COULD WE TALK TO ALIENS?
If one day we discovered an extraterrestrial civilization
equal to or more advanced than us, could we communicate with them?
Could we understand what they say, or could they understand us?
Throughout history, various science fiction writers have tried to capture
how difficult it would be to establish contact with extraterrestrials;
among some of those works, we can find the 2016 film "Arrival" in which the story of how
an extraterrestrial civilization arrives on earth with spaceships to try to establish communication
with humans in a peaceful way is narrated. In this film, the protagonist Louise Banks
who is a well-known linguist, is in charge of trying to understand the way of communication
of these strange octopod beings. Another film that shows this is Avatar;
in this film, James Cameron developed the Navi language, which is spoken by
the blue aliens who star in the film. The exciting thing is that James Cameron
developed this language with the help of professional linguists
who are based on the same way in which languages have developed in the history of humanity,
and this is something that has been done on several occasions in the world of science fiction.
As seen in the language of Namekusei from Dragon Ball Z, the Klingon from Star Treck, the
Barsoomiano from the "Adventures of John Carter on Mars," or the range of different extraterrestrial
languages that were developed for Star Wars. The problem with all these fictional languages
is that they are based on human language; that is, they start from the assumption
that aliens could also communicate in the same way as us, which is unlikely.
In the movie "Arrival," the aliens had no mouth and vocal cords; therefore, they could not emit
sounds, and if they did not emit sounds, do not need ears and therefore were also deaf;
the only way to communicate with these aliens was through sight through a
language that is nothing like what we know. But, even so, this film is very optimistic
since it is assumed that aliens could communicate through symbols,
and most likely, it will not be so. THE BARRIER OF THE SENSES
We, humans, have several senses: touch, hearing, sight, smell,
and taste; although this is the most popular idea, we do not have only five senses; we have about 27.
However, not all animals on this planet have the same senses, as the senses develop depending on
the environment in which the animal lives. Humans develop on the earth's surface under
inclement weather, where the sun allows us to see during the day and the air allows us to hear,
so it makes sense to develop eyes, ears, and legs. A fish that lives in the deep darkness of
the ocean does not need feet nor eyes since it will never use them,
a bat can see, but its most developed sense is the ear,
a dog can smell anything in several miles, pigeons can feel the magnetic field of the earth,
bees can see ultraviolet light and snakes the infrared.
Each animal has developed different senses that depend on where it lives; if this is a pattern
that is repeated in all living beings in the universe, it would mean that it is most likely
that aliens would not have the same senses as us. If aliens live on a planet where sound does
not propagate in the same way as on earth, they will not develop ears or vocal cords;
if they live in perpetual darkness, they will probably have no eyes and would communicate
through other things such as radio waves or chemicals released by their body just like ants.
Knowing what senses they would use to communicate would be the first barrier to overcome,
and this is just beginning to get complicated. LANGUAGE OR IDIOM
When talking about extraterrestrial languages, the terms Language, Idiom,
and Dialect are usually used as if they were synonyms, and this is not the case.
Language is the means of communication of those who use oral expressions,
writings, sounds, and gestures that have a meaning that we have attributed to them.
That is to say that language is not exclusive to humans
since bees also have a language in which they communicate using hums and dances in the air,
and dolphins have a language in which they use sonars in the water.
Each animal species has its language, and within that language, different groups are divided,
which is what we know as Idioms, and from those languages, the dialects arise.
That is to say that if there were an extraterrestrial civilization with which
we could communicate, the first barrier to overcome would be the senses; if it is not a
species that descends from primates like us, it will be pretty challenging to understand them.
Since they are not primates, they will not communicate using the tongue as we do;
maybe they communicate with buzzes like bees, with colors like octopuses, or with
aromatic chemicals released from their body like ants, but there is no way to know.
Once we overcome this barrier, the language barrier would follow; once we understand what
senses aliens communicate with, the next step would be to try to decipher their language,
which means every sound they produce, every gesture they make, and every color they emit.
This is the hardest part; just think about it. The human race shares this humble planet with
millions of living beings, and to date, we have only been able to understand
100% the language of a single species, our own. Although we have been able to train chimpanzees
to communicate with sign language, we cannot say that we understand them 100%. However,
if we have come close enough, it is understandable since they are primates just like us; that is to
say, we share certain genetic traits that make it easier for us to understand them.
But if we go to other animals, the thing gets complicated;
for example, whales communicate through sonars that spread in the water,
and although we have known their language for years, so far, we have only been able to find
out that each group of whales have their language. However, though we have heard their singing for
decades, we still do not know what they say. Without going too far, the dogs and cats we live
with daily have their language, and although they can be trained to obey some orders,
we do not fully understand the language of dogs or cats; we do not have a dictionary that tells
us what each bark or each meow means. If it's that complicated to understand
the animals on our planet that have a relatively simple language, now imagine
an extraterrestrial civilization that we don't even know what senses they use to communicate.
