BLOGDIAL : We are the best

******** ******** wrote:

> Hi Akin,

Greets ***!

>
> I thought you might be interested in this almanac, this month it is
> on interstellar communication. SETI et al. I know you are opposed to
> USA institutions at the moment, but it is an interesting read.

Thanks for sending it...shall we have fun whilst i read it? it being FIRST EMAIL OF THE MORNING & all!!! :]

>
>
> < Language, Art and Science in Interstellar Communication >
> by Douglas A. Vakoch
>
>
> If some day we humans decide to transmit intentional messages to
> the stars, what should we say, and how should we say it?

This has already been done, both in the form of a probe, and a special treansmission beamed out from Aricebo.

> Since
> the beginning of the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial
> Intelligence (SETI) over 40 years ago, astronomers, physicists
> and engineers have mulled over these questions. Seldom, however,
> have artists or scholars from the humanities seriously considered
> the challenges of interstellar communication. On 23 and 24 March,
> 2003, a score of specialists from a range of disciplines gathered
> in Paris to change that.

But they didnt do their research *first*.

> This meeting, "Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of
> Interstellar Message Composition," was sponsored by the Leonardo
> Network/OLATS, the SETI Institute, the John Templeton Foundation
> and the International Academy of Astronautics. The charge of the
> participants was to identify fruitful ways that we could convey
> some of humankind's varied notions of altruism in interstellar
> messages. Though SETI groups throughout the world agree that it
> is premature to transmit prior to broad-based international
> discussion, if some day a signal is detected from another
> civilization, surely there would be suggestions from some
> quarters to reply.

My word, I want what he is smoking.

Have you ever watched David Blaine? He is a great performer. On one of his shows, he went to the Amazon, and tracked down one of those groups that rarely see people from anywhere, much less brooklyn NY.
He tried to show them some magic. They were completely flummoxed by everything he did. He tried some card tricks. No reaction. He took a leaf from a tree, rolled it into a cone in his hand, and then drank a substantial amount of water from it. No reaction.
The point of this story is that these people had nothing in common with DB, save that they were both human. His magic could not impress or ever faze them. They didnt even understand that they were watching a magic trick.
Aliens (at least in the way that the SETI fixated understand them) would not be able to understand "Altruism" or "Art" since these are artificial constructs created by western man, over 5000 years of soclial development. They are not universal truths understandable and implimented by all sentient things. And I mean "Things".

> The workshop was intended to promote that
> discussion well before there is a pressing call to begin
> transmitting.

A transmission has already left, 30 years ago; WFT are you talking about?

>
> Abstracts of selected papers presented at the 2003 workshop
> follow, along with an overview of the science behind SETI that

"the science behind SETI"; this phrase, loaded with religion, is an example of why this conference was a waste of time. These people were desperate to commune with science, the new god of the last and this century. How pathetic. If they couldnt even do the work to find out that a transmission has already been sent, its no wonder that they dont know that SETI is a lie, and that we have already made contact with Aliens.

> was presented at the 2002 incarnation of the workshop by
> astronomer Dan Werthimer and biologist Mary Kate Morris.

The priest and priestess.

> All
> quotes in these prefatory remarks are taken from the abstracts
> that follow. A more detailed discussion of many of these issues
> can be found in the collection of original essays, *Between
> Worlds: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition,*
> to be published in the Leonardo Book Series by the MIT Press in
> Spring 2004.
>
> As the following abstracts show, many of the workshop
> participants reflected on the origins and nature of language as
> they searched for ways to craft meaningful messages to
> extraterrestrials. Other themes of the workshop, not highlighted
> in this selection of abstracts, included the value of creating
> messages that are interactive and the challenges of encoding the
> many meanings of altruism.

Shockingly stupid. These people have not the slightest understanding of what they are talking about. Hmmm I wonder if they invited a LINGUIST to attend this meeting; certainly it would have been more useful than the priests from SETI

>
> According to computer scientist Colin Johnson, we are going to
> have a difficult time finding a universal language for
> interstellar communication when we do not understand well how
> even a single language evolved here on Earth.

And were it not for the Rosetta Stone, we would not have decoded Ancient Egyptian. The experience of Linear-B would also have been instructional in this meeting.

> And, as his fellow
> workshop speaker, archeologist John B. Campbell shows, the
> problem is not only one of determining the *mechanism* of
> language evolution, but also the *timing.* As Campbell
> summarizes, "Precisely when symbolic communication began in the
> human evolutionary family is a matter for debate."
>
> The problem with clarifying the origins of language, Johnson
> emphasizes, is that we have not been able to compare the origin
> and early evolution of many different examples of language here
> on Earth. The solution he offers is to draw on the discipline of
> artificial life, allowing us to simulate the origin and initial
> development of language many times over.

?????

> By looking for common
> patterns in the thousands of examples, we might get a glimpse
> into possible universals that could help us communicate with
> independently evolved beings on other worlds.

Aparently, they have no problem understanding us. Its our understanding of them that is the problem!

>
> A similar approach is advocated by Mauro Annunziato, an engineer
> who creates art using digital life, and in the process learns
> about the evolution of language.

Ah yes, a willian latham type. No one has created "digital life" these are words bandied about by hippies to sell pictures in galleries. Nothing wrong with that, but it will be shot down every time when you try and apply it to something serious. Fortuneatly this is not serious, so i can save teh bullets!!!!!

