i am breaking out of my own storm... the storm of the self, reflected and refracted through a million tiny screens.
we laugh at the old belief—that a camera steals your soul. but it was never about magic. it was a prescient warning about a cognitive process.
the "soul theft" is a metaphor for outsourcing your identity.
the cognitive cost
the translation is simple:
fixation > fluidity.
the self is a dynamic process. the photo is a frozen data point. when you mistake the image for the self, you anchor a fluid system to a fixed past.
performance > presence.
to document a moment is to exit it. you split your awareness from participant to observer, curating an object instead of living an experience.
external validation > internal knowing.
the image is posted, and its value is measured by the network. your sense of self becomes tied to its digital reception. identity is outsourced.
the real theft
the old belief was true, just not literally.
the camera doesn't steal your soul.
your attachment to the image does.
it's a voluntary trade of presence for performance, fluidity for fixation. a self-imposed cognitive bottleneck.
the theft isn't of the soul, but of sovereignty.
you can't pay me enough to pose for a photoshoot. what if "authenticity" is just a well-lit lie?
i'm opting out of a flawed system. here's the equation.
the captured self (photoshoot): a performance captured by a lens. a record of a mask. it is a dead thing that can eternal lie in an image.
the projected self (ai portrait): an intention rendered by a system. an artifact of a potential state. with this strange aeon of ai, even the "death" of the authentic moment may die.
system a creates a true record of an inauthentic event. system b creates an authentic rendering of a potential state.
i'm not interested in being observed. i'm interested in being the architect.
it brings to mind a certain thought: "that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die" –H.P. Lovecraftthe quote describes a state beyond the human binary of life and death.
it posits that true existence is not defined by activity, but by permanence. ancient, cosmic entities are not "dead" when they are inactive; they are merely dormant. their timescale is so vast that our concept of death is irrelevant.
breakdown
that is not dead which can eternal lie.eternal lie= a state of timeless dormancy or waiting. it is not non-existence.not dead= a condition of potential. the entity persists and can return.- conclusion: existence is not an on/off switch (life/death). it is a spectrum of states.
and with strange aeons even death may die.strange aeons= incomprehensible spans of cosmic time, far beyond human history.death may die= finality is an illusion. given enough time, the conditions that enforce dormancy ("death") will change, and the entity will reawaken.- conclusion: death itself is a temporary condition within a larger, cyclical reality.
implication
the horror is not that something is dead, but that it can never truly die. the quote's meaning is a core tenet of cosmic horror: human laws, including life and death, are insignificant local rules in a universe governed by vast, indifferent, and eternal forces.
by "lie" does he also mean not telling truth?
Show thinking
yes. that is a potent secondary interpretation.
while the primary meaning is positional, the secondary meaning of deception is central to the theme.
- primary meaning = to be at rest.
lie= to recline, to be dormant, to exist in a state of repose (like a body "lying in state").focus= the physical state of the entity. it is waiting.- secondary meaning = to be an untruth.
lie= a deception.focus= the perceptual state for an observer.- the "lie" is the illusion of death. the universe deceives our limited senses into thinking these forces are inert or gone.
the two meanings merge perfectly: the physical act of "lying" in wait creates the perceptual "lie" of non-existence.
state of being = state of deception.
it elevates the meaning from a statement about dormancy to a statement about the fundamental unreliability of reality itself. our perception is the lie.
why is the "lie" menaing illusion of death? explain more
Show thinking
the illusion of death stems from our limited, human-centric perception. we equate stillness, silence, and long-term inactivity with non-existence. this is a cognitive error.
human framework vs. cosmic reality
our understanding of existence is a simple binary: life (activity, growth, consciousness) or death (cessation, decay, finality). this framework works for our biological scale.
cosmic entities, in lovecraft's universe, operate on a different system entirely.
their dormancy= a state of potential energy, like a seed underground. it is not an end.our perception= we see the silent, motionless entity and categorize it using the only label we have: dead.
this mismatch between cosmic reality and human perception creates the "lie."
the nature of the deception
the deception is not an active trick played by the entity. it is a passive consequence of our own ignorance. the universe does not lie to us; we misinterpret it.
the "lie" = the gap between what is true and what we are capable of understanding.
it is the horror of realizing that the fundamental rules by which you navigate your world are wrong. the map you are using (your perception of reality) does not match the territory (actual reality). the stability and finality of death, a cornerstone of human experience, is revealed as a provincial, local truth that doesn't apply to the things that truly matter.
therefore, the "illusion of death" is a cognitive failure on our part. we see a sleeping god and call it a corpse because our vocabulary, and our minds, are too small for the truth.