It's not that the Mythos is so often "dumbed down" to be made fun of should be worrisome. It's that the very idea that our modern society can make fun of the idea of an uncaring, nihilistic universe and doesn't have to dumb any part of it down that should be worrisome.
It means we're closer in mindset to the horrible things that lurk in the Mythos than we realize.
Think about this: what do you do as part of your daily life that would be considered impossible, madness-inducing, or cult behavior to someone from the 20s, who'd never heard of a supersonic jet, driven faster than 10 miles an hour, or couldn't even conceive of the notion of m-theory without being driven to fits of disbelief? How many video games, starting with the ever so innocuous A Link to the Past, have taught you to think in four or more dimensions? The very notion of the internet or a flash mob is frightening to contemplate under these circumstances.
Things to think about.
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Oh, come on; get a hold of yourself, man.
ReplyDeleteThose are not "things to think about". That's just contemplating your navel while on some sort of a nihilistic trip.
|"what do you do as part of your daily life that would be considered impossible, madness-inducing, or cult behavior to someone from the 20s"
The future always seems absurd and culturally alien to the past. With science and technology, we are moving forward, so I don't really give a fuck what they would thing. I might find it amusing, though.
|"or couldn't even conceive of the notion of m-theory without being driven to fits of disbelief"
Most people do not understand math, then or now; and the more advanced our physical theories become, the more they distance themselves from human intuitions (because the theories generalize the laws of physics beyond the narrow environment of our ancestral experiences that shaped our intuitions) and the more sophisticated math they include. *Of course* an uninitiated one will be gawking on what the fuck is going on.
However the concept of a universal theory is very old.
Do *you* understand much more of the M-theory that it an attempt of unification of multiple string theories which are unification attempts of the general relativity and quantum mechanics which are extensions of classical mechanics (or rather special relativity) for small dimension and for large gravity at large scales respectively, very laxly speaking?
Would you believe this if physicists did not assert that it was true? Why? Is that even a whole lot of information you believe there at all?
M-theory, as *you* understand it, is certainly not very well defined. It is just something that describes the properties of the outside of the observable universe and is currently the highest considered extension of a general physical theory.
How the hell would you not disbelieve any specific properties of it without the authority of science and without at least looking at its derivation?
I mean: what the hell? Of course you would be doubtful, to say the least.
|"How many video games, starting with the ever so innocuous A Link to the Past, have taught you to think in four or more dimensions?"
ReplyDeleteWell, yes.
That's nice, isn't it?
Does that imply that you or the society or the universe is an uncaring abomination? No, those things are not even related. Absurd for the people of past? Yes. Relevant to your morality? Hell no, how the heck could it be?
(You still cannot imagine even just a 4-dimentional cube. Your mental image is at best a projection onto 3 dimensions. Isn't it? Also, I consider the intuitive grasp of the concept and power of simulation that games give us more interesting and important, but that might be just me.)
|"The very notion of the internet or a flash mob is frightening to contemplate under these circumstances."
Yeah, social engineering and stuff is fun. It *is* a bit disillusioning at occasion. But it worked just as well in the past.
Not recognizing an illusion can and has harmed people. Use the recognition to make the world a better place; for denying it surely won't. Awareness is not a bad thing. The members of a reality-denying society are - in reality - worse of; the society in question is more dystopian and thus - on reflection - a shittier place to live.
Internet is awesome and, yes, game-changing. You have all the right to be frightened (especially on the first encounter). That does not imply that the net effect is negative. Up till now it surely has not been. That something is 'positive', all in all does not meant that in cannot be dangerous. The world has never been one-dimensional like that. Still; given the choice I would take it rather than reject it.
There. I have addressed all of your "things to think about" except for advances in transportation. The bloke from the 20s would be scared shitless by some of our achievements. But so would be a peasant from the middle ages by the world of 1920s. More so, even. Is that bad? Why should it be?
Does us contemplating the abyss and being able to laugh at it makes us monsters, as you suggest? I don't think so. But if it does, I still think it beats covering in fear instead or going mad, as Lovecraft would probably have it. That would be just plainly pathetic.
Generally, revelations do not drive you mad. Revelations do not destroy your morality. At worst, they should make you depressed. Why would you want it the other way?
Why should I be worried by this?
I went mad years ago. Actually helped me out quite a bit. Now I think that science hasn't done enough. iphone tech? What evs. It's sad that the pinnacle of this decades technology will be remembered as the iphone.
ReplyDeleteAs for the mythos, I like using 'Eldritch' I've seen things that would curl a cultists socks. But the crazy thing about it is that what I've seen isn't so much evil as it is unusual. Eventually you start harking in on one truth. Mine is Christianity. Others are things like Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism (Which makes yourself god of yourself, if you can wrap your mind around that) and Scientology.
Ah well. This world ain't as dark as the Mythos would have you believe. But remember, body is the plaything of the mind.
"Those are not "things to think about". That's just contemplating your navel while on some sort of a nihilistic trip."
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, that's what Lovecraft appeared to be writing about, at least, what builds up to At the Mountains of Madness, where the races are revealed as "monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men," and that perhaps it's one direction that humanity is headed.
I think I'm in the "they were men" camp. It's all about sentience. And there's a solid difference between us and the Big C: morality. We still have it; the terror of an indifferent cosmos populated by the truly unimaginable is to me the desolation of a vast sea of intellect alien to our own that lacks a morality we can share. I'm an atheist, a humanist, a rationalist and a bit of a transhumanist, to give you an idea where I'm coming from. Lovecraft's entities are a death of rationalism and of morality, the living force of an antihumanism so complete it does not even regard humanity as an enemy. That's scary, but the bleak vistas of the cosmos? Just a world to explore.
ReplyDeleteAnd then be brainbottled by Migo.
It's funny you bring up the Migo just as a new chapter will soon begin...
ReplyDelete