A question /x/
What do you think about all of what Lovecraft wrote?
Do you think it may be true or only fiction?
It's metaphorically true, in that his writing basically represents a thiest's revelation of how astrophysics actually works. The true blind idiot god that will eradicate the universe is thermodynamics.
>>17024934
...whoah
read all his stuff. Never considered that
>>17024934
You just blew my fucking mind
>>17024943
He was writing in an era when the reality of how the cosmos works was being fully appreciated and understood. Astrophysics, geology, biology archeology, all were becoming more widely studied and their implications were, and are, pretty bleak and terrifying for a person with with a cozier, but more fragile, sense of how the universe works. Lovecraft's world was one where it was becoming clear, both to scientists and to the wider populace, that our planet was an infinitesimal piece of a vast, unfeeling universe, a rock spun out of sand and cooked in the heat of a tiny star lost somewhere in one of billions of galaxies, a rock which has held life for just the blink of an eye in the universe's perspective, life that's been killed and killed and killed countless times, and which certainly will be killed and killed and killed countless more before the planet is either eaten by its own sun or freezes as the star burns out. As far as they knew.
Remember that which is arguably his most famous passage, the opening of the Call of Cthulhu:
>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 light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
The madness he fears is widespread nihilism (also popular in his era), and atheism, with the new dark age being the rise of (from a east-coast theist's perspective) anti-intellectual movements like fascism and communism. In other words, discovery would inevitably destroy the, one way or another.
>>17024934
In Layman's terms please?
>>17024985
His writing is pretty good but that piecing together knowledge->disaster idea is retarded
>>17024985
>In other words, discovery would inevitably destroy the world, one way or another
What I meant to type. Although, the character limit made me cut down what I wanted to say, so that's really not what I meant to type either. What I wanted to type would be more like...
>In other words, scientific discovery had reached a point where soon, it would inevitably destroy the world as he understood it, one way or another. Whether the widespread acceptance that a supernova or an asteroid could flash-fry all life on the planet without a single shred of morality involved would spark mass-nihilism, or that a government would use its powers to indoctrinate people into godless worship of the state, either option was equally likely to Lovecraft, and equally unavoidable.
>>17024990
Enjoy the most existentially terrifying page on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
I should clarify, because I just remembered this is 4chan: When I say "theist", I suppose I mean that Lovecraft was concerned with the logic and cultural impact of religion, in the same way Nietzsche was. That's not really what "theist" means, but I'm having trouble remembering the right word for it. He identified as Atheist, saying he didn't believe in "a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality".
It's interesting we later found cephalopod intelligence to be completely crazy.
http://io9.com/5858783/the-growing-evidence-for-octopus-intelligence
Most of his ideas came to him in dreams or visions so maybe he was being influenced by them.
>>17024934
Wow anon, that is really fucking astute. Well said.
Which story is it where the guy lives in a tower his whole life, then starts climbing it, climbs for hours and hours, and ends up at a door that opens onto solid ground?
He was certainly right on one thing.
seeing a giant octopus dude always freaks people out.
Nyarlathotep has got to be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad
>>17025787
The Outsider , I believe.
>>17024917
Spend some time in Providence, Rhode Island and it will become very clear where his ideas came from.
> spooky spirits: in many parts of the occult there are spooky spirits, some of them may have tentacles. check
> green note: ghost sightings are attributed to certain frequencies; also binaural beats. check
> necronomicon: grimoires exist. the book necronomicon exists in real life (by different authors). check
> insanity through knowledge: many occultists are suspected to actually be schizos. check
lovecraft confirmed for real occultist
>>17024917
Are you autist or something? This is science fiction for a reason. He made it as fiction why would anyone believe it's real?
>>17024917
Partially true, in the fact he was inspired by his own night terrors as a child, combined with his xenophobic fear of the unknown.
Some parts of his worldview, especially those expressed by his self-insert in "Beyond the Silver Key" are incredibly interesting, but nothing more--they don't hold any water.
>>17030295
Fard arrived in 1930.
"Nyarlathotep" was written in 1920.
