To expand slightly on what someone already said, the vampires were important at the end to show not only what non-conscious "humans" would be like, but to also stress how close we are to being non-conscious ourselves. A close geneological relative of ours is much more intelligent, and that superiority seems to correllate to a lower degree of consciousness. There were also interesting suggestions that the vampires aren't devoid of consciousness, but rather have a different degree of it, which i thought opened up another vector of just how alien other entities can be, even among those that are closest to us. I agree that it didnt *need* to be a vampire per se, but it was a very fun choice and fit well with the horror tropes that were employed throughout.
In the book it says that Vampires did exist but their hibernation cycle had them falling into legend until there were too many right angles around humans to be able to hunt them effectively. The vampires don't just serve as apex predictors but also as a look at what a non-concious human could be. Bloodthirsty and focused only on survival. I think the ending really happened the way it does because the author wanted to make a point that an unconscious human race might as well just be a machine race, which is why we can never tell if the vampire or computer was really in charge or if that would make a difference.
keaton puts up walls and doesn't correctly interpret the conciousness or topology of people or things he is vulnerable around...jukka gave him an ego death. a rebirth cycle from mauled to maligned and then keaton confronts the big bad at the end of the book and gets a correct read on jukka as he's going to need it when bringing the message back to earth full of vampires.
@@African_Rose Except it isn't a world full of Vampires. Jukka said it himself, they are out of that race, they don't have a path for dominance. And the sequal book Echopraxia bore this out, the vampires rebellion is only one part of humanities downfall. I think even valorie could see the future was in Portia and a transformation of humanity.
I read this back in 2010 during the height of the Vampire craze ( I was not a fan of Twilight or any of it).When a Vampire was introduced at the beginning of the book, I was ready to push the eject button, Peter Watts has P.H.D in marine biology, and he more than explains and justifies the inclusion. Needless to say, it is now one of my favorite scifi books, and I have read it multiple times since. The sequel is good, and worth reading if you enjoy Blindsight, but not an all time great
This book was hugely popular in Poland, because we had great hard sci-fi author who wrote multiple books about first contact and impossibility of understanding other intelligence. I highly recommend checking Stanislaw Lem. His most popular work in the west is “Solaris”, there was even an adaptation with Clooney.
@@hugonautspod Problem with LEM is that he wrote hard SciFi in 50s and 60s, later he moved to other genres. If you pick up something fr4om him randomly, you never know if you are going to read a review of non existent book, fairly tale about robots or some esei. In my opinion, the story that's still completely holds to today is The Invincible from 1964. It's actually kinda mindblowing how relevant are his ideas from 60 years ago . 30 years later, some researchers from DARPA quoted this book as one of the motivators to begin studies of military applications of alien tech ideas described in The Invincible. Read the book before googling it, because it's major spoiler :) There is also game being made, demo is on youtube.
@@HArryvajonas Solaris is kinda overrated in my opinion. He has written one excellent book about scientists from MIT trying to communicate with AI but for some reason nobody talks about it. I highely recommend GOLEM XIV if you liked Blindsight. It's kind of short but dense as neutron star so you won't regret it.
The point of the vampire is that its a natural divergent point from homo sapien that prioritizes consciousness less than we do, evolutionarily. The idea is that, without the genetic right angle flaw, it would have been the successful mutation, which has higher intelligence and less ID/ego. Its a mirror to highlight how the alien species with hyper intelligence and no self awareness is a legitimate evolutionary path. I do agree it only kind of works.
A friend recommended this book to me last year. Im super glad, Watts is my favorite doomer around. Rifters was pretty good too, felt more like a "normal" novel to me, but its written by Watts, so thats cool.
