Cthulhu Mythos Downgrade

[Darksmash]

So I decided to read some lovecraft stories, and I find the current ratings...off to say the least. Hence we are here. Please correct me if I misunderstand anything.

Gonna use this thread as a reference.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/cthulhu-mythos-revisions-part-1.113000/
The Hierarchies:

Spoiler: Hierarchies

“These higher dimensions are not necessarily properties that span the whole cosmology, however, and a single spacetime continuum can easily be construed as having an indefinite number of higher-dimensional planes within itself. Thus, making even a single universe potentially High 1-B.”

I am not exactly sure why an “indefinite” number of higher dimensions equates to potentially high 1-B here. And considering the revelation of those infinite higher dimensions was literally part of the “Ultimate Mystery” it seems very likely that they do indeed encompass the entire cosmology.

“As said above, all of these material, spatio-temporal realms are nothing but an infinitesimal "small wholeness" encompassed by the First Gate, a construct separating the physical realm from the dark formlessness that transcends it. Past it, there are only metaphysical worlds beyond the concepts of time, space and dimensions entirely, which are appropriately described as "trans-dimensional" and "undimensioned" multiple times.”

Lets see a compilation of the Outer Extension being called dimensioned:

"It was this old man, Ward Phillips, who pleaded most loudly against the apportionment of Carter’s estate to his heirs—all distant cousins—on the ground that he was still alive in another time-dimension and might well return some day."

The same Phillips who was later noted by Carter himself to have taken an incomplete(but likely accurate) view(incomplete because Carter’s journey went beyond just being in another time-dimension)

“Gentlemen, there is more to this matter than you think. Mr. Aspinwall does not do well to laugh at the evidence of dreams. Mr. Phillips has taken an incomplete view—perhaps because he has not dreamed enough.”

Moving forward to more quotes

“And then, suddenly, he felt a greater terror than that which any of the Forms could give—a terror from which he could not flee because it was connected with himself. Even the First Gateway had taken something of stability from him, leaving him uncertain about his bodily form and about his relationship to the mistily defined objects around him, but it had not disturbed his sense of unity. He had still been Randolph Carter, a fixed point in the dimensional seething. Now, beyond the Ultimate Gateway, he realised in a moment of consuming fright that he was not one person, but many persons.”

“For the first time Carter realized how terrific utter silence, mental and physical, may be. The earlier moments had never failed to contain some perceptible rhythm, if only the faint, cryptical pulse of the Earth's dimensional extension, but now the hush of the abyss seemed to fall upon everything.”

Just as a bonus, here are some quotes from “The Dreams in the Witch House”:

“He had been thinking too much about the vague regions which his formulae told him must lie beyond the three dimensions we know, and about the possibility that old Keziah Mason—guided by some influence past all conjecture—had actually found the gate to those regions.”

“The hidden cults to which these witches belonged often guarded and handed down surprising secrets from elder, forgotten aeons; and it was by no means impossible that Keziah had actually mastered the art of passing through dimensional gates. Tradition emphasises the uselessness of material barriers in halting a witch’s motions; and who can say what underlies the old tales of broomstick rides through the night?”

Since “gates” is unlikely to refer to anything else, this is likely referring to the gates of the silver key, and explicitly being called “dimensional” and said to lead to higher dimensions.

Now in addition to the above, let me talk about the transdimensional and undimensioned quotes;

“He was in many places at the same time. On earth, on October 7, 1883, a little boy named Randolph Carter was leaving the Snake-Den in the hushed evening light and running down the rocky slope and through the twisted-boughed orchard toward his Uncle Christopher’s house in the hills beyond Arkham—yet at that same moment, which was also somehow in the earthly year of 1928, a vague shadow not less Randolph Carter was sitting on a pedestal among the Ancient Ones in earth’s trans-dimensional extension.”

Transdimensional is literally a synonym for dimensions other than the 3 known ones. I am confused why this is even used as evidence for the first gate being beyond dimensions.This quote is no different from the Outer Extension being stated to be a “dimensional extension” of the earth in one of the quotes above, and should hold the same context.

“Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. For no mind of earth may grasp the extensions of shape which interweave in the oblique gulfs outside time and the dimensions we know.”

Although one quote calling it undimensioned wouldn’t be enough to counter all the instances of it being called dimensioned, I think we can still offer an explanation for this apparent inconsistency. The last line is enough to imply that lovecraft is using the word “undimensioned” in a relative manner, for extensions of shape outside the dimensions we know.

