Human perception is a buggy and limited simulation of the real world. Nature doesn’t make optimal adaptations it simply chooses the least deficient outcome. And that makes it all the more horrifying.īlindsight tackled issues of consciousness and evolution. Though he originally wrote the idea as a literary “punchline,” it has since been taken seriously in the academic community. Watts implied that consciousness itself might be an evolutionary glitch, and a counterproductive one that decreases the chances of long-term survival. Though they were intelligent, they never developed actual sentience. In Blindsight, he introduced us to a race of aliens that were…well, alien. They had nothing in common with us. He wants to make a point as well as tell a story. His books are defined by pessimism towards the future and a density of scientific detail. It’s not to say these guys can’t write stories, but this is primarily a literature of ideas. Its lineage stretches from Asimov and Clarke to modern authors like Greg Bear and Alastair Reynolds. Hard science fiction tends to focus on concepts, with more weight given to scientific rigor and speculation. Ursula Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, and Cordwainer Smith are good examples. Soft science fiction tends to be more humanistic, with a greater emphasis on traditional story and character development. Science fiction is often divided into two main genres: soft and hard.
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