A bit of a weird thing to bring up but the idea of unconsciousness brings up the issue of the p-zombie in philosophy, and some other philosophical/real world beliefs that folks have that I find disturbing. I'll start off with something super personal, I'm an autist with ADHD. I practically do not react to anything unless it is actually life threatening or my emotions are already in turmoil. Only reason I cried in a t-bone car crash on my side was because I was already depressed, the pain didn't matter. I rapidly learn (or get programmed, you can see where this is going) when shown tasks or given very basic instructions. Assuming a good state of mind and health I will pound for pound out learn and outperform a normal person. The issue about consciousness and computers is that there are many people who would (wrongly) assume I am a computer or not-conscious, a Chinese room or whatever. Technically the brain is a complex analog computer but for me a computer in the sense of… machinery, automation, not-conscious enough. Stuff like the robo communist folks and accelerationists and other stuff sometimes believe this and it's weird. But this then brings up, how do we know what unconscious things are like, or if it's even measurable. Some theories exist and say that especially for human level intelligence a consciousness (regulatory agent) is required to sift through info in some way. Perhaps the vampires are like me? For all intents and purposes I exist only to survive with "disorders" and things that amplify that even more than a normal human. There are some people (albeit a small amount) who already sees me as a non-person. This further confirms my theory that autists are just bonkers powerful and are the coolest and most dangerous people to ever live thanks for my Ted talk.
I love that the most interesting character, Jukka Sirestri, is essentially pointless! I really can't understand why he's even there when his role could have been better filled by Siri in every way.
I've come back to this video for the spoilers section, i'm really glad in the book they made reference to the Chinese room and whilst I found the writing not my style - I loved the ideas put forward...refreshing!
I went searching for reviews of Blindsight after finishing it this afternoon, and found someone with a great hat!! Go Isles!!! Enjoyed your video and review too!
Great novel. Great conversation. I actually like Siri Keeton as a narrator and character. Sure it’s hard to connect to a sociopath, but his character also blurs the line of sociopath. Watts also makes a great reference to Flatland. If you haven’t read Flatland yet I highly recommend it. It’s a 19th century dimensional mind opening masterpiece. Anyway loved this book, loved Flatland, looking forward to watching more of you guys.
So glad you like! This is Brent - haven’t read Flatland yet but it’s on my shelf, my wife actually bought it on a lark on a trip once not knowing it was spec fiction. Looking forward to digging into it soon! If you loves Blindsight, have you read Solaris? Amazing book, and definitely feels like the inspiration for the biggest, best idea in Blindsight. We have a video on that one too if you haven’t seen it yet: th-cam.com/video/PBpJ7QPOukE/w-d-xo.html
Hi Brent. I have yet to real Solaris, but I'm a huge fan of the filmmaker Andrea Tarkovsky and he made a film about Solaris so I know its good and look forward to reading it. He also made a film called Stalker based on a short novel called Roadside Picnic. If you haven't read Roadside Picnic I highly recommend it. It's short and incredibly interesting. I think you'll really enjoy Flatland. It's another short read and more of a novella. I loved the way it dealt with dimensions and it was way ahead of it's time. @@hugonautspod
It wasn't just that Juuka was the smartest of the smart. It was that because of physiological mental traits it was capable of taking in inputs that baseline humans could not take in (the idea of being capable of consciously holding the black-on-white image AND the white-on-black image of a dual image simultaneously being indicative of a type of intelligence that differs in quality, not merely in degree)
Good job! I think one of the the other key themes that you didn’t address was Siri’s lack of empathy (the philosophical zombie) and him attaining it at end of the book to become human
I enjoy the dialogue with everyone on the Discord. I also like hearing your thoughts here and learning things I didn’t pick up on. Also, very glad to hear that you both also thought the vampire an unnecessary addition. I kept waiting for there to be some payoff and, while it isn’t completely absent, I did not consider it worthwhile.
The book is really great, but I would agree with some of the other commenters. The writing style is a bit convoluted for me, where I was having to re read paragraphs to get the gist of what the author was saying. Regardless, the concepts, technology and philosophical implications kept me hooked
Peter Watts reminds of Arthur C. Clarke in that respect. I appreciate both Arthurs much more for they're ideas and story's, than characters and dialogue.
