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They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

mit.edu

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Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#51

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

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…

You think an advanced species would be surprised that we're made of what we consume? Quite a funny take, because there's literally no other option. The reason a power plant, or factory, or any machine at all doesn't "eat" what it's made of is because human engineers are the digestion enzymes and protein factories. We digest raw materials (amino acids) into parts (proteins) based on plans and schematics (DNA), and the…

Not illogical at all. A person that abuses animals is a potential menace to society - lack of empathy means they might easily abuse humans too. We are punishing sociopathic tendencies here.

Farming animals is not sociopathic, it's a business decision based on economic interest.

This works because animals don't have human rights. (Obviously.)

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#53

Post by colordrops »

surprisetalk wrote: post #15

Andy Weir's The Egg is another excellent short story: [1] http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html If you're looking for more short stories, I highly recommend the following: • Ted Chiang's Exhalation • Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others • Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie • Borges's Ficciones • Smullyan's What is the Name of This Book? • Smullyan's Lady or the Tiger? • Douglas Adams's God's Debris Remember t…

Check out the short story The Jaunt by Stephen King. Serious existential terror.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#54

Post by fknorangesite »

surprisetalk wrote: post #43
munchler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God's Debris is by Scott Adams, not Douglas.

Thank you! What a silly slip of the fingers Although, now that Douglas Adams has been brought up, I think I should also recommend his lesser-known book, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency , which I believe has some connection to Dr. Who.

And its sequel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

And the very strange not-for-everybody-but-definitely-for-me TV adaptation.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#55

Post by aatd86 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #26
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the meat consumed is not used to build things but is consumed by the body for energy.

Protein is used by the human body as construction material, not as fuel. (It is possible to use protein as a fuel source, but virtually no modern human follows a diet where that actually happens.)

What's matter?

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#56

Post by wruza »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

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…

You think an advanced species would be surprised that we're made of what we consume? Quite a funny take, because there's literally no other option. The reason a power plant, or factory, or any machine at all doesn't "eat" what it's made of is because human engineers are the digestion enzymes and protein factories. We digest raw materials (amino acids) into parts (proteins) based on plans and schematics (DNA), and the…

  4. When one animal devours another in a cruel way we couldn’t imagine, no action. It’s *natural* nature, human has no right to intervene.
These inconsistecies are a hint that you may approach it from the wrong side. 4 contains a hint on that.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#57

Post by hotnfresh »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #31

My favourite short story is Last Contact , by Steven Baxter[1]. It always scared the hell out of me, because it was so... mundane , to the very end. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20080725045740/http://www.solari...

A lot like Melancholia.

Or that one short story about discovering the light of another star was about to reach us… and getting the predictions of its intensity very wrong.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#58

Post by DonHopkins »

bigbillheck wrote: post #28
dist-epoch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> all plants have in common There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of by your botany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't: The Tiniest Seed in the Blueberry Family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54wpdvZNve4

>Seeds of Monotropa uniflora - a plant that parasitizes fungi - are incredibly tiny. And they can afford to be, because all they need to grow is to be able to germinate on a mycelial thread of the mycorrhizal fungus that they parasitize.

8:22> "Mycoheterotrophic Lifestyles of the Lewd and Depraved"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myco-heterotrophy

>Myco-heterotrophy (from Greek μύκης mykes, "fungus", ἕτερος heteros, "another", "different" and τροφή trophe, "nutrition") is a symbiotic relationship between certain kinds of plants and fungi, in which the plant gets all or part of its food from parasitism upon fungi rather than from photosynthesis. A myco-heterotroph is the parasitic plant partner in this relationship. Myco-heterotrophy is considered a kind of cheating relationship and myco-heterotrophs are sometimes informally referred to as "mycorrhizal cheaters". This relationship is sometimes referred to as mycotrophy, though this term is also used for plants that engage in mutualistic mycorrhizal relationships.

Re: They're Made Out of Meat (1991)

#60

Post by philistine »

delecti wrote: post #42
fiforpg wrote: post #21

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…

Funnily I thought almost the opposite. I feel like "meat" is deliberately chosen in-character to be both less precise and less respectful than "organic matter". It would be like a species with organic computers incredulously describing our computers as "rocks".

- Can you believe those so-called humans. They made their computing devices out of rocks! They shovel sand out of beaches, make disgusting plates out of it, and force electricity through little paths of metal on them.

- Ew!

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