Ep 37: Peter Watts in Conversation with Justin Gregg - Part 2

The Science in The Fiction

We continue the conversation between science fiction author Peter Watts and scientist Justin Gregg, and now they get down to the tricky business of discussing the nature of consciousness. We discuss Peter's premise of 'Blindsight – that consciousness is an illusory, unnecessary and possibly parasitic phenomenon that will get us all killed when we encounter more efficient, unconscious extra-terrestrial intelligence. Then very quickly agree that nobody knows what the hell they’re talking about when they try to understand consciousness: the pan-psychics may even be right that it’s a fundamental property of matter like mass, spin and charge. We discuss examples of unconscious but intelligent behaviour like sleepwalking killers and painters, we talk about acid trips, and the possible evolutionary advantages of consciousness in connection to memory. Peter suggests humans may not actually possess general intelligence and that we may be even dumber than large language models and the current incarnation of AI (as evidenced by flat earthers, anti-vaxxers and religious fundamentalists). And Justin promises to jello-wrestle an AI next time we get together!
Echopraxia (rifters.com)
https://www.rifters.com/
Blindsight (Watts novel) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
Justin Gregg
https://www.justingregg.com/
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal — Justin Gregg
https://www.justingregg.com/narwhal

Buzzsprout (podcast host):
https://thescienceinthefiction.buzzsprout.com
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