Lovecraft tends to use descriptions like “beyond time and space” in a relative fashion, rather than an absolute one. Although the First Gate was stated to be outside time and space, it was implied that this description was used because the location and time which Carter existed in was outside those that can be described by earthly measures(aka the waking world or the 3 dimensional world):

“By the time the rite was over Carter knew that he was in no region whose place could be told by earth’s geographers, and in no age whose date history could fix. For the nature of what was happening was not wholly unfamiliar to him. There were hints of it in the cryptical Pnakotic fragments, and a whole chapter in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred had taken on significance when he had deciphered the designs graven on the Silver Key. A gate had been unlocked—not indeed the Ultimate Gate, but one leading from earth and time to that extension of earth which is outside time, and from which in turn the Ultimate Gate leads fearsomely and perilously to the Last Void which is outside all earths, all universes, and all matter.”

Likewise, Outer Extension was also noted to have such things as shapes and geometries(although they defied the normal notions of these things)

“All at once the pageant of impressions seemed to achieve a vague kind of stabilisation. There were great masses of towering stone, carven into alien and incomprehensible designs and disposed according to the laws of some unknown, inverse geometry. Light filtered down from a sky of no assignable colour in baffling, contradictory directions, and played almost sentiently over what seemed to be a curved line of gigantic hieroglyphed pedestals more hexagonal than otherwise and surmounted by cloaked, ill-defined Shapes.”

Likewise, in “The Dreams in the Witch House”(The same story which also mentioned the “dimensional gates”) the protagonist notes the abysses of some higher dimension as having bizarre incomprehensible shapes:

“The pavement from which he easily raised himself was of a veined, polished stone beyond his power to identify, and the tiles were cut in bizarre-angled shapes which struck him as less asymmetrical than based on some unearthly symmetry whose laws he could not comprehend.”

Said abysses were explicitly noted to be of the 4th dimension and also have things of unknown colours similar to the region beyond the first gate:

“In the deeper dreams everything was likewise more distinct, and Gilman felt that the twilight abysses around him were those of the fourth dimension. Those organic entities whose motions seemed least flagrantly irrelevant and unmotivated were probably projections of life-forms from our own planet, including human beings. What the others were in their own dimensional sphere or spheres he dared not try to think. Two of the less irrelevantly moving things—a rather large congeries of iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles and a very much smaller polyhedron of unknown colours and rapidly shifting surface angles—seemed to take notice of him and follow him about or float ahead as he changed position among the titan prisms, labyrinths, cube-and-plane clusters, and quasi-buildings; and all the while the vague shrieking and roaring waxed louder and louder, as if approaching some monstrous climax of utterly unendurable intensity.”

Also just a bonus, Carter shouldn’t really be the most credible to provide most literal descriptions of things beyond the first gate, given how it was noted he still had “earthly eyes”

“Evidently he was implanting images of those things which he wished the Companions to dream; and Carter knew that as each of the Ancient Ones pictured the prescribed thought, there would be born the nucleus of a manifestation visible to his own earthly eyes”

I believe all this is enough to show that the gates and vacuas should indeed be the same as the dimensional hierarchy, or even if they encompass multiple dimensions each the overall hierarchy would still be High 1-B.

The Archetypes:

Spoiler: Archetypes

Now I will move onto the Archetypes
So here we have a very explicit quote that the archetypes exist outside dimensions(And they are the only ones that have such a description):

“All descended lines of beings of the finite dimensions, continued the waves, and all stages of growth in each one of these beings, are merely manifestations of one archetypal and eternal being in the space outside dimensions.”

The inconsistency of the Outer Gods participating in what appears to be change is explained using this quote:

“To this variety of angles of consciousness the feeble beings of the inner worlds are slaves, since with rare exceptions they cannot learn to control them. Only a few students of forbidden things have gained inklings of this control, and have thereby conquered time and change. But the entities outside the Gates command all angles, and view the myriad parts of the cosmos in terms of fragmentary, change-involving perspective, or of the changeless totality beyond perspective, in accordance with their will.”

