Reddit reviews Diaspora

Go read the first chapter of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0061057983/

It does a pretty good job of explaining it, in spite of being fiction. It's also an excellent novel about the difference between being human and thinking you're human, as is most of Greg Egan's work.

> What other explanation could there be?

In summary: Your brain is a computer, processing data and experience. Your brain is sufficiently complex enough to model the universe, providing you with things like memory and expectations.

That is, there's a set of patterns in your nerves that are approximately mapped to things in reality outside of you. When you see the apple on the table, and then you turn around, you know the apple is still there because in your brain are some patterns in some nerves that represent the table and some others that represent the apple. Those patterns are your knowledge of the apple, and those patterns behave in ways equivalent to a real apple. (Sort of like how the text in a word processor, which is nothing but patterns of electricity, can behave thru the "miracle" of computer programming in much the same way that ink on paper behaves, with cut&paste, scrolling, and so on.) OK so far?

Now, in that model of the universe and how it works you have a model of yourself. That's the difference between a conscious creature and a non-conscious creature. This model of yourself starts out being not very clear when you're a baby. Infants reach for things and learn what their limits are. They don't understand that dolls represent people, because they have no model of what a person is. A sufficiently young child will bang a doll against a toy car. A bit older and they'll pose the doll and sit it up on the car seat: their model of the world now understands people and cars and can relate dolls to people in the model. "Peek a boo" teaches children that objects persist even when they can't see those objects, "programming" that part of the model of the universe.

But the thing that differentiates self-aware creatures (like humans, apes, elephants, etc) from those that aren't (like wasps, earthworms, etc) is that the self-aware creatures have a model in their brain of themselves. This is what lets you plan ahead. You can take that model of yourself, make it do things and interact with the model of the universe, and figure out what will result. You can figure out what would happen if you (say) went to your office on a saturday at midnight and turned left getting off the elevator. You know there would be few if any other people there because you have models of your coworkers in your head. You know there would be the boss' office in front of you if you turned left and the restroom if you turned right because you have a model of the office in your head and you can put the model of yourself outside the elevator and simulate it turning and looking, and calculate what you'd find.

A being who doesn't understand peek-a-boo (say, an ant) isn't going to manage to figure out what the office looks like at night. A bird that flies at its reflection in the mirror and never realizes it's behaving the same as it is will not be able to think "what if I was on the other side of the park?" Scientists test this sort of thing by (for example) putting a blob of catsup on an animal's forehead and seeing if they wipe it off when they see themselves in a reflection. If the animal can recognise that the thing in the mirror is the same as themself, then they probably have a mental structure representing themself that they can map to also be behind the glass of the mirror.

And that, my friend, is consciousness. When the model of the universe you keep in your head also holds a model of you, then you know that you exist and how you behave.

The stuff that makes up your consciousness is patterns of information. Microsoft Word isn't material in nature, but that doesn't mean it isn't clear where it came from. The thing that makes your "cells" self-aware is the patterns they take on when you're a baby and the training that every (normal) child goes through.

The reason it might feel like "something out there" is that your model does not effectively model the model. You are often aware when you're planning things that you're manipulating a model of yourself. You envision going to the various places you need to go, see the road you'll drive to stop at the three stores where you need to shop, remember that traffic is bad on a particular stretch and need to go around it.

But you're not often aware of thinking about this model. You rarely catch yourself saying "I know I'm planning this, and I intended to plan it." No, you just plan. It's built in. Basically, the "you" in the model generally does not have a very good model of the model inside the model. There's a little "you" inside your brain that you use for planning, but that "you" in your head does not in turn do any planning itself. It's run from the outside, from the real brain that holds the model.

There's also a little "him" and a little "her" for each person in your head. That's how you can say things like "the boss would really get mad if he heard me say that" or "the wife will be pleased I remembered her birthday." You know your wife will be pleased because the model of your wife would - basically, you run the program of your wife that you have in your head and evaluate that program's reaction. When many peoples' models of Jim don't align with what Jim actually does in real life, people start to say things like "He's not himself this week." Think about what this is actually saying. Of course he's himself. The saying is "he's not behaving like my mental model predicts he should behave."

Some people have very poor models of others (or themselves), and this makes them socially awkward. They don't easily calculate what the reaction of others in their models may be, even if they understand themselves very well. Other people do a very good job of modeling others in their little universes, but do not sympathize. They do not map those other people onto the same sort of "thing" as they map the model of themselves. They can predict their behavior, but not their emotions. These people are cold and manipulative, not understanding why others are hurt by their behavior even though they're behaving as predicted.

