Tag: Society

My #top100 #scifi Num:48 The Robots of Dawn

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gYlBGa

Spoiled by reliance on robots, lacking a spirit of adventure the human colonisation of the galaxy has ground to a halt. I tend to think the Fermi Paradox is all about apathy in the end, this book might have been the seed that planted the idea.
Asimov begins tying his worlds together here with the first mention of psychohistory…
Isaac Asimov

My #top100 #scifi Num:49 Robots and Empire

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fW12ch

Another Asimov classic. This one ties the Robots series and the Empire series together. One of my favourites. Daneel and Giskard wrestling with the laws of Robotics, basically the ethics of AI. 
Lots of philosophy, but not too heavy, and plenty of Space Opera to liven things up. 
Isaac Asimov

Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness

Key scientists, including Stephen Hawking, agree that consciousness is not reserved exclusively for humans.

(This was in 2012, so I am clearly very late to the party with this one but I wanted to blog it down on paper as it is such a key theme in Singularity’s Children)

http://youtu.be/W9QIOj3IYuk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness#Cambridge_Declaration_on_Consciousness
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf