Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.
After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...
Perhaps my favorite science-based alien movie of all time is “Arrival”.
The concepts in it, that the Heptapods don’t experience time as we do, that their spoken and written language appears unrelated, and that they are borderline incomprehensible to Humans; make the whole situation and resolution so gripping that it’s difficult to get out of my head.
Of COURSE they thought through the ramifications of learning to communicate with total aliens – in particular aliens who are working to help us understand them, as some of the characters in the movie are working to understand them.
The article below also raises interesting issues and is thought-provoking. What provoked me was the monumental hubris of the author – obviously from Harvard – when they write “…humans…are instead likely ‘somewhere in the middle of the distribution of intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy’” – WHEW! Placing ourselves firmly in the middle. We’ve been to our closest satellite a few times during a contest between two nation states that each believe they are the pinnacle of political evolution; and a science community must be absolutely NOTHING less than middlin’; and we have a consistently crewed space station that is unlikely to be noticeable to aliens able to travel multiple dozens of light-years (whether at or near the speed of light, or using a technology that might as well be magic because our physics has no clue that it might exist because we’ve got all the science of physics is settled – to get here faster.
Fortunately, the author of the article is confident that we “might need our own AI systems to assist us in interpreting their AI systems.” (Doesn’t seem to be a clear answer yet whether we even HAVE a true AI that would be able to travel through space on its own…)
Another point, “One potential challenge to communicating with extraterrestrials is the possibility that such beings may not possess a conceptual system similar to our own…” As they would be the ones parked in orbit over Earth; and they’re the ones who traveled light years and found us, shouldn’t the sentence read, “One potential challenge to communicating with extraterrestrials is the possibility that we may not possess a conceptual system similar to these star travelers.”
Once again, we make assumptions from a “Terra-centric” POV. In fact, we’re even taking an “Amero-centric” POV. The Harvard professor assumes that Americans will have a place in the First Contact. Even in “Arrival”, we were neither the ONLY contact, nor were we the most successful…The Chinese in fact, did better than we did…
I DO agree with one thing they wrote, “…I think it’s actually non-intelligent on behalf of the scientific community not to engage with a search (for ET).”
Of course, this article doesn’t really discuss HOW we would attempt to communicate with an alien being/AI in orbit around Earth.
After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...
Perhaps my favorite science-based alien movie of all time is “Arrival”.
The concepts in it, that the Heptapods don’t experience time as we do, that their spoken and written language appears unrelated, and that they are borderline incomprehensible to Humans; make the whole situation and resolution so gripping that it’s difficult to get out of my head.
Of COURSE they thought through the ramifications of learning to communicate with total aliens – in particular aliens who are working to help us understand them, as some of the characters in the movie are working to understand them.
The article below also raises interesting issues and is thought-provoking. What provoked me was the monumental hubris of the author – obviously from Harvard – when they write “…humans…are instead likely ‘somewhere in the middle of the distribution of intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy’” – WHEW! Placing ourselves firmly in the middle. We’ve been to our closest satellite a few times during a contest between two nation states that each believe they are the pinnacle of political evolution; and a science community must be absolutely NOTHING less than middlin’; and we have a consistently crewed space station that is unlikely to be noticeable to aliens able to travel multiple dozens of light-years (whether at or near the speed of light, or using a technology that might as well be magic because our physics has no clue that it might exist because we’ve got all the science of physics is settled – to get here faster.
Fortunately, the author of the article is confident that we “might need our own AI systems to assist us in interpreting their AI systems.” (Doesn’t seem to be a clear answer yet whether we even HAVE a true AI that would be able to travel through space on its own…)
Another point, “One potential challenge to communicating with extraterrestrials is the possibility that such beings may not possess a conceptual system similar to our own…” As they would be the ones parked in orbit over Earth; and they’re the ones who traveled light years and found us, shouldn’t the sentence read, “One potential challenge to communicating with extraterrestrials is the possibility that we may not possess a conceptual system similar to these star travelers.”
Once again, we make assumptions from a “Terra-centric” POV. In fact, we’re even taking an “Amero-centric” POV. The Harvard professor assumes that Americans will have a place in the First Contact. Even in “Arrival”, we were neither the ONLY contact, nor were we the most successful…The Chinese in fact, did better than we did…
I DO agree with one thing they wrote, “…I think it’s actually non-intelligent on behalf of the scientific community not to engage with a search (for ET).”
Of course, this article doesn’t really discuss HOW we would attempt to communicate with an alien being/AI in orbit around Earth.
