SETI Workshop : Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition
23-24 Mars 2003 - Boulogne
Billancourt - France
March 23-24, 2003 - Boulogne
Billancourt - France
On
March 23-24, 2003, the second in a series of international workshops on
interstellar message design will be held in Paris. The workshop will focus
on two broad themes: first, the interface of art, science, and technology
in interstellar message design; and second, how to communicate concepts of
altruism in interstellar messages. The workshop will focus on messages
that could be transmitted across interstellar space by radio or laser
signals. These communication techniques reflect the methods used by
current observational programs in the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI). A distinguished group of scientists, artists, and scholars from the
humanities will discuss many facets of interstellar communication,
including
The workshop is being sponsored by The SETI Institute; Leonardo
Observatory for the Arts and TechnoSciences; The John Templeton
Foundation; The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and
Technology (ISAST); and The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)
Permanent SETI Study Group.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Jerome H. Barkow, Professor of
Sociology and Sociological Anthropology at Dalhousie University. Dr.
Barkow is a prominent advocate of evolutionary approaches to understanding
human psychology and culture, and he is the lead editor of The Adapted
Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Oxford
University Press). In his address, "Evolution, Altruism, and Ethnocentrism
among Extraterrestrials," Dr. Barkow will examine whether we should expect
intelligence beyond Earth to be altruistic.
Participation in the workshop is by invitation only. Interested
journalists should send inquiries to altruism@seti.org. Limited space will
be available for media to be present on-site, but interviews outside of
the workshop can also be arranged.
Workshop Program Committee
SETI Institute The purpose of the SETI Institute is to conduct scientific research and
educational projects relevant to the nature, prevalence, and distribution
of life in the universe. This mission encompasses over thirty externally
funded projects in astronomy, planetary science, chemical evolution, the
origin of life, biological evolution, cultural evolution, and the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The Institute's Project Phoenix
is the world's most sensitive and comprehensive search for
extraterrestrial intelligence. Phoenix listens for radio signals that are
either being deliberately beamed our way, or are inadvertently transmitted
from another planet. Concurrent with its research focus, the Institute
contributes to public outreach and science education related to
astrobiology and SETI.
A powerful instrument now under development, the Allen Telescope Array
(ATA), is a joint effort by the SETI Institute and the University of
California, Berkeley. Because of its novel construction, the ATA can be
used simultaneously for both SETI and cutting-edge radio astronomy
research. In anticipation of a SETI signal detection, the Institute's
Interstellar Message Group is drafting messages of the sort that might be
transmitted in reply. A non-profit society devoted to research and online publishing in the
field of arts and techno-sciences. Its activities are organized around
four main axes: special projects (Virtual Africa, the Space and the Arts
Project, and the Cultural Groundings of Globalisation); the Pioneers &
Pathbreakers Project, which proposes online documentation (monographs and
notices) on the artists and thinkers of the 20th Century who have been
pioneers in art practice and theory related to techno-sciences; the
Essays, in which seminal texts and new analyses are being published or
republished online; and the Highlights, which provide information and
reviews on new media art, bibliographies, etc.
Leonardo/OLATS is the French-speaking branch of Leonardo/ISAST
(International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology), and as such
benefits from the experience and the knowledge of the journal Leonardo and
its international network and community in the field of space art.
Leonardo has been publishing articles by space artists since 1971.
The mission of The John Templeton Foundation is to pursue insights at
the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded,
and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented
representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using "the
humble approach," the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and
resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and
theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to
healthcare. This approach is inherently interdisciplinary, sensitive to
nuance, and biased in favor of building linkages and connections. In
placing high value on patience and perseverance, a spirit of humility can
open the doors to progress and become a gateway to greater understanding.
The Foundation is promoting the use of the humble approach in part
through its funding of a research project at the SETI Institute entitled
“The Construction of Interstellar Messages Describing the Evolution of
Altruistic Behavior.” This project will identify the key principles of
altruism that can be translated into interstellar messages for
communication with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Leonardo began international publication of its print journal
in 1968, and has continued to focus for more than 30 years on writings by
artists who work with science- and technology-based art media. ISAST Press
was founded in 1982 to further the aims of Leonardo by providing avenues
of communication for artists working in contemporary media. Leonardo/ISAST
continues this work through its print journals, book series, CD series,
web journal, web sites and other activities. For over
thirty years, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) SETI
Permanent Study Group and its forerunner, the IAA SETI Committee, have
provided an international forum for discussion related to the scientific,
technical, and societal dimensions of the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI). Each year, the SETI Permanent Study Group organizes
two sessions of paper presentations at the International Astronautical
Congress. In conjunction with the SETI Institute, the SETI Permanent Study
Group sponsored the first international workshop on interstellar message
construction, held in Toulouse in 2001.
Susan Alexjander
Susan Alexjander is Director of Science & The Arts, which furthers
scientific research into the 'musical' universe of frequency; honors a
holistic, vibrationally connected vision of creation; and supports
outreach through lecturing, writing, and composition. Her CD
Sequencia is internationally known for its pioneering work with
the molecular frequencies of DNA rendered into sound. It has been featured
on CNN, BBC Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, and has been on exhibit at the
Boston Museum of Science, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the
Art Museum of Santa Barbara. It is currently part of a New York City-wide
celebration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA. Alexjander has taught at the university level and is currently an
adjunct faculty member of Union Institute in Sacramento, California and
Goddard College, Vermont. Her compositions have been performed throughout
the United States, including collaborations with dance companies and film.
She holds a Masters degree in Music Composition and Theory from San Jose
State University. Awards include a Fellowship from the Alden B. Dow Creativity Center in
Midland, Michigan, to explore the geometry of the mineral kingdom as
musical data, and a Leighton Studios Residency in Banff, Canada. Works in progress include a CD entitled The Fifth Sun (on the
Logos Series) featuring the sounds of pulsars, elements, and other natural
rhythms. A sound design for film entitled The River – Into Being
will open at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History in April
2003.
Mauro Annunziato
Mauro Annunziato founded the media art-science group Plancton in 1994
with Piero Pierucci, focusing research on the creative and aesthetic
potentials of chaos and artificial life, as well as the relationships
between art and science, mind and society, and communication and
interaction. Through Plancton, Annunziato has disseminated artworks in
international art-science-technology contexts (Imagina ‘00, Siggraph ‘99,
‘00, Imagine ‘00, Generative Art ‘98, ‘99, ‘00, ‘01, ’02, Alife ‘00, Opera
Totale, ‘99, Virtuality ‘00, VIDA ‘01, DART ‘02); presented images,
installations, papers, and art performances; received recognition and
honorary mentions; and promoted an international art movement inspired by
artificial societies and complexity by organizing art-alife workshops and
exhibitions, and by editing special issues of publications. This expressive activity is strongly fused with Annunziato’s scientific
research. Graduated in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Rome in
1984, Annunziato is Director of a research laboratory of ENEA dealing with
artificial intelligence, chaos, neural networks, and artificial life. In
1999, he founded the approach of “evolutionary control” for the on-line
optimization of energy production processes based on artificial life
environments. He has authored about 100 papers, presentations at
conferences and seminars, book chapters, and scientific reports. Based on his scientific and
artistic contributions, in 2000 Annunziato was identified by NASA-JPL
as one of the top 60 artist-scientists selected to make a cultural
contribution to the Mars Millennium project, which has the goal of having
100 humans on Mars by 2030.
Jerome H. Barkow
Jerome H. Barkow is a biosocial anthropologist in the Department of
Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, in Halifax,
Canada. His undergraduate degree (in psychology, 1964) was awarded by CUNY
(Brooklyn College), and his MA (1966) and PhD (1970), both in Human
Development, were granted by the University of Chicago. Barkow has done
ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa and, more recently, in Indonesia,
and has a long-term interest in evolution and human nature. He is the
author of Darwin, Sex, and Status: Biological Approaches to Mind and
Culture (1989), and his co-edited volume (with John Tooby and Leda
Cosmides), The Adapted Mind (1992), helped launch the now
burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology. He is currently editing a
volume, Missing the Revolution: Evolutionary Psychology as the
Infrastructure of Culture and Society. His other major area of
interest has to do with the anthropology of food and with food and
culture.
Eleonora Bilotta
Eleonora Bilotta is Professor of General Psychology in the Arts and
Humanities Faculty at the University of Calabria, Italy. Her current
research interests include intelligent systems in education, the
psychology of programming, the psychology of music, and artificial life
and music. She is co-director of the Evolutionary Systems
Group. Together with Pietro Pantano, she has organized the Artificial
Life Models For Musical Application (ALMMA) workshops. The first of these
was held during the Sixth European Conference on Artificial Life 2001 in
Prague; the second was during the 8th International Conference on the
Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (ALife VIII) at the University
of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Eleonora coordinates the Ph.D.
course in the Psychology of Programming and Artificial
Intelligence.
John B. Campbell
John Campbell has been a professional archaeologist for more than
thirty years, but he has had interests in astronomy and the possibilities
for life elsewhere for nearly fifty years. Now with an expanded range of
disciplines involved in astrobiology and SETI research, he sees an
opportunity for archaeology to contribute. In high school in Pennsylvania
John had hoped to become an astronaut, but instead of Colorado (US Air
Force Academy) he did his first degree at Park College (now Park
University) in Missouri, majoring in anthropology and sociology with
minors in zoology and German. Then it was “up” to the University of Oxford
in England, becoming a member of St. John’s College, and undertaking first
the (Graduate) Diploma in Prehistoric Archaeology, with specialisations in
the Palaeolithic and human biology, and then the D.Phil. (Oxford’s Ph.D.).
