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I never liked the story. The premise that a sentient lifeform would be able to traverse the universe, make contact with wildly different lifeforms, but somehow
by ferongr 4y ago
I never liked the story. The premise that a sentient lifeform would be able to traverse the universe, make contact with wildly different lifeforms, but somehow scoff at the idea of "meat lifeforms" is inconceivable, even stretching my suspension of disbelief to its limits. Especially since the explorers in the story have managed to decipher our communications, our culture (mentioning that we sing) and probed our biology.
- rendall 4y agoI find it funny specifically for that reason.
- zvmaz 4y agoFor me, the story highlights the truly astounding and utterly mysterious fact that consciousness emerges from "material meat" (the brain). How is it possible? Granted, their consciousness is also mysterious, but they are blind to that fact, just as we are to some extent. It's all about the Mind-Body problem. Edit: Typos.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- doctor_eval 4y agoI took the timing of the posting to be a reference to the controversy about LaMDA.
- Trasmatta 4y agoI think you missed the fact that the story is meant to be humorous.
- rvba 4y agoIt is a nice story because they didnt choose the more likely option to kill us. I guess in real life (and probably many stories) they would rather attack.
- bhaak 4y agoYou underestimate how far racists are able to go. I always interpreted that story as the discussion between two public officials that are withholding a sensational curiosity or even the scientific discovery of this galactic cycle from the galactic public. Just because of their own prejudices even though they are supposed to welcome any kind of sentience into the galactic community. "Meat" in this story seems to be some kind of slur to me. Why aren't they using a more generic and neutral term like "organic" instead? I wonder if those two have evolved from organic lifeforms which are for whatever reasons remembered badly in the civilization those two protagonists are from.
- cmsefton 4y agoI always thought the point of the story was to draw attention to how we as humans are limited in what our view of a life form is? By writing it from this perspective, the story is a mirror to how absurd our concepts are.
- dTal 4y agoExcept here we are, writing stories about non-meat lifeforms. The beings in the story are somehow less worldly than we.