Laid on her bed horizontally, her chin propped up on one of her pillows, Rebeca watched her
fish swim around its tank, moving from the right side to the left side, pausing there for a moment,
then from the left to the right, pausing there for a moment, and then back, over and over, as
it usually did. While watching her fish, whom she had named Shinny, Rebeca talked about her day and
whatever else was on her mind, as she usually did. Rebeca was a very intelligent young child.
And perhaps somewhat related to this, she was also quite a lonely, isolated child.
She had bad social anxiety as a consequence of her genetics, her tendency to overthink, and a set of
parents who also suffered from various social anxieties, surrounding Rebeca with a constant,
unsettling tension during her formative years. As a result, Rebeca often had a difficult time
communicating, especially with kids her own age, and struggled to make many friends during this
early part of her life. In a sort of way, at this time, her best friend was her fish.
Some of the greatest conversations she ever had were with Shinny. She would tell it everything,
unhindered and unencumbered. She would complain to Shiny about her parents and teachers. She would
tell it what she was sad about when she was sad. What she was happy about when she was happy. What
she wanted to do and who she wanted to be when she was older. And so on. All the while, Shinny
swam its few routes back and forth, every once in a while, stopping and staring with its naïve,
unaware eyes back in her direction. Still at an inevitably naïve age, Rebeca felt the inclination
to believe that in these moments, Shinny sort of understood and personally loved her like a friend.
Although it’s possible that Shinny did, at some point, start to recognize the recurring patterns
of Rebeca’s facial arrangement and associate her likeness with food, it of course did not
actually like nor know Rebeca in any real sense of these terms at all. It was a fish. It hadn’t the
slightest clue as to how to form the slightest clue of what, or in this case who, Rebeca was.
Its mental framework far too small; its perceptual and cognitive capacity essentially null.
Shinny would go on to live 15, healthy years, aging with Rebeca through her adolescence.
Sort of out of habit, Rebeca continued to talk with Shinny throughout the rest of its life.
Of course, Rebeca would soon realize how foolish it was to be talking with her fish,
understanding that Shinny almost certainly did not get her or like her on any level at all,
but nonetheless, she still enjoyed the routine. Now, though, on the occasions when Shinny’s eyes
looked back at her, Rebeca found herself wondering instead, that if not really her, what exactly was
Shinny experiencing? Could it recognize her in any form at all? Could it understand her at all? Did
it really process anything as the reality that was actually happening? Rebeca reflected on the
fact that Shinny obviously knew she was some sort of something that was happening around or to it
whenever she did something like feed it or put her hand into the tank and so forth, but yet, at the
same time, since Shiny did not and could not know what that something actually was and why it was
doing what it was doing, Rebeca’s image and touch and vocal vibrations were things happening to it
with no conscious source. There was no way for it to understand that Rebeca was a living human being
that loved it. That cared for it. That those sound waves she emitted had meaning contained inside
them. That there even were sound waves at all. That there was specific, thoughtful, conscious
intention in the movements around and towards it. Although Shiny could never know, it had a
huge impact on Rebeca’s life; their sort-of relationship greatly influencing her as she
asked these sorts of questions, learning more about herself and her interests of the world.
Between the bond she formed with Shinny, her social anxiety, and her hard time communicating,
over the course of her early teens, Rebeca became deeply interested in the ways in which species
develop and carry out language, delving further into this research field, known as linguistics.
In high school, Rebeca created and ran her school’s first linguistics club,
took multiple summer linguistic courses hosted by local universities, and explored deeper and deeper
into her own research. In college, she worked for several linguistic and cognitive science
research groups, was an assistant for the school’s leading anthropological linguistics professor,
and already began concluding her senior thesis by this time, garnering serious interest and
respect from this professor as well as other faculty. By age 22, Rebeca received her PHD,
and by her early thirties, she had become a leading linguist, teaching as a professor at
UC Berkley, writing several, majorly successful books, winning numerous awards, and becoming
internationally recognized for her work in language acquisition and psycholinguistics.
At age 45, however, in her species year of 1977, Rebeca’s career would dramatically shift,
inverting her in a totally different direction. Earlier this same year, a strange radio signal was
intercepted by a telescope that was used as part of a university program that scanned deep space
searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life. This was the first time in
human history that an observed space signal showed sufficient power, suitably narrow bandwidth,
and a range of small radio frequencies that added up to indicate an artificial nature to the signal.
Upon examination, it was believed to be a highly likely candidate for extraterrestrial life.
As a result of this groundbreaking moment, efforts to decipher and analyze the signal,
develop the search for subsequent signals, and transmit corresponding signals back into space
all increased. As a part of this growing initiative, Rebecca was sought out and recruited
by an organization known as the International Contact Group For Extraterrestrial Intelligence;
the hope being to utilize her leading knowledge of language acquisition
and language types for the purposes of both interpreting and broadcasting messages to and
from alternate types of beings. Rebeca couldn’t turn down such an unusual and
interesting opportunity and so, after a little negotiating, she took the job.
Years and years would go by. Rebeca would become a key member of the organization, leading a specific
team that worked on developing and broadcasting various sorts of signals into deep space; signals
that could theoretically be picked up by another species within 100 plus million light years away.
Additionally, they developed and sent out space probes housing various plaques, audio and video
recordings, music, mathematics, and other forms of information and communication. Despite these
great efforts, though, no explanation would ever conclusively be found for the initial signal, and
no more of its kind would ever seem to reappear. Throughout this later portion of her career,
Rebeca couldn’t help but wonder more and more where everybody was. In a potentially endless
space, with billions and billions of years behind humanity, how was there no one else out there?