@@discoceto9988 So glad you like! And we definitely will, about to take a little break for the holidays, but we'll have an ep this coming Tuesday, as well as one early December, and then we'll be back to every two weeks with a new season starting Jan 3rd.
After a few reads I realized that keaton is essentially a topoly sponge he is imprinted on by whoever he is studying and breaking down mechanically. theres one key thing the vampire says about keaton being best in his field except for when its too close to home meaning keaton puts up walls and doesn't let people imprint on him he is vulnerable around otherwise he would have had some empathy for chelsea and treated with love and time but instead shut down...jukka sarasti is the inverse RIGHT AWAY keaton reads jukkas topology on first meeting and see's MURDERER and says that he can perhaps smell meat on his breath even though the vampire doesn't eat or drink and uses syringes...this is keaton FALSELY or INCORRECTLY getting a bad read on the vampire keatons job is to take back an esoteric message to a planet full of vampires so the jukka attacks him...breaking down his walls of vulnerability with brute force and its only then that when keaton can't transpose or hypothesize or think about WHY???? did this vampire maul him does the vampire explain it to him. its not his CONCIOUS mind that needs to develop the message and understand its the part of him he shuts down and turns on when he feels like it...jukka showed him esoterically that he was a survivor and i think as keaton heads back to earth you can see this ego death occur after he is mauled and confronts the demon and finally gets a correct read on jukka at the behest of a quantum AI.
I stopped watching at minute 7:00 because I was so afraid of spoilers, i was on the edge of my seat. A non-spoiler video contains: - Advantages and disadvantages of the book. - is there going to be a take home message or not (without saying it’s going to be shocking and mind blowing. I would be less shocked and mind blowed if I knew there is going to be a shock and a mind blow. - strengths and weaknesses of the book (if there are any) - the sub genres we should expect - the level of scientific ability needed to comprehend the book I had to stop watching cuz you already blew that they’re gonna find something on earth, I’m halfway through and I think I know now what… 😂 so I had to stop the video fearing you’d unintentionally reveal something for me. Maybe I’ll come back later and watch the last part of the video.
4/5 stars for me too. Warning: Spoilers below!! Really liked the whole idea of resurrected vampires, and how Watts explained their biology as predators of humans and their aversion to right angles. All the neuroimplants and mind uploading stuff was cool, but honestly has been done before a thousand times ever since Neuromancer. Same with the gunfights with the hive-like Scramblers on the Rorschach -- it's the bug-hunt/Aliens trope so wasn't as compelling for me. Why were the human characters so intent on attacking the aliens anyways? Didn't quite understand all the melodrama aboard the Theseus, and Sarasti's attack on Siri? What the hell was that? Watts earns points for the science excursions about the Chinese Room hypothesis, consciousness & free will, and the anatomy of the Scramblers was interesting & original. Liked Watts's writing style , it's often poetic - he uses a minimum of words to convey a scene or feeling.
Just my take on the ship melodrama - the attack on Siri. It’s an element of irony that of all the modified humans on the ship. Siri is actually the most like the aliens and like a vampire or AI. He does not have a neurotypical human sense of consciousness. He can’t truly decide anything for himself. He makes choices based on pattern recognition and mission parameters. Sarasti/Captain know that if he just relays raw data, without personal context, the human race will likely find a way to minimize the threat or even vilify the expedition crew. Siri needed to become more human in order to convey the existential threat of the aliens. It also reinforces how close humans are to the alien, advanced, low sentience, state. Siri had already done the computations and pattern recognition subconsciously to see what was happening with the aliens far in advance. Yet he had the same neurological “faults” of all humans in that he subconsciously minimized what did not seem feasible or logical. All the things he “imagined” on the ship before they ever made contact. That combo - his innate need to convey only data, and his lack of insight that he couldn’t even objectively do that, meant his message was doomed. Unless something challenged his paradigm so significantly that he had to “look” at things differently. Hence the trauma sequence. I found it super interesting that Siri speculates there won’t even be a human race by the time he returns to earth, which effectively makes the whole mission pointless. Which is also possibly commentary on the way our “conscious” thoughts work. Just my interpretations but I love that the book was so thought provoking!
