4 ms·

Oh, that looks like a fun read! I enjoy the genre of 'marine biologist writes sci-fi about the nature of consciousness', but I can only take so much Peter Watt

Oh, that looks like a fun read! I enjoy the genre of 'marine biologist writes sci-fi about the nature of consciousness', but I can only take so much Peter Watts before I feel the need to read something with at least a dreg of hope, you know?

isoprophlex 3y ago
Did you read the Children of Time trilogy? [] In the second or third book, amongst other things, a planet is seeded with octopuses and an "uplift virus" that dramatically boosts their sentience. It's a brilliant trilogy in its own right, but the sentient squids were my favorite species by far. Each having 8 independent minds to gather data and execute, plus a central vague philosophically minded intellect that holds their volition and long term planning. [] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
- Baeocystin 3y ago
  I have not, and I've just added it to my read list. Thank you for the recommendation!
- crooked-v 3y ago
  Those books are interesting, but suffer a bit from the author just handwaving away increasingly unlikely bio-technology as it goes on despite trying to keep a "hard" scifi premise.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    Spoilers for the books, I disagree with the above but don't want to spoil it for anyone who doesn't want it spoiled. I think that's basically justified. He gives the foundation of their tech with a good amount of rigour and plausibility, and then as their civilisation develops and becomes equivalent to human civilisation and then significantly higher tech he obviously can't go into full detail on every piece of technology any more than you could write a story about modern human society while including a description of how every piece of our technology that is mentioned works, from first principles - the resulting book would be beyond the capability of any individual to write and would include far, far more descriptions of technological principles than actual plot. Just imagine if you wanted to tell a story about an interpersonal relationship between two people, but one of them uses a chat program on their phone and even though you've previously explained how our computation basically worked, now you have to explain neural networks and then LLMs - I think it's reasonable to just expect the viewer to imagine the things that aren't directly explained as being approximately as well explained and justified as everything else was. He does definitely go beyond hard sci-fi at the end of book two though. The idea that c as a limit is simply a result of our brains thinking too linearly is silly, and in general going beyond the hard laws of physics is where I draw the line.
wwweston 3y ago
I can attest that _Mountain_ has an aspirational/hopeful side (along with some conflict, and confrontation with some bleakness).
jkestner 3y ago
I know. A Darkling Sea is a pretty good first-contact-with-marine-aliens story, and no bleaker than anything else where the humans are their own worst enemy.

isoprophlex 3y ago

Did you read the Children of Time trilogy? [] In the second or third book, amongst other things, a planet is seeded with octopuses and an "uplift virus" that dramatically boosts their sentience. It's a brilliant trilogy in its own right, but the sentient squids were my favorite species by far. Each having 8 independent minds to gather data and execute, plus a central vague philosophically minded intellect that holds their volition and long term planning. [] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

Baeocystin 3y ago
I have not, and I've just added it to my read list. Thank you for the recommendation!
crooked-v 3y ago
Those books are interesting, but suffer a bit from the author just handwaving away increasingly unlikely bio-technology as it goes on despite trying to keep a "hard" scifi premise.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  Spoilers for the books, I disagree with the above but don't want to spoil it for anyone who doesn't want it spoiled. I think that's basically justified. He gives the foundation of their tech with a good amount of rigour and plausibility, and then as their civilisation develops and becomes equivalent to human civilisation and then significantly higher tech he obviously can't go into full detail on every piece of technology any more than you could write a story about modern human society while including a description of how every piece of our technology that is mentioned works, from first principles - the resulting book would be beyond the capability of any individual to write and would include far, far more descriptions of technological principles than actual plot. Just imagine if you wanted to tell a story about an interpersonal relationship between two people, but one of them uses a chat program on their phone and even though you've previously explained how our computation basically worked, now you have to explain neural networks and then LLMs - I think it's reasonable to just expect the viewer to imagine the things that aren't directly explained as being approximately as well explained and justified as everything else was. He does definitely go beyond hard sci-fi at the end of book two though. The idea that c as a limit is simply a result of our brains thinking too linearly is silly, and in general going beyond the hard laws of physics is where I draw the line.

wwweston 3y ago

I can attest that _Mountain_ has an aspirational/hopeful side (along with some conflict, and confrontation with some bleakness).

jkestner 3y ago

I know. A Darkling Sea is a pretty good first-contact-with-marine-aliens story, and no bleaker than anything else where the humans are their own worst enemy.