Timeline for Are there any (natural) scientists in Middle-earth?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 14, 2019 at 10:13 | comment | added | chiggsy | You need these loremasters gathering lore because it provides datasets from which patterns can be extracted and hypotheses tested. They are iiving databases. Taxonomy, symbology, Natural Language Parsing, decison theory, these kind of things are reasonable avenues to take if you deal with large datasets. Developing regular expressions means you can delegate the searching for data, regex means they would not need to be able to resd the language to be of service. | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 22:14 | comment | added | Invisible Trihedron | @DavidW You might be surprised. In high school I was taught physics by a man who also taught Latin (in 1971). We had to deduce Newtonian equations, e.g., to describe the revolution of the Moon around the Earth. It was rather satisfying. Anyway, Ioreth was talkative but not stupid. Tolkien did not portray her as using methods that wouldn't work; presumably she would have pruned such methods. She was open to new ideas (athelas). I wouldn't call her the equivalent of a modern scientist, but again, her predecessors might have been more observational. (How did our own herb-lore originate?) | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 21:57 | comment | added | DavidW | @NKCampbell No, that is not what science does. Lore is repeatedly passed down and always considered correct. Science is endlessly re-examining its roots, and outdated ideas are relentlessly pruned. Do you know anyone who can even describe Aristotelian physics anymore? | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 21:43 | comment | added | NKCampbell | But isn't that what all science really does? Pass on the lore (ie - facts) and then build on it for new discoveries? Or, do you contend that one has to re-prove Newtonian physics prior to doing any new cosmology work? | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 21:03 | comment | added | Invisible Trihedron | Mind you, Ioreth was merely memorizing and passing down this lore rather than making new observations, but presumably someone (Adanel, Andreth) made observations to pass down. | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 20:59 | comment | added | Invisible Trihedron | According to Merriam-Webster, lore is "a particular body of knowledge or tradition; something that is learned; traditional knowledge or belief; knowledge gained through study or experience; something that is taught." This certainly includes herb-lore, which Tolkien specifically mentions. In Minas Tirith there was a woman healer, Ioreth, who was wise in the lore of herbs. Botany, in other words. | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 20:52 | comment | added | DavidW | I don't see how this isn't completely opposite to the question. The question is specifically about people who study the world, not history and lore. | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 20:40 | history | answered | Invisible Trihedron | CC BY-SA 4.0 |