Blindsight and shifting neural representations: an AI researcher's take on a consciousness experiment
RylanSchaeffer · x · 2026-10-18
AI researcher Rylan Schaeffer recommends Peter Watts' sci-fi novel Blindsight, calling its aliens creepier and more creative than those in Project Hail Mary: they manipulate humans by moving only in intervals humans can't consciously perceive, and he argues the book deserves far more visibility for its creativity and biological plausibility.
Quoting willdepue on a neuroscience experiment, he calls it "overstated but very interesting": neurons rapidly switch back and forth in time between representations of a seen object and an unconscious one — temporal dynamics rather than the locality/averaging people assumed, like the side of an optical illusion you attend to versus the one you don't. He thinks the authors over-interpret this as evidence of some temporal back-and-forth nature of consciousness. A fun crossover of sci-fi, consciousness science, and AI circles.
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