"They're made out of meat"

Discuss anything about your favourite books, TV, films, cinema, theatre, music, etc.
Forum rules
Please read the Forum rules and policies before posting.
Post Reply
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

"They're made out of meat"

Post by Gambit37 »

"They're made out of meat" - a short sci-fi story by Terry Bisson:

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
User avatar
beowuuf
Archmastiff
Posts: 20687
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2000 2:00 pm
Location: Basingstoke, UK

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by beowuuf »

Very cute :)
User avatar
Seriously Unserious
Master Superior
Posts: 1418
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 11:53 am
Location: Wandering around aimlessly in Lynchgate Woods
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Seriously Unserious »

:lol: that was funny.
User avatar
Ameena
Wordweaver, Murafu Maker
Posts: 7515
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:25 pm
Location: Here, where I am sitting!
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Ameena »

Hehe, that's cool :D.
______________________________________________
Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
User avatar
ebeneezergude
Expert
Posts: 345
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:58 pm
Location: I see walls stretching off into the darkness...

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by ebeneezergude »

That is excellent.
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Gambit37 »

Great responses :-)

What do you imagine these superior alien intelligences to look like?
Are they even visible? Are they beyond our understanding?
Perhaps they are also meat and in denial?
User avatar
Zyx
DSA Master
Posts: 2592
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2000 1:53 pm
Location: in the mind
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Zyx »

I don't know if they're superior, but one could speculate that since they talk about the meat being bound by c, they're not: thus, at least part of them is not made by matter and energy (at least nothing of the sort we know to exist).
Because of their time scale (two galactic revolutions feels like the near-past for them), even if some part of their beings would be detectable, our life-spans wouldn't be enough to detect any transient movement, which would difficult the realization they're alive...
They also seem to consider us on the extreme limit of the bearable and/or conceivable, so one could speculate that it would be a big intellectual/emotional challenge for us too to understand them, probably because of the difference of scale or inhabited dimensions.
But they have machines, they sent recon vessels to Earth and can use radio waves to communicate, so interaction is possible.

However, before speculating on the informations contained in this text, one would have to wonder first how the transcription of their thoughts into a human language is possible, meaningful and truthful at all, even if some human had a complete, divine-like insight of them...
User avatar
Seriously Unserious
Master Superior
Posts: 1418
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 11:53 am
Location: Wandering around aimlessly in Lynchgate Woods
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Seriously Unserious »

wow, that's some deep analysis of what's basically meant to be a short, funny little story. :P

anyhow, I'd say that translating thoughts into words shouldn't be a problem for us, we do it all the time. these aliens though, who knows, they may not be able to do this, if they just deal in pure thought at all times.
User avatar
Ameena
Wordweaver, Murafu Maker
Posts: 7515
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:25 pm
Location: Here, where I am sitting!
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Ameena »

I read a story once which was told from the PoV of a couple of aliens whose race communicated by flashing colours at each other (I think they could change the colour of their bodies or something), and how they're discussing humans and they way we interact with each other and stuff, having to invent new flashes for some of our words with which they were unfamiliar.
______________________________________________
Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
User avatar
beowuuf
Archmastiff
Posts: 20687
Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2000 2:00 pm
Location: Basingstoke, UK

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by beowuuf »

Who knows, one day everyone on earth for a fraction of a second might have all had the same positive emotional response. Gone before it was registered, and the intelligent life that generated the 'hello' drifted off without ever knowing there was intelligent life, nor us :)

I remember a thought experiment about 2D creatures. You could trap them in a square. Whereas for us 3D creatures, you need to trap us in a cube, or else we can simply step out of it. And therefore, a 4D creature wouldn't consider the 3D world a constraint, and could move about it without much pause. So who knows the physical reality another alien intelligence or lifeform actually exists in!

As for language, our ability to speak is amazing, to be able to frame thoughts and communicate it to other people. And then go further, and as a logistical exercise we can combine words that don't mean anything at the moment, but are instead constructs building lies, or futures that haven't happened, or strange new worlds, or reconstructing memories. And music and sound are amazing too, simple vibrations in the air, only detectable if they have enough force to psuh at you, and yet our bodies can detect them so senstitively and with such nuance that we can actually hear words and music, and those mere waves can actually create thoughts and emotions very easily.

And books are even stranger, a physical small construct yet and explosion of history or thought or imagination can be created inside the mind of someone just looking over it.

We consider all these miracles pretty mundane all of the time. And if we didn't have them, I can't see how we could possibly ever imagine their mechanics. I have no idea., because of the tight focus of our five senses, and the fixed way our minds work, the myriad of things we miss each and every day that could be turned in to communication, or could be communication itself. Or stranger yet, perhaps our mental construct of 'communicating' at all automatically limits us from other methods of sharing a consciousness and experiencing other life forms.
User avatar
Seriously Unserious
Master Superior
Posts: 1418
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 11:53 am
Location: Wandering around aimlessly in Lynchgate Woods
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Seriously Unserious »

there's some good thoughts beo.