Although keen to work with the Leakeys in Africa, his supervisors and
mentors in Britain had convinced him that urgent research was needed on
the British Upper Palaeolithic. John was awarded the D.Phil. in 1972,
after which he took up a Lectureship in Archaeology at the University of
Edinburgh. In 1975 John opted to migrate “downunder” and took up a Senior
Lectureship in Behavioural Sciences (Anthropology) at James Cook
University in Queensland, Australia. In 1986 he was promoted to Associate
Professor of Archaeology. John was twice fully Head of School (1990-1991
Head of the School of Behavioural Sciences; 1997-1999 Head of the School
of Anthropology and Archaeology). He and his partner, Dr. Mireille
Mardaga-Campbell, have carried out archaeological fieldwork together in a
number of parts of the world, and have published various papers both
together and individually. They could have shifted to larger cities and
universities, but they have opted to raise their children in the
comparative safety of tropical Queensland. John’s first book with Oxford
University Press was published in 1977 (The Upper Palaeolithic of
Britain); he is currently under contract for another OUP book (Late
Ice Age Gatherer-hunters of Northern Europe). In 2002 John presented a
paper at the IAU Bioastronomy Symposium, which is currently under
review.
William H. Edmondson
William gained a degree in Physics from the University of Surrey in
1968, and studied AI in Edinburgh before moving to Imperial College London
where he worked for his PhD with Colin Cherry. The doctoral work was on a
new technique for speech training for the deaf. This work led to the PhD
award in Psychology/Electrical Engineering in 1974, and to a life-long
interest in communication with the deaf, as well as in speech
processing. Research funding proved difficult to come by in the 1970s, and when
money dried up for research on classroom communication in schools for the
deaf, William re-trained by doing a MA degree in Theoretical Linguistics
as well as developing a research and teaching interest in Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI). He joined the faculty at the University of Birmingham
in 1986 to research and teach Cognitive Science (linguistics and HCI).
Notably, he was instrumental in the joint organization with the School of
Psychology of a MSc in Cognitive Science - well regarded throughout the
1990s until government funding for studentships was halted. Current research interests
are HCI, Cognitive Modelling and AI, Speech and Sign Language processing,
and Communication studies generally - notably extending to CETI
recently.
Vladimir Ivkovic
Vladimir Ivkovic is a graduate student in Biological Anthropology in
the Faculty of Science of the University of Zagreb, and he is employed as
a researcher by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of
Croatia within the Population Structure of Croatia – Anthropocybernetic
Models research project. He is a guest lecturer at the University of
Zagreb and the Vienna campus of Webster University, as well as a research
associate of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology. Ivkovic is
author or co-author of eleven scientific or professional publications and
has participated in eight international scientific congresses. His primary
research interests are sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, cybernetics,
SETI, and the application of biological research to human space flight.
Ivkovic was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1977. He graduated from the
International Baccalaureate program high school in 1996 and later attended
undergraduate programs at Saint Louis University and Webster University.
As an undergraduate student he conducted research at the Ludwig Boltzmann
Institute for Urban Ethology in Vienna, Austria. He graduated Magna Cum
Laude with a B.A. in psychology (minor in philosophy) from Webster
University in 1999.
Colin Johnson
Colin Johnson is a lecturer in computer science at the University of
Kent in Canterbury, England. He studied mathematics at the University of
York, and prior to working at Kent worked at Napier University in
Edinburgh and the University of Exeter. His main research interests are in
projects which combine mathematical and computational ideas with concepts
and problems from the natural sciences, in particular biology. This work
includes two main aspects. The first of these is projects which take
inspiration from biological ideas such as evolution, the immune system,
and the behaviour of animal swarms and apply these ideas to computational
problems. In particular, recent work has concentrated on the use of "swarm
intelligence" ideas in optimization and the application of nature-inspired
techniques in bioinformatics. His second main area of interest is the
application of computational techniques in biology; in particular, he has
recently been involved in a number of projects which attempt to model
processes inside cells and to understand how these processes can go wrong
in disease.
Alfred Kracher
Alfred Kracher is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of
Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas and a principal
investigator in the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary
Sciences. He is currently involved in research on the chemical composition
of asteroids as well as the establishment of a new graduate degree program
in space and planetary sciences. A native of Vienna, Austria, he holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the
University of Vienna, where he is a guest lecturer in environmental
science. He has previously worked in meteorite research at the Natural
History Museum in Vienna, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, and Iowa
State University. Aside from his primary work on the cosmochemistry of meteorites and
asteroids he is interested in the wider social implications of space
research and the dialogue between science and religion. He has so far
written 11 papers and book chapters in this area, in addition to numerous
technical and scientific papers, conference abstracts, and popular science
contributions to newspapers and magazines.
Ulla Lehtonen
Ulla Lehtonen holds a Master of Theology degree in Comparative Religion
and a Master of Arts degree in History and Philosophy from the University
of Helsinki, Finland, as well as a Master of Studies degree in the History
of Ancient Religions from Oxford University, UK. She is a DPhil student at
Oxford University, UK and teaches Multicultural Studies at the University
of Helsinki. Her research interests lie in the history of ancient
religions (her doctoral thesis discusses cultural identity issues in the
ancient Roman Empire), indigenous religions, historiography and
methodological issues in the study of history, intercultural and
interreligious dialogue, and peace education. Lehtonen’s latest article
(co-authored with Jouko Keski-Säntti, Pauli Sivonen, and Ville Vuolanto),
‘Drum as Map: Western Knowledge System and Northern Indigenous Mapmaking,’
is forthcoming in Imago Mundi, the International Journal for the
History of Cartography. She is also currently working as a Religious
Studies, Philosophy, and Intercultural Education Teacher at the High
School of Kuusamo, Finland.
Dominique Lestel
Dominique Lestel, born in 1961 in Paris, is a philosopher and an
ethologist. He has been an associate professor at Ecole normale supérieure
(ENS), Paris, since 1994, and a founding member of its Department of
Cognitive Sciences. He is also a researcher in the « Laboratoire
d’Eco-anthropologie et d’Ethnobiologie » of the Paris Museum National
d’Histoire Naturelle/ Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (MNHN).
He has been trained in philosophy at the Sorbonne and hold a Ph.D. in
cognitive psychology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
(EHESS) in 1986 – on distributed reasoning with mathematical models in ant
ethology. He has done researches at EHESS, Bull Corporation Artificial
Laboratory, UCSD, Boston University, MIT, ENS and MNHN. He has taught
philosophy and ethology in various universities and research institutes,
including University of Reykjavik (Iceland) and the Gulbenkian Institute
for Biological Sciences at Lisbon (Portugal). His researches are mainly on
evolution and comparative ecology of rationality, philosophy of
human/animal communities, epistemology of ethology and philosophy of art
from an evolutionary perspective. He has four books (« Paroles de
singes : l’Impossible dialogue homme/primate », Paris :La Découverte
(1995), « L’animalité : Essai sur le statut de l’humain », Paris
:Hatier (1996), « Les origines animales de la culture », Paris :
Flammarion (2001), and « Portrait de l’animal comme sujet et comme
personne », Jouy-en-Josas : INRA (2003)), with translations in
various languages. He has also published numerous academic papers in
cognitive sciences, ethology, and philosophy in French or in English.
Hubert Meisinger
Hubert Meisinger is Campus Minister at the Evangelische
Studierenden-/Hochschulgemeinde (ESG) at Darmstadt University of
Technology, as well as Scientific Programme Officer and Co-Editor of the
European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT). He also
is a member of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) and
the newly formed International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR).
Meisinger holds a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Heidelberg,
with an interdisciplinary dissertation Love and Altruism: An
Exegetical Approach towards the Dialogue between Theology and
Science. He received the 1996 ESSSAT Prize for Studies in Science and
Theology for this dissertation. In 1999 he received an award from the
Science and Religion Course Program of the Center for Theology and the
Natural Sciences (CTNS) was given to him, as well as a CTNS European Award
for Teaching in Science and Religion in 2002. Meisinger has a long-term
interest in the dialogue between science, technology, and religion,
focusing especially on cosmology, sociobiology, and theology. He is
currently involved in the publication of two books - one entitled
Visions of Humankind in an Era of Genes and the other one called
Cosmology, Physics and Spirituality.
Richard K. Merritt
Richard K. Merritt is an Assistant Professor in the Art Department of
Luther College, where he teaches computer art, design, and art history.
After completing his B.A. in history at Carleton College, he received his
M.F.A. from the University of Iowa, where he focused on painting,
intermedia/multi-media, and video. His current work is influenced by
robotics, fundamental cryptography, and 3D cellular automata. Merritt has published in such diverse periodicals as Leonardo,
Imaging and Image Processing, and Agora, and he is
currently completing two books: Deep Constructs: The Origins and
History of Immersive Experience and Dances of Survival:
Performance, Music, Ritual and Practice in the Martial Arts of Africans in
the New World. His art has recently been exhibited at the Ninth New
York Digital Salon, held in New York’s Visual Arts Museum, as well as at
the IV2001 DART Digital Art Exhibition in the University of London’s
Brunei Gallery.
Alexander Mihalic
Alexander Mihalic is a composer, a computer programmer, and the creator
of a "live-electronic" instrument. He obtained his Ph.D. in composition in
2000 for his work on the influence and use of extramusical rules and data
on musical composition. All musical compositions of his project
"Encyclopaedia Musicalis" (started in 1992) are based on extramusical data
applied to musical parameters and forms, drawing on such topics as crystal
symmetries, astronomy, and the structure of DNA. He has also applied brain
waves to musical and visual parameters on interdisciplinary projects
involving biofeedback. In 1997 Mihalic constructed the Pedalophone, which
is used by numerous musicians and composers for creating live-electronic
music. Currently he is the Computer Music Department Manager at the
National Center for Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France.
