Peter Watts Quotes

• People aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're - we're feeling machines that happen to think.

  Peter Watts

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.166, Head of Zeus

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• Science is so powerful that it drags us kicking and screaming towards the truth despite our best efforts to avoid it.

  Peter Watts

  Powerful, Best Effort, Kicking

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• This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.

  Peter Watts

  Hurt, Speech, Scream

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.261, Macmillan

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• The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.

  Peter Watts

  Philosophy, Self, Brain

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.48, Macmillan

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• If believing absurd falsehoods increase the odds of getting laid or avoiding predators, your brain will believe those falsehoods with all its metaphorical little heart.

  Peter Watts

  Believe, Heart, Odds

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• There's no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a solution's optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative.

  Peter Watts

  Survival, Alternatives, Adequate

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.222, Head of Zeus

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• I am the bridge between the bleeding edge and the dead center. I stand between the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain. I am the curtain.

  Peter Watts

  Men, Bridges, Wizards

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.31, Head of Zeus

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• Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors.

  Peter Watts

  Brain, Survival, Engines

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.288, Macmillan

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• I really wanted to talk to her. I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.

  Peter Watts

  Algorithms, Fit, Wanted

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.213, Head of Zeus

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• Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of a manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers.

  Peter Watts

  Running, Climbing, Dancer

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.302, Macmillan

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• Stars, everywhere. So many stars that I could not for the life me understand how the sky could contain them all yet be so black.

  Peter Watts

  Stars, Sky, Black

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.19, Head of Zeus

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• What's the difference between being dead, and just not knowing you're alive?

  Peter Watts

  Differences, Knowing, Not Knowing

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.244, Head of Zeus

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• Not even the most heavily-armed police state can exert brute force to all of its citizens all of the time. Meme management is so much subtler; the rose-tinted refraction of perceived reality, the contagious fear of threatening alternatives.

  Peter Watts

  Reality, Rose, Police

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.48, Macmillan

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• How do you say 'We come in peace' when the very words are an act of war?

  Peter Watts

  War

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.236, Head of Zeus

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• Perfect hexagonal tubes in a packed array. Bees are hard-wired to lay them down, but how does an insect know enough geometry to lay down a precise hexagon? It doesn't. It's programmed to chew up wax and spit it out while turning on its axis, and that generates a circle. Put a bunch of bees on the same surface, chewing side-by-side, and the circles abut against each other - deform each other into hexagons, which just happen to be more efficient for close packing anyway.

  Peter Watts

  Circles, Axes, Perfect

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.193, Head of Zeus

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• It’s not in the nature of the lamb to mourn the lion.

  Peter Watts

  Lions, Lambs, Mourn

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.263, Head of Zeus

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• If the rest of your brain were conscious, it would probably regard you as the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert

  Peter Watts

  Boss, Brain, Dilbert

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.555, Head of Zeus

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• You are. I'm just fatalistically cheerful. We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're all gonna die before it ends.

  Peter Watts

  Cheerful, Stories, Ends

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.89, Head of Zeus

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• Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the barely-intelligent creatures left behind. And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their answers. You have to take their word on faith.

  Peter Watts

  Wise, Intelligent, Analysis

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.32, Head of Zeus

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• But pattern-matching doesn't equal comprehension.

  Peter Watts

  Patterns, Matching, Equal

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.80, Head of Zeus

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• But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.

  Peter Watts

  Self, Brain, Doe

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.220, Head of Zeus

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• What's the survival value of obsessing on a sunset?

  Peter Watts

  Sunset, Survival, Obsessing

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.556, Head of Zeus

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• We are not thinking machines.

  Peter Watts

  Thinking, Machines

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• Property damage is so much easier to live with than murder.

  Peter Watts

  Damage, Murder, Easier

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.227, Macmillan

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• Radar is too long in the tooth for fine detail.

  Peter Watts

  Long, Teeth, Details

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.34, Head of Zeus

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