Almost every night, Rebeca spent some time on her porch looking up into the stars,
entirely perplexed by the strange paradox that her work seemed to illuminate and reinforce:
that somehow it is likely that at least several hundred million, if not several
billion earth-sized planets were out there with inhabitable conditions for life in just the milky
way galaxy alone. And potentially trillions of habitable planets in the universe at large.
And if human development and technology were to be extrapolated to any reasonable degree,
in relation to the size and age of the universe, even if just a small percentage of these planets
had formed life, the galaxy should be rife with signs of it by now. But yet,
the universe appeared dead and quiet. Humanity, alone. The Great Silence.
Right now, Rebeca continues on, moving around her planet, mostly back and forth
between two sections, work and home, pausing and hovering in one for a little, then to the other,
hovering there for a little, and then back again, over and over, as she usually does. Right now,
as it usual does, a being from the species known as what loosely translates
into 01100111 01101111 01100100 01110011 00100000 00100000 named what loosely translates
into 01101100 01100001 01101110 01101001 01100001 01101011 01100101 01100001 00100000 00100000,
or just 011-L for short, hovers outside or sort of in between time and space, watching Rebeca,
talking to her about whatever is on its mind.
011-L is a member of a super intelligent species who, a long, long time ago, evolved from one of
the earliest lineages of life that formed and survived the early budding universe.
As it successfully evolved through time, it developed intelligence, built technology,
extended out past its host planet, harnessed the power of its host star, eventually breaching the
bonds of biological and neurobiological conditions, building and collectivizing
with other galactic lifeforms, and finally, harnessing the total energy of its host galaxy.
Over time, the super intelligent species had gotten smaller and smaller,
moving further up the interdimensional rungs of physical reality until it became what would appear
immaterial to all beings of other dimensional levels. Now, the species traverses the universe,
exploring and perceiving things outside and in between time, not confined to it nor to the same
physical material and conditions that confine 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9-dimensional space.
Rebeca’s reality is accessible to 011-L in a way that might be sort of similar to the way
in which Rebeca accesses information from an external computer hard drive, displaying the
stored information bits onto a separate monitor screen. Accessible to species with the technology
to locate, extract, and read it, her reality’s information is contained in bits of information
stored on the outer edge of the universe’s geometric surface, which can then be observed
through a sort of a hologram like projection. Although this is metaphorically sound, in truth,
trying to accurately explain and understand such a phenomenon with these words through such
a human mode of thinking would sort of be like Rebeca trying to explain physics to her fish.
Specifically, 011-L is an especially intelligent super intelligent being. Perhaps somewhat related
to this, it is also a particularly lonely and isolated super intelligent being. It has a bad
form of what could sort of be the equivalent to social anxiety as a consequence of its tendency to
overthink and some portion its maladaptive input codes. Consequently, it often has a difficult time
communicating with others, especially its own kind. It has and continues to struggle to make
many friends, and in a sort of way, at this time, Rebeca is its best friend. Some of the greatest
conversations it has ever had were with Rebeca. It tells her everything unhindered and unencumbered.
It complains to her. It tells her about its life. About what it’s like to be alone and to
exist in the condition that it does. What its favorite and least favorite things are. Its
favorite places in the universe. And so on. Early on, when 011-L, by chance, picked out
Rebeca, not too dissimilar from the way in which Rebeca picked out Shinny, it initially thought
that she sort of understood and loved it like a friend. That when she stopped and looked up into
the stars with her naïve, unaware eyes pointed in its direction, she knew 011-L. But of course, it
didn’t take long for 011-L to realize that there was no way for Rebeca to understand and know of it
at all. She was a human. She hadn’t the slightest clue as to how to form the slightest clue of what,
or in this case who, 011-L was. She couldn’t know that it loved her. That it cared for her.
That the interdimensional frequencies it emitted had meaning contained inside them. That there even
were any frequencies at all. That there could be intention in the universe’s motion around her.
Rebeca could visually see and feel the oscillations of motion and physical material
that were the consequences of 011-L’s thoughts and actions, manifesting at the quantum level
in what appeared to be random particle behavior. But she could not know nor attribute any thoughts
or concepts to this. To Rebeca and the rest of humanity, there was no real source. Her
mental framework far too small, her perceptual and cognitive capacity essentially null in comparison.
Ironically, 011-L and the rest of its species never knew that Rebeca and her human colleagues
had been trying to contact them or anyone. The physical objects sent out looked like
meaningless debris, and the radio signals, on the few occasions that they actually reached them,
appeared to be but a primitive, foreign noise that translated into nothing for them.
At times, some did consider the possibility that the radio broadcasts were some form of an effort
to communicate with them, but just like how Rebeca did not seriously
bark back at a dog when it was barking at her to communicate, this species never thought to
nor knew how to properly bark back. Except for the one-time in 1977 when they tried in
a kind of humorous, playful effort, which ultimately served no purpose.
In truth, there was in fact a galaxy rife with technology and signs of other life. Rebeca and the
rest of her species were right in this conclusion. But wrong when they assumed that they would
recognize it. And so, continuing to this day, they still think their alone. Like most species
like them, they don’t see anything, and so, they assume nothing is there. But just like Rebeca was
right there in the room with Shiny, but Shiny had no way of knowing the physical shape of her
was an intelligent being named Rebeca, right there in the room with Rebeca was 011-L, but Rebeca had
no way of knowing that the emergent physical phenomena of it was a super intelligent being named 011-L.