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John Lee posted:Alright, I'm not going to respond to everything just now because I'm watching a movie and have had a pretty poo poo day, lost a month's money due to electronics breaking, etc., but some people made some good points and just because I'm not responding doesn't mean I didn't hear Actually, you also made a lot of hyperbolic statements about how I (and others you quoted) believed that I was smarter than the dumb author or something. Sorry, are you writing a character that I shouldn't read too much into? Maybe if you've got a specific beef you could stick to that, instead of your weird tangent that put words in the mouth of a bunch of people discussing the author's work. By the way, he explores this topic repeatedly, not just in Blindsight. The idea that he might think this is an idea worth taking seriously is considerably less ludicrous than your series of posts. Danhenge fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 05:08
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Copernic posted:Watts is definitely exploring the implications of these concepts even if he's not precisely an advocate for them. I haven't read blindsight but I don't think, from the descriptions here, it's gonna be the book to change my mind.
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Feb 25, 2022 05:10
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RDM posted:Personally, this is what I can't stand about every piece of fiction that tries to tackle evopsych. Evolution of complex systems with emergent properties is mind-bending and often wildly counterintuitive. Exploring the implications just ends up sounding like a toddler trying to explain how airplanes work. It might. I might check it out to see what choices the kids have to make to keep that scary space vampire from eating them.
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Feb 25, 2022 05:19
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Alright, I'm so irritated that I went back and found the references section of the version posted online (https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#Notes) and it starts like this:quote:References and remarks, to try and convince you all I'm not crazy (or, failing that, to simply intimidate you into shutting up about it). Read for extra credit. If you scroll down to the section in consciousness he waxes poetic about his sources for the idea. Can you point me to the text where he says "just kidding though, I don't think this is true!" Or did you maybe just go on a tear about what you thought you remembered?
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Feb 25, 2022 05:19
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Danhenge posted:Alright, I'm so irritated that I went back and found the references section of the version posted online (https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#Notes) and it starts like this: quote:While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole drat thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. Blindsight is a thought experiment, a game of Just suppose and What if. Nothing more.
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Feb 25, 2022 09:43
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Speaking of sci fi space horror, just saw there's a book called Dead Silence out by S A Vance. Supposed to be spooky horror in space, about a ghost ship that's been missing for years, so it sounds like it's got an event horizon feel to it. Haven't read it yet but it's on my tbr list.
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Feb 25, 2022 12:04
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Everyone posted:It's more fantasy but with some Sci-Fi elements but I'd recommend something I'm currently rereading - the Coramonde duology. Yes, duology. Instead of 3 or 5 and 10+ massive tomes, it's a two book series, The Doomfarers of Coramonde followed by The Starfollwers of Coramonde. Both are by Brian Daley who wrote these before writing the original Han Solo trilogy. He also wrote the novelisation of TRON. I didn't realise that he was a Foster rather than a Garry Douglas.
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Feb 25, 2022 13:30
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That sounds more like someone admitting they might be wrong than rejecting the premise. I think I can forgive myself for potentially misrepresenting Watts' views on sentience.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:13
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I'm amazed Graydon Saunders is going to all the trouble of having his sockpuppets argue about Watts.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:16
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I saw someone on another forum declare Watts to be a "nasty-rear end dumb author" because she thought the ideas of Blindsight were stupid... after only having read Echopraxia.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:34
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just want to say I'm sad that I've read 10 trillion sci fi novels and can't think of any positive ones that haven't already been mentioned
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Feb 25, 2022 15:44
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RDM posted:Personally, this is what I can't stand about every piece of fiction that tries to tackle evopsych. Evolution of complex systems with emergent properties is mind-bending and often wildly counterintuitive. Exploring the implications just ends up sounding like a toddler trying to explain how airplanes work. It doesn't matter if the claims about evolution and consciousness are right or not, because it's a really, really effective piece of existential horror. I don't believe the universe is empty of all meaning and we should just peel off our mannequin faces and reveal the hollowness within, but that doesn't mean Ligotti isn't a bleak thrill.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:50
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I'd like to point out that within the setting nothing in blindsight the story is necessarily true, though it may be close to the 'real' events. Even things that are true aren't really necessarily what they appeared at the time. For example the vampire staring at tortured human faces thing I'm pretty sure was just loving with Siri, who still believed the vampire was in there. It was actually being operated by an AI the whole time specifically because siri would have trouble taking orders from a computer but not a hyper advanced organism and also of course in the sequel the story of blindsight is being broadcast specifically to manipulate Siris dad There are some other really good hints too when they talk about the perspective of a scrambler where all communication is a weapon Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 16:05
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Strom Cuzewon posted:
You know, fair. I had read most of his books and short story collections five or so years back, and the many downsides and failures of sapience is kind of a recurring theme. Stuff like 'the only known case of free will in the universe' does not paint a rosy picture. But, i will walk back my opinion of his opinions to merely a black hole of nihilism.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:42
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Well thread, in the complete opposite direction, any uplifting or optimistic or fun Sci-fi to recommend, given the state of everything? These times are Pratchett times. Admittedly, all times are Pratchett times. But these times? These are Pratchett times. Personally I am reading Nation, because I haven't read it since the week it came out and I've promised myself a re-read for ages. I appreciate that Pratchett doesn't meet the sci-fi criteria, but Becky Chambers is all I can think of in that regard. I tend to escapism more through historical fiction or secondary worlds. I'm finishing the last book in the Rotherweird trilogy, which is semi-secondary world and has a quirky rural British feel that's somewhat removed from reality. I would recommend those too.
