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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
1/ Reading and reflecting on HP Lovecraft while on a plane. I’ve kept going back to him every now and then since my teenage years. I usually can’t read more than one short tale at a time, but I can’t go for too long without reading one either. One of the themes that I enjoy most in his writings is this idea —foundational to the cosmic horror genre— that the universe is incomprehensible to us puny humans. Not that I believe it to be true (I am confident in science’s explanatory power) but I find it a compelling literary device. It creates tension in the unknown unknowns, which are infinitely many, lurking beyond our limited experiential horizon. By contrast, classic horror (e.g., Stephen King’s) circumscribes evil to a mundane object or monster (a car, a clown, a dog, etc.).
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Janna
@janna
John Vervaeke talks similarly abt horror: 'classic' horror merely startles with fear but true horror is when your sense of contact w/ reality is undermined, which occurs when you meet the incomprehensibility of the universe or the finiteness of your knowledge. So horror isn't primarily associated w/ fear but instead insanity or madness
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
I wonder if Gödel and Cantor both became mad at the end of their lives from pondering the mind- and reality-breaking concepts of theirs (incompleteness, infinities)
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