I started reading Blindsight 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately I had 2 strokes last week. So I have to start over because I tried to continue from were I was in the book but I found myself totally lost. I got to the part where they're discussing "the Chinese room". I remembered that part because I've heard of a Chinese room before so now I'm watching a few videos to get idea of the book or at least a feel of the story which are 2 different things to me. It may take a while, my reading speed has slowed down. Next I will reread The Three Body Problem. However I may hold off on that one for awhile, my brother feels it will be too difficult for me to understand until I get all my faculties back. It makes me laugh. So maybe he's right!
@@MD-yd8lh Matt put Solaris higher on his last top-15. Solaris was before Blindsight, and Lem is just a better writer. In my opinion these books are close in terms of quality.
Try “Eye of God: Language of Universal Mind” which is quietly actually maybe real evidence of first contact with a super intelligent entity. It came out 2 weeks ago and there’s no telling how deep or large the change in human world view will go…
This book really did make me think about the world in a completely different way. Just the 'where do you get your ideas from' section at the back of the book reads like a Master's thesis. It's an absolutely tremendous book.
The best SF novel I have ever read. Not necessarily by a wide margin, and no single SF novel can provide all the genre has to offer. But yeah - the best one I’ve read. So far.
Any book that can thoroughly overturn a bad first impression has to be really good. I came across a free copy of this book, not having read any other books from Watts and had no expectations going in. The first chapter gave me the impression that it was going to be another story with a collection of cocky, colorful personalities that unexpectedly get in over their heads like the classic space marines from the Aliens movie. Then the vampire was introduced and I almost stopped reading with the reaction of 'someone tell this boomer that vampires arent trendy anymore'. Buuuut I kept reading and the story pulled me in, with a growing sense of awe and dread that just left me profoundly disturbed at the end. Definitely one of the best books Ive read in decades.
Blindsight is Neuromancer + Aliens + vampires. Tropes that have been done to death in sci-fi, though his spin on vampires as an extinct human subspecies was original - Sarasti was my favorite character. I did like the excursions into topics like the Chinese Room hypothesis & consciousness. And Watts's often poetic writing style kept me reading.
Since when have vampires been trendy and why do you base your reading on trends? If “cringe” ideas stop you from thinking outside the box, that is a cringe way to live
This is a yearly re-read for me now, and has been since I first read it. The conversations between Theseus and Rorschach pre-boarding are always a highlight
Regarding consciousness, I used to do a 30 minute drive every weekday to college and I had eventually tuned out the entire drive. More than once I was sitting in my first class of the day and wondering how I got there.
Moid, I just completed this book a few weeks ago and loved it,,, I scoured RUclips for a review afterwards and it is only now with your presentation that a review rises to the level of the book itself... good job old man...
Blindsight is my absolute favourite. From the, in my opinion, near perfect first contact to a vampire captain on a spaceship (hard to believe it worked perfectly) that I cannot bring myself to read the sequel so it doesn’t tarnish this wonderful and weird story.
Blindsight often makes you stop and think for a second, to really chew on profound ideas. But it's like a medium steak, cooked and served to you, on a plate, at a table, chewy but easy enough. Echopraxia gives you the ingredients and fucks right off. You're expected to find the right portions, the right temperature, to cook and plate everything yourself, to set the table and clean the dishes. It's why comments above and many folks call it "a mess", which is accurate, cooking is never a tidy operation, but they see it as a mess for all the wrong reasons. It's not a book to be enjoyed by people who make wives out of women just so they can sit at a table and enjoy the food, it's for folks who enjoy crafting a meal themselves.
Absolutely adored this book. By far one of my favorite books I've ever read. I didn't know what I was getting into when I started it - and I'm glad I went in blind and was able to just get dragged deeper and deeper into the questions and themes of the story. Cognitive science was my alternate career choice (instead of art) and so this book was really singing to the choir for me and actually made me think a little regretfully about shoving my degrees in a closet lol. Something about the way this book came at the same question of consciousness from so many different angles also reminded me of one of favorite non-fiction books, Godel Escher Bach. I read GEB in my early teens and remember a feeling of wandering around in the pages in awe of each new idea that fascinated me. That book was a cornerstone for me into my love of cognitive science as well as formal systems. Reading Blindsight, though very different gave me a similar feeling of fasination/excitememnt for the ideas and themes. It was like returning to an old familiar hunting ground after many years completely unexpectedly. I know a lot of that is very personal associations that elevated Blindsight for me but I haven't enjoyed a book this much in I don't know how long. Thank you for running a read along for it, as I don't know how long it would have been before I discovered it otherwise. I can't believe it took me this long to hear of it lol
"It made two kinds of sense. It not only slashed their metabolic needs while prey bred itself back to harvestable levels, it gave us time to forget that we were prey. We were so smart by the Pleistocene, smart enough for easy skepticism; if you haven't seen any night-stalking demons in all your years on the savannah, why should you believe some senile campfire ramblings passed down by your mother's mother?" This is an idea that I don't see talked about enough that I think brilliantly plays into the idea of consciousness being evolutionarily detrimental. Humans having a natural predator that takes advantage of our capacity for reason and skepticism by going into torpor long enough for us to stop believing they exist. God, this book is such a ride.
Awesome book. I just finished it and I got so many Event Horizon kind of vibes but also the examination of consciousness and intelligence is thought provoking.
@@MediaDeathCult The kinds of questions it makes you ask are ones I'm not sure I want answered. And the vampires? Forget any horror novel. They are more terrifying here then they ever were.
This book bent my mind into new shapes, and I'm better for it! One of the best conceptual SciFi novels out there. The idea that consciousness and intelligence aren't inseparably linked, and may even be opposed to each other is crazy, and I' cant stop thinking about it! I also love that every character shines light on a different facet of consciousness and intelligence.
Blindsight knocked me flat out, it must have been more than ten years ago, and I still haven't recovered... Thank you for clearing up a few things for me! And cheers to the new layout! -Is it called layout? Design maybe? Anyway, it looks great! Vampires and the mysterious Portia comes back in Watts' Echopraxia, also a good read.