That when the Archetypes participate in change, they take fragmentary perspectives. However, the question is, where do these “fragmentary” avatars of the Archetypes fall in the hierarchy? Currently these fragments are treated as still being transcendentally superior to the hierarchies in the verse, however an important detail overlooked here is that said fragmentary perspectives are utilised for viewing the “cosmos”, which should consistently only include dimensioned regions below the genuine Ultimate Void in lovecraft cosmology as shown here for instance:

“Their main immediate abode is a still undiscovered and almost lightless planet at the very edge of our solar system—beyond Neptune, and the ninth in distance from the sun. It is, as we have inferred, the object mystically hinted at as “Yuggoth” in certain ancient and forbidden writings; and it will soon be the scene of a strange focussing of thought upon our world in an effort to facilitate mental rapport. I would not be surprised if astronomers became sufficiently sensitive to these thought-currents to discover Yuggoth when the Outer Ones wish them to do so. But Yuggoth, of course, is only the stepping-stone. The main body of the beings inhabits strangely organised abysses wholly beyond the utmost reach of any human imagination. The space-time globule which we recognise as the totality of all cosmic entity is only an atom in the genuine infinity which is theirs. And as much of this infinity as any human brain can hold is eventually to be opened up to me, as it has been to not more than fifty other men since the human race has existed.”

To support this, we have multiple statements implying that change is only a thing of “limited dimensions”

“Time, the waves went on, is motionless, and without beginning or end. That it has motion, and is the cause of change, is an illusion. Indeed, it is itself really an illusion, for except to the narrow sight of beings in limited dimensions there are no such things as past, present, and future.”

“After an impressive pause the waves continued, saying that what the denizens of few-dimensioned zones call change is merely a function of their consciousness, which views the external world from various cosmic angles.”

My interpretation is that the perspective of the Ultimate Abyss that Carter went to was in itself just a vague dimensional reduction/intersection of the actual Ultimate Abyss where the Archetypes reside.This is supported by the fact Carter explicitly calls the space beyond the Ultimate Gate as having dimensions:

“Perhaps with eyes and perhaps with imagination he perceived that he was in a region of dimensions beyond those conceivable to the eye and brain of man.”

He was also noted to still just be an infinitesimal fragment of his archetype:

“Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part.”

It was also noted there was some final cosmic reality beyond all perspectives and even the place where Carter stood, likely the “Space outside dimensions” where the Archetypes reside:

“These revelations came with a godlike solemnity which left Carter unable to doubt. Even though they lay almost beyond his comprehension, he felt that they must be true in the light of that final cosmic reality which belies all local perspectives and narrow partial views; and he was familiar enough with profound speculations to be free from the bondage of local and partial conceptions. Had his whole quest not been based upon a faith in the unreality of the local and partial?”

This would be consistent with the region beyond the Ultimate being dimensioned in comparison to this final cosmic reality.

Summary so far:

• The gates and vacuas are the same as the dimensional hierarchy.
• The Archetypes exist outside dimensions.
• Their fragments don’t necessarily exist outside dimensions.

Tier:

Spoiler: Tier

So now that we have established the verse only has a single 1-B hierarchy, the possible tiers we have when dealing with the god tiers are either High 1-B, low 1-A and 1-A.

So what tier is actually accurate for the archetypes? At first glance 1-A seems accurate, but is it really? The general standards for 1-A demand something of a qualitative transcendence over a system of higher dimensions. One would think being stated to be above mathematics should warrant a transcendence of such a factor, however it isn’t exactly like that.
Gilman is quoted to state the Outer Void is beyond mathematics, but his knowledge on higher dimensional mathematics… isn’t exactly as impressive as you might think:

“On reflection, he was glad he had not consulted the still more inquisitive college doctor. Old Waldron, who had curtailed his activities before, would have made him take a rest—an impossible thing now that he was so close to great results in his equations. He was certainly near the boundary between the known universe and the fourth dimension, and who could say how much farther he might go?”

Same with Carter, who actually didn’t gain knowledge on the secrets of higher dimensions and the existence of an infinity of them until the Ultimate Mystery was revealed to him.

So...do the archetypes transcend dimensions by a qualitative margin? I would personally say no(do correct me if I missed something important), since they don’t work any differently from the rest of the cosmology aside from standing at the top and being changeless.

“All descended lines of beings of the finite dimensions, continued the waves, and all stages of growth in each one of these beings, are merely manifestations of one archetypal and eternal being in the space outside dimensions. Each local being—son, father, grandfather, and so on—and each stage of individual being—infant, child, boy, young man, old man—is merely one of the infinite phases of that same archetypal and eternal being, caused by a variation in the angle of the consciousness-plane which cuts it. Randolph Carter at all ages; Randolph Carter and all his ancestors both human and pre-human, terrestrial and pre-terrestrial; all these were only phases of one ultimate, eternal “Carter” outside space and time—phantom projections differentiated only by the angle at which the plane of consciousness happened to cut the eternal archetype in each case.”

