Terry Bisson

Lovely adaptation... See also http://www.terrybisson.com/

It's a shame whoever put it at MIT didn't credit the author, the excellent Terry Bisson. Here it is on his home page: http://www.terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/

Terry Bisson's THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html (Well, as xkcd says, someone will read this classic today for the first time)

The 'made out of meat' is definitely a reference to a short story ( http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html ) which was also made into a short film ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFZTAOb7IE ). Great stuff. (Of course, SPAM® is also a meat product. Supposedly.)

> If you can explain the mechanism behind the manifestation then you can understand why it isn't real. I watched, with my family, the Algorithms documentary available on Netfix. While not perfect (but very, very good), it certainly did a great job of explaining in simple terms some algorithms and how they relate to the world. One of the most interesting parts, in my opinion, was the admittance during the section where they were discussing the XBox Kinect. It was all done through some machine learning algorithms, and impressively, they confessed to not being completely certain how the code actually worked. You could argue that this means that they cant explain the mechanism behind the manifestation. Now, of course, this is a massively simplified version against the near-future Westworld narrative. However, it does call into question whether we would understand the mechanism of something so advanced. Also, applied to humans, if we end up understanding the mechanisms behind the brain, then does that make us less real? They point out in episode three I think that one of the 'Hosts' are experiencing physical discomfort while going through diagnosis. If such a thing were coded, and it was made possible to respond to it (I would argue that the best possibility for making this possible would be a learning algo, similar to the Kinect analogy), then how would that be different from the very physical and chemical responses that a human has to experiencing suffering? It's…

Your argument is kind of contradictory. It assumes that we are not worthy of visiting but an argument like that suggests that they’ve already found us and interstellar travel is feasible. They’ve also solved all the logistic problems you’re referring to. Whether they like to make contact or not is somewhat irrelevant to this context. For the sake of argument let’s linger on that assumption for a while. How for example did they found us when our civilization achieved radio signals transmission in the last couple of centuries? That means that they’re close by, unless FTL travel is feasible in which case we can safely assume the whole galaxy should be teeming with life. But if they’re close by shouldn’t we be able to spot them? And if they’re far away that means they should already have colonized half the galaxy before they decide to launch an expedition to a planet thousands of light years away. The worrying factor relating to the “Fermi Paradox” is that it suggests that maybe life is extremely rare. We could very well be the only living souls in this part of the Universe and that’s kind of heart breaking considering the sheer size of the whole thing. By the way, your assumption is called the "Zoo Hypothesis" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis Oh, and while we're in this scenario I'd urge everyone to read the following SF short. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

At least change the link at the top of your blog post to the author’s website: https://terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Bisson http://www.terrybisson.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Discover_Fire https://web.archive.org/web/20080408140718/http://www.terrybisson.com/… https://web.archive.org/web/20190408195452/http://www.terrybisson.com/…

The author's page for it is http://www.terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/

In case you haven't already been acquainted... THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT by TERRY BISSON http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html GREYLORN by KEITH LAUMER http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23028/23028-h/23028-h.htm

Reminds me of Terry Bisson's "They're made out of meat" http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Let's hope it's pets. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

I'll post an article that is not a serious technical discussion, but I hope you enjoy it anyway because it has a very different perspective. It's a nice story and it is reposted every other year in HN. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8152131 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3549320 )

They're made out of meat http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

"They're Made Out Of Meat" by Terry Bisson: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html "Scroogled" by Cory Doctorow: http://www.crimeflare.com/doctorow.html

Another famous source of the "bags of water"/"bags of meat" phrase is the short story They're Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

They're made out of meat: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

They're made out of meat. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

"They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. They're made out of meat." "Meat?" http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

"They're made out of meat": http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Big science is made out of meat like everything else I take it you're referring to: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Be sure and read "They're Made Out of Meat" [0] as well. [0] http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

relevant: THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT <http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html>

Even higher beings confirmed that we're just thinking meat. So I'm fine with that. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Reading this article made me think of Terry Bisson's "They're Made Out of Meat", particularly apropos the conversation earlier today about the Fermi Paradox. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

I think short form scifi is where it really shines: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

>Now obviously animals cannot think of or cannot communicate with us that they do not want to be eaten the same way we could with another species That's not obvious. The will to live is strong everywhere, and that cows don't speak "human" isn't to say they don't have a will to live (not be eaten). Nor that we can't speak "alien" any sign that we don't have a will to live (not be eaten). This all reminds me of: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

That's one possible solution to the Fermi paradox -- nobody's contacted us yet because they don't feel like trying to have a conversation with something that has the life span of a mayfly. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

How could you make that comment and not link to http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Several thousand years later... http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html