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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
What would "others" make of us upon encountering our radio and television?
Here's one possibility by way of Peter Watts' story Blindsight. Quote:
Imagine that you encounter a signal. It is structured, and dense with information. It meets all the criteria of an intelligent transmission. Evolution and experience offer a variety of paths to follow, branch-points in the flowcharts that handle such input. Sometimes these signals come from conspecifics who have useful information to share, whose lives you'll defend according to the rules of kin selection. Sometimes they come from competitors or predators or other inimical entities that must be avoided or destroyed; in those cases, the information may prove of significant tactical value. Some signals may even arise from entities which, while not kin, can still serve as allies or symbionts in mutually beneficial pursuits. You can derive appropriate responses for any of these eventualities, and many others. What do you imagine as a likely interpretation upon detection?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Maybe they would have an Oracle and high priests to interpret the babble for a price.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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magicfish Inner circle 7006 Posts |
Simple. It's a unified intergalactic uprising of an oppressive regime of cosmic pachyderms.
Next topic. |
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0pus Inner circle New Jersey 1739 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 21, 2017, Jonathan Townsend wrote: I think that this is a most unimaginative analysis, more telling with regard to the interpreter than with regard to the communicants. The interpreter probably has no sense of humor, either. |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Humor is contextual, the question is about how we announce our context. The movie "species" was about one interpretation of our voyager message/disc.
David Brin takes a different tack in his story existence, as does the author liu in his three body problem novels. What do you imagine as interpretation of our signals?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
The same as we make of the Egyptian pyramids.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
We engage in aggressive distraction. Others might not. Message?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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NYCTwister Loyal user 267 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 23, 2017, Jonathan Townsend wrote: "We" are probably dishonest. "Others" possibly less so.
If you need fear to enforce your beliefs, then your beliefs are worthless.
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 23, 2017, NYCTwister wrote: Be that as it may, what might they make of our messages?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
There was a short story about a tribe of nomads in a world where the next Ice Age was a real thing. They'd seen their civilization crumble before the ice and they themselves were heading south to avoid the wall of ice heading towards them.
They carried certain "holy items," among them a radioactive tracer and a flat round can that rattled when shaken. It had been predicted that if the can were ever opened, the world would end. The leader of the tribe brings them further and further south until he passes one last ridge and sees, another wall of ice coming up from the south! Centuries later, an exploratory team from another planet finds the signal left by the tracer and finds this last stand of humanity. Opening the can, they find a spool of thin translucent material. Printed on the material is a series of pictures, seemingly identical, they realize that the pictures subtly change from one to the other and that they're meant to be projected onto a screen. They develop a device to do this. The images, the last remnant of humanity, make very little sense. Beings rushing around, riding vehicles that crash into each other without any seeming damage to the passengers, a central being who seems to get into all sorts of predicaments a close up of the main character and a group of words at the end. The aliens decide if they can figure out this presentation, this last show of the beings of this planet, they will completely understand the beings that lived here. They run the film one more time for the class that has gathered to examine the artifact. The words run across the screen one more time. The narrator states that they will spend countless hours and unimaginable amounts of currency trying to work out what these images mean. They will form camps of one side and the other, violently arguing their cases for the explanation of the images. But none of them will ever be close and none of them will ever decipher the last three words on the presentation or understand their meaning; "A Walt Disney Production" "History Lesson" Arthur C. Clarke 1949 The idea of cultural misunderstanding of something we take a trivial is certainly nothing new.
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Okay Ed, pretend those technologically adept aliens come across our radio and television ... what do they think of us? What do you make of Peter Watt's hypothetical perspective/analysis?
Here're the Clarke lines in question: Quote: from here: https://www.scribd.com/document/20824669......y-Lesson
" For the rest of time it would symbolize the human race. The psychologists of Venus would analyze its analysis? Others got as far as Plato's Allegory and Chinese Rooms - where do you find contextual relevance? I was going to suggest looking a Bruce Sterling's story Swarm but that's probably not free to read on the internet and takes us back over twenty five years in thinking...
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Didn’t the man who fell to Earth watch the TV and could you not see what he made of it by watching the movie?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 27, 2017, tommy wrote: Unfortunately he was part of a culture that was explained in the novel/movie - they saw a world they could live on and wanted to start migration. There are plenty of "here is us in the mirror" stories dating back to "war of the worlds". Peter Watts claims the signs and patterns are easily interpreted as viral - toxic. Any ideas for a different interpretation or a counter argument?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
The culture is not static or the even the same everywhere and why it wouldn’t be likewise in other worlds I don’t know. Another world would have a history like we do and different ways of life and aminals things in various stages of evolution. Whatever they saw they would probably understand from their own evolution and so on. If somebody sent you a video why wouldn’t make sense of it? Higher forms in evolution can understand lower forms. If were lower they would understand us but we would not understand them.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2885 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 27, 2017, Jonathan Townsend wrote: I have no clue. I am not a sociological analyst that I could look outside our culture and determine how it would be viewed by outsiders. "Galaxy Quest" gave us "literalist" aliens who thought everything they saw was real.
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Culture is the sanctity of the intellect. The mind is cultivated, tilled, worked. If the aliens were smart they would see the TV was a mind control machine. A cultivator.
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Yes Tommy, the sticky recursive social glue is one interpretation. What does that mean to others though?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
How do we know or imagine what aliens might or might not think about anything when we do not know anything about them? Do we assume the aliens have brains similar to humans, with left and right thinking? What does your computer make of TV programs?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 28, 2017, tommy wrote: Let's go with the interpreter being roughly on the same scale as we are - hungry for matter as fuel, and on the lookout for resources and useful information from neighbors who may or may not be hostile. What might our signals mean to them?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Quote:
On Feb 28, 2017, tommy wrote: In this case, let's presume the other creatures are no less complex, intelligent and capable than we are - so we can avoid the "white man's burden" and all that... And if you were a busy computer what would you make of typical people-typing with grammar, spelling, rhetorical defects, contextual errors etc?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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