On the Glory of Meat

Is there anything meat can't do?

Different kinds of meat can run, crawl, swim, or fly. They can breathe water or air. They can grow in Antarctica and in the depths of deep-sea volcanic vents, from the bottom of the ocean to the upper canopies of the rainforests. Meat can jump hundreds of times its own height or run at 80 miles an hour. It can build a coral reef or chew apart a giant redwood tree.

Nobody debates these facts. We see meat do amazing things every day. A pump of meat can keep blood flowing through a man for decades, and legs of meat can carry him for just as long.

So why do people have such a hard time believing that meat can think? That it can talk? Why do they insist on positing some mystical outside force that enables meat to do so? Given all the amazing properties of meat, is meat that talks and ponders so much of a surprise?

I don't think so.