>The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ~H.P Lovecraft
What did he mean by this?
>>17020415
Shit be deep yo
Lovecraft's so fucking reddit it hurts
>>17020455
What does this mean?
>>17020415
Pretty obvious, isn't it?
Be glad you're stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality
>>17020415
The universe (and reality in general) is more horrifying and hostile to our human values than most people are ready to accept. If CERN somehow churned out 100% true evidence that there is no God and life has no true meaning, a lot of people would probably go a little crazy, to say the least. I think that was the main theme of his work; no matter how strong any one person is, the universe is simply too vast and unknowable for anyone to make a real impact.
>>17020606
The idea life is utterly meaningless is something that has always occurred to people on its own, and some accept it completely already so i'm doubtful it's that.
In one of his stories there's some ghostbuster shit going on where a guy is using electricity to deal with a spirit that's haunting a house. He seemed to believe technology would explain and bridge the gap between the spirit world and our world the same way Edison and others did with spirit boxes at the time, only he believed what we found there would blow our fucking minds.
>>17020415
"I'm xenophobic, inherently irrational and afraid of black people."
>>17020455
>>17020415
What he is suggesting is that the human mind is too fragile to know everything, thus it is merciful to spare it from the horrors of this world. But that is a very limited concept in itself, probably based on what little he does know about the world and his experiences in learning new things(which from reading up on him would obviously lead to this negative line of thought). To know everything is to know nothing, the universe is contradictory and uncertain even when it seems otherwise, and thus there is an infinite number of ways to perceive an infinite number of different things with all of them being simultaneously true and false. Even simply trying to understand that or say it, is false in and of itself, we know nothing but we also know nothing about how we know nothing, saying that our minds are too small to comprehend it isn't even a spec on the infinite iceberg, and if we were capable of comprehending it with our limited minds cannot know if it would be horrifying, beautiful, maddening or more and none at all. What little we piece together from our perceptions of this infinity is simply more uncertainty, and even if it paints a horrifying image it is up to us to realize that isn't all there is to it and keep going.
Tl;Dr : even when you open your mind to new vistas of reality pieced together from what little you have experienced the smart thing to do is to always realise there is more than this terrifying realisation and keep on looking regardless of the frightful position it seems place you in.
>>17021815
>dat tldr reads like a tool song
Are you Maynard
>>17020415
he's basically saying that sooner or later man will destroy himself for tampering with forces far beyond our control and I agree with him.
