If You Meet ET in Space, Kill Him
nautil.us
nautil.us
What Witkowski is saying is that communication, as we think about the concept, between species likely won't be recognizable as communication. We (and/or they) will literally not perceive the attempt at communication as communication.
As he has thought about this, he has tried to reduce the concept of communication to something approaching universality, and ended up (for now) with the realization that since (probably) all living things wish to continue living, an attempt to take a living things life will be seen as communication (with the message being: I want to kill you).
In other words, he is not at all (as far as the article is concerned) concerned with the question "What is a good, practical way of making contact with an alien species such that it leads to a positive outcome for us?" What he is concerned with is the question: "How will different species in our universe even realize that someone is trying to communicate?"
(Note: I don't know whether he's correct or not, but it would be nice if people read and understood the content instead of constructing straw men to argue with.)
Flip the script. If someone tries to kill us we are going to clam up and increase the Space Force budget 100000X and spend the next millennium doing nothing but building increasingly terrifying space weapons.
All someone would have to do to initiate communication with us would be to send Fibonacci numbers. This would be clearly intelligent. We could reply with some other series, then start playing ping pong with increasingly elaborate mathematical constructs to mutually construct a vocabulary. From there we could get to logic, then to statements, then to grammar, etc.
We know nothing about their minds or behavior but there is absolutely no way anything is getting into space let alone between stars unless it can do a lot of math.
That's one potential answer to the Fermi paradox: they are out there but doing everything they can to not be noticed.
PBS Space Time had a good episode a few months ago on this: "Dark Forest: Should We NOT Contact Aliens?" [1].
I haven't had the free time to check if there are any fibonacci sequences or other mathematical patterns in Sagan's interpolations, but it would be most amusing if there were!
Lagniappe: https://cdn4.volusion.store/zausr-eprhq/v/vspfiles/photos/19...
* due to the Cold War, he and Shklovsky hadn't been able to meet and collaborate like normal translators and colleagues
Here are a few things I believe alien intelligence may benefit from knowing about humans:
Humans are meddlesome trivial scamps.
Their thoughts feelings and beliefs are a threat to others.
Man is savage and beastial, and must be dealt with so.
Savage power is mitigated by a civilizing accord. A righteous rule (lawful behavior) is that civilizing accord.
Extend every right privilege and validation to others as one grants unto themselves (whoever they may be.)
This is how ascendant beings must behave.
What preconditions are required to make any of your claims true? Even if your claims are true, are they changing the behaviour or are they changing the fundamental view that drives the behaviour? Because to me, it looks like only the behaviour, which makes it somewhat irrelevant as far as driving understanding. If the species we encounter evolved under competition and scarcity (likely) then none of this invalidates the concept of understanding us trying to kill them as the basis of the beginnings of understanding each other.
What do you think an ascendant being is?
Ascension is to be the fullest self. Ascendency is to go beyond the self. Not all ascendant beings are honest, moral or lawful (I am, honest to a fault.)
It is reprehensible to think you should try killing strangers because you cannot communicate with them. (Consider if I advocated killing you for speaking so foolishly.)
See them as your equals and negotiate for territory like everything else.
Well, then. That settles it. The "philosopher" has no idea what he's talking about.
The hypothesis that life consistently acts to protect itself is also a foolish assumption, as it doesn't always have such power.
This one is true, while "wiping out everyone else" is false. E.g. cats found easy way to protect themselves without killing humans
He assumes too much.
I got that far before wincing. What pseudointellectual self-important vapid nonsense is this? How would "emotion" or "establishing a connection" possibly not involve transmission of information?
Say a friend is hungry and about to go get lunch. I'm eating a pizza and offer to give them half. They take it, eat, and are no longer hungry.
I might not have given them the pizza because I wanted to end their hunger. I might have given them the pizza to feel more positive toward me in hopes that maybe something more than friendship will develop.
Consider the example he used of asking someone how they are. Usually that isn't meant to actually find out how they are. The person isn't meant to take it as a genuine query as to how they are doing, good or bad. It's a customary greeting with an expected response along the lines of "OK" or "Fine, how about you?" or something like that.
Sure, there is information in that exchange, but it is not the information actually conveyed by the words of the exchange.
Yes, it will be a message. But the wrong one.