I’m reading this book currently, although I wish I hadn’t started it. Was intended to be a ‘palate cleanser’ in between volumes of another series I’m currently ready. I probably should have saved this one for after. Very interesting book
Read Blindsight based on the fascinating interview with Peter Watts on this channel and yeah it lived up to every hope I had for it and it's stuck in my brain since like a... well the wet spider metaphor is perfect lol
I'm not ashamed of that I didn't understand the book like this, thanks you dear author of this YT chanel to explain the most important of it , now I wanna read it once again with these knowledges
I'm listening to Echopraxia yet again in audiobook format, & I already know that I'm going to revisit Blindsight as well. I just can't get enough of how Peter Watts blew my mind with these books. There's a point where this world construct sucks you into its bowels. I especially love that every part of these stories tells you about this world-from the richly explored characters to the machines, the science, and the landscape. Every minuscule detail carries the story forward & paints a picture of this world in some way.
The moment Watts presents the consciousness argument, the moment you realize you're kinda hosting a thought parasite, a mistake that's inherent to your very being... It was a great reading moment. 🐙
You're going to bankrupt me, Moid. I've already bought (imported) The Book of the New Sun (the whole thing), Terra Ignota Book's 1 and 2 and now you're enticing me with such a crazy novel. My wallet can't handle it!
Great review of some great sf. You just have to keep in mind that he very specifically set up a way to make his thought experiment turn out exactly as he wanted. He's only correct within the confines of his book. (And that's perfectly fine. It's what sf does, and he certainly explores it on many levels. But that doesn't mean that's the way intelligence and evolution goes out here in real life.)
It strikes me, from your review that this book is explicitly Lovecraftian, that these aliens come closer to HPL's concept of the great old ones, unfathomable beings to whom we are of no significance whatsoever. Peter Watts seem to understand that idea far better than any follower of Lovecraft's ever has, indeed perhaps better than Lovecraft himself.
Both you and Bookpilled have done no holds barred, top-flight reviews of this book. I swear I'm going to finish it this time. Not that I don't love it, I do, it's just so damn dense with cosmic cotton candy, my aged brain verily jams. Thanks to you both for pushing me onward in such entertaining ways.
I've been utterly captivated by both books of the Firefall ....beyond that , I wish there were more hard backs around , I 've scoured the interweb for these , only to find ridiculous prices asked or none ,,,it's the same with everything ....the paperbacks I have are pretty ropy..why has it got to be paperback or nothing ?.just managed to grab The Expanse before they vanish...
I was recommended this book like a really good hard-ish Sci-Fi book. I would say it's more like a philosophical text under a sci-fi cloak. If you are up for existential philosophical questions, then go for it. It's really good. As a sci-fi book it was really flat. I had no emotional connection with the characters of the book and it was really really spatially disorientating.
He did a 1st person short story of the Thing. From the Thing’s perspective. An ambassador from the main Galactic civilization is horrified to learn than the life forms on Earth are self contained life forms with their own consciousness.
I tried reading about 40 pages of this book and I had absolutely no idea what was happening. At first there was some spaceship with undead vampires and then they were in heaven then purgatory then i don’t even know where. I’ll definitely be trying to tackle this book in the future but for the time being i’ll read something a bit more basic.
You mean the Keeton visit to his mother, which had chose to lie his body in a facility in which his mid is connected along many others to a virtual reality (like The Matrix or Ready Player One) in which they keep living until someone creates a way to transfer human minds to the cloud (a thing that never happens) while their physical forms decay... Well, the Earth at 2082 in Blindsight faces treats in multiple ways (overpopulation, environmental decaly, lack of resources, bio terrorism, fascist regimes...) and what is showcased is nothing but a way of escapism from a wealthy elite which choses to live in a fantasy (there's also the sense that AIs are "on charge" of the whole Thesseus mission, and instead of being evil beings trying to conquer humanity through violence they just allow us to self decay in a spiral of hedonism.
It jumps between past and present, memory and current events, but it never tells you "this is a memory" you just gotta guess based on the context. The whole Heaven thing is a virtual reality created by humans as an escape from realilty where they can imagine and live in their own personal heaven, and a lot of people got addicted to it and abandoned their real lives, which is what happened to the narrator's mother. Anything that has to do with Theseus or Rorschach is the present time and anything else that happens is like a flashback that fills in the blanks. It really was a tough book, I had to keep re-reading certain passages before I got what was happening, but totally worth it to stick it out
@@plaguepandemic5651 Thanks for this, i’ll give it another shot. I’m on the last 15 pages of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and I’ve absolutely loved it so far so I’ve gotta finish that first.
This video perfectly matches the tone of the book. Deftly done. Is the full interview you did with Peter Watts available? I can’t find it anywhere on your channel
7:09 funny, ive been saying this about building an internal model in my brain forever. Though everyone does it. Every life does it, more or less. The trick is to do it consciously, test its predictions, improve it.,.
This book does the theme of loneliness so well. I love empty, lonely worlds and Blindsight emphasising how empty the universe is and how even with life in it, this is the natural state of the universe is amazing. Whilst I disagree with his conclusions (consciousness gives creatures ambition which is pretty much why humans are the dominant force on the planet. Also, it slips into might makes right which is the opposite of my worldview.), I think it's because I disagree that makes the book so scary. I believe the universe is cold and dark but Earth is unique and humans are very special and in Blindsight this just isn't the case. Humans are special but ultimately a blip in Blindsight, a weird coincidence that eventually will be corrected.
im halfway thru it - really love it now thats for sure - great pace - the thing is about the vamp is watts has the others discuss it 360 degrees so its almost a pretty normal character and good captain at this point. certainly the character doesnt stand out vs the other variously modified crew. well so far anyway. but yeah all that background work kept vamp from becoming camp.
its not THAT challenging, you can just skip through technical stuff, i breezed through it, i understand why it was done, but i dont need to fill my mind with it, i wont get it fully cuz its not my topic, and rest of the book is amazing.
