this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
99 points (95.4% liked)
Technology
72865 readers
2454 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Neither are our brains.
“Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors. If self-deception promotes fitness, the brain lies. Stops noticing—irrelevant things. Truth never matters. Only fitness. By now you don’t experience the world as it exists at all. You experience a simulation built from assumptions. Shortcuts. Lies. Whole species is agnosiac by default.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight
LLMs are built from our words. Maybe they're more human than human? One wonders.
Ooo added the book to my list, thanks!
Also, Robert Sapolsky's book Determined explores whether we're conscious or not based on his work in neuroscience and primatology. It's like a book length version of the quote you posted
It's not the most welcoming read in terms of sci-fi but I love that book. That and its sequel (Echopraxia) do what sci-fi is supposed to do (make you think).
I'm a sci fi nerd from foundation to Hyperion to the expanse but I've never heard of Blindsight, and you've absolutely sold me on it
Found it at the library 10+ years ago, read the flyleaf, thought, "This is pants on head idiotic. I need a break on something light. Let's try it." I have never been more wrong in judging a book by it's cover.
Read it probably 13-14 times, kinda embarrassing. Anyway, the ship's captain is a vampire. And it's hard sci-fy, no sparkles. My post was the vampire talking about humans.
Holy shit will you love Blindsight. You are going to scream with joy. Free on the author's site.
One more thing, Watts puts a bibliography (science journals and books) in the back for every idea he writes about.
Dude, what is this book. Who writes like this? I fucking adore it
Oh fuck yeah, buddy! I'm grabbing it right now! Might buy the audio on libro.fm to support the author too