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Meaning, "meat" is a variation on the "unreliable narrator" theme: the "unreliable language". This is used a lot in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, where medieval language describes artifacts of a space-faring civilization.
This feels very shallow and wrong. Surely an super intelligent alien species that studied “meat” would know the depth of the organization starting with the organic molecules and extending to the cell and then to the neurons and neural networks and then the brain. The surprising thing to them would not be that we are made of meat but that we eat meat. How could we take such intricately organized matter and just burn i…
It’s a comedic short story, not a dissertation on the powers of reasoning of undiscovered alien species. Rule of funny trumps accuracy.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfFunny
It’s important to remember science fiction tends to explore and make a commentary on the human aspect. The best stories aren’t about new technology, but its implications and effects on the human condition.
With that view, you could read this story as a commentary on humans themselves. We also don’t fully understand other species and are often astonished by what we discover. Above all, we can be incompetent and make mistakes. Remember the myth that “bees shouldn’t be able to fly”?
https://www.iflscience.com/the-strange-myth-that-bees-should...
> Surely an super intelligent alien species (…) would (…)
> The surprising thing to them would (…)
> They would wonder (…)
Sounds like you have your own ideas for a different short story.
This feels very shallow and wrong. Surely an super intelligent alien species that studied “meat” would know the depth of the organization starting with the organic molecules and extending to the cell and then to the neurons and neural networks and then the brain. The surprising thing to them would not be that we are made of meat but that we eat meat. How could we take such intricately organized matter and just burn i…
“This science fiction would never happen in real life!!” is my favorite kind of comment.
IMHO, good fiction asks us to suspend our disbelief to create a novel setting and unique circumstances. Having accepted that, we still expect the world to behave according to its own logic.
Bad fiction abuses the suspension of disbelief, and it rubs people like me (and the gp) wrong.
In this case, it is a silly short story, so it doesn't bother me much. On the other hand, complaining about TV shows and movies can practically become a sport with the the right company.
For example, I quite enjoyed the Netflix movie Spectral, right up until the end, where they tried too hard to explain the mystery and violated things that I had not suspended my disbelief about. The TV show Fringe had a ton of these moments as well. Some were easy to accept, some episodes were painful to get through.
I like how the word "meat" is clearly an inaccurate translation of a notion in the language of the conversation, for lack of a better word in human languages. "Organic matter" would be more accurate, but less striking. Meaning, "meat" is a variation on the "unreliable narrator" theme: the "unreliable language". This is used a lot in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun , where medieval language describes artifacts of a s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is pretty obvious - building this intricately organized matter from scratch out of sunlight and elements is extremely inefficient, much better to recycle the existing bulding blocks of lower levels of organization. (You don't make software from scratch from sand and electricity, you use an off-the-shelf CPU and existing libraries.)
Most of the meat consumed is not used to build things but is consumed by the body for energy.
This feels very shallow and wrong. Surely an super intelligent alien species that studied “meat” would know the depth of the organization starting with the organic molecules and extending to the cell and then to the neurons and neural networks and then the brain. The surprising thing to them would not be that we are made of meat but that we eat meat. How could we take such intricately organized matter and just burn i…
Noticed something that all plants have in common? How about an EV car which is powered exclusively by solar panels, without any battery, noticed what it has in common with plants?
There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of by your botany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GggK9SjJpuQ&pp=ygUZVGhleSdyZ...
It makes me smile each time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usXhX0zaO4&ab_channel=Podcl...