Reading Terry Bisson’s Made of Meat again today set me to wondering about how we must look to an alien race such as those conversing in the story. Presumably, the closest thing to sentience that we would have to their mind would be the internet. The description of the Planet’s flora and fauna in Alpha Centauri forming a sort of consciousness by their (to them) random interactions made me think of this.
The internet is a load of electronic impulses, transferring information. There are particular centres of knowledge (as in neural networks, although the structure is lacking) and dysfuntional areas. If an alien race traded in electricity and fibre-optics, rather than “meat” as the story so aptly categorises us, then maybe all they would notice would be our burgeoning power systems (are blackouts losing consciousness for an electricity network?) and the bytes working their way across the fibre-optic mesh.
Is the Internet the new Borg? Does the way that something shows up on one blog and eventually works it way across the entire blog-consciousness show a primitive state of the “we all know everything” approach of the Star Trek cyborgs?
I’m having something of a strange day, in case you were wondering.
Comments (5) Permalink
October 10th, 2003 at 1:11 AM
I can’t think of a single example of meat which isn’t or wasn’t to some degree alive, so I’d like to know what the aliens think meat is…
The borg internet… I don’t think Picard was going “Argh! look how well informed they are! Run!”. It was more that they all shared exactly the same opinion, and a rather antisocial one at that. They then acted on it with quite literally singleminded focus.
October 10th, 2003 at 8:06 AM
One of the things that make the borg so formidable (or whatever) is that they are so well informed – and able to use that information to adapt.
Their antisocial attitude would be much less worrying if they did not all have the same information (including what weapon you’re using and how to resist it)
On a slightly different note…. I wonder how the borg would adapt to a chainsaw……
October 10th, 2003 at 9:19 AM
I think the point is that the aliens think we are made of meat … same way that we might be a little shocked if we found a herd of cows were actually of some intelligence. That our communication via radio, etc, is secondary to our communication via meat shocks them.
I think the point I was trying to make was that the internet is now becoming more of a central store for interaction and knowledge than before, particularly with more and more people blogging and participating in chat, messenger apps, etc. If our primary communication is confused and individual, is the way the net is going more of a joint consciousness?
October 14th, 2003 at 2:10 AM
mmm… I think the well informed side of the borg is the by-product. We too could know exactly what weapon the enemy is using, and how to resist it. Trouble is we would need meetings and agendas and group get togethers, the the borg, without opinions, just does it.
The internet is still a jumble of different opinions. Look at any given forum, blog and what we’re doing now. Its nothing like the borg
On the subject of chainsaws, YES! I was thinking the same thing! I thought a minigun filled with good ol’ lead would mess em up no matter what energy setting they used. None of this namby pamby energy pistols for us.
Also, do you note how short the Borg assimitor thingy is? I reckon wearing a couple of feet of foam/nerf armour, and they can’t touch you!
I read too much into “made of meat” Its a cool story. Happy Birthday again, btw
October 19th, 2003 at 10:17 AM
Energy shields in star trek are capable of stopping matter from passing through them; for example, force fields in the brig, and if the federation can do it, so can the Borg, since they assimilated Picard, for one. So I’m afraid that a chainsaw or minigun would just bounce off.
Having said that, there was a scene in a Voyager episode, where, in Unimatrix 0, a Klingon warrior killed a drone with his bat’telh, so maybe I’m wrong. But then again, Jaineway beat down a drone in the same episode, so I reckon these were both just plot devices to show how cool they were. Or maybe the borg couldn’t adapt so well in Unimatrix 0.
And as for the length of borg assimilator thingers, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a fixed length. They just like to get up close so they can see the fear in their victims eyes.
Tony said in his first comment that the borg share an antisocial opinion, and then acted on it with singleminded focus, as if that’s what is different between blogs and the Borg. Two words; CSS Nazis
LONG LIVE NESTED TABLES!