Everything is obtained by intersections of the Archetypes(Also notice the emphasis on “finite” dimensions), which is also how simple higher dimensions work in the verse:

“Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity.”

There is also the fact that the same higher dimensional analogy goes up to the “Archetypal Infinity”, which can be interpreted as the infinity in which the archetypes reside, and the “heights” describing it falling within the same system or framework, although being relatively “reachless”, which can be interpreted as being relatively outside infinite dimensions but not by a qualitative margin. In more support of this, we see the “Ultimate Mystery” which was revealed to Carter by the supreme archetype only ever talking about an Infinity of dimensions at most, followed by something outside these dimensions. There is also no explicit mention of infinite dimensions being below the fragmentary avatars of the Archetypes. Hence my personal view is that the Archetypes should be around low 1-A at best. However, 1-A can also be seen as viable if you go for a highballed interpretation I guess.

Clearing some misconceptions:

Spoiler: Misconceptions

Another thing commonly misunderstood is this section:

In the face of that awful wonder, the quasi-Carter forgot the horror of destroyed individuality. It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence’s whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign—yet in a flash the Carter-facet realised how slight and fractional all these conceptions are.

This right here, is not implying that the conceptions of the supreme archetype are fractional because it is a fragment of some higher entity. In context of the story, these conceptions were fractional because they did not include any information about dimensions in the first place. This ties in with the Ultimate Mystery(another misunderstood thing).

What the Ultimate Mystery actually is is the knowledge behind the secrets of the cosmos and dimensions, as seen at the end of chapter 4 of “Through the gates of the Silver Key”

“What you wish, I have found good; and I am ready to grant that which I have granted eleven times only to beings of your planet—five times only to those you call men, or those resembling them. I am ready to shew you the Ultimate Mystery, to look on which is to blast a feeble spirit. Yet before you gaze full at that last and first of secrets you may still wield a free choice, and return if you will through the two Gates with the Veil still unrent before your eyes.”

This then immediately ties into chapter 5 of the same story, which reveals information about even the functioning of basic dimensions to Carter:

“The waves surged forth again, and Carter knew that the BEING had heard. And now there poured from that limitless MIND a flood of knowledge and explanation which opened new vistas to the seeker, and prepared him for such a grasp of the cosmos as he had never hoped to possess. He was told how childish and limited is the notion of a tri-dimensional world, and what an infinity of directions there are besides the known directions of up-down, forward-backward, right-left. He was shewn the smallness and tinsel emptiness of the little gods of earth, with their petty, human interests and connexions—their hatreds, rages, loves, and vanities; their craving for praise and sacrifice, and their demands for faith contrary to reason and Nature”

“Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.”

Hence it seems pretty clear that the Ultimate Mystery is nothing but the secrets of the cosmos.

Final Summary:

• The hierarchy of dimensions/gates/vacuas is High 1-B.
• The archetypes are low 1-A, possibly 1-A due to existing in the space outside dimensions.
• Their fragments aren’t necessarily outside dimensions, and, although vague, at best likely only reach High 1-B.
• The ultimate mystery isn’t some layer in the cosmology, but actually just the secrets on the workings of the cosmology.

Agree: @QuasiYuri, @Apex_PredatorX, @RandomGuy, @Saiyan40009, @Ovy7, @TheRicardoSama, @Rikimarox2, @Shuradou, @Darksmash, @ImNot4nUser, @Livinmeme, @Guardian_Doge

Disagree: @ShivaShakti , @Planck69 , @BrackishBrineBroth, @Roachman40, @Elizhaa, @DaReaperMan, @Infinity_Shun, @Ultima_Reality, @Tyranno223, @Emirp sumitpo, @Brak, @DaringAttitude4, @OnsokunoSonic, @ZeedKrakenZilla, @Rez, @ZetaMarishi, @KingPin0422, @Abu2411, @Antvasima, @InfiniteDay, @Shizuka

Neutral: @Great_king_frog

 

[Stocking.exe]

Somehow this one gimme a vibe of Shinza fallen

 

[Ningenron]

This won't end well "Grabs Popcorn"

 

[TOAAPRESENCE1]

Now this I have to see

 

[Dereck03]

following

 

[Chasekilleen]

Oooh boi, this ain't gonna be good

 

[Guardian_Doge]

Of course, I'm keeping a neutral stance. Definitely too early for me to inclusively vote.
The arguments here are well represented and I do think bring valid points to the table so in the meantime, nice job.

