Posted on 01/17/2023 10:02:28 AM PST by BenLurkin
Like V’Ger?
Yes. Science fiction.
Your points are good.
It’s not a non-interesting topic. I have ideas how to do a base communication using physical principles that would be common to all life. It’s science fiction, though. Based on scientific knowledge.
“Space Probes Sent by Aliens Could Arrive in Reverse. Here’s Why.”
Its transmission was built by Chevrolet?
I’m reminded of Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Stars are the Styx”... plus, the colony ships in probably more than one sci-fi novel or short story filled with humans in hibernation who know going in that it’s not unlikely that other humans will already be at the destination to thaw them out thanks to advancements in transportation technology. :^)
“Far Centaurus” by A. E. van Vogt, 1944; “Astounding Science Fiction”
A short story about men sent in suspended animation to Centaurus who were welcomed by Earthmen born after they left... Not a fascinating story to me, but if you’re looking for examples, this one was written before the atomic bomb!
sciencealert.com is reporting an 80-year-old story...
Yeah. See post 45
After Rockford Files was cancelled.
Kind of like the last 2 Beatles albums.
CC
third...
cancel that, send more Buck Cherry...
“lit up again” is our favorite!!!
I doubt that Oumuamua was faster than the next one.
How would we pretend to understand a communications from a civilization where we have no common references?
—
Mathematics, geometry & music are all ways to communicate without language, as is 1s and zeros.
They sent the first one when they started detecting television signals.
They sent the second one after watching The Jerry Springer Show.
After watching Springer and CNN, they sent a third probe: hyper dense, traveling 80% light speed & slammed it into the sun. Buh Bye.
The chemical elements, the laws of physics, mathematics, geometry are universal constants and therefore a common reference. Whether that's enough to enable meaningful communication is a separate question ... but we absolutely do have common references.
We are conditioned to believe that those alien cultures are vastly more intelligent
"We"? Who's "we", Kemosabe? Any regular reader of science-fiction will have encountered stories with aliens ranging from barely smarter than a dog to super-geniuses, and ranging from like us enough to be nearly carbon-copies to so utterly different as to be completely incomprehensible.
“They sent the first one when they started detecting television signals.
“They sent the second one after watching The Jerry Springer Show.”
And when they saw the first Maxine Waters broadcast, they sent the planet destroyer.
They would be able to learn our language than we would be able to learn their language.
That might be it, I read some A.E. van Vogt in the 1970s, hmm, 1978, not sure if there was a short story anthology, I remember reading “The Weapons Shop of Isher” although I don’t remember a thing about it. I’d always liked the title.
Hmm... Pel Torro (a pen name of Lionel Fanthorpe, who apparently is still alive!) wrote a short story “The Last Astronaut”, has nothing to do with this subthread really, but the name came back to me all of a sudden. Fascinating wikipage on him.
Yes! It’s an old book I’ve been re-reading lately - “Destination Universe” - a collection of his short stories. I loved “Weapon Shops of Isher” as well.
What if an extraterrestrial culture is familiar with chemical elements we know nothing about or they don't know about ours?
What if we find our understanding of the speed of light is arbitrary to our method of measuring not theirs? What if their laws of physics are based on their understanding of the limits of their physical world, not ours?
What if their reality is based virtually not physically?
Almost all entertainment media depicts alien cultures as super intelligent and easily capable of talking the english language. Like it or not, that is the layman's perception of a future encounter.
What if they interpret our intelligence by intercepted TV shows like...well anything on TV now.
Make no mistake about it, I believe there are lifeforms in the universe other than ours, it is statistically inevitable. I just believe that any encounter would be entirely coincidental not intentional and they would be as equally unprepared to deal with us as we would be with them except in one instance. Total domination by the superior culture.
Music??? That is whimsical and reminiscent of the movie Close Encounters of the Third kind. How would they extract what we call music from universal white or black noise?
On our planet, the concept of zero wasn't even used until the 1200s AD. A binary counting system is our creation, not a mathematical constant.
I guarantee you ... they know about hydrogen, and helium, and lithium and all the rest. The universe is filled with them. The rest of your "what ifs" are based on the same misunderstanding ... until:
What if their reality is based virtually not physically?
Whatever do you mean by that?
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