It doesn’t just ask if we are alone; it asks if our very sense of "self" is a handicap in a competitive universe.
To meet an alien intelligence, humanity sends a crew that is barely human themselves:
The central, chilling argument of the book is that . Blindsight by Peter Watts.epub
A biologist whose body is so heavily interfaced with the ship that he can "feel" the hull and "taste" radiation. Core Themes: Intelligence vs. Consciousness
The book is notoriously "dense." If you find the jargon heavy at first, stick with it—the payoff in the final third is frequently described by readers on Reddit as life-changing. It doesn’t just ask if we are alone;
The story begins in 2082 when 65,000 alien probes simultaneously surround Earth, photograph it in a flash of fire, and then vanish. In response, humanity sends the starship Theseus to the edge of the solar system to find out who—or what—is watching.
The crew encounters alien entities that are vastly more intelligent and faster than humans but appear to have no self-awareness or "inner life". Core Themes: Intelligence vs
40% into Blindsight, by Peter Watts, and quite bored. Should I give up?