Re: How do extraterrestial languages work ? ? ? ?

From: Herman Rubin (hrubin_at_odds.stat.purdue.edu)
Date: 12/31/04 

Date: 31 Dec 2004 13:02:11 -0500

In article <FmXAd.2461$Cc.1432@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
josephus <dogbird@earthlink.net> wrote:
>In Science Fiction ( versa Fantasy) the "Science" is fiction and not
>scientific at all. Examples of this is FTL and Antigravity ( artifical
>gravity). This requires a suspension of critcal thinking and escapes
>the bounds of earthly boredom.

The "Science" may not agree with our present science, but
once the assumptions are made, they must be followed.
This is the distinction between good science fiction and
fantasy. I have seen bad science fiction because this
was not observed.

>I have spent some time fretting about languages. A truly Alien Language
>would not have any Human antecedents. It would not be understandable by
>definition. For example we can understand Hieroglyphic Text. Even to
>the extent of understanding what is being repersented.
>Before the Rosetta Stone allowed lingusts to remap the symbols, it was
>not an understandable language and we had no key to unlock it.

Before we had the Rosetta Stone, we might well have been able
to read Egyptian numbers. For Neugebauer to recognize that
a Babylonian clay tablet had solutions, in sexagesimal, of the
equation x^2 = y^2 + 1 did not involve knowing any Babylonian.

If an alien came upon an addition table or a multiplication
table, this would be enough to establish the decimal system
and the values of the digits. Find a calendar, and an alien
from just about anywhere would also get the start on our
number system, and more. A slide rule would give considerable
information as well.

The question is, how to proceed from number representation
to anything more? A well-illustrated "Euclid" would give
more, including some words of Greek, but still not much
of a base to build on. But a periodic table would identify
the elements, and a water molecule is the same compound of
two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, with the structure
of the oxygen between, throughout the universe. The laws
of physics and chemistry provide much information. 

-- 
This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558

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