Diaspora by Greg Egan

We've started reading Diaspora by Greg Egan this month in /r/SF_Book_Club

I'm about 2/3rds through the book and my mind has been completely blown, it's the first of his books I've read and I think this is the start of yet another SF addiction.

back to the beginning

---

Current Selection#####

• Echopraxia by Peter Watts [Echopraxia]. Began September 3rd.
  
  
  ---
  

  Past Selections#####
  

  
  

  2014######
  

  
  

• The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke [Songs]. Began August 6th.
  
  
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson [2312]. Began July 7th.
  
  
• The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard [crystal]. Began June 4th.
  
  
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon [Lot49]. Began May 7th.
  
  
• The Lilith's Brood Trilogy by Octavia Butler [lilith]. Began April 7th.
  
  
• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie [Justice]. Began March 6th.
  
  
• [Invisible Cities] (http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156453800) by Italo Calvino [Invisible]. Began February 5th.
  
  
• Machine Man by Max Barry [Machine]. Began January 1st.
  
  

  2013######
  

  
  

• House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds [suns]. Began December 5th.
  
  
• Singularity Sky by Charles Stross [singularity]. Began November 4th.
  
  
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood [Oryx and Crake]. Began October 7th.
  
  
• The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway [gone-away]. Began September 3rd.
  
  
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin [dispossessed]. Began August 2nd.
  
  
• The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks [sonata]. Began July 3rd.
  
  
• Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clark [rama]. Began June 3rd.
  
  
• Jack Glass by Adam Roberts [glass]. Began May 3rd.
  
  
• Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn [monsters]. Began April 3rd.
  
  
• Solaris by Stanisław Lem [solaris]. Began March 3rd.
  
  
• Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan [carbon]. Began February 1.
  
  
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson [diamond]. Began January 4th.
  
  

  2012######
  

  
  

• Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke [childhood]. Began December 1st.
  
  
• Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo (aka Unto Leviathan) [fools]. Began November 3rd.
  
  
• Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg [dying]. Began October 4th.
  
  
• China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh [china]. Began September 4th.
  
  
• Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges [labyrinths]. Began August 4th.
  
  
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury [martian]. Began July 2nd.
  
  
• The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle [mote]. Began June 1st.
  
  
• Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky [picnic]. Began May 2nd.
  
  
• The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester [Destination]. Began April 2nd.
  
  
• Diaspora by Greg Egan [diaspora]. Began March 5th.
  
  
• Stories by Ted Chiang [Chiang]. Began February 3rd.
  
  
• Grass by Sheri S. Tepper [grass]. Began January 2nd.
  
  

  2011######
  

  
  

• Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny [lord]. Began December 5th.
  
  
• Zones of Thought Trilogy by Vernor Vinge [zones], [fire], [deepness], [children]. Began October 28th.
  
  
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami [Wonderland]. Began October 3rd.
  
  
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline [rp1]. Began September 1st.
  
  
• Rule 34 by Charles Stross [Rule 34]. Began August 2nd.
  
  
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi [quantum]. Began July 1st.
  
  
• Embassytown by China Miéville [Embassytown]. Began June 1st.
  
  
• The Dervish House by Ian McDonald [dervish]. Began May 2nd.
  
  
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin [LHoD]. Began April 5th.
  
  
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. [canticle]. Began March 1st.
  
  
• Inverted World by Christopher Priest [inverted world]. Began February 1st.
  
  
• The City & the City by China Miéville [the city]. Began January 1st.
  
  

  2010######
  

  
  

• Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks [surface]. Began December 3rd.
  
  
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell [cloud atlas]. Began November 3rd.
  
  
• Anathem by Neal Stephenson [anathem]. Began October 1st.
  
  
• Blindsight by Peter Watts [blindsight]. Began September 1st.
  
  
• The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi [windup]. Began August 1st.
  
  
• The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams [MoPI]. Began July 15th.

I really enjoyed Diaspora because it was such a different sort of story. It also may me terrified of gamma ray bursters. Forget asteroids, that's what will get us!

See, I don't think the name is bad, but only because I associate it with the book by Greg Egan

The guy at Barnes and Nobles said that this book has been out of print since '99, but you can get it on Amazon right now: http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0061057983/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213862539&sr=8-2

Funny you should mention that. The only place I've ever seen this used is in Diaspora by Greg Egan. I thought he made it up. TIL.

http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0061057983

Diaspora

> In the 30th century, few humans remain on Earth. Most have downloaded themselves into robot bodies or solar-system-spanning virtual realities, escaping death--or so they believe, until the collision of nearby neutron stars threatens life in every form.

Want to become the Matrix? It's your chance.

Diaspora by Greg Egan is an interesting read, albeit slightly less realistic than some of those listed in this thread. That is, it may become more or less far-fetched depending on how technology advances.

Greg Egan is a good one that no-one else has mentioned.
Amazon link to one of his best