@@georgebennett1242 haha 😆 im just sayin that IMO theres no point in bashing ones head through the more technical descriptions, anyway u know what i had in mind 😁
Loved the interview with Peter and am reading the book now because these videos are wonderful, but I do find the conclusions about consciousness quite dangerous at this time (which books are allowed to be,) but also misguided. We can learn a lot about where Free Energy Principle goes wrong by studying the life and death of large businesses. Energy minimisation works for a bit, but eventually kills systems or make them completely irrelevant lacking in innovation, agility, resilience, adaptation. The analytical engine does not produce consciousness, without consciousness there's no creativity, without creativity/new narratives, David Deutsch's emergent universe is no more, and that'd be very sad. ;) Loving this cult.
not the easiest book to read, as far as his writing style and use of language, but the ideas in this novel is something else, it stays with you in a deep, profound way
If this is a book "reflecting" on consciousness because it argues consciousness is an hindrance to survival, then this also means it is a reflection on ourselves, a mirror to the inside of us. This means we are awere that we are awere, and that is what ultimately makes us afraid. But if this book is a reflexion on ourselves, does it mean life outside of us is like this, unconscious? Ultimately, if we're talking about humans, goats, dogs, cats, vampires, spiders, aliens, squids, or giant world "sentient" oceans, maybe we'd treat them the same way we treat ourselves (singular). - How do I treat a person I've just met? I cannot know its mind, so why bother? It's just interaction.
I thought I’d just pop in as a Watts fan and assure you that Blindsight is definitely worth a read. I enjoyed Starfish, but struggled to connect with the meanderings of Maelstrom and Behemoth. But Blindsight is in another league entirely.
I recently finished my first reading of it and thought it was pretty good, but far from the masterpiece I've heard many people describe it as. Definitely seems to be one of those books that hits significantly harder on a re-read, so it's on the list to try again some time. Echopraxia on the other hand... 🤢
I bounced off Echopraxia pretty hard first time, but upon a re-read it improved significantly. Watts acknowledges he was pushed for time finishing the book and it shows, which is frustrating because it has real potential.
Some SPOILERS. The book is absolutely amazing. I loved that Watts doesn't spell out everything about how the world works and stuff like the free energy, the terrorists, etc. are left out to be figured and thought about by the reader. I also enjoyed how Watts showed through the book bit by bit why consciousness is a huge disadvantage by exploring the crew members. Amanda is supposed to be super badass soldier, "protecting" the humans, but her consciousness makes her a pacifist and thus useless. The Gang is completely corrupted by a whole new entity, as she is already more conscious than anyone else on the ship, thus proving even further than having even more consciousness than a normal human is completely pointless. Szpindel and Cunningham are more machines than men but are both religious and distracted by trying to figure out the alien. Siri of course is only interested in the things the others say and think which makes him understand the aliens last even though he is the first one to see them on a unconscious/subconscious level. And of course Jukka and/or the AI are the only ones to figure out what the aliens actually are and what they'll do since both are just a hunter/computer. Oh, it's so great. So much more can be said but it's one of my favorite books ever.
I haven't read this book yet. I just heard about it for the first time and want to read it now. I don't really read sifi genre at all, but I do enjoy philosophy. The books thesis sounds alot the philosophies put foward by U.G. Krishnamurti
I will die on the hill that the Rifters series is inherently better IMO. I read it probably twice a year. Definitely a personal connection to me. I want to read Echopraxia but none of my local libraries have it 😭
If Watts is right and you lose consciousness when you get really clever, then that bottle of whisky I drank last night shouldn't have been measured as 47% proof, but as 200%IQ
Holy crap this makes so much sense the more you know the duller life gets when I was young I hated how conscious I felt so I started smoking weed at 17 to make myself less conscious to not care so much and make myself dumber because it seemed like the dumber you are the more fun you having crazy ik.
I'm seriously impressed with your skills I think you could make somebody want to read the short stories in playboy if you were to tell them what they were about first absolutely incredible I've never seen you before but I will be in the future
I just finished the book yesterday, I ordered Ecoproxia, so no spoilers please. I liked the book, but the lack of context kept me from being grounded in the story. The alien felt less like an alien than a macro bacteria doing pretty much what the earth variants do. Moving between stars and hosts being relatively similar distances. I liked the book, but I think another 100 pages would have fleshed out the players and stakes better.
We'd annihilate the scramblers, easily. The trouble with hyper-intelligence is that their thought patterns would follow a hyper-rational path. Therefore, we as humans could exploit their blind spots by using strategies they wouldn't anticipate or even understand. Follow me on this, they didn't evolve from a predator/survival origin like humanity did, so they wouldn't understand deception, manipulation, trickery, etc. Human beings have always adapted to take out predators stronger than them. Can't fight a bear? Fine, build a spear. Can't think faster than Scramblers? Fine, supplement with Artificial Intelligence. Our unpredictability and "un-naturalness" from nature by being as sentient/conscious as we are would drive a hyper-intelligent enemy that studies us insane. (The following isn't a spoiler) And, I love that the author acknowledged this very point with his notion of "The Crucifix Glitch" and how right-angles aren't common in nature (I'll stop there). All in all, thanks for the video and well done!
Just read it. It was pretty good, not amazing, and maybe not great, but glad I read it. It definitely did not live up to the hype for me, though. I expected something profound or mind-shattering. The central concept is a nifty, fun thought experiment, but that's it really, and that's perfectly fine. But just the way people talk about it had me expecting something much more. I was also let down in the horror department. I would not call this a horror novel or hard SF. It's SF with one or two creepy moments and a generally uneasy feel with some pop-sci buzzwords spinkled in (honestly, it started verging into rick and morty territory at some points). I was pleasantly surprised by Sarasti - I fully expected it to be eye-watering camp but it was actually well done and one of my favorite elements of the book. I also quite liked the alien biology and mechanisms of evasion. The ending was solid, too. Overall, 3.5/5. Solid first-contact with above average concepts. May read it again in a few years.
