PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 149 Blindsight
the atoms.
"It's probably nothing. I've just been—jumpy lately. Thought I
saw something weird in the spinal bundle, back before we landed
on Rorschach. Just for a second, you know, and it disappeared as
soon as I focused on it."
"Multijointed arms with a central mass?"
"God no. Just a flicker, really. If it was anything at all, it was
probably just Amanda's rubber ball floating around up there."
"Probably." Szpindel seemed almost amused. "Couldn't hurt to
check for leakage in the shielding, though. Just in case. Not like
we need something else making us see things, eh?"
I shook my head at remembered nightmares. "How are the
others?"
"Gang's fine, if a bit disappointed. Haven't seen the Major." He
shrugged. "Maybe she's avoiding me."
"It hit her pretty hard."
"No worse than the rest of us, really. She might not even
remember it."
"How—how could she possibly believe she didn't even exist?"
Szpindel shook his head. "Didn't believe it. Knew it. For a
fact."
"But how—"
"Charge gauge on your car, right? Sometimes the contacts
corrode. Readout freezes on empty, so you think it's empty. What
else you supposed to think? Not like you can go in and count the
electrons."
"You're saying the brain's got some kind of existence gauge?"
"Brain's got all kinds of gauges. You can know you're blind even
when you're not; you can know you can see, even when you're
blind. And yeah, you can know you don't exist even when you do.
It's a long list, commissar. Cotard's, Anton's, Damascus Disease.
Just for starters."
He hadn't said blindsight.
"What was it like?" I asked.
"Like?" Although he knew exactly what I meant.
"Did your arm— move by itself? When it reached for that
battery?"