As we all know, the tool doesn't have any inherent evil or good built in - it is how the user wields the tool and with what purpose, that yields the result.
Actually, the properly managed Ring could've been a real industrial boon. It can't burn and it can't be destroyed, so it might've been used as a bearing, a fulcrum for some gigantic lever, a point to measure hardness of other things against or even as a link that connects two chains that can't usually connect (e.g. matter-antimatter chain).
One can envision a whole mercantile exchange that leases Ring for potential customers and a queue that is sold for decades in advance, trading of futures on these time slots and, of course, an obligatory insurance contracts for using the Ring (insurance is managed by the local authority and is a reason for many an oppositional moanings, because it's rightfully regarded as an additional tax).
Generally, from an economic point of view, the slaughter of Sauron was a mindboggling waste of unhuman capital. To hell with the elves, they can't manage themselves!
I have to thank you a lot. Your post has multiple layers. PM me if you want to get referenced with you real name because you sparked a very interesting line of thought in my ZK areas about both Tolkien and Religion as well:
Then it reminded me that Tolkien critised exactly the mecha-industrial way of thinking and their consequences. (e.g. constrasting the pastoral Hobbits and in synch with nature Elves with the churning-machinised Isengard and Mordor)
In a rather both funny and surprisingly synchronised way, the ring as a fictional concept invoked an idea which nature is perfectly explained from within the fictional world. There is a boundary between fiction and reality which is why you cannot fall victim to the rings effect. Therefore, for us in reality your idea is funny because it is both witty and nagging the fictional elves. If you were part of the fictional world, however, the ring might even provoke exactly the same thoughts but then actually corrupt you as well.
3a Religious texts have the power to overcome the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. From the outside world, a pure materialistic perspective, religion makes no sense and cannot make any sense. You can draw allegoric meanings from a religious text but there would be not religious spark crossing over to your soul (yes, I am already using religious concepts to describe religion from the materialistic perspective). A good way to understand this as a westerner is to think about the old Germanic religion. Our ancestors went to war and to them Donar (aka Thor) was actually giving them power. Most of this can be explained away (cf: McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: How the left hemisphere dissects and kills what is given to it by the right hemisphere) by some kind of placebo effect. But if you think more deeply there is something left:
People surpass themselves all the time. But how can you surpass something that is?
There are insane placebo effects. A study, I remember, examined the effects of genetics vs. believe. Some people have a genetic variation that allows them to clear lactic acid more efficiently and therefore have a better endurance. But telling people that they have this genetic variation has a stronger effect than actually having the genetic variant. Or: The mind has a effect than the genes. Or even stronger put: If you place the variation in the mind it is more effective than placing the variation into the genome. I know that this is not flawless logic but that is not the point. I it is about being open to the awe that is the appropriate (both utilitarian and spiritual) mode of being.
3b I am Christian. But at the same time I don't subscribe to most of the Christian doctrines. I don't feel that Jesus is my Savor. And I feel rather estranged than connected when I listen to more passionate sermons. I have a friend who is a mennonite preacher and sometimes we connect in our belief deeply and sometimes it pulls us apart.
My conversion was self-induced by a rather extrem meditation practice. I started with the question "What is the good life?" by building habits arround health (training for up to 4 times per day, eating, sleeping, etc.) and intellectual inquiry (studying for 6-8hours per day). Then I went for mental training (similar to what David Goggins does, but with rather more and more intensive training methods). The next step was the ethical (a very annoying phase for my peers..) and then the spiritual (starting with yoga and then graduaded to various meditation methods). There was a time, when I had a break down every 6 weeks (always sundays when I had little structure to my day). One simple method was: Starting a timer, quieting the mind and then hold that stillness for time. When I reached 20--30 minutes of not thinking (as far as I remember) I was able to induce mystic/spiritual experiences. I was illuminated for at least 60--80 times. Each experience has a lasting effect that doesn't end (the last time I induced such an experience my color perception changed). But I don't have any urge to tell a story arround those experiences. I actually talked with god. But what does that mean? Did I just push my brain to a point in which talking with god was the logical conclusion to deal with various pressures or did I actually talk to god and he blessed me with a feeling of his presence? There is no way to actually know. Either I take a materialistic point of view and err towards the brain theory (explaining away what I feel) or I err on the side of the religious instinct (yes, using materialistic concepts to talk about the spiritual; elevating the experience to the spiritual).
But actually, I am fine with just having had those experiences, just accepting I seem to be a Christian without making an fuzz about that.
3a + 3b The insane genius of Tolkien is demonstrated by his achievement of actually writing a religious text that is in part able to cross the above mentioned boundary. To my knowledge, his work comes the closest to a man-made religious text (don't you dare you atheist to claim that all religious texts are man-made.. )
The boundary between the otherworld and reality seems to be traversable back and forth. So, my hypothesis that religion happens when the boundary is trancended without giving up the distinction between both realms. A technical metaphor would be: Augmented reality. But while augmented reality is just a layer of perception that is artificially put on your vision, religion makes reality actually augmented (not: improved since any religion is a work in progress).
