Echopraxia (Firefall, #2)

by Peter Watts

ALL ANIMALS ARE UNDER STRINGENT SELECTION PRESSURE TO BE AS STUPID AS THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH. —PETE RICHERSON AND ROBERT BOYD

people have an unfortunate habit of assuming they understand the reality just because they understood the analogy.

Consciousness is a scratchpad.

“You said we were in orbit.” “We are. Not around Earth.”

The moment mind = blown and the book suddenly gets interesting.

IF YOU ARE GIVEN A CHOICE, YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE ACTED FREELY. —RAYMOND TELLER

REALITY IS THAT WHICH, WHEN YOU STOP BELIEVING IN IT, DOESN’T GO AWAY. —PHILIP K. DICK

Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.

THE INTUITIVE MIND IS A SACRED GIFT AND THE RATIONAL MIND IS A FAITHFUL SERVANT. WE HAVE CREATED A SOCIETY THAT HONORS THE SERVANT AND HAS FORGOTTEN THE GIFT. —ALBERT EINSTEIN (APOCRYPHAL)

And from those humble beginnings we learned to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favors the paranoid.

People put a lot less effort into picking apart evidence that confirms what they already believe. The great thing about making yourself the villain is nobody’s likely to contradict you.

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN. —THOMAS WOLFE

Long before art and science and philosophy arose, consciousness had but one function: not to merely implement motor commands, but to mediate between commands in opposition.