alt Hacker News> Not knowing the original story, this reads fine on its own.
Yes. Because it's heavily based on the original story. The existence of the original story is kind of a critical piece here.
> Not knowing the original story, this reads fine on its own.
Yes. Because it's heavily based on the original story. The existence of the original story is kind of a critical piece here.
Might be. But after having read the original, it could just as well be the weights version and still be about us to begin with.
I don't see how "you could do that with a toaster" still. The whole point between the original and this, is that you can't do that with a toaster or a sofa, but you can do it with meat and weights, because both share all the other analogies in the story, as well as the basic premise: the improbability of something like thinking, feeling, etc arising from a lowly substrate.
And having read both now, I see how the existence of the original is a plus for this story, not a minus. Instead of making look like mere copy (as would be the case for a typical story modelled after another), in this case, it adds a meta layer, and enriches it.