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Feb 25, 2022 21:08
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Thanks for all the recommendations!
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Feb 25, 2022 21:55
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Jedit posted:He also wrote the novelization of TRON. I didn't realize that he was a Foster rather than a Garry Douglas. Even after Googling I don't get that reference even a little bit.
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Feb 25, 2022 22:32
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Sworn to the Night (Wisdom's Grave #1) by Craig Schaefer - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078S7SK9T/ The Way into Chaos (Great Way #1) by Harry Connolly - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R0G480U/
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Feb 25, 2022 23:28
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Everyone posted:Even after Googling I don't get that reference even a little bit.
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Feb 26, 2022 00:05
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pradmer posted:Sworn to the Night (Wisdom's Grave #1) by Craig Schaefer - $0.99 The Coramonde novels aren't like either of these works as far as I can tell. Earth is basically our real world Earth at the time of the Vietnam war. It's not an "urban fantasy" place full of witches, werewolves and vampires. The sole deviation from "normality" is the (very secret) existence of a device which allows travel between dimensions. As for Coramonde, magic definitely exists there, but it's a little limited in some ways. Magic is mostly a thing of rituals. Wizards/sorcerers don't generally cast fireballs or lightning bolts, they use a ritual to summon and bind some scary demon/spirit/etc to do that. Gil MacDonald, his "Nine-Mob" crew and their Armored Personal Carrier are summoned out of the Vietnam War to act as a counter to an actual dragon, which has been summoned by the bad guys. One thing that really struck me was how three-dimensional the characters were, especially the women, who had goals and agency. Doomfarers was published back in 1977. I also liked that even the people working for the bad guys were often presented as being brave. competent and somewhat heroic at times. AngusPodgorny posted:I remember having Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien, so I assumed that Garry Douglas was famously against novelizations as contrast. But then I looked it up and Douglas did the novelization of Highlander, so now I don't know. Yep, completely missed that. The Garry Douglas Google gave me is some kind of motivational speaker. That said, Tron aside, the Han Solo novels were just novels set in the Star Wars universe (published between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) and the Coramonde books were original works by Daley. Everyone fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Feb 26, 2022 |
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Feb 26, 2022 00:35
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Well thread, in the complete opposite direction, any uplifting or optimistic or fun Sci-fi to recommend, given the state of everything? I can think of a couple of optimistic and fun scifi stories to read. Uplifting scifi is harder to find unless you mean Uplift in the David Brin sense, which uh, hard no recommend. The first 3 Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books before that series went up it's own rear end are pretty fun. The first 3 or 4 Stainless Steel Rat books before that series went up it's own rear end are fun popcorn fiction. Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad and his short story collection The Star Diaries are overall excellent and filled with amazing one-off throwaway ideas. Harry Harrison's Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers which is a super-overt parody of golden age super science space opera fiction. The super-scienced warp drive thing that kicks everything off is <a block of cheddar cheese run through a particle accelerator>, every alien vastly prefers the black character over the 2 white male leads, etc.
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Feb 26, 2022 02:13
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Well thread, in the complete opposite direction, any uplifting or optimistic or fun Sci-fi to recommend, given the state of everything? The Sector General series by James White! The tl;dr is that the series is about a hospital in space, and the main theme is the protagonist figuring out how to diagnose the alien of the week, and then how to actually help them. The series was written by a pacifist, and he really espoused those views in the novels - not in an anvil way, but in a "let's realistically get along and try to solve problems" way, complete with the local military force being more of a peacekeeping force than a military one. The one fault with the series is that it's fairly sexist - written by a dude in the 60s, alas - so women won't get to help very much. But if you can hold your nose, it's a weirdly uplifting series that I'm happy exists. Start with Hospital Station!
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Feb 26, 2022 02:19
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I recommend the Sten series which is fun, action-packed and also at least cautiously optimistic. It reads like "What if the Empire in Star Wars wasn't cartoonishly evil and incompetent" meets "What if Warhammer 40K wasn't depressingly fascist as balls?"
