So what would you do if you met an extra-terrestrial being? In the middle of the day, let's say, to take the fear factor out of it (or at least suppress it). Wave? Smile? Start talking? Gesture to objects?
Think about it. All of those responses assume a base of common knowledge or phenomenological familiarity. Body language is out; spoken language is out. Is a smile a smile, or a snarl? After all, most terrestrial animals bare their teeth as a warning, not a gesture of friendship. Is a wave threatening or inviting? How would you form a basis for communication? How would you communicate non-hostile intentions? Express intelligence? Beat out prime numbers on a nearby tree trunk? That assumes the being opposite you can see or hear.
Without the cognitive economy we rely on for communication, communication seems extremely difficult, at best.
The best answer I can come up with requires another person. Play act a friendly greeting, with all the typical words and body language. Then play act a hostile greeting, with play-acted violence. Then repeat the friendly greeting. Then initiate the friendly greeting with the extra-terrestrial. Perhaps in that way, you could show the difference between friendly greetings and hostile greetings and thereby communicate the friendly nature of the greeting before actually turning it on the alien.
But who knows if that would work? I'm sure others have considered this, but it seems an interesting question.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
So that you do not think that you are the lonely one out there, it'smee. And in response to this blog...sometimes me thinks you thinks too much.
Thanks for leaving a comment, but who's "it'smee"?
Perhaps I think too much, but it seems better to think too much than too little. Wouldn't you agree?
Post a Comment