Alexander Ollongren
Alexander Ollongren is Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Computer
Science and Guest Professor of Astronomy at Leiden University in The
Netherlands. His fields of interest include syntax and semantics of formal
languages, functional programming, numerical mathematics, dynamical
astronomy in the galaxy and solar system, and logic. Ollongren became interested many years ago in the formalism of Hans
Freudenthal's Language for Cosmic Intercourse (Lingua Cosmica, or
Lincos), and he first considered reformulating Lincos in
terms of concepts in list processing, itself based on the lambda calculus
in logic. He realised later that too many primitives would be involved and
changed course in 1999 to reformulating Lincos in terms of
constructive logic, at first without induction. This formalism is also
based on the lambda calculus, but in a type-theoretic setting, with a
minimal set of basic concepts. He has used the new system to explain the
logic contents of various kinds of messages constructed for ETI. Ollongren’s more recent work is concerned with the problem of
characterising the philosophical notion of altruism in terms of
constructive logic, using induction. He will report on this in the current
workshop. In addition he is developing methods for self-interpretation of
Lincos enriched with induction.
Pietro Pantano
Pietro Pantano is Professor of Classical Mechanics and Applied
Mathematics in the Engineering Faculty at the University of Calabria,
Italy. His current research interests include non-linear phenomena and
wave propagation theory, complexity, self-organized criticity, artificial
life, and generative and evolutive music. He is Director of the Evolutionary Systems
Group. Together with Eleonora Bilotta, he has organized the Artificial
Life Models For Musical Application (ALMMA) workshops. The first of these
was held during the Sixth European Conference on Artificial Life 2001 in
Prague; the second was during the 8th International Conference on the
Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (ALife VIII) at the University
of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Sonya Rapoport
Sonya Rapoport, an electronic artist since 1976, produces
cross-cultural multi-media artworks, interactive installations, and (since
1994) art work for web viewing. Her computer assisted artworks reflect an ideology of transmutation:
trans-cultural, trans-sexual and trans-genic. She has collaborated in
art/science projects with the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; Anthropology
and Plant & Microbiology Departments at the University of California,
Berkeley; and the Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible in Cordoba,
Spain. Rapoport's cross-cultural multi-disciplinary and interactive
installations have been presented internationally at Sao Paulo, Brazil;
Ars Electronica, Austria; Documenta, Kassel, Germany; the Kuopio Museum,
Finland; ISEA conferences; and traveling exhibitions sponsored by the U.S.
Information Service and the National Endowment for the Arts. Most
recently, she lectured and exhibited her work at the Second International
Art Biennial-Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 1988 Rapoport has created art projects for the Internet, for
which she received a California Arts Council grant for ACEN
Telecommunication. Her artwork references scientific, biblical, and gender
topics. Rapoport serves on the governing board of LEONARDO/ISAST. Her art
critiques appear in their MIT publications. She is a member of the
Community Advisory Committee for the Berkeley Art Museum of the University
of California.
David Rosenboom
David Rosenboom is a composer, performer, conductor, interdisciplinary
artist, author, and educator, known as a pioneer in American experimental
music. He has explored ideas in his work about the spontaneous evolution
of forms, languages for improvisation, new techniques in scoring for
ensembles, cross-cultural collaborations, performance art, computer music
systems, interactive multi-media, compositional algorithms, and extended
musical interface with the human nervous system since the 1960s. Rosenboom
has been Dean of the School of Music and Conductor of the New Century
Players at the California Institute of the Arts since 1990 and was
Co-Director of the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and
Technology from 1990 to 1998. He taught at Mills College from 1979 to
1990, was Professor of Music, Head of the Music Department, Director of
the Center for Contemporary Music, and held the Darius Milhaud Chair from
1987 to 1990. He studied at the University of Illinois, where he was later
awarded the prestigious George A. Miller Professorship and has held
positions in the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the State
University of New York in Buffalo, York University in Toronto, where he
was Professor of Music and Interdisciplinary Studies, and
others.
Sundar Sarukkai
Sundar Sarukkai studied physics and philosophy as a graduate student at
Purdue University. His formal doctoral degree is in particle physics. He
has been a faculty member in the philosophy group at the National
Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore since 1994 and is currently a
Fellow there. He was awarded the Homi Bhaba Fellowship from 1997 – 1999
and was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla from
1999 – 2001. His research interests are in the fields of philosophy of
science, philosophy of mathematics, continental philosophy, phenomenology,
and postmodernism. He is the author of two books: Translating the
World: Science and Language (University Press of America, 2002) and
Philosophy of Symmetry (IIAS Press, to appear).
John Schott
John Schott is the James W. Strong Professor of the Liberal Arts at
Carleton College, where he has directed the Media Studies Program for the
past 20 years. As a graduate student in Art History at the University of
Michigan, he was elected into the Michigan Society of Fellows, which
provided complete support for three years to work on projects of his
choosing. As a fine art photographer, his work was collected by the Museum
of Modern Art and appeared in the landmark exhibition The New
Topographics at George Eastman House. He has received individual
artists grants in photography from the National Endowment for the Arts and
the Minnesota State Arts Board. He has produced two feature documentary
films in association with E. J. Vaughn: America’s Pop Collector is
an examination of the money and politics of the New York art world during
the early ‘70s; DEAL is a behind-the-scenes examination of the game
show Let’s Make A Deal. From 1985 to 1990 he served as the
producer, then executive producer, of the national PBS series Alive
From Off Center, a leading international showcase for the emerging
genre of experimental television. During the ‘80s he produced three
13-part television series anthologizing independent film and video for The
Learning Channel: Declarations of Independence, Spirit of
Place, and Distant Lives. In 1990 he took a three year leave
from Carleton College to serve as the first Executive Director of the
Independent Television Service (ITVS), a national organization created by
Congress to fund works reflecting innovation and diversity by independent
producers for national PBS. In 1999 he executive produced American
Photography—A Century of Images, a three-part national series for PBS
on the social history of American photography in the 20th century. He has
recently completed a pilot for a PBS national book show, and is developing
a series entitled The Future of Being Human, which reflects his
current research interest in digital culture.
M. A. Mosalam Shaltout
Professor Mosalam Shaltout is Chairman of the Space Research Center at
the Desert Environment Research Institute of Minufiyia University in
El-Sadat City, Egypt. Born in Egypt on May 9, 1946, he earned a B.SC. in
physics and astronomy (1967), an M.SC. in solar physics (1973), and a
Ph.D. in solar flares (1977), all from the Faculty of Science at Cairo
University. While still pursuing his advanced education , Dr. Shaltout worked as a
Research Assistant at the National Research Institute of Astronomy and
Geophysics (NRIAG) in the Helwan area of Cairo, Egypt between 1968 and
1977. He then worked as a researcher at NRIAG from 1978 to 1981. Following
this, from 1981 to 1985 Dr. Shaltout served as an Associate Professor of
Solar-Terrestrial physics in the Faculty of Science of King Abd-EL- Aziz
University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has been a Full Professor at NRIAG
since May 1987. Moreover , he was Vice-Chairman of the Solar and Space
Research Department from 1989 to 1995, and Chairman of the same department
from 1995 to 1998. Additionally, Professor Shaltout has been Egypt's representative at
more than 65 international conferences and world congresses between 1985
and 2002. He has received several honors, including the Country
Encouragement Prize in Physics in 1986 and the Country Medal of
Excellence, First Class in 1995, amongst others. Notably, Dr. Shaltout is one of the most famous leading intellectuals
in the Arab world, and he is well known to the general public through
television, radio, and newspapers. Also, he is an independent writer on
the subjects of national strategy and projects in the fields of scientific
research, technology development, energy, and the environment. Recently,
he has suggested several worldwide projects for the twenty-first century
in articles written for international journals, including proposals for
solar hydrogen production from Nasser Lake in Upper Egypt, the Abu Simel
Radio telescope in Upper Egypt as a part of the world’s VLBI, and testing
Martian exploration instruments in the Western Desert of Egypt. On a
slightly different note, his avocational interests are reading, history,
philosophy, the arts, classical music, and museums.
Diana Slattery
As Associate Director of the Academy of Electronic Media at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Diana Reed Slattery researches, designs, and
produces highly interactive, game-like multimedia environments for
education, entertainment, and the arts. Slattery’s current artistic
practice and her Ph.D. research in visual language come together in The Glide Project, which
describes and models one possibility for an evolutionary writing system.
The Maze Game, Slattery’s science fiction novel in which the
Glide language originated, was published in February 2002 by Deep
Listening Publications.
Henna Törmänen
A group of students at Kuusamo High School in Kuusamo, Finland
conducted a SETI workshop in November 2002, culminating in a paper
presented at the current workshop. This paper represents the work of
eleven students, all 16 or 17 years old: Suvi Aittakumpu, Kaisa Haataja,
Kristiina Haataja, Annemari Heikkinen, Petra Koramo, Emilia Suoraniemi,
Markus Takkinen, Johanna Tuovila, Henna Törmänen, Maiju Törmänen, and
Mirja Visakova.