 

[Rez]

Now this will be fun

 

[ImNot4nUser]

the storm after the calm...

 

[deonment]

ooooooooh boy, this is gonna be a travesty that will end horribly, lemme just grabs popcorn sit back and enjoy the show

 

[Rikimarox2]

Neutral currently, leaning on agreement.

Darksmash out here nerfing the strongest verses smh. First shinza, now CM.

 

[deonment]

whats next, umineko?

 

[Rikimarox2]

whats next, umineko?

Whatever it is, I hope it's not SCP.

 

[Guardian_Doge]

whats next, umineko?

Perhaps so.....

 

[Stocking.exe]

I doubt it would be TES

 

[QuasiYuri]

whats next, umineko?

Actually, yes

 

[QuasiYuri]

Also I agree with the CRT, since we already discussed it together.

 

[Bernkastelll]

 

[StrymULTRA]

If Outer Gods aren't longer Outerversal, shouldn't we change the 1-A tiering name?

 

[Bernkastelll]

If Outer Gods aren't longer Outerversal, shouldn't we change the 1-A tiering name?

the name was due the outer gods? Really?

 

[Rez]

If Outer Gods aren't longer Outerversal, shouldn't we change the 1-A tiering name?

It still works so not necessary

 

[Ovy7]

Actually, yes

IMO, any big CRT for WTC currently is unwise (considering the new material, i.e. new Higu anime, Higu Mei, possibly Ciconia this year), be it an upgrade or a downgrade one (cause I also already have an upgrade one ready). But anyway, this is pretty off-topic (we can discuss more on PMs or Discord).

OT: I'm neutral, but leaning pretty heavily towards agreeing based on the quotes I see posted in the OP.

 

[Bernkastelll]

Saying that I agree because I don't like Cthulhu Mythos being tier 0 is biased?

im not saying that I don't like it

I am serious manner, I am leaning towards agreeing, but I won't give any further opinion until I see some counters

 

[QuasiYuri]

IMO, any big CRT for WTC currently is unwise (considering the new material, i.e. new Higu anime, Higu Mei, possibly Ciconia this year), be it an upgrade or a downgrade one (cause I also already have an upgrade one ready). But anyway, this is pretty off-topic.

I was mostly joking, why our profiles have some stuff that deserve to be downgraded, I'm too lazy and uninterested by doing CRTs to do so, at least for now.
Although since it's "Third Domain" related, I doubt Higu or Ciconia will add much?

 

[Ovy7]

I was mostly joking, why our profiles have some stuff that deserve to be downgraded, I'm too lazy and uninterested by doing CRTs to do so, at least for now.
Although since it's "Third Domain" related, I doubt Higu or Ciconia will add much?

Higu maybe not, tho Mei already give some stuff that would make the Humand Domain High 1B. Ciconia on the other hand could be the End All Be All of WTC.

We can talk more on PMs or Discord tho, to keep this as on-topic as possible

 

[Fixxed]

Interesting

 

[Shyouu]

Damn, neutral for now.

 

[Rez]

I think we should call some cuthulu mythos supporters before proceeding any further

 

[Rez]

Not like we can proceed any further anyway since actual staff input will be necessary for that

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

I guess call in Ultima

 

[Rez]

Pretty sure they knows about this thread already

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Can't say that was expected, but, neat, regardless.

I am not exactly sure why an “indefinite” number of higher dimensions equates to potentially high 1-B here. And considering the revelation of those infinite higher dimensions was literally part of the “Ultimate Mystery” it seems very likely that they do indeed encompass the entire cosmology.

I don't see how. What happened to Carter was simply a revelation of the fundamental nature of reality to him, which happened to include a descent through this infinite chain of dimensions, all the way down to the world of humans. In fact, the infinity of dimensions described in Through the Gates is described as a "small wholeness" contained within the boundaries of the First Gate, seeing as the 3-dimensional world of man is called an "infinitesimal phase" of it:

Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.

