Starfish Q&A for Peter Watts

[megasquid]

... if brain activation increases then wouldn't that raise the number of false associations along with the good ones? so, number of hits increase, but so do number of misses. but gut says there is going to be a thresehold to ride to get a performance increase until everything washes out. like with enhancements during hypomania before someone crosses over. so hey.)

Yeah, that was based on a metaanalysis done back in '94 by Bem and Honorton (I think those are the names-- too lazy to look them up right now). It was the first statistically-significant evidence of psi to appear in a peer-reviewed journal, as far as I know-- but suffice to say you weren't alone in your skepticism. A couple of other others have done subsequent analysis and were unable to replicate the results.

Which sucks, IMO. It would be cool beyond words if we could confirm this stuff experimentally. Sometimes empiricism is a real downer.

[megasquid]

I want panels with people who study neurobiology, geology, &c. along with but not necessarily sf authors. You have a background in marine biology iirc, do you have suggestions about where we can find these people? do you have people to recommend?

Well, of course there's the Big Names: Pinker and Ramachandran and those guys. I don't know any of them personally, though, and I bet their speaking fees would fund the next shuttle flight. I don't know Peter Simson (down at the University of Miami) or Matt McCormick (at Cal State) either, personally, but I've corresponded with them pretty extensively over e-mail-- the former teaches Neurospsych and the latter Philosophy of Mind-- and they both used Blindsight as textbooks for their courses, so they'd obviously be on the right wavelength. How amenable they are to cons and panels, though, I wouldn't know.

There's a local dude of my acquaintance, Isaac Szpindel. He's basically Buckaroo Banzai: he writes screenplays, sf short stories, he's a neurologist and and a GP (I think he still has a practice at a local campus a couple of days a week), and he's a martial-arts guy. Plus a very decent fellow to boot and an old hand at cons and panels. I don't if he's still in the field, though, or how available he is; I actually haven't heard from the dude in a year or two. But I could always reach to him if you're interested.

That's all I got. Sorry.

[megasquid]

Count me in as the third Chicago fan. As a marine biologist; what was the longest time you’ve spent in a rough environment? How autobiographical is Starfish? (You do not have to tell me if you know anyone pre-adjusted and I’ll assume the dedication does not provide a hint.)

Yeah, the dedication is kind of a giveaway. Lenie Clarke is based on Susan Oshanek, with additional insights thrown in after the fact thanks to subsequent time spent dating an employee of UBC's domestic violence lab.

Longest time I've ever spent in a rough physical environment (as opposed to, you know, relationships) would probably be a couple of weeks at a time camping out on uninhabited gull-infested scabby rocks, counting harbor seals. I had a few sites I'd visit regularly (they kinda got mooshed together into Ken Lubin's Island Getaway scene near the beginning of Maelstrom, right up to and including the sea lion with its lower jaw ripped off. I myself did not engage said sealion in a death match, however.) This was in the days before cell phones, so the "roughness" ranged from actual danger to life and limb (try stripping the wiring from a recalcitrant Evinrude outboard upside-down, underwater, with your teeth, after your eight-foot Zodiac has conked out directly in the BC Ferry shipping lanes, except you don't have to worry about the ferries running you over since they've been docked for the first time in 20 years thanks to hurricane-force winds down the Georgia Strait) to mere gross (do you have any idea what poison oak does to your genitals after a week in the wild, when you've been absently scratching yourself in your sleep? I will never look at eggplants the same way again.)

[megasquid]

How often do you get compared to Shakespeare?)

Counting this time? Uh, once.

If NASA ever sends a manned expedition to Mars; your book suggests we should send the pre-adjusted instead of the typical “right stuff” astronauts. Do you really believe this; or is this just a (great) idea for a story?

The way neurotech is progressing-- I mean, we've got people in the field seriously predicting the ability to read people's dreams in realtime a few decades down the road-- I suspect that by the time a Mars mission is recruiting, it won't be necessary to seek out preadapted wetware. I suspect we'll be able to retrofit whatever adaptations we want, on demand. (Which is, not to give too much away, one of the themes explored in Maelstrom...)

Answering the larger question, though, Starfish was at least partly a metaphor for something I've observed in academia for years: that the dysfunctional, fucked-up folks who are driven by some insane desire to win the unattainable approval of some abusive parent tend to be the ones who make the breakthroughs and win the grants and the awards, because they are driven; while the rest of us take our weekends off, spend time with our partners, these poor sods don't stop. They are not fun to be around. They are frequently abusive themselves. But in the jargon of the standard Hollywood cliche, "By God They Get The Job Done".

