I was anticipating a particular punch-line in Michelle Nijhuis’ interesting article on communicating with extraterrestrials (Christian Science Monitor, May 15), and sure enough, it came where it should have, at the very end. Nijhuis quotes Jeffrey Lockwood (University of Wyoming): “In a sense, all writing is writing for extraterrestrials.” Lockwood, who teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming, understands a deep truth. Communication between two people of the same species can be profoundly mysterious and often filled with misconceptions. How, then, would we ever communicate with an extraterrestrial culture?
Assume we receive, at long last, a signal from the stars that is unmistakably an attempt to communicate. After long debate, we decide to respond, describing who we are as a species. Which of these statements, drawn from a class Lockwood teaches on the subject, offers the best ten-word summary of the human condition?
- We are an adolescent species searching for our identity.
- Two arms, two legs, head, torso, symmetrical.
I rather like the first one. It offers up a measured view of who we are without the usual self-flagellation about our abundant failures. But the second message is clearly more valuable in conveying the basics, at least in terms of our physical natures. Lockwood’s class, funded by a NASA grant, questions how we make such a response, and the above answers came from an exercise in which he asked his students to reduce the human condition first to 250 words, then to fifty, then ten. But maybe fiction should be included in any response, or poetry, attempting to dig deeper not just into our biology but our philosophy, the view from inside the human head. Except how do we encode that view?
Douglas Vakoch, who ponders these matters for the SETI Institute, notes that the question of a human response could be triggered literally any day, if and when SETI delivers. Those of us who doubt this will happen, at least in our lifetimes, could find ourselves flat-footed if we don’t start pondering the range of possible answers, assuming we decide that sending an answer is indeed wise (that debate should be interesting). Vakoch has a hand in Lockwood’s class, having visited it and continuing to act as an advisor. He notes that “…it makes sense to start with writers. These are people who are really trying to express the human condition.”
This is one class I wish I could sit in on. When dealing with issues involving extraterrestrial contact, we need as broad a pool of opinion as possible. Lockwood’s students include not just writers but an accountant and a buffalo rancher, along with psychology majors and journalism students. The intellectual exercises they’re doing are useful even without any SETI contact, for in essence, the subject is how much we know about who we are, and how much of that we are willing to share. These are issues that go back to the dawn of history, but every human being looks at them anew, though seldom in a context so charged and enigmatic as first contact with another civilization.
As I mentioned on the SETI Transmission list, all writing is writing for aliens, since the last class includes fellow humans. Jeff Lockwood’s class is a natural extension of his past astrobiology activities, which included developing an astrobio curriculum at NASA’s behest.
The definition “Two arms, two legs, head, torso, symmetrical” will only work if aliens have (or are familiar with) similar appendages. Each of these words contains a significant amount of implicit information.
I’d also like to quote you from that list, Athena, on Ted Chiang’s wonderful “Story of Your Life,” which everyone here should read. You described it as a “…story that deals with truly enigmatic aliens that come to earth, establish rudimentary communications, then leave, never explaining (or managing to explain) the reason for their visit. Their spoken and written languages are completely distinct (like an extreme version of kanji and spoken Japanese) and each cursive written ideogram is a complete thought — which means that it’s a work of art, and also that they must know the ending of the thought before starting to write the sentence. The story is told from a viewpoint of the linguist, who is mourning the death of her only child, a college-age daughter, in a car accident… and, like the alien sentences, she is thinking back on her child’s life a a unit.”
Chiang’s tale is a tour de force. I’ll also mention Larry Klaes’ recommendation from the same mailing list of a story that impinges on the same topic: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s “Roadside Picnic.”
I’m not entirely sure that thinking about what to say in response to a confirmed SETI contact before it happens is going to be particularly useful.
Fun, sure, and it certainly can’t hurt, but given the sheer scale of the resources that would immediately be deployed should a SETI contact be confirmed, anything done before that point will be swamped by a tsunami of opinions solicited from the brightest minds on the planet within hours of the discovery.
In addition, how we respond will depend largely on what we receive. Detecting an omnidirectional beacon broadcasting from a nearby star system will obviously require a different response to the detection of a stream of science data being sent from 20,000 light years away. I don’t think we will come close to knowing what to do until weeks, maybe months after contact has been made, under any circumstances.
I agree with you in most respects, tacitus, but think the exercise is interesting because it further puts the extraterrestrial contact scenario in front of the public, in all its thorny complexity. So I see Lockwood’s class primarily as a teaching tool in getting people to think about these things.
I’m going with the bandwagon on this and wholeheartedly agree with Lockwood’s thought experiment.
At least it gets a generation interested in a wider world who otherwise could give a good goddamn about space exploration.
As for the message to send, I’d go with a short ribald joke or limerick.
Hey, if they understand it, it implies a shared psychology.
