Let's imagine that we are suddenly face to face with aliens. What do we do first? There is no doubt that communication that proves that we have turned to peace will be a high priority. But can we ever understand each other deeply?
Author James Carney (Carney) Senior Research Fellow (Psychology), Lancaster University, UK
For the article in THE CONVERSATION
Many scientists believe that extraterrestrial civilizations exist. For them, the question is whether we will encounter them in the near or distant future and not if at all. So let's imagine that we are suddenly face to face with aliens. What do we do first? There is no doubt that communication that proves that we have turned to peace will be a high priority. But can we ever understand each other?
The only thing we can be sure we can exchange with aliens is scientific information. If the laws of the universe are the same everywhere, then different descriptions of these laws should, in principle, be equivalent. This is the rationale behind initiatives such as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Message Outbound (METI).
Matters become more complex when it comes to language, which is the most important factor in human cooperation. Communication allows us to understand our intentions because we can work together in surprisingly large groups. For this reason, it is conceivable that any alien civilization with technology would have something like a language.
Can we expect to learn a foreign language (in the true sense of the word)? The first hurdle will be her middle ground. Humans communicate in the frequency range of 255-85Hz and through voice and in the frequency range of 770-470 THz in the field of light. This would not necessarily hold for aliens who evolved differently. However, the problem is largely technical. Whale songs can be sped up, because they are usually inaudible to the human ear, which shows that it is relatively easy to map other animals' gray matter into shapes that humans can perceive.
Grammar vs. Semantics
The more difficult question is whether we can ever learn the internal structure of a foreign language. The existing approaches in the psychology of language give two different answers.
The generativist approach, which holds that the structure of language is in the brain, claims that this is not possible. According to this approach, humans are born with a built-in universal grammar that has a certain number of definitions - each corresponding to the conventional order in which words and parts can be arranged in a particular language. The language we hear early in life activates one of these definitions, allowing us to distinguish between correct and incorrect ways of putting words together.
The main point is that the number of options in grammar is very limited. Although the rules of human languages can vary from language to language, proponents of the generativist model argue that they can only do so within certain parameters. For example, the "head directionality" parameter determines whether the verbs in the language precede or follow their subject, for example English ("Bob gave Alice a cake") versus Japanese ("Bob gave Alice a cake").
For generativists, it is highly unlikely that an alien species would happen to have the same parameters as humans. In the words of Noam Chomsky, the leader in this concept: "If an imaginary man landed from outer space and spoke a language that violated universal grammar, we simply would not be able to learn the language the way we learn a human language such as English or Swahili. Nature designed us for languages such as Chinese English and any other human language , but we are not meant to learn languages that violate universal grammar.
The cognitive view, on the other hand, sees semantics (meaning structures) as more important than syntax (grammatical structures). According to this view, sentences like "Quarterly carry drinks" are syntactically well constructed but semantically meaningless. For this reason, proponents of the cognitive view argue that grammar alone is not enough to understand language. Instead, a shared knowledge of concepts about the structure of language use is required.
We can also look at our world and see how creatures develop striking similarities even though they evolved in different ways and in different environments. This phenomenon is called "convergent evolution". Physically, for example, wings and eyes have evolved independently among animals through evolution several times. The birds in New Zealand that were ecologically isolated developed behaviors that typically evolved in mammals elsewhere. The cognitive view offers hope that human and foreign languages can be understood by each other's speakers.
Some argue that even the most advanced human concepts are built from basic building blocks common to species, such as concepts of past and future; similarities and differences; Adjectives and objects. If an alien species manipulates objects, interacts with its peers, and integrates concepts, the cognitive approach predicts the possibility that there will be enough common mental architecture to make their language available to humans. It is unlikely, for example, that biologically replicated alien species would lack perceptions to distinguish between genetically related and unrelated groups.