I love the vampire aspect in this book. Too bad you all didn't like it. I think it was to show that the "humans" looking for aliens were more alien than we want to admit.
Different strokes and all that - glad to hear you liked it! We've heard it plays an even bigger role in the sequel, Echopraxia, sounds like it might be up your alley
You are definitely dumped almost directly into the main narrative and left to figure stuff out on your own as things happen. I tell people that if they’ve seen the series “The Wire”, it’s going to be pretty much the same experience. And honestly … the same payoff, which is pretty massive, IMO.
I just finished Blindsight and I really didn't care for it. I didn't get attached to any of the characters and by the end I didn't care if they lived or died. The scary bits were really cool and while the end concept was unique by the time I got there I no longer cared about what happened. 2.5 out of 5 for me.
I think this book is overhyped, and it gets a lot of attention. The premise is powerful and original, but the characters are not attractive, and there is too much techno- babble. The rumination on evolution is interesting and worth reading. I give it three out of five stars.
I'd put it on my top 5 best ever science fiction books, or at least my top 10, because I enjoy mind-bending R-rated novels that change the way you feel about reality. That's just me, though. I respect many people's science fiction opinions.
Its poorly written book, containing great ideas. Its deliberately very hard to read, full of technobabble. If it was written by skilled writer it would be considered one of the greatest sci fi books of all time I believe.
This take sucks. Watt's prose is jargon-heavy but carefully so, not difficult to understand but overwhelming when it's supposed to be. It never felt like essential info was being communicated badly, but sometimes would have crew members use a lot of jargon to hammer home hiw they think. If anything his writing is propulsive and gritty bordering on pulpy and edgy, often a bit cheesy but rarely ever dry or plodding. It's often dense but only hard to understand when Watts gets swept along at a climax, and starts rushing headlong through description, so it becomes hard to stay oriented in the space he's trying to describe. It also falls totally flat during the segments where we see Siri's failed relationship, those parts feel like they were written by someone with no social skills rather than just being about a protagonist like that
To expand slightly on what someone already said, the vampires were important at the end to show not only what non-conscious "humans" would be like, but to also stress how close we are to being non-conscious ourselves. A close geneological relative of ours is much more intelligent, and that superiority seems to correllate to a lower degree of consciousness. There were also interesting suggestions that the vampires aren't devoid of consciousness, but rather have a different degree of it, which i thought opened up another vector of just how alien other entities can be, even among those that are closest to us. I agree that it didnt *need* to be a vampire per se, but it was a very fun choice and fit well with the horror tropes that were employed throughout.
In the book it says that Vampires did exist but their hibernation cycle had them falling into legend until there were too many right angles around humans to be able to hunt them effectively.
The vampires don't just serve as apex predictors but also as a look at what a non-concious human could be. Bloodthirsty and focused only on survival.
I think the ending really happened the way it does because the author wanted to make a point that an unconscious human race might as well just be a machine race, which is why we can never tell if the vampire or computer was really in charge or if that would make a difference.
keaton puts up walls and doesn't correctly interpret the conciousness or topology of people or things he is vulnerable around...jukka gave him an ego death. a rebirth cycle from mauled to maligned and then keaton confronts the big bad at the end of the book and gets a correct read on jukka as he's going to need it when bringing the message back to earth full of vampires.
@@African_Rose Except it isn't a world full of Vampires. Jukka said it himself, they are out of that race, they don't have a path for dominance. And the sequal book Echopraxia bore this out, the vampires rebellion is only one part of humanities downfall. I think even valorie could see the future was in Portia and a transformation of humanity.
