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Neal Stephensons Anathem is also based on these same ideas- specifically the concepts of timeless physics, and the idea that mathematical and physical existence are identical.
Thanks. I'll put that one on my reading list. Haven't read but one of his before.
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No one reads Greg Egan for the character building or any of that other literary bullshit. This is the novel that introduces the idea that a simulation universe need not have another universe simulating it. Hell, it's the only novel that has that idea. There is more insight here than we could extract from a thousand other authors, philosophers, and thinkers. But who cares, the characters were sort of cardboard and he…
Neal Stephensons Anathem is also based on these same ideas- specifically the concepts of timeless physics, and the idea that mathematical and physical existence are identical.
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It’s not an easy read, but Blindsight by Peter Watts has some equally unique and compelling synthesis of scientific concepts into a big concept plot.
Oh, boy. Blindsight was a book that made me realize that maybe I like the _idea_ of hard sci-fi more than I actually like reading it.
Greg Egan's Mastodon profile is https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF He's fairly active there and likes to post math problems. I liked Permutation City, but Diaspora really blew me away. Every time you begin to get your mind around some radical new concept, Egan throws adds another fold that makes you reconsider everything you think you knew.
In Diaspora if someone steals your private cert then they become you or are at least indistinguishable to everyone else from you. I’ve never seen a super solid way to prevent this when everyone and everything is digital.
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Same. Not just for convenience of having drm-free ebooks but so I can have an AI read it to me. I don’t really have a preference for audiobook performers so hate having to buy ebook and audiobook. So I’m happy just feeding a text file into a reader and listening that way.
What AI do you use for that?
And I’ve also played around with speechify and natural reader, but am kind of stuck because most of the public domain I want to read already have librevox or some recording available. And I can’t feed properly purchased books without a hassle.
Pretty awesome book. Would be cool if someone could recommend sci-fi that equally good.
Completely different style but I think Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan introduces lots of new ideas and interacts with them realistically. The first season of the show was good but very different than the book.
This made me think that sometimes our physical brains speed up and can run at 2x but still only get I/o at 1x. It will be neat that I think at some point we’ll be able to boost up to like 1000x with implants or whatnot and think about something that doesn’t require any new information and then return to the present with insight to continue the conversation.
I hope this is affordable because it will be so handy for many things. If even to just spend more time staring at the Mona Lisa and contemplating.
It also makes me wonder how people age in fiction where people can freeze time. If someone freeze time for a year, does their body keep aging biologically?
My book review from last September: > Reads like a “consciousness and computers are cool” story written by an engineer. A few incredible ideas padded by weak storytelling and philosophical exposition. Probably would’ve been better as a short story. [0] https://taylor.town/books#permutation-city If you like this book, I recommend Accelerando , Piranesi , Dick's Ubik , and Ted Chiang's collections.
No one reads Greg Egan for the character building or any of that other literary bullshit. This is the novel that introduces the idea that a simulation universe need not have another universe simulating it. Hell, it's the only novel that has that idea. There is more insight here than we could extract from a thousand other authors, philosophers, and thinkers. But who cares, the characters were sort of cardboard and he…
Fun to see this on HN today; I just finished it last night, on a recommendation from a friend. It was great, and left me full of unfinished thoughts -- just what you want from a good SF yarn. For folks who enjoyed the ideas in it I can heartily recommend qntm's short story Lena ( https://qntm.org/lena ), which explores some of the same ideas but with a hefty dollop of (implied, but all the more intense for it) psycho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not an easy read, but Blindsight by Peter Watts has some equally unique and compelling synthesis of scientific concepts into a big concept plot.
Oh, boy. Blindsight was a book that made me realize that maybe I like the _idea_ of hard sci-fi more than I actually like reading it.
I really like hard SF and will never again read by this author.
> Standard internet Watts warning that the Rift novels have random sexual torture just in case you prefer to avoid that
in thread next to this one is not really surprising me
Also, not really sure is Blindsight actually hard SF. It seems to be soft one at most with a lot getting close to magic with SF styling.