Lets see a compilation of the Outer Extension being called dimensioned:

This statement is quite vague, and, as you pointed out, not exactly coming from the most reliable of sources, but it should be noted that this likely is not referring to the Outer Extension at all, given that Carter's journey through the external voids of the universe was comparatively very brief, and not really his final fate. Rather, after his meeting with the Supreme Archetype, his "consciousness-plane" is shifted to another one of his equivalents across the multiverse, namely the wizard Zkauba, from Yaddith:

In another moment the dream-sense vanished, and he felt rather as one just awaked from a dream. The ultimate abyss—the BEING—an entity of absurd, outlandish race called “Randolph Carter” on a world of the future not yet born—some of these things were parts of the persistent, recurrent dreams of the wizard Zkauba on the planet Yaddith. They were too persistent—they interfered with his duties in weaving spells to keep the frightful bholes in their burrows, and became mixed up with his recollections of the myriad real worlds he had visited in his light-beam envelope. And now they had become quasi-real as never before. This heavy, material Silver Key in his right upper claw, exact image of one he had dreamt about, meant no good. He must rest and reflect, and consult the Tablets of Nhing for advice on what to do. Climbing a metal wall in a lane off the main concourse, he entered his apartment and approached the rack of tablets.
Seven day-fractions later Zkauba squatted on his prism in awe and half-despair, for the truth had opened up a new and conflicting set of memories. Nevermore could he know the peace of being one entity. For all time and space he was two: Zkauba the Wizard of Yaddith, disgusted with the thought of the repellent earth-mammal Carter that he was to be and had been, and Randolph Carter, of Boston on the earth, shivering with fright at the clawed, snouted thing which he had once been, and had become again.
The time-units spent on Yaddith, croaked the Swami—whose laboured voice was beginning to shew signs of fatigue—made a tale in themselves which could not be related in brief compass. There were trips to Shonhi and Mthura and Kath, and other worlds in the twenty-eight galaxies accessible to the light-beam envelopes of the creatures of Yaddith, and trips back and forth through aeons of time with the aid of the Silver Key and various other symbols known to Yaddith’s wizards. There were hideous struggles with the bleached, viscous bholes in the primal tunnels that honeycombed the planet. There were awed sessions in libraries amongst the massed lore of ten thousand worlds living and dead. There were tense conferences with other minds of Yaddith, including that of the Arch-Ancient Buo. Zkauba told no one of what had befallen his personality, but when the Randolph Carter facet was uppermost he would study furiously every possible means of returning to the earth and to human form, and would desperately practice human speech with the buzzing, alien throat-organs so ill adapted to it.
The Carter-facet had soon learned with horror that the Silver Key was unable to effect his return to human form. It was, as he deduced too late from things he remembered, things he dreamed, and things he inferred from the lore of Yaddith, a product of Hyperborea on earth; with power over the personal consciousness-angles of human beings alone. It could, however, change the planetary angle and send the user at will through time in an unchanged body. There had been an added spell which gave it limitless powers it otherwise lacked; but this, too, was a human discovery—peculiar to a spatially unreachable region, and not to be duplicated by the wizards of Yaddith. It had been written on the undecipherable parchment in the hideously carven box with the Silver Key, and Carter bitterly lamented that he had left it behind. The now inaccessible BEING of the abyss had warned him to be sure of his symbols, and had doubtless thought he lacked nothing.

Given how Phillips seems to talk about this state of affairs as something which Carter ultimately ended up as and which he can eventually return from, that seems far more likely to be what he's referring to. Especially since returning from the Ultimate Abyss at all is treated as an impossibility in the context of the verse, and something which only one person (Kuranes, ruler of Celephais) ever managed to do, through unknown means. And that, to reiterate, Carter's journey throughout the abyss was the midpoint of his journey, and not the current state of affairs at the time of the story. The whole thing is even narrated by him while in Zkauba's body, too:

"Stop!” The hoarse, oddly alien voice of the Swami held a tone beyond all mere earthly fright. “I told you there was another form of proof which I could give if necessary, and I warned you not to provoke me to it. This red-faced old meddler is right—I’m not really an East Indian. This face is a mask, and what it covers is not human. You others have guessed—I felt that minutes ago. It wouldn’t be pleasant if I took that mask off—let it alone, Ernest. I may as well tell you that I am Randolph Carter.”

Moving on:

Likewise, Outer Extension was also noted to have such things as shapes and geometries(although they defied the normal notions of these things)

That's a bit out of context, since those geometric shapes are very explicitly simply Carter's mind trying to make sense of the transcendental reality around him using symbols and impressions. So, it's not the literal "form" of the place:

Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. For no mind of earth may grasp the extensions of shape which interweave in the oblique gulfs outside time and the dimensions we know.

And, by the way:

Also just a bonus, Carter shouldn’t really be the most credible to provide most literal descriptions of things beyond the first gate, given how it was noted he still had “earthly eyes”

I'm glad we agree on this much, yes.

