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They're Made out of Meat

terrybisson.com

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Re: They're Made out of Meat

#171

Post by judk »

evo_9 wrote: post #109

It would be cool if HN had a 'Classics' section or something like it where stuff like this could be permanently placed because this and a handful of other stories get reposted every 1.5 years or so. Fun read for sure and a good example of how a scifi story can be so simple but still have a lot to it.

I still remember a gem of a comment from last time, where someone miswrote the title as "They're made of meat" (without the "out") and a responder accused that person of completely missing the point of the story because "out" was critical to underdstanding.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#172

Post by splintercell »

ekidd wrote: post #129
Zikes wrote: post #81

This reminds me of a proposition put forth once (I think on tumblr of all places) that while humans are normally considered a "baseline" species in sci-fi, what would a sci-fi universe look like where humans were the superbeings? There were dozens of replies along the lines of: "I heard humans can survive losing a limb! Or even multiple limbs!" "Their strength and tolerance for gravity far exceeds our own!" "When one…

One of my favorite SF stories flips this premise: What if human beings were the wise, moral, responsible galactic elders? And we discovered low-tech aliens who observed: - "Humans have such good self-control! They can resist cannibalism and murder so easily!" - "Humans live for more than two years!" - "Humans have time to learn more than a thousand words!" - "But when you get right down to it, humans are remarkably d…

> One of my favorite SF stories flips this premise: What if human beings were the wise, moral, responsible galactic elders? And we discovered low-tech aliens who observed:

http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Star-The-Commonwealth-Saga/dp...

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#173

Post by krolley »

jimmaswell wrote: post #155
kps wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had a piece of meat than consumed English words and excreted correctly translated Chinese, could it be said that the meat actually understands Chinese?

How complex does a system of algorithms have to be to "understand" something? Hard question.

It's a reference to the 'Chinese Room' thought experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#174

Post by emmen »

jimmaswell wrote: post #154
emmen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barring significant new physics, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. And that's really a very probably no - although you see popular science stuff written like it can solve the problem, it doesn't, and we have no real expectation that anything will. Dark matter, if it is matter (and there are good but not totally confirmed reasons to think it is) is just that...matter. It would really be not that speci…

I've heard of the possibility of "apparent" FTL through worm holes or other disturbances in spacetime, what do you think of those

There are lots of interesting questions about what this would really mean, but it wouldn't break the FTL barrier - it's really taking a shorter path, not taking a long path but going faster.

This potentially raises paradoxes etc, and may also be impossible, but it doesn't break the barrier in the above sense.

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#175

Post by scintill76 »

judk wrote: post #171
evo_9 wrote: post #109

It would be cool if HN had a 'Classics' section or something like it where stuff like this could be permanently placed because this and a handful of other stories get reposted every 1.5 years or so. Fun read for sure and a good example of how a scifi story can be so simple but still have a lot to it.

I still remember a gem of a comment from last time, where someone miswrote the title as "They're made of meat" (without the "out") and a responder accused that person of completely missing the point of the story because "out" was critical to underdstanding.

I guess you're referring to this comment[0]. The "out" just seems like the cadence the author intended. I agree it sounds better and may lend a certain extra impact, but I don't know about "critical." Or am I missing something as well?

Sorry if this is pointless, I just looked it up because I was wondering if there was some deep metaphor or something I was missing.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3549886

Re: They're Made out of Meat

#176

Post by dmccunney »

I know Terry, and saw him read this with fellow writer Jack Womack years ago. Terry was the enthusiastic describer of these weird biological critters, and Jack did the "Meat?" responses with a perfect voice and wonderful tone of incredulity.

It's a lovely story, but everything Terry has done is worth reading.

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