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You should read his stuff, general goon recommendation is Blindsight you can read it here for free, including PDF and .mobi versions. https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm What's your favorite Watts quote? Any suggestions for authors that write similarly, be it style, ideas explored, or general cynical worldview?
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Apr 15, 2023 08:17
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Is any of his other stuff worth reading? I loved Blindsight but didn't feel like reading the sequel given the overwhelming consensus that it's a lot worse.
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Apr 15, 2023 08:32
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My favourite bit was the in hindsight obvious revelation that resurrecting hyper intelligent human predators was a bad idea
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Apr 15, 2023 08:35
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distortion park posted:Is any of his other stuff worth reading? I loved Blindsight but didn't feel like reading the sequel given the overwhelming consensus that it's a lot worse. The rifters trilogy reads like a beta version of blindsight that's more ~dark and edgy~, good for a look if you're desperate. The Freeze Frame revolution and the short stories in the same world is pretty good and a bit easier to understand imo Beyond the Rift is his short story collection, it varies by the story but pretty good Angry Sentient Tumor is his nonfiction, which I personally didn't love but it was nice to have something from him that was new (well, 2019. man is not a fast writer) https://toronto2033.com/fiction/gut-feelings/ is a short story of his I like https://web.archive.org/web/20200320151124/https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/37D is another one that seems to have been scrubbed off the face of the internet for some reason idk
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Apr 15, 2023 09:03
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distortion park posted:Is any of his other stuff worth reading? I loved Blindsight but didn't feel like reading the sequel given the overwhelming consensus that it's a lot worse. echopraxia is not a lot worse, it's just not as good. there's a lot more worldbuilding and i guess less of a central "whoa" premise. i kind of preferred it as a reading experience - it's simpler and easier to chug through - whereas the ideas in blindsight were a lot more interesting
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Apr 15, 2023 11:11
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distortion park posted:Is any of his other stuff worth reading? I loved Blindsight but didn't feel like reading the sequel given the overwhelming consensus that it's a lot worse. It's not a lot worse, Blindsight is just really good. It's like saying I don't want to eat a hamburger cause I once had a really good steak.
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Apr 17, 2023 20:24
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The very beginning of Echopraxia is dynamite, some of the highest density of crazy ideas per page of anything I’ve ever read. It just doesn’t keep up that pace. And as I noted in one of the other threads here, the vampire character falls a little flat compared to the first book. Valerie is somehow even more aloof and inscrutable than Sarastri.
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Apr 18, 2023 00:10
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Well you see in Blindsight, vampires are more intelligent than humans and able to look at things and analyze things with a different perspective. This evolved to help them hunt humans as prey. In Echopraxia, vampires already know everything that is ever going to happen and plan their chess moves out to the 20th dimension. Also they can re-write human brains on the fly with tapping noises.
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Apr 18, 2023 03:27
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distortion park posted:Is any of his other stuff worth reading? I loved Blindsight but didn't feel like reading the sequel given the overwhelming consensus that it's a lot worse. The Freeze-Frame Revolution and related short stories are pretty good. It's also pretty depressing, imo. In a "cold and uncaring universe" sort of way. Pretty compelling stuff, though. There's some elements of horror in there too (more so in the newer story fragments). Edit: I'd recommend starting with Freeze-Frame and then continuing reading the rest in order of publication, because the first short story feels like a prototype of the kind of story he was going for. The main character shares the same name, but it feels like a different person. And there are some other small discrepancies, iirc. Not surprising considering The Island is from 2009 and the novella is from 2018. itry fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 07:00
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I liked Blindsight for being chock full of sci-fi insanity even though if I thought about it too much I would probably disagree with its thesis about the value of consciousness. It's fun.
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Apr 18, 2023 15:18
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Blindsight has lots of cool ideas but the writing is a slog. i had a hard time picturing anything he was talking about
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Apr 18, 2023 16:23
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here's a visual aid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkR2hnXR0SM Watts' rifters site has been down for a while now, not sure what the deal is.
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Apr 18, 2023 19:37
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a.p. dent posted:Blindsight has lots of cool ideas but the writing is a slog. i had a hard time picturing anything he was talking about Did you imagine that you are Siri Keeton?
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Apr 18, 2023 19:44
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zoux posted:Did you imagine that you are Siri Keeton? my gf does all the time
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Apr 18, 2023 20:42
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one thing I was expecting Blindsight to go into, but it didn't much as far as I remember, was some sort of speculation about how the phenomenon of consciousness arises. on what basis do they decide that the aliens aren't conscious? why are their bags atoms and electrical fields not conscious but ours are? i take the point that consciousness might not be an advantage but why is it a disadvantage, perhaps it's a passive by product of ... something
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Apr 18, 2023 20:46
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uber_stoat posted:here's a visual aid. this is cool
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Apr 18, 2023 21:00
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blindsight is great, freeze frame revolution is great everything else kind of sucks the man himself is a gigantic sourpuss grump and pretty annoying distortion park posted:one thing I was expecting Blindsight to go into, but it didn't much as far as I remember, was some sort of speculation about how the phenomenon of consciousness arises. on what basis do they decide that the aliens aren't conscious? why are their bags atoms and electrical fields not conscious but ours are? i take the point that consciousness might not be an advantage but why is it a disadvantage, perhaps it's a passive by product of ... something I think they realize it after they realize rorschach is doing chatgpt to them and then again after they recognize that its crawlers cannot communicate either. Frankly though I don't think it's that well established in the text, you kind of have to already know the point Watts wants to make about consciousness and chinese rooms e: looked it up and I'm partly right, Sarasti figures it out using vampire brain logic based on how rorshach/the crawlers respond to communication and the mental model they don't have, and forces Siri to recognize it right before everything goes to poo poo Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 22:42
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our cousins lie about the family tree with nieces and nephews and Neanderthals. We do not like annoying cousins
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Apr 18, 2023 22:55
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Seconding The Freeze Frame Revolution very under discussed Watts
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Apr 19, 2023 02:48
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:blindsight is great, freeze frame revolution is great Isn’t that just a natural byproduct of being a marine biologist as climate change really kicks into high gear?
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Apr 19, 2023 04:17
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I forgot he wrote the novelization of crysis 2 lol, anyone read that?
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Apr 19, 2023 04:20
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Jenny Agutter posted:I forgot he wrote the novelization of crysis 2 lol, anyone read that? Also interested if it is good or nof
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Apr 19, 2023 04:52
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 I’m gonna find out
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Apr 19, 2023 05:41
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:blindsight is great, freeze frame revolution is great this is kind of weird because it's inferring something about the crawlers based on their lack of certain behaviours - what if they just don't behave however Sarasti thinks they should? they're weird aliens after all there's no reason their behaviour should be particularly understandable to even vampires. i think the setup is supposed to be that the total alien entity is conscious but the individual crawlers aren't (that's basically what Siri implies when he says the Chinese room argument is wrong) but even that seems like it's being made on thin evidence. im not a vampire though
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Apr 19, 2023 07:28
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Loved Blindsight. From his short stories, I find that Malak pops up in my mind from time to time when people are discussing AI.
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Apr 19, 2023 08:45
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Starfish is really good too, but the other books in the series aren't. My man loves bleak. Also, it's a good thing that we sent bleeding edge techs, a vampire AI, and a synthesist to Rorschach and not 60 minutes journalists https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1647742247444553732 The whole time I'm like "Chinese room, you're describing a Chinese room"
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Apr 19, 2023 16:33
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distortion park posted:this is kind of weird because it's inferring something about the crawlers based on their lack of certain behaviours - what if they just don't behave however Sarasti thinks they should? they're weird aliens after all there's no reason their behaviour should be particularly understandable to even vampires. that's what I thought too, but I think the idea Watts wants to get across is that consciousness is wasteful and unnecessary, and the reason rorschach is hostile towards humanity is that without a model of consciousness it interprets human communication as a virus/attack, and that human consciousness in general is a rare maladaptive fluke and if we ever want to survive or be competitive on a galactic scale we should engineer ourselves out of consciousness. the crawlers aren't, and rorscach isn't either, but it's infinitely more complex and intelligent anyway but I agree it's not that well-established in the actual text
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Apr 19, 2023 16:43
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I don't think he's making an argument other than "consciousness is not necessarily the endpoint of intelligence", I certainly don't think he's advocating that we remove our own consciousness if we want to survive. The removal of that consciousness would be no different than the entire human race going extinct, humanoid automatons with no sense of self wouldn't be "humanity". In almost every scifi work involving intelligent aliens, they have consciousness, but what Blindsight presupposes is, what if they didn't.
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Apr 19, 2023 16:51
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zoux posted:I don't think he's making an argument other than "consciousness is not necessarily the endpoint of intelligence", I certainly don't think he's advocating that we remove our own consciousness if we want to survive. The removal of that consciousness would be no different than the entire human race going extinct, humanoid automatons with no sense of self wouldn't be "humanity". In almost every scifi work involving intelligent aliens, they have consciousness, but what Blindsight presupposes is, what if they didn't. It's kind of weird though that Siri has that bit disagreeing with the Chinese Room Argument, and especially in a way that seems pretty tailored for the aliens they encounter. it doesn't bother me that I can't work it out though, in fact it makes the text more interesting, especially since I don't think there are good answers here
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Apr 19, 2023 16:56
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zoux posted:I don't think he's making an argument other than "consciousness is not necessarily the endpoint of intelligence", I certainly don't think he's advocating that we remove our own consciousness if we want to survive. The removal of that consciousness would be no different than the entire human race going extinct, humanoid automatons with no sense of self wouldn't be "humanity". In almost every scifi work involving intelligent aliens, they have consciousness, but what Blindsight presupposes is, what if they didn't. Yes, keep thinking that. I'll be over here also having an inner petty tyrant, just like you.
