Sweet.
I wish there was a HN for short stories.
They're Made out of Meat
51–60 of 176 posts
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#52>We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat? I'm wondering if we can fix that one.
Immortal meat? Are you expecting me to believe there can be meat that lives forever, without refrigeration?
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
the problem I had with the story is, exactly what type of existence do these aliens have? Why would they refer to other races as meat if they were not similar, biological lifeforms? Meat is a term used to denote food, not a life form type.
The idea I had, before the end of the story, was that the aliens were electronic (robots with AI). Perhaps their far back robot ancestors made by an ancient "meat" civilization, but them having forgotten all of that after millions of years... > Meat is a term used to denote food, not a life form type. Actually meat just means meat. It's not just a word for a food, it's a specific kind of organic "substance".
> Actually meat just means meat. It's not just a word for a food, it's a specific kind of organic "substance".
Unless it refers to food, you'd usually see the word "flesh" instead of "meat". Or, depending on how specific you were being "muscle tissue", or "fatty tissue".
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#54One of my favorite stories ever. That, and The Last Question.
What a long read. But an interesting story!
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#55I first heard this performed on a podcast called, "The Truth: Movies for Your Ears." Very good podcast for dramatic stories, sometimes artsy like this one.
Great podcast certainly, and I found it much more enjoyable than the short film adaptation mentioned higher in this thread.
I also liked the story on The Truth about the beings who discovered the Voyager 1 record (http://thetruthpodcast.com/Story/Entries/2014/5/14_Voyager_F...). Although the 'aliens' in that story were far too human and contemporary to take seriously, it worked as a great examination of how our civilization would react to a similar discovery. Although, like many Truth episodes, the light improv style works only well enough for it to be enjoyable. I much prefer their scripted and adapted stories.
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#56It's a nice story, but not very logical If meat thinking beings were so unheard of, you'd think they'd be all over us, trying to get to know what makes us tick, and why not, talking to us. Like if we'd find a talking dog. Maybe a more logical conclusion would be if they'd go: "Oh, it's just another meat civilisation. Just let them wander around in the dark like all the others, there's no chance they'll ever find anyo…
I think you have illustrated the point of the story by assuming these alien beings would react exactly how human's would. We don't know anything but human nature but it's not hard to imagine that non-human's or, rather, non-meat wouldn't have a non-human, non-meat nature.
by assuming these alien beings would react exactly how human's would
This is a tangent, but Peter Watts's brilliant novel Blindsight deals with this issue (among many others). Describing how would unfortunately ruin a key plot point.
He uploaded the whole novel to his website: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm but in my view it's more than worth getting in paper: http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640 .
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if we found talking poo (kind of like Mr. Hanky) Wouldn't the entire idea that such a thing could be _sentient_ be more than we could handle. Re-Read the story again, and substitute "poo" for "meat" and maybe you'll get a feel for it. After all - a talking dog is really just talking meat.
i think if we found any talking thing/being other than ourselves we'd be all over it. poo included
well, or the poo would be all over us....
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#58[deleted]
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you have illustrated the point of the story by assuming these alien beings would react exactly how human's would. We don't know anything but human nature but it's not hard to imagine that non-human's or, rather, non-meat wouldn't have a non-human, non-meat nature.
by assuming these alien beings would react exactly how human's would This is a tangent, but Peter Watts's brilliant novel Blindsight deals with this issue (among many others). Describing how would unfortunately ruin a key plot point. He uploaded the whole novel to his website: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm but in my view it's more than worth getting in paper: http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/…
I was going to comment on Blindsight.
It is a brilliant, brilliant piece of work. Certainly, the most 'alien' lifeform description I've ever seen. Even though he draws from his background a bit, so it still bears some superficial similarity to earth lifeforms.
Re: They're Made out of Meat
#60Could any life travel faster than the speed of light? (Including digital life.) Do we know much about dark matter yet? Could it travel faster than light, or is it bound by the same rules as normal matter?
You couldn't travel in 3 dimensional space faster than the speed of light, but you can travel vast distances faster by taking "short cuts" through other dimensions. I'm guessing the author used 'C space' as a way of describing '3 dimensional' (ie a = 1, b = 2, c = 3). So 'C space beings' would be limited to light speed travel (unless we build meat containers that could manipulate or penetrate 'D space')
wouldn't that break causality ? because light / information would still travel in 'C space'.