But is the cognitive view correct? Research on neural networks shows that languages can be learned without the special structures that exist in the brain. This is important because it means that an innate universal grammar may not be necessary to explain the way language is acquired. Also, there seem to be some human languages that do not fit into the universal grammar framework. Although these results are far from conclusive (for example, they cannot explain why only humans seem to have language), the evidence leans in the cognitive direction.
Therefore, it is likely that humans can learn foreign languages. It is clear that there will always be aspects of an alien language that are not accessible (like our poetry). Equally, some species may perceive a different mental world, until it is equal only to that of humans. However, I think we can be cautiously optimistic that universal structures in the physical world, the biological and social perspectives will be sufficient to anchor human and foreign languages in a common semantic framework.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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I don't understand how aliens who are more developed than us will get here. technological. The Earth is not located in the center of the galaxy, but on its far side. That means any culture that wants to meet us - due to the radio signals that were sent and gave the Earth's landmark - will have to come here in two types of missions: to come here after a long journey and die here, because there is not enough fuel or years of life to get back to their planet, or to come, visit and continue the trip. In both options, the arrival here will be planned.
The first option is unlikely, if it is indeed planned and not an error in navigation/technical malfunction/crash. The second simply shows the possibility of sailing between stars at a speed that is beyond our understanding. After all, flying at a speed higher than the speed of light requires the transition of matter to energy and its re-translation from energy to matter (Beem me up, Scotty). It looks like sending an email from Israel to China, versus sending a physical document by plane or ship, for someone from the beginning of the last century.
Sometimes we connect advanced technology with cultural enlightenment. The fact that we are more technologically advanced than sharks does not prevent us from exterminating them. The fact that we know about the food chain and global warming does not prevent us from cutting the branch we are sitting on.
Knowledge does not always lead to informed actions and both are not always motivated by morality.
If aliens come here, it will be on purpose and could have two purposes: scientific curiosity or need for resources. The resource can be raw materials, living space, food or energy.
In an ideal situation they need a high amount of carbon dioxide or some sea water. But they may need something we can't give up, and then a war will begin. So let's hope a delegation of scientists arrives here.
We could not decipher all the signs on the walls of the pyramids in the world!!!!!
So for them (the aliens) if they are the same type of aliens that were here before…….you can say that you can still survive…..in question!!!!!
Another species of aliens….and this is another opera already
Try talking to Deborah……..that's how it will be!!!!!
If they will be superior to us…..then you can say "there will be peace in a cruel world"…….
There is nothing to be done…..that's how it is in nature!!!!and the laws of nature apply to everyone….the powerful/intelligent one rules!!!!
More likely they will duplicate (robots/themselves) for this long journey…..
Also out of curiosity/seeking resources
Try to talk to a beaver or guess……that's how it will be!!!!
In fact, we are already able today to say what will happen if we meet aliens interested in communication. There is knowledge about communication between those with high and low intelligence from several sources. Assuming that aliens who will meet with humans in the near future will be much more intelligent than humans, the results of the encounter will be approximately one of the following:
1. The result of the bird of prey tamed for hunting.
2. The result of the tame rats known in cognitive science.
3. The result of the well-known tame dog.
4. The result of tamed dolphins playing in friendship with humans and following the instructions of their trainers.
5. The result of the chimpanzees being able to learn up to hundreds of images and use these images to communicate with humans.
6. The result of 4-5 year old children, who are able to learn many things, but because of their limited linguistic abilities, they are limited in their studies.
7. The result of a young, inexperienced student who is able to learn practically anything that the most excellent experts know.
Dogs are able to learn dozens of words and reliably follow what has been planned. Chimpanzees are able to learn hundreds of words through pictures and through their sounds and also create original expressions using them.
Children and students are open to detailed explanations that allow them to overcome original lacks of knowledge and understanding, and thus obtain almost any knowledge that someone presents.
We will not meet aliens with a probability of 99.99999999%, but in the very rare case yes, I don't think we need to worry about communication between the races, because there will be no communication, it will be a total and rapid destruction of humanity with a very high probability, and if not then we can always start communicating on the basis of the physical world like who teach a child, it's a ball, it's a table, etc.