From there, it's just a small step to "Civilization is built on the backs of its outcasts" which is broad enough to contain a whole shitload of underclasses. The rifters were a literalisation of that concept: society's unwanted, running society's engines. Only this time, they've also got a hand on a kill switch that lets them tear the temple down around their ears. Because I really, really like it when underdogs bite back.

No, really.

[megasquid]

Why did you choose to release electronic copies under creative commons? I suspect I know the reason; since I’ll buy the rest of the series in paperback. How did you come to make that decision? Will future works be published for ebook readers instead?

I released the rifters stories under CC because they were out of print anyway; I'd rather be broke and less-obscure than broke and completely obscure. (Tor's decision to reprint those volumes came later, and I suspect they won't ever reprint Behemoth.)

I released Blindsight under a CC licence just a month or so after it's hardcover release, though, and I did that because Tor was killing its chances with their endless dicking around. I think they'd pretty much written it off as DOA before it ever hit the shelves; one of the two major distributors had skipped on it, so they'd done this really miniscule print run. And then the reviews started coming in. And then the buzz started. And suddenly here was this book that everyone was hearing about, but nobody could actually find because the print run had sold through and Tor was waffling on whether they wanted to do another. There were a couple of bookstores in which Blindsight was the #1 sf bestseller even though they'd sold zero copies, simply on the basis of back-orders. And all the while Tor kept moving the goal posts: They would go back for another print run when the first run had been sold. Then when it was sold, they decided to wait until the actual inventory had shipped. Then they decided to hold off "until back orders build up a bit more." At that point, I figured, Fuck it: I now have a choice between a book that tanks commercially that no one's read, or a book that tanks commercially that everyone can read if they so wish. There was no optimal scenario, but the lesser of the evils was pretty obvious.

So I gave it away. And I am convinced that that's what saved the book from complete oblivion. It was only after I went CC that the Bookscan numbers went through the roof, and the translation offers started coming in, and, finally, Tor did another hc printing. (And another. And another.) It's completely counterintuitive, but giving that damn thing away for free has made me more money than all my other books combined.

[megasquid]

(Will continue answering posts later-- have lunch date to attend now.)

[megasquid]

The head cheese is how far into being a Chinese Room in its interactions with Scanlon?

The head cheese is completely a Chinese Room. It's told "protect against virii" and it hears "promote informational parsimony". It actually did understand the essentials of what Scanlon was asking it-- but Scanlon suspected what was going on up front, and parsed his questions very carefully knowing the nature of the entity he was dealing with.

What is your [Watts'] position on the strong AI question?

I think-- barring a sudden catastrophic descent into a new Stone Age-- that we are bound to solve the Strong-AI question through sheer brute force if not through analytical methods. We may not figure out how consciousness works, exactly, but I think that ongoing efforts to replicate brain operations in a software environment, right down to the molecular level, may well generate an agent that "wakes up". The only other possibility is that our self-awareness results from some supernatural divine spark-- the "soul"-- and that concept is so firmly rooted in religious superstition, and so utterly unsupported by any empirical evidence, that I cannot take it seriously.

In the climax of the model, should we primarily take away a mistrust of machines, or a mistrust of mechanistic systems including bureaucracies?

How about a mistrust of people?

Is there a similar lesson to be taken from the failure mode of systems in Starfish and the failures of arcane financial instruments in our own, recent global financial collapse?

I would love to answer this question. If I did, however, I would give away the punchline of "Intelligent Design", which is a novel I've currently outlined and am waiting for my agent to sell. Actually, by even answering that question as I have, I have probably already given it away. So, yes.

Observation: the group is disputing if the rifters should be called cyborgs--too identifiable to be cyborgs though they certainly seem to fit the definition!

Certainly rifters are cyborgs in the classical sense of an organic entity welded to mechanical components through feedback interfaces. More interesting, though is the question of whether that classical definition is still adequate. Supposing you engineer an organism so that 80% of it is made up of constructed artefacts-- but those artefacts were generated using biological processes (e.g., DNA-programmed cilia rather than the hoary old mircroscopic gears-and-rotors of eighties-era nanotech imaginings). Does the fact that the machinery is organic rather than silicate make the result any less cyborgian?

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and seaQuest get namechecked. seaQuest is the jocks and cheerleaders vs. the freaks and geeks of Starfish. Not really sure if there's any sort of a question there. Does this make Gerry Fischer an alternate Darwin? Bad mental place, bad mental place!

Am not entirely sure that I am comfortable having my work associated with either Seaquest DSV or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Suggest that we just hold the inferred (and presumably inadvertent) insult up against my recent racefail debacle and call it even.

[megasquid]

1) Why is your net so deadly?

