A link (https://socraticdungeon.com/posts/scrambler-revised/) and snippet from my article.
"Vision's mostly a lie anyway," he continued. "We don't really see anything except a few hi-res degrees where the eye focuses. Everything else is just peripheral blur—light and motion. Motion draws the focus. And your eyes jiggle all the time, did you know that, Keeton? Saccades, they're called. Blurs the image. The movement's way too fast for the brain to integrate, so your eye just—shuts down between pauses. It only grabs these isolated freeze-frames, but your brain edits out the blanks and stitches an illusion of continuity into your head."
He turned to face me. "And you know what's really amazing? If something only moves during the gaps, your brain just—ignores it. It's invisible."
Spoilers for Blindsight!
If you haven't read Peter Watts' science fiction novel Blindsight, I highly recommend it. The entire book is available for free here. While I do recommend the audiobook, make sure to read or listen to it first—it's a thought-provoking story, even if I don't entirely agree with its central premise.
The Scrambler
Despite being the drones and workers of whatever the true aliens are (which never receive a full reveal), the Scramblers exist as the story's "antagonists."
Initially, they are perceived as bony, starfish-like creatures with hundreds of tiny eyes spread across their bodies—seemingly simple, dumb drones. However, it quickly becomes clear that these Scrambler "drones" can think circles around the main characters. Every synapse and nerve in their bodies pulls double duty, functioning as both brain and muscle control. Despite their insane intellect and spatial awareness, they lack any concept of self-awareness, having evolved or been created in an environment where such a trait was unnecessary.
This ties back to Blindsight's central premise: consciousness and sentience have very little, if anything, to do with intelligence. Consciousness is portrayed as merely an evolutionary accident—a neutral trait that never got weeded out.
There's some evidence for this concept in real life. Muscle memory and trained reactions are faster than conscious effort. The "flow state" and subconscious processes often handle tasks far more efficiently than our conscious minds. We actually rely on conscious self-awareness much less than we think.
Scramblers, without the "weakness" of consciousness, exist in a constant flow state. Pair this with their ability to sense and perceive magnetic fields, and these creatures become terrifyingly efficient.