. Real life biology is not so cleanly divided.
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No.1795
>>1791
>which just comes down to an animal's ability to communicate effectively with us
Hardly. You don't need communication to establish awareness, the mirror test is a famous example.
>People who say they act only on instinct rather than having free will the same as humans clearly have never actually interacted with a dog or plenty of other animals who can communicate rather effectively with humans.
I grew up with dogs adn interact with them on the regular. Don't try to flaunt your authority when none exists, please. And yes, dogs can to some degree express their instincts to humans. That doesn't change the fact that dogs and other animals don't act, they react–either to external or internal stimuli. Men do as well, but men unlike most animals have the power to act, to deliberately and consciously perform actions, to decide to perform one action now and another later. A couple of species exhibit behavior close to this some argue dolphins equal or surpass us, I can't honestly confirm or deny that claim, and I will concede that there's a bit of leeway at the edges of the definition. But The definitions, and what characteristics represent them, are rather unambiguous.
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No.1796
>>1795
I never claimed to have any authority. What I claim is that your claims, and I know they are popular ones, are ultimately based on false sense of authority. That the speaker gets to pronounce these things because they're human, and of course they're better. Various non-human animals can be clearly seen to do the things you describe. Plenty of animals are seen making and executing multi-step plans, for example. You claim only humans have the ability to do this consciously, but you have nothing to say that non-human animals aren't doing this consciously. You might as well say other humans can't consciously perform actions either. You only know your own consciousness exists, and cannot know that any other consciousnesses exist at all. But you can see actions that seem like they represent emotions, and other animals clearly have that. You can say humans are better at some things than other animals, but there are also other things that other animals are better at as well. You can judge based on actions, and claim humans can execute more complex actions, but certain types of complex actions are actually easier for certain non-human animals than for humans, since those particular actions may be more relevant to those animals' niches. Then people claim that those actions are only instinct but ours are not. But there is no more reason to think my actions are any more or less "pure instinct" or requiring of consciousness than a chimp's. You don't know for sure that either of us has consciousness. I can see that chimps obviously have thoughts and emotions though. Any line would be very blurred. That's how things work in real life. The lines between species aren't perfectly clear cut.
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No.1893
>>1639
>Men are better at building civilizations in general
So how come they had to be taught everything they know about civilization, including how to fucking speak, by the Noldor?
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No.1898
>>1796
You're a moron. By your own idiot argument you could as easily say that a rock has conciousness and freewill just because "we can't know for sure!" Animals probably do have a conciousness, it's just a limited and stunted one in comparison to humans and they lack the capacity for freewill. They're both metaphysical phenomena that can't be understood through materialistic models, we can never know for sure they're even conscious but their are obvious reasons to believe that they at best have a constrained and instinctual consciousness which is incapable of genuinely novel or free reasoning.
Also the lines between species are as clear as night and day for anyone not stupid enough to fall for fallacious arguments from abstraction, idiot
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No.1900
>>1795
dolphins are very smart animals, but they're not smarter than us.
one of the best measures of intelligence we have is EQ, or Encephalization Quotient. we humans have the highest EQ, below us are dolphins, monkeys, ravens, parrots, octopi, manta rays, and elephants. then there's dogs, cats, squirrels, horses, etc.
while EQ is not the only relevant metric, it can give you a general sense of which species are the most intelligent.
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No.1901
>>1898
I agree with this. also, one of the most important distinctions between humans and other species is our use of language, i.e. an open-ended, codified vehicle which can express any sort of meaning. while animals can communicate, they're limited to closed-ended communication systems which cannot form novel patterns, placing a hard limit on which meanings can be expressed.
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No.1906
>>1898
>the lines between species are as clear as night and day
Why can we mate with negroes, then?
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No.1913
>>1906
Because they're homo-sapiens
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No.1914
>>1913
You missed the joke.
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No.1921
>>1898
I wasn't saying "we can't know for sure." I was saying that his argument was retarded and relied on making assumptions not even based on actual observation. Because even the most simple observation of many common animals shows they obviously have a consciousness. Anyone who has ever interacted with a dog can tell they have individual personalities and emotions. When you talk about "metaphysical phenomena," and admit you disregard "materialistic models" all you're saying is "free will is magic and only animals of my type have it because I say so and I want to believe I'm extra special.
>Also the lines between species are as clear as night and day for anyone not stupid enough to fall for fallacious arguments from abstraction, idiot
They're not though. There's the basic idea of two organisms that can reproduce together and create viable offspring being the same species, but plenty of things complicate this, like ring species. Plus the simple fact that all organisms are related if you go back far enough. Unless you're straight up arguing evolution is a myth. To argue that one of humans' unique evolutionary mutations happens to be free will, even though we can easily observe other animals acting in ways that seems to show that they actually have minds and aren't just automatons is a big stretch. Alternatively I can accept they are just automatons, but again they don't act fundamentally different from humans, since humans are also driven by instinct just like you say disqualifies an organism from free will. The biggest difference that you almost actually argued is merely the degree of steps that the average individual in a species will take to reach a goal, with humans doing many multi-step plans. But the other animals are observed doing that too, though usually not with as many steps as humans.
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No.1925
>>1921
I'd like to add on that interbreeding of different species is possible. Pic related, it's a mule.
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No.1927
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
>>1925
And how fertile are mules?
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No.1928
>>1925
You could certainly have picked a better example. Like homo sapiens varieties and other homos.
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No.1929
>>1927
>>1928
I'll leave that for the professionals. ;)
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No.1933
>>1927
Nothing wrong with being a dog
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No.1963
>>1615
saged and reported for D&C shilling
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No.2068
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No.2092
Why didn't Ilúvatar bitchslap some sense into Morgoth.
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No.2156
>>1921
>Thinks he's not falling for the argument from abstraction or it's cousin the continuum fallacy
<Literally appeals to the continuum fallacy
>He thinks pointing out the fact that materialist models literally CANNOT explain consciousness in any way, shape or form is saying consciousness "is magic"
How did such a brainlet ever make it through a book as long as the lord of the rings?
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No.2303
>>1619
The Valar can't do so much as piss without upheaving continents. Did you not pay attention to what happened to Beleriand? Taking on the Numenorean arsenal means saying goodbye to Valinor - the collateral damage would be so great that the elves and the thousands of years of history they shared on the continent would be gone within a few months. The Valar would win, but it would be the ultimate Pyrrhic victory.
Finally, Ar-Pharazôn's doom is to fight in the Dagor Dagorath and having the Valar murder him and his fleet would undermine that doom, potentially shifting the final results to a Morgoth victory. Mandos would realize this and caution Manwe accordingly.
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No.2317
>>1963
Why did the mods do this?
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No.2318
>>2092
Doesn't need to. Morgoth's shenanigans achieve nothing in the end.
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