meat puppet

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(n.)
[after the musical group "The Meat Puppets"] the physical human body, especially as contrasted to virtual reality or an AI; a body contolled by another entity.

• 1984 W. Gibson Neuromancer (1991) № 147: Where's the meat puppet?
• 1991 R. Kadrey & L. McCaffery Cyberpunk 101 L. McCaffery Storming Reality Studio № 25: All those amazing chemical reactions going on inside your body right now to protect you aren't going to mean a thing when this lumbering, gas-guzzling pile of metal plows into a Kansas cornfield at 600 mph with you strapped inside like the meat puppet you are.
• 1991 L. McCaffery & W. Gibson Interview with William Gibson in Storming Reality Studio№ 267: The meat puppet image in Neuromancer [...]. I assume you arrived at that metaphor from listening to the cow-punk band Meat Puppets. WG: No, I got it from seeing the name in print.
• 1996 S.R. Green Deathstalker Rebellion № 348: A single cybernetic mind running its meat puppets.
• 2001 F.P. Wilson Hosts № 354: Feeling a sob building in his own throat at the thought of Gia and Vicky becoming meat puppets controlled by the Hive.
• 2003 J. Clute SF from 1980 to Present E. James & F. Mendlesohn Cambridge Companion to SF № 76: Humanity as a whole is transfigured into an immense organism, with only a rote modicum of regret for the meat-puppet past.
• 2003 C. Stross Curator Accelerando (2005) № 267: Our friend here's got a problem, no suitable downloadable body. Us meat puppets are all too closely tied to our neural ultrastructure.

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