I read this back in 2010 during the height of the Vampire craze ( I was not a fan of Twilight or any of it).When a Vampire was introduced at the beginning of the book, I was ready to push the eject button, Peter Watts has P.H.D in marine biology, and he more than explains and justifies the inclusion. Needless to say, it is now one of my favorite scifi books, and I have read it multiple times since. The sequel is good, and worth reading if you enjoy Blindsight, but not an all time great
We haven't read the sequel yet, but looking forward to checking it out someday soon, thanks for the rec!
This book was hugely popular in Poland, because we had great hard sci-fi author who wrote multiple books about first contact and impossibility of understanding other intelligence. I highly recommend checking Stanislaw Lem.
His most popular work in the west is “Solaris”, there was even an adaptation with Clooney.
Absolutely high on the list to do Stanislaw, looking forward to it someday soon, thanks for the rec!
@@hugonautspod Problem with LEM is that he wrote hard SciFi in 50s and 60s, later he moved to other genres. If you pick up something fr4om him randomly, you never know if you are going to read a review of non existent book, fairly tale about robots or some esei.
In my opinion, the story that's still completely holds to today is The Invincible from 1964. It's actually kinda mindblowing how relevant are his ideas from 60 years ago .
30 years later, some researchers from DARPA quoted this book as one of the motivators to begin studies of military applications of alien tech ideas described in The Invincible.
Read the book before googling it, because it's major spoiler :)
There is also game being made, demo is on youtube.
Solaris is one of my all time favorites; the movies versions are good as well. The English Audible version, has an amazing voice actor.
@@HArryvajonas Solaris is kinda overrated in my opinion. He has written one excellent book about scientists from MIT trying to communicate with AI but for some reason nobody talks about it. I highely recommend GOLEM XIV if you liked Blindsight. It's kind of short but dense as neutron star so you won't regret it.
The point of the vampire is that its a natural divergent point from homo sapien that prioritizes consciousness less than we do, evolutionarily. The idea is that, without the genetic right angle flaw, it would have been the successful mutation, which has higher intelligence and less ID/ego. Its a mirror to highlight how the alien species with hyper intelligence and no self awareness is a legitimate evolutionary path. I do agree it only kind of works.
A friend recommended this book to me last year. Im super glad, Watts is my favorite doomer around. Rifters was pretty good too, felt more like a "normal" novel to me, but its written by Watts, so thats cool.
GREAT IDEA about the spoilers section at the end: I think that should be a core feature, so viewers can come back to it after finishing the book.
So glad you liked it! We'll definitely start adding it more frequently when the review isn't too long already.
Hmm, I don't know what it says about me, but I found Siri deeply relatable.
made me think
A bit of a weird thing to bring up but the idea of unconsciousness brings up the issue of the p-zombie in philosophy, and some other philosophical/real world beliefs that folks have that I find disturbing.
I'll start off with something super personal, I'm an autist with ADHD. I practically do not react to anything unless it is actually life threatening or my emotions are already in turmoil. Only reason I cried in a t-bone car crash on my side was because I was already depressed, the pain didn't matter. I rapidly learn (or get programmed, you can see where this is going) when shown tasks or given very basic instructions. Assuming a good state of mind and health I will pound for pound out learn and outperform a normal person.
The issue about consciousness and computers is that there are many people who would (wrongly) assume I am a computer or not-conscious, a Chinese room or whatever. Technically the brain is a complex analog computer but for me a computer in the sense of… machinery, automation, not-conscious enough.
Stuff like the robo communist folks and accelerationists and other stuff sometimes believe this and it's weird.
But this then brings up, how do we know what unconscious things are like, or if it's even measurable. Some theories exist and say that especially for human level intelligence a consciousness (regulatory agent) is required to sift through info in some way.
Perhaps the vampires are like me? For all intents and purposes I exist only to survive with "disorders" and things that amplify that even more than a normal human. There are some people (albeit a small amount) who already sees me as a non-person.
This further confirms my theory that autists are just bonkers powerful and are the coolest and most dangerous people to ever live thanks for my Ted talk.
