It was my first though as well. Idea of aliens, which can just "skip" the sight of humans is pretty cool. The same goes with concept of consciousness as a parasitic/optional part of inteligent species.

Blindsight is one of the best, 10/10 on Mohs Scale of sci-fi hardness. I love the description of scientific concepts behind sci-fi story at the end. Such a shame, there is so little books with that kind of deep research.

One of the best written, first contact novels out there. I have the luck of hearing Watts lecture on one of the Cons. He is even better in person.

If you are from Canada, it is good idea to check, where he is speaking.

Authors blog, filled with pop-scientific concepts and ideas [1], is well worth it.

[1] https://www.rifters.com/crawl/

Also note that the author has made the whole book available to read free online and via ebook:

https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

The sequel, Echopraxia, is also excellent. Not quite as mind-bending, but has all of the first book's existential creepiness.