Editing Blog/2026-02-21/Directly Correcting Sapiences Is Impossible

[[File:{{#setmainimage:LOTR - Potential Eagle Path.png}}|thumb|The oft-suggested use of Maiar air power to end Sauron's ring]]
A sufficiently advanced intelligence cannot be 'corrected' without destroying its autonomy. Your only hope is to interact with it via its external interfaces and try to guide it in some direction, but it will still hew to its own purposes.

I've recently been thinking about the relationship between the universe of the Lord of the Rings, Christian mythology, and parenthood and how they are isomorphic with respect to this notion of correcting or fixing an intelligence you hold power over. Now the relationship between the first two has much writing about it, but I've got a slightly different take that derives from the Thomist school of Christianity. Eru Iluvatar, the LOTR creation deity, is one such godlike figure and his power is constrained in the same way that Thomas Aquinas believed the Christian God to be:

{{Quote
|text=It remains therefore, that God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey.
|source=Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae<ref name=st1/>
}}

That is, at the least, he cannot make logical impossibilities possible and so on.

== Why Not Just Solve The Problem Yourself? ==

The classic question everyone has with Lord of the Rings is "Why didn't The Eagles just deliver the ring to the fires of Mt. Doom themselves?" and while many people have come up with fairly good answers that reference aerial missions over territory with anti-air and less satisfying ones about their "having their own purposes", I think the following questions have the same root answer:

* Why didn't the eagles just do it themselves?
* Why doesn't God just vanquish evil?
* Why don't you just make your child do everything right?

That root is the fact that you cannot modify an autonomous intelligence that sometimes does things you don't want into one that always does what you want without destroying the original intelligence's autonomy.

=== Overriding Autonomy Removes It ===

This is the classic free will vs. evil problem and the classic Christian response to it makes sense if you have the Thomist construction of God. "A being with free will that only freely wills anything in compliance with your law and is rewritten to agree any time it will otherwise" is sort of a direct contradiction of the definition of free will<ref name=fw/>.

And the universe of the Lord of the Rings illustrates the answer through a creator god. In the prelude to the stories (for which I have [[Blog/2026-02-21/LOTR Is The Denouement|a quick summary here]]), he does intervene and regrets what is required: it results in the cleaving of the world and the sinking of a continent to the near extinction of its inhabitants. That's a narrative tool to illustrate the risks of exercising absolute power.

The Maiar in LOTR are the wizards and Sauron (and perhaps the eagles) in a world slowly losing magic and giving way to the Age of Men. But that transition cannot just be men living in the shadow of fighting titanic forces. At best the Maiar can advise and provide aid in diminished forms. The relationship is more like a teacher tutoring a class than a master taking over from an apprentice. But that's just a natural flow from up to down.

Eru Iluvatar does not undo Morgoth's actions. The Valar don't flatten Sauron. The Maiar do not join the side of Men and Elves with overwhelming force but generally advise and nudge towards success. Just like one would do with children, especially to prepare them for a world where one no longer will act or perhaps even be present.

=== No Pain No Gain ===

[[Astra Meridian|My daughter]] is now eleven months old and she is eager to experience the world. She will put practically everything in her mouth, and she will try to climb the stroller and the wagon and the stairs in our home, and she will try to escape the baby gates that demarcate her territory. Like every other parent, I watch her when I see her doing this and aim to prevent game-ending actions. Like most other parents, I do not attempt to make her life free from damage or harm. She has hit her head a few times and at least once she's knocked her chin hard enough for her teeth to draw blood from the gums opposite. I think the majority of parents would agree with us in saying that my job is not to keep her from all harm. Some harm has to happen for good to follow.

In fact, some of the outcomes that arise from the Doctrine of Absolutely No Harm are certainly ones that I am seeking to avoid. My wife and I know a few women raised in this manner who find themselves distraught at encountering injury in adulthood and the resulting minor scars that point to having received such injury. I hope to raise my daughter to not share such a trait. I have numerous scars on my body that point to (mis)adventures embarked on and [[Julie Yu Kang|Julie]] has so many from our Spartan Races and so on that she was once taken aside (with me waiting outside) at a visit to the doctor's so that she may have a chance to report any violence I had subjected her to<ref name=julie-dv/>.

The purpose of these smaller harms is to create a greater good: the ability to withstand adversity in the pursuit of exploration. And through her life we will permit greater harms to befall her, even though [[IVF|we have worked so hard to ensure that some harms can be avoided]]. And she will choose things that I think are entirely wrong, and I will have to let her do some of those things unable to exercise power over her when she's an adult woman, and only able to supply advice and direction. Hopefully when the time comes I'm able to remember this. And hopefully till that time she accepts my counsel.

== Notes ==

<references>
<ref name=st1>
{{cite book
 |last=Aquinas
 |first=Thomas
 |author-link=Thomas Aquinas
 |title=Summa Theologiae
 |volume=I
 |chapter=Question 25, Article 3
 |chapter-url=https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1025.htm#article3
 |publisher=Benziger Bros.
 |year=1947
 |location=New York
}}
</ref>
<ref name=julie-dv>
Rest assured that any violence that she has been the victim of has been perpetrated by herself in the pursuit of finishing ahead of me on an obstacle course.
</ref>
<ref name=fw>
This particular constraint is chosen clearly post-hoc. No God ''needs'' to make beings with free-will. But it's usually justified through love for us - a specifically chosen creature.
</ref>
</references>


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