Compare these two quotes: 'We have now not only travelled through the land of pure understanding, and carefully inspected each part of it, but we have also surveyed it, and determined the place for each thing in it. This land, however, is an island, and enclosed in unalterable boundaries by nature itself. It is the land of truth (a charming name), surrounded by a broad and stormy ocean, the true seat of illusion, where many a fog bank and rapidly melting iceberg pretend to be new lands and, ceaselessly deceiving with empty hopes the voyager looking around for new discoveries, entwine him in adventures from which he can never escape and yet also never bring to an end' – Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason '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, The Call of Cthulhu Uncanny, isn't it? Y'see, what Lovecraft does is precisely what Kant warns us not to do - and now we can never escape and the horror will never end, and The Old Ones won't even care...Welcome to the new dark age... Tell me what you think.
Um, my head hurts???!!!! but I thought I would take this opertunity to say welcome back! where did you go??? anyways... I think I will have to read your post a thousand times to get it!
Ah, I moved to England - which was a huge step for me. I think the next shudder is coming, as it looks like I might be moving to London to work in an import/export company...scary. Sure I'll blend in and not get mugged or anything...
Onoria, I live in London and I get scared easily. I haven't really experienced anything bad about the place yet.
Duly noted and opinion shared to a degree, but we're getting off topic! I hate talking about the meatworld when I'm online. I was just fascinated by the juxtaposition of the identical image of human reason as phenomenal island in a vast sea of incomprehensible noumenal reality, and the idea that if we ever understood that reality beyond human knowledge, that it would be so horrid that it would destroy us.