Natural selection, basically. It hasn't happened yet in an online environment because viruses and worms, while increasingly adaptive and polymorphic, have not yet been outfitted with the ability to mutate; they adapt solely by being rewritten by their original authors. This makes perfect sense; the authors of malware aren't interested in provoking accelerated evolutionary processes, they're interested in getting your credit card info or zombifying your desktop. They don't want their programs to evolve "naturally", because they would inevitably evolve to optimize their own replication, not the scammy purposes for which they were originally created. But at some point, someone's just gonna want to see what happens to the anthill when you kick it over. Someone's going to build a trojan or a worm with genes, and a built-in random-number generator that will allow those genes to change. When that happens, computer viruses will be to all intents and purposes, literally alive; and then you can hang on for dear fucking life, because then you'll have natural selection operating at electronic speeds. That's when we really lose control.

2) Why didn't they see the headcheese coming?

Somebody probably did. Someone down in the basement probably wrote a memo: "Al Quaeda Determined to Attack Within US", or "Credit Bubble Expected to Burst Within Six Months" or "Head Cheese Logic Opaque, Not To Be Trusted". But who ever listens to those people? There were several folks who warned of the current global economic meltdown. They called the cause, they called the timing to within a couple of months. And they were derided and dismissed, until all hell broke loose. Such is Human Nature.

In the case of Starfish, I tried to establish the previous failures in the conversation between Jarvis and Kita, when they discussed the failure of the head cheese running the London Tube and suffocating everybody. And then Kita dismisses it all with "that was years ago. They've worked all those bugs out by now."

Too subtle?

3). Do you read comp.risks?

I have never even heard of it. Should I be? Sounds intriguing.

[megasquid]

re eyes
(For group more than Peter Watts)
I just remembered another solid eyes moment in fiction
Red eyes in Dhalgren..

Dhalgren was one of the big honking literary influences on me, growing up. I still don't know what the fuck was going on in that book, but man, did that world ever stick to my mind afterwards.

Delany is one of maybe three or four authors who I consciouslly tried to emulate, stylistically, when developing my own voice.

[shekay]

would inevitably evolve to optimize their own replication, not the scammy purposes for which they were originally created. But at some point, someone's just gonna want to see what happens to the anthill when you kick it over. Someone's going to build a trojan or a worm with genes, and a built-in random-number generator that will allow those genes to change. When that happens, computer viruses will be to all intents and purposes, literally alive; and then you can hang on for dear fucking life, because then you'll have natural selection operating at electronic speeds. That's when we really lose control.

Okay, I totally buy that. Here's my credit card number.

2) Why didn't they see the headcheese coming?

In the case of Starfish, I tried to establish the previous failures in the conversation between Jarvis and Kita, when they discussed the failure of the head cheese running the London Tube and suffocating everybody. And then Kita dismisses it all with "that was years ago. They've worked all those bugs out by now."

Too subtle?

Someone brought that up in the discussion... I was still holding out thinking that there just had to have been more colossal failures than that which would have made it obvious that those head cheeses were too weird to trust... okay, you said they were warned and ignored. plus, you're writing a novel and not an essay. so more 'blah blah blah' doesn't belong there.

speaking of writing a novel, I'm not calling 'show don't tell' on the conversation between Ballard and Lenie. Ballard was pushed into a crazy-made ranting paranoid in that environment. The conversation fits into the ranting. Ps. loved that interaction.

Okay, back from that tangent. During the discussion I brought up that people were too willing to relinquish control to automated systems (look what's happen with that, the tube). How do you feel about turning over driving on the freeway to an automated system? That's just asking for all kinds of interesting TOODLESed-up-ed-ness. ...which doesn't mean I don't have fun thinking of how one would design the system. so anyway, we already relinquish control in less lethal cases. I buy creeping.

3). Do you read comp.risks?

I have never even heard of it. Should I be? Sounds intriguing.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks

I'm having deja-vu about this question, so it may even be something I asked you before. Comp.risks (digested on usenet but available other places if that is too old-school for people. slrn, represent) is a forum on risks associated with technology and systems. It's presumptuous of me to say that you gleefully kick the hell out of people in your books. maybe 'gleeful' is the wrong word. anyway, you kick the hell out of everyone and design good TOODLESed-up-ed-ness in the systems, not to mention the people in charge.