Hahaha this was amazing
I love that the most interesting character, Jukka Sirestri, is essentially pointless! I really can't understand why he's even there when his role could have been better filled by Siri in every way.
I've come back to this video for the spoilers section, i'm really glad in the book they made reference to the Chinese room and whilst I found the writing not my style - I loved the ideas put forward...refreshing!
I went searching for reviews of Blindsight after finishing it this afternoon, and found someone with a great hat!! Go Isles!!! Enjoyed your video and review too!
Hahaha hockey fans of the world unite!
Great novel. Great conversation. I actually like Siri Keeton as a narrator and character. Sure it’s hard to connect to a sociopath, but his character also blurs the line of sociopath.
Watts also makes a great reference to Flatland. If you haven’t read Flatland yet I highly recommend it. It’s a 19th century dimensional mind opening masterpiece.
Anyway loved this book, loved Flatland, looking forward to watching more of you guys.
So glad you like!
This is Brent - haven’t read Flatland yet but it’s on my shelf, my wife actually bought it on a lark on a trip once not knowing it was spec fiction. Looking forward to digging into it soon!
If you loves Blindsight, have you read Solaris? Amazing book, and definitely feels like the inspiration for the biggest, best idea in Blindsight. We have a video on that one too if you haven’t seen it yet: th-cam.com/video/PBpJ7QPOukE/w-d-xo.html
Hi Brent. I have yet to real Solaris, but I'm a huge fan of the filmmaker Andrea Tarkovsky and he made a film about Solaris so I know its good and look forward to reading it. He also made a film called Stalker based on a short novel called Roadside Picnic. If you haven't read Roadside Picnic I highly recommend it. It's short and incredibly interesting.
I think you'll really enjoy Flatland. It's another short read and more of a novella. I loved the way it dealt with dimensions and it was way ahead of it's time.
@@hugonautspod
Also really looking forward to reading Children of Time and Children of Ruin thanks to you guys. Those seem awesome. Really glad I found your channel.
It wasn't just that Juuka was the smartest of the smart. It was that because of physiological mental traits it was capable of taking in inputs that baseline humans could not take in (the idea of being capable of consciously holding the black-on-white image AND the white-on-black image of a dual image simultaneously being indicative of a type of intelligence that differs in quality, not merely in degree)
Good job!
I think one of the the other key themes that you didn’t address was Siri’s lack of empathy (the philosophical zombie) and him attaining it at end of the book to become human
So true! I can't believe his gf stayed with him for so long, until Siri's spanking woke him up zombie was definitely the right word for Siri
Great job as always, gentlemen. I had fun with one, though I think I’ll read something slightly easier before tackling another high concept piece.
So glad you liked it! Was fun to hear all your thoughts, made us feel like we could revisit it too
I enjoy the dialogue with everyone on the Discord. I also like hearing your thoughts here and learning things I didn’t pick up on. Also, very glad to hear that you both also thought the vampire an unnecessary addition. I kept waiting for there to be some payoff and, while it isn’t completely absent, I did not consider it worthwhile.
The book is really great, but I would agree with some of the other commenters. The writing style is a bit convoluted for me, where I was having to re read paragraphs to get the gist of what the author was saying. Regardless, the concepts, technology and philosophical implications kept me hooked
Yea it's definitely dense and convoluted sometimes - glad you liked it in the end though!
Peter Watts reminds of Arthur C. Clarke in that respect. I appreciate both Arthurs much more for they're ideas and story's, than characters and dialogue.
I never found Siri to be unlikable. I related to his interactions with others people. Hopefully that doesn't mean there is something wrong with me 😂
This is now high on my list. From your description I'm surprised that Rendezvous with Rama didn't make the similar book list.
Having read them both, I am not. "Team visits alien artifact in the solar system" is where the similarities end!