The last tidbit of this excerpt directly leads into another one of your objections, so, may as well:

Just as a bonus, here are some quotes from “The Dreams in the Witch House”:

The "twilight abysses" described in that story are certainly not equatable to the realms beyond the First Gate, no, given that, in the same story, Gilman deduces that those higher-dimensional planes could be a part of a single universe, too, something which the narration notes after the whole ordeal where he experiences those planes by himself (And he also uses the term "phases," which is the same one that Through the Gates utilizes), as you can likely confirm by yourself (I'd also like you to hold onto that thought, by the way, since it'll eventually lead into an issue I have with the way we currently lay out the cosmology):

Such a step, he said, would require only two stages; first, a passage out of the three-dimensional sphere we know, and second, a passage back to the three-dimensional sphere at another point, perhaps one of infinite remoteness. That this could be accomplished without loss of life was in many cases conceivable. Any being from any part of three-dimensional space could probably survive in the fourth dimension; and its survival of the second stage would depend upon what alien part of three-dimensional space it might select for its re-entry. Denizens of some planets might be able to live on certain others—even planets belonging to other galaxies, or to similar-dimensional phases of other space-time continua—though of course there must be vast numbers of mutually uninhabitable even though mathematically juxtaposed bodies or zones of space.

In fact, higher-dimensional spaces are often said to capable of being expressed as features of parallel universes. For instance, Carter muses that, with the slightest change to his plane of consciousness, he could become a 4-dimensional being in "an older spacetime continuum."

A slight change of angle could turn the student of today into the child of yesterday; could turn Randolph Carter into that wizard Edmund Carter who fled from Salem to the hills behind Arkham in 1692, or that Pickman Carter who in the year 2169 would use strange means in repelling the Mongol hordes from Australia; could turn a human Carter into one of those earlier entities which had dwelt in primal Hyperborea and worshipped black, plastic Tsathoggua after flying down from Kythanil, the double planet that once revolved around Arcturus; could turn a terrestrial Carter to a remotely ancestral and doubtfully shaped dweller on Kythanil itself, or a still remoter creature of trans-galactic Shonhi, or a four-dimensioned gaseous consciousness in an older space-time continuum, or a vegetable brain of the future on a dark radio-active comet of inconceivable orbit—and so on, in the endless cosmic circle.

Although one quote calling it undimensioned wouldn’t be enough to counter all the instances of it being called dimensioned, I think we can still offer an explanation for this apparent inconsistency. The last line is enough to imply that lovecraft is using the word “undimensioned” in a relative manner, for extensions of shape outside the dimensions we know.

That isn't really the only quote stating the existence of undimensioned planes in the cosmology, no. For instance, you have this excerpt, which states that Carter wished to journey through the "gulfs where all dimensions dissolve into the absolute."

Next morning he was up early, and out through the twisted-boughed apple orchard to the upper timber-lot where the mouth of the Snake-Den lurked black and forbidding amongst grotesque, overnourished oaks. A nameless expectancy was upon him, and he did not even notice the loss of his handkerchief as he fumbled in his blouse pocket to see if the queer Silver Key was safe. He crawled through the dark orifice with tense, adventurous assurance, lighting his way with matches taken from the sitting-room. In another moment he had wriggled through the root-choked fissure at the farther end, and was in the vast, unknown inner grotto whose ultimate rock wall seemed half like a monstrous and consciously shapen pylon. Before that dank, dripping wall he stood silent and awestruck, lighting one match after another as he gazed. Was that stony bulge above the keystone of the imagined arch really a gigantic sculptured hand? Then he drew forth the Silver Key, and made motions and intonations whose source he could only dimly remember. Was anything forgotten? He knew only that he wished to cross the barrier to the untrammelled land of his dreams and the gulfs where all dimensions dissolve in the absolute.

