Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/356
60 Feb 2009 AI bIo enhAnCeD nAno neURo hUMoR FoReVeR YoUng The oVeReXTenDeD PhenoTYPe: PeTeR WATTS InTeRVIeW PAUL MCeneRY A t the sharp edge of Darwinism, there's no real difference between a fl u virus and a computer virus…with human consciousness somewhere in the middle of the two. It's all just recombinant information, contagious enough to reproduce and robust enough to see off predators. And that's what marine biologist and SF novelist Peter Watts gives us, a hybrid world of tentacular horrors that tickle the neocortex. In Watts' world, our computers are made of head cheese — artifi cial wetware with its own genetic agenda; the Internet has devolved into a seething unconscious full of self-generating lifeforms learning to mimic humanity because... why not?; while alien colonies mimic humanity because…oh god why?; and humanity mimics every inhuman monster it can think of to survive: gene- engineered zombie executives, space vampires, and abuse victims chop-shopped into creature from the black lagoon — because they're the only ones who can take the pressure. not for Watts the celestial dataspheres of cyberpunk. This is the unrelentingly material world of biological process, the gloopy depths of neurogunk, where the viscera of human relationships are pared down to something unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. Which may not be enough when nature has second thoughts about the value of consciousness or DnA itself. Watts has known since the age of six that he was going to be a writer and, with the reissue of the Rifters Trilogy and the recently released blindsight, he's emerged as the man to beat. Charles Stross calls blindsight "a tour de force that'll make your skin crawl"; Jeremy Lassen (of night Shade books) describes it as "a phenomenal exploration of consciousness, biological theory, empathy and emotion…ambitious in scope, successful in execution, and audacious in implementation"; while Karl Schroeder says it's "a shocking and mesmerizing performance of provocative and often alarming ideas." This is the dark side we encounter in Alien and Terminator — a thrilling, terrifying and unfl inching journey to the end of night that brings us ultimately to a point of true hope, a place where ingenuity and courage confront the monster outside and inside of ourselves, and the urgency of life itself leads us to prevail.