Madness suggested that a lot went missing from draft to word-count-capped GdM publishing. But thats just an excuse, he should have planned better if he knew he was going to run out of words. Still though, maybe he's just no good at paring down stories/ideas  to consumable morsels, and/or time restraints kill his prose. He certainly hasen't had a publication deadline and a word cap in recent years, so maybe he's rusty.

In short: Nonmen and Nonmen Society must be derived from something that Came Before, due to the Causality Principle.  If not, this has wide reaching implications for the Causality Principle and Earwa as a whole.  Although it seems that the Nonmen are as oblivious to their ultimate origin as humans are to theirs.

Personally, I hope there is some kind of not too distant link between them (go back far enough and everything has a common ancestor. I'd prefer a somewhat more recent ancestor )

I feel like their colors are largely muted or near-grayscale, with perhaps some exceptions with bronze or copper {the Copper Tree of Siol, etc.}.  Color has significant implications for language and communication though, at least for Men.  So for Nonmen their muted world's characteristics would have to be read in entirely alien ways....

“Their civilisation is millions of years old. Once, the Engineers expressed themselves as humans do - taking pleasure in music, colours and story - but they’re able to see in more dimensions than we do. Their art and ornament exist on planes imperceptible to human senses. Their constructions look dark and grim to us; but the Engineers’ eyes see far more than our own. The individual Engineers live for a hundred thousand years. Aeons ago, their race abandoned sex and gender, reproducing by more abstract methods. In recent millennia they have ceased to reproduce altogether.”
~ Jon Spaihts, “Alien Master Narrative”, script notes.

The Nonmen do not sequester religion / worship into a certain societal niche, all of their activities are religious / worshipful in nature.  They are obsessed with the living form, beyond mere fascination, and this indicates their terror....  But terror of what?  Terror of being flesh and blood?  Or terror of the living form's connection with the Outside, and the potential of Damnation?

Auriga, who said that last quote?

Why does the possible lack of Meaning prevent you from finding things that are personally meaningful?

First, definitely read the link suggested by Phallus Pendulus as it's an interesting response to Ligotti.

Just seems the more I read/watch/listen the less sure I am about the supposedly obvious conclusions.

Finally, regarding consciousness as an emergent phenomenon I've read critiques that this seems to lead to Chalmers' dreaded panpsychism anyway.