That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Our first message should be a repeat of the introduction they sent us.
Hello
Hello
I was privileged to meet Doug Vakoch at a SETI conference nearly 10 years ago. He was very encouraging to me with respect to a very bad paper I wrote about the history of interplanetary METI. I’m glad to see that he’s still involved with SETI — he’s a very deep and original thinker on the problems of enciphering and deciphering extraterrestrial messages.
It is worth pointing out that the level of discourse and discussion imagined by our Admin is about as extraterrestrial as any visitor could ever be. Rational discussion and shaping a response would simply not happen in a world faced with a decision to reply, or not. Rather, fear-mongering would reach a new zenith religious types would scramble, each attempting to create ‘high’ ground’, and, as usual, thoughtful people would simply withdraw, slowly shaking heads.
Michael, you correctly flag me as an optimist. But I would hope the thoughtful people you mention wouldn’t withdraw from the debate, and in any case, I think on something this momentous we should do everything we can to get these issues out in front of the public well in advance. My doubts about ever receiving such a message mean we have plenty of time to do that, but if I’m wrong, it’s worth the time on many levels to conduct exercises like Lockwood’s.
I really doubt whether such a debate is worthwhile, not because of the merits of the issues, but because of the reality of the organisation (or rather, the lack of organisation) of humanity and the ease of transmission. Remember that the people who are currently practising METI have shown no interest in involving humanity in the communications issue (in fact, they dismiss any attempts to discuss accountability as paranoia). Furthermore, they regard the whole communications matter as a rights issue: as he posted on this blog, Alexander Zaitsev regards the matter of communication as a “sovereign right on The freedom of speech, The freedom of broadcasting, The freedom of expression…”
In fact, given the announcement of a transmission, you can bet a large number of people will suddenly decide to try to communicate with the aliens by obtaining the required equipment, the majority of whom will not be members of any organised group or be bound by any agreements on what to transmit.
Thus in all likelihood and judging by current behaviour, the response is going to be determined by individual METI practitioners (after all, as they regard it as a free speech issue, they believe it is their right to do so), likely without any kind of consultation with the rest of the world, perhaps not even with their fellow METI practitioners. Like it or not, the question of what the best response is is irrelevant unless you happen to control access to a radio transmitter, and in any case given the current individualistic nature of METI, someone else would probably still manage to do what they want regardless of any kind of agreed strategy.
So regardless of the wisdom of doing so, any alien transmission will probably result in a large quantity of information about the planet and our species, culture, etc. being transmitted to the source of the signal, without any kind of trade negotiation on the information or agreement on what the aliens will send in return. Given that at interstellar distances, such information might well be one of the few commodities that can be exchanged, this may have negative repercussions despite it being inevitable.
Maybe then, the most prudent response to an alien transmission would be to take Wikipedia off the internet…
Seeing that a buffalo rancher was a member of the class, I found myself wondering if his answer might be something that echoed his livelihood.
While accurate, “We eat, and sometimes are eaten” might send the wrong message depending on our readers. Likewise a more laconic “Carnivorous” might either save our lives from a species that wanted to “serve Man,” or ruin the chances of a promising friendship with a more fastidious vegetarian species.
I don’t like very much both summaries. The first is quite dull and uninformative -it just describes our bodyplan (and does it badly, with a lot of implicit information, as someone pointed out). The second also does not mean a lot (what “identity” are we looking for? and again, “adolescence” is an overwhelmingly human and complex concept).
I’d go for something like “We are a species just beginning to understand the universe and itself”.
Hey all,
Another take on Occam’s comic’s reply: first repeat the data bites 10,000 times verbatim for a month, that we receive. Then start altering it. End to beginning; middle, ending beginning etc. After maybe a month of that they’ll know for sure that we know how to copy so we must at least be out there <:-) . Then ask them if they have any info they would like to send us 8-) .
your friend forrest
andy, go to:
http://jre.cplire.ru/jre/may08/2/text_e.html
Paul: You are incorrigible! Yes, I’d like to think that cooler heads prevail, but in response I guide you to a certain presidential election, in which the issues, certainly not galactic in character, are nonetheless planet-worthy; and yet, nearly no actual debate on issues occurs. This is not peculiarly American, but human; any ‘conversation’ to reply, or not, would very quickly nosedive, assuming, of course, that even on initiation there was rational thought.–ms
Incorrigible? You must be right, Michael. My wife used that very word to describe me yesterday! Seriously though, I believe the chances for reasoned debate are at least strengthened the more we hash out these matters in advance of any actual detection. What happens then may or may not follow a logical course, but let’s do what we can to get the issues out there and hope for the best when (and if) a detection happens.
Actually, I prefer to think of Paul as a hopeful romantic, an endangered species in this glum, blasé era.