Douglas Vakoch
Douglas Vakoch is the Interstellar Message Group Leader at the SETI
Institute, as well as the only social scientist employed by a SETI
organization. He is particularly interested in how we might compose reply
messages that would begin to express what it's like to be human. Supported
by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Vakoch leads the SETI
Institute's project to compose interstellar messages that may some day be
sent in reply to a signal from extraterrestrials. This message-making
project describes the evolution of human behavior and morality, with an
emphasis on altruism. As Chairman of a series of international meetings on designing
interstellar messages, Vakoch facilitates discussions between scholars
from a variety of disciplines and nations. Drawing on these meetings, he
is now editing a book that examines ways to combine artistic and
scientific perspectives on composing interstellar messages. This book will
be published by The MIT Press in 2004. As a member of the International Institute of Space Law, Vakoch
examines international policy issues related to sending messages to
extraterrestrials. Through his affiliation with the Department of
Psychology at the University of California at Davis, he also studies
people's reactions to the detection of life beyond Earth. In addition to being a clinical psychologist (Ph.D., State University
of New York at Stony Brook), Vakoch has formal training in comparative
religion (B.A., Carleton College) as well as the history and philosophy of
science (M.A., University of Notre Dame).
Contributions
Susan Alexjander
Interstellar Communication about DNA through a Language of Tone
Abstract: In l988 I met Dr. David Deamer, cell biologist at the University of
California Santa Cruz. He provided molecular frequencies (via infrared
spectra analysis) of the four base pairs that make up the DNA of all life
as we know it: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Using special
software and a synthesizer that “accepted” microtones, I transformed the
light frequencies into sound frequencies and created original compositions
(Sequencia). I am now extremely interested in creating a new
composition for future interstellar communication and possible ‘broadcast’
into space based on these DNA frequencies, as well as other frequencies
related to DNA (e.g., Larmor frequencies, associated with radio frequency
emissions from atomic nuclei) and to other natural phenomena, such as
pulsar spins. There are some striking collections of “tones” and gestures
that are found so often among these frequencies as to suggest an intrinsic
importance, perhaps akin to patterns seen in the Fibonnaci Series and the
Golden Mean. Over the past twelve years I have seen profound reactions to the
tunings on the Sequencia recording, suggesting that physical bodies
may be capable of recognizing vibrational patterns of DNA through the
resonance of infrared frequencies and sound. How much clearer, then, the
DNA frequencies would be to any intelligence in interstellar space if they
were actually created to be “performed” by an instrument that produced not
sound waves, but electromagnetic frequencies that could be directly
detected. The compositional process would then be reversed, first creating
in sound with molecular “tunings” and then translating into
electromagnetic radiation. Learning just how frequencies would actually be
“beamed” out by SETI technology would be an intriguing process in itself.
We would be discovering and creating a new “instrument.” Because of policy
considerations within the SETI community calling for broad-based
international discussions prior to any intentional transmissions, actual
broadcasts would not be expected in the near future, if ever. But even a
theoretical piece is worth doing. Along with the stunning possibility of
sending artistic and coherent messages about our DNA, it would offer a
chance to invent an entirely new art form; that of communicating “musical”
messages via electromagnetic radiation.
Mauro Annunziato
Hybrid Ecosystems: Searching for a
Language
Abstract: In the present contribution, we offer two audio-visual interactive
installations that may inform discussions of interstellar communication:
Relazioni Emergenti and E-Sparks. Relazioni Emergenti (Emerging
Relationships) is an artificial life environment where living
filaments, endowed with their own character and autonomy, grow,
reproduce, and evolve through genetic mutations. The global result is a
strong visualization of the concept of self-organization: structured
complexity and organic shapes emerge as the result of the evolutionary
composition of the local chaotic interactions. E-Sparks is a representation-metaphor of a hybrid ecosystem created by
humans and digital beings capable of developing an autonomous primitive
language. Individuals in this ecosystem are able to learn words from
visitors and merge them into their own memory. Through social interaction,
the words are transformed, associated with meaning, and included in the
society’s common vocabulary. A sort of survival of the clearest
mechanism emerge in the course of this evolution. The paradigms involved in the search for communication between humans
and artificial beings could be revised to provide some ideas for
interstellar communication. In the creation of societies of evolving
digital creatures, many new problems arise like the development of an
autonomous language or the emergence of a sort of digital
consciousness. Digital beings are different from any well-developed
terrestrial organic beings. They belong to another world, in which some
intellectual abilities developed long before certain sensory capabilities.
Nothing is given, and everything must be created through evolution. Ethics
does not exist--only necessity and strategies of survival do. In this
sense, altruism, affect, and cooperation must contribute to social
organization to survive. Finally, small differences in the genetics and
behavior of a single individual can yield huge differences in social
organization, and social organization can mould the behaviors of an
individual, as seen in ant colonies. Thus, we might find very efficient
organizations based on individuals very different from humans in
intelligence and biodiversity. Although the art-science experiments
mentioned above cannot find final solutions, they can help focus open
questions. Perhaps the prerequisite to interstellar communication most difficult
to communicate is the motivation to exist and to be curious.
Assuming this motivation is shared with extraterrestrials, it might
provide the foundation for communicating other information. Art images and
sequences inspired by the process of life could well express our
fascination, love, and interest for life to interstellar
friends.
Jerome H. Barkow
Evolution, Altruism, and Ethnocentrism among Extraterrestrials
Abstract: Regardless of the morphology of an ETI or even which particular
cognitive abilities arise initially, intelligence can develop only if an
amplification process occurs. (High intelligence is not needed simply for
survival or even for basic tool-making in any conceivable non-social
environment.) One such process may involve predation such that the less
intelligent are culled, generation after generation. It is possible to
envisage a scenario in which that culling is a product of competition
between species, in which case natural selection not just for intelligence
but also for a genetically-based xenophobia could result. Xenophobics
would not anticipate altruism from another species. However, in human
history we were probably our own predators, so that culling involved
self-predation in which human groups competed both among and within
themselves, lowering the survival rate/reproductive success for the less
intelligent (especially the less socially intelligent). The result has
apparently been a strong tendency towards not xenophobia but
ethnocentrism. ETI may well resemble ourselves, in this respect, and
therefore be ethnocentric but still open to the possibility of altruism
from a different species. Another likely amplification process involves sexual selection in which
males and/or females select mates on the basis of traits that have
intelligence underlying them. There is a growing consensus that sexual
selection was crucial in producing human intelligence. However,
intelligence resulting from sexual selection has no direct implications
for altruism. This is because altruism, in evolutionary perspective, comes
in two flavors, neither of which requires high intelligence. The most
common type of altruism is nepotism, the favoring of kin over non-kin. If
our ETs are nepotistic then our efforts to encode altruism should include
an argument that we are in some sense kin. The other flavor of altruism is
reciprocal altruism, in which the aid we render is eventually returned to
us: if we alternate in being donor and recipient we both benefit. To guard
against cheaters, however, reciprocal altruism requires mechanisms such as
distrust of strangers, monitoring of behavior and reputation, and
ultimately a sense of justice (or at least fairness). A species in which
reciprocal altruism predominates may be suspicious of our encoded altruism
because reciprocity is not possible. However, it may well be that an ET
would, like ourselves, have both flavors of altruism, in which case in our
efforts at communication we should emphasize nepotistic altruism. We can at least take for granted that other intelligent species we
encounter will be cultural, as we are: culture is a logical necessity for
the accumulation of sufficient knowledge and systems of cooperation needed
for any advanced technology. To conclude, convergent evolution makes it likely that any other
intelligences we encounter will have an evolved psychology similar enough
to our own for some mutual comprehension. Nepotistic altruism seems the
most likely kind to be selected for, so encodings of altruism should
stress at least a symbolic kinship.
Eleonora Bilotta and P. Pantano
Music and Time as Universal Languages
Abstract: One of the main characteristics of living matter is that it grows and
changes. Processes of life are organized in time. Time is inside living
matter, governing its evolution, as if it were a higher structure
organizes the process of evolution. Time is a complex configuration with
many levels, in which the evolution of a single organism is related to the
evolution of higher-level organisms, which in turn result from a process
of auto-organization of many low-level structures. An orchestra is an
example of this temporal coordination, in which single instruments
dynamically synchronize their times within the concerto they are playing.
We have discovered that self-reproduction in artificial contexts has
dynamics that are similar to the temporal features living systems show
(Bilotta, Lafusa, & Pantano, 2002) and we have translated these
features into music, composing canons and fugues (Bilotta & Pantano,
2002). Similarly, the messages we propose for interstellar communication are
based on two-dimensional Cellular Automata self-reproducers’ rhythms of
growth. Rhythm is the fundamental source of motion in music. We found that
this behavior can be represented by fractal structures that are universal
in nature. Thus, music offers the possibility of discovering fundamental
proprieties of natural and artificial objects, and discovering in them
unexpected organization. We think that these dynamical features are
universal and so comprehensible by extraterrestrial intelligence as well.
The music of the process of self-reproduction shows the inner measure of
time, the beauty of life.
John B. Campbell
Archaeology of Symbolic Communication: Antiquity and Evidence for Altruism
Abstract: Once symbolic communication was fully underway and sedentism (i.e.,
settling down in one place, vs. nomadism) had increasingly become the
trend in various parts of the world where farming (i.e., domestication of
plants and animals) had begun to produce food surpluses, then within the
last 6,000 years various writing systems were developed to record
information and beliefs. As they were created and refined mostly
independently of each other (in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mexico, etc.),
the logic and style of the earliest writing varies quite a lot. By the
time writing began, the world’s languages were linguistically advanced,
and the various known language families had been born. Combinations of
these and other factors have made deciphering some early writing very
difficult at best. Even those written forms which have some continuity
with the present, like certain Chinese characters, are not without their
difficulties. The equivalent of the Rosetta stone, which helped so much
with Egyptian, is not always found either, and even when it was in effect
being created, it was sometimes destroyed (Aztec and Maya) for religious
reasons. There are often problems with translation and consequently there
may be more misinterpretations than are often admitted in studies of early
writing. Alternatives to writing are also worth considering (e.g., the
Peruvian “quipu”). Evidence for altruism is even harder to come by than that for symbolic
communication. Compassion and long-term care of disabled individuals
amongst Neanderthal people could be seen as indicating altruism. But it is
through the interpretation of written records and oral histories in much
more recent times that one can obtain some insights into possibly
altruistic behaviours. Cross-specific or inter-species examples of
possible altruism are also worth considering (e.g., amongst Primates,
Carnivores, Cetaceans), as are the implications of key parts of the
relevant evidence overall for problems and challenges in interstellar
messaging.
