Under Lovecraft’s indifferentism humans become just another form of matter in the universe,
simply another form of entropic fodder in a mechanistic cosmos. Lovecraft’s indifference is deeply
connected, as ST Joshi has shown, to his commitme…particularly in his early works, is adamant about the necessary material pre-condition of all thought and all being. Nature is completely indifferent to human existence how is it then that intelligence is removed from the developments of na…
Ernst Haeckel
scientist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Ernst Haeckel was a 19th-century naturalist and philosopher whose materialist worldview—the insistence that all thought and being emerge from material conditions alone—provided Lovecraft with a theoretical anchor for cosmic indifference. The course readings mobilize Haeckel to explain how Lovecraft's horror fiction articulates a mechanistic universe that strips humans of special ontological status, reducing them to mere matter subject to entropy. This connection enables the seminar to locate the philosophical roots of a distinctly modern alienation aesthetic that would later inflect cybernetic and AI discourse.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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