Books like Blindsight

01

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking · Science

A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics — where the universe came from, how it behaves, and where it might be going — to readers with no scientific training.

A kindred science fiction read.

02

Consciousness Explained

Daniel C. Dennett · Philosophy

Consciousness Explained is Daniel Dennett's attempt to replace what he calls the Cartesian Theater — the intuitive picture of consciousness as a single unified stream of experience observed by a self — with a model he calls Multiple Drafts.

Both dig into consciousness.

03

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins · Science

The Selfish Gene reframes evolution from the organism's point of view to the gene's.

A kindred science fiction read.

04

The Emperor's New Mind

Roger Penrose · Science

The Emperor's New Mind is Roger Penrose's argument that human consciousness cannot be reproduced by any computational device — that the mind is not, in the relevant sense, a computer — and that understanding consciousness will require fundamental advances in physics, particularly in reconciling quantum mechanics with general relativity.

Both dig into consciousness.

05

How the Mind Works

Steven Pinker · Science

How the Mind Works is Steven Pinker's synthesis of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, built around a central thesis: the mind is a computational system — a neural computer — shaped by natural selection to solve the adaptive problems that faced our ancestors on the Pleistocene savanna.

Both dig into consciousness.

06

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

David Eagleman · Psychology

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford who argues that the conscious self is a late, small, and largely uninformed participant in the brain's activity.

Shares consciousness and free will with Blindsight.

07

2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke · Science fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey begins with prehistoric man-apes encountering a featureless black monolith that somehow catalyzes their cognitive leap from prey to hunter.

Both dig into first contact.

08

Contact

Carl Sagan · Science fiction

Contact follows Ellie Arroway, an astronomer and SETI researcher who has spent her career scanning the skies for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Both dig into first contact.

09

Dark Matter

Blake Crouch · Science fiction

Jason Dessen is a physics professor in Chicago, content with his career, his marriage to Daniela, and his teenage son.

Both dig into identity and selfhood.

10

Leviathan Wakes

James S.A. Corey · Science fiction

Two hundred years from now, humanity has colonized Mars and the asteroid belt, and the political fault lines between Earth, Mars, and the Belters — the third-generation descendants of asteroid miners — are the dominant tension in the solar system.

Both dig into first contact.

11

Permutation City

Greg Egan · Science fiction

Permutation City opens in the mid-21st century, when wealthy individuals can run copies of themselves as digital simulations — Copies — in real time or at slower clock speeds depending on the computing budget they can afford.

Both dig into free will.

12

Sphere

Michael Crichton · Science fiction

Sphere begins with psychologist Harry Adams being called to a remote location in the Pacific Ocean, where the Navy has discovered a massive spacecraft buried under 300 years of coral growth on the ocean floor.

Both dig into first contact.