William H. Edmondson
Constraints on Message Construction for Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Abstract: General cognitive principles have been proposed (see Edmondson, 2000;
cf. Chomsky 1980) which deal with the sequential imperative: the need for
atemporal cognitive entities to be mapped into and out of the sequential
organization of behaviour. Intentionality is required to constrain such
mappings when they are not driven by physical contingencies, and such
intentionality is readable by others. The sequences constituting behaviour
are often semiotically free and thus can serve to carry arbitrarily
determined meanings (this can be layered, as noted by Hockett (1965) in
his ‘double articulation’ language design feature). Aesthetics is
potentiated in such a system as yet a third layer of articulation, akin to
pragmatics in the narrowly linguistic sense. Information is the distinction between what is and what might have
been, and contextualization is required both for the determination of
“what is” and the relevant “might have beens.” The notion of a message and
its transmission, as a model of communication, is flawed on pragmatic
grounds (see Akmajian et al., 1984) but remains common (Hauser, 1997).
Successful contextualization depends upon situation awareness and at least
the implicit exploitation at some level of distributed cognition (see
Hutchins, 1996). In this account, communication is a participative
endeavour constantly exploring the limits of shared understanding. CETI requires participation and engagement rather than witness and
deduction. Time and space present problems, of course, but one way to
overcome the difficulties is to assume an intention to communicate and to
begin an interaction, and to do this it is necessary to announce one’s
presence. CETI should begin there. Using stellar objects known as pulsars
provides the possibility of explaining to an ETI one’s location in space
in absolute terms, thus knowingly and knowably giving expression to the
need to help one’s interlocutor by thinking of their needs. This
establishes shared understanding of the need to share references, and on
this basis other aspects of message construction can be elaborated. This pattern of reasoning readily evokes the prospect of altruism (in
the sense of thinking of others) perhaps because the more noble sense of
this concept itself derives from or reflects a heightened state of
situation awareness. However, to go much beyond these observations seems
likely to lead to fanciful notions of communicating the nobility of
humanity (a doubtful premise) or the beauty of Bach (a pointless phantasy
grounded in ignorance of the cultural and physical relativities involved
in human existence). That one’s ET interlocutor could know beauty in an
artefact or behaviour is probably not in doubt, but that they could know
why a human finds a Caro sculpture or a Rembrandt etching or a Berlioz
opera movingly beautiful, or come to share that appreciation, is deeply
improbable. Knowing this limitation is an additional and important
constraint on message construction.
Vladimir Ivkovic
Cybernetic Models and Interstellar Message
Composition: Sociobiology of Altruism Revisited
Abstract: Cybernetic models help clarify the complexity of human behavior and
social interactions. For example, altruistic behavior in various
enviornments, populations, and social conditions can be specified through
clearly defined variables (e.g., kinship coefficient or wealth) that are
constrained by logical rules (e.g., operational definitions of altruistic
behavior or inclusive fitness). Altruistic behavior may be simulated over
the course of many generations of a population, providing insights into
the advantages it yields to individuals and the population as a whole.
Cybernetic models help describe the value of altruism in terms of its
advantageous impact on individual and inclusive fitness. Cybernetic models
yield quantitative data that can be translated into simple mathematical
logic and encoded for transmission to ETI. These models can be encoded in interstellar messages through observable
human behaviors using the Motion Energy Detection (MED) algorithm. The MED
algorithm detects and measures the speed, vector orientation, and energy
of movement from filmed behavior. This method has the advantage of
requiring no assumptions about the structure and organization of specific
behaviors being analyzed. The MED algorithm analyzes the number of
movements, as well as their duration, size, speed, complexity, and
information content from videotaped episodes of body movements and voice.
It has been used to identify motivations, intentions, personality traits,
deception, indoctrination, and gender. Since it is applied to filmed
behavior, it allows for direct depictions of various episodes and
scenarios of altruistic as well as non-altruistic behavior, ultimately
including animated depictions of human behavior, gait characteristics, and
general anatomy. One of the greatest advantages of this approach for
interstellar message construction is that it produces raw data that can be
quantified, digitized, and electronically manipulated to match the desired
mode of transmission. The MED algorithm is available in the E-motion
software platform developed under the leadership of Prof. Karl Grammer as
a joint venture between the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology
(Vienna, Austria) and the University of Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan).
Colin Johnson
Altruism, the Evolution of Language, and Interstellar
Communication
Abstract: One problem with developing interstellar communication is that we have
little sense for the high-level "universals" of linguistic communication
(or, indeed, whether such universals exist). The main reason is that,
whilst there are many languages in the world, these languages have
developed from a small number of early proto-languages (perhaps just from
a single original "origin of language"). Many fields advance by looking at many independent examples and teasing
out universal or commonly found features, distinguishing those features
from accidental features found in a particular example. The study of
language does not have that opportunity; it is difficult to know whether a
particular universal or nearly universal feature of language has arisen
because it represents a powerful way of representing some aspect of the
world or whether it arose just because it was a feature of a
proto-language. A similar problem exists in the study of life, in particular the origin
of life. In the approach taken here, known as "artificial life,"
caricatures of that early development are implemented on computers, so
that this origin can be "replayed" many thousands of times with slightly
different variations of environment and different random historical
contingencies. This then gives a set of different "origins of life" which
can be studied using the comparative method. The origin of language (or of
specific language features) can be studied in this fashion using
simulations of early language development and game-theoretic motivations
for the development of cooperation in early language. In this talk I would like to discuss the following putative approach to
interstellar communication. Firstly computers could be used to produce
many examples/caricatures of proto-languages by simulating linguistic
interactions between simulated agents; then we may be able to discover
some (high-level) patterns which are common to many proto-languages. In
particular, we may be able to discover patterns concerned with how
language encodes for cooperation and mutual understanding, even in a
situation where each linguistic agent is aiming to selfishly maximize its
personal success. A motto for work in artificial life is "life-as-it-could-be," as
contrasted with "life-as-it-is." The aim here is similar. Can we use
"artificial languages," evolved on the computer via interactions between
linguistic agents, to provide a set of comparative languages which could
be used to extract meta-features, which in turn could be used in the
encoding of interstellar messages? In particular, are there
quasi-universal patterns by which altruism, communal understanding, and
cooperation are encoded in languages? What might "language-as-it-could-be"
look like?
Alfred Kracher
Religious Imagery in Interstellar Messages:
Evolutionary and Artistic Perspectives
Abstract: Altruism in particular is a case in point. Our urgent desire to convey
the concept would be difficult to understand if by altruism we meant
merely a genetic predisposition to cooperate. Since on our current
understanding this trait is a prerequisite for the evolution of
intelligence, it makes little sense to communicate it to a species that
would share it anyhow. What altruism refers to in this context must
therefore be a moral rather than biological concept, and something that we
strive to attain rather than possess automatically as a species. We may
call it a virtue, an ideal, or a goal for our conduct (I make a
distinction between conduct, which includes motivation, and behavior,
which is restricted to observable action). In fact, virtues such as compassion, sacrifice, serenity, etc., have
been promoted across diverse human cultures for a long time by the world
religions. Symbols of various kinds have been developed to convey these
ideas--stories, images, music, rituals, etc. The artistic expression of
these symbols has a very long history, thousands of years in some cases.
It is thus in principle possible to study the response of different
cultures to these symbols, to ask how successfully the intended ideas were
conveyed, and to what extent the imagery was culturally contingent. Given
that these messages have often been misinterpreted, we need to ask where
such communication may go wrong, either in transmission or reception. Insights from evolutionary psychology allow us to assess which kinds of
images and ideas are likely to be the universal results of any
evolutionary process. Madonna and Child images have been used to
illustrate the (cultural) universality of parental care for infants.
Science fiction (e.g., A Case of Conscience) notwithstanding, this
may well be a universal trait of all intelligent species. At the very
least some transgenerational bonding is likely to be necessary for the
emergence of culture. And yet even among humans the Madonna and Child
image does not meet universal approval. The reason is in part historical,
and therefore not immediately relevant to interstellar communication. On
the other hand, if what determines the impact of such messages among
humans is historical context, then the absence of any such context may
make an essentially moral message unintelligible. This is a problem that
should be addressed before interstellar messages are designed that carry
abstract concepts such as altruism.
Ulla Lehtonen
Expressions of Altruism in Indigenous Religions and
Interstellar Message Construction
Abstract: Indigenous religions value the unity of the whole and emphasize the
creative role of the symbols used to express this whole as preservers of
the unity. A prevalent symbol of this unity is the symbol used to express
the cosmos itself (most often depicted as a circle), with its processes of
creation and recreation. Human participation in the processes of creation,
even though through symbols, is believed to be ontologically ‘real’ and
effective. In the western way of thinking, the causality invested by the
indigenous thinking in the technical processes of the universe and in the
moral behaviour of humans and other-than-human beings is often called
‘animistic’ and ‘magical.’ The holistic nature of indigenous religions is represented well in a
painting called Ozone Hole by Swedish Sami artist Per Enoksson.
It depicts an elk whose eye is pierced by a ray of the sun; the presence
of a human figure in a ozone hole in the sky implies the cosmological
guilt carried by humans in the suffering of the other-than-human world.
