PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 194 Blindsight
"Jesus, Siri. People aren't rational. You aren't rational. We're
not thinking machines, we're—we're feeling machines that happen
to think." He took a breath, and another hit. "And you already
know that, or you couldn't do your job. Or at least—" He grimaced
— "the system knows."
"The system."
Me and my protocols, he meant. My Chinese Room.
I took a breath. "It doesn't work with everyone, you know."
"So I've noticed. Can't read systems you're too entangled with,
right? Observer effect."
I shrugged.
"Just as well," he said. "I don't think I'd like you all that much in
that room of yours."
It came out before I could stop it: "Chelse says she'd prefer a
real one."
He raised his eyebrows. "Real what?"
"Chinese Room. She says it would have better comprehension."
The Qube murmured and clattered around us for a few moments.
"I can see why she'd say that," Pag said at last. "But you— you
did okay, Pod-man."
"I dunno."
He nodded, emphatic. "You know what they say about the road
less traveled? Well, you carved your own road. I don't know why.
It's like learning calligraphy using your toes, you know? Or
proprioceptive polyneuropathy. It's amazing you can do it at all;
it's mindboggling that you actually got good at it."
I squinted at him. "Proprio—"
"There used to be people without any sense of—well, of
themselves, physically. They couldn't feel their bodies in space,
had no idea how their own limbs were arranged or even if they had
limbs. Some of them said they felt pithed. Disembodied. They'd
send a motor signal to the hand and just have to take it on faith that
it arrived. So they'd use vision to compensate; they couldn't feel
where the hand was so they'd look at it while it moved, use sight as
a substitute for the normal force-feedback you and I take for
granted. They could walk, if they kept their eyes focused on their
legs and concentrated on every step. They'd get pretty good at it.