The Mountain in the Sea

What a good book! Thank you to my friend Hannah for lending it to me!A lot to think about with this. The Acknowledgements suggest that [a:Ray Nayler 6447152 Ray Nayler https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1642102511p2/6447152.jpg]'s main theme here was the difficulty we would experience in encountering and then communicating meaningfully with another intelligent species. Much of this in the book is very interesting, and I found myself wanting to google things to see how true they were.What really stood out to me, though, was the exploration of loneliness and connection among ourselves as people and as a people. Most of the characters in this book are lonely - some crushingly so. I can relate very deeply to the experience of heartbreak and then burying oneself in work and study to try and make that fill the hole - though (as is a little less explored in this book), that is never successful for long. I expect this will be what I explore in my substack post...The description of the point fives was fascinating to read as a social worker. I can't imagine ever prescribing something like this - I'd break out my copy of [b:The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy 21029 The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy Irvin D. Yalom https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388176092l/21029.SY75.jpg 22216] and write out a referral for a good group so folks can experience universality. The nature of the point fives in here really comes across as something that would be even more isolative for the person - it isn't teaching the patient how to interact with others, it is providing an artificial means of buffeting the world from them.Then, though, I started thinking about Evrim vs Kamran. What are the meaningful differences, here? Of course Evrim's origin is different, but they are an artificial construct. The main difference is physicality. If you put Kamran in a person-shaped oculus and gave them movement... Would I think it is as far out as I do? Something for me to think about.