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A review by synoptic_view
Echopraxia by Peter Watts
4.0
Yeah, I am really into Watts' books, as one can imagine from wolfing down 4 of his books (and one of those twice in a row). He has a knack for portraying thought experiments or concepts that I am familiar with in new ways that provide additional insight. He did this exceptionally well with the Chinese Room thought experiment in Blindsight.
Here, the most striking example was the idea that consciousness might have evolved as a way to adjudicate between conflicting motor impulses, an idea that Watts points out was already present in Dune's gom jabbar (although to be fair to the scientists, relatives of the idea can be found in the psych literature at least as early as Thurstone, 1924 "Mind as Unfinished Conduct"). The entire chapter "Prophet" is full of discussion of the idea, but a choice quote is: "Put your hand in an open flame, and subconscious reflex will snatch it back long before you're even aware of the pain. It is only when some other agenda is in conflict--your hand hurts but you don't want to spill the contents of a hot serving tray all over your clean rug--that the self awakens and decides which impulse to obey."
I have spent a lot of my commuting time over the last few months arguing with an economist who doesn't believe that economic preferences are compatible with free will (he claims that they make us no more than automatons and has further said on multiple occasions that "I have no preferences"). But preferences quickly get into conflict in all but the simplest cases. Perhaps the self does live in these moments of meta-preference.
The Dune references don't end there. See the echoes of Dune's "Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now it's complete because it's ended here'" with the section: "We all start out with heads full of random mush. It's the neural pruning afterward that shapes who we are. It's like sculpture. You start with a block of granite, chip away the bits that don't belong, end up with a work of art." We are all products of evolution's attitude of the knife.
From reading other reviews, it seems like there are at least two camps. If one compares this book to Blindsight, it comes off worse. If one compares it to other SF, it fares much better. I would rate it among my favorite recent SF reads even for just the discussion of neuroscience theories of consciousness plus the Dune references. I have also wanted to read more hard science fiction focused on biology. It is surprisingly rare (Crichton being a bestselling exception that I gobbled up as a kid and Sue Burke's Semiosis being a more recent one that I loved) compared to physics or social science. Watts fills this need so wonderfully.
Here, the most striking example was the idea that consciousness might have evolved as a way to adjudicate between conflicting motor impulses, an idea that Watts points out was already present in Dune's gom jabbar (although to be fair to the scientists, relatives of the idea can be found in the psych literature at least as early as Thurstone, 1924 "Mind as Unfinished Conduct"). The entire chapter "Prophet" is full of discussion of the idea, but a choice quote is: "Put your hand in an open flame, and subconscious reflex will snatch it back long before you're even aware of the pain. It is only when some other agenda is in conflict--your hand hurts but you don't want to spill the contents of a hot serving tray all over your clean rug--that the self awakens and decides which impulse to obey."
I have spent a lot of my commuting time over the last few months arguing with an economist who doesn't believe that economic preferences are compatible with free will (he claims that they make us no more than automatons and has further said on multiple occasions that "I have no preferences"). But preferences quickly get into conflict in all but the simplest cases. Perhaps the self does live in these moments of meta-preference.
The Dune references don't end there. See the echoes of Dune's "Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now it's complete because it's ended here'" with the section: "We all start out with heads full of random mush. It's the neural pruning afterward that shapes who we are. It's like sculpture. You start with a block of granite, chip away the bits that don't belong, end up with a work of art." We are all products of evolution's attitude of the knife.
From reading other reviews, it seems like there are at least two camps. If one compares this book to Blindsight, it comes off worse. If one compares it to other SF, it fares much better. I would rate it among my favorite recent SF reads even for just the discussion of neuroscience theories of consciousness plus the Dune references. I have also wanted to read more hard science fiction focused on biology. It is surprisingly rare (Crichton being a bestselling exception that I gobbled up as a kid and Sue Burke's Semiosis being a more recent one that I loved) compared to physics or social science. Watts fills this need so wonderfully.