Peter Watts (Part 2) on Intelligence and Consciousness in ’Blindsight’

In the second part of our interview with Peter Watts, we delve into his ideas about intelligence and consciousness.  Does consciousness serve any function, or can all cognitive processes get along just fine without it?  In his novel Blindsight, Peter postulates a hostile entity whose intelligence outcompetes our own, because it is not weighed down by the slow, clunky machinery of sapience.  But his thinking has evolved in recent years, to concede the possible primacy of consciousness, and heck, even the existence of a soul!  Along the way we talk about a blob of cells called dish-brain that taught itself to play pong.  We contemplate energy minimization, integrated information  and even pan-psychic theories of consciousness.  We ask how far down the chain of being sentience might reach, and ultimately admit we have no idea how a lump of meat can wake up to ask questions about the nature of its own awareness.

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