Peter Watts.epub | Blindsight By

The story begins in 2082 when 65,000 alien probes simultaneously surround Earth, photograph it in a flash of fire, and then vanish. In response, humanity sends the starship Theseus to the edge of the solar system to find out who—or what—is watching.

The book is notoriously "dense." If you find the jargon heavy at first, stick with it—the payoff in the final third is frequently described by readers on Reddit as life-changing. Blindsight by Peter Watts.epub

The central, chilling argument of the book is that . The story begins in 2082 when 65,000 alien

A linguist with four distinct personalities surgically partitioned into her brain to process complex alien languages. The central, chilling argument of the book is that

A "Synthesist" who had half his brain removed to stop seizures, leaving him a highly analytical observer who lacks traditional empathy.

Peter Watts has made the book available for free under a Creative Commons license on his official site, though you can also find it at retailers like Barnes & Noble .

Watts uses this philosophical thought experiment to suggest that something can process information and communicate perfectly without actually "understanding" what it’s doing.