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Feb 26, 2022 02:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:The one fault with the series is that it's fairly sexist - written by a dude in the 60s, alas - so women won't get to help very much.
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Feb 26, 2022 03:11
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StrixNebulosa posted:The Sector General series by James White! i read something similar to this a long time ago and i've never been able to find it again - it was written by a woman with a female main character and it was pretty steamy but i remember the other stuff being good. anyone got any ideas?
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Feb 26, 2022 03:19
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moonmazed posted:i read something similar to this a long time ago and i've never been able to find it again - it was written by a woman with a female main character and it was pretty steamy but i remember the other stuff being good. anyone got any ideas? Stardoc by S.L. Viehl! Haven't read it yet. e: If you like 'em, there are ten of them!
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Feb 26, 2022 03:22
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:These times are Pratchett times. Admittedly, all times are Pratchett times. But these times? These are Pratchett times. Personally I am reading Nation, because I haven't read it since the week it came out and I've promised myself a re-read for ages. Hugely underrated IMO. When I finish my Pratchett re-read I'm going to read all his other stuff, and the books I remember loving just as much as the best Discworld books are Nation and the Bromeliad trilogy.
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Feb 26, 2022 03:58
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The guy who wrote the Bladerunner also wrote a bunch of doctor-at-large medical science scifi short stories, which aged pretty decently.
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Feb 26, 2022 04:28
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Welp, got bored and read Dead Silence. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great though. Event horizon is still the best horror in space I've seen, and this is kinda like event horizon lite. Ending was a bit meh. Still, had some spooky moments in there. Worth a read if you are looking for haunted ships in space books. It's not like there's a whole lot of em.
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Feb 26, 2022 05:39
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StrixNebulosa posted:The Sector General series by James White! There’s a series about an earthman who is possibly kidnapped by aliens to be a dentist which I really enjoyed but can’t remember anything about what it’s called or who wrote it? He fixes a tooth and the angry alien ends up being an instructor who is testing him and laments that he fixed the tooth too well and he’d been “cultivating that abscess” for ages.
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Feb 26, 2022 05:44
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Prostho Plus?
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Feb 26, 2022 05:49
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General Battuta posted:I don't believe the universe is empty of all meaning and we should just peel off our mannequin faces and reveal the hollowness within *stares at war on feeds* I dunno, I just dunno
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Feb 26, 2022 06:17
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navyjack posted:There’s a series about an earthman who is possibly kidnapped by aliens to be a dentist which I really enjoyed but can’t remember anything about what it’s called or who wrote it? He fixes a tooth and the angry alien ends up being an instructor who is testing him and laments that he fixed the tooth too well and he’d been “cultivating that abscess” for ages. Yeah, that's Piers Anthony's "Prostho Plus" stories, which were later collected into a single book. They're some of his better work, believe it or not. quantumfoam posted:The guy who wrote the Bladerunner also wrote a bunch of doctor-at-large medical science scifi short stories, which aged pretty decently. Alan Nourse, who was a MD in real life. He also wrote a bunch of popular medical books as well as science fiction.
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Feb 26, 2022 07:11
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StrixNebulosa posted:Stardoc by S.L. Viehl! Haven't read it yet. omg that's it thank you, you're the best!!!!
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Feb 26, 2022 07:57
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Selachian posted:Yeah, that's Piers Anthony's "Prostho Plus" stories, which were later collected into a single book. They're some of his better work, believe it or not. The Colour of her Dentine
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Feb 26, 2022 13:00
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Selachian posted:Yeah, that's Piers Anthony's "Prostho Plus" stories, which were later collected into a single book. They're some of his better work, believe it or not. Ah so my brain redacted the author out of self-defense
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Feb 26, 2022 15:05
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NoneMoreNegative posted:The Colour of her Dentine  loving Piers Anthony
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Feb 26, 2022 15:36
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AngusPodgorny posted:I remember having Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien, so I assumed that Garry Douglas was famously against novelizations as contrast. But then I looked it up and Douglas did the novelization of Highlander, so now I don't know. I meant that Foster is a well known writer in his own right who also happens to do novelisations, while I assumed Garry Douglas was/is a nothing writer for whom novelisations are a big step up. I checked out one of Douglas's horror novels on the back of quite enjoying the Highlander tie-in, and it's laughably terrible. As it turns out, though, I was mistaken about him being a nothing writer, because Garry Douglas is actually a pseudonym of World Fantasy Award winner Garry Kilworth.
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Feb 26, 2022 16:45
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Oh dang I quite like Garry Kilworth. Those animal books, right? Hunter's Moon and that one about hares.
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Feb 26, 2022 17:31
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HopperUK posted:Oh dang I quite like Garry Kilworth. Those animal books, right? Hunter's Moon and that one about hares. And the Welkin Weasels series. The book of his that I've read is House of Tribes, which is very good.
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Feb 26, 2022 17:56
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