A good way to start thinking about this world where anything can be conscious. It is just the right type of complexity.

Throughout the book I spotted several stories that I wanted to mention here as my favourite but there are now quite a lot of them. The Girl and the Pit is wonderful and Be Awake, Be Good full of suspension. The Caretaker is psychologically interesting with a neat plot twist.

One of my favorites! The idea of knowledge that is so incompatible with consciousness that if forcefully acquired will cause you to commit suicide is fascinating. The book closes with the idea of unity, that we are all part of a single natural process, that nothing is really independent and that the Song that we all sing with our essence is God.

With a little bit of gentle influence from myself, he took to work on a new metaphysic, Mentalic Ontology. We're all in the same strange boat, grappling with the same strange condition. But it isn't quite so scary if we all do it together. So let's do it together.” All explanations are an attempt by humankind to divide itself from the world. An explanation without including the explainer is as a tree without the trunk. One is inseparable from the other. No system of knowledge can avoid this limitation. Numbers are not the true face of measure. Words are not the true description of things. The world is the explanation.

Customer reviews

Every day I woke to the sun and stared at it a while, tried to see some meaning in the thing, spy an intention or a smile. I know that it is alive in some sense, whatever that sense might be. I know that it knows things. I think that it thinks. A Menagerie (Second story) -I have seen this travel concept on an old show, Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. An android psychologist goes on a mission, but things turn upside down. I felt this was very predictable to me. But the reason they give as an explanation at the end was very interesting. God, he thought. What’s better, nothing for lunch, or water? At least with nothing you know you’re starving. They give you water though and what’s The dominant mode of life was known as Kala, the principle of non-interference. Meekness as a virtue. Well, Ushko thought, what's so wrong about that

Exurb1a е издал нов сборник с разкази, сложих всичко друго на пауза. И за момент отново успях да се потопя в света на приятната литература, воден от приятните (по стил, не толкова по тематика) разкази обхващащи цялата сага на човешкото галактическо бъдеще. Exurb1a отново успява да смеси интересни технологически и философски идеи с човешката реалност, която ги свързва така добре и създава едно преживяване, което, поне според мен, не е за изпускане. The mayfly lives for about 24 hours. From the perspective of the universe, perhaps the human race is on a similar fleeting timescale. It took a long time to get to this point. There have been enormous sacrifices. We're all sat around being the product of billions of years of chance and millions of years of biological evolution. But today, this moment, now, we're here. We can wander around and do stuff and make stuff and have a jolly old time if we like. We're alive and we're looking damn fine. We have enormous, self-aware brains. We inhabit very clever fleshy suits designed by the universe herself. We've got the capability for greatness. We've got the capacity to enjoy a million unique stimuli. We've arrived at the party. We exist. And we can take walks if we want. So please go take a walk; I hope it's a nice one. And let’s not waste our day out in the cosmos. The Fifth Science is a “future history”, a series of twelve short stories charting the long-term fate of humanity and whatever might come after us. And “long-term” doesn’t mean decades or centuries; it means hundreds of thousands of years, more on the scale of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy say. I have always been a firm believer in an eventual galactic human empire. This book has thus been nothing short of a treat for me. But more than that, Exurb1a brought up some really interesting concepts surrounding consciousness and artificial intelligence. Namely, is there any reasons for consciousness to be a strictly biological phenomenon? The first story had a fairly original plot around this premise. Others stories also had quite enjoyable and thought-provoking plots, but maybe where their inspirations came from was much more visible. That and the fact that some of the character traits felt a bit repetitive are the only reasons I am not giving it five stars(to be fair there IS another reason - I have just decided to get more stingy with my five stars recently, that's all). Otherwise, brilliant writing. Excellent execution of ideas. He writes so vividly, the last few days I have been having dreams of distant worlds trimming with billions of humans, incomprehensible technologies beyond mankind's greatest wit and stars with minds of their own.She shrugged. “Who cares? All you need is an enemy to take the punches at. Cut the world into us and them, manufacture dichotomies, boil complex issues down to sound bites. Divide and conquer.” Chill out, he thought. Everyone gets annoyed. Chill out and just remember people have it much worse. Don’t be ungrateful now. Don’t be ungrateful for a house and a partner and a chocolate dessert. Your shoes are comfortable. Your health is exemplary. Don’t be ungrateful now.