Excellent review! Interesting hypothesis that consciousness is needed when we are intelligent enough, but at the same time not enough to have a quasi perfect World's model, then consciousness would be the machine that allows us to refine that model. Perhaps we can see it in our culture, that the more technological advances we have, the more "zombie" the average person becomes. I don't know if consciousness automatically implies that our mind creates the need for meaning as the force impulsing us to improve this World's model, and thus helping to close that gap in the model's prediction errors. I don't know if that hypothesis is true, but if it were to be true, then, once we arrive at this quasi perfect model (if that is possible), that expenditure of energy that implies having consciousness (and the search for meaning that consciousness brings with it), seems to be unnecessary as Watts postulates. What other novel with similar style would you recommend?
I would suggest Quarantine by Greg Egan. Similarly to Blindsight Quarantine proposes interesting idea about consciousness and implications it has on rest of the universe. Also, it gives very unusual take on nature of measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Where it differs is that it doesn’t focus so much on first contact. Also it’s worth mentioning that Quarantine is a bit harder read because it tackles some advanced physics. I still consider it worth reading.
From what I read it might be wrong to think of the scramblers as non sentient. They are hyper intelligent and do have a complex hive consciousness, but their individual and group sentience is astronomically low. They know that they are and that they are there but there is too little there to care about.
This is my favorite sci-fi book by a large margin. The afterward and footnotes are my favorite science book of all time. Highly recommended - it certainly explains a lot of what's happening in the world today.
Needs a movie SOOOOOO bad. I want Denis Villeneuve to do like every good sci Fi book as a movie. House of Suns, Rev Space, Blindsight, Hyperion (as a mini-series), and someone needs to do the make the book House of Leaves into a movie.
Comment contains spoilers. This is my favorite sci fi book, period. The most mind blowing book I’ve ever read. I’m not going to say it’s the best written sci fi book ever, because that wouldn’t be true, but it’s just full of ideas that I’ve never read elsewhere. Even the space vampire, which sounds so lame, is so incredibly interesting: *spoiler* Sarasti is superhumanly smart and *NOT SELF AWARE*. Vampires are so smart that nothing can surprise them… and thus they have no need for consciousness. He’s not “the dark side of consciousness”. Rather, he’s the epitome of the supercomputing emotionless monster trope. The most interesting thing is that vampires preyed on base line humanity for the entire time humanity was developing and it wasn’t until the invention of the right angle that they became extinct (seizures caused by a neural defect.). Just freakin wild.
This book is awful. After a strong beginning, this book goes off the rails, crashes and burns, and the dazed reader, like passengers surviving a train wreck, numbly follows as the plot wanders out into the middle of a barren wasteland, where it dies. It has perhaps the most disappointing ending of any science fiction book I have ever read. It violates the most basic rules of storytelling, too. So many 'so what' moments! Absolute drivel!
The part where watts gets into humans as automatons, are we really aware of what we are doing, are we really thinking and making our own decisions, or are we just automatons constantly copying our environment just to feel…safe.
Great review Moid. Definitely communicates the mood of the book. I found the novel itself kind of depressing, there's loads going on, almost too much perhaps in someplaces. Very interesting. I don't really agree with the conclusions Peter seems to be reaching. He seems to be focusing on one thing, energy minimization, to the exclusion of everything else. And also there just the whole zero sum thinking, everything is just some grim struggle for survival that only the most brutal can win mentality of it all that just isn't helpful. Good book, kind of liked a lot of it, but overall didn't enjoy the experience.
![Ложная слепота. О романе Питера Уоттса (герои, образы, идеи романа, фанатский фильм) [RocketMan]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4KbxVObm_f0/mqdefault.jpg)
I've never read a book quite like it.
Solaris? Or Starfish?
I started reading Blindsight 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately I had 2 strokes last week. So I have to start over because I tried to continue from were I was in the book but I found myself totally lost. I got to the part where they're discussing "the Chinese room". I remembered that part because I've heard of a Chinese room before so now I'm watching a few videos to get idea of the book or at least a feel of the story which are 2 different things to me. It may take a while, my reading speed has slowed down. Next I will reread The Three Body Problem. However I may hold off on that one for awhile, my brother feels it will be too difficult for me to understand until I get all my faculties back. It makes me laugh. So maybe he's right!
@@yelisieimuraisolaris its a good classic, but not even close to blindsight
@@MD-yd8lh Matt put Solaris higher on his last top-15. Solaris was before Blindsight, and Lem is just a better writer. In my opinion these books are close in terms of quality.
Try “Eye of God: Language of Universal Mind” which is quietly actually maybe real evidence of first contact with a super intelligent entity. It came out 2 weeks ago and there’s no telling how deep or large the change in human world view will go…
The idea that self awareness is a glitch rather than a feature blew me away.
“God is a bug” taken from Echopraxia, Blindsight’s sequel.
@@iainbaker6916god is your self conscious 😂
This book really did make me think about the world in a completely different way. Just the 'where do you get your ideas from' section at the back of the book reads like a Master's thesis. It's an absolutely tremendous book.
I searched just one of the references and was immediately lost. Blindsight is the laymans layman's layman of consciousness.
The best SF novel I have ever read. Not necessarily by a wide margin, and no single SF novel can provide all the genre has to offer. But yeah - the best one I’ve read. So far.
If you enjoyed this novel, you should check out The Three Body Problem & Children of Time series.
I like your new format of video essays.
You nailed the tone and atmosphere of the novel
Thanks
Any book that can thoroughly overturn a bad first impression has to be really good. I came across a free copy of this book, not having read any other books from Watts and had no expectations going in. The first chapter gave me the impression that it was going to be another story with a collection of cocky, colorful personalities that unexpectedly get in over their heads like the classic space marines from the Aliens movie. Then the vampire was introduced and I almost stopped reading with the reaction of 'someone tell this boomer that vampires arent trendy anymore'. Buuuut I kept reading and the story pulled me in, with a growing sense of awe and dread that just left me profoundly disturbed at the end. Definitely one of the best books Ive read in decades.
Blindsight is Neuromancer + Aliens + vampires. Tropes that have been done to death in sci-fi, though his spin on vampires as an extinct human subspecies was original - Sarasti was my favorite character. I did like the excursions into topics like the Chinese Room hypothesis & consciousness. And Watts's often poetic writing style kept me reading.
Same. I almost shelfed it, but got to a point in it where it just slapped me and I didnt want to put it down.