To Paul:
>>First Contact Scenarios: How to Reply
I detected in
>>Michelle Nijhuis’ interesting article on communicating with extraterrestrials
only two times word “REPLAY”
but six times word “MESSAGE”
IMHO, initiative MESSAGE show better correlation with spirit of
>>Michelle Nijhuis’ interesting article on communicating with extraterrestrials
than compulsory REPLY…
Why Athena, thank you. I like that very much!
Yes, the issues overlap in many ways, Alexander. I took the gist of my article from this quote: “But as powerful radiotelescopes allow astronomers to study stars in greater numbers and at greater distances, the chances of running into another civilization – while still considered infinitesimal – are better than ever.
“It could be tomorrow that we’ll need to be ready to decide if we should reply,” says Douglas Vakoch…”
But the broader topic of communication rather than specific scenarios does seem to be what Dr. Lockwood’s class is all about.
Good point about ‘carnivorous,’ Carol, and thanks for bringing in the wonderful Damon Knight story ‘To Serve Man,’ which does indeed illustrate the nature of interstellar misunderstanding!
2008-1964=44 years ago Nikolay Kardashev wrote:
(see: Kardashev, N. S. 1964, ”Transmission of information by extraterrestrial
civilizations,” Sov. Astron. 8, 217-220)
“One-way cosmic transmission is conditioned by the long duration of propagation of signals.”
Alexander Zaitsev: I fail to see how that link is relevant to the situation of a SETI detection, a situation that is rather different to the question of whether METI attempts to provoke a response are a good idea. Just because I am still “andy” and you are still Alexander Zaitsev does not mean that this is the same amusing conversation we were having that resulted in a locked thread earlier in this blog.
I will point out I made a response to that paper on a different thread (one more relevant to the issue that the paper deals with). If you want to address it, I suggest you do it over there as this thread is dealing with a different issue.
Although I tend to agree with andy and tacitus (and in addition I think raising interest among the general public for extrasolar (terrestrial) planet search in general would be more useful to begin with), I cannot help wondering what I would like to *ask* an advanced alien civilization, if the chance occurred, maybe by own fit of romanticism.
I think my wish-list would look something like this (order arbitrary):
1) a complete overview of planetary systems of our MW galaxy (with a special emphasis on the ones with life), and while you are at it, maybe also for Andromeda and the whole Local Group. Our supercomputers will be readily absorbing the terabytes.
2) The key technological solutions to mastering nuclear fusion. The best and cleanest, please.
3) The cure(s) for the major forms of cancer. Oh, and if not too much asked, add significant life-extension to your transmission.
4) If it is somehow possible, the way(s) toward FTL travel.
5) …?
@dad2059: although I love humor, I cannot help thinking of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series, in which a similar message was taken completely wrongly, causing another 5000 years of interstellar war. A good joke might be taken as the galactic equivalent of ‘your mother really stinks and your children look funny’ ;-)
Ronald – 1 and 4 I agree with, but as for 2 they might reply
“Why are you interested in such primitive technology? Don’t
you want to know about antimatter utilization or zero point
energy?”
And as for 3, not only is it possible that they never
had to deal with cancer or anything like it, you also assume
an ETI advanced enough to receive our transmissions and
reply to us are still biological. Their biggest concern – if they
haven’t already sollved the problem – would be the equivalent
of computer viruses.
I will even go back to 1 and ask why assume all life in
the galaxy and beyond only resides on a planet?
@ljk: of course this is only my own initial wishlist.
I, and probably many more among us, would be highly interested in planetary systems, and even if not *all* life still resides on planets, it is still the birthplace and dwellingplace of most life.
With regard to nuclear fusion: it *is* the energy source of the stars and it will do for a long time.
Zero point is highly speculative, hardly even theoretical, as far as I know (in other words: it may not even exist).
Antimatted utilization: great, but one step at the time, I think they will understand that ;-)
As for 3, cancer: I agree with you that this is possible, however, we could make them understand how essential it (still) is to us and they would almost certainly understand that, like we understand in western countries what a plague certain tropical diseases can be.
I suspect that the distances of interstellar communication mean that exchange of science/technological techniques is not worthwhile: the civilisation that requested the data might already have discovered it by itself by the time the message gets back.
This is why we should be very cautious (for economic reasons) about beaming “local” information (e.g. aspects of culture, art, images of the Earth’s environment, etc.) to the stars – this is information that cannot be acquired at a distance and thus would potentially be valuable, as opposed to physics principles which could potentially be discovered anywhere.
Hi Paul,
What a fascinating conversation! I’d just point out four things that could be relevant to the discourse.
First, isn’t it interesting that one of the respondents concluded that the bison rancher was male. She wasn’t.
