They're made out of meat (1991)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Noonan

Also, funny to see Ben Bailey outside of a taxi cab.

They're ridiculously smart and dexterous.

When I was a ranger I'd tell tourists to think of them as "monkeys who can fly... ...you're laughing, but I'm serious".

Their upper and lower beaks can move independently like a human's thumb and forefinger, unlike nearly all other birds, and they can also use their beaks like scissors, or to undo screws - that last one is very true, I'm not making it up, their upper beak makes for an effective flathead.

They share knowledge like corvids do, once one kea learns that the self closing door on your shop closes slowly enough, after a human enters, to give them time to get in, steal a chocolate bar and get out, there'll be five more trying it tomorrow.

They can undo zips on your backpack and then undo the latches on your lunchbox to steal your sandwiches, or they'll untie your bootlaces (yep they can undo knots) and remove them from your boots, or remove your tent pegs, or maybe cut your guylines, all of this just for fun.

There was a gang that would deploy one of their number at a viewing platform to act very engagingly and oh so photogenic to distract the tourists while its mates quietly stole interesting things from the hand bags, backpacks,and, if you left the door open, cars(!) of the tourists who were focused on the photogenic decoy putting on a show.

They had a bit of a penchant for passports during my time. Most of which were last seen being dropped into a deep and dangerous mountain ravine by a parrot that then let out a mocking laugh.

There used to be a gang of juvenile males that would deflate tyres at the local public toilets to prove they were tough - because the noise depressing a tyre valve made was scary, so the longer you pressed it, the tighter tougher you were, while your mates egged you on.

They also have distinct and recognisable facial expressions they use to indicate their emotions.

They've been taught to speak in the past - but the fact that they can survive, and indeed, they thrive, in the harshest environment in New Zealand is far more indicative of their intelligence than any Polly Wanna A Cracker would ever be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=469761

I found this short story very moving. Of course, it's designed on purpose for this. But Chiang is usually so cerebral it caught me by surprise.

https://www.contecurte.eu/2019/05/ecumene-silly-asses/

That does not follow at all. It's _likely_ that life elsewhere would be carbon-based since carbon is so useful and common. It is not a requirement. Silicon has been proposed as a replacement. While not as flexible as carbon, it's pretty close. Silicon-based lifeforms wouldn't be "organic" at all. Even if we just stick to carbon, there are many organic compounds (and lifeforms) that aren't anything close to what we would consider 'meat'.

We are working with N=1. Until we find more lifeforms elsewhere, we can't assume anything beyond basic physics and chemistry. RNA isn't a given. A lifeforms probably needs something that will pass along instructions to their offspring (in whatever form they take). It doesn't have to be RNA.

For a fictional description of a lifeforms that doesn't have RNA, DNA or anything remotely similar, I like to point out Blindsight, by Peter Watts. https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Perhaps it's predecessor was just advanced enough to build self-modifying replicators and fire them out into space. Eventually it hits a planet or asteroid and gradually becomes sentient and intelligent. No trace of how it originated.

Things are far more complex on a biological level, which makes it harder to make generalized predictions. I see no reason to infer that life would only consistently evolve into organic life as we know it.

I personally hate that it implies there are faster ways to travel than light speed. We know this to be a hard limit in the physics of our universe and it rubs me the wrong way when SF writers just glaze over reality. Not to mention hydrogen life forms, what’s that about!?

At times we get all giddy because we have invented a quartz clock, a wheel, a straight line or a calculator that seems to be better than anything in the world of nature, however, we sometimes have to overlook nature or forget to question why nature didn't evolve such things. With the clock, every cell in our body has some 'timing circuitry' tied into day/night cycles, seasons and much else. We just insist on doing it our way and proclaiming it better.

What makes you a big fan of the story/reminded you of it here? I just gave it a re-read and thought it was alright. Not my favorite work of his... but certainly not bad either. Perhaps I've just read too many Sci-Fi stories to be properly shocked by the theme given the relatively short time to be immersed in the setting :).

I think the short film completely misses the mark if both entities are there in human form, in a diner. (Of course, budget constraints, and the adaptation cannot just be two inorganic beings talking, but still...)

If it was just talking about carbon based lifeforms it wouldn't land the same way.

> “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 that sector and they’re made out of meat.”

And indeed sentient species that are partly made of meat:

> “Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”

> “Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”

Maybe this kind of thing isn't for you if the above is required explanation, though.

The author is trying to get you to speculate on the kind of intelligence that would say this about humans.

Yes, they do:

> "“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”"

What they cannot fathom is a sentient lifeform that achieves things but lives their entire lives as meat-based things, flapping their meat mouth parts to make disgusting meat sounds at each other. And I think they really never thought much about human reproduction!

This story is obviously satire. Meaning, it is a lie that tells the truth.

First, it's a humorous piece.

Second, it's as much a critique of the aliens as of the humans. The aliens are also depicted as clueless about what makes human life interesting, and even shown to be petty in the end. Their behavior is entirely "human", so if they are criticizing humans for it...

The story mentions some "official rules". Consider that we also have official rules and behaviour that does not obey them.

I dare suggest your own view might be reductionist.

"Oh god, you're right! They're all just tiny pieces of rubber and silicon, transistors and circuits all crammed chaotically together! How horrifying!"

It might be that this alternative cosmic sense of "normal" is not a real thing (meat may prove to be more cosmically normal than machine at the end of the day), but the sense of wonder in response to something as ridiculous as a brain, in its capabilities and its design, is a real feeling that the story is appropriately trying to evoke.

Teacher: "Photosynthesis makes energy from water, CO2 and light. The mitochondria are the power centers of the cell."

Grade-schooler: "How do they work?"

Teacher: "Um. Um..."

Modern scientist: "Quantum entanglement and tunneling. We don't really understand any of it."

It's comedy. You might not find it funny, but it's rather small-minded to suggest that no one else could find it funny.

If you put two stones in the ground, they define a line. It goes through the center of mass of both stones and extends towards both sides through the universe.

Now remove the stones.

Does the line stop existing? You can still "see it" in your brain. It could be argued that the line has always been there. That the stones were just a marker. A means for an idea to manifest in the physical word. You could put any two other markers at any point on that line and they would represent the same line.

The idea that "the cube is made out of meat" is akin to saying that "the line is made out of stone". Ideas always exist, their representation in the physical world don't.

Your sense of consciousness is just one of those representations. It is "immortal", just like the line is. In principle it could exist without the physical substrate that is your brain, or in a different substrate. Probably there's a way to encode all of that into a big number.

I think this is where the idea of an "immortal soul" comes from. It is however kind of easy to misinterpret it, especially if one is a mesopotamian sheperd who explains the world with gods and religion.

On another level even this clarification kind of misses the mark because many/most versions of the HPOC still treat physical substrate as a necessary condition, just not a sufficient one, sometimes will appeal to radio receivers, or the mental and physical being two aspects of the same underlying thing (sometimes called neutral monism). I personally think that view is mistaken and deeply confused, but even so, it's a view that ties consciousness to the substrate of "thinking meat" without reducing it, and would probably be a moot point from the aliens perspective.

The hard problem of consciousness isn't.