Would It Even Be Possible to Communicate with an Alien? (arstechnica.com) 167
The senior technology editor at Ars Technica checked the plausibility of Andy Weir's new science fiction novel Project Hail Mary with an actual professor of linguistics and cognitive science at Northern Illinois University.
It's another tale of solving problems with science, as a lone human named Ryland Grace and a lone alien named Rocky must save our stellar neighborhood from a star-eating parasite called "Astrophage." PHM is a buddy movie in space in a way that The Martian didn't get to be, and the interaction between Grace and Rocky is the biggest reason to read the book. The pair makes a hell of a problem-solving team, jazz hands and fist bumps and all. But the relative ease with which Grace and Rocky understand each other got me thinking about the real-world issues that might arise when two beings from vastly different evolutionary backgrounds try to communicate...
The question I put to her was this: going by our current understanding of how and why human languages operate, do we think it would be practical—or even possible — for two divergently evolved sentient beings from different worlds to learn each other's languages well enough in a short amount of time (perhaps as little as a week) to usefully converse about abstract concepts and to be reasonably assured that both beings actually understand those abstracts...?
And the professor's response? We ended up blowing an entire hour on linguistics, and it was easily the coolest and nerdiest conversation I've had in a long time. Nearing the end, though, I asked Dr. Birner for her final take on whether or not the language acquisition exercise portrayed in Project Hail Mary would work.
Her consensus was "probably," but only given a number of extremely lucky — and extremely unlikely — coincidences in psychology and evolution (there's that anthropic principle of science fiction rearing its head!). If we can take it as a given that the alien is "friendly," and if we can also take it as a given that "friendship" in the alien's society carries along with it the same or a similar set of relationship expectations as it does for humans, and if we can take it as a given that the alien has similar emotional drivers, and if the alien values (or can at least intellectually conceive of) concepts like altruism and cooperation, and if the alien has a compatible sense of morality that places value on the lives of individuals and prioritizes the avoidance of death—if we can take all those things and more as givens, then things might work out.
"I think that given a theoretically infinite amount of time, probably yes," communication would be possible, she said. "As long as there's enough goodwill that you are going to be there together working together."
But in a long comment, long-time Slashdot reader shanen argues all sentient beings are basically Universal Turing Machines running mental programs in our heads, but still warns of "hardware-level incompatibilities not just at the level of sound systems, but in the kinds of programs that 'run sufficiently easily' in the more dissimilar Universal Turing Machines."
The question I put to her was this: going by our current understanding of how and why human languages operate, do we think it would be practical—or even possible — for two divergently evolved sentient beings from different worlds to learn each other's languages well enough in a short amount of time (perhaps as little as a week) to usefully converse about abstract concepts and to be reasonably assured that both beings actually understand those abstracts...?
And the professor's response? We ended up blowing an entire hour on linguistics, and it was easily the coolest and nerdiest conversation I've had in a long time. Nearing the end, though, I asked Dr. Birner for her final take on whether or not the language acquisition exercise portrayed in Project Hail Mary would work.
Her consensus was "probably," but only given a number of extremely lucky — and extremely unlikely — coincidences in psychology and evolution (there's that anthropic principle of science fiction rearing its head!). If we can take it as a given that the alien is "friendly," and if we can also take it as a given that "friendship" in the alien's society carries along with it the same or a similar set of relationship expectations as it does for humans, and if we can take it as a given that the alien has similar emotional drivers, and if the alien values (or can at least intellectually conceive of) concepts like altruism and cooperation, and if the alien has a compatible sense of morality that places value on the lives of individuals and prioritizes the avoidance of death—if we can take all those things and more as givens, then things might work out.
"I think that given a theoretically infinite amount of time, probably yes," communication would be possible, she said. "As long as there's enough goodwill that you are going to be there together working together."
But in a long comment, long-time Slashdot reader shanen argues all sentient beings are basically Universal Turing Machines running mental programs in our heads, but still warns of "hardware-level incompatibilities not just at the level of sound systems, but in the kinds of programs that 'run sufficiently easily' in the more dissimilar Universal Turing Machines."
Of Course! (Score:4, Insightful)
Face to face, even using "radio" comms - two sentient critters with purpose are gonna work out common ground.
Simple math leads to complex constructs. Face to face it would be even easier.
Anyway, seems the aliens are already here - they probably speak all our languages, just use that!
Re:Of Course! (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple math leads to complex constructs.
Does it?
How do you get from "3^2+4^2=5^2" to anything like, say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."?
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You do it a step at a time. Start with the basics, work up to more complex concepts.
If you start with math and work toward natural language, then an obvious intermediate step would be an executable algorithm.