The painting expresses interspecies (the elk) and cosmological (the sun)
compassion and is typical of the indigenous way of thinking about
‘altruism.’ Altruism as a solely human-to-human consideration of the good
of others before one’s own benefit seems too narrow a concept to describe
indigenous expressions of altruism, which comprise the Earth and the
cosmos into an intersubjective, communicative whole. Indigenous symbols
expressing altruism give us yet another way of thinking about
communication with other-than-human beings (or persons, if we want to
emphasize the personhood and moral subjectivity of these beings, as the
indigenous way of thinking does). Indigenous cultures provide us with a treasury of ‘universal symbolism’
or symbolism that is created with the presupposition that it has a
capacity to cross over ontological boundaries and communicate universally
with ‘everything that is.’ This is both the strength and the weakness of
this approach as an analogy for interstellar communication. We have to ask
whether the imaginable ‘other’ shares the same moral universe if it
happens to share the same (or ‘similar enough’) ontological universe as
ours, so as to make it possible for us to recognize its existence, which
cannot be taken for granted either. Is there, or can there be, a universal
moral code, as indigenous cultures believe? And if so, is this code based
on altruism that grants moral personhood to ‘everything that is’ (like the
indigenous way of thinking) or is it based on some kind of semi-altruism
that denies moral personhood to such ontological categories as plants,
stones, and even some undeniably intelligent beings such as animals, like
the modern western way of thinking does? To be universally consistent in
human communication about altruism, we may have to reconsider not only our
ethics of altruism, but also the ontology behind this ethics.
http://publish.seti.org/art_science/2003/
Links
Sponsoring Organizations
http://www.seti.org/
Leonardo/OLATS (Leonardo Observatory for the Arts and TechnoSciences)
http://www.olats.org/
John Templeton Foundation
http://www.templeton.org/
Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST)
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/home.html
Link:
Intl. Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group
http://www.iaaseti.org/
Participants
vakoch@seti.org
Science and the
Arts
Aptos, California, USA
Plancton Art
Studio
Rome, Italy
Department of
Sociology and Social Anthropology
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada
Centro
Interdipartimentale della Comunicazione
Università della
Calabria
Cosenza, Italy
School of Anthropology, Archaeology &
Sociology
James Cook University
Cairns, Queensland, Australia
School of Computer Science
University of
Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
Faculty of Science
University of Zagreb
Zagreb,
Croatia
Computing
Laboratory
University of Kent
Canturbury, UK
Center for Space and Planetary Sciences
University of
Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA
Faculty of Classics
Oxford University
Oxford, UK
Dominique Lestel
Département d’Etudes
Cognitives
Ecole normale supérieure
Paris, France
Animal Communications and SETI : Are Humans Universal
Locutors?
Abstract:
First, one must make sure that this is not self-deception. In other words: what really are the limits of human language? One of the main problems to answering these questions is precisely the property of language that makes humans so proud about it: self-reflexivity, which leads too easily to self-evaluation. Up to now, it has always been through language that humans have evaluated the effectiveness of language. One of the main interests of SETI is precisely to think more deeply about these issues.
Let’s suppose ethologists are right in claiming that human language may decipher each animal message with ad hoc prostheses like computers. Does that mean that we would be able to find and to understand extraterrestrial messages, allowing us to communicate with them? Nothing is less sure. Communication with potential extraterrestrials differs from animal communications in at least two respects. First, on Earth, as it has convincingly been shown by biologists, we are all cousins; all terrestrial animals share plenty of genes. Communication with animals on Earth is always communication with agents sharing a common natural history, and often (as with some pets) a common cultural history. But what does it mean to communicate with intelligent agents with no common natural history? Second, how could we figure out a message whose main content (but is it really a content?) is to proclaim that it is a message from intelligent beings? This is a true challenge for artists, especially if we allow for messages of variable and unknown lengths. The artistic challenge is to know how to design such a message and to try to figure out the ways extrasolar civilisations may send such messages. I shall propose two potential artistic performances for interstellar communication: the first one will be to design self-referential temporally fractal messages, and the second will be the design of messages based on non-Darwinian biological mutations.
Michael P. Matessa & Douglas Vakoch
USA
Modeling Reciprocal Altruism and Forgiveness in
Interstellar Messages: A Population-Based Approach
Abstract:
Both the code and multiple examples of the sort of output that can be generated would be transmitted, but because an element of randomness is included in the program, any sample output would not correspond to any given run of the program. To make clear the link between a program and its output, however, specific examples of this link are shown in simpler, deterministic programs, in which the program specifies the output exactly.
On each turn, each agent has two choices: it can either defect or cooperate. In this message, this is indicated through food-sharing or attempt to get all available food for oneself. Consistent with the Prisoner’s Dilemma, if one agent shares while the other attempts to get everything for itself, then the sharer actually loses, while the greedy agent gains. If both are greedy, both lose, but to a lesser extent than if one is greedy while the other shares.
But life does not consist of one-time interactions. Often we have opportunities to meet the same person again. While defection may work when the other agent thinks you will cooperate, once an agent gains a reputation as a defector, it may be much more difficult to take advantage of the other. Our message sequence models this aspect of reality through repeated interactions between agents randomly selected from a population of agents that use different strategies, with memory for the actions of previous agents.
When we can show a series of interactions between agents, and memory for what happened last time, then there are opportunities for expressing gratitude for earlier sacrifices and chances for retribution. We can also describe agents who periodically “forget,” but always in the best interests of the other agent. In the latter case, we can model a simplified version of forgiveness, which can be an effective long-term strategy in certain populations. While agents who always reciprocate a negative action by another agent might end up in maladaptive cycles, ultimately fighting one another to the death, those who can forgive and forget may survive. We show how these various scenarios can be modeled in interstellar messages through computer programs as well as three-dimensional computer animations. For examples of still images from such animation sequences, see http://publish.seti.org/art_science/2003/gallery/index.htm
Hubert Meisinger
ESSSAT Scientific
Programme Officer
Evangelische
Studierenden-/Hochschulgemeinde
Darmstadt, Germany
Christian Love and Biological
Altruism
Abstract:
First, the awareness of expanding inclusiveness pertains to the recipient of love or altruistic behaviour. Specifically, it refers to the extension of this circle of recipients beyond the most immediate neighbor, even to enemies. The New Testament continues the development found in the Hebrew Scriptures and early Jewish writings to extend the neighborly love command of Leviticus 19:18 to universal love. The Gospel of Luke especially emphasizes the extension of the love command beyond all bounds. This becomes apparent in the passage of the Great Commandment to love God and human beings, which is immediately followed by the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
The fundamental challenge of sociobiological research on altruism is to explain the extension of altruistic behavior to genetically unrelated fellow human beings. The success of models of altruism in explaining such behavior provides one criterion for evaluating those models.
Second, the awareness of excessive demand concerns the question of the capability of human beings to meet what seems to be an excessive demand for love or altruism. Especially in Matthew, the love command is portrayed as being strongly demanding in the context of the question of the Law and higher righteousness (Matthew 5:17-20). Jewish and Gentile groups are presented as unable to fulfil the demand to love both neighbor and enemy (5:43-48), although one may suspect that Matthew uses the reproach against these groups as a mirror for his own Christian community.
Several sociobiological models show that when human beings are viewed exclusively in biological terms, they are overtaxed by the demand to act altruistically beyond the circle of immediate kin. From the perspectives of both the New Testament and sociobiological research, human beings have, on the basis of their biological nature, only limited scope for prosocial behavior.
Third, threshold awareness concerns the question of whether love or altruism constitutes a step on the way to a "new human" and a "new world." Especially Mark 12:28-34, the passage of the Great Command to love, shows an awareness of the presence of a new world, since love is directly connected with statements about the imminent kingdom of God, which has changed and will change the world. The radical turn toward human beings by the eschatologically acting God must find a parallel in an equally radical turn of human beings toward each other and toward God (Mark 1:14-15). In sociobiological research on altruism, only models that include cultural aspects are able to meet the criterion of explaining altruistic behavior toward non-kin individuals.
In the second part of my presentation, I will deal very briefly with two systematic-theological models of the relationship between Christian religion, or theology, and sociobiology. Ralph Wendell Burhoe’s model is based on a functional approach, while Philip Hefner’s model uses a theological approach. The diverse perspectives provided by these models make obvious a gain of freedom in interdisciplinary dialogue when one of the investigated domains does not incorporate the other but rather enables a better mutual understanding.
Finally, to relate all of this to interstellar message design, one has to find ways to communicate that humankind – according to its rich biblical, Christian tradition and sociobiological research – has the potential to be friendly, loving, and altruistic towards non-kin individuals or strangers because of its bio-cultural evolution. But it is equally true that realizing that potential depends on very specific conditions that cannot be foreseen in all details now. An awareness of expanding inclusiveness can always be thwarted by an awareness of excessive demand that prevents humankind from expanding love or altruism towards strangers. Mutually beneficial communication, as well as interstellar communication, require some common ground for newness or threshold awareness. Especially if it turns out that we are the strangers.
Richard K. Merritt
Art Department
Luther
College
Decorah, Iowa, USA
The Altruism Engine: Genotype, Cellular Automata,
Self-Replication, Three-dimensional Cellular Topographies, and Event
Frames
Abstract:
This project demonstrates a "self-decoding," three-tiered interstellar message. Based on the fundamental principle of inverse cryptography--that a message must be both universally decipherable and universally understandable--the "altruism engine" relies on the essentially three-dimensional nature of the physically experiential universe. That is, the project is based on all inhabitants of this universe having a physical three-dimensional presence and experiencing time.