Metacomment: The ZK process is
Translate via deepl (writing this in my browser)
Polish it a bit.
Refactor some bits and pieces out.
Connect this to the ZK areas about Tolkien, LOTR, religion, meditation, metaphysics, spirituality etc.
Split this topic from this thread (which is a very Zettelkastenesque action if you think about it. )
Then it reminded me that Tolkien critised exactly the mecha-industrial way of thinking and their consequences. (e.g. constrasting the pastoral Hobbits and in synch with nature Elves with the churning-machinised Isengard and Mordor)
Yeah, he liked that idea.
But it's the idea that is based on a false assumption. Pastoralic English fields had appeared because someone had previously grazed their sheep there or cut the forest for lumber. Dedicious forests in Europe had largerly replaced coniferous forests after the latter were cut down for a quality wood. Some deserts and steppes appeared due to nomadic (over-)grazing.
Many biomes do look "natural" to a naive observer. But there's almost no place on Earth that wasn't terraformed by humanity in some way.
If you were part of the fictional world, however, the ring might even provoke exactly the same thoughts but then actually corrupt you as well.
I'm a banker. I'm corrupted by definition, like a spawn of Melkor.
People surpass themselves all the time. But how can you surpass something that is?
If we speak about biological limits then, I believe, humans don't routinely use their physical potential. Because a strain on the body leads to the faster wear of its resources (depreciation of biological capital, if you will). At the same time the brain optimizes long-term survival so it has internal stops that prevent physical overstrain, unless it perceives current conditions as a critical threat to its survival (can't name any references for these statements, sorry, I got these ideas at a time when I wasn't accustomed to mantaining a personal archive).
In other words, under normal conditions humans underachieve in a short-term. And it's good, because it provides them with an opportunity to reach >90% of their lifetime capacity.
So my take is that short-term overachievement is usually an illusion. The whole topic of physical "transcendence" is moot and should be reconceptualized as a question of concentration of effort.
I have nothing to say about cognitive limits.
There are insane placebo effects. ... If you place the variation in the mind it is more effective than placing the variation into the genome.
This's kinda similar to the previous notion about strain. A mental concentration mobilizes bodily functions in short-term more significantly than some unfocused background alteration.
Long-term, I think, genetic alteration should be more efficient. I guess that long-term effects weren't measured in the studies you reference.
3b I am Christian. But at the same time I don't subscribe to most of the Christian doctrines. I don't feel that Jesus is my Savor.
If you don't need Christ as a point of reference, you're not Christian.
Maybe you should consider referencing yourself as a humanist?
My conversion was self-induced by a rather extrem meditation practice. I started with the question "What is the good life?" by building habits arround health
3a + 3b To my knowledge, his work comes the closest to a man-made religious text (don't you dare you atheist to claim that all religious texts are man-made.. )
Of course not all of them are man-made. Some were written by our lord and saviour Melkor.
So, my hypothesis that religion happens when the boundary is trancended without giving up the distinction between both realms.
To me it seems that you're at the same time talking about "religion as a social institution" and "personal transcedental experiences". Religious institutions reference those experiences, but I rather doubt that they largely depend on the latter.
A split in thinking (or in topics) might be considered.
Let us also consider economic potential of Orodruin and from that move to wider conclusions.
First of all, it's thermal power output seems to reach at least several hundred MW, and probably in a range of hundreds of GW, if captured properly. We do know that part of that energy was used to power Barad-dur industrial complex.
Secondly, and what might've been even more important, volcanic ash is a natural eco-friendly fertilizer. We don't have any records left, but most likely it was gathered in bulk and shipped to the Nurnen region to boost high-intensity agriculture in the area. Abundant food supply was used to support numerous forces of Mordor. That allowed Mordor to completely outclass their competitors.
E.g. at the battle of Pelennor fields Gondor alliance had fielded about 10-15k troops. Mordor alliance had brought an expeditionary force at least 50k strong.
The same situation repeated at the battle of Morannon.
At the same time Mordor had fielded several expeditionary forces: we know of forces in Dol Guldur, Ithilien, Anduin Valley, Esgaroth and probably Angmar. There might've been others (Harad, Khand and Umbar likely had some military presense from Mordor in the embassies).
Overall, Mordor had demonstrated an ability to field at least 250k strong ground forces at the same time (not counting for garrisons and unknown field armies on other frontiers). Add to that trolls that definitely needed a significant amount of foodstuffs.
Consider also a logistical backbone required to send those forces in expeditions several hundreds kilometers deep into enemy territory and one could easily estimate Mordor ground forces to number at least 500k.
