Sip Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 Looks like the topic got some interest in another thread so why not have a separate thread for it? It seems to me that the "language" section may be the best place for it. So the basic premise that I subscribe to is this ... communication is the transfer of information. In order to communicate, first there must be an established representation of information. A binary bit (we represent it as 0 and 1 but any other scheme may also be valid) is the fundamental building block for representing information. Nothing "smaller" can contain any useful information. On the other extreme, we can have a continuous range (such as an analog signal) that can have infinitely many "values" (even between a logical 0 and 1). But whatever the basis for representation, you either have continuous "entities" or discrete entities or a combination of the two to represent information. The point I am trying to get at, is that I don't care what planet aliens evolve on (yes, the original topic started with alien communication), how they chose to do it, whether they use smells, hand gestures, sound, RF, Infrared, or colorful balls to communicate, they most likely do it through the use of an established information representation. Note that all languages on earth (that I know of) rely on the use of ordered sets of discrete symbols for communication (letters used to form words then used to form sentences, paragraphs, etc). But we also communicate through color, sound pitch, and gestures, some of which are continuous "entities". So now one question which I can pose here is this ... did the languages on earth evolve the way they have by chance or is there something fundamentally universal about the way we communicate through the use of words and sentences? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sasun Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 (edited) Interesting stuff. One question though: ...that can have infinitely many "values" (even between a logical 0 and 1). How can this be? Is there anything else logical than 0 and 1? Edited September 21, 2003 by Sasun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO123 Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 (edited) I do think there is some sort of universality... in order to evolve, we must be able to have an advanced communication way... and I do believe that the 5 senses we pocess, the one that could cary the most amount of informations, and the easiest way, is by a variation of sound frequencies and tones... the advantages with the "talking ability" is that we can produce "sounds" by mouth and then be able to recieve it by our ears without having to fix the trasmitter... something that would be not the cases with the eyes, since eyes would see only when you turn to the direction where the transimition(visual one) is send. Another thing is that, vision was the last sense that appeared during animal evolution, it it is probably what would happen in any natural selections anywhere else in the Universe, and being such the communication of choice and most practicle would be by means of sounds... that would have time to evolve. After acquiring the capability of communication, we must be able to communicate to evolve, and more you evolve more you do need to organise your thought, and without language it is impossible, language is our OS, it is from language that you organise our life. So any evolved species would have to have a similair organised and sofisticated way.(of course it is my belief). Edited September 21, 2003 by Fadix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominO123 Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 Interesting stuff. One question though: How can this be? Is there anything else logical than 0 and 1? I made the exact same constatation... between 0 and 1, I mean, once you introduce fractions between it, than, could you still consider 1 as 1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted September 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 Not sure what your question is asking Sasun but maybe it stems from my careless use of the word logical there. I actually meant numerical 0 and 1. We use the '0' and '1' symbols (numbers) to represent the logical '0' and '1'. In a circuit, that may be implemented using high and low voltages. When communicating with light, that could be the presence or absence of photons. But there is a clear distintion between the "logical" 1/0 (true/false on/off presense/absence of something) and the symbols we use to represent that information. The traditional way is to use the arabic numbers but that doesn't have to be. But we shouldn't confuse the two. So now with the "real numbers" 0 and 1, there can definitely be an infinite number of values between those two (fractions). If you want, you could choose 0.000012342 to represent the "logical 1" and 0.2443222 to represent "logical 0" if that would suite your needs better Sorry about the confusion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sasun Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 Not sure what your question is asking Sasun but maybe it stems from my careless use of the word logical there. I actually meant numerical 0 and 1. We use the '0' and '1' symbols (numbers) to represent the logical '0' and '1'. In a circuit, that may be implemented using high and low voltages. When communicating with light, that could be the presence or absence of photons. But there is a clear distintion between the "logical" 1/0 (true/false on/off presense/absence of something) and the symbols we use to represent that information. The traditional way is to use the arabic numbers but that doesn't have to be. But we shouldn't confuse the two. So now with the "real numbers" 0 and 1, there can definitely be an infinite number of values between those two (fractions). If you want, you could choose 0.000012342 to represent the "logical 1" and 0.2443222 to represent "logical 0" if that would suite your needs better Sorry about the confusion. O no problem, I see what you mean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted September 21, 2003 Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 So now one question which I can pose here is this ... did the languages on earth evolve the way they have by chance or is there something fundamentally universal about the way we communicate through the use of words and sentences? I don't think we can ever know for sure until we meet aliens It's difficult imagining things differently, isn't it? Like how would aliens be able to communicate without words and sentences. In a lot of sci-fi movies you see them communicating through telepathy, but even here they seem to be using words and sentences -- I know, sci-fi movies are made by man, but this just shows again how difficult it is for us to imagine evolved communication without words and sentences and a logical pattern. Interesting topic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted September 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2003 I know some people dismiss Star Trek as yet another sci fi creation but they actually deal a lot with issues like this! I am much more familiar with the next generation series though ... Anyway, one of the episodes which particularly comes to mind dealt with aliens that communicated through strange references to their past history. I believe the episode was called Darmak. They would say things like: "Shaka, when the walls fell.""Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.""Mirab, his sails unfurled!" and only with things like that! Throughout he whole story the captain of the ship was stranded at a planet with one of these guys and they had to figure out a way to communicte. Just to put things in perspective, that kind of language would be like for us to start saying things like: "Romeo and Juliet""Noah when the clowd came""Judas and Jesus" ... With a quick search on the web, found this site with a lot more info about that episode: http://www.chaparraltree.com/sflang/darmok.shtml I personally found the thinking behind the creation of the episode very fascinating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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