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PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   734 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026

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I have some interest in participating in Scott's Book Review contest, but I'm having a very hard time figuring out what to review.

I have a few things already up my sleeve:

  • A detailed review of the Golden Oecumene series by John C.Wright, comparing and contrasting it with the Culture novels by Ian Banks. This is roughly complete, but needs a bit of polish before I'm ready to hit submit. In the domain of fiction, I feel like it's my best shot. I have thoughts.

  • A psychiatrist's take on Wuthering Heights, focusing on the obvious mental illness in most of the dramatis personae. Unfortunately, this would require me to re-read the damn novel, and that brings up PTSD flashbacks from a BPD ex who tried to force feed me Victorian period dramas.

  • Blindsight? Unfortunately it's very well known in SSC/Rat circles, and I'm not sure there's much to add beyond a discussion of some minor advances in cognitive neuroscience (and massive advances in LLMs).

  • An even more in-depth review of Reverend Insanity? Tempting, but niche.

  • This Is Going To Hurt, the memoirs of an ex-gynecology resident in the UK. An incredibly funny, poignant, and moderately depressing look into how the NHS functions. Written over 10 years ago, so you can only imagine how much worse things are today. Well, if I do write it, you'll no longer have to try very hard imagining.

  • The Denial of Death. Prime candidate for a transhumanist takedown, leaving aside that like many grand theories of the human psyche, it proves too much. Unfortunately, I've yet to read it, and I don't know if the views it espouses are still fashionable enough to be worth skewering.

I was 70% through my planned submission for the Anything But A Book Review contest last year, namely a comparative analysis of the NHS and the healthcare system in India informed by both data and my personal experience, but that was unfortunately derailed by a combination of depression and work/exam pressure. Oh well, perhaps I can salvage it for next year.

I'd appreciate suggestions! My main blocker is that I rarely read non-fiction or "Big Picture" books these days. Those are typically winners, from my analysis of past results, and I haven't read anything in the past few years that even remotely inspired me to engage in that level of analysis. Controversial take: I find that the most interesting material dealing with the real world is found in blogs or online essays, not in books. Sue me.

Edit: To be clear, I'd appreciate both suggestions on options I've already curated, as well as books you think might be a good fit (in terms of me having something useful to say, plus being suitable for the actual contest).

I'd be curious about your review on Blindsight. I'm rather fond of the book in question, so I'd be interested in reading your take on it.

I'd have to write the review from scratch, but if you want a TLDR:

  • Watts posits that consciousness is an evolutionary spandrel and that it's possible to have intelligence/superintelligence without consciousness. While not mentioned in the book, the usual supporting evidence is observation of sleepwalking humans or blackouts (in which case we haven't ruled out that the person isn't partially or fully conscious, they might simply lack the consolidation of longterm memory required to remember being conscious, this is pretty strongly evident in alcohol blackouts). Not only does he claim it's not strictly necessary, he posits that it's suboptimal, and a drag on performance.
  • Our best theories of consciousness like IIT and GNWT seem to be partially supported and partially discredited based on recent research. That means that it's possible to salvage Watts's claim, but no strong consensus either way.
  • We've found clear correlations between consciousness and statistical phenomena on the whole-brain scale. You could look up edge-of-criticality models for more. The gist of is that what we perceive as normal consciousness, the type optimal for normal life, is a very fine balance in neuronal activity with chaos on one side and rigidity on the other. This is actually a blow against consciousness-as-epiphenomenon, as Watts claims. These models cash in with actual predictions, and they can measure "degrees" of consciousness from stupor to full alertness using physical metrics.
  • LLMs are the first real xenointelligences. A few years ago, the case for them entirely lacking consciousness or internal qualia was the default. Now, we have very interesting evidence suggesting active ability to introspect and awareness of their internal cognition in a way not specifically trained into them:

https://www.anthropic.com/research/introspection

  • I still wouldn't go as far as to claim that LLMs are conscious, since we're awful at conclusively identifying consciousness in humans, let alone animals or AI, but they seem to possess at least some of the necessary elements.

  • I fucking hate the Chinese Room, it's an impoverished excuse for a thought experiment with an obvious answer: the room+human system speaks Chinese, even if no individual component does. You speak English, even if no single neuron in your brain does. I find it ridiculous that it's brought up today as if it means anything. The aliens in the story are specifically described as Chinese Rooms, and you can guess what I think of that. If I was writing a full essay, I'd add more about the sheer metaphysical implausibility of p-zombies in general, but those aren't original observations.

  • If I'm nitpicking (some very annoying nits), the baseline humans and their pet AGIs show suicidal incompetence in universe. You've got hyperintelligent autistic superpredators on the loose? And you let them walk around? Break their spines and put them in a wheelchair while on enough enough oestrogen to give them brittle bones/spontaneously manifest programming socks. The only reason that the primary safeguard was an aversion to straight lines intersecting at right angles is Watts trying to launder in the classical trope of vampires being averse to crucifixes. It's deeply dumb as an actual solution. Also, why didn't the supersmart AI actually do something about the vampire takeover? Are they stoopid?

Summing up: the case for the theories in Blindsight is weaker than at time of publication, even if no one can outright falsify them.

Edit: It's worth noting that I still love the books, it's in my top 10, maybe top 3. I even separate art from the author, I'm not sure if Watts is terminally depressed or terminally misanthropic, but I suspect that the combination is the only thing preventing him from becoming a low-grade ecoterrorist (this is mostly a joke). I still highly recommend it to new readers, as long as they don't overindex from the existential crises.

While not mentioned in the book, the usual supporting evidence is observation of sleepwalking humans or blackouts

I don't know if we read a different edition or something, but I read Blindsight recently and IIRC it mentioned the sleepwalking thing a lot.

I'm probably misremembering. I think I've read the book at least 5 times, but the probably over a year ago.

The point still stands: we have limited insight into the actual degree of consciousness in a sleepwalking state. It's clearly abnormal, but our understanding of neuroscience can't confidently say that since the ability to form longterm memories is largely disabled, that means that consciousness, if present, can't be reported by the sleepwalker later (the same reason you start forgetting a dream as soon as you wake up).

If you've ever lucid dreamed (I haven't, sadly) then that demonstrates the ability to be aware and at least partially conscious during REM sleep. Sleepwalking is NREM behavior, sure, but it's not possible to say that the sleepwalker is entirely unconscious, we just don't know.

Even if they're performing complex motor behaviors, I strongly suspect that overall performance is hampered. They might (in rare cases), drive a car, but I doubt they drive as well as they would fully awake. I could be wrong, but without the ability to subject an active sleepwalker to a battery of cognitive tests, I'll stay here. It's a very tricky subject to study.

If you've ever lucid dreamed (I haven't, sadly) then that demonstrates the ability to be aware and at least partially conscious during REM sleep.

I've never lucid dreamed, but I do experience vivid dreams in a REM state and would describe it as a variation of consciousness. I usually forget my dreams, but immediately after waking I can typically remember the whole narrative experience of a dream, which felt real while I was in it. I tend to think of REM as a state of consciousness where sensory input is turned off, things that would set off "this isn't normal" alarms are somehow disabled, and conscious awareness is redirected to... randomness? emotionally unprocessed experiences? fears? Something like that.

With how vivid my dreams are I do experience them as places where I am making decisions, they're just decisions that are enthralled to the content of the dream. Lucid dreaming is the ability to know you're dreaming, and thus control the content of the dream to an extent.

I don't know how that lines up with current neuroscience, but that's my impression of how my own dreams work.

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