Since when have vampires been trendy and why do you base your reading on trends? If “cringe” ideas stop you from thinking outside the box, that is a cringe way to live
This is a yearly re-read for me now, and has been since I first read it. The conversations between Theseus and Rorschach pre-boarding are always a highlight
Basically everything by Watts, Blindsight, Echopraxia, the Rifters
Trilogy, his short stories, is all solid platinum.
Regarding consciousness, I used to do a 30 minute drive every weekday to college and I had eventually tuned out the entire drive. More than once I was sitting in my first class of the day and wondering how I got there.
Moid, I just completed this book a few weeks ago and loved it,,, I scoured RUclips for a review afterwards and it is only now with your presentation that a review rises to the level of the book itself... good job old man...
Thanks
Strongly agree - I loved the subliminal edits and the layered different review styles in the one corpus. Well dont Moid.
Blindsight is my absolute favourite. From the, in my opinion, near perfect first contact to a vampire captain on a spaceship (hard to believe it worked perfectly) that I cannot bring myself to read the sequel so it doesn’t tarnish this wonderful and weird story.
Sequel was ...a bit of a mess.
Blindsight often makes you stop and think for a second, to really chew on profound ideas. But it's like a medium steak, cooked and served to you, on a plate, at a table, chewy but easy enough.
Echopraxia gives you the ingredients and fucks right off. You're expected to find the right portions, the right temperature, to cook and plate everything yourself, to set the table and clean the dishes.
It's why comments above and many folks call it "a mess", which is accurate, cooking is never a tidy operation, but they see it as a mess for all the wrong reasons. It's not a book to be enjoyed by people who make wives out of women just so they can sit at a table and enjoy the food, it's for folks who enjoy crafting a meal themselves.
Absolutely adored this book. By far one of my favorite books I've ever read. I didn't know what I was getting into when I started it - and I'm glad I went in blind and was able to just get dragged deeper and deeper into the questions and themes of the story. Cognitive science was my alternate career choice (instead of art) and so this book was really singing to the choir for me and actually made me think a little regretfully about shoving my degrees in a closet lol.
Something about the way this book came at the same question of consciousness from so many different angles also reminded me of one of favorite non-fiction books, Godel Escher Bach. I read GEB in my early teens and remember a feeling of wandering around in the pages in awe of each new idea that fascinated me. That book was a cornerstone for me into my love of cognitive science as well as formal systems. Reading Blindsight, though very different gave me a similar feeling of fasination/excitememnt for the ideas and themes. It was like returning to an old familiar hunting ground after many years completely unexpectedly.
I know a lot of that is very personal associations that elevated Blindsight for me but I haven't enjoyed a book this much in I don't know how long. Thank you for running a read along for it, as I don't know how long it would have been before I discovered it otherwise. I can't believe it took me this long to hear of it lol
Brilliant comment, thank you
"It made two kinds of sense. It not only slashed their metabolic needs while prey bred itself back to harvestable levels, it gave us time to forget that we were prey. We were so smart by the Pleistocene, smart enough for easy skepticism; if you haven't seen any night-stalking demons in all your years on the savannah, why should you believe some senile campfire ramblings passed down by your mother's mother?"
This is an idea that I don't see talked about enough that I think brilliantly plays into the idea of consciousness being evolutionarily detrimental. Humans having a natural predator that takes advantage of our capacity for reason and skepticism by going into torpor long enough for us to stop believing they exist. God, this book is such a ride.
Awesome book. I just finished it and I got so many Event Horizon kind of vibes but also the examination of consciousness and intelligence is thought provoking.
Please don't compare one of the best sci-fi books ever written with one of the worst scenario ever written.
I reread the book, but now I also relived it and am terrified all over again. Thanks for that. :)
You're welcome
@@MediaDeathCult The kinds of questions it makes you ask are ones I'm not sure I want answered. And the vampires? Forget any horror novel. They are more terrifying here then they ever were.
One of those books that I tore through initially, then re-read carefully. More than a few times.
This book bent my mind into new shapes, and I'm better for it! One of the best conceptual SciFi novels out there. The idea that consciousness and intelligence aren't inseparably linked, and may even be opposed to each other is crazy, and I' cant stop thinking about it! I also love that every character shines light on a different facet of consciousness and intelligence.
Excellent video, Moid. Peter Watts is a brilliant writer, and your video is a compelling overview of the book that makes me want to read it again.
Thanks Jack
Peter Watts is easily one of my top 10 SF writers. His books make me think about the implications.
Blindsight knocked me flat out, it must have been more than ten years ago, and I still haven't recovered...
Thank you for clearing up a few things for me! And cheers to the new layout! -Is it called layout? Design maybe? Anyway, it looks great!
Vampires and the mysterious Portia comes back in Watts' Echopraxia, also a good read.
Thank you, it’s not really a new layout, i’m just trying out some new things, forever experimenting
I can't stop re-reading it.
Can.
Not.
Stop.
I’m reading this book currently, although I wish I hadn’t started it. Was intended to be a ‘palate cleanser’ in between volumes of another series I’m currently ready. I probably should have saved this one for after.
Very interesting book
I really need to reread this again. It's just bursting with ideas that I love to think about. Great quick review!
Thanks
He's found a way to explain the "survival of the fittest" reason for consciousness since writing the book (to deal with the unexpexted). I like it.
Its on the reading list thanks to the interview. Great vid. This is where you are at your best Moid.
Thank you very much
Read Blindsight based on the fascinating interview with Peter Watts on this channel and yeah it lived up to every hope I had for it and it's stuck in my brain since like a... well the wet spider metaphor is perfect lol
Thank you so much
I'm not ashamed of that I didn't understand the book like this, thanks you dear author of this YT chanel to explain the most important of it , now I wanna read it once again with these knowledges
Thanks!
Thank you Matthew
I'm listening to Echopraxia yet again in audiobook format, & I already know that I'm going to revisit Blindsight as well. I just can't get enough of how Peter Watts blew my mind with these books. There's a point where this world construct sucks you into its bowels. I especially love that every part of these stories tells you about this world-from the richly explored characters to the machines, the science, and the landscape. Every minuscule detail carries the story forward & paints a picture of this world in some way.
