Preview & Chapters
Hi everyone on Ximalaya, I’m Zhichao Wei. I’m the person behind Psychological Punk, a slightly magical psychology show on Ximalaya.
In this episode of Ximalaya Book Club, I’m going to introduce you to a science-fiction novel: Canadian writer Peter Watts’s Blindsight—blindness for the blind, sight for vision. It’s a heavyweight work that was nominated for several top science-fiction awards, including the Hugo, the Locus, and the Campbell Memorial Award.
Why would someone like me, who works in psychology, think of chatting with everyone about science fiction? Because the core of Blindsight is a psychological question. Psychological science fiction is pretty rare. And this book has enormous ambition: it takes aim at the most mysterious, most difficult question in psychology and the philosophy of mind. What is it? —Consciousness.
Why are humans conscious? Why is there subjective experience in our brains? Why does each of us feel that there’s an “I” looking at and experiencing the world?
These questions have troubled countless philosophers and scientists throughout history. And I never, ever expected that such a metaphysical ultimate question could receive such an entertaining treatment in a science-fiction story…
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