What if the aliens are Soong androids?
Communicating With Aliens
- Thread starter Dryson
- Start date
Okay, so the obvious conclusion to take away from all this is: If we detect a regularly pulsating signal coming from space, it represents a heartbeat. More specifically, it's keyed to the heartbeat of the lifeforms who sent it and can be used to identify both them and their physiology. Therefore I propose that when we pick up the first signal of this kind, it should be designated as Lifeform Gauge Meter #1, or LGM-1.
Quick, someone call Jocelyn Bell.
Quick, someone call Jocelyn Bell.
This is bolognium. Sounds like something they’d peddle on Ancient Aliens.
Yes, but have you compensated for the density differences of saline water for the whales?
I wlll try to make the best "guess" I can.
What if the alien species doesn't use oxygen and has no concept of using oxygen?
And what does "producing" oxygen have to do with any of this? Producing oxygen is what plants do. In the daytime, anyway.
Wouldn't the oxygen eventually bleed away without plant life?
Reminds me of long time nuclear waste warning messages intended for humans. I have no idea about the viability of the idea, but it's absolutely fascinating to read about any effort to communicate something to a mysterious unknown party you know little about. But it turns out to be exceedingly difficult to do even when the target audience is humans. Talking to aliens raises the level a thousandfold. Although the Voyager golden records are remarkable in that regard, it's mind-boggling how much information a simple diagram to the back of the record is able to convey, and how universally it's coded (albeit the universality of the message may be challenged when an actual contact with aliens is achieved – but at least it seems that anyone possessing a critical mass of knowledge should be able to decipher it).
The concept itself makes me wonder about somebody else – non-human animals. Some non-human creatures on Earth are really smart, rudimentary language is possessed by many (all?), some are speculated to possess more than rudimentary (e.g. the Wild Dolphin Project decadelong observations and recording of dolphins vocalizations inaudible to humans have noted features likened to syntax and personal names, but little to nothing has been deciphered or assigned a meaning)... So, emojis being mocked for being the most primitive braindead form of communications, has anyone in history ever communicated a message to an animal using a visual sign that the animal hasn't been taught to recognize? Excluding when it's communicated through deception? The idea sound so absolutely ridiculous I don't think anyone has even thought about attempting it.
That may translate to aliens. Although they would have mental abilities beyond certain threshold, they would be way more different to us than any Earth animal. The way the difference will manifest cannot be anticipated. Their modes of communication may be completely distinct from ours. I'm thinking “telepathic” as a way to illustrate what one mean by big difference. Say, they run into Voyager's records, and they don't have vision (or vision like ours), they may never guess the indentations on the records are a message at all.
You radio them. So they will recognize math, they will probably be observe your signal contains prime number sequence in binary. They may be still completely oblivious to anything that follows, or you – to their response.
What if the alien species doesn't use oxygen and has no concept of using oxygen?
And what does "producing" oxygen have to do with any of this? Producing oxygen is what plants do. In the daytime, anyway.
Not produce but rather harvest the available oxygen in the air for the energy needs of the body as a whole.
If the alien species doesn't breathe oxygen but another form of gas that it has been able to combine to create muscles that would need the energy from the gas, then the heart beat pattern would still be similar, not exact but similar.
Math really isn't a Universal language due to the fact that alien species might translates a math differently. Advanced species wouldn't even our modern day math as it would be severely outdated.
An alien really wouldn't understand what 1 + 1 meant because they would have no idea what 1 represented. Besides, if the alien didn't breathe oxygen, the BPM would be completely different based on how the alien life collected and used the non-oxygen gas. which would throw any mathematic similarities off.
But broadcasting a signal that is based on the heart beat of an animal, lets say an Eagle, however, would register as a foundation of similarity because the heartbeat of the Eagle on Earth would match the heart beat of a similar animal that flies, has a tolerance for cold weather and is able to survive at very high attitudes where other birds wouldn't be able to.
Once the heart beat of the Eagle had been decoded, the aliens would understand the concept of human time based on the algorithm of the heart beat of the Eagle.
Remember a body at rest will stay are rest and not consume as much energy while a body in motion will consume more energy. Thus the more at rest based on the animal the BPM per minute will be less. The more that the animal is active, the BPM will be more per minute.
Here are the heart beats of some animals
https://dinoanimals.com/animals/heart-rates-of-animals-top-10/
Hibernating Groundhog - 5
Blue Whale - 8-10 (slow moving through the water, has to constantly move, doesn't need quick bursts of speed, lower BPM)
Tortoise -10 (slow moving on the land, doesn't need quick bursts of speed, lower BPM)
Alligator- 32 (very fast in the water, needs a lot of oxygen pumping through its body at any time for quick and explosive attacks with its mouth or for running after prey.)
Elephant - 25-35
Horse - 28 -40
Dolphins - 35-45
Bear-55 (14 during hibernation)
Ox - 36-60
Condor -65
Human - 60 - 80
Large Dog - 60-80
Goat 70-80
Sheep 70-80
Medium Dog 80-100
Pig 70-120
Cat 120-140
Small Dog 100-160
Pigeon 185
Wild Duck 193
Parrot 200
Domestic Duck 240
Rhesus Monkey 160-330
Guinea Pig 200-300
Adult Chicken 250-300
Buzzard 300
Hen 312
Rabbit 180-350
Crow 378
Rat 250-400
Chick 350-450
Hamster 300-600
Mouse 450-750
Canary 1,020
Blue-throated Hummingbird 1,260
Etruscan shrew 1,511
Transmitting the signal
The BPM would be first, (then a silhouette representation of the animal), similar to how the U.S. Navy used silhouettes during WWII to identify sea based war vessels then a representation for ((air, land or water would)) follow. The primary environment that the animal would be found in would be first, then followed by the second and then third most frequented environment of natural habitation or where the animal spends 75%, 20% and 5% of its time. Natural means that the animal can exist in an environment without any means of artificially augments, such as a human being able to be in the air but not without being in an airplane. Land would always be first, then water then air.