Read it last weekend (finally!!)
Any book that carries a mini dissertation on the biology of a character gets the thumbs up in my world!!!
A different kind of video for you.... Very good, though I do miss the books in the background. LOL
That was an amazing book!
Keep up the good work Moid!
Thanks
Great job Moid. Blindsight has moved up to my next read/listen :)
Thanks
Great commentary Moid. Need to listen again.
I like the concept of consciousness ceasing to exist when everything is known, interesting.
The moment Watts presents the consciousness argument, the moment you realize you're kinda hosting a thought parasite, a mistake that's inherent to your very being... It was a great reading moment. 🐙
Dude this video is spot on! You absolutely nailed the themes and emotions of this book!
You're going to bankrupt me, Moid.
I've already bought (imported) The Book of the New Sun (the whole thing), Terra Ignota Book's 1 and 2 and now you're enticing me with such a crazy novel. My wallet can't handle it!
Great review of some great sf. You just have to keep in mind that he very specifically set up a way to make his thought experiment turn out exactly as he wanted. He's only correct within the confines of his book. (And that's perfectly fine. It's what sf does, and he certainly explores it on many levels. But that doesn't mean that's the way intelligence and evolution goes out here in real life.)
Thanks
Read it a few days ago, so this video was exactly what I needed.
It strikes me, from your review that this book is explicitly Lovecraftian, that these aliens come closer to HPL's concept of the great old ones, unfathomable beings to whom we are of no significance whatsoever. Peter Watts seem to understand that idea far better than any follower of Lovecraft's ever has, indeed perhaps better than Lovecraft himself.
This along with three body problem proves that sci fi books does lovecraft far better than traditional horror
Both you and Bookpilled have done no holds barred, top-flight reviews of this book. I swear I'm going to finish it this time. Not that I don't love it, I do, it's just so damn dense with cosmic cotton candy, my aged brain verily jams.
Thanks to you both for pushing me onward in such entertaining ways.
I've been utterly captivated by both books of the Firefall ....beyond that , I wish there were more hard backs around , I 've scoured the interweb for these , only to find ridiculous prices asked or none ,,,it's the same with everything ....the paperbacks I have are pretty ropy..why has it got to be paperback or nothing ?.just managed to grab The Expanse before they vanish...
I was recommended this book like a really good hard-ish Sci-Fi book. I would say it's more like a philosophical text under a sci-fi cloak. If you are up for existential philosophical questions, then go for it. It's really good. As a sci-fi book it was really flat. I had no emotional connection with the characters of the book and it was really really spatially disorientating.
He did a 1st person short story of the Thing. From the Thing’s perspective. An ambassador from the main Galactic civilization is horrified to learn than the life forms on Earth are self contained life forms with their own consciousness.
I tried reading about 40 pages of this book and I had absolutely no idea what was happening. At first there was some spaceship with undead vampires and then they were in heaven then purgatory then i don’t even know where. I’ll definitely be trying to tackle this book in the future but for the time being i’ll read something a bit more basic.
You mean the Keeton visit to his mother, which had chose to lie his body in a facility in which his mid is connected along many others to a virtual reality (like The Matrix or Ready Player One) in which they keep living until someone creates a way to transfer human minds to the cloud (a thing that never happens) while their physical forms decay... Well, the Earth at 2082 in Blindsight faces treats in multiple ways (overpopulation, environmental decaly, lack of resources, bio terrorism, fascist regimes...) and what is showcased is nothing but a way of escapism from a wealthy elite which choses to live in a fantasy (there's also the sense that AIs are "on charge" of the whole Thesseus mission, and instead of being evil beings trying to conquer humanity through violence they just allow us to self decay in a spiral of hedonism.
It jumps between past and present, memory and current events, but it never tells you "this is a memory" you just gotta guess based on the context. The whole Heaven thing is a virtual reality created by humans as an escape from realilty where they can imagine and live in their own personal heaven, and a lot of people got addicted to it and abandoned their real lives, which is what happened to the narrator's mother. Anything that has to do with Theseus or Rorschach is the present time and anything else that happens is like a flashback that fills in the blanks. It really was a tough book, I had to keep re-reading certain passages before I got what was happening, but totally worth it to stick it out
@@plaguepandemic5651 Thanks for this, i’ll give it another shot. I’m on the last 15 pages of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and I’ve absolutely loved it so far so I’ve gotta finish that first.
This book absolutely broke my brain. I'm still not sure I Get It, should read it again. Blew me away.
This video perfectly matches the tone of the book. Deftly done. Is the full interview you did with Peter Watts available? I can’t find it anywhere on your channel
This video was exactly the dark gravy I needed to get this Wednesday down.
Happy to help
Nailed it Mord! Recently picked up a gorgeous copy of both Blindsight and Echopraxia published by Centipede Press. Awesome...
Thanks
@@MediaDeathCult Oops. I meant Moid not Mord!
I know what you meant
@@Paul_Bond. I was thinking the same thing and they don't look anything alike. Or at least..not much.
Can Moid fly though?
7:09 funny, ive been saying this about building an internal model in my brain forever. Though everyone does it. Every life does it, more or less. The trick is to do it consciously, test its predictions, improve it.,.
I just finished this book...still digesting it, but I did enjoy how different it is
One of the most creative and unique stories I've read, it really made an impression on me.
This book does the theme of loneliness so well. I love empty, lonely worlds and Blindsight emphasising how empty the universe is and how even with life in it, this is the natural state of the universe is amazing. Whilst I disagree with his conclusions (consciousness gives creatures ambition which is pretty much why humans are the dominant force on the planet. Also, it slips into might makes right which is the opposite of my worldview.), I think it's because I disagree that makes the book so scary. I believe the universe is cold and dark but Earth is unique and humans are very special and in Blindsight this just isn't the case. Humans are special but ultimately a blip in Blindsight, a weird coincidence that eventually will be corrected.
You should read and do a video on Blindsight's "side-quel", Echopraxia. It doubles down on the weird and creepy.
Awesome review Moid!!!