All those forces not only were fed and supplied, they were well armed. Western forces had trouble arming their feudal militias - leather armor and spears were abundant, especially among supporting troops (Rohan, Lossarnach). Some western leaders even boasted using ancient weaponry they had no ability to produce anymore (e.g. swords of Aragorn and Gandalf, mithril armor).
At the same time Mordor had fielded armies predominantly armed with metal-intensive blade weapons and supplied by siege equipment (that assumes a knowledge and logistical power to supply field forges to maintain those siege engines).
So, Mordor civilization had demonstrated a significant logistical and engineering sophistication that was largely based on natural resources of Orodruin. Based on that we can assume that Mordor was at the early stages of industrial revolution, because previous economic systems just weren't able to supply such a force.
This assumption is also supported by a significant sophistication that Mordor (or its allies and dependencies) had demonstrated in several fields:
a domestication and breeding of several species of cryptophauna (incl. giant spiders, wyverns, mumakil and, arguably, trolls);
prototypical usage of military aviation (wyverns for commanders);
an advanced necromancy focused on ressurrection of selected members of elite classes and military grade morale-degradation technologies;
limited manipulation of geological processes (an artificial cloud of darkness emitted by Orodruin and controlled by Sauron);
an unclear, but likely comparatively advanced life sciences technologies. We do know that the kingdoms from Rhovanion to Minhiriath had suffered from some undetermined pandemias, sometimes losing up to 80-90% of their population. Mordor shows no sign of depopulation, despite being situated in their vicinity and using high population density-dependent intensive agriculture and massed armies. So it likely had practiced some crude form of vaccination against the mentioned diseases. It also likely dabbed in breeding and bioengineering of various species (Isengard did this with orc-human Uruk-hai hybrids, Mordor had produced black uruks) that presupposes at least some knowledge of inheritance systems (and theory of evolution or bioengineering).
a system for long-term intelligence gathering codenamed the Eye of Sauron (besides obvious military usefulness it could've had recreational uses centered on reality shows and elvish porn).
If we try to forecast the development of Mordor based on analogies from other worlds, we'll have to conclude that in a few decades it likely would've entered advanced steam age, began construction of railroad systems (that should've supported a wide-ranged expeditionary forces) and later proceeded to a full-scaled industrial revolution fueled by the comparatively free and eco-friendly power from Orodruin.
All that development was interrupted by a terrorist WMD attack conducted by hobbit fanatics who, in their turn, were supplied and organized by Mithlond.
As we all know, elves had reached their goals. Feudal kingdoms of north-western Middle Earth had regressed to their long-term status of elvish dependencies (akin to Trucial states under Great Britain on Terra). Hobbit terrorists were rewarded with immigration quotas to Valinor. And the rest is history.
Then it reminded me that Tolkien critised exactly the mecha-industrial way of thinking and their consequences. (e.g. constrasting the pastoral Hobbits and in synch with nature Elves with the churning-machinised Isengard and Mordor)
Yeah, he liked that idea.
But it's the idea that is based on a false assumption. Pastoralic English fields had appeared because someone had previously grazed their sheep there or cut the forest for lumber. Dedicious forests in Europe had largerly replaced coniferous forests after the latter were cut down for a quality wood. Some deserts and steppes appeared due to nomadic (over-)grazing.
Many biomes do look "natural" to a naive observer. But there's almost no place on Earth that wasn't terraformed by humanity in some way.
I think that the distinction between nature and culture is in itself false.
There is no distinct boundary.
a) Humans are also animals. So, it is a false distinction that the influence of animals is something different than the influence of human.
b) If you want to argue against (a) you have to draw a clear line when people started to be “unnaturally cultural”.
This might not be the most formal argument, but I firmly believe that just by observing your feelings when you compare a perfectly integrated and sustainable farm and factory farming you intuitively understand the actual difference between natural and unnatural even if you put both in the culture bucket.
Instead, I offer a different way of thinking (and feeling) about this:
We have an innate feeling for what is pro-life and what is anti-life. This feeling goes beyond just being pro-survival, pro-nature, anti-destruction. The disgust we feel when confronted with concepts presented in 1984 and Brave New World is a direct result of this instinct for something that should be treated as holy (something that should be treated as if it is in itself valuable). The loss of such value in the modern world (not only in the West!) comes from the loosening connection to life-affirming beliefs as a foundation for a shared culture.
If you turn away from Life (capital L) you suffer. It is a basic and generally applicable formula to analyze why someone suffers.
If you don’t treat your body responsible and you allow, for example, your mitochondria to get messed up (lack of training stimulus, lack of micronutrients, wrong macronutrients, disconnect from rhythm (sun, temperature), disconnect from the environment (temperature, ground)) you feel like shit. You should feel like shit since you feel not only death but horror, worse than death.1
The other end of the spectrum is to get trapped in existentialism. Existentialism can be summarised as the unfiltered confrontation with reality which is best symbolised by the uncaring emptiness of space. There is one and just one antidote to existentialism: Belief. People with no belief are prey. And there are predators: Ideas and people who make you their slave. Institutionalised religion is very often predatory and it is important to have a strong distrust for those institutions. To me, distrust towards the the Catholic Church, Wahabi Islam, the government, big companies is a healthy anti-anti-life instinct.
