h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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Instead of rich nations building more islands in the shape of palm trees, why not build one in the shape of something useful?
As there's a decent chance that the man-made land masses might one day be seen from space, perhaps we should use them to send messages to intergalactic explorers.
A large
human-shaped island might be a good start. Better still build Croissant Island and Fishbone Island, and judge them by their choice of landing site.
[link]
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I suggest multiple archipelagoes (archipelagi?) spelling out
'NOT WORTH THE TROUBLE' in binary. |
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I think the point of the palm tree islands was that
they _are_useful, in the sense of providing the
maximum beachage. However, I cannot find fault
with the concept of a fishbone island, which would
provide similar coastality. |
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or a croissant for the mountains and fjords. |
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I hate to put a dampner on the whole binery writing thing, but I doubt that most of the universe speaks binery fluently. |
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Oh, 01100010 01101111 01101100 01101100 01101111 01100011 01101011 01110011 to it. |
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Well, I suggested binary because I figured math is fairly
universal, but what the hell do I know? Feel free to suggest
another form of inscribed communication that visitors from
another planet might be able to interpret. What's
important is that they get the message: this is a dinky little
world that has been half-stripped of its natural resources
by the global ecosystem's apex predators, who are
stubborn and devious and will fight you to the bitter end. I
mean, if we're going to write some kind of message that's
readable from orbit, it might as well be disclaimer. |
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Binary to any other numerical base is fairly logical to
interpret. The problem is
the ASCII or Unicode to turn it into language is
what's not going to be readily interpretable. Heck,
we can't do that on our own planet and hardware
half the time. |
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Honestly, have you guys never heard of galactic Esperanto? |
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Yes, the caffeine content is astronomical. |
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//Well, I suggested binary because I figured math is fairly universal// |
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Yeah, I agree with that, the trouble is that if I were a spaceman flying around planets and I stumbled across this, I'd probably think it was a planet with lots of nice little islands that happen to line up - some sort of underwater mountain ridge that just pokes above the surface. It's fine using it on something like the Voyager Record because it's strapped to something that doesn't look very natural. |
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Islands in the shape of arrows would be useful - to indicate the movement of nearby tectonic plates. |
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The 2nd Palm Island has an Arabic poem written around it, but something like the proof of Pythagoras' theorem might be slightly more universal. |
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The World Islands would be a clear communication if they looked more like the actual map of the world. Aliens would see that it was a recreation. |
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Perhaps oil rigs should be positioned in constellations. |
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//nice little islands that happen to line up// |
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Which is why you make the Islands a pretty good aproximation of square, something that isn't likely to occur due to natural processes. |
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[marklar] Are those "World Islands" recursive? - i.e. is there a tiny set of islands where they would be on a map of the world? |
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// Which is why you make the Islands a pretty good
aproximation of square // |
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Or make them in uniform shapes that could not feasably
occur naturally, such as dashes and dots, squares and
triangles, or ones and zeroes. |
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A display of advanced geometrical knowledge might also
give the impression that we knew what we were doing and
weren't just building pretty shapes for our own
amusement. |
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So, not satisfied with the gigawatts of
electromagnetic radiation your planet is
already emitting, you want to play games
with huge quantities of rock and earth … |
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The ability to communicate various forms of media via
controlled electromagnetic transmission is not necessarily
a sign of higher intelligence. Just look at the Fox Network,
for instance. |
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I like the idea, so [+], but I have thought about how SETI has found nothing in all these years, so maybe they are going about it in the wrong way. This could be an alternative way to attract some kind of extraterrestrial beings. |
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I've always thought that SETI has overlooked a couple of
glaring possibilities: firstly, they seem to assume that we
as humans have the intellectual capability to recognize a
comepletely alien form of intelligence*, and secondly, an
alien race possessed of sufficiently advanced technology to
communicate/travel between solar systems may not
_want_ us reading their mail and therefore uses point-to-
point communication or simply maintains strict interstellar
'radio silence'. |
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*this is an even more significant consideration to me
personally, since I have actually met a creature as
intelligent as I am** and shared with him a moment of
mutual acknowledgment in which each of us were
cognizant that, due to vast differences in our perception
and understanding of sentient thought, we could never
share the benefit of our intellects. |
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**an adult male Minke Whale |
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//a creature as intelligent as I am**
**an adult male Minke Whale
// |
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It pains me to disagree, but I disagree. |
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We can, of course, say that whales* lack technology because they
do not need it. We can, of course, say that their language is as
complex and subtle as it needs to be. We can, of course, say
that they understand ocean currents better than our best
computer models. |
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However, we can also point out that flocks of humans do not, in
general, run into waist-deep water and then stay there until they
drown. It's also a fair bet that, if humans were hunted by whales,
we would organise ourselves very quickly and very well to outwit
them. Put a few thousand humans in whale-suits, give them
long-range underwater communication, and I don't think whalers
would have much of a chance, do you? |
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I think its fair to say that whales' intelligence lies somewhere on
the spectrum between parsnips and humans, and may well be
closer to the human end than to the parsnip end. |
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But the fact that we draw attention to some intelligent
behaviours of whales (oh look - they learn songs!) underlines the
fact that they are not as smart as we are. Nobody says 'oh look -
the Swiss can use language!', because we sort of take that as a
given. |
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[Max], since you and I both obviously rank among the
significant geniuses of the modern era, I think you will
understand this: you know that momentary flash of insight
you have when you look into the eyes of somebody with
whom you are interacting and you suddenly know that they
are
your equal or better in terms of intelligence and intuition?