So, I will presume to say that you should read something like that for educational purposes. it would give you more to rant about. maybe just skim from time to time since you are a busy person. I skim it when I'm busy and get around to reading it from time to time (particularly when I don't have some novel to read about TOODLESed-up-systems. how are those negotiations coming along?).

example subject lines (you can have fun seeing what you've already written into your books):

Amusement rides without Fail-safe States
Debora Weber-Wulff

Taipei rapid transit line closed until further notice
jidanni

UK national ID card cloned in 12 minutes
PGN

Computer Error Caused Rent Troubles for Public Housing Tenants
Manny Fernandez via Monty Solomon

Boy Dies After Mom Says GPS Left Them Stranded in Death Valley
Richard Grady

GPS typo saves couple?
Joel Baskin

Beware of Outdated E-mail Addresses
Gene Wirchenko

Funniest security faux pas this week
Ron LaPedis

You think Adobe bug reports are tough to submit...
Michael Albaugh

Re: Risks of hierarchical map displays
Leonard Finegold
Gavin Treadgold
Gene Wirchenko

Industrial object-oriented language made void-safe
Bertrand Meyer

Arming ATMs with Pepper Spray?
Thomas Dzubin

Eye tracking to prevent screen snooping
Peter Houppermans

U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving
Matt Richtel via Monty Solomon

Taiwan president in ruckus over prerecorded web messages
jidanni

Canadian Mint says missing gold may have been stolen
Darryl Dueck

An interesting reversal of the usual credit card problem
Roger Leroux

Speaking of being busy, thanks again for dropping in here to answer questions.


(edited to replace my ducks with toodles for the benefit of any people who work for nazis)

[joe cursio]

Answering the larger question, though, Starfish was at least partly a metaphor for something I've observed in academia for years: that the dysfunctional, fucked-up folks who are driven by some insane desire to win the unattainable approval of some abusive parent tend to be the ones who make the breakthroughs and win the grants and the awards, because they are driven; while the rest of us take our weekends off, spend time with our partners, these poor sods don't stop. They are not fun to be around. They are frequently abusive themselves. But in the jargon of the standard Hollywood cliche, "By God They Get The Job Done".

From there, it's just a small step to "Civilization is built on the backs of its outcasts" which is broad enough to contain a whole shitload of underclasses. The rifters were a literalisation of that concept: society's unwanted, running society's engines. Only this time, they've also got a hand on a kill switch that lets them tear the temple down around their ears. Because I really, really like it when underdogs bite back.

No, really.

Have you read Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers? I have not yet; but someone mentioned that one of the components of great success is spending ten thousand hours in a field. That’s five years at a forty hours workweek; or 2-3 years per a more driven 60-80 hours per workweek. I’m willing to call that driven, or devoted, or dedicated; but not messed up. If being messed up was a necessary criteria; I think the blurb would have said that. But then again; what kind of person uses all his time like that?

Are we referring to two different types of people, or using different words to express the same thing? Or am I just witnessing the same people from afar rather than up close? For example; Steve Jobs has gotten Apple to do great things, but I wouldn’t want to work for the man.

I’m also aware of messed up people who have not gone on to accomplish great things. The statistician in me started to think if there really is a correlation between being messed up and achieving great accomplishments. And even if there is, correlation does not imply causality (as the cliché goes). And I started to think about all the other ways this might not be true. If I understood what I’ve heard about Popper; science is all about falsification.

How do you keep the scientist part of you from constantly rejecting your SF writer ideas? Does it get harder the close you get to your fields of expertise?

Does it make sense that the more you know; the more you know of what’s impossible?

*edited to remove language that offended someone, moodygrrl 8/17/09

[joe cursio]

3). Do you read comp.risks?

I have never even heard of it. Should I be? Sounds intriguing.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks

[/quote]

That URL is hilarious. I just read a story about a commercial airline pilot (in uniform) who was searched by TSA to see if he carried anything to enable him to take control of the airplane.

[ElijahBailey]

Excellent work, guys. I'm sorry I missed the action, though finally catching up on the forum has been nice. Met Peter Watts at Worldcon, he seemed the nice chap. Not sure why Hartwell and Tor wouldn't give the guy a break and offer a mid-list contract for further work after Blindsight. Enjoyed Starfish immensely. And now that it's been at least a month, I'm not sure I could offer much further discussion on the book, save a couple of things that stand out.

Watts' deep sea environment is a moody enclosed space that evoked a real sense of horror. Gigantic aquatic beasties and unpredictable geothermal conditions seem to combine the best of Lovecraft and Verne. And I mean it: I don't read much horror, but this one had me creeped out for much of it. Hard to buy into the 18th cent. puritanical view of nature as evil (reference Nathaniel Hawthorne, mostly, like Young Goodman Brown, The Scarlet Letter,) but as the crew of the Beebe slowly receded into the solitude of the deep, I sort felt this general sense of minor menace. Hard to describe, I guess, but, touche!

Reading this book felt like reading an update of 20K Leagues Under the Sea, where Nemo's motivations spring from colonial causes and imperialist injustice, while the crew of the Beebe reflect more 21st century concerns.

One of the best panels of the weekend included Watts, James Morrow, Daryl Gregory, moderation by Kathryn Cramer, discussing Are We Conscious and Does It Matter? I guess I could ramble on, but I'll truncate here. Looking forward to Tiptree this month.