During the last decade or so, people seem to forget this distrust. The disregard religion instead of the corrupt institutions. They turn to the government as if there was no complete and historical failure of government to at least avoid a disgusting level of corruption.
Tolkien, somehow, got it right. It is not culture vs nature. It is Life vs Anti-Life. He contrasts Hobbits who live in harmony with nature, being part of it, cultivating it not much further than an batcher that digs a cave into the ground or a beaver that floods an area with his dam to create a new home, not much further than wolves who are healing Yellow Stone by reintroducing once lost harmony.
On the other hand, Isengard and Mordor don’t create. They don’t extend the Harmony of Life but rip Life apart to feed it as material to an industry that is aimed to even more destruction. This is perhaps the meta-problem of industry. It doesn’t take to give, extending the harmony of Life. It removes the substance of Life without giving back or even turning it into poison and disposing it back into Life doubling its destructive influence.
If you were part of the fictional world, however, the ring might even provoke exactly the same thoughts but then actually corrupt you as well.
I'm a banker. I'm corrupted by definition, like a spawn of Melkor.
As a banker, you are subjected to more temptation than let’s say a plumber. Rationality easily turns into Rationalism for the same reason power is corrupting. But at the same time you have more leverage than many people to do good.
In my personal life, I have the same issue: Even, if a family member died I can think clearly and even turn my emotions off on command (this comes at a cost for me personally, of course). It is an ability and I could use it to the benefit of my loved ones a couple of times. But it very hard for me to be empathetic if the people I do this for can’t. But my rationality is always pushing to become its own thing. It tries to break out of a harmonious state in which is serves. The result would be (and it happens sometimes since I am prone to error like anybody) a cancerous rationalism that falsely puts itself as something that has inherit value. To succumb to the temptation of rationalism would result in arrogance and looking down my loved ones because they allow their feelings to have more room than I allow my feelings. I’d be looking down on the very thing that I try to enable and give a place to live. This is how being rational is both a strength and a temptation.
I think this is sync with Tolkien’s view. Power is inherently tempting. Some powers cannot be used without corruption. And the more power grows the more it needs to be balanced with compassion and seeing whole.
This could be one legitimate criticism of Tolkiens work: There is, perhaps, to little room for redemption in his story. Making right what we personally did but also taking responsibility of what is not our fault is very important to us people.
People surpass themselves all the time. But how can you surpass something that is?
If we speak about biological limits then, I believe, humans don't routinely use their physical potential. Because a strain on the body leads to the faster wear of its resources (depreciation of biological capital, if you will). At the same time the brain optimizes long-term survival so it has internal stops that prevent physical overstrain, unless it perceives current conditions as a critical threat to its survival (can't name any references for these statements, sorry, I got these ideas at a time when I wasn't accustomed to mantaining a personal archive).
In other words, under normal conditions humans underachieve in a short-term. And it's good, because it provides them with an opportunity to reach >90% of their lifetime capacity.
So my take is that short-term overachievement is usually an illusion. The whole topic of physical "transcendence" is moot and should be reconceptualized as a question of concentration of effort.
I don’t mean that you can somehow break physical or biological limits even that I am not sure that this is 100% impossible (it is when you stick to materialism).
Perhaps, a personal story of mine illustrates better what I mean: Some years after my most intense training period I performed an experiment. I decided to test if I could achieve through willpower that I once did through physical fitness. I used the Arc Trainer, a cardio machine as the tool because I tried to reduce the risk of injury. (See me here on the Arc Trainer for reference) I tried to replicate my former power output per interval but doubled the number of intervals (with far less stamina and endurance I had back then). I told a few people on that trial. It was a test for my work on How to live a good life (my long-term writing project) and I decided that if I won’t succeed I would declare my work a fail. So, I put a decade of my life on the line. After, 7 intervals I was cooked and felt already that I was about to fail like I formerly did after 20 intervals. So, I dug deep into myself. In the end, I did 47 or 48 intervals (as far as I remember. I planned 45 and did some more). I went unconscious for 5 seconds and fell on the floor when I stopped. I had a yellowish taint for three days which indicated that something with my liver was not working as usual.
Did I somehow summoned a spirit that gave me energy to aid my mitochondria? I don’t think so. But I, thank god, overcame boundaries and discovered something that wasn’t there.
So, overcoming the limits is overcoming mental limits.
There are insane placebo effects. ... If you place the variation in the mind it is more effective than placing the variation into the genome.
