This was great. It's nice to read some sci-fi with understanding of detailed biology for once and not just vague broad terminology.
Any other books like this that blend actual science with good story telling?
>>7366533
Not so good on it's grasp of cognition and neurosciences (split brains don't work like that and advanced proprioception not only relates to intelligent species, it relates to the most intelligent individuals within a specie). Hinges on pessimistic.
You could read his other stuff available online.
If you want to go even harder, try Greg Egan.
>>7366617
OP here, I agree with the brain stuff. I sort of took a lot of that with a grain of salt, but I got the idea of what he was trying to do for the story/characters.
What is good by Egan if you don't mind me asking?
hi bc
>>7366651
Permutation City is interesting: OK, so you can upload your brain to computers but someone needs to pay for that power right? Rich emulations can afford more processing power than poor emulations. So, class divisions continue onto the "afterlife".
Diaspora also expands a lot on trans-humanism like Blindsight, but different people disagree on what Heaven should be like and if it's cool to be virtual, robotic or made of meat.
He also has one series that is supposed to be super-hard and is all about speculation on an universe that has different physics that the author built from the ground up. Think Flatland, but with a truckload of math or something. Not brave enough to pick it up.
>>7366693
Those sound cool, esp the first. Going into the backlog. Thank you. I liked in Blindsight how while they acknowledge their enhancements weren't originally natural, they weren't a bad thing except for the main character, he was sort of an example of it being taken too far.
>>7366663
hello bitch!!
The Egan novel with the best beginning is either permutation city or distress. I though the beginning of distress was particulalry wel done and showcases Egans ablity to do tug at your feels. However the best novel to begin with imo is quarantine. It's pretty smart, and showcases Egans weirdness in a great way.
>>7366533
parasite eve?
>>7366827
not op but they seem to mostly wank about future fantasy more than anything.
>>7366533
why don't you read the sequel?
blindsight is better, but it's still an ok read
>>7366651
Read Diaspora. It's like one of my favorite novels because I just love that neurological stuff. Permutation City is ok but Egan doesn't seem to be able to write a simple modern human being to save his life. You could also read the sequel to Blindsight, Exopraxia. It's not nearly that good but it does scratch the itch.
>>7366533
You could try other Watts' novels too. Starfish is pretty alright. Has some cool biology and neurowankery too. I found it's sequel borderline unreadable though. There's also his short story called The Island which is great. You can download it from his site for free.
I've read Permutation City and Diaspora. What other Egan novels are more about mind philosophy and biology and less about physics?
Echopraxia isn't bad. It deals with free will rather than consciousness though, and goes more in depth into the vampires.
Egan is great.
You might want to check out Ramez Naam, the Nexus/Crux/Apex trilogy is hard-ish bio-scifi that deals with consciousness and that sort of thing.
Ted Chiang is on a similar wavelength. Personally I don't like him but he is fairly popular so check out his short stories.
>>7368886
The vampires piss me off. They're just fantasy buried in sci-fi tropes so as you won't notice they're just fantasy.
Sci-fi is merely fan-fic of science.
>>7368898
thanks for your stellar contribution
>>7368886
>>7370207
i completely forgot about, but should absolutely mention, Terenesia. it's very much as much bio as physics.... however, it is probably one of my very least favorite of his books, despite my being more of a bio geek over physics. hence why i completely forgot to mention it. i think you have to go in to all of egan's works expecting more of a treatise of ideas vs an actual well written story, but it was still hard for me to stay with Terenesia.
>>7370140
Thanks for not denying.