Thanks Tracy
For anyone looking for another analysis of the book - RUclips up Neill Blomkamps Joe Rogan interview where they discuss parts.
im halfway thru it - really love it now thats for sure - great pace - the thing is about the vamp is watts has the others discuss it 360 degrees so its almost a pretty normal character and good captain at this point. certainly the character doesnt stand out vs the other variously modified crew. well so far anyway. but yeah all that background work kept vamp from becoming camp.
Enjoyed this book but found it very challenging. I think I will get a lot out of a second reading.
Good idea, that's what I did
its not THAT challenging, you can just skip through technical stuff, i breezed through it, i understand why it was done, but i dont need to fill my mind with it, i wont get it fully cuz its not my topic, and rest of the book is amazing.
@@zbigniewiksinski telling me it's not that challenging after I've already read it and found it challenging isn't helpful
@@georgebennett1242 haha 😆 im just sayin that IMO theres no point in bashing ones head through the more technical descriptions, anyway u know what i had in mind 😁
@@zbigniewiksinski all good mate :)
These video essays are so fuckin good
Thank You
Loved the interview with Peter and am reading the book now because these videos are wonderful, but I do find the conclusions about consciousness quite dangerous at this time (which books are allowed to be,) but also misguided. We can learn a lot about where Free Energy Principle goes wrong by studying the life and death of large businesses. Energy minimisation works for a bit, but eventually kills systems or make them completely irrelevant lacking in innovation, agility, resilience, adaptation. The analytical engine does not produce consciousness, without consciousness there's no creativity, without creativity/new narratives, David Deutsch's emergent universe is no more, and that'd be very sad. ;) Loving this cult.
Thank you, great comment
not the easiest book to read, as far as his writing style and use of language, but the ideas in this novel is something else, it stays with you in a deep, profound way
If this is a book "reflecting" on consciousness because it argues consciousness is an hindrance to survival, then this also means it is a reflection on ourselves, a mirror to the inside of us. This means we are awere that we are awere, and that is what ultimately makes us afraid.
But if this book is a reflexion on ourselves, does it mean life outside of us is like this, unconscious?
Ultimately, if we're talking about humans, goats, dogs, cats, vampires, spiders, aliens, squids, or giant world "sentient" oceans, maybe we'd treat them the same way we treat ourselves (singular). - How do I treat a person I've just met? I cannot know its mind, so why bother? It's just interaction.
It's on my TBR but I read his Starfish books and they were mostly just ok so I'm not exactly in a rush.
I thought I’d just pop in as a Watts fan and assure you that Blindsight is definitely worth a read. I enjoyed Starfish, but struggled to connect with the meanderings of Maelstrom and Behemoth. But Blindsight is in another league entirely.
After watching your video I'm going to move Heaven and earth to get a copy of Blindsight. Brilliant review.
They need to make a movie out of this...
There is a very cool short animated film on RUclips
I recently finished my first reading of it and thought it was pretty good, but far from the masterpiece I've heard many people describe it as. Definitely seems to be one of those books that hits significantly harder on a re-read, so it's on the list to try again some time. Echopraxia on the other hand... 🤢
I bounced off Echopraxia pretty hard first time, but upon a re-read it improved significantly.
Watts acknowledges he was pushed for time finishing the book and it shows, which is frustrating because it has real potential.
Some SPOILERS.
The book is absolutely amazing. I loved that Watts doesn't spell out everything about how the world works and stuff like the free energy, the terrorists, etc. are left out to be figured and thought about by the reader. I also enjoyed how Watts showed through the book bit by bit why consciousness is a huge disadvantage by exploring the crew members. Amanda is supposed to be super badass soldier, "protecting" the humans, but her consciousness makes her a pacifist and thus useless. The Gang is completely corrupted by a whole new entity, as she is already more conscious than anyone else on the ship, thus proving even further than having even more consciousness than a normal human is completely pointless. Szpindel and Cunningham are more machines than men but are both religious and distracted by trying to figure out the alien. Siri of course is only interested in the things the others say and think which makes him understand the aliens last even though he is the first one to see them on a unconscious/subconscious level. And of course Jukka and/or the AI are the only ones to figure out what the aliens actually are and what they'll do since both are just a hunter/computer. Oh, it's so great. So much more can be said but it's one of my favorite books ever.
I haven't read this book yet. I just heard about it for the first time and want to read it now. I don't really read sifi genre at all, but I do enjoy philosophy. The books thesis sounds alot the philosophies put foward by U.G. Krishnamurti
Found a video in the wild about a book I loved!! And should reread…
I will die on the hill that the Rifters series is inherently better IMO. I read it probably twice a year. Definitely a personal connection to me. I want to read Echopraxia but none of my local libraries have it 😭
Fascinating video. Might have to give this one a try!
Thanks, you really should
Do! It could fit in the disturbing book project
@@Paul_Bond. that does sound appealing! Added to my list for when I can buy books again!
@@georgebennett1242 it certainly sounds like it could fit that
I loved this book , truly loved it !
If Watts is right and you lose consciousness when you get really clever, then that bottle of whisky I drank last night shouldn't have been measured as 47% proof, but as 200%IQ
Good point, needs more research
Holy crap this makes so much sense the more you know the duller life gets when I was young I hated how conscious I felt so I started smoking weed at 17 to make myself less conscious to not care so much and make myself dumber because it seemed like the dumber you are the more fun you having crazy ik.
Look at this video quality... the tasteful thickness of it...
Thank you, I was going for tasteful thickness
I loved reading this book, the video game Prey also has aliens that are the same in not having consciousness. it's quite interesting.
I'm seriously impressed with your skills I think you could make somebody want to read the short stories in playboy if you were to tell them what they were about first absolutely incredible I've never seen you before but I will be in the future
I just finished the book yesterday, I ordered Ecoproxia, so no spoilers please. I liked the book, but the lack of context kept me from being grounded in the story. The alien felt less like an alien than a macro bacteria doing pretty much what the earth variants do. Moving between stars and hosts being relatively similar distances. I liked the book, but I think another 100 pages would have fleshed out the players and stakes better.
