So often in literature, on radio, and in the movies we have
depicted an encounter between people of earth and alien species.
In some cases these encounters happen here on earth, and in
other cases these encounters happen as humankind explores space.
In most of these situations, with some notable horror film
exceptions, we manage to find a way to communicate with these
aliens or else they find a way to communicate with us. Yet,
should we really expect to be able to communicate with an alien
species?
In reality mankind has been very poor at developing the
ability to communicate with highly intelligent life forms.
There are a number of examples of just how poor we really are at
this sort of thing. Dolphins are highly intelligent and far
from being truly alien. We have cohabitated on earth for
millennia and even share a lot of genetic material. However, we
still are unable to really communicate. Of course we can make
certain things known to them and they can make certain things
known to us. Still, communication on an intellectual level is
largely non-existent.
In regard to the great ape family we have done slightly
better, but not by much. Within the great ape family there are
life forms that share almost 99.5% of our genetic material.
Clearly these creatures are far from alien but we still have
almost no intellectual communication with them. This has only
recently improved when attempts at verbal communication have
been abandoned in favor of various forms of sign language.
Would we do better as explorers of the galaxy happening
upon a planet teaming with alien life?
It is likely that the seriousness of our attempts at
communication is driven by our perception of the relative
intelligence of the species with which we might attempt an
interchange. In the case of Dolphins or great apes our
perception of the possibilities of communication may be driven
by our recognition of their lack of creating artificial things
(buildings, tools, writing, art, etc.). We perceive that
Dolphins don’t really create anything and therefore we do not
expect to be able to communicate about abstract concepts with
them (love, joy, peace, patience, war, truth, mathematics,
etc.).
In regard to great apes we have only recently recognized
that there are members of this community that make and use
rudimentary tools and teach the use of these tools to successive
generations. Yet we are surprised when a member of this
community mourns the loss of a pet kitty, or a young member of
this community picks up sign language by simple exposure to it
in its surroundings without being “taught” in a more traditional
way. In such a situation the great ape youngster learned
language much as human toddlers learn to understand and use
language.
If human beings traveled to a planet teaming with life
would we recognize and be able to communicate with our
intellectual equals or superiors? Would we even recognize a
high level of intelligence and communication within an alien
context? What if intelligent communication on an alien world is
done solely by smell? Perhaps we can postulate such an alien
life form and consider how we might deal with it.
Let’s assume an alien life form both emits and receives
smells in much the same way we emit and receive sound waves.
For the sake of argument let’s also assume the alien life form
also builds buildings, makes tools, produces art, and clearly
manages to teach things to successive generations of its own
kind. At the same time we discover that these alien beings seem
to be relatively oblivious to sound and also do not produce any
sound based form of communication. We also see no indications
of any form of sign language. To make matters even worse the
aliens “see” through the use of reflected electromagnetic pulses
that they emit. These reflections are picked up by sensory
organs distributed all over their body and “pictures” of their
surrounding are formed in much the same way as we use synthetic
aperture radar. The end result being that the aliens don’t
appear to have any eyes at all. Also, because of the
frequencies used by their visual system, they see us about as
well as we see the glass in a window (i.e., they essentially
look right through us).
So now we have a truly “alien” alien as opposed to the
garden variety of alien in most science fiction that is nothing
more than a human being with the “forehead bump of the week.”
We have what is clearly a highly intelligent life form right in
front of us and we find ourselves at a complete loss in how we
can go about establishing communication with them. In fact,
they seldom even notice us unless they bump into us which
appears to confuse them greatly. This leads to what passes for
an alien tabloid story about troublesome ghosts that the aliens
keep “feeling.”
We have zero common ground except for the fact that the
aliens exist and we exist. Of course there is a lot of doubt
that we exist as far as the aliens are concerned because they
can’t even see us.
Let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and assume we
are smart enough to figure out a few things. For example, we
determine the alien’s bodies have a high metallic content and we
pick up their radar emissions. Putting two and two together, we
finally realize they “see” by radar. So, brilliant thinkers
that we are, we wrap ourselves up in tin foil like a baked
potato and viola the aliens “see” us. Of course that scares
them and it’s a long time before we can coax any of them to come
anywhere near us. When we finally get them to approach us they
become convinced we are some kind of brainless dummies. After
all, we don’t “talk” (i.e., smell) their language so we must be
stupid.
Not being the kind to give up easily, we wave our arms and
try to make all kinds of sign language attempts which the aliens
find endlessly amusing. Every time we point to something the
aliens try to smell us the name of what we point at, but we just
never get the hint. We just think they are rather rude about
their body odors and the way they blow the smell in our
direction. In response we try to yell at them to stop but the
aliens feel the way we cause their skin to vibrate is rather
rude as well. To them, skin vibration in the normal voice range
of 300 Hertz to 3000 Hertz “stinks.”
The bottom line here is that humanity has never really
considered how to systematically approach communication with a
truly alien intelligence. If we had we might already be having
some very interesting conversations with our own distant cousins
right here on this planet. The truth is that we just barely
manage to communicate within our own species and more often than
not what we really do is mis-communicate. Even written
communication is seldom totally clear except to the person who
wrote it and sometimes even that is a stretch.
So, are we really ready to talk to aliens? Maybe we will
be when we finally understand how to talk to each other.
