Thinking Meat?
March 28, 2011 4 Comments
If other intelligent life DID find us on this small blue-green planet, what would they think? After I posted the Morning Links about our material and deterministic minds, a friend sent me a link to this charming short story: “Sentient Meat“.
So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.
They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.
That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.
I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in this sector and they’re made out of meat.
My favorite part comes a bit later:
So… what does the thinking?
You’re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.
Thinking meat??? You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat???
Yes, thinking meat ! Conscious meat ! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal ! Are you getting the picture?
Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.
Of course, in a sense we ARE machines, just biological machines. As T-Rex described it in Dinosaur Comics, each of us is a “machine that turns FOOD into IDEAS!”
(slightly shrunk, click here for the full-size, less-fuzzy comic)
Funnily, I just read clips from this exact story in Pinker’s how the mind works. I grew up on sci fi and I love its ability to throw our intuition and ‘common sense’ on its head.
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There’s a wonderfully weird short film adaptation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dk9z6Ul4X4 (starring Ben Bailey of Cash Cab, no less!) Can’t remember where I first saw this, but I feel like it might have been Psych 101…
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