"Blindsight" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Share your thoughts on the group scifi horror pick!

If you want to discuss the book as you're reading, please clearly mark where you are in the book so that other brave souls can participate, and responders can limit spoilers to where you are presently.

A few questions to get conversation started:

1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the fantasy and scifi elements?
3. Did any of it horrify you? What and how?
4. What worked or didn't for you?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[Richard]

The word "vampire" shows up in the prologue, which can be disconcerting in a book that is science fiction, not fantasy.

The author is a biologist (a marine biologist) and created an astonishing backstory to how the vampires were discovered to be an extinct human subspecies by an amoral Big Pharma research effort (one slogan is "Flexible ethics for a complex world"), and subsequently recreated, as seen in the book.

Watts did a forty-minute PowerPoint presentation posing as a representative of the FizerPharm research group. It's available on YouTube here: Vampires: Biology and Evolution by Peter Watts. (The original, at Watts' website, requires a Flash plugin, which was officially discontinued at the end of 2020.)

I don't believe the origin story of the vampire lineage is much of a spoiler, although it has been quite a few years since I read the book, so maybe I'm wrong.

But it is a delightfully subversive presentation, which will feel all too true to those who mistrust Big Pharma today, and will still be snarkily amusing to pretty much everyone else except for Pfizer's lawyers. Closing slide:

[Hank]

I loved the vampire in the sci-fi story. I had/have lots of theories as to why Watts put it in, none of which make much sense but I was fixated on the whole super-being that went extinct.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I love this powerpoint, thanks so much for sharing! Hank!! Tell us your theories!

[Gabi]

Thanks for this link, Richard. The presentation is genius! I love all the brainwork that went into the creation.

[Øystein]

I was a bit skeptical of having a vampire in a hard sci-fi book at first, but it worked very well for this novel and the explanation was sufficiently logical. The characters where fascinating, the story captivating and the implications about consciousness chilling. One of my favorite novels!

[Whitney]

AMG wrote: "The part that horrified me the most was just how insistent the crew were that Rorshach was unintelligent, even as the evidence grew that it was. However, I know that it's implied that was Rorshach itself convincing them at a few points. "

But I think the point was that, despite obviously being 'intelligent', Rorschach wasn't intelligent, but instead a very very complex Chinese Room, as the crew had guessed (and as Rorschach almost simultaneously guessed the crew had guessed).

[James]

Just a quick one to say that this is probably one of the most frustrating reads for me lately. I still gave it a two because it was unique and gave my brain a thorough workout, but I think I prefer not to have to piece as much together as I was forced to in this one. there were so many concepts that were thrust on the reader...I felt that between vampires, breaking minds apart, quantum computers, advanced life that wasn't sentient, and wartime ethics and morals, along with the ability to fake empathy or understanding or whatever without actually knowing what the hell was going on...I felt like I was trying to fake understanding this book...lol...but hey...I finished it...onto the next one...

[Andy]

was it that Rorschach lacked consciousness or self awareness rather than intelligence?

enjoyed how the plot and action were kept moving, even with the volume and variety of scientific concepts

interesting for me that despite Siri essentially having been custom made to interpret events and the crew and communicate back to the Earth, he should be an ideal narrator, but turns out to be highly unreliable

[Whitney]

Andy wrote: "was it that Rorschach lacked consciousness or self awareness rather than intelligence?"

Without getting too much in the weeds on the definition of intelligence, Rorshach wasn't sentient. The Turing Test and later the refinement of the Chinese Room were ways to try and answer the question of telling a true intelligence from just a really good computer. At that point in time, intelligence would have included sentience as part of the definition.

I think one of the things the book challenges is whether that definition is sufficient to use to assign value to lives. Is it okay to torture or injure the scramblers, as the crew does, because they don't have any conscious experience of pain?

[Hank]

My three "why is there a vampire theories"

1. Watts wanted the book to have an extra creeepy element

2. (My favorite) The vampire is there as an extreme example of a leader who regards all of his underlings as meat and ulitmately expendable. Acomplishing the mission is the only goal.