It would be quite a challenge, and it would probably take us decades of
study to try to understand their language, which like ours, would be pretty complex.
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MATHEMATICS, THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSE In the 70s, NASA launched into space some very
famous ships, the Voyager, whose primary objective was to study the farthest planets of the solar
system. These also had a second mission: when they finished their journey through the planets,
they would be sent to the ends of the solar system in search of extraterrestrial life.
On board to each probe was placed a gold disc that had engraved instructions on how to find the land
and recorded images and sounds of all cultures and languages of our civilization.
However, it is currently thought that these gold discs will not serve much,
since if one-day civilization finds them, there are no guarantees that they can interpret them
because if they do not have the same senses, they will not understand the instructions and they will
not be able to see or hear what the disc has. In the book "The Broca Brain," Carl Sagan
mentions that if one day we were to find an extraterrestrial civilization minimally advanced
or at least as advanced as us, regardless of what animal they descend or what senses they have,
there is a high probability that we will be able to contact them
and communicate with them thanks to technology. Consider that an extraterrestrial race,
regardless of their senses or language, as they develop and become an advanced civilization,
eventually the need to communicate long distances will lead them to develop telecommunications
technology based on radio waves. Even though we humans,
a relatively young race, in a short time developed telecommunications technology around the world,
an extraterrestrial race could develop the same technology or even be more advanced.
If we contemplate this scenario in which both civilizations have similar technologies,
we would have a common language, the technology of radio waves; this is the same with which
television signals or Wi-Fi signals are sent. It would only be enough to try to communicate
in the same language, but what would this language be?
Many scientists have said that this language would be mathematics since regardless of the type of
aliens we encounter, just as we use mathematics to develop our technology, they would too.
Mathematics is the language by which the universe is manifested.
One way to detect an extraterrestrial race would be precise, receiving a
signal that hasn't common in the universe. On November 28, 1967, the scientist Jocelyn Bell
discovered an extraordinary signal that came from a very distant place in the observable universe;
this signal seemed to be repeated repeatedly as if it were a cosmic lighthouse in morse key.
At first, the scientific community thought that we had finally found an unmistakable signal of
extraterrestrial life, a signal coming from an intelligent race that knew the numbers
and was sending us an alert that said, Hey, here we are! A beacon of hope in the eternal cosmic
void finally told us that we were not alone. But that enthusiasm did not last long,
since when analyzing the signal, the astronomers discovered that it was a Pulsar,
a pulsar is a neutron star that rotates on its axis at an extraordinary speed, and in the
process, the jets of energy from its poles change position sending repetitive and constant signals.
Sadly these signals do not come from aliens but a natural events.
Given this, scientists believe that a civilization that wanted to communicate with us
would not send such a simple signal but would be something more complex but easy to decipher, this
could be a numerical sequence that does not exist naturally in the universe, but that is evident.
For example, a sequence from 1 to 100 of all prime numbers, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and so on until
you reach 100 and start again. This sequence does not occur naturally in
the universe; it is complex but, at the same time, easy to detect for an intelligent race like ours.
To find a numerical sequence of this type or even more complex would mean an
unmistakable sign of intelligent life. If we apply this to a language,
an extraterrestrial race that wanted to communicate with us would first try mathematics;
if we can understand each other, we would move on to the definitive method.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE This would not be enough
even if we were to establish proper communication using mathematics. Eventually, we would have to
find a way to understand each other; this is where our technology would intervene again.
We cannot decipher a language in such a short time, but perhaps the artificial
intelligence that we have developed yes. Currently, artificial intelligence can learn;
if we use them to decipher an extraterrestrial language,
surely the process will accelerate a lot. This would not be limited to us since, if an
extraterrestrial race is intelligent enough to develop telecommunications technology,
they will probably have also developed their artificial intelligence.
In this way, each species would use its artificial intelligence
to understand the language of the other and thus accelerate the communication process
until we both agree on which language to use. As you can see, talking to aliens would
not be easy. We would have to
overcome the barrier of the senses. The barrier of language, the use of mathematics as a common
language, and artificial intelligence to establish the first interstellar dialogues.
Of course, this does not have to be so, aliens may not be so different from us, or they may
be so different that the concepts of language, Idiom, or mathematics do not even apply to them.
What do you think? Would our technology and knowledge
be enough to communicate with an alien race? Let us know your opinion with your valuable comment.