It's
the little glimmer of brilliance that you dearly miss when
you give that cursory nod of thanks and brief but affable
eye contact to the twenty-nine year old gum-snapper who
bags your groceries. When you connect with a true
intellectual peer, however, you just know it in an instant. |
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That was the moment I had with the whale. I can give no
greater support to my argument. |
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//flocks of humans do not, in general, run into waist-deep water and then stay there until they drown// No, but have you seen some of the things that groups of humans do? |
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//but have you seen some of the things that
groups of humans do?// |
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True, but they do them to whales more often
than whales do them to us. |
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I suppose the simple solution is to say that whales
have whale intelligence, humans have human
intelligence, and parsnips have parsnip
intelligence. Then everyone and everything can
have the same intelligence (100%), and we don't
need to embarrass the whales or the parsnips. |
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I see a fundamental problem with this. Many ancient civilizations may have left messages like this: pyramids, Stonehenge, Nazca Lines, etc. But rather than understanding the message, we just marvel at how such primative societies could have accomplished those feats, and speculate about what religious purpose they could have had served. |
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So what does Stonehenge say in binary? I suspect that if anyone has found real hidden messages in these artifacts they have been lumped with the tinfoil hat crowd and ignored. |
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// rather than understanding the message, we just
marvel at how such primative societies could have
accomplished those feats// |
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I'm clearly destined to disagree a lot today.
Egyptologists, hengeologists and the like spend little
time marvelling. Instead, the work out how the
things were built and, as far as possible, why. |
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// When you connect with a true intellectual peer, however,
you just know it in an instant.// |
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Oh dear. I am turning into a curmudgeonly old git. |
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I've had the same feeling when looking at monkeys
(macaques) in the wild though not, oddly when looking at
them in zoos. You get the feeling that there is a
connection, that they are looking back at you. And no, it is
not the same feeling you get when looking at the checkout
guy. |
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However, I truly don't honestly believe that the macaque is
more intelligent than the checkout guy. I think that being
looked at buy a macaque is striking because it's an animal
that obviously recognises the features of your human face,
and makes eye contact - which is not something that most
animals do. |
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For what it's worth, I am jealous of anyone who has had the
chance to look at a whale close up. |
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// the(y) work out how the things were built and, as far
as possible, why. // |
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That I agree with. There are plenty of archeosites in the
world whose purposes went unexplained for many years
until somebody who was thinking at the relevant frequency
stopped ogling the pretty stones and realized that the thing
was a seasonal clock, or a barrow-mound, or a slow-
burning practical joke. |
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// For what it's worth, I am jealous of anyone who has had
the chance to look at a whale close up. // |
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For what it's worth, it was sudden, entirely unexpected,
very intimately close, and utterly terrifying. Only the six or
seven pints of adrenaline that instantly saturated my body
allowed me to metacogitate objectively for the few
seconds that the encounter lasted. Meanwhile, everything
from my brain stem on down was very busy figuring out
how not to anger a forty-odd foot whale that can
effortlessly reduce your sturdy wooden canoe into
toothpicks. But it was also one of the most profound and
significant events of my life, and your envy is entirely
appropriate. |
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Odd. I have these same experiences when I look a
crawdad in the eye. But I can only do it so long,
because my brain must devote itself back to the
difficult task of pumping oxygen. |
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