Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Communicating with Aliens

Here is an interesting link to "Communicating with Aliens," which describes various challenges in human/alien communication and some ideas for overcoming them.
Tags: linguistics, science fiction, space exploration
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  • 5 comments

Deleted comment

ysabetwordsmith

Well...

ysabetwordsmith

October 6 2009, 23:55:01 UTC 11 years ago

>> What's the point? <<

Because if *I* happen to be johnny-on-the-spot when they land, I don't want to make a fool of myself. I'd like to have some serious considerations filed in the back of my brain. I'd like to have some chance at communicating crucial concepts like "Hide!" "Run for your lives!" "Shoot back," and "Take us with you!" If I'm going to fail, I'd rather it be because my linguistic aptitude just wasn't high enough, not because I didn't bother to do my homework.
siege

siege

October 7 2009, 04:43:43 UTC 11 years ago

Not related, but cool stuff of possible interest
marina_bonomi

marina_bonomi

October 7 2009, 09:00:16 UTC 11 years ago

>We've got people in the US who think that God planted dinosaur bones to test their faith, and they'd seem to represent something like 86% of humanity.

Very over-estimated,IMO. Please don't lump all Christian branches together, views differ widely on this and many other points.

Deleted comment

marina_bonomi

marina_bonomi

October 7 2009, 14:41:26 UTC 11 years ago

Oh,then forgive me for assuming that 'We've got people in the US who think that God planted dinosaur bones to test their faith and they'd seem to represent something like 86% of humanity.' referred to creationist belief (as far as I know,fundamentalist Christian) and extended it willy-nilly to 86% of the whole human genre, I evidently misunderstood .
ysabetwordsmith

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

October 7 2009, 17:51:28 UTC 11 years ago

When you said "people in the US who think that God planted dinosaur bones to test their faith," that's a reference to Christians. I'm not aware of any other faith that holds that premise; certainly the Christian proponents of it are highly visible (although not the whole of the Christian community).

Also, "they'd seem to represent something like 86% of humanity" seems like a very high estimate. If you have a reference for that number, please cite it. Closest I could find was this discussion of poll results for creationism:
http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=118

If you meant "they" to refer to a broader group, then you need to provide a different antecedent for it.

>>I don't see why any aliens would want to have anything to do with us until we've grown up as a species and shown we can discuss things without throwing a temper tantrum -- or a grenade.<<

If aliens are logical and responsible, that argument is plausible. However, they might be interested in territory, or even teaching barbaric underdeveloped species The One True Way. It's also entirely possible that their reason(s) would be incomprehensible to us.

I don't think aliens are likely to show up on Earth. I just believe in being prepared for possibilities that fall within my own sphere of interest, which in my case includes both linguistics and space exploration.