2016.12.10 13:00 - Communicating with Alien Life Forms

The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray.

Qt Core: Hi Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: Just came from Aphrodite's party.
Bruce Mowbray: We were all invited to bring instruments and play for the gathering....
Qt Core: Oh, i was wondering if you still were in thanksgiving mood ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Ha ha. Hardly.

--BELL—

Qt Core: painful memories of schooldays (music education and playing an instrument usually a flute is mandatory)
Bruce Mowbray: Really?
Bruce Mowbray: So sad.
Qt Core: i was so bad my teacher found a way to let me only do music history papers ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: I was forced to play piano from age 5 to age 16, when I rebelled.
Qt Core: i was so bad that when i practiced at home, behind not one but two closed doors my sister cried
Bruce Mowbray: I tried to play piano as an adult . . . but that brought out my demons, so I stopped.
Qt Core: nut luckily i still like music
Bruce Mowbray: I feel it was a form of child abuse - torture, even - and that it should never be done to a kid, no matter how "talented."
Bruce Mowbray: I love music.
Bruce Mowbray: I especially love the music that I was forced to play as a child, but I no longer play it muyself.
Qt Core: (one of the few things that can crack and penetrate my shells easily, even too easily)
Bruce Mowbray: myself.
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Bruce Mowbray: My mother thought that forcing me to play the piano would calm me down...
Bruce Mowbray: I had kinetic hyperactivity disorder.
Qt Core: maybe a drum set then ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: At one point, she actually tied my ankles to the chair in front of the piano....
Bruce Mowbray: Child abuse.
Bruce Mowbray: The choice of drums or piano was never mine to make.
Bruce Mowbray: neither was the choice of piano music.
Bruce Mowbray: Igt had to be classical... which I came to enjoy very much, actually.
Bruce Mowbray: One of those in attendance at Aph's party today actually played some of the pieces I had played as a child.
Bruce Mowbray: (THAT was not one of them.)
Bruce Mowbray: Have you made a sign on the circle of stones yet, Qt?
Qt Core: no
Bruce Mowbray: Aph sends you hugs.
Qt Core: nice, thank her
Bruce Mowbray: It was a good challenge for me to come up with what I cherish most.
Bruce Mowbray: I', a firm believer in a substrate of "order" underlying the visible layers ...
Bruce Mowbray: Were it not so, --- or perhaps a template of sorts WITHIN the visible layers -- then we would not find symmetry in so many places and varieties.
Bruce Mowbray: I feel that symmetry had much to do with our becoming "human," actually.

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: For my "sign," I chose "rotational symmetry."
Bruce Mowbray: and the sign itself is a blue lotus.
Bruce Mowbray: Did you see the movie "Arrival"?
Qt Core: no, i may have missed it (don’t know if it even is/was out in Italy
Bruce Mowbray: Well, the aliens used a form of rotational symmetry in their writing...
Bruce Mowbray: or, at least in their communicating... not sure if that was writing" or not.
Bruce Mowbray: I downloaded it through The Pirate Bay and watched it at home.
Qt Core: i went yesterday to see fantastic animals and where to find them huge harry potter fans in this house ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: GREAT!
Bruce Mowbray: I watched that one too!
Qt Core: i went with my sister that loved it
Bruce Mowbray: Eddie Redmayne is one of my favorite actors.
Bruce Mowbray: The circles with ink-blot sorts of things around the circumference are the language that the aliens used in Arrival.
Qt Core: i think he acted Newt as if having some borderline autistic traits
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.google.com/search?q=Arrival+movie+images&safe=off&tbm=isch&imgil=qjbzqMPKAyiYfM%253A%253BIxGiWYp_Lx8lKM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fqz.com%25252F761363%25252Ffinally-a-hollywood-sci-fi-alien-movie-with-a-linguist-as-the-hero%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=qjbzqMPKAyiYfM%253A%252CIxGiWYp_Lx8lKM%252C_&usg=__-YB0gYpEOfA3CP0GtZvLNq0Xh1s%3D&biw=479&bih=402&dpr=1.3&ved=0ahUKEwiWhpuBy-rQAhXCiFQKHTFCAkkQyjcINw&ei=x3VMWNaGDMKR0gKxhInIBA#imgrc=yovCzQlOICAgKM%3A
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.texasufosightings.com/uploads/3/6/8/5/3685871/2_13_orig.png
Qt Core: it does not seem to be a practical way of writing
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: The audio on my download was very poor,
Bruce Mowbray: so I didn't understand a lot.
Bruce Mowbray: But I thought those circles might convey far more than just nouns and verbs, or other parts of speech.
Bruce Mowbray: I thought they might communicate moods and a whole range of time and context besides just one sentence in our own languages does
Bruce Mowbray: We are SOOO limited by language
Qt Core: but without it, it would be even worse
Bruce Mowbray nods.

