Galápagos
Observed by a ghost of the Vietnam War for one million years, the descendants of survivors of a cruise to the Galapagos Archipielago prove Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The ghost of a shipbuilder tells the story of an ill-fated cruise to the Galapagos Islands.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
25mentions
22people
2008–2026years
56% recommend44% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- With AI, as we currently understand it, we may have stumbled upon being able to replicate a part of the layer of our brain that provides the "reason" in humans., and a very specific type of "reason" a that.
All life has intelligence. Anyone who has spent a lot of time with animals, especially a lot of time with a specific animal, knows that they have a sense of self, that they are intelligent, that they have unique personalities, that they enjoy being alive, that they form bonds, that they have desires and wants, that they can be happy, excited, scared, sad. They can react with anger, surprise, gentleness, compassion. They are conscious, like us.
Humans seem to have this extra layer that I will loosely call "reasoning", which has given us an advantage over all other species, and has given some of us an advantage over the majority of the rest of us.
It is truly a scary thing that AI has only this "reasoning", and none of the other characteristics that all animals have.
Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos and Peter Watts Blindsight have different, but very interesting takes on this concept. One postulates that our reasoning, our "big brains" is going to be our downfall, while the other postulates that reasoning is what will drive evolution and that everything else just causes inefficiencies and will cause our downfall.
- I think Murakami’s books are a great suggestion. Magical realism, nowhere near sci-fi, but very easy to slip into. However, 1Q84 feels a bit like a heavy recommendation even if you’re a Murakami fan. It’s a bit more of a commitment and I think it helps if you’re familiar with his other stories before diving into it. I’d say try Hardboiled Wonderland first - I thought it stepped away from some of his recurring themes but still a good example of his style. Also a quicker read. He has a few anthologies might be good intros as well - I read two, Dance, Dance, Dance and The Elephant Also Vanishes, but I think he’s got some others.
Along the lines of magical realism, Kurt Vonnegut seems like a great recommendation too. His books incorporate a bit more sci-fi - Galapagos, Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, slaughterhouse five, …
- > Yup. We're doomed, because we're an evolving species. In a few hundred thousand years we'll be very different - perhaps our overweight brains will have shrunk, and we'll no longer be curious about silly things like the origin or final fate of the Universe.
You might enjoy Vonnegut's Galapagos, if you've not read it. It's a quick and easy read like most of his books.
- > Galapagos
Yes, I read it. There's a twist in the tail that nobody should spoil.
I haven't yet encountered anything by Vonnegut that I didn't enjoy reading. I want to re-read Breakfast of Champions. My first encounter was Slaughterhouse 5, followed closely by Cat's Cradle.
So it goes.
- The Outsider - Albert Camus Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut On the Road - Jack Kerouac Animal Farm - George Orwell
- I have a couple: - The Gulag Archipelago & Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn - Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut - Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian
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