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Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts
#3
The active suppression phenomenon in this case is evolution. Watts takes the currently still unconfirmed concept of epiphenomenology (which posits that conscious thought is not the executive agents, decisions are made unconsciously then milliseconds later the conscious mind is informed and made to think it made the decision) and further posits that under different selective pressure discrete unconscious processes can outperform conscious ones. The start of echopraxia has a good analogy which applies to toposophy in OA. It goes along the lines of saying that consciousness allows you to climb a great hill, the further you climb the farther you can see. Then it gets to a peak only to observe a far higher mountain on the other side of the plain, the problem is to get there you have to descend the current summit and lose much of what you are.

The end of echopraxia contains a lot of notes that might show you more of watts thinking. Other than that why not email him Smile I'd be interested in his reply.
OA Wish list:
  1. DNI
  2. Internal medical system
  3. A dormbot, because domestic chores suck!
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RE: Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts - by Rynn - 05-07-2015, 10:52 PM

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