It's truly amazing how many miraculous inventions and discoveries of ours we take for granted, all it takes is to just look at them to see how miraculous they really are, and you just touched on just a few of them, a very tiny minority of all that we've accomplished thus far. there's really only 1 thing that can limit what we can eventually accomplish if we put our minds to it -- ourselves, and what we consider to be possible and what we consider to be impossible.

all it takes is 1 person to challenge the impossible and make it possible. take flight for example, our ancestors actually believed that was impossible, yet as I'm writing this post there are tens of thousands of people flying at this very moment. a few people challenged this belief that it's impossible for humans to fly and found a way to make it happen. there's plenty more discoveries like this where what we thought to be impossible was proven to be possible.
User avatar
Ameena
Wordweaver, Murafu Maker
Posts: 7515
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:25 pm
Location: Here, where I am sitting!
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Ameena »

And what's weird is that after so many centuries of "Hey, I think I can do this," Pfft, you're insane - no-one can do that!", "Oh yeah? I'm gonna try it anyway! Hey, look! It works!", "Oh shit, it actually is possible...", "Now everyone can do it and it's a part of our everyday life that we hardly even think about.", we'd actually be a bit less sceptical about people who want to challenge the laws of physics or whatever ;).
______________________________________________
Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
User avatar
Zyx
DSA Master
Posts: 2592
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2000 1:53 pm
Location: in the mind
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Zyx »

The language is amazing, but has limitations. See for example thisand this. In particular, if we don't share the sensations or intellections of an alien species, I'm not clear how we could communicate.
User avatar
Seriously Unserious
Master Superior
Posts: 1418
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 11:53 am
Location: Wandering around aimlessly in Lynchgate Woods
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Seriously Unserious »

well, to start with, my definition of communication is sending a message across space (distance) to another, who receives that message and sends a reply back to me across space, and me receiving that reply and knowing by the reply that my message was received and understood or, if not, re-sending it until it is understood.

Based on that definition, it is possible for any 2 species with the intelligence to communicate to find a way to do so. For example, humans communicate with dogs and if the human originating the communication does it in a way that the dog can understand and learns to understand what a dog is attempting to communicate back he/she will have successfully communicated with it. This episode of the dog whisperer shows what I mean quite well. A dog was trying to communicate to humans that it was did not want to be petted and touched all the time but the humans didn't understand the dog and so upset it to the point that it became aggressive, but Caesar Milan did understand what the dog was trying to tell him and showed the dog respect and communicated to it in a way the dog could undertand that he wasn't going to touch it unless it was okay with being touched and he didn't get nearly the same levle of aggression from that dog that everyone else was.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_d0Mz70C8U
User avatar
Ameena
Wordweaver, Murafu Maker
Posts: 7515
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:25 pm
Location: Here, where I am sitting!
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Ameena »

Not a fan of Cesar Milan, based on what I've heard - I prefer Victoria Stilwell. But yeah, if you're trying to communicate with a stranger (whether of your own species or otherwise), half the job is working out what they're trying to say by way of their body language/vocalisations. Especially with non-humans, body language tends to be much more a part of it than voice.
______________________________________________
Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
User avatar
Zyx
DSA Master
Posts: 2592
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2000 1:53 pm
Location: in the mind
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Zyx »

I watched the video. Interesting but I'm not sure that what the guys explicitly theorizes corresponds 100% to what's happening.

@SU: I agree with your definition, but there are so many conditions for your process to work that you take as a given on an unconscious level. With a dog, your organic bodies are 99% similar, your physical environment is the same and both species have co-evolved for the last 20, 000 years with a positive selection for mutual understanding, not to mention the life experiences of you and the dog which give you a common interspecies culture. Being in presence of each other helps too. That's a lot of common ground to put you on the same channel before even starting the communication!
Nothing of that will happen with an alien.
But for the sake of the argument, let's suppose an alien species whose mind and environment are similar enough to allow a theoretical understanding. Let's suppose that communication is technologically possible but no-one can sense directly the internal state and environment of each other. What can we talk about?
We certainly can send information about itself, that is, internal rules like syntax, grammar, numbers and mathematics: defining some symbols (codes) and their usage.The problems appear when we want the information to represent something external to itself: even if both species know privately the object referred, how do we reach a common symbol for it? At this step, all you have is (almost[1]) non-referential tools and you need to refer to a common reality to put a symbol on it. How do you do that?

1: but the fact of sending and receiving messages contains something which could be exploited.
User avatar
Ameena
Wordweaver, Murafu Maker
Posts: 7515
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2003 6:25 pm
Location: Here, where I am sitting!
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Ameena »

One thing that it's impossible to communicate to someone when you can't see them is the definition of left and right. Up and down are easy enough - one is toward the ground, the other toward the sky/ceiling. But good luck trying to convey the sense of left and right when all you have is an audio connection and the person you're talking to has no prior knowledge of any kind of definition for either of those two terms ;).
______________________________________________
Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
User avatar
Seriously Unserious
Master Superior
Posts: 1418
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 11:53 am
Location: Wandering around aimlessly in Lynchgate Woods
Contact:

Re: "They're made out of meat"

Post by Seriously Unserious »

By formulating that limitation, you have already defeated yourself, Ameena :P
the fact of sending and receiving messages contains something which could be exploited.
That tells me that you got the main point I was making. So to use my communications definition, I sent a message via this forum, this thread's veiwers read it, and you send a message back to me via this forum that lets me know you understood my original message. This would be what's called completing a cycle of communication.

As for the new ideas you just introduced, I'd say you make a valid point, it wouldn't be easy at all, but then IMO those things that are worth doing often aren't easy. It would certainly take an immense amount of effort on both sides' parts to develop an understanding of each other.
Post Reply