Solaris would be the closest analog. All three books are damn near equally great in my opinion; I would put Solaris at the top.
very cool video
also just wanted to say I hope you guys keep pumping out more vids I find your content very refreshing, and interesting
@@discoceto9988 So glad you like! And we definitely will, about to take a little break for the holidays, but we'll have an ep this coming Tuesday, as well as one early December, and then we'll be back to every two weeks with a new season starting Jan 3rd.
@@hugonautspod your videos are great, keep 'em coming! I got hooked since the canticle for leibowitz review, which is my top 5 books of all time.
After a few reads I realized that keaton is essentially a topoly sponge he is imprinted on by whoever he is studying and breaking down mechanically. theres one key thing the vampire says about keaton being best in his field except for when its too close to home meaning keaton puts up walls and doesn't let people imprint on him he is vulnerable around otherwise he would have had some empathy for chelsea and treated with love and time but instead shut down...jukka sarasti is the inverse RIGHT AWAY keaton reads jukkas topology on first meeting and see's MURDERER and says that he can perhaps smell meat on his breath even though the vampire doesn't eat or drink and uses syringes...this is keaton FALSELY or INCORRECTLY getting a bad read on the vampire keatons job is to take back an esoteric message to a planet full of vampires so the jukka attacks him...breaking down his walls of vulnerability with brute force and its only then that when keaton can't transpose or hypothesize or think about WHY???? did this vampire maul him does the vampire explain it to him. its not his CONCIOUS mind that needs to develop the message and understand its the part of him he shuts down and turns on when he feels like it...jukka showed him esoterically that he was a survivor and i think as keaton heads back to earth you can see this ego death occur after he is mauled and confronts the demon and finally gets a correct read on jukka at the behest of a quantum AI.
Been looking forward to this ep.
I stopped watching at minute 7:00 because I was so afraid of spoilers, i was on the edge of my seat.
A non-spoiler video contains:
- Advantages and disadvantages of the book.
- is there going to be a take home message or not (without saying it’s going to be shocking and mind blowing. I would be less shocked and mind blowed if I knew there is going to be a shock and a mind blow.
- strengths and weaknesses of the book (if there are any)
- the sub genres we should expect
- the level of scientific ability needed to comprehend the book
I had to stop watching cuz you already blew that they’re gonna find something on earth, I’m halfway through and I think I know now what… 😂 so I had to stop the video fearing you’d unintentionally reveal something for me.
Maybe I’ll come back later and watch the last part of the video.
just finished it - thx for not giving away the final ending. for that i will just say ‘holy freakin planet of the apes finale batman!” 😂
4/5 stars for me too.
Warning: Spoilers below!!
Really liked the whole idea of resurrected vampires, and how Watts explained their biology as predators of humans and their aversion to right angles.
All the neuroimplants and mind uploading stuff was cool, but honestly has been done before a thousand times ever since Neuromancer. Same with the gunfights with the hive-like Scramblers on the Rorschach -- it's the bug-hunt/Aliens trope so wasn't as compelling for me. Why were the human characters so intent on attacking the aliens anyways?
Didn't quite understand all the melodrama aboard the Theseus, and Sarasti's attack on Siri? What the hell was that?
Watts earns points for the science excursions about the Chinese Room hypothesis, consciousness & free will, and the anatomy of the Scramblers was interesting & original. Liked Watts's writing style , it's often poetic - he uses a minimum of words to convey a scene or feeling.
Glad to hear you liked it! Particularly the vampires, that’s the thing that seems to be most divisive in the book
Just my take on the ship melodrama - the attack on Siri. It’s an element of irony that of all the modified humans on the ship. Siri is actually the most like the aliens and like a vampire or AI. He does not have a neurotypical human sense of consciousness. He can’t truly decide anything for himself. He makes choices based on pattern recognition and mission parameters. Sarasti/Captain know that if he just relays raw data, without personal context, the human race will likely find a way to minimize the threat or even vilify the expedition crew. Siri needed to become more human in order to convey the existential threat of the aliens.
