by Peter Watts

This was my second time reading Blindsight, the first was as an audiobook. I'm not sure what drew me back - I think I saw someone mention the vampire-thing online, which I remembered. And I remembered it being somehow about consciousness in general, but I couldn't remember the specifics. I've been enjoying rereading fiction I read a long time ago lately so I picked it up.

I definitely feel some connection with Siri Keaton. I can remember at times trying to decipher middle school social behavior and adjust my own actions to fit. And somewhere in that was the sense that "I'm smart. This is a puzzle I can figure out". But having that layer of analysis running all the time can be a hindrance, and can pull you out of sync with yourself. I had totally forgotten that some of Siri's relation stuff hit emotionally close to home for me. The trap of getting caught up trying to understand and enact the social rules of a situation rather than showing up genuinely definitely resonated.

I also found the description of what Siri does as a synthesist really fun - taking the topology of an idea and transforming and projecting it so that it can be understood by a different audience. A lot of the ideas in the book feel so rich and suggestive. Though if I try and pin down what they truly mean (what that transformation would look like in practice) a fog drifts in. I do imagine the transformation to be something like taking a multidimensional space being projected down into a manageable 2 or 3D one.

Consciousness

So the big idea is that they have encountered an alien life form that is not self-conscious. That acts directly, mechanically, and because of that more quickly and decisively than humans. They're powered off their environment (this is a fun connection with the biology I've been reading that emphasizes the role of the environment vs genes). I also see suggestive connections to programming, where it's like the state is contained in the larger environment and then you have these smaller deterministic actors within that...

Why is the self-reflexive nature of consciousness helpful or necessary? That's the provocative question its playing with. Why not just a system of instincts honed by natural selection. Consciousness is energy intensive and many of us get stuck in endless ruminations. But the answer is there, right? Being able to imagine futures, play out scenarios and our roles in them, can be a big benefit for planning. In natural selection terms it could let you lay traps and develop hunting strategies, or switch over to a system of agriculture. I guess the fun question is could similar sophistication emerge out over the longer term through more instinctual or mechanical means. It's fun to try and play out!

I like the physical structure of the aliens and how that information is paced out.

I did have to push through parts - partly because the suggestive parts are so much fun, that other more conventional plot stuff feels like more of a chore. I do think that having characters be like "don't you see!" and "think about it more!" a lot without being more direct is used as a way to ratchet up tension for a revelation - a lot of things are paid off/explained but sometimes it feels overdone.

(Spoilers below)

I guess I'm not sure in the end why Siri's character journey is supposed to be so important to the communication of what the aliens are - it seems like a straightforward explanation might go a long way. I'm also not sure what humans are supposed to do when they receive his communication. It's not clear to me if after everything the expectation is that the aliens will come and carry out attacks... There are lots of things that didn't fully snap together, but the suggestive things are so fun to chew on that I don't mind.