And although this can admitedly be interpreted as referring to the Ultimate Void, the Outer Extension past the First Gate is already stated to carry some of the revelation that Carter went through after crossing the final barrier into the world of archetypes, and Umr at-Tawil's magic was the only thing keeping him together. So, the realms just past the First Gate do partake in this "absolute" to some extent too:

As the waves paused again, Carter began to comprehend, vaguely and terrifiedly, the ultimate background of that riddle of lost individuality which had at first so horrified him. His intuition pieced together the fragments of revelation, and brought him closer and closer to a grasp of the secret. He understood that much of the frightful revelation would have come upon him—splitting up his ego amongst myriads of earthly counterparts—inside the First Gate, had not the magic of ’Umr at-Tawil kept it from him in order that he might use the Silver Key with precision for the Ultimate Gate’s opening. Anxious for clearer knowledge, he sent out waves of thought, asking more of the exact relationship between his various facets—the fragment now beyond the Ultimate Gate, the fragment still on the quasi-hexagonal pedestal beyond the First Gate, the boy of 1883, the man of 1928, the various ancestral beings who had formed his heritage and the bulwark of his ego, and the nameless denizens of the other aeons and other worlds which that first hideous flash of ultimate perception had identified with him. Slowly the waves of the BEING surged out in reply, trying to make plain what was almost beyond the reach of an earthly mind.

Furthermore, calling it "undimensioned" in spite of it being a higher-dimensional construct isn't really something that can be properly explained, seeing as higher-dimensional objects do still extend into the directions of space in which lower ones exist. A tesseract still has length, width and height, and so calling it an undimensioned object is incorrect in every sense of the word, for instance.

So what tier is actually accurate for the archetypes? At first glance 1-A seems accurate, but is it really? The general standards for 1-A demand something of a qualitative transcendence over a system of higher dimensions. One would think being stated to be above mathematics should warrant a transcendence of such a factor, however it isn’t exactly like that.
Gilman is quoted to state the Outer Void is beyond mathematics, but his knowledge on higher dimensional mathematics… isn’t exactly as impressive as you might think:

I wouldn't say this is a hard cap on his knowledge regarding higher-dimensional spaces, though. Given that it's very clearly referring to him actually unravelling the exact equations behind the functionings of the fourth dimension of the universe, which is quite different from simply mathematically defining some arbitrary n-dimensional space, the latter of which is far simpler. As I showed above, Gilman even starts to study the existence of an indefinitely-multiplied number of spatial dimensions that can exist within a single continuum, in paragraphs that come way before the excerpt you're quoting, so, saying his knowledge is limited to that is pretty out of the left field.

Hence it seems pretty clear that the Ultimate Mystery is nothing but the secrets of the cosmos.

I agree, yeah.

The stuff about the Archetypes we can likely tackle after we go through the above, since, like I said, it leads to a few problems I have with the current interpretation of the cosmology myself.

 

[Shyouu]

Interesting

 

[Grand_Saver_Ritsuka]

imma just grab a popcorn and watch the fireworks. IF CM ain't tier 0, then the debate battle that is soon going to happen sure is.

 

[RedDoragon]

Really interesting....

 

[OnsokunoSonic]

I'm gonna try to answer some of these based on the knowledge i have on what's going on

Lets see a compilation of the Outer Extension being called dimensioned:

This is...
Anyway, them being called dimension doesn't debunk that they're Outerversal, it's just so us, the reader, understand what Lovecraft is trying to say.

Just as a bonus, here are some quotes from “The Dreams in the Witch House”:

Not trying to be rude but the statement that comes from is from a normal human if i remembered correctly

And lastly

“These higher dimensions are not necessarily properties that span the whole cosmology, however, and a single spacetime continuum can easily be construed as having an indefinite number of higher-dimensional planes within itself. Thus, making even a single universe potentially High 1-B.”

I am not exactly sure why an “indefinite” number of higher dimensions equates to potentially high 1-B here. And considering the revelation of those infinite higher dimensions was literally part of the “Ultimate Mystery” it seems very likely that they do indeed encompass the entire cosmology.

No they don't, the First Gate already encompass those dimension as a "small wholeness"

and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones.

The ultimate mystery isn’t some layer in the cosmology, but actually just the secrets on the workings of the cosmology.

I do believe that the Ultimate Mystery is something that works behind the world of Cthulhu Mythos, the first time i read it, i already think that it's something that works behind the world. Didn't we already accepted this?

Side note:
I do believe everything in the Cthulhu Mythos is based on the reader interpretation, as long as there's nothing debunking it, then it's alright

Also, sorry if i sound rude

 

[Shadowbokunohero]

following.

 

[M1keyOnDiscord]

imma just grab a popcorn and watch the fireworks. IF CM ain't tier 0, then the debate battle that is soon going to happen sure is.

Basically what Ima do now. take some if ya'll want some.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Basically what Ima do now. take some if ya'll want some.

Can I get some too, or is this only for spectators?

 

[OnsokunoSonic]

Spectators only