It also reinforces how close humans are to the alien, advanced, low sentience, state. Siri had already done the computations and pattern recognition subconsciously to see what was happening with the aliens far in advance. Yet he had the same neurological “faults” of all humans in that he subconsciously minimized what did not seem feasible or logical. All the things he “imagined” on the ship before they ever made contact.
That combo - his innate need to convey only data, and his lack of insight that he couldn’t even objectively do that, meant his message was doomed. Unless something challenged his paradigm so significantly that he had to “look” at things differently. Hence the trauma sequence.
I found it super interesting that Siri speculates there won’t even be a human race by the time he returns to earth, which effectively makes the whole mission pointless. Which is also possibly commentary on the way our “conscious” thoughts work.
Just my interpretations but I love that the book was so thought provoking!
mote in god's eye so ham --- amazing to see somebody throw that one out there
I’m interested now. It’s on the “to read” list.
Let us know what you think when you do - hope you like!
Great! Now do echopraxia
We're looking forward to reading it soon!
I love the vampire aspect in this book. Too bad you all didn't like it. I think it was to show that the "humans" looking for aliens were more alien than we want to admit.
Different strokes and all that - glad to hear you liked it! We've heard it plays an even bigger role in the sequel, Echopraxia, sounds like it might be up your alley
Doesn’t Watts explain the Vampire science in the source notes?
Don't know - hadn't heard about the source notes! Is this it? rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Blindsight_Endnotes.pdf
@@hugonautspod Nahhh….that’s not it 😂
You are definitely dumped almost directly into the main narrative and left to figure stuff out on your own as things happen. I tell people that if they’ve seen the series “The Wire”, it’s going to be pretty much the same experience. And honestly … the same payoff, which is pretty massive, IMO.
I just finished Blindsight and I really didn't care for it. I didn't get attached to any of the characters and by the end I didn't care if they lived or died. The scary bits were really cool and while the end concept was unique by the time I got there I no longer cared about what happened. 2.5 out of 5 for me.
Sorry to hear it wasn't your jam! Glad you at least liked the horror factor though.
I think this book is overhyped, and it gets a lot of attention. The premise is powerful and original, but the characters are not attractive, and there is too much techno- babble. The rumination on evolution is interesting and worth reading. I give it three out of five stars.
I stopped reading, very irritating and either deliberately obscure writing or just lack of writing skills.
It was a painful read. I couldn't finish it either. No idea wtf was going on half of the time.
@@Y0ursTru1y you are genius, only half of the time :)))
Ok I lied, maybe like 10%.
Best sci-fi book ever? Pushing it too far with that BS statement
Did we say that? It's great but def not our favorite book - didn't make our top 15 actually: th-cam.com/video/khL_yH3zI0o/w-d-xo.html
I'd put it on my top 5 best ever science fiction books, or at least my top 10, because I enjoy mind-bending R-rated novels that change the way you feel about reality. That's just me, though. I respect many people's science fiction opinions.
Its poorly written book, containing great ideas. Its deliberately very hard to read, full of technobabble. If it was written by skilled writer it would be considered one of the greatest sci fi books of all time I believe.
Totally agree.
Shit take. I found it far from being poorly written. It's actually pretty decent, but don't expect Watts to deliver Hemingway level prose
This take sucks. Watt's prose is jargon-heavy but carefully so, not difficult to understand but overwhelming when it's supposed to be. It never felt like essential info was being communicated badly, but sometimes would have crew members use a lot of jargon to hammer home hiw they think.
If anything his writing is propulsive and gritty bordering on pulpy and edgy, often a bit cheesy but rarely ever dry or plodding. It's often dense but only hard to understand when Watts gets swept along at a climax, and starts rushing headlong through description, so it becomes hard to stay oriented in the space he's trying to describe. It also falls totally flat during the segments where we see Siri's failed relationship, those parts feel like they were written by someone with no social skills rather than just being about a protagonist like that
lol