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: We communicate a lot through body language, nuance, metaphor...
Bruce Mowbray: But the aliens in “Arrival” were communicating far more than that, it seemed.
Qt Core: one of the classic sayings of IT says that in whichever passage, from client to analyst or from analyst to programmer only 49% is said and only 49% is understood...
Bruce Mowbray: I liked the musical notes in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind....”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JL0xABlrQ

Qt Core: some use 51% (and make it even sadder
Bruce Mowbray: If I were writing a "language" for aliens, it would be something like music....
Bruce Mowbray: very very simple music.
Bruce Mowbray: To begin our conversation.
Bruce Mowbray: then we could build upon that.
Qt Core: mmm, i doubt it, i would use something more permanent
Bruce Mowbray: For example?
Bruce Mowbray: like writing?
Bruce Mowbray: or pictographs?
Qt Core: yes, something that can be "watched" in its original form for some time
Bruce Mowbray: Ahhh!
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, my musical tones would assume a lot...
Bruce Mowbray: ability to record and replay, for one.
Qt Core: maybe something on the line of braille? dots
Bruce Mowbray: OK, sounds good.
Bruce Mowbray: But wouldn't you also need some dictionary to decode those symbols?
Bruce Mowbray: Some mathematical arrangements of dots might be good.
Bruce Mowbray: using various sequences, perhaps.
Qt Core: there is the "classic" let’s start with some math, but then how to pass from math to emotions ?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, a challenge.
Bruce Mowbray: Perhaps you could have the dots be animated to indicate emotions. . . .
Bruce Mowbray: Moving around one way for one emotion and another way for another emotion.
Qt Core: the dots accompanied with pics as a dictionary, but then you have to know which (if any) wavelengths the aliens can see
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, one would almost need to know their evolutionary path.
Bruce Mowbray: We are so limited (compared to other animals, for example) in what we can perceive and do.
Qt Core: easy solutions, the aliens coming here have "obviously" more advanced tech/science and they just learn our languages ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Our senses have evolved very specifically for the conditions of our environment.
Bruce Mowbray: We can hope (or not?) that their advanced technology would also enable them to understand us better.
Bruce Mowbray: perhaps better than we understand ourselves.
Bruce Mowbray: maybe even telepathic senses?
Qt Core: that would be even harder as the thought process would be even more alien,
Bruce Mowbray: I have a book that contains all of the data included in the Voyager I spacecraft....
Bruce Mowbray: all of the languages, music, speaking, etc.
Bruce Mowbray: images...
Bruce Mowbray: It would be an incredibly challenging project.
Bruce Mowbray: so many things to take into consideration.
Bruce Mowbray: range of audible sounds, range of visible light, wave patterns, etc.
Qt Core: i often imagined an alien species finding it, discovering everything about it with reverse engineering the spacecraft and then discovering the golden disc and laughing at us for out naivety
Bruce Mowbray: and the forms that alien life might take....
Bruce Mowbray: I would think it could be humorous to them!
Bruce Mowbray: and that they might not give it any more attention than we would give an insect.
Bruce Mowbray: Alas.
Bruce Mowbray: Time for me to scrape up dinner.
Qt Core: bye, enjoy
Bruce Mowbray: Bye for now.
Bruce Mowbray: Have a fine weekend.
Qt Core: ty