{"id":476,"date":"2022-11-05T15:51:36","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T15:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merserver.com\/?p=476"},"modified":"2022-11-05T15:51:37","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T15:51:37","slug":"theyre-made-out-of-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/05\/theyre-made-out-of-meat\/","title":{"rendered":"They&#8217;re Made out of Meat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Someone did a&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scifi.com\/set\/originals\/meat\/description.html\">radio play<\/a>&nbsp;of this&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Meat?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Meat. They&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Meat?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They&#8217;re completely meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;That&#8217;s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don&#8217;t come from them. The signals come from machines.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;So who made the machines? That&#8217;s who we want to contact.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They made the machines. That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;That&#8217;s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You&#8217;re asking me to believe in sentient meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not asking you, I&#8217;m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Maybe they&#8217;re like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Nope. They&#8217;re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn&#8217;t take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Spare me. Okay, maybe they&#8217;re only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They&#8217;re meat all the way through.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;No brain?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Oh, there is a brain all right. It&#8217;s just that the brain is made out of meat!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;So&#8230; what does the thinking?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Thinking meat! You&#8217;re asking me to believe in thinking meat!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Omigod. You&#8217;re serious then. They&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they&#8217;ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;So what does the meat have in mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;We&#8217;re supposed to talk to meat?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the idea. That&#8217;s the message they&#8217;re sending out by radio. &#8216;Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?&#8217; That sort of thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;I thought you just told me they used radio.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Officially or unofficially?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Both.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;I was hoping you would say that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;I agree one hundred percent. What&#8217;s there to say?&#8221; `Hello, meat. How&#8217;s it going?&#8217; But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can&#8217;t live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;So we just pretend there&#8217;s no one home in the universe.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You&#8217;re sure they won&#8217;t remember?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we&#8217;re just a dream to them.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat&#8217;s dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;And we can marked this sector unoccupied.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;They always come around.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone did a&nbsp;radio play&nbsp;of this&#8230; &#8220;They&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221; &nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Meat?&#8221; &#8220;Meat. They&#8217;re made out of meat.&#8221; &nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;Meat?&#8221; &#8220;There&#8217;s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They&#8217;re completely meat.&#8221; &nbsp;&nbsp;&#8220;That&#8217;s impossible. What about the radio signals? The&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/05\/theyre-made-out-of-meat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;They&#8217;re Made out of Meat&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merserver.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}