This's kinda similar to the previous notion about strain. A mental concentration mobilizes bodily functions in short-term more significantly than some unfocused background alteration.
Long-term, I think, genetic alteration should be more efficient. I guess that long-term effects weren't measured in the studies you reference.
I need to find the actual study. The point of the story was not that the people showed more effort and therefore performed better but their energy metabolism was more efficient. It wasn’t the strain that increased but their actual biochemical capabilities.
3b I am Christian. But at the same time I don't subscribe to most of the Christian doctrines. I don't feel that Jesus is my Savor.
If you don't need Christ as a point of reference, you're not Christian.
Maybe you should consider referencing yourself as a humanist?
I didn’t say that I don’t need Christ as a point of reference.
I don’t feel that he is my Saviour. My friend a mennonite preacher would say that I am just half way there having understood what is correct. From his teachings, you are a Christ when you decide to go all in and not when you are at your destination. So, I just could be wrong and still learning.
I don’t thing Christ saved me but he showed how to act in a way that allows you to be saved. Technically, learning Jesus showing the How-To is actually saving and it is a reasonable statement that Jesus is actually saved people. But I am always wary of a literal interpretation of religious texts (not all of the bible concerns the belief! The plethora of rules when you can and cannot keep a slave in the old testament is not for example).
The bible needs to guide people of any kind of temperaments. I am a rational (sometimes rationalistic) person with an exceptional high interest in abstract things. my grandmother is a rational, well-balanced, wise woman who has almost not interest in abstract things (yes, I am that lucky). Her way to god is a different one from me. Bickering about the correctness of my version against her version of how and what Jesus did to (re-)open the path to god is neither productive nor wise.
My conversion was self-induced by a rather extrem meditation practice. I started with the question "What is the good life?" by building habits arround health
I know his claim. But I am not unhappy when I think about myself. I think about myself with interest since I feel the opportunity to throw away yet another mistake. I made it a point to develop a healthy relationship to the grind that precedes improvement like Huberman said. I like it when I train to the point that I have an irony taste on my tongue and I the tunnel of my tunnel vision is very narrow. I think physical pain and fearing that you literally piss your pants during training is also “very tightly associated with the experience of negative emotion”. (It can be reliably learned by just practicing it)
I think that this association is incidental and is caused by the current lack of education and imprinting. At least, I see it as totally realistic to rewire your relationship to yourself.
3a + 3b To my knowledge, his work comes the closest to a man-made religious text (don't you dare you atheist to claim that all religious texts are man-made.. )
Of course not all of them are man-made. Some were written by our lord and saviour Melkor.
So, my hypothesis that religion happens when the boundary is trancended without giving up the distinction between both realms.
To me it seems that you're at the same time talking about "religion as a social institution" and "personal transcedental experiences". Religious institutions reference those experiences, but I rather doubt that they largely depend on the latter.
A split in thinking (or in topics) might be considered.
I hope that I didn’t talk about about both at the same time but just about the side of belief, spirituality and transcendence.
I should’ve made it more clear that I deviate from the normal use of the concept: Religion is never the social institution but stops being a religion at the very moment it gets institutionalised. Institutions are the the social version of what rationalism can representing the psyche. They always inherit a drive to become their own thing. An institutional framework could enhance the religious experience. But it needs to be contained. The Mennonite communities of the Russia Germans (that I know and have in my ancestry) do it quite well. There are just the local communities with no level of authority that is above. All donations are voluntary. (quite well, not perfect!)
Your detailed knowledge of the lore is awesome. I'd love to read a longer write up. Perhaps, an article for https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com would be a nice hobby project for you?
At least, I love your re-interpretation (that is above my payroll of lore details)
Shawn Coyne (2015): The Story Grid. What Good Editors Know, USA: Black Irish Entertainment LLC. ↩︎
Comments
Actually, the properly managed Ring could've been a real industrial boon. It can't burn and it can't be destroyed, so it might've been used as a bearing, a fulcrum for some gigantic lever, a point to measure hardness of other things against or even as a link that connects two chains that can't usually connect (e.g. matter-antimatter chain).
One can envision a whole mercantile exchange that leases Ring for potential customers and a queue that is sold for decades in advance, trading of futures on these time slots and, of course, an obligatory insurance contracts for using the Ring (insurance is managed by the local authority and is a reason for many an oppositional moanings, because it's rightfully regarded as an additional tax).
Generally, from an economic point of view, the slaughter of Sauron was a mindboggling waste of unhuman capital. To hell with the elves, they can't manage themselves!
@emps
This. Is. Brilliant.
