[etage3]

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."

Aldous Huxley had a similar intuition in his essay, The Doors of Perception: the body perceives everything, and environment (including culture, traditions etc.) teaches the man to close some doors lest he be overwhelmed. Mescaline and other entheogens are a way to open most of the doors. Artists (such as Van Gogh) are people with a different set of doors open/closed.

[samplatt]

If we're posting relevant quotes, Lovecraft is a favourite: “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."

[artsyca]

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.

^^ this part is what piques me because we are finally combining our knowledge from disparate fields and the indicators are truly that it's much more insidious than anyone can possibly imagine so the red pill blue pill moment is upon us as a humanity

[ColanR]

> combining our knowledge from disparate fields and the indicators are truly that it's much more insidious than anyone can possibly imagine

What are you specifically referring to here? QM?

[freeflight]

The Internet and the www?

It's given humanity somewhat of a global consciousness, but not everything that comes out of that is benign or benevolent.

[artsyca]

It's turning into the abyss that gazes back at us --

[artsyca]

In general! We're applying all sorts of ideas across various fields. Genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence. Mathematical approximations of processes -- applications to societal control. - everywhere you look knowledge is accelerating and it's either going to lead to new enlightenment or a new dark age

[samplatt]

I like to think it's especially applicable to the modern age. The industrial age spelled doom of the environment and climate, and the (dis)information age executed it through the power of greed.

We pieced together all the disassociated information required for our own destruction... and the best part? It was totally and insidiously inevitable.

[artsyca]

The man died knowing nothing about the impact his work would have on the collective consciousness http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx

[OGWhales]

I learned of a theory that sacred geometry—often seen after ingesting psychedelics—is simply the ‘signal noise’ within our own brain.

The removal of filters allows us to see this noise and would explain why these patterns are so commonly seen during psychedelic trips.

[clucas]

Scott Alexander has been thinking about this sort of thing recently:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/10/ssc-journal-club-relax...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/lots-of-people-going-a...

Both are very interesting reads about perception, hallucination, and mental illness.

[jammygit]

I strongly recommend reading that essay, it is wonderful