> Part of the value of studying
> the emergence of autonomous languages in digital beings,
> according to Annunziato, is that the characteristics of digital
> life may bear similarities to extraterrestrial life, at least
> insofar as digital life requires us to be open to new
> possibilities for defining exactly what life is: "Digital beings
> are different from any well-developed terrestrial organic beings.
> They belong to another world, in which some intellectual
> abilities developed long before certain sensory capabilities.
> Nothing is given, and everything must be created through
> evolution." For Annunziato, biological notions of survival of the
> fittest, which portray nature red in tooth and claw, might be
> replaced by a metaphor emphasizing the importance of language in
> the evolutionary process: "survival of the clearest."
>
> Comparative psychologist and philosopher Dominique Lestel raises
> the question of whether language should be our central starting
> point in creating interstellar messages: "Up to now, it has
> always been through language that humans have evaluated the
> effectiveness of language. One of the main interests of SETI is
> precisely to think more deeply about these issues." Instead,
> Lestel suggests that we might focus on the intentionality of the
> communication: "How could we figure out a message whose main
> content (but is it really a content?) is to proclaim that it is a
> message from intelligent beings? This is a true challenge for
> artists...." In Lestel's view, artists might contribute to
> interstellar message design by creating messages that draw upon
> scientific insights, as illustrated by two "artistic performances
> for interstellar communication" that he suggests: "the first one
> will be to design self-referential temporally fractal messages,
> and the second will be the design of messages based on
> non-Darwinian biological mutations."

????! the message that was already sent was beautiful, and worked because anyone who has built a radio capable of recieving the signal could understand it. They sent prime numbers and other stuff that any one with simple math can understand:
http://microURL.com/shrinky1vGL

Read it, like they didnt.

> we live." Would extraterrestrial intelligence, living on worlds
> that differ from ours physically, biologically and culturally,
> even share a common language of mathematics with humans?

if they can build a radio antenna, then yes. Math doesnt change; it is cross cultural and identical all over the (this) universe. That is why they sent the original message the way that they did.

>
> We might, of course, not rely on languages per se for
> interstellar communication. Most proposals for interstellar
> messages over the past 40 years have, indeed, not focused on
> specifically linguistic messages and many alternatives were
> suggested at the recent workshop, including messages based on
> images, music, logic and computer algorithms. But regardless of
> the *form* that a message might take, what should be its
> *content?*

in math, the content is the message. if you send prime numbers, then someone will know:
A you know your math
B you can build transmitters
C you sent a message
that would be enough to get ANYONE exited. There doesnt need to be anything else. Unless you want to -=colonize=- them with your ideas.

>
> Suppose we could succeed in communicating notions of altruism,
> the central subject matter of the workshop. Wouldn't such a
> portrayal border on deception?

it would be colonialism. And what about another culture imposing thier ideas on us? Just as Altruism is specific only to humans, there must be millions of other concepts, just as artificial and culture specific waiting to rain down on us. This is part of the purported reason that the big secret has been kept here for over 50 years; cultural contamination and disruption, by even the official admission of contact with Aliens, much less a "donation" of Alien ideas of morality (if they even have that idea) and God knows what else. What is for sure, these aliens must be organized in some way. This organization, however it is done, can be described in english. Once we read this desctiption, and start to borrow from it and adopt it means that we have been colonized. Think aobut the Ford production line, and how that idea spread througout the world. That idea of how to organize workers changed life for hundreds of millions, brought unprecedented wealth to many and flodded the world with cars, gave us our dependence on oil, the gulf wars, and OBL. All from one mans idea. Imagine an idea, (or even worse, a whole book of ideas) as powerful and revolutionary as the production line, but from an alien culture. Everything would be turned upside down. This is far more interesting than artists trying to get a ride on a transmitter to send their art into space.

> As novelist Diana Slattery
> cautions, "Convincing an ETI, truly an 'outsider' of our
> altruistic potential as a species, might be a hard sell if
> they've had access to our history books, news services, or
> entertainment channels." Indeed, in the recording attached to two
> Voyager spacecraft, the 100-plus pictures of Earth lacked any
> images of poverty, pestilence or war.

Ahhh someone who can google!

>
> "If some day signals are sent to follow Voyager," Slattery
> suggests, "the trust displayed in this effort - that we are
> communicating at all - may be the surest sign of our own
> potential for altruism.

Read my lips: there is no such thing as "Altruism"!!!!!!!!

> Whatever we decide to communicate," she
> adds, "we are saying in the act 'Here we are; please get in
> touch.'" But are images of altruism really representative of our
> day-to-day actions? Slattery suggests that it may be appropriate
> to start a conversation that could last for generations by
> putting our best foot forward.
>
> Though for now SETI focuses its energies on listening for signs
> of intelligence in the universe and not on transmitting,
> Slattery's recommendation for how we might some day portray
> ourselves in interstellar messages is worth pondering now. "That
> we are concerned about how we are perceived," she observes, "that
> we are considering how to foreground one of our best aspects -
> the altruistic - seems a prudent way to whisper into the void."
>
> Douglas A. Vakoch
> Director of Interstellar Message Composition, SETI Institute
> Chair, Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of Interstellar
> Message Composition
> vakoch@seti.org

Boy, can you imagine these guys "get signal" saying "we got your message" and they reply "What message??!!"

Good morning!!!

Akin

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