Thanks.
I do wonder, however, to what extent your appreciation of the Lovecraftian outlook on the uni-/multiverse presupposes a kind of suspension of disbelief? I mean, at one point in your essay you refer approvingly to Lovecraft's intergalactic mytho-materialism as a kind of precursor of the ancient astronaut hypothesis. Yet, in one of the threads here on Dissensus, you decry this very theory as utter bollocks. Wouldn't such outright dismissal of the idea of ancient extraterrestrial contact have to extend to Lovecraft's conception of the cosmos as well? Or is the latter exempt from commonsensical scrutiny because it's, after all, just Sci-Fi literature? However, if it were just that - fiction - then the grand philosophical ramifications of Lovecraft's work would be rendered void. What I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, a serious engagement with Lovecraft, and Sci-Fi in general for that matter, means to acknowledge that reality could be a lot weirder and stranger than our current scientific paradigm would lead us to believe.
I think you're making the mistake of being too literal here. Lovecraft didn't
actually believe that tentacled monstrosities from the nethermost gulfs of space lurk beneath the Pacific, did he? Any more than Tolkien
actually believed that elves and wizards used to walk the earth or Chris Carter
actually believes there's a sinister government conspiracy to hybridise humans with aliens. And as a reader or watcher of fantasy and sci-fi, you don't have to believe in them to enjoy them, either.
Lovecraft was a rigorous, die-hard materialist. There's no more evidence for the existence of the Great Old Ones than for the existance of God. I think the 'cosmic indifference' he tried to put across in his fiction corresponds, in
real-world terms, to the fact that humanity could be wiped out tomorrow by the impact of a huge meteor or some catastrophic epidemic. Moreover, for Lovecraft, civilised Anglo-Saxondom could be (in fact, was in the process of being) smothered and overwhelmed by the surging tides of 'lesser' races. And the transcendent horror of his fiction comes from the fact there is no-one 'out there' or 'up there' looking out for us, no-one even to mark our passing, let alone step in and save us. I think the 'grand philosophical ramifications' of his fiction are unscathed by this verdict.
In a nutshell: How do you reconcile your sympathy with a vision of reality, wherein transdimensional alien gods exist and occult forces rule, with your strictly scientific personal world view that is, as far as I can tell, wholly dismissive of extraterrestrial, supernatural or spiritual subject matter?
Terry Pratchett, oddly enough, is someone who has an excellent appreciation of the fact that people don't have to believe that stories are
literally true for those stories to be powerful and important to them. There's a school of thought that much of modern-day religion started out as myths that both the priests who recounted them and the parishioners who listened to them knew, in their heart of hearts, were exactly that - myths - but were nonetheless seen as valuable because they helped people make sense of the world through allegory and metaphor. And that all the evils we associate these days with religious fundamentalism, from Afghanistan to Alabama, arise because many people have lost the art of allegorical understanding and instead insist on these old stories being *literally* true (hence idiocy such young-Earth creationism). I had a big argument with zhao on here a while back about 'the rational vs. the irrational' (more or less), and he seemed to imply that the 'blinkered', 'arrogant' (etc. etc. etc.) rational-scientific worldview "lacks many kinds of mystery and sense of wonder found in traditional cultures" (
just found it) and then namechecks some magic realist authors, including Salman Rushdie. As if Rushdie were some illiterate, superstitious villager who lives in a world of actual ghosts and witches! The dude was the son of a lawyer and a teacher and was educated at Rugby and then Cambridge, FFS. That doesn't stop him writing fantasy-imbued fiction and my own rationalist/materialist tendencies don't stop me enjoying it.
Look at your own sentence: "How do you reconcile your sympathy with a vision of reality..." - visions, by definition, are images which have no basis in the material world. That doesn't mean they're not important or powerful.