3. Vampires are smarter/faster/stronger but still went extinct so maybe it is a representation of "The meek shall inherit the Earth" and humans are actually destined to follow (go extinct)

[Andy]

Hank wrote: "My three "why is there a vampire theories"

1. Watts wanted the book to have an extra creeepy element

2. (My favorite) The vampire is there as an extreme example of a leader who regards all of his..."

liking #2

for me #3, felt the author hinted that humanity's ascendancy as a fluke aberration, perhaps soon to be corrected

[Chris]

I think the vampire fits with the general impression that the people of that time would seem like aliens to us. "First-person" sex is unusual, multiple personalities are accepted, the whole crew has been extremely modded. For the government's purposes, people are just tools built to spec.

[Whitney]

Hank wrote: "My three "why is there a vampire theories"."

I think it's the first two, plus a bit more. The main philosophical question posed by the book is whether sentience and empathy are actually negative traits when it comes to survival of a species. Sarasti is an example of someone who is a sociopath (i.e. lacking empathy) because it evolved as a necessary trait for an obligate carnivore who essentially feeds on their own kind. There is also some discussion about how many CEOs and other people in leadership positions show sociopathic tendencies, so I think this supports your reason number 2 for having him there.

As for the third reason, it's strongly suggested that the vampires have completely taken over earth at the end. The only reason they initially went extinct is the right angle glitch, and example of something that was only an evolutionary disadvantage once unnatural constructions started to be created by people. Once they can suppress that, the meek just become food (as Andy basically said).

I also liked how the vampire genetics were used to solve the problem of extended "sleep" for space travel.

[Richard]

Hank wrote: "My three "why is there a vampire theories"

2. (My favorite) The vampire is there as an extreme example of a leader who regards all of his underlings as meat and ultimately expendable. Accomplishing the mission is the only goal."

I agree with this one, based as well on my reading of Starfish (first in Watts’ Rifters series). Watts’ worldview here and there is deeply dystopian and cynical: the only value of humans is their usefulness to corporations.

From my ten-year-old review of Starfish:

☠ Amoral corporations and their minions won't bat an eye at immoral actions when those seem to be the most cost-effective way of attaining a goal.

☠ Psychologically and emotional damaged people will among the preferred tools of these corporations, either because the damage itself is valuable or because the it renders the subject easier to mold into a better tool.

☠ "Normal" folks will be "damaged", sometimes willingly, so they can be a corporate tool instead of an even more pathetic refugee.

☠ Anger, fear, hatred, and predatory and parasitic competitiveness — these are the only emotions that will be useful to such cutting-edge employees.

Starfish is rated a little below Blindsight, but if you like fiction that verges on a bitter near-apocalyptic dystopia, you'll probably enjoy it.

[Ryan]

My thoughts: This is a novel jam-packed with ideas, which sometimes get in the way of the plot and characters. There are info-dumps in awkward places, and sometimes they relate only tangentially to the main plot. Some info-dumps were interesting; others weren’t. The plot was more than occasionally difficult to understand, and some of the main character’s background (i.e. Chelsea) was both irrelevant and dull.

[Ryan]

A couple questions:

Why did Cunningham refer to everyone as "it"?

Why did Sarasti attack Siri? It's explained at some length but I didn't really get it.

[Whitney]

Ryan wrote: "A couple questions:

Why did Cunningham refer to everyone as "it"?

Why did Sarasti attack Siri? It's explained at some length but I didn't really get it."

I believe Sarasti was driving home the point (in his own fashion) that consciousness, which includes the perception of pain, is a disadvantage for an individual or species.

It's been awhile since I read it, and I don't remember that about Cunningham, or really much at all about Cunningham, so I'm no help there.

[Satia]

I really liked it! I did hope for a different ending though. I thought the author could have gone down the route of betrayal and loyalty between crew members. For instance after Sarasti attacked Siri (to try and find the human part of him - the preconditioned instinct hidden by all his analysis), Siri eavesdrops on Consensus (courtesy of Sarasti allowing him access). It is here that I thought that Sarasti was trying to do Siri a favour and letting him know what the crew really thought him - more machine than a feeling human. We know Cunningham already thought that. I will not read the sequel as I really liked the characters in this book and none will be in the sequel (bar Siri of course). I will try one of the authors novella's instead.

[Ryan]

I recently read Watt's The Island (a novelette) and liked it.

[Satia]

Ryan wrote: "I recently read Watt's The Island (a novelette) and liked it." That is great that his other work is enjoyable too.