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Twenty years ago I was thrown out of science dept in school because I spoke of the universe being a hologram, and the basics of what has become chaos theory. I probably would have become a scientist when these ideas had been accepted then.
No one ever explained to me whydragons always look like dinosaurs, whilst dyno's have been "reinvented" some 200 years ago, and no human ever came close to knowing them.
Dragons turn up in a lot of different cultures as well...personally, I like 'em....but I have only heard the theories that dinosaur bones have been perhaps discovered by these early peoples even back then (have even heard of tales of giant monitor lizards --goanas--perhaps living in Australia today???) and they decided to imagine what creatures like that might be like.....that "dragons" were just symbolic. But were they????? I can't answer if there were other creatures around with mankind which could be called dragons then for sure.....medieval depictions of them are of rather small creatures not the huge things seen in modern tales. And there have been comparisons with the Komodo lizards (how could people have known of these....yet with seagoing exploration perhaps they were discovered and news of their existence brought back....some paintings show a resemblence.). With many things there is often a seed of truth....then people imagine the rest. Anyway they capture our imagination still and in a way live on.
Science shows that the truth is even stranger than any fiction...and I think what we will learn in the future will even dwarf the wildest imaginations of any time before us...those who "have it all neatly figured out" will be in for a surprise. Those who feel we won't figure it out will also be in for a big surprise.
The first bones of dinosaurs that were discovered weren't even considered as "bones".
People did not try to invent a shape, based on bones, but eventually saw tin the bones the skeleton of a dragon, that they already knew from mythology and description.
Well, I'll just have to be content with feeling dragons are in some way real....
Those who enjoy dragon imagery will really love the Nazgul dragon steeds in LOTR3...there are a lot more of them, and really nice close ups as well of all their toothy glory.
I suppose it would be too much to ask of Peter Jackson to consider making a film of "The Hobbit"....but it certainly would be nice....and I'd love to see what his fx crew would come up with for Smaug.
I am looking forward to seeing the "Return of the King" soon myself and have really enjoyed the first two parts of this film trilogy.
I have the DVD's of these and watch them frequently. Great film making which really seems to do J.R.R. Tolkien's story justice.
I was sent a link recently to a very interesting article by Jay Weidner concerning J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpeice which you may find insightful & revealing.
[righton] Excellent article anepu!!! I particularly enjoyed the pages 6 and 7 and these comparisons are just what I believe fit with the things happening today in the world as well. Nobody listens to me though ...and this world does seem consumed by materialism, power, greed and the quest for immortality....accepting mortality is just not popular, and every effort is made to deny it or realize it's worth...and a lot of strange ideas are born of that.
Anyway, those are just my opinions, but Tolkien's writings do indeed incorporate all these themes and I, too, feel that is why they resonate with so many...people "read" the stories, but feel the truths within them.
....and from the last page this quote is also important: "For having been gifted by the Divine with 'free will', in every moment, we
have the power to choose our own path."
Thanks for sharing the link to the wonderful articles, anepu!!!
---Maya
Many people want to live forever, but when it rains the whole weekend, they're bored to death.
This said: free will is an illusion. We are sound asleep, and as long as there is no real life-threatening need, we will stay asleep and dream of gods, evolution etc. We respond like predictable machines to impulses we interpret out of memory. We believe in personality, but that's another creation of the mind. We are never present as our presence is underdeveloped because the mind takes it all like a tyrant, we are always in the past or in the future.
And we will all die in our sleep as we never woke up.
There's never been any point to any of it. What is real and what is an illusion? And what is truth? Have fun with all of it!
Just live. "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think!" [bustagut] "Don't worry, be happy!"
"It won't make any difference."
In the tradition of false prophets everywhere I'll have some fun making "false predictions".....let's see, what I "see" is things will not come to any sort of abupt end by the magic year of 2012 or 2015 or even 2038... etc. (People will not be able to physically travel back in time...sorry folks, that stays in the lab on just a particle level, time doesn't really exist like we think of it and things that apply at the particle level don't apply in the same way to us.....smoke and mirrors ) Just more pollution, more fighting off and on, people still wanting more money more time and more stuff. More science mistakes as well as some beneficial discoveries...but basically pretty much "business as usual." Money makes the world go 'round...that won't change. Natural disasters come and go as they always have...earthquakes, bad weather, volcanic eruptions, the west coast of North American won't be flooded away, and at some point there's a rock out in space with our name on it that will temporarily slow the rate of "progress" at some point, be devastating where it hits....but we'll be eager to get back on that track in spite of things, and continue right on into an even more technological future. There will be a manned moon base. We will become part "machine" gradually. The children of every generation will not care of what things were like at an earlier time, nor will they really care to "go back" to any such ways....they only know the "now" and so things will continue as ever they have with children "used to" and accepting things their parents never could have imagined would be possible...even less freedoms and more govt. interference in everyone's lives. The doomsdayers will keep claiming the world is about to end as we know it....and the only way they are right is that in every second our existence is over, until the next, and it's all about change. Even if we were nuked back to a stoneage existence we would endeavor to put it all right back pretty much as it was before that, making the same mistakes as before, we don't learn from history we just repeat it because of human nature.
If we aren't supposed to learn anything while here then I'd say we've been pretty successful! [bustagut] Hells bells! Class dismissed.
LOTR3 - Return of the King 
...and this world does seem consumed by materialism, power, greed and the quest for immortality....accepting mortality is just not popular, and every effort is made to deny it or realize it's worth...and a lot of strange ideas are born of that. 
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