Story 3NN Anthropology and communicating with extraterrestrials

Anthropology and communicating with extraterrestrials

by
Anonymous Coward
in space on (#3NN)
story imageThe New Yorker has an interview of Douglas Vakoch , author of Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication , a new book about the complexities of communicating with extraterrestrials, released last month by NASA.

From the New Yorker article: "For a long time, the people most interested in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence came from "hard science" disciplines like astronomy or physics; to them, the main obstacles seemed technical (building radio telescopes, processing signal data). But, in recent years, the field has broadened to include people who already study other civilizations here on Earth. In these essays, they report that their jobs are hard enough as it is. Archaeologists struggled to decipher ancient Greek; deciphering a transmission from another world will be even more difficult. Even if we do manage to detect a signal, they write, fully understanding what it means may be impossible."

You can submit your own recommendation for outbound communications to ET on the Earth Speaks website, and browse what others have submitted.
Reply 7 comments

Maths music love (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-12 22:28 (#233)

Some languages are universal

Re: Maths music love (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-12 22:57 (#235)

If you can read this message your existence is too close.

Re: Maths music love (Score: 1)

by danieldvorkin@pipedot.org on 2014-06-13 04:04 (#238)

The symbols we use for all of them matter an awful lot, though. Would we recognize an alien love song, or their expression of even the simplest equation?

Re: Maths music love (Score: 1)

by koen@pipedot.org on 2014-06-15 21:36 (#23Q)

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Re: Maths music love (Score: 1)

by koen@pipedot.org on 2014-06-15 21:41 (#23R)

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Jodie Foster (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-13 16:25 (#23J)

didn't seem to have a problem with it all. Sorry, Carl.

The 'beasts' share the same scent - how to piss off an alien/human hybrid (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-14 06:58 (#23M)

the hybrids carrying filthy spawn (like in the days of Noah) are easy to SNIFF out, literally, they all smell the same when you're in the proper state of mind.

some of them have eyes which appear to be bugging out of their face.

even if you can't detect the scent of the hybrids, or 'beasts', inhale deeply whenever the hybrids are close, don't express any emotion, just keep inhaling deeply and make your facial expression be that of deep contemplation.

when you do this, they know that you know what their true reality is - it's like the movie THEY LIVE where Nada sees the truth through the glasses and confronts them.

don't confront, just inhale deeply. maybe shake your head and laugh, mumble about stupid aliens but nothing deep.