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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1424 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Sure Rorschach is more advanced than humanity, but that obviously doesn't prove that consciousness is a drag any more than someone taller and balder than you indicates that hair is keeping you short.

Rorschach is explicitly described as a p-zombie/Chinese Room, and is used as an existence proof for superintelligence without qualia or consciousness. I struggle to separate in-universe speculation from author fiat, I doubt that Watts is the kind to devote that much screentime to an idea without partially endorsing it.

It's the most technologically advanced entity in Sol, it's doing very well for itself, and all without being conscious. I think that constitutes a claim that consciousness isn't particularly important.

Anyway, after writing this, I had GPT 5.2 Thinking check the version hosted on Archive for direct quotes:

From Siri’s internal monologue near the end (the book’s most on-the-nose anti-sentience passage):

“It begins to model the very process of modeling. It consumes ever-more computational resources, bogs itself down with endless recursion…” � Internet Archive

“Metaprocesses bloom like cancer, and awaken, and call themselves I.” � Internet Archive

“The system weakens, slows… advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence.” � Internet Archive

“This is what intelligence can do, unhampered by self-awareness.” � Internet Archive

That last line is basically your exact request in one sentence.

In the Notes and References: consciousness as interference, nonconscious competence In the back-matter discussion of consciousness (Watts stepping partly out of “story voice”):

“Consciousness does little beyond taking memos… rubber-stamping them, and taking the credit for itself.” � Internet Archive

“The nonconscious mind… employs a gatekeeper… to do nothing but prevent the conscious self from interfering…” � Internet Archive

“It feels good… makes life worth living. But it also turns us inward and distracts us.” � Internet Archive

“While… people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few… wonder… if… it isn’t more trouble than it’s worth.” �

It also found a full interview where Watts, out of universe says:

It finally occurred to me that if consciousness actually served no useful function – if it was a side-effect with no adaptive value, maybe even maladaptive – why, that would be a way scarier punch-in-the-gut than any actual function I could come up with. It would be an awesome narrative punchline for a science fiction story. So I put it in.

Of course, not being any kind of neuroscientist, I had no doubt that I’d missed something really obvious, and that if I was lucky a real neuroscientist would send me an email setting me straight. At least I would have learned something. It never occurred to me that real neuroscientists would start arguing about whether consciousness is good for anything. In hindsight, I seem to have just blindly tossed a dart over my shoulder and hit the bullseye entirely by accident.

https://milk-magazine.co.uk/interview-peter-watts-sci-fi-novel-blindsight/

The irony being, our attempts at AI are now all circling around "are they really conscious or beginning to be?" because in order to be agentic, they have to want things, and in order to want things, there has to be something there to do the wanting.

Watt's Very Smart Machine is perfectly fine, I don't think machines are or will be conscious. So load it up with programming about being Very Smart and winning at trading on the stock market or whatever, sure. But that's not at all the same thing as "now invent an entire system from scratch to be part of"; the AIs are operating in the system we humans have created. Ex nihilo, why would they care about scientific discoveries or whatever, before we asked them to think about these things?

To get back to the analogy with sharks, I don't think sharks are conscious, or very much if at all. They don't have to be, they're optimised for what they do and they do it so well they really haven't had to evolve with the times. So murder machine vampires? Yeah, sure, why not. Hyper-intelligent, though? Not needed if not conscious and if optimised to be murder machines. Very finely tuned to be the optimum at being murder machines in their environment might look like hyper-intelligence but I think instinct would be doing most of the heavy lifting there.

But Watts wants these creatures in order to show that humans are a mistake, so let him have his toys.

It's the most technologically advanced entity in Sol, it's doing very well for itself, and all without being conscious. I think that constitutes a claim that consciousness isn't particularly important.

Rorschach proves that you can be very advanced without consciousness. Does it imply that consciousness carries no benefit, or even carries a harm? Plainly, no.

Sure, if we're being strict about things. But then there's everything else Watt says, which makes me feel justified in saying that was his subtext/implication. He comes out and says so!

While we're on the topic of subtext, the subtext of my comments is that even in this alternative world Watts created in which humanity is powermogged by Rorschach, Watts fails to demonstrate a compelling reason that consciousness would be maladaptive.

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