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Notes -
I think this begs the question. Why is consciousness a prerequisite for extracting complex information from the universe? Sure, we're the only species that we know of that can extract complex information from the universe, and we're conscious. But this strikes me as a strange kind of parochialism. Nobody thinks that, because we're capable of extracting complex information from the universe and we're featherless bipeds with broad flat nails, therefore the only species capable of extracting complex information from the universe even in principle are featherless bipeds with broad flat nails. People have no trouble imagining an alien species whose bodies look nothing like ours (ever since Lovecraft, squid-like creatures have been standard, for some reason, and Blindsight is no exception to this lineage) and yet which are obviously intelligent. But for some reason, people tend to react with bafflement and ire to the proposal of an intelligent species which isn't conscious as we would understand it. And I genuinely don't know why the one is a prerequisite for the other. I think the word "clearly" in your comment is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
As to how the Scramblers are capable of carrying out complex tasks despite being unconscious, and how this feels to you as if they're just being passed information from the author — well, when I read true stories about sleepwalkers driving cars, I don't take that as evidence for a God who interferes in human affairs, or even that these sleepwalkers have been possessed by an incorporeal spirit. Blindsight's depiction of a species capable of performing complex actions while unconscious isn't just a fictional, hypothetical conceit: we ourselves are an example of just such a species!
On one hand, consciousness isn't directly a prerequisite for purely extracting information; like I said, some sort of weird alien super-MRI could start data-mining human brains. But what happens from there? If a digital sensor that incorrectly starts reading and reporting the noise from its own function is the analogy to consciousness, then the other metaphor is a perfectly-functioning sensor outputting its information to a system that isn't powered on.
We have seen what happens when fine-tuned evolved systems that arose in the purest and deadliest Darwinian competition, optimized and fine-tuned for pure survival; they lose to humans. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not forever, but in our world, neither the largest nor the smallest predator holds dominion when humans decide to claim a space. Instinctive, programmed behavior loses to conscious thought, every time.
I also want to make a distinction between "Do a complex task" and "Outcompete a sentient agent who is turning their sentience against you". The first is easy; we have loads of nonsentient systems that can do really complex and even really adaptive tasks. But, just as it's pretty trivial to adversarially fuck with, e.g., a self-driving system in a car, and it doesn't matter how good the self-driving system is, if you are a person and can, e.g., think in wildly different terms than the self-driving system was made to do. Sleepwalkers can act according to the habits they've built up, but they can't process novel data, and they certainly can't tell when they're being fucked with.
...And, having written that sentence, I think I've just come to my new headcanon; the reason that these five fuck-ups were sent was because the Serious People on Earth recognize that they are dealing with a nonsentient intelligence that was confused by human communication and unable to properly extract the subtext of humans as individual agents, and so sent this ship full of these people to act, honestly and naturally as they would, which is to say, fail at everything that wasn't being micromanaged by Vampire Muppet, in order to poison the Scrambler's training data of what humanity was and was capable of.
But, to get to my general point about that 'clearly'; if you were going to break down the steps involved in doing the sacchade trick, how would you describe it? What information would you need to start with, what can you learn on your first interactions with a novel lifeform, what is your mechanism for sensing the brain bits through increasing and changing layers of anti-radiation shielding, and, most-importantly, why are you doing all this? Lots of nonsentient creatures hide, and some of them do so in really complex ways. But that stealth falls absolutely apart when you are relying on instinct built up from natural selection to hide from creatures you've never met before, with senses you have no information on, whose very cognition is alien to yours, and it falls apart that much faster when those creatures are capable of building tools and devices, and if you as the author aren't cheating and stopping the characters from using fucking periscopes for scouting, then the need to cheat and upload author-derived information directly into the Scramblers becomes even more apparent.
Also, I have to ask: is there a meta-point being made by this post being possibly polished by AI? I mean, you could just be a Mac user, but I see that emdash in there.
I never use AI to compose or "polish" text, and I really resent that accusation being lobbed at me. Once the difference between hyphens and em-dashes was pointed out to me, it became impossible to unsee, and I make a point of using em-dashes whenever they're appropriate. I even asked on this very forum how to type them on a standard keyboard, if you don't believe me.
But you're using them wrong.
Good: "author—well" (em dash with no spaces)
Okay (preferred by some publishers, though I personally see no need for it): "author – well" (en dash with spaces)
WTF: "author — well" (em dash with spaces)
Okay, what would be the correct unit of punctuation to separate two clauses with a space on either side?
I just gave you two options—either an em dash with no spaces (as I prefer), or an en dash with spaces (as, e. g., Steve Jackson Games prefers). Just don't use an em dash with spaces.
Even Merriam-Webster acknowledges that usage varies:
I suspect this may be yet another "separated by a common language" thing, where spaces on either side is the norm in the UK and Ireland.
But what is the point of adding all these extra spaces? Isn't an em dash long enough without them?
It's like how the French language adds a random space before a colon, a question mark, or an exclamation mark, but not before a period. I just don't see any reason for it.
(Coincidentally, @ZorbaTHut is currently insisting that adding random vertical spaces to the rules page is a good thing.)
To me, no spaces makes it look like the words on either side of the em-dash have been hyphenated. To return to your previous example, when I first read your comment there was a split-second when I was thinking "what on earth is an 'author-well'?" and wondered if it might be an inkwell than an author dips his quill into.
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