NECROE'D FTW!
Actually, I just finished reading this and the accompanying notes and am fully primed for discussion. A few comments on the narrative itself:
It got much better near the end. Perhaps it's because I neither read nor particularly enjoy "hard" sci-fi as a matter of course, but I found this book genuinely exhausting to read; thematically (in light of the narrative voice) the use of jargonistic theoretical-speak made a lot of sense to the overall tone of the book and drove home a great point that Siri's character was clearly designed to showcase: conscious understanding isn't an essential component of concept acquisition. While I get the point (and think it was well-crafted), it made this thing a pain in the ass to read. That was further compounded by how terrible plain-text reading is on a BlackBerry Torch - my own fault.
Watts admitted that the book had become too laced with theory and that he had to cut a great deal; I disagree. The theoretical aspects weren't especially jarring; instead, the use of assuming technical detail without the associated background made descriptive elements in the text very difficult to follow; theory was not the problem; ambiguity in description was. Of course, that ambiguity probably serves an essential element in the overall theme of the narrative and Siri's specific subtext.
Enough about the technical aspects of the writing. The plot and theme were sufficient to keep my interest and continue reading. What I really want to talk about here is the theme (sentience is not an essential aspect of intelligence and may be an impairment or confound on true intellect) and the vehicle through which it is conveyed: the vampires, and the aliens.
I have a beef: even with the big AI reveal at the end, the characteristics attributed to Sarasti throughout the narrative do not jive with the premise that the vampires are either manifestations or on their way to becoming a non-conscious intellectual species. Watts somewhat crapped that point, BUT that seems to have derived from his own ambiguous feelings on whether consciousness it evolutionarily-derived and fitness-based. I'll forgive him. However, for a being/interface whose motivations were supposedly non-sentient according to the end of the narrative, Sarasti has a lot of elements that speak to sentience and contextualized decision-making. Watts didn't go far enough in the vampire character for my liking, and the interface described at the end somewhat cheapens the overall revelation; the narrative makes a great deal out of vampires' apparently unlimited perceptive abilities (no "ignore" filter, like mere humans) and then it fizzles... and then we're just supposed to accept the leap that comes near the end (insurrection). Not so impressed on that score; Sarasti was the most interesting character by far, and then it just fizzled.
Now, let's talk about the aliens. From the description, I must admit I first thought of echinoderms (sea stars, specifically) so I was fairly amused to discover in the notes that Watts is a marine biologist who likened them to brittle stars. It gave me a chuckle. It's also interesting that the characters make an earlier reference to octopi, since the scramblers share a lot of their characteristics (aside from a true nervous center). The distributed neural processing was a unique device that certainly bears thinking about, and I think Watts recognized that such things do exist [to a limited extent] in nature here on Earth; moreover, that is probably his point. Should we think of an ant colony or biofilm as discrete organisms working synergistically, or would it be more appropriate to think of them as a single distributed organism (the latter conception holds great appeal to me). One of the most thought-provoking pieces is actually in the notes; the observation of competition in a human's various systems is perfectly accurate, and I admit that the immune system has held particular fascination for me since taking my first immunology class several years ago.
I must admit, my first guess on the character of the scramblers was a distributed intelligence operating through individual discrete organisms, and while Watts doesn't rule that out some passages allude more tightly to individual processing and then sharing with a collective. Regardless, they are biologically and psychology interesting because they are so alien to what we normally think of as life (although I don't think they're particularly alien in terms of what life on Earth actually represents; see my earlier comment on ants / biofilms). The distributed intelligence, where I thought Watts was going, would be more alien than what he actually described.
However... much as I find the narrative theme and the questions arising from it fascinating, I disagree with the premise (Watts himself says he hopes he isn't correct about it regardless). I can buy everything about the scramblers (trying to formulate an argument against a non-sentient intelligence taking measures against a perceived threat is extremely difficult), but I have difficulty in buying into a premise that sentience is a cumbersome non-essential byproduct of the evolution of complex reasoning, because the "I" is an important component of emotion and motivation, and social behaviour in general. No species is truly altruistic; there is always a fitness pay-off in some way. "I" allows for the formulation of empathy, which permits complex social bonding. This is my problem with a lot of the discussion around consciousness and sentience in the first place - I think we've got the defining parameters wrong. If humans are sentient, then so are many other species; conversely, if other species are not then neither are we. It's a spectrum, a gradient, not a defining set of rules that constitute a binary state like so many psychologists try to characterize it. Consciousness does indeed limit problem-solving potential, but it also serves to enhance it in other ways. Consciousness is non-linear; and here I refer to daydreams. Letting your mind wander is probably the most conscious act you can take, and yet we tend to characterize consciousness as the typical think-then-react linear path. THAT is reflex. We characterize it in an "I" state because that's how we understand the world in general, but that doesn't make it a conscious act. As Watts pointed out here, in many cases the act actually precedes the thought that commanded it, and we edit the context to think we're exercising will. We're not - those actions are really no different than those of your family dog or cat, we just conceptualize and rationalize the actions of our biological selves to fit within our conception of ourselves as whole beings. Rather, I tend to think that our true consciousness operates both outside and independently of our biological state; sure, the wiring is all chemical and we have some direct control in terms of rationalizing what we do, but our actual thinking ability exists outside of our physical state.
All life is sentient and conscious, to degrees; the trouble is that I don't think those terms have been adequately defined. If humanity is indeed sentient, then I think it would be very hard to truly argue that the vampires or the scramblers are not. Indeed, there is very little to suggest that Watts' scramblers are simply intelligence without self-awareness; even the torturous quizzing does not necessarily support that conclusion, although it points to a different type of self-awareness than what a typical human experiences.
It's an interesting treatise on consciousness. Very thought-provoking, but when analyzed probably not as profound as one might think initially.