We MIGHT assume that they have had far more experience with contacting non-Them civilizations. There may be protocol that they worked out long ago before leaving their home system and have successfully employed in the vastness of the universe. So, if WE go or if THEY arrive, what might that protocol look like? Here are some of my thoughts:
1) Do NOT assume that we know what we’re doing. Acting like we know what we’re doing could have two effects, both disastrous. The first is that they assume we know what we’re doing – and then act as if we’re the “wise ones” and have some kind of leg up on the whole communicating with intelligences we have nothing in common with except for being some sort of “alive”. I can see that easily blowing up in our faces! The second would be that they catch us in a lie and just leave; OTOH (or flipper or tentacle…) lying may be a virtue for them and they will be massively impressed by our skill at creating believable falsehoods. Reference the movie “Galaxy Quest” to see the near-disaster that that situation might devolve to.
2) Do something, but be clear that we don’t know what we’re doing. It may all come to naught, but it MIGHT inspire the two intelligences to face the music…together; both working hard to create some framework of communication out of nothing. I have a short story in which sapients descended from armadillo/pill bug-like animals; “system non-integrated colonial arthropod’. A monstrous pill bug holding the leashes of smaller pill bugs of various sizes. Some of them have leashes on each other, but not all of them.” How could we possibly find anything that would provide a foundation for cooperation?
3) Of course, they might communicate musically, the way they did in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Then we hire musicians, but them together, and see what they can come up with. I still have NO idea why the aliens in that movie even bothered with Humanity. They were technologically so far beyond us that…well, I probably have a better chance of talking to my CAT than we would have communicating with them.
4) Some say that “sapience” is what defines our ability to communicate. Sapience is the ability to think and comprehend the world in an bigger way – like “I’m here and there are people in Ukraine no different than I am.” A sapient would also possess a bigger sense of self-awareness than being able to say, “Well, here I am.” It’s the ability to say, “I am in this place. What’s my relationship to the other stuff here?” gives it a sense that it is larger than its physical self. Sapient would also make things as complicated as it could! It would also be able to figure stuff in the abstract – something like, “I’m alive. That tree is alive.” How do you get from a Human being alive to a tree being alive? They’re nothing alive, yet every child can tell the difference between a living plant and a plastic plant. Categorizing and making inferences sets intelligent beings apart from most machines, vegetation and wildlife.
5) The possibility of making a conscious self-sacrifice would also, it seems to me, to be something that sets us apart from the stuff on Earth that isn’t sapient…
This has proven so interesting, I think I’ll be back with another set of thoughts in two or three weeks!
Resource: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/how-to-talk-to-extraterrestrials/?fbclid=IwAR1BRUSDbuk3ZNvlJ-n6uibY_nMP3HAzGIFuuXlWt8Hsg-pzDzWpUk0NCmM, https://www.dataversity.net/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-trends-in-2022/, https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/AlienIntelligence.html
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg
Guy Stewart is a husband supporting his wife who is a multi-year breast cancer survivor; a father, father-in-law, grandfather, foster father, friend, writer, and recently retired teacher and school counselor who maintains a writing blog by the name of POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS ( https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/) where he showcases his opinion and offers his writing up for comment. He has 72 stories, articles, reviews, and one musical script to his credit, and the list still includes one book! He also maintains GUY'S GOTTA TALK ABOUT BREAST CANCER & ALZHEIMER'S, where he shares his thoughts and translates research papers into everyday language. In his spare time, he herds cats and a rescued dog, helps keep a house, and loves to bike, walk, and camp. He thinks out loud in print at: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/
4) Some say that “sapience” is what defines our ability to communicate. Sapience is the ability to think and comprehend the world in an bigger way – like “I’m here and there are people in Ukraine no different than I am.” A sapient would also possess a bigger sense of self-awareness than being able to say, “Well, here I am.” It’s the ability to say, “I am in this place. What’s my relationship to the other stuff here?” gives it a sense that it is larger than its physical self. Sapient would also make things as complicated as it could! It would also be able to figure stuff in the abstract – something like, “I’m alive. That tree is alive.” How do you get from a Human being alive to a tree being alive? They’re nothing alive, yet every child can tell the difference between a living plant and a plastic plant. Categorizing and making inferences sets intelligent beings apart from most machines, vegetation and wildlife.
5) The possibility of making a conscious self-sacrifice would also, it seems to me, to be something that sets us apart from the stuff on Earth that isn’t sapient…
This has proven so interesting, I think I’ll be back with another set of thoughts in two or three weeks!
Resource: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/how-to-talk-to-extraterrestrials/?fbclid=IwAR1BRUSDbuk3ZNvlJ-n6uibY_nMP3HAzGIFuuXlWt8Hsg-pzDzWpUk0NCmM, https://www.dataversity.net/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-trends-in-2022/, https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/AlienIntelligence.html
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg
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