@emps
I have to thank you a lot. Your post has multiple layers. PM me if you want to get referenced with you real name because you sparked a very interesting line of thought in my ZK areas about both Tolkien and Religion as well:
3a Religious texts have the power to overcome the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. From the outside world, a pure materialistic perspective, religion makes no sense and cannot make any sense. You can draw allegoric meanings from a religious text but there would be not religious spark crossing over to your soul (yes, I am already using religious concepts to describe religion from the materialistic perspective). A good way to understand this as a westerner is to think about the old Germanic religion. Our ancestors went to war and to them Donar (aka Thor) was actually giving them power. Most of this can be explained away (cf: McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: How the left hemisphere dissects and kills what is given to it by the right hemisphere) by some kind of placebo effect. But if you think more deeply there is something left:
3b I am Christian. But at the same time I don't subscribe to most of the Christian doctrines. I don't feel that Jesus is my Savor. And I feel rather estranged than connected when I listen to more passionate sermons. I have a friend who is a mennonite preacher and sometimes we connect in our belief deeply and sometimes it pulls us apart.
My conversion was self-induced by a rather extrem meditation practice. I started with the question "What is the good life?" by building habits arround health (training for up to 4 times per day, eating, sleeping, etc.) and intellectual inquiry (studying for 6-8hours per day). Then I went for mental training (similar to what David Goggins does, but with rather more and more intensive training methods). The next step was the ethical (a very annoying phase for my peers..) and then the spiritual (starting with yoga and then graduaded to various meditation methods). There was a time, when I had a break down every 6 weeks (always sundays when I had little structure to my day). One simple method was: Starting a timer, quieting the mind and then hold that stillness for time. When I reached 20--30 minutes of not thinking (as far as I remember) I was able to induce mystic/spiritual experiences. I was illuminated for at least 60--80 times. Each experience has a lasting effect that doesn't end (the last time I induced such an experience my color perception changed). But I don't have any urge to tell a story arround those experiences. I actually talked with god. But what does that mean? Did I just push my brain to a point in which talking with god was the logical conclusion to deal with various pressures or did I actually talk to god and he blessed me with a feeling of his presence? There is no way to actually know. Either I take a materialistic point of view and err towards the brain theory (explaining away what I feel) or I err on the side of the religious instinct (yes, using materialistic concepts to talk about the spiritual; elevating the experience to the spiritual).
But actually, I am fine with just having had those experiences, just accepting I seem to be a Christian without making an fuzz about that.
3a + 3b The insane genius of Tolkien is demonstrated by his achievement of actually writing a religious text that is in part able to cross the above mentioned boundary. To my knowledge, his work comes the closest to a man-made religious text (don't you dare you atheist to claim that all religious texts are man-made..
)
The boundary between the otherworld and reality seems to be traversable back and forth. So, my hypothesis that religion happens when the boundary is trancended without giving up the distinction between both realms. A technical metaphor would be: Augmented reality. But while augmented reality is just a layer of perception that is artificially put on your vision, religion makes reality actually augmented (not: improved since any religion is a work in progress).
Metacomment: The ZK process is
I am a Zettler
@Sascha
Yeah, he liked that idea.
But it's the idea that is based on a false assumption. Pastoralic English fields had appeared because someone had previously grazed their sheep there or cut the forest for lumber. Dedicious forests in Europe had largerly replaced coniferous forests after the latter were cut down for a quality wood. Some deserts and steppes appeared due to nomadic (over-)grazing.
Many biomes do look "natural" to a naive observer. But there's almost no place on Earth that wasn't terraformed by humanity in some way.
I'm a banker. I'm corrupted by definition, like a spawn of Melkor.
If we speak about biological limits then, I believe, humans don't routinely use their physical potential. Because a strain on the body leads to the faster wear of its resources (depreciation of biological capital, if you will). At the same time the brain optimizes long-term survival so it has internal stops that prevent physical overstrain, unless it perceives current conditions as a critical threat to its survival (can't name any references for these statements, sorry, I got these ideas at a time when I wasn't accustomed to mantaining a personal archive).
In other words, under normal conditions humans underachieve in a short-term. And it's good, because it provides them with an opportunity to reach >90% of their lifetime capacity.
So my take is that short-term overachievement is usually an illusion. The whole topic of physical "transcendence" is moot and should be reconceptualized as a question of concentration of effort.
I have nothing to say about cognitive limits.
This's kinda similar to the previous notion about strain. A mental concentration mobilizes bodily functions in short-term more significantly than some unfocused background alteration.
Long-term, I think, genetic alteration should be more efficient. I guess that long-term effects weren't measured in the studies you reference.
If you don't need Christ as a point of reference, you're not Christian.
Maybe you should consider referencing yourself as a humanist?
Another point to consider: "When you're thinking about yourself, you're unhappy."
Of course not all of them are man-made. Some were written by our lord and saviour Melkor.
To me it seems that you're at the same time talking about "religion as a social institution" and "personal transcedental experiences". Religious institutions reference those experiences, but I rather doubt that they largely depend on the latter.
A split in thinking (or in topics) might be considered.
@kohled @Sascha
Ok, let me continue, because why not.
