Part One
Gnon, the reversed acronym of Nature or Nature’s God, is the quasi-anthropomorphic reification of the natural law and teleology of our universe, whether supernatural or emergent. Gnon tends (“tends” being the important operative word in teleology) overall to favor forms most able to optimize for their own continued existence and spread, and of course to favor the universal tendency to entropy. Or rather, these things tend to happen for the usual reasons, and we name that tendency “Gnon”. The study of Gnon is to the highest level of abstraction (teleology) as the study of physics is to the lowest level of abstraction (mechanistic physical law).
The Lovecraftian Cosmic Perspective is the horrifying realization that the interests of a natural, emergent Gnon overall do not coincide with those of man, and that man is vastly outgunned. The correct response to this knowledge is a sanity-cracking fear, followed by a frantic and blasphemous search for a way to defy or capture Gnon. A useful model of Gnon thus becomes a prime research objective.
Part Two
Within Gnon in the context of sociological happenings here on contemporary earth, we can identify a few semi-distinct subprocesses, each with their own characteristic tendencies. Their sum is Gnon, but their individual tendencies do not always run parallel. We have given the most prominent of them names from various mythologies, to help illustrate and remember:
Azathoth. Death. Evolution. The blind idiot alien god that shapes our biological nature and guides our genetic destiny according to who lives and who dies. Contrary to popular belief, the telos of evolution is not progress to more “advanced” forms; it will ruthlessly twist organisms for a few points of inclusive genetic fitness, and abandon “important” features of an organism (e.g., our intelligence) as soon as they stop being critical to fertility.
Cthulhu. Pestilence. Hosted Evolution. Memetics. Epidemics. The tendency for popular forms to be those most able to propagate themselves by capturing transmission institutions and getting repeated. Contrary to popular opinion, the “marketplace of ideas” does not select for truth and good, but virulence. Truth/good selection only happens if the mass idea-propagation systems structurally favor truth and good, which they often do not. The current result being that “Cthulhu may swim slowly, but he only swims left.”
Within Gnon in the context of sociological happenings here on contemporary earth, we can identify a few semi-distinct subprocesses, each with their own characteristic tendencies. Their sum is Gnon, but their individual tendencies do not always run parallel. We have given the most prominent of them names from various mythologies, to help illustrate and remember: Azathoth. Death. Evolution. The blind idiot alien god that shapes our biological nature and guides our genetic destiny according to who lives and who dies. Contrary to popular belief, the telos of evolution is not progress to more “advanced” forms; it will ruthlessly twist organisms for a few points of inclusive genetic fitness, and abandon “important” features of an organism (e.g., our intelligence) as soon as they stop being critical to fertility. Cthulhu. Pestilence. Hosted Evolution. Memetics. Epidemics. The tendency for popular forms to be those most able to propagate themselves by capturing transmission institutions and getting repeated. Contrary to popular opinion, the “marketplace of ideas” does not select for truth and good, but virulence. Truth/good selection only happens if the mass idea-propagation systems structurally favor truth and good, which they often do not. The current result being that “Cthulhu may swim slowly, but he only swims left.”