12-07-2004, 02:40 PM | #1 | ||
avocatus diaboli
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Elvish Perception of Time
In another thread, we brushed up against the subject of how Elves perceive the passage of time, especially as compared to how Men perceive it. There seemed to be some differences of opinion regarding this topic.
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12-07-2004, 02:49 PM | #2 |
the Shrike
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I think it comes down to the differentiation between the perception of time. That is, building upon what shannon said, the passage of time passes as physically the same as the time that mortal men run on, BUT the perception of time is differentiated between the mortal and immortal kindred.
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12-07-2004, 02:51 PM | #3 |
Swan-Knight of Dol Amroth
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My take is that the Elves percieve Time just as Men do. As Wayfarer says, immortals just have a different attitude to it. Even humans, as they grow older, see Time differently than children or adolescents do. One of my older patients told me recently that he hadn't even finished breakfast hardly before it was time for lunch. Probably something like that but exponentially different must happen to the Elves.
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12-07-2004, 02:57 PM | #4 |
The Insufferable
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Really, I'd bet anything that Elves experience the same things, juston a longer scale.
Recently I found myself looking back and saying 'Man, 2004 is almost done already? Seems like just yesterday it was just 2003. And the whole Y2K thing seems like it was just a little while ago'. Somehow, I imagine that if I were to live for another thousand years, what's to say I wouldn't look back and say 'Man, it's 3000 already? Seems like it was just 2000 a few days ago.' In fact, I'd go so far as to say that elves don't even percieve time differently. The difference is in the way they remember past events (having much more history to recall) and the manner in which they anticipate future events (without the sense of urgency that comes from being mortal). Since experience only occurs in the present, and time proceeds equally for all entities, any different perception of time is wholly subjective.
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12-09-2004, 08:24 PM | #5 | |
avocatus diaboli
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This seems a bit like saying that everyone sees the world the same way, no matter how large or small they are. If an amoeba had eyes , it could never perceive the world around it the way we do. And I would like to see you try to prove that time proceeds equally for all entities.
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12-10-2004, 12:48 AM | #6 |
Queen of Nargothrond
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I don't think that the Elves even considered the passage of time until they met Men and especially when Men died. The Sil says that when Beor died "the Elves saw for the first time the swift waning of the lives of Men and the death of weariness that they knew not in themselves." So, the notice and effects of time came with Men to the Elves maybe.
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12-11-2004, 03:21 PM | #7 |
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to elves, hundreds, or even thousands of years could be like human days, even though the same amount of time is passing
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12-11-2004, 04:10 PM | #8 | |
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Last edited by Embladyne : 12-11-2004 at 04:15 PM. |
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12-11-2004, 10:30 PM | #9 | |
Queen of Nargothrond
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"Whither go you?" she said. "North away." he said: "to the swords, and the siege, and the walls of defence - that yet for a while in Beleriand rivers may run clean, leaves spring, and birds build their nests, ere Night comes." AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide |
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12-12-2004, 01:03 PM | #10 | |
Swan-Knight of Dol Amroth
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12-15-2004, 08:59 AM | #11 |
AngAdan
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A key to understanding their view of time is their memory, which is photographic. Legolas says that "to Elves memory is more like the waking hours than like a dream". Their can experience their lives of hundreds of years ago as if it were today through their memory. Thus passage of time is not slow, but does not matter much. All their past life is as current to them as is today, its one large combined experience to them, rather than a sequence with the oldest parts fading away before the new. Thdy have no past, but rather a huge present and near present.
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12-15-2004, 10:37 AM | #12 |
Queen of Nargothrond
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Yes. This is much like what Finrod tried to explain to Andreth in the Athrabeth. Good point Lefty.
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01-02-2005, 02:36 AM | #13 | |
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01-02-2005, 06:05 AM | #14 |
The Insufferable
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Well... the idea which I keep having is that an elf might think of time differently because he has experienced so much more of it.
It sort of ties into aging. When the two are newborn, they are completely indistinguishable. When they are very young, they are still very similar. Then they start to diverge. I think at the age of 10, a human and an elf would think of time in almost the same fashion. At the age of 100, they would be biologically different (one young and one old), and so might have different expectations, but they would still think of the past in essentially the same way. Now, if you were to take a human (say, Tuor) and grant him the longevity of the Eldar, he would experience hundreds, maybe thousands of years. I don't think that Tuor would experience time or percieve its passage any differently when he was mortal - but he would certainly think of it in a slightly different way when he was 1000 than he did when he was 50, but only in the same way that a human in their 60s thinks of time differently than someone in their teens - because they've experienced more. It's not a matter of there being anything essentially different - it's the matter of perspective. Much like the way someone who has never left the town of their birth might have differing opinions of distance than someone who has circumnavigated the globe.
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01-12-2005, 07:00 PM | #15 |
Honourary Elitist Inklette
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At the moment, I'm taking a bio class on the mechanisms the human brain uses to store memories, and it's interesting to reread this thread with what we've discussed in the class in mind.
I wonder if the way in which elves recall memories would vary from that of the average human, since elves seem to consistantly have such vivid memories. Maybe it would just be the way in which they perceive the recalled memories.... |
01-21-2005, 04:33 PM | #16 |
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Now that I'm, reading one of the many Tolkien encyclopedia's, I have a new theory.
If a Valarian Age is more or less 1000 years long in mortal time, and since the elves (in my mind anyway) are kind of like men who are closer to Valar, perhaps elves experience 500 years in the same amount of time that Men experience 1000 and gods experience 100
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01-21-2005, 11:15 PM | #17 |
The Insufferable
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No.
You're missing the point. Completely. Men, Elves, and Valar are all subject to time - one second passes at the same speed for everyone, unless some sort of temporal distortion has occured (which it hasn't). If they did exist in an altered time rate, humans would move twice as fast as elves and ten times as fast as the valar (basically). That's just not the way it works. There are differences in the scale of measurement, but those are only for convenience. There isn't any difference in the rate at which events are experienced,
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01-22-2005, 01:51 PM | #18 |
avocatus diaboli
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I don't know if this is exactly what ItalianLegolas is getting at, but if so, I likewise have wondered if time passes differently in Valinor than in ME... I don't have the quotes to prove it right now...
...and my mom is pulling me off the computer so I can't add anything more right now...
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01-22-2005, 02:17 PM | #19 |
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that was pretty much what i was going for, it was just a random idea I got when I was reading anyhow.
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01-24-2005, 02:13 PM | #20 |
Queen of Nargothrond
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I forget exactly how it was explained about how time passed in Valinor in the Years of the Trees, but they went through cycles of 12 twelve hours, and one would wax ehile the other waned. However, I would think for all the lived in Middle-earth, that they experienced the passage of time the same, after the rising of the sun and moon.
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"Whither go you?" she said. "North away." he said: "to the swords, and the siege, and the walls of defence - that yet for a while in Beleriand rivers may run clean, leaves spring, and birds build their nests, ere Night comes." AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide |
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