There’s this part near the end of Children of Time that stuck with me , when Holsten realizes the humans have basically become ghosts of their former culture, and the spiders (Portia especially) are evolving so fast they’re not even individuals anymore… just recursive systems wearing memories like skin.
The whole Portia lineage thing and passing down the name, the instincts, the myths .It’s like they’re simulating continuity through recursion. Like they go through identity until they feel stable.
It messed with me a bit. Got me wondering: what if memory is just stable recursion, and sentience is the part that resists collapse into pure mimicry?
And the ending when they’re trying to bridge minds across species and time, it doesn’t feel like a win. It’s fungal. Rotting structures giving rise to something barely coherent but still alive. Like stillness only happens inside decay
Am aware this book was written as a mirror to our society and I can grasp the theme but boi it weirded me out. Especially with how prevelant AI's have become in our lives and neurochips getting advanced day by day.
by opinionkiwi