Awesome video m8!
Thank you
We'd annihilate the scramblers, easily. The trouble with hyper-intelligence is that their thought patterns would follow a hyper-rational path. Therefore, we as humans could exploit their blind spots by using strategies they wouldn't anticipate or even understand. Follow me on this, they didn't evolve from a predator/survival origin like humanity did, so they wouldn't understand deception, manipulation, trickery, etc. Human beings have always adapted to take out predators stronger than them. Can't fight a bear? Fine, build a spear. Can't think faster than Scramblers? Fine, supplement with Artificial Intelligence. Our unpredictability and "un-naturalness" from nature by being as sentient/conscious as we are would drive a hyper-intelligent enemy that studies us insane. (The following isn't a spoiler) And, I love that the author acknowledged this very point with his notion of "The Crucifix Glitch" and how right-angles aren't common in nature (I'll stop there). All in all, thanks for the video and well done!
Just read it. It was pretty good, not amazing, and maybe not great, but glad I read it. It definitely did not live up to the hype for me, though. I expected something profound or mind-shattering. The central concept is a nifty, fun thought experiment, but that's it really, and that's perfectly fine. But just the way people talk about it had me expecting something much more. I was also let down in the horror department. I would not call this a horror novel or hard SF. It's SF with one or two creepy moments and a generally uneasy feel with some pop-sci buzzwords spinkled in (honestly, it started verging into rick and morty territory at some points).
I was pleasantly surprised by Sarasti - I fully expected it to be eye-watering camp but it was actually well done and one of my favorite elements of the book. I also quite liked the alien biology and mechanisms of evasion. The ending was solid, too.
Overall, 3.5/5. Solid first-contact with above average concepts. May read it again in a few years.
Great comment, thanks
Excellent review!
Interesting hypothesis that consciousness is needed when we are intelligent enough, but at the same time not enough to have a quasi perfect World's model, then consciousness would be the machine that allows us to refine that model. Perhaps we can see it in our culture, that the more technological advances we have, the more "zombie" the average person becomes.
I don't know if consciousness automatically implies that our mind creates the need for meaning as the force impulsing us to improve this World's model, and thus helping to close that gap in the model's prediction errors.
I don't know if that hypothesis is true, but if it were to be true, then, once we arrive at this quasi perfect model (if that is possible), that expenditure of energy that implies having consciousness (and the search for meaning that consciousness brings with it), seems to be unnecessary as Watts postulates.
What other novel with similar style would you recommend?
Thank You
I would suggest Quarantine by Greg Egan. Similarly to Blindsight Quarantine proposes interesting idea about consciousness and implications it has on rest of the universe. Also, it gives very unusual take on nature of measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Where it differs is that it doesn’t focus so much on first contact. Also it’s worth mentioning that Quarantine is a bit harder read because it tackles some advanced physics. I still consider it worth reading.
@@uprkossvemu2674 Wow, super! Thanks!
From what I read it might be wrong to think of the scramblers as non sentient. They are hyper intelligent and do have a complex hive consciousness, but their individual and group sentience is astronomically low. They know that they are and that they are there but there is too little there to care about.
Thank you for this! Absolutely amazing!
My pleasure, thanks
Actually reading this right now.
Awesome
This is my favorite sci-fi book by a large margin. The afterward and footnotes are my favorite science book of all time.
Highly recommended - it certainly explains a lot of what's happening in the world today.
Needs a movie SOOOOOO bad. I want Denis Villeneuve to do like every good sci Fi book as a movie. House of Suns, Rev Space, Blindsight, Hyperion (as a mini-series), and someone needs to do the make the book House of Leaves into a movie.
amazing review, just brilliant
My favourite sci fi book ever.
I had the wet spider too (or something close enough). I've never experienced this with any other book
Comment contains spoilers.
This is my favorite sci fi book, period. The most mind blowing book I’ve ever read. I’m not going to say it’s the best written sci fi book ever, because that wouldn’t be true, but it’s just full of ideas that I’ve never read elsewhere. Even the space vampire, which sounds so lame, is so incredibly interesting:
*spoiler*
Sarasti is superhumanly smart and *NOT SELF AWARE*. Vampires are so smart that nothing can surprise them… and thus they have no need for consciousness. He’s not “the dark side of consciousness”. Rather, he’s the epitome of the supercomputing emotionless monster trope. The most interesting thing is that vampires preyed on base line humanity for the entire time humanity was developing and it wasn’t until the invention of the right angle that they became extinct (seizures caused by a neural defect.). Just freakin wild.
I only gotta say. I liked Michelle's and Isac's relationship ❤
This book is awful.
After a strong beginning, this book goes off the rails, crashes and burns, and the dazed reader, like passengers surviving a train wreck, numbly follows as the plot wanders out into the middle of a barren wasteland, where it dies. It has perhaps the most disappointing ending of any science fiction book I have ever read.
It violates the most basic rules of storytelling, too.
So many 'so what' moments!
Absolute drivel!
Top 10 sci-fi novel, imho.
where is all the Blindsight artwork for this video coming from? man, was I hoping it was from a graphic novel that flew under my radar.
Better than that, it's from a short film that is free on RUclips, and it's great
@@MediaDeathCult I literally was just watching it again and realized it, cheers!
Ok guys is this book really that good is it worth my credit on audible?
The part where watts gets into humans as automatons, are we really aware of what we are doing, are we really thinking and making our own decisions, or are we just automatons constantly copying our environment just to feel…safe.
It's such a good book .
Great review Moid. Definitely communicates the mood of the book. I found the novel itself kind of depressing, there's loads going on, almost too much perhaps in someplaces. Very interesting. I don't really agree with the conclusions Peter seems to be reaching. He seems to be focusing on one thing, energy minimization, to the exclusion of everything else.
And also there just the whole zero sum thinking, everything is just some grim struggle for survival that only the most brutal can win mentality of it all that just isn't helpful.
Good book, kind of liked a lot of it, but overall didn't enjoy the experience.
Thanks
I just finished this book. I don't really understand the connection of firefall and Rorschach. Can anyone help me out here?
Same here. Finished, but I still got lost.