Second, one of the most important themes to emerge in the class was the incredible importance of coming to understand the “alien.” Of course, an ET is alien, but we also speak of illegal aliens, alien species, and alientation from ourselves. In a sense, it seems that the “alien” has come to play a central role in modern society. The virtue of trying to think and talk to/about an extraterrestrial alien it that it allows students to engage an “other” without all of the complex baggage that comes with other cultures, languages, and mores of human aliens. And when they imagine the ET alien, it is remarkable how often they see it as being non-threatening. This gives me considerable hope for the upcoming generation.
Third, the other important insight from the course was the existential absurdity of writing for ET which, upon reflection, expanded into the absurdity of writing for any other mind (including other humans, of course). In the face of near certainty that some, and perhaps much, of what we write will be misunderstood, we can simply quit or move ahead with humility and courage. Writing for ET in this sense also made the students keenly aware that as writers, the first act of creation is the making of one’s reader. We often take this creative move for granted, but crafting a message for an ET forces a writer to be explicit about his/her assumptions regarding the “other” (e.g., cognitive abilities, sensory capacities, etc.). And this, I think, makes for a better writer, even when the reader is rather more predictable.
Fourth, for all the advocacy regading sending messages pertaining to science and physics, it is ironic that the plaque that we sent into space was engraved with 9 planets. Had we sent that same message today, there would be 8 planets. So something as seemingly unambiguous as a physical description of our own solar system is subject to change. The students began with attempts to capture the big concepts and values of humanity in grand, sweeping terms. But they soon discovered that perhaps the best way to capture the bid ideas (love, death, violence, grief, joy, etc.) was through story. The capacity to see the infinite in the infinitesimal (Blakes’ allusion to the world in a grain of sand) is quite remarkable–and it is particularly compelling when students discover this for themselves. Perhaps in the end, Richard Kearney, the author of On Stories, is right: “Telling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living. They are what make our condition human.”
Perhaps our reply should be short, and sweet:
‘Help!’
Bob Shaw
We should send to ETI’s a series of “board diagrams” that will convey the rules and the notation for Chess (I’m going to use chess as my example, but of course Go and Shogi and other abstract games could and should also be sent), followed by a series of game records and “Chess problems” (such as, White to move and mate in 2, in 3, etc., or, Reconstruct the last move, the last 2 moves, etc.).
I propose this for several reasons. First, it is a message that should be understandable to ETI’s, unless they’re so different from us that they couldn’t possibly understand anything whatsoever. The rules to these games are abstract and catching onto the ideas should be no harder than grasping the way we present mathematical ideas. Second, it is a message that conveys a lot about the human mind. If we were less or more intelligent than we are we would play Chess differently and would play different games altogether; moreover, Chess players who play by correspondence without ever meeting often begin to feel they recognize the other player’s personality in the way he plays.
Third, unlike telling them about elementary mathematics, this would be a message that would be potentially interesting and useful to ETI’s, in that they might take up the game; they might even send us a reply, “Okay then, Pawn to d4. Your move.”
Mark Says:
>We should send to ETI’s a series of “board diagrams”
>that will convey the rules and the notation for Chess
>(I’m going to use chess as my example, but of course
>Go and Shogi and other abstract games could and
>should also be sent)
In Aug-Sep 2001 we already sent to 6 Sun-like stars the game “0 and 1” (Ouths and Crosses), see binary image “Game” at:
http://www.seti.housenet.org/msg_idx_tam.html
(left column)
I just happened across this discussion via a search on the topic, and found it interesting that you would leave it to writers.
I’ve just completed a novel with an alien first-contact scenario (plausible, in all readers’ opinions thus far) and this is one of the items the people in the novel debate. At one point in the novel, a columnist is relaying a visit he made to a mega-church where the high-profile minister preaches:
“I say our first words to them should not be numbers, and symbols and the basics of nature as we understand them. No. No my Lord and Savior. No. Our first Words to them should be The Lord is Our God, the Lord is One!! Hallelujah!!!”
The columnist continues that perhaps that wouldn’t be such a good idea, as the aliens would probably reply something like:
“Um. Never mind. We’ll get someplace else. Thanks.”
So I think the answer on what we would say to them would depend on what they ask us about and what our relationship with them is going to be in the future.
For the hardcore, there is an excellent book, in fact a very detailed guide, on how to communicate with ET, Beyond Contact by Brian McConnell
http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/books/library_mcconnell_020111.html
In relation to the article I believe I should throw out the inevitable question that is at the back of everyones minds: what if A spaceship shows up at our door? I do not mean this to sound childish or fictional but there is that inevibility. Is it wise to send signals to places and entities that have the capability to destroy humanity? I am not trying to say that if there was contact with extra terrestrials that they would mean to harm us but how can we know? I am only 17 and I like to think there is other life in the universe. I am not, in any way shape or form, as intelligent or wise as scientists and all other manner of older people that have read this article or thought about this event.