Outside

Art by Luna Rose

I can't even imagine what the fellow didn't recognize that was outside the here and now. ---

Why not start with a definition from a source outside of this website. «Merriam-Webster» dictionary, here.

“If I were a writer,” Owen said, “how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating, to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.” –Don DeLillo, The Names

‘The outside’ is whatever (that is) outside (of) something else. Such as outside a particular field of apparent knowledge. Most living things ‘instinctively’ or operatively know what the outside is; at least if knowing is equated with action, such as cell action; and that's why people have fences; and personal boundaries — even cats and other life-forms do. It's often "romantically" referred to as The Wild, Chaos, The End of the World, an Other Dimension, The Strange—it is referenced in Weird Tales, and frequently imagined in novels and philosophy, along with the sciences, such as in Physics — e.g. as The Other Side of the Big Bang.

The point that is most disturbing about this, is that Land--as Mackay notes--believes that philosophy has played an important role in this destructive desire for the outside (expressed variously as the one, the ideal, God, noumena, Being, etc.). [orgyofdolphins, Mar 3, 2017]

The Outside is also known as The Transcendent with overlapping and alternative associations, as well as the Other. Referring to ghosts, indeed an ‘outside’ phenomena, see «The Others»; for a team dealing with what comes from The Outside, see «Ghostbusters», and for early conceptions of the Horrifyingly Other, see H.P. Lovecraft's.

Philosophy has always dealt with the Outside, but what human venture hasn't? The concept seems essential to the experience of life-forms, especially since it cannot be but highly synonymous with otherness (the Other), and since it is so other, so high in otherness, it is high in synonymosity with the alien, or even the unknown, the void, the mysterious, The Nothing.

Define

1.  The part of something that faces out; the outer surface. quotations ▼
2. The external appearance of something.
3. The space beyond some limit or boundary. quotations ▼
4. The furthest limit, as to number, quantity, extent, etc.

   It may last a week at the outside.

5. (dated, Britain, colloquial) A passenger riding on the outside of a coach or carriage. 

c. 1500, "outer side," from out + side (n.). The adjective is attested from 1630s; the preposition from 1826; the adverb from 1813. Phrase outside of "with exception of" is from 1859.

See

• See: outside; God; Xenostream(s), Culture Shock, Xenoshock, Weirdness, Outsideness, Freak, Freakiness, Freaked Out, Transcendence, Ecstasy, Entheogens, Rapture, The Liminal, Inception; The Unconscious; Heaven; Afterlife; The Other Side; Frontier; Limits of perception
• Outside Forces: Archons; Aliens; Angels; Most folks are just puppets of logoi. Of eidoi. Or ideas. Demons. Gods. Spirits. Whatever you wanna call that. Aeons,  Angeloi, égrégore, Watchers, Thoughtforms, trends, habits, Noumenon, Deacons, Powers, Paters, Principalities, elohim, etc. capitalized or not. 
• The outside as hostile: Adverse Potentials; the Old Ones; Evil; Satanic Forces; Satan. 
• The other from another time: Terminator, Les Viseteurs, ...
• Authors who wrote largely on Outside-in (transcendent manifestation or access): Evola; Nick Land; Guénon; Nietzsche; Deleuze;
• The Outlaw; The rebel; revolutionary; wild man; the misfit; the Outsider; or iconoclast.