Ed's interesting analysis, but it is correct under the assumption that the development of the aliens does not depend on the development of life on Earth. If, on the other hand, there was a certain dependence, then the chances of life at a similar level of development are much higher. On the other hand, one can debate whether these are indeed aliens...
If at all there are extraterrestrials... and if there is a "meeting"...
There are three options:
1. Or they will be much more advanced than humanity (and obviously in that case they will discover humanity long before humanity can do so),
2. They will be much less advanced, and perhaps much less than humanity (and obviously in that case humanity will discover them).
3. They will be "roughly" as advanced as humanity (and then either they will discover humanity, or humanity will discover them).
From a probabilistic point of view - option 3 has very little programming, since each time segment between 200,000 years may be significant in terms of a degree of development (as evidenced at least by the developmental genealogy of man), and in principle the range of cosmic development is billions of years old (for example, the solar system is about 4.5 billion years old years, the age of the universe is 13.81 billion years).
Option 2 is not interesting (the issue with inferior beings is not particularly great), and also the probability that there will be a "discovery" within this option is small, within the next hundred or hundreds of years (there are technological difficulties on the way to such a discovery by humanity).
Option 1 remains. Now, the question arises as to what interest humanity might have in such a meeting, with an intelligent culture at a level much higher than it... Well, in the gaps that will exist, it does not seem to me that such a meeting may be used for "exchange of scientific knowledge", or for useful "communication" from the point of view of the wonderful aliens (they do not need our knowledge and our communication) or from the point of view of humanity (its intellectual abilities are too low).
Thus, in this perspective the article is quite bizarre. In fact, humanity would be no more relevant to extraterrestrials than we might be to pet microbes or molluscs. And humanity - it will be much more convenient to continue living in its world without aliens without getting too confused...
By the way, all this preoccupation with extraterrestrials is in itself quite far-fetched, if only because the probability of life in general (as an orderly physical system develops and reproduces contrary to the second law of thermodynamics) and of intelligent life in particular is actually pretty much zero, under the conditions of the violent cosmos. The formation of the first living cell on Earth, certainly in the short window of time it had within its history, is itself a probabilistic puzzle; Easy and matter in other places in the cosmos.
Speculations about extraterrestrials are not science, but rather imaginary speculations that take place in UFO literature... It is useful to put the preoccupation with UFOs in the right proportions when it comes to a scientific stage of some kind.
The article is interesting but ignores some important points. The first is the assumption that only scientific knowledge can be exchanged with the aliens. What about feelings and sensations? music? craftsmanship? The second assumption is that we will have to communicate through language. Most evidence of communication with extraterrestrials speaks of telepathic communication when the message is transmitted and received and translated into a language that we understand in an unknown way
If we ever meet God, will we be able to communicate with him
What seems more likely to be encountered in it, than the imagination and science fiction of people who consider themselves to be wise, and the imagination of wise people is something that should be lived by and form lifestyles for society due to the imaginations calculated in clever formulas that sometimes even they do not believe in themselves, but it is fun and interesting and also earns money to talk Talks that don't stop in favor of any desire and human desire to do what you want... hahaha
Of course it does not harm the other (the only question being asked is who decides what is considered harm or what is not)
If the aliens are less advanced and less developed than humanity and closer (in terms of development) to living on Earth, then communication will be very limited, and its usefulness will also be limited,
If they are technologically and biologically more advanced then:
Or they are advanced/enhanced biological beings that do not use language or sound to communicate but other more effective abilities (such as telepathy)
Or it is more likely to assume that they are no longer biological beings (which are sensitive to: heat/cold, radiation, diseases, lifespan, food dependence...) and have evolved into synthetic life (a type of AI) and then it is not at all clear how they communicate,
The previous post was misplaced
alien languages
http://www.tapuz.co.il/blogs/viewentry/7365029
http://www.tapuz.co.il/blogs/viewentry/7344814
very nice article
Those who liked the article will probably really like the excellent film Arrival.
warmly recommended:)