Using the example of iterative mathematical art, the author suggests that a self-constructing "altruism engine" could communicate complex ideas about mathematics, art, physics, the fundamental nature of life on our planet, and complex social and cultural information.
The initial message or "genome" will serve a dual purpose. It will be the self-extracting "engine" by which the entire message will be decoded. Additionally it will demonstrate fundamental principles of how life reproduces using self-replicating three-dimensional cellular automata, and it will demonstrate morphogenesis with a Lindenmayer system (L-System).
The next stage will use a message that encodes a number of three-dimensional cellular topographies. When decoded, each of these cellular topographies will allow for the construction of three-dimensional sculptural models of human beings.
Finally the message will present a series of encoded three-dimensional cellular topographical models of humans in multiple event frames (motions). These event frames will illustrate human themes, ranging from stages of perambulation to complex human interactions demonstrating altruism, in three-dimensional vignettes.
Alexander Mihalic
International
Center for Electroacoustic Music
Bourges, France
Coding DNA in Musical
Compositions
Abstract:
One composition from this project is based on genetic data. It consists of twenty musical groups, each lasting between eight seconds and one minute. These groups represent the twenty amino acids coded by DNA. The form of each musical group is determined by the chemical formula of the corresponding amino acid. The different parameters of the molecule of DNA and the concatenation of these twenty groups create the composition.
In this way we use the molecular structure of amino acids in DNA to generate musical material and to organize the final structure of the piece. Composing consists of two processes: first, sonifying the data, and second, composing with the result of this sonification. While the process of composing is subjective, the sonification is more objective, albeit with rules dependent on the final message desired by the composer. Nevertheless, the same rules can contribute to different artistic results.
The composition drawing upon DNA is the unique result of these rules, and it reflects the extent of the composer’s knowledge of the subject. This composition exists in multiple forms, including the rules of transformation, the score of the musical encoding, and the sonic result of the recording. In short, the composition is an object showing the multiple ways in which we control scientific knowledge.
In the same way, a message to an extraterrestrial intelligence must show multiple aspects of the same object. We have to send not only our naked knowledge, but also show our ability to comprehend and transform this knowledge. Thus, we must encode all facets of the composition: model, transformation rules, musical result (score), and sonic result. In this way, the message will not be about the object itself (a model), but rather about our capacity to transform this object and ultimately our environment.
As we concretely encode the musical composition, we must decide which of the following we will include: (1) the sonic result (the physical changing of air pressure), (2) physical values of different parameters of sound (frequency, decibel, etc.), (3) values reflecting our perception of sonic results (pitch, dynamics, etc.), (4) the physical processing required to obtain the sound (e.g., a description of the musical instrument), and (5) an algorithm detailing the creation of the parameters of sound.
For interstellar communication, we cannot think about the sonic result, but rather should focus on the curve resulting from changes in the air pressure. Such a curve represents sound itself. That is, we would begin by transmitting objective information and not our perception of that information. Eventually, we would show the relationship between each parameter of sound and the form of the curve. Finally, we could show a succession of the different parameters, yielding the score of the composition.
Alexander Ollongren
Leiden
Institute of Advanced Computer Science
Leiden University
The
Netherlands
A Characterisation of Altruism in
Logic
Abstract:
The Concise Oxford Dictionary and the Webster Dictionary both mention in their definition of altruism the fact that others (alters) are involved. So in a characterisation of altruism, one could use as starting platform the observation that persons are involved as actors carrying out actions and other persons as possible beneficiaries of those actions.
In the present paper, however, we prefer to consider altruism in a wider context, in fact as a kind of moral behaviour. Therefore we move the problem of developing a characterisation of altruism in constructive logic into the realm of philosophy. Altruism as well as egoism are thereby viewed as moral behaviour of persons, the actors, who carry out actions in relation to themselves (egos) and others (alters). The acts are associated with ethical goods for beneficiaries (also persons), whether these are selves or others.
The discourse begins with a rather extensive but transparent inductive definition of the type called Moral_Behaviour. Here type is meant in a strictly type-theoretical sense, as used in LINCOS-CCI. In the definition we distinguish between strictly egoistic, partly egoistic, and purely altruistic behaviour. The construction presented ensures that these subtypes are distinct from one another. Since the definition is inductive, any assertion over moralism reigns over all subtypes. However, propositions can also be formulated that are valid over one or more of the subtypes. On the base of the type Moral_Behaviour, we next introduce the notion of obligation (or duty in a philosophical sense) and construct the type of an object Obligation in relation to the type Moral_Behaviour. Establishing this is non-trivial, but the enrichment achieved enables one to address philosophical questions such as “Under what conditions is altruism (or egoism) an obligation?” and “What is the role of the alter in this context?” Examples of the results are presented in the paper.
Sonya Rapoport
Leonardo/ISAST
San
Francisco, California, USA
Kabbalah/ Kabul: Sending Emanations to the
Aliens
Abstract:
The basis for communicating altruistic emanations to extraterrestrials comes from the mystical doctrine of Kabbalah, a system of communication by the use of numbers, letters, and words. The message form is the Sephirot (Tree of Life) diagram, the major icon and universally recognized symbol of Kabbalah. A translation of the circles and lines of the Sephirot diagram into mathematical formulas can be transmitted by frequency waves into outer space. Then, since numerical values are built into the Hebrew alphabet and words can be reduced to their mathematical equivalent, the actual altruistic emanations can be transmitted numerically. Alternatively, the altruistic emanations may be prepared for transmission by translation into a mathematical code of their genes.
The golem, an artificial anthropoid, was originally conceived as a tool or metaphor to guard against evil and persecution. In this work we construct a new age golem to be a vessel for depositing and dispersing altruistic emanations. Ancient processes, supplemented by current scientific technology, produce the blowfly-golem, the Interstellar Message Vehicle (IMV). A glassblower blows the robot-like carapace out of a compost heap of righteous earth. The blowfly, through its life cycle, is the manufacturer of the righteous earth. It nibbles on the corpses of virtuous sages, and it ingests, incorporates, and transmits their altruistic DNA through its pupae.and maggots. Once the golem carapace is molded, it encapsulates, fuses, and stabilizes itself, morphing into the body of the blowfly, an insect of phenomenal muscle efficiency with high energetic currency in all its cells. Signals from the blowfly's high frequency wing oscillations are transferred into electromagnetic waves that carry the golem's message of altruism across space.
Our chimera vehicle for transmitting altruistic emanations to extraterrestrial beings is the blowfly-golem. Golem deeds are good deeds, so the new age blowfly-golem emanates positive, altruistic messages. It is a living being that encourages other living beings to receive and accept the messages it sends. The blowfly-golem has a body, which we can use physically and metaphorically, to mold and convey our altruistic message.
David Rosenboom
School of Music
California Institute of the
Arts
Santa Clarita, USA
The Imperative of Co-creation in Interstellar
Communication: Lessons from Experimental Music
Abstract:
Traditional approaches to composing messages for ETC often suffer from the requirement of concurrent imagination for the recognition of signs. To accurately represent an object, the communication object must be the thing itself, rather than a sign of a significant. Otherwise, the relationship between the two has to be imagined. Communication, then, only takes place if the imaginations of the various parties in communication are then the same. This is a serious matter for communication to take place among unknown intelligences, the nature of which we cannot know in advance. An approach to correcting the problem might be to imbed the thing being communicated about inside the structure of the communication. Music involving emergent processes, in which the forms that emerge are the things themselves, may provide examples.
Sending processes that co-evolve—even in ways we may not be able to predict—may communicate far more about us than sending signifiers of cultural or scientific objects. In composing such processes, we must recognize that co-evolution involves the generation of spontaneous order plus selection, with adaptation leading to the unmistakable identity for the adapting agent. Furthermore, an adaptive agent’s efficacy is increased if all the rules for adaptation are always considered hypotheses under continuous testing and verification, with alternative hypotheses always ready to be tried when contradictions are revealed, rather than attempting to make new rules achieve consistency with other rules modeling the environment. This is especially important in open, co-creative communication.
The author offers speculations on how to compose and transmit interactive processes within the limits of using electromagnetic fields. These include sending specifications for materializing interactive process, employing extended time forms, recognizing shared dynamics and covariance among systems as communication, and avoiding thinking in terms of linear time and concurrent imagination. Principles for composing interactive processes are suggested along with their possible means of transmission over large-scale time-space domains.
True co-creative, interactive, co-communication may only be possible among forms of intelligence in which empathy and altruistic behavior has ascended through the natural forms of evolution. Deep consideration of ETC demands that we question how we might best focus our work on this highest imperative of evolution. Can human beings serve as an agency for such evolutionary advancement? The development of high orders of self-consciousness would seem to be required. Acquisition of deep self-knowledge—from this perspective—seems a primary prerequisite for the evolution of consciousness, and in turn, a prerequisite for all higher human evolution. This may also be a requirement for ETC to succeed.
