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I'm imagining a group of linguists, SETI scientists and maybe even sci-fi writers creating an "alien" language and using it to construct a message with a tutorial.
The message is then given to teams in competition the translate. A prize could be offered. The first team to translate the message
correctly and compose a reply in the "alien" language wins.
The skills learned in translating and construction could be applied to making a message, should we choose to broadcast a message to the stars. If we ever receive a signal, we could then have a better preparation (or practice at least) for interpreting it.
It could also be a tool to teach ourselves about and challenge concepts of linguistics.
How to speak Klingon
http://www.kli.org/
[Amos Kito, Oct 04 2004]
Alien Arithmetic: An Experiment
http://humane.sourc...ien_arithmetic.html
An attempt at testing the viability of this type of message [mannby, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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People have proposed using math, physics and chemistry as a basis for translation and there may be a lot of utility to it. But picture-book type symbols might be useful. There may be other methods as well. |
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Part of the point of the exercise is to explore these methods to see just how useful they are. |
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There will be limitations. The way people form language may be quite different from the way alien minds form language. But I do think the exercise could reveal some unexpected things. |
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It is an exploration and like most explorations the unexpected can be the most interesting. |
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If I meet another human, I instantly know we share a huge mass of common experience and feeling. Without having any idea of this person's language, I already have a basis for communication. |
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How many assumptions can we lose without losing the basic concept of communication? |
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Bun - "not because it is easy, but because it is hard" |
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Baked. Crickets have been conducting this contest for years, and have been paitiently waiting for us to decode their clicks and chirps. First prize is the secret on how to jump multiple times our own height. |
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It would be interesting to see how many humans can accurately translate the Drake Arecibo message without looking up the answers. It would be even more interesting to see how many can interpret it based only on the broadcast signal and not the image it generates. |
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Yeah, you have to even translate
your carrier signal into something
that you can recognize. They
would have to do the same or
perhaps look at the radio waves
the way you perceive sound waves. |
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You don't fully posess the
capability to produce acurate star
maps yet. Your second closest
star is off by 4 years. Making it
possible for some stars to shift far
enough to look like other star
maps elsewhere. They have to be
in a 3 dimensional format at the
very least. |
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Then you have to take in their time
frame (how much time do they
have to just scoot over here) and
current technological progression
not to mention economic situation
and alliances. Maybe they know
better about where you came from
than you. Also you have to take
into account their priorities. Do
they even care about other or
sending/receiving out messages.
Are they
paranoid? Do they not want to
announce their position before an
invasion? |
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Then there are laws. Do they have
them? Are they allowed to talk
back? |
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How do they perceive atoms? If
you have seen how you look at
them, one will note they are vastly
simplified compared to how they
act. Humans, have trouble
categorizing light, how will they
come to a communications
agreement with another sentience
that may have already classified
light or a similar sentience that
may have classified light in an
incorrect way due to technological
limitations. |
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// I would think there are some basic assumptions you could make about anyone capable of receiving the message. You have to assume that they have some sort of symbolic way of representing abstract concepts. A numbering system would also be a reasonable assumption. Mathematics, physics and chemistry are also pretty much a given. // |
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[SDG] - I will grant you that I believe your outline to be the *most likely* scenario. However, I can also imagine a race whose path of technological growth has taken a sufficiently different path to arrive at radio without necessarily developing the Bohr model of the atom. |
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Your closest pulsar is 400 LY away
making it 400 years in a direction
different from where you see it. |
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Cute. I see this as a linguistic equivalent of the play-fighting of a pair of tiger cubs as hunting practice. They don't yet know what they will encounter, but practice on what they do have -- each other. |
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Attempting 'alien communication' between humans and trying to communicate with higher animals sounds like two of the best preparations I can think of. |
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Alpha Centauri A and Tau Ceti are
also similar stars in the area.
Assuming others suspect the
yellow dwarfs as having life. |
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Most other pulsars are atleast
2800 LY away. While the area will
be illuminated with interest, I still
say this is not an accurate star
mapping. |
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All this physics hoohah. I think the aliens would be just as likely to send a religious message, or maybe the most beautiful song their culture had produced. |
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You are correct, Bungston. |
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The original point is that we could possibly dispense with some of the conjecture and test things out. True, the test isn't perfect, but it would be a great start. |
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We've already sent some pretty stupid messages (IMHO). People from every culture in the world saying "hi" is great for PR, but pretty dumb if you really want an alien culture to understand us. But since the odds are these probes will never be picked up by anyone, ever, it doesn't really matter. |
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Thinking about stuff is great, but unless you get to a point where you can try it out, take the idea for a spin, so to speak, fluffy thinking can easily prevail. |
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The probes could also be left
alone so they can be discovered by
an intelligence of a similar
technological level or so they can
be retrieved by your own race for
placement in a museum. |
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I didn't know about the pulsar maps. That's interesting... |
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There's a test sitting right here in the ocean, and we've
been failing it for years: humpback whales (for
starters)--they're non human intelligent beings, and we
don't have much of a clue what they're talking about. |
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This is a cool idea. Carl Sagan's book *Contact* imagines a scenario in which an alien message is received and decoded, with some trials and tribulations. It describes a very good method for establishing a common vocabulary of mathematical concepts, which then enable discussion of scientific concepts, after which is the content of the message. (I won't give it away.) |
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He also suggests encoding images as series of bits that are the product of two or three prime numbers (if you want a 2- or 3-dimensional image). |
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Voyager II contains a few engravings as well as sound recordings on an LP. The LP has become a soon-to-be-lost relic of primitive technology before Voyager II has even made it out of the solar system. If aliens some day managed to stumble across V-2, not only would they not understand it, but neither would we. |
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