Let us also consider economic potential of Orodruin and from that move to wider conclusions.
First of all, it's thermal power output seems to reach at least several hundred MW, and probably in a range of hundreds of GW, if captured properly. We do know that part of that energy was used to power Barad-dur industrial complex.
Secondly, and what might've been even more important, volcanic ash is a natural eco-friendly fertilizer. We don't have any records left, but most likely it was gathered in bulk and shipped to the Nurnen region to boost high-intensity agriculture in the area. Abundant food supply was used to support numerous forces of Mordor. That allowed Mordor to completely outclass their competitors.
E.g. at the battle of Pelennor fields Gondor alliance had fielded about 10-15k troops. Mordor alliance had brought an expeditionary force at least 50k strong.
The same situation repeated at the battle of Morannon.
At the same time Mordor had fielded several expeditionary forces: we know of forces in Dol Guldur, Ithilien, Anduin Valley, Esgaroth and probably Angmar. There might've been others (Harad, Khand and Umbar likely had some military presense from Mordor in the embassies).
Overall, Mordor had demonstrated an ability to field at least 250k strong ground forces at the same time (not counting for garrisons and unknown field armies on other frontiers). Add to that trolls that definitely needed a significant amount of foodstuffs.
Consider also a logistical backbone required to send those forces in expeditions several hundreds kilometers deep into enemy territory and one could easily estimate Mordor ground forces to number at least 500k.
All those forces not only were fed and supplied, they were well armed. Western forces had trouble arming their feudal militias - leather armor and spears were abundant, especially among supporting troops (Rohan, Lossarnach). Some western leaders even boasted using ancient weaponry they had no ability to produce anymore (e.g. swords of Aragorn and Gandalf, mithril armor).
At the same time Mordor had fielded armies predominantly armed with metal-intensive blade weapons and supplied by siege equipment (that assumes a knowledge and logistical power to supply field forges to maintain those siege engines).
So, Mordor civilization had demonstrated a significant logistical and engineering sophistication that was largely based on natural resources of Orodruin. Based on that we can assume that Mordor was at the early stages of industrial revolution, because previous economic systems just weren't able to supply such a force.
This assumption is also supported by a significant sophistication that Mordor (or its allies and dependencies) had demonstrated in several fields:
If we try to forecast the development of Mordor based on analogies from other worlds, we'll have to conclude that in a few decades it likely would've entered advanced steam age, began construction of railroad systems (that should've supported a wide-ranged expeditionary forces) and later proceeded to a full-scaled industrial revolution fueled by the comparatively free and eco-friendly power from Orodruin.
All that development was interrupted by a terrorist WMD attack conducted by hobbit fanatics who, in their turn, were supplied and organized by Mithlond.
As we all know, elves had reached their goals. Feudal kingdoms of north-western Middle Earth had regressed to their long-term status of elvish dependencies (akin to Trucial states under Great Britain on Terra). Hobbit terrorists were rewarded with immigration quotas to Valinor. And the rest is history.
edit: typos
Disclaimer: I wrote a wall of text interlaced with personal anecdotes.
I think that the distinction between nature and culture is in itself false.
Instead, I offer a different way of thinking (and feeling) about this:
We have an innate feeling for what is pro-life and what is anti-life. This feeling goes beyond just being pro-survival, pro-nature, anti-destruction. The disgust we feel when confronted with concepts presented in 1984 and Brave New World is a direct result of this instinct for something that should be treated as holy (something that should be treated as if it is in itself valuable). The loss of such value in the modern world (not only in the West!) comes from the loosening connection to life-affirming beliefs as a foundation for a shared culture.
If you turn away from Life (capital L) you suffer. It is a basic and generally applicable formula to analyze why someone suffers.
If you don’t treat your body responsible and you allow, for example, your mitochondria to get messed up (lack of training stimulus, lack of micronutrients, wrong macronutrients, disconnect from rhythm (sun, temperature), disconnect from the environment (temperature, ground)) you feel like shit. You should feel like shit since you feel not only death but horror, worse than death.1
The other end of the spectrum is to get trapped in existentialism. Existentialism can be summarised as the unfiltered confrontation with reality which is best symbolised by the uncaring emptiness of space. There is one and just one antidote to existentialism: Belief. People with no belief are prey. And there are predators: Ideas and people who make you their slave. Institutionalised religion is very often predatory and it is important to have a strong distrust for those institutions. To me, distrust towards the the Catholic Church, Wahabi Islam, the government, big companies is a healthy anti-anti-life instinct.
During the last decade or so, people seem to forget this distrust. The disregard religion instead of the corrupt institutions. They turn to the government as if there was no complete and historical failure of government to at least avoid a disgusting level of corruption.
