Re: How do you say 'Hello' to an alien?

--- michael poxon <m.poxon@...> wrote:
> I think you need to beware of this sort of
> cultural stuff! It's rather like
> the Victorians sending a message and expecting
> the aliens to be "obviously"
> using some form of steam engine. Surely they
> must be at least that smart!
> But why should an alien civilization be
> "technological" at all? Maybe they
> use magic and communicate entirely by colours,
> maybe they spend all their time singing.
To keep perspective: the _point_ of the project
is to find technologically advanced intelligent
life. There could be squillions of intelligent
species Out There - but if they don't have the
radio receivers and the maths and the
transmitters - they'll _never_ be contacted or be
able to answer and are therefore irrelevant. [As
we ourselves would have been irrelevant to a
hypothetical searcher of two centuries ago.]

Leaving aside magic for the moment, a species
that spends all its time singing or only
communicating by colour (and if they don't also
have the means of using radio) won't have the
wherewithal to hear us or answer. While that's
too bad and all - they're not the ones we're
looking for at this time.

Give us a warp drive and a halfway decent
starship, and we can go looking for the other
intelligent folks out there.

Padraic.


=====
Asey so enki to arunne; morahay so yomaji to allane.
Man hunts, Woman cooks.
   [Gurranian saying]



.