# SETI finally found something now what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 30, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807 "2004-06-30T01:28:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/1 "2004-06-30T01:28:28Z")
So lets say we did come in to contact with some aliens not face to face but via radio wave or microwaves or whatever it is they use. How would we ever be able to break the laguage barrier? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/2 "2004-06-30T01:40:53Z")
> [@SHAKES](#): > > So lets say we did come in to contact with some aliens not face to face but via radio wave or microwaves or whatever it is they use. How would we ever be able to break the laguage barrier? I think you are missing the key point of SETI. That stands for “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence”. The goal of SETI isn’t to _communicate_ with advanced aliens, but just to find out if their are any out there. As for communicating with ETs, almost certainly forget about that nonsense. Almost surely if we did spot their communications, they’d be too far away to do that. They’d be at least hundreds of light years away. If we sent a message and they responded, that would mean centuries before we would get a reply back. (And, odds that they’d be listening on the frequency we sent are near zilch.) However, if we were just monitoring their transmissions, it is quite possible we could break the language barrier. For example, if they had broadcast TV and we were able to figure out the encoding scheme, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out the language. From the visual ques along with the language, we could figure out what words meant what. For example, an ET watching US television would pick up that children when addressing their female parent called her “Mommy”, and that was the word that meant “female parent”. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/3 "2004-06-30T01:46:24Z")
Well, we’d have a lot of time to work on it, seeing as how a couple hundred years one way or another probably wouldn’t make much of a difference given the round-trip involved in the correspondence. It’s also doubtful there’d be much in the way of data in the signal. Though people like to talk about how all our TV signals are screaming out across the cosmos, all any listening aliens will pick up from Alpha Centauri are the carrier waves. This is why people got so excited about pulsars way back when- they could be alien carrier waves! ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/4 "2004-06-30T02:03:19Z")
Damnit! I thought this was a “breaking news” thread. :mad: Anyway, I’m not sure the language barrier would be that easy to break…Even if we _did_ manage to peel single TV-style signal out of the degraded mess that we’d receive—I’m afraid it’d be akin to trying to pick out a single conversation taking place in a large crowd, standing half a mile away from the listener—what if we ended up with a film of what looks like sea urchins performing Chinese opera, and “speaking” in an unending trill that’s at too high a frequency for humans to hear normally? ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/5 "2004-06-30T02:17:47Z")
I’m with **Ranchoth** on this. The idea that “mommy” means a member of parental unit would be mind bogglingly bizzare to a plant of millions of species that do not use sexual reproduction. Not all sounds would be language; music (or some sort of similar idea) for instance. Imagine some scientist on Acturius - or however you spell that place - who only has the farting scent in “Blazing Saddles,” trying to work out what’s being said. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/6 "2004-06