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

Quoting Nikhil Sinha <nsinha_in@...>:

> Hi,
>
> I have always been interested in astronomy and space. One thing that has
> always boggled me is that does life exist in this universe (apart from the
> Earth)?
It seems this is a subject conlangers are prone to be interested in. I'd do a
poll and try and find out if we're more likely to than the norm, only if I had
any idea what the norm was!

> I have read about the various alien-serach programs like SETI. They search
> for intelligent beings. One of our spacecrafts is heading out of the solar
> system. It carries a plaque card that has images of a man, a woman and the
> position of the Earth in relation to certain celestial objects, just in case
> an intelligent being sees it.
[snip]
> The question I have is how do code information as 0's and 1's. To code
> anything, we would need language, won't we? Or is it possible to send
> information without using any language?
Coding something into 1s and 0s presupposes a code, ie, some sort of language.

Exactly what is to be deemed language may be tricky, but conveying information
without using any kind of symbolism requires that the medium, quite
litterally, is the message. The voyager and pioneer probes themselves are
exemplars of terran technology, and tells something of the same. The plaque*
may fail to tell the aliens anything of human beings or of the earth's
position, but it will tell anyone capable of being told anything of plaques.

* I've heard that a US senator objected to the plaque's inclusion of
information on the Earth's position, on the grounds that it might guide
hostile aliens bent on invasion. Can anyone confirm/deny? In any case, we can
rest assured that a bubble of artificial radio signals is broadcasting our
location rather more efficiently.

                                                            Andreas

Reply