Sundar Sarukkai
National Institute of
Advanced Studies
Indian Institute of Science Campus
Bangalore, India
Universality, Emotion, and Communication in
Mathematics
Abstract:
For the sciences, the model of universality is the language of
mathematics. Eminent scientists from Galileo to Feynman have understood
the activity of science as reading the book of nature, with this book
being written in the language of mathematics. Nature, for scientists, is
universal in the sense that the laws of science hold in any region of the
universe. Their belief that nature is written in the language of
mathematics actually reflects their belief that mathematics is a universal
language. A simple consequence is that even extraterrestrials would
understand the world around them in terms of this universal mathematical
structure. This is indeed a momentous conclusion that scientists make about the
universe, and there are many problems with it. The first challenge to the
universality of mathematics can be mounted when we understand mathematics
as a language that is indebted to the world in which we live. Moreover,
mathematics exhibits discursive strategies such as rhetoric, and it uses
metaphors in ways similar to other languages like English. Mathematics has
unique writing strategies that are essentially driven by human
subjectivity (Sarukkai, 2002). The use of mathematics in disciplines such
as physics clearly exhibits anthropocentric concerns (Steiner, 1998). In
such a scenario, can we expect mathematics (and more generally the
sciences, which are based on mathematics) to play the paradigmatic role in
interstellar communication? There are also some other fundamental issues that arise when we look at
the communicative role of mathematics. For example, emotion seems to be a
fundamental characteristic of conscious beings. Natural languages like
English encode emotion in various ways. The uniqueness of mathematics, and
in fact its objectivity, lies in its claim to have removed the emotional
content that is present in natural languages and literary discourses. If
this is so, how then can mathematics encode altruism, which is essentially
related to emotions? But we also recognize the uniqueness of mathematics – perhaps in its
capacity to order nature. If we acknowledge that mathematics is
essentially human in that it also encodes emotions and evocativeness in
its discourse, then we can learn to fashion mathematics to encode altruism
for extraterrestrial communication. The presence of rhetoric and metaphors
in mathematics and physics, and the important role that aesthetics plays
in the scientific imagination, suggests that it is indeed possible to do
this.
M. A. Mosalam Shaltout
Space Research Center
Desert Environment Research
Institute
Minufiya University
El – Sadat City, Egypt
Altruism in Islam and the Holy Quran, and the
Composition of Interstellar Messages
Abstract:
Altruism in Islam and the Holy Quran can be summarized in the following points:
• In Islam, there are no distinctions in dignity and fundamental rights between one person and another. These rights are recognized in all people, without distinctions of race, sex, blood relations, or wealth, and they are guaranteed in Islam by virtue of a prescription of the prophet Muhammad: “There is no advantage for an Arab over a non-Arab, or for a white man over a black man, excepting by piety,” and by his saying: “Women are sisters to men.” The unity of the human family is taught through Islam’s proclamation that the best of people in the sight of God are those who are most useful to that family. Such is the meaning of this saying of the prophet Muhammad: “All (humankind) are God’s people, and the one loved most by Him (God) is the one who serves His people (humankind) best.”
• Islam calls for acquaintance and cooperation for the common good, as well as for the performance of all kinds of righteous deeds towards all human beings, regardless of their citizenship or religion. Such is the law of God prescribed by the Quran: “O you people (humankind); we created you from the union of a twain, male and female, and we divided you into nations and communities and dispersed you over the earth to get to know each other and not to boast your descent or rank. The one among you whom God values most and who is held precious in His esteem is he who keeps God in mind and acquaints his heart with wisdom, and regards God with breast filled with reverential awe. God is Omniscient, intimately acquainted with all things”(Surah Al- Hujarat, Aye 13).
• Islam promotes religious freedom for everyone, and prohibits any compulsion in this respect. For it is written in the Quran: “Compulsion is incompatible with religion, therefore let there be no compulsion in religion. Now has the path of rectitude been made distinct from the path of error and holiness from vindictiveness. Therefore, he who rejects false beliefs and turns his attention to God with a religious mind, will have grasped firmly at the eternal, the unchangeable and the most secure hand-hold which shall never separate nor shall it suffer a break, and God is Omnipresent with illimitable audition, Omniscient” (Surah Al- Baqarah, Aye 256).
• Also, it is written in the Quran: “Had God willed (O Muhammed), He would have induced all people domiciled on earth to conform to His will and to His system of faith and worship. Would you then twist peoples’ opinions into accordance with your party and force them to conform to Islam!” (Surah Yunus, Aye 99). Thus God reproves any pressure exercised by one person on the conscience of another.
• Islam prohibits any attack on the property or the life of anyone. The prophet of Islam solemnly declared that “property and blood of others are a sacred trust.”
• Islam guarantees house immunity for the protection of human freedom. This immunity is guaranteed by virtue of the Quranic verse: “O you who have conformed to Islam: Do not enter houses which are not your own until you have asked permission and greeted those who dwell therein. This is best for you and mannerly, and it is hoped that you shall bear this in mind” (Surah Al-Nur, Aye 27).
• There is no fanaticism in Islam. Islam is not a religion of fear but a religion of love and peace, good character, and human rights. For it is written in the Quran: “And make it the heart of your purpose to fight in the cause of God those who wage war against you, but do not take the initiative to transgress; God dislikes those who go beyond the limits prescribed by Him” (Surah Al- Baqarah, Aye 190).
Moreover, the Holy Quran contains many statements (Ayes) concerning sociology, anthropology, biology, and psychology, and it encourages scientific research, as evidenced by the flourishing of science in the Arabian – Islamic Civilization from 800 to 1400 A.D.
Diana Slattery
Academy of
Electronic Media
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York,
USA
The Glide Model: Communicating Intention through
Gestural Language
Abstract:
When human strangers meet for the first time, face to face, non-verbal
aspects of communication, the gestures, postures, facial expressions, and
tensions—collectively, body language—are relied on for crucial assessments
of emotional state, trust, truthfulness, relative friendliness or
aggression, matters vital to the nature of any further communication with
the "unknown." Reading the "other" adds up to, at first pass, divining
their intentions and motivations, perceptions that occur perhaps more
quickly than the parsing of the rational or denotative content of their
communication. Trust in our own ability to perceive another’s intentions
is especially critical when the parties do not share a common symbolic
system. How can we communicate to an ETI that our intentions are benign,
that altruism, among humans, is not a field of dreams? Convincing an ETI,
truly an "outsider" of our altruistic potential as a species, might be a
hard sell if they’ve had access to our history books, news services, or
entertainment channels. How might the non-verbal, the non-symbolic, and
the multi-dimensional qualities of language assist our ability to encode
altruism in our communications between worlds? Gestural languages (mudras, dance, and signed languages) can carry
meaning that is both highly sensuous and abstract at the same time. Visual
language can speak in complex metaphors while simultaneously carrying a
representational message. The
Glide sign system models a dynamic (moving, gesturing, transforming)
set of signs that can embody both emotional content and a metaphorical
syntax (being a web of signs, not a line of words) that expresses
connectedness, accommodation, cooperation, and mutual movement through its
linking, nesting, and pattern-forming behaviors and structures. In its
fundamental shapes (curved and wavelike) and motions (smooth and flowing),
it embodies a gestural character that can express emotive qualities such
as gentleness, non-aggression, and beauty (at least to human eyes). If the
ETI assesses the "look and feel" of a linguistic event, even before the
denotative meaning can be decoded, as we do, then perhaps a positively
oriented intention—even an altruistic leaning—can be communicated directly
through such gestures. Whether the ETI reads body or embodied language as
we do (and the human vocabularies of gesture are by no means universal) is
of course not known. Therefore the aspects that express, through visual
metaphor (or sonic harmonies) concepts of interconnection and cooperation
may operate at a more fundamental level. The wavelike visual structure of the Glide glyphs suggests a relatively
simple transmission scheme. The chosen carrier signal (whether radio or
light) can be modulated by the sinusoidal frequencies of the glyphs at
whatever bandwidth the transmission is made. Received signals could be
mapped to a choice of sensory modalities: sound, sight, or even direct
physical vibration. Such a mapping, emanating from fundamental waveforms,
does not, of course, have to be limited to human sensory ranges. If some day signals are sent to follow Voyager, the trust displayed in
this effort—that we are communicating at all—may be the surest sign of our
own potential for altruism. Whatever we decide to communicate, we are
saying in the act "Here we are; please get in touch." That we are
concerned about how we are perceived, that we are considering how to
foreground one of our best aspects—the altruistic—seems a prudent way to
whisper into the void.
Henna Törmänen
Co-authors: Suvi Aittakumpu,
Kaisa Haataja, Kristiina Haataja, Annemari Heikkinen, Petra Koramo, Emilia
Suoraniemi, Markus Takkinen, Johanna Tuovila, Maiju Törmänen, and Mirja
Visakova
Kuusamo High School
Kuusamo, Finland
Zoosemiotics and Interstellar Message Construction
Abstract:
Zoosemiotics opens a ‘universe of signs’ not always interpretable through the communicative conventions of humans. We must answer several questions before having a chance of understanding this ‘universe.’ Which signs provide information to us and to other species? Are there any semiotic parameters that might help us understand intra- and interspecies communication? What is the intention of composing a particular sign? And, if altruism helps ensure the survival of the human species, community, and culture, might there be ethical codes based on other principles fundamental to the survival of a particular species, but different from ours?
In our paper, we study aesthetic manifestations of animals, both in visual arts and music, as semiotic contexts. These contexts offer us an opportunity to construct sign systems that differ from human sign systems. Some of the semiotic codes tracked in zoosemiotics may also be applicable to the semiotics of interstellar communication.
First, non-human animals (especially primates) exhibit preferences that can be divided into nine perceptual categories informed by the visual arts: animals prefer saturated colours over unsaturated colours; primary colours over mixed ones; brilliant colours over dull colours; rhythmical repetition of equal components; bilateral and radial symmetry; steady curves, like circles, spirals, and wave-lines; conspicuous lines or shapes as opposed to indistinct ones; a certain balance of excitation between the left and the right half of a picture; and the same colours as compared to nearly equal colours, when two objects of different colours have to be combined.
Second, non-human animals also use music-like conventions. Japanese composer Shinji Kanki makes use of such conventions, discovered in the field of zoomusicology, when composing music for dolphins.
On the basis of the two branches of zoosemiotics presented above, we will propose a set of semiotic conventions discovered in interspecies communication that can be seen, mutatis mutandis, as applicable to interstellar message construction.