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Apr 19, 2023 16:59
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zoux posted:I don't think he's making an argument other than "consciousness is not necessarily the endpoint of intelligence", I certainly don't think he's advocating that we remove our own consciousness if we want to survive. The removal of that consciousness would be no different than the entire human race going extinct, humanoid automatons with no sense of self wouldn't be "humanity". In almost every scifi work involving intelligent aliens, they have consciousness, but what Blindsight presupposes is, what if they didn't. I'm speaking in terms of the universe presented in the book. I don't think Watts wants or is advocating for that at all, or even arguing towards it really, that's just a conceit of the story. Maybe to some degree it might be what he sort of believes could be true based on the notes and references? As far as engineering consciousness away I think Bates makes that suggestion near the end of the book (and also agrees that it'd be tantamount to death)
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Apr 19, 2023 17:06
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Pity the homunculus in the darkness behind your eyes that receives the after action reports of what your body is doing and thinks it is giving the orders instead.
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Apr 19, 2023 17:07
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Yadoppsi posted:Pity the homunculus in the darkness behind your eyes that receives the after action reports of what your body is doing and thinks it is giving the orders instead. Buddy, I am that homonculus.
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Apr 19, 2023 17:14
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I'm not sucks to be you
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Apr 19, 2023 17:14
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distortion park posted:It's kind of weird though that Siri has that bit disagreeing with the Chinese Room Argument, and especially in a way that seems pretty tailored for the aliens they encounter. it doesn't bother me that I can't work it out though, in fact it makes the text more interesting, especially since I don't think there are good answers here Speaking of things that I never worked out, did they ever connect Firefall to Rorschach at all? Wtf was that all about
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Apr 19, 2023 17:17
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 -Peter Watts, Crysis: Legion
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Apr 19, 2023 22:24
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zoux posted:Speaking of things that I never worked out, did they ever connect Firefall to Rorschach at all? Wtf was that all about If I recall, firefall was 60,000 reconnaissance probes taking a high detail photo of the whole surface of the planet, they tracked the signal it sent back to the burns-caufield comet and then that turned out to be a relay to Rorschach MikeJF fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 04:50
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It's been years since I read it, but if I remember it right the thesis of Blindsight is basically that evolution has no inherent need for consciousness and that it could be possible for a species to evolve, through the boring old process of natural selection, a level of complexity that makes it capable even of interstellar travel and colonization of distant star systems, without ever being conscious of what it was doing. And that if that did happen, such a species might even have a competitive advantage over humanity because the fact that we have consciousness means we spend vast amounts of our energy and resources on things that are not strictly speaking necessary for survival, reproduction, and competition. From that point of view, the characters eventually arrive at the conclusion that consciousness might be an evolutionary dead end because a conscious species would eventually and inevitably be outcompeted by an unconscious one. I didn't bother thinking about this argument too much when reading the book because it's a fun piece of sci-fi either way, but I'm not sure it holds up. It has a lot of load-bearing assumptions and theories baked in, like theorizing that it's possible to just evolve interstellar travel, or assuming psychopaths aren't conscious, psychopaths are responsible for driving the human race forwards, and vampires are real so that humanity has a psychopathic predator race meaning we aren't actually the dominant species and top predator on the planet. Otherwise, conscious humans outcompeting all other animals on earth to become the completely dominant species doesn't make much sense, because it would rely on something else in our evolution having such an overwhelming competitive advantage that it outweighs the burden of our consciousness wasting so many resources, and I don't think that's really feasible. Still an interesting thought experiment and the basis for a very fun novel.
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Apr 20, 2023 13:21
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vyelkin posted:It's been years since I read it, but if I remember it right the thesis of Blindsight is basically that evolution has no inherent need for consciousness and that it could be possible for a species to evolve, through the boring old process of natural selection, a level of complexity that makes it capable even of interstellar travel and colonization of distant star systems, without ever being conscious of what it was doing. And that if that did happen, such a species might even have a competitive advantage over humanity because the fact that we have consciousness means we spend vast amounts of our energy and resources on things that are not strictly speaking necessary for survival, reproduction, and competition. From that point of view, the characters eventually arrive at the conclusion that consciousness might be an evolutionary dead end because a conscious species would eventually and inevitably be outcompeted by an unconscious one. I agree with this but for me the biggest gap is that I don't think it really specifies what the behavioural differences that consciousness leads to are - when do conscious beings expend energy that a non conscious one wouldn't? (It also supposes that it matters - maybe it's just an inevitable byproduct or certain complex systems, or maybe pansychism is right!)
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Apr 20, 2023 13:47
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Story wise that’s kind of the point of “Heaven” isn’t it? They were spending massive resources to keep people’s consciousness alive without anything in return evolutionarily speaking, no reproduction, no useful work, it’s been a while but I think the implication was it also subsumed humanity’s desire to expand outwards
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Apr 20, 2023 14:38
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