Tolkien, somehow, got it right. It is not culture vs nature. It is Life vs Anti-Life. He contrasts Hobbits who live in harmony with nature, being part of it, cultivating it not much further than an batcher that digs a cave into the ground or a beaver that floods an area with his dam to create a new home, not much further than wolves who are healing Yellow Stone by reintroducing once lost harmony.
On the other hand, Isengard and Mordor don’t create. They don’t extend the Harmony of Life but rip Life apart to feed it as material to an industry that is aimed to even more destruction. This is perhaps the meta-problem of industry. It doesn’t take to give, extending the harmony of Life. It removes the substance of Life without giving back or even turning it into poison and disposing it back into Life doubling its destructive influence.
As a banker, you are subjected to more temptation than let’s say a plumber. Rationality easily turns into Rationalism for the same reason power is corrupting. But at the same time you have more leverage than many people to do good.
In my personal life, I have the same issue: Even, if a family member died I can think clearly and even turn my emotions off on command (this comes at a cost for me personally, of course). It is an ability and I could use it to the benefit of my loved ones a couple of times. But it very hard for me to be empathetic if the people I do this for can’t. But my rationality is always pushing to become its own thing. It tries to break out of a harmonious state in which is serves. The result would be (and it happens sometimes since I am prone to error like anybody) a cancerous rationalism that falsely puts itself as something that has inherit value. To succumb to the temptation of rationalism would result in arrogance and looking down my loved ones because they allow their feelings to have more room than I allow my feelings. I’d be looking down on the very thing that I try to enable and give a place to live. This is how being rational is both a strength and a temptation.
I think this is sync with Tolkien’s view. Power is inherently tempting. Some powers cannot be used without corruption. And the more power grows the more it needs to be balanced with compassion and seeing whole.
This could be one legitimate criticism of Tolkiens work: There is, perhaps, to little room for redemption in his story. Making right what we personally did but also taking responsibility of what is not our fault is very important to us people.
I don’t mean that you can somehow break physical or biological limits even that I am not sure that this is 100% impossible (it is when you stick to materialism).
Perhaps, a personal story of mine illustrates better what I mean: Some years after my most intense training period I performed an experiment. I decided to test if I could achieve through willpower that I once did through physical fitness. I used the Arc Trainer, a cardio machine as the tool because I tried to reduce the risk of injury. (See me here on the Arc Trainer for reference) I tried to replicate my former power output per interval but doubled the number of intervals (with far less stamina and endurance I had back then). I told a few people on that trial. It was a test for my work on How to live a good life (my long-term writing project) and I decided that if I won’t succeed I would declare my work a fail. So, I put a decade of my life on the line. After, 7 intervals I was cooked and felt already that I was about to fail like I formerly did after 20 intervals. So, I dug deep into myself. In the end, I did 47 or 48 intervals (as far as I remember. I planned 45 and did some more). I went unconscious for 5 seconds and fell on the floor when I stopped. I had a yellowish taint for three days which indicated that something with my liver was not working as usual.
Did I somehow summoned a spirit that gave me energy to aid my mitochondria? I don’t think so. But I, thank god, overcame boundaries and discovered something that wasn’t there.
So, overcoming the limits is overcoming mental limits.
I need to find the actual study. The point of the story was not that the people showed more effort and therefore performed better but their energy metabolism was more efficient. It wasn’t the strain that increased but their actual biochemical capabilities.
I didn’t say that I don’t need Christ as a point of reference.
I know his claim. But I am not unhappy when I think about myself. I think about myself with interest since I feel the opportunity to throw away yet another mistake. I made it a point to develop a healthy relationship to the grind that precedes improvement like Huberman said. I like it when I train to the point that I have an irony taste on my tongue and I the tunnel of my tunnel vision is very narrow. I think physical pain and fearing that you literally piss your pants during training is also “very tightly associated with the experience of negative emotion”.
(It can be reliably learned by just practicing it)
I think that this association is incidental and is caused by the current lack of education and imprinting. At least, I see it as totally realistic to rewire your relationship to yourself.
I hope that I didn’t talk about about both at the same time but just about the side of belief, spirituality and transcendence.
I should’ve made it more clear that I deviate from the normal use of the concept: Religion is never the social institution but stops being a religion at the very moment it gets institutionalised. Institutions are the the social version of what rationalism can representing the psyche. They always inherit a drive to become their own thing. An institutional framework could enhance the religious experience. But it needs to be contained. The Mennonite communities of the Russia Germans (that I know and have in my ancestry) do it quite well. There are just the local communities with no level of authority that is above. All donations are voluntary. (quite well, not perfect!)
Your detailed knowledge of the lore is awesome. I'd love to read a longer write up. Perhaps, an article for https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com would be a nice hobby project for you?
At least, I love your re-interpretation (that is above my payroll of lore details)
Shawn Coyne (2015): The Story Grid. What Good Editors Know, USA: Black Irish Entertainment LLC. ↩︎
I am a Zettler