Animals would be grouped together as follows, the smallest animal first to the largest.
1,511(Estruscan Shrew) ((land)), 450-750 (Mouse) ((land)), 250-400 (Rat) ((land, water))
120-140(Cat)((Land,water)), 100-160(Small Dog)((Land,Water)),80-100 (Medium Dog)((Land,Water)),60-80(Large Dog)((Land, Water)), 60-80(Human)((land,water))
Classifying signals of animals using a heart beat pattern along with pictorial representations of the animal based on the smallest to the largest animal plus a pictorial representation of the environment that the animals live in, would be easier to understand compared to sending languages that would take hundreds of years if not thousands to decipher.
When the aliens begin to see the patterns in the message, they will able to associate animals on their planet with animals that they are receiving from the alien world sending them.
Receiving an eagle signal from an alien world would definitely cause a great commotion in the alien species that would keep them interested in future signals instead of discounting the signal as just another FRB.
Here's the 1974 Arecibo message of 1,679 bits (product of two primes, 23 and 73) helpfully arranged into a 23 x 73 grid. Would you know what this message means without considerable effort?
I'm not sure I would...
https://web.archive.org/web/2008080...ll.edu/releases/Nov99/Arecibo.message.ws.html
Code:
00000010101010000000000
00101000001010000000100
10001000100010010110010
10101010101010100100100
00000000000000000000000
00000000000011000000000
00000000001101000000000
00000000001101000000000
00000000010101000000000
00000000011111000000000
00000000000000000000000
11000011100011000011000
10000000000000110010000
11010001100011000011010
11111011111011111011111
00000000000000000000000
00010000000000000000010
00000000000000000000000
00001000000000000000001
11111000000000000011111
00000000000000000000000
11000011000011100011000
10000000100000000010000
11010000110001110011010
11111011111011111011111
00000000000000000000000
00010000001100000000010
00000000001100000000000
00001000001100000000001
11111000001100000011111
00000000001100000000000
00100000000100000000100
00010000001100000001000
00001100001100000010000
00000011000100001100000
00000000001100110000000
00000011000100001100000
00001100001100000010000
00010000001000000001000
00100000001100000000100
01000000001100000000100
01000000000100000001000
00100000001000000010000
00010000000000001100000
00001100000000110000000
00100011101011000000000
00100000001000000000000
00100000111110000000000
00100001011101001011011
00000010011100100111111
10111000011100000110111
00000000010100000111011
00100000010100000111111
00100000010100000110000
00100000110110000000000
00000000000000000000000
00111000001000000000000
00111010100010101010101
00111000000000101010100
00000000000000101000000
00000000111110000000000
00000011111111100000000
00001110000000111000000
00011000000000001100000
00110100000000010110000
01100110000000110011000
01000101000001010001000
01000100100010010001000
00000100010100010000000
00000100001000010000000
00000100000000010000000
00000001001010000000000
01111001111101001111000I'm not sure I would...
https://web.archive.org/web/2008080...ll.edu/releases/Nov99/Arecibo.message.ws.html
If I were an alien (illegal or otherwise!), I would be suspecting it was not of natural original - and that's a good start.
Adding to this - about 25-30 years ago, I probably could have decoded that but, I just don't have the interest/stamina that I did back then anymore!
Adding to this - about 25-30 years ago, I probably could have decoded that but, I just don't have the interest/stamina that I did back then anymore!
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Me? No. But I imagine some of the smarter people on the planet could get together and hash it out.
Alien 1:Why is that guy with smoke comming out of his head jumping on the radio telescope?
Alien 2: No its the Mxsfsfshdw and the gssfsdfgsgs squashing a human!
The coding for the integers 10 through 1 at the start isn't that obvious to me, especially as the order is arbitrary in the way chosen to depict it. Sulfur is omitted from the list of basic biological elements - I guess that's because it doesn't occur in DNA but it is important for human biochemistry, not counting many other other important elements used by terrestrial life. If the alien lifeforms don't have nucleotides and DNA, they probably won't understand the reference to it. I'm not sure why the Arecibo dish is shown inverted and Pluto is no longer a planet, of course. The main gist of the message would be that such a sequence is extremely unlikely to occur by chance so must be of artificial origin. The fine details seem to depend a lot on an Earth-based context of which we are well aware but which might not be very obvious to an alien.
From Utah University:
This picture was generated by arranging the 1679 bits above into 23 columns of 73 rows, 23 and 73 being the two prime numbers, which when multiplied together equal 1679. A box representing a “one” has been colored black, while a box representing “zero” has been colored white. Unfortunately, the image is “parity reversed, ” i.e., it was generated by scanning right to left, i.e., the first bit in the message occupies the upper row, rightmost cell. The next bit is the in the top row, next cell proceeding to the left. Many books have printed the picture this way. Maybe they think aliens are likely to be left-handed or maybe it is meant to tell them that all the amino acids that make up proteins in life on Earth are “left-handed” except for those that have no handedness. You should be able to see, though, that the "handedness" of the image is completely irrelevant
Yes, both Arabic and Hebrew are written and read from right to left - apart from the use of numbers I believe, which presume were adopted at a later date from India. Of course, the picture could also be arranged on its side as well. This doesn't degrade the information content but ease of interpretation might be influenced by cultural presuppositions.
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