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Great for interstellar distances, a lot of time and computers. Wouldn't work worth a crap for face-to-face dealing with a looming catastrophe situation.
Probably why math has never been the go-to in communication betwixt cultures here on Earth.
So, how does one construct the algorithm you propose? One that both sides agree on?
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It remains, however, that it's very much a matter of chance as to whether another species/entity, or us, would be able to rapidly adapt to the idiosyncracies of the other.
I've long had in my mind that if such a thing ever happens, it will transpire like this:
..bajop;2
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Probably, very slowly. Did you really think we were going to go from 3^2 to "E Pluribus Unum" before the commercial break?
Seriously, there are universal concepts (speed of light, for one thing) that can form the start of "learning to talk B
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Seriously, there are universal concepts (speed of light, for one thing) that can form the start of "learning to talk Bemmy"
lol. I almost fell off my chair laughing. Something like the speed of light would definitely NOT be the start of learning to talk Bemmy. For one, before you even start to talk about such universal concepts, you already have to have a solid communication line open. Math's not the answer, as much as geeks would love it to be. I don't see Americans visiting Mexico starting conversations with 2+2=4. If they don't understand the language, they act it out. Pretending your holding a spoon and shoving food i
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"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."?
Works of fiction will take a bit longer...
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You know of a country that applies that "self-evident" truth?
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"How do you get from "3^2+4^2=5^2" to anything like, say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."?"
How we did it?
And, after all, if "We hold these truths to be self-evident", shouldn't they be self-evident to any other alien intelligence we might find?
And, if they result not being self-evident, wouldn't that mean USA Constitution should
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And, after all, if "We hold these truths to be self-evident", shouldn't they be self-evident to any other alien intelligence we might find
I think those "self-evident" truths are really self evident only within a particular context - in this case, for the human species on Earth. Their "self-evidence" stems from our biology and our history. All human beings are on the whole sapient, capable of emotions, and relatively equal in capabilities, so life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness make sense for all of them. However, a different species, where individuals are much more specialized (as for example, ant societies) would hold other truths to
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How do you get from "3^2+4^2=5^2" to anything like, say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."?
And if you do manage it, you might get clocked in the head with a metal bar for your trouble.
"Freedom? That is a Yang sacred word - you must not speak it!"
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all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
Telling an alien whose spaceship could destroy our planet that our Creator bestows unalienable rights is probably not the best start.
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I just call them "racists" and "sexists".
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about math, but extending that to diplomacy-related communication may be rather indirect. It's a good starting point, but will take a lots of trial and error to extrapolate.
I don't want to be divided by 2, by the way. Send in the red shirts for those "tests". [slashdot.org]
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If they're truly scientists then diplomacy isn't needed.
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Agree. Most of the stumbling blocks presented - friendliness carrying the same or similar set of relationship expectations, similar emotional drivers, valuing altruism and cooperation, compatible sense of morality valuing the lives of individuals and prioritizing the avoidance of death - are only stumbling blocks for the closed-minded. Looking at human societies, there are certainly close-minded people who cannot see past their own rigid senses of morality, etc. and then there are open-minded people who don
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Some of the most successful species on our planet are eusocial [wikipedia.org].
If an advanced alien civilization is eusocial, then concepts like equality, altruism, autonomy, privacy, and freedom would be completely foreign to them. They might understand why we value these traits, just as we understand why mole rats lack them, but we will never share the same social ideals and aspirations.
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They might understand why we value these traits, just as we understand why mole rats lack them, but we will never share the same social ideals and aspirations.
Which is exactly my point. We don't need to share the same ideals and aspirations. Understanding is sufficient. As long as we, and they, are open minded enough to understand the other, then we can communicate and potentially cooperate where it is mutually beneficial.
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True. It's very hard to imagine an evolved species where all members are completely unconcerned about the complete end of their species. Different moral concerns like "bouncing of the third kind is prohibited!" are irrelevant compared to concerns like that.
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If an Australopithecus finds a book, and he manages to light a fire with its pages, he's convinced he really made good use of it.
Pedantic nitpick: Australopithecus didn't have fire. They lived over 2 million years ago. Hominids, most like Homo erectus, started controlling fire a million years later.
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Pedantic nitpick:
Australopithecus didn't have fire. They lived over 2 million years ago.
How do you know they did not have fire?
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How do you know they did not have fire?
Because control of fire confers a huge advantage for the species that controls it. It would rapidly spread and be seen in the geologic record everywhere that species lived.
So there would be no signs of controlled fire in deeper levels, and then suddenly there would be signs of fire everywhere. That is exactly what happened. But it happened 1mya, not 2mya.
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Australopithecus may not have had fire, per se, but a particular individual who was not averse to close contact with fire might come to understand the potential of it to be used to transport a natural fire to another location.
Sometimes inventions (just like evolutionary traits) are developed multiple times before they finally catch on for an era or three.
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You might want to read "The Black Cloud" by Sir Fred Hoyle
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Bolded the common ground reached.
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Pretty good FP, though your Subject is kind of empty.
However, your Subject does remind me of an interesting personal experience along these lines. One time I was trying to communicate with someone who didn't speak English. It was many years ago, but I understood some of his language and I wanted to say "Of course" in reaction to something he said. But I didn't know how. So I said to him "One plus one equals two, right?" (Ichi to ichi wa ni desu, ne?) He responded with "Of course" (Mochiron.) And I had anoth
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Some things can be assumed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it can be generally assumed that a species which manages to become space faring and able to visit other solar systems must have concepts of cooperation and helping each other out for expected returns later. I can't imagine any other way of achieving a space age society than having, well, a society.
Do they love in the same way? Probably not, but again they do need to have some kind of partnership to have a society - even if perhaps their romantic interests boil down to an impregnation orgy once a year after which the males are ostracized once more. The partnership is then just among the females of their species.
Do they want to avoid death? Every species on our planet at least tries to avoid it until they've created the next generation of their species.
No, we can't know how a theoretical alien species thinks, but we can sit down and look at all the different species on our planet to see what is basically 'universal truth' for the species with some kind of group structure because without a group you're not leaving your planet.
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I can't imagine any other way of achieving a space age society than having, well, a society.
In Harry Turtledove's book, Homeward Bound, the idea is a society of lizard folk have a society stretching back farther than humanity's and in their attempt to takeover and rule another world, run into some problems. Namely, humans are resilient and adapt far more quickly than do the invaders. Their society is based on a ruler who has absolute, unquestioned power. Think Middle Ages and its society.
There is no reas
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I recommend Swarm by Bruce Sterling. Old enough that I'm going to risk the spoiler. He posits a completely unintelligent space-faring species with a capacity for sporadic intelligence as a kind of allergic reaction to species such as ours. (It might be related to or even based on a much older book called The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle (but I haven't been able to find out because of the Covid-19 situation).)
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but that may be a pretext for learning all the can about us before launching their attack.
In TWZ "To Serve Man", I was never completely convinced (though i haven't seen it in years, and don't know the author's intent) that that aliens did not believe their new subjects to be largely willing and understanding (at least initially), and that their initial pretext was merely a 'softener' to help warm them up to their ideals (as would <s>obviously</s> be necessary when encountering a species with significant cultural differences).
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Also, we can assume that they lie a lot. The practices of deceit, of feint and counter-faint, of agreements and of treachery are popular throughout biology and society. The advantages of reaching parity for a species, and of agreements for a society, are quite large. The advantages for individuals for violating such standards can anslo be enormous, and are inevitable as part of biological and of social evolution.
The details and natures of such deceits are astonishingly varied, but they're likely to profound
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I think it can be generally assumed that a species which manages to become space faring has somehow solved the mystery of how to travel faster than the speed of light or constructed wormholes, which, while physically possible, also tend to trap the travelers (in whatever form you wish to represent them) in the middle.
So that doesn't take too much to believe, now does it.
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There are lots of different levels here:
Working out agreement on math would probably be easy.
Working out agreement on physics would be a bit less so, but assuming they're within a couple of orders of magnitude of the same size probably possible. ...
Working out how to cook a decent meal would probably be impossible.
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Yes. (Score:2)
SPOILER ALERT!
But they're a bunch of dicks.
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It's.. it's a COOKBOOK!
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And for the ones who don't know:
The space travellers all carry around a book titled "How to serve man". How could they -not- be friendly?
It's.. it's a COOKBOOK!
8-}
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Try Dolphins. Does it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
We still haven't figured out how to communicate with dolphins or whales, who we KNOW have a complex language they use to communicate with each other. They're sufficiently "alien" to do this test. Maybe something will come of the initiative to talk to whales. https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
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We still haven't figured out how to communicate with dolphins or whales, who we KNOW have a complex language they use to communicate with each other. They're sufficiently "alien" to do this test. Maybe something will come of the initiative to talk to whales. https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
but do they? Say the dolphins have a language consisting of little more than communicating "food this way" or "beware sharks" over here and the rest is say just communicating emotional states, trying to communicate would be hard because we cant sit down and talk about abstract concepts like math with them. where a space traveling civilization of advanced tool users would have them out of necessity.
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who we KNOW have a complex language they use to communicate with each other.
We don't really know that. It isn't clear that whales and dolphins are able to communicate any concept beyond the immediate here and now.
They're sufficiently "alien" to do this test.
The difference is that we may be working to understand dolphins, but they are not working to be understood or to understand us beyond what it takes to get a herring.
So long and thanks for all the fish (Score:5, Funny)
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind of the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.
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At one point NASA was curious about communicating with aliens and a group was tasked with communicating with dolphins
They chose to attempt to teach the dolphins English, as opposed to learning how dolphins communicated with each other
They had a difficult time keeping the dolphins focused, so they started masturbating them.
The effort was a failure largely due to the human/english language focus and should have spent more time analyzing what dolphins are saying, like a cryptographer would
whole sordid story he [nypost.com]
Solved! (Score:2)
That's it! Sex is the Rosetta Stone of the universe!
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Re:Try trumpians. Does it work? (Score:2)
Even intrahuman communications can be very hard.
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We still haven't figured out how to communicate with dolphins or whales, who we KNOW have a complex language they use to communicate with each other. They're sufficiently "alien" to do this test. Maybe something will come of the initiative to talk to whales. ...
One problem is that the people trying to talk to dolphins have always refused to consult with science fiction writers... 8-}
recognition (Score:3)
Who's to say we would even recognize them as an alien life form? If we're expecting bi-lateral symmetry, or something that looks like eyes or hands or some other anthropomorphic feature, we could easily not even be able to see them. Slime mold with an IQ, anybody?
Re:recognition (Score:5, Funny)
Or if we refused to recognize it as a life form because it did not appeal to us?
They're Made out of Meat
Terry Bisson, 1991
Someone did a radio play of this...
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"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 the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind."
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C
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"It's a cookbook!"
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...expecting bi-lateral symmetry, or something that looks like eyes or hands or some other anthropomorphic feature...
This is something that always bugged me about "aliens" in movies and TV. How many times have you seen alien females that are basically hot-looking Earth females but with an extra-wrinkly forehead or blue skin?
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Even the first ST run had gas based, earth based and energy based aliens.
Re: recognition (Score:2)
and Tribbles!
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FYI, Star Trek was never about aliens, they were just there to allow discussion of human social issues without pissing people off
I agree with probably, but not the mental issues (Score:2)
The problem is not the psychological issues. The things I can see stopping communication are more basic physical issues.
Time: If they take a week to say a single word, that's an issue.
Communication Method: If they speak using scents, that's an issue. Even if they use sounds, if it is extremely low or extremely high pitched, that could be an issue.
Basically if they can talk in a method we can easily detect and at least simulate (sound,radio, light/colors, hand signals, etc.) in a similar time frame to u
Would they even want to? (Score:3)
I note that most species on Earth, even the most intelligent ones, haven't really demonstrated much of an interest in communicating with other species. Humans seem to be the major exception.
It seems a bit presumptuous to assume that alien species are any more interested in communicating with us than terrestrial ones are. Even highly organized insect societies like bees or ants, haven't shown any interest in communicating outside of their colonies, even with other colonies of the same species. You may notice that while you can get your dog to respond to a small vocabulary of human words, your dog isn't much interested in teaching you his language.
I wouldn't be surprised if the desire to communicate with species from other worlds is unique to humans.
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You're just not paying attention. It's predominantly non-verbal.
We have documented instances of dogs, cats and even a pig communicating with stranger humans about a need for help for their human.
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A few years ago I was making coffee in the kitchen and our cat came in, sat down, looked at me and started meowing rather insistently. She's never done that before. She didn't look like she was in pain. When I started walking toward her, she got up and started walking towards the cat-door that leads into the garage. Her litter box is in the garage. I say "Oh. Litter needs cleaning? I'll get to it later" and I go back to preparing my coffee. She repeats her litt
Communication != language (Score:2)
We communicate quite well with dogs for example.
Abstractions might be hard but practical things like trading could be handled with the heuristic that whatever the alien does, it's probably close to what they want.
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I keep trying to get advice on investing in Crypto from my dog.
(He currently recommends investing in dog biscuits over Doge coins).
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Makes sense. The biscuits are at least edible.
These assumptions are likely requirements (Score:2)
For a planet bound species to become capable of interstellar travel it seems likely they would require most of the traits mentioned in the the article in some capacity.
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Exactly. An alien who doesn't want to interact with others isn't likely to become space-faring, let alone able to travel to other star systems on their own, even if they had impossibly long life-spans. (Unless there are other ways to travel, a la mirror and beam of light in K-PAX, in which case it's more probable, but that's quite the exception given current understanding.)
Cooperation and society would very likely have to be inherent in such a species. Once a 'society' is capable of leisure, then inviting o
An abundance of 'ifs' (Score:2)
What if making sounds is offensive to them, and the more we try to communicate with them this way the more pissed off they get, not realizing that we just don't get it? What if they're so advanced t
a firm possibily of a definite maybe. (Score:2)
My opinion has always been that commercial science fiction always loses a vast amount of potential in the quest to simplify things for the sake of the story or budget. That whole "the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we
The brain is not a 'universal Turing machine' (Score:2)
Re: The brain is not a 'universal Turing machine' (Score:2)
Yup. For some nerds calling the brain a Turing machine makes them feel they could grasp how it works, but as you say it isn't and they cant. Also AFAWK the brain doesnt use the AI favourite - back propogation nor does it have software as we know it, the self configuring hardware and data it contains seems to be enough.
This topic is well explored (Score:2)
At the level of "how do we think", it's a process we don't really understand very well yet, but it's clear that we have a bunch of computing shortcuts in our heads that are designed to help us make decisions faster by replacing expensive/slow analysis operations with rapid decisions based on specific environmental cues. The kinds of decisions we needed to make quickly influenced
We better hope (Score:2)
Re: We better hope (Score:2)
Any aliens with tech advanced enough to get here will have solved their energy requirements and - assuming they're still biological - nutrition long ago so they wont want us, they'll probably want minerals in our planet and if we get in the way we'll just be collateral damage.
Can't be done (Score:2)
Re: Can't be done (Score:2)
If those UFOs are real then given the performance they exhibit and hundreds of Gs they must pull, there is no way in hell theres anything biological as we know it inside them. Almost certainly some sort of advanced AI - perhaps sentient - drone.
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Gravity isn't the same as inertia, but I suppose if they could manipulate one then perhaps the other wouldn't be a problem either.
Easy (Score:2)
Friendly? (Score:3)
'If we can take it as a given that the alien is "friendly,"'
It's so friendly, it will hug your face.
First contact communication (Score:2)
We need to fund the United Nations xenolinguistic research budget with $100 billion to figure out how to communicate two things:
1. Please do not exterminate us.
2. We taste really bad.
If at ease (Score:2)
Most posts agree that crude communication would be trivially easy, then it's just escalation. TFA may really refer to the ceiling, which may fall short of complex philosophy and civil policy.
However.
I think we're taking it as a given that this happens in simple, isolated, controlled conditions. Across a nice separating gulf, a barrier, a wall, two sides. Without much else going on or interfering.
Throw in some wrenches, imagine if there's some outside threat (eg a third species) maybe they inundate Earth bec
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Also I agree with posts thinking a civilization-grade species tends to be social. Higher advancement tends to require specialization, cooperation, if conditionally. It's not just that a less social species would struggle with civil philosophy - language itself tends to hinge on having a more social brain at all.
Our supply chain is delicately stretched but it allows us to reach higher. Even trading spices for ores can unlock your corner of society into moving up a notch. Industry being a macro reflection of
Highly doubtfull. (Score:2)
Logic might not matter (Score:2)
Any alien life will be biologically incompatible with humans. We live are sources of, and live in a world surrounded by bacteria, viruses, and electromagnetic pollution that, I propose, would be toxic to alien life, just as their home world environments, and the aliens themselves, would be toxic to us. We've evolved immunities to some of these, be we're not even fully protected from all of them. That rules out close contact.
Alien life does not need to think logically. It could think in ways we ca
a better question (Score:2)
20-30 years ago, perhaps (Score:2)
One could make the argument that communication would have been possible 20-30 years ago but today, at least in the US, the meaning of things has been turned upside down by some people. What's important to some people is totally irrelevant to other people much more so nowadays than it was. So, to assume that an alien would be capable of deciphering what humans mean when they can't agree on the meaning themselves is folly. Would an alien understand the concept of politics and a political spectrum? Would t
I'm a Universal Turing Machine? (Score:2)
No I am not. I am a self-organizing system forever on the edge of criticality. Give me an information theoretic approach to self organization and slowly driven nonequilibrium systems, and then maybe we can talk about Turing Machines.
Dogs (Score:2)
Well, it is true that most pets can not talk to humans in a meaningful way. How should they, we are the only ones able to form words from thought. Birds can form words but not from thought. But many pets can understand humans as long as they can hear words, as long as they have ears.
My cousins dog is able to understand and operate on understanding some pretty complex sentences.
"Bring Petras shoes to the door" even though usually the sentence sounds like "Bring my shoes to the cupboard" and the former senten
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Skittles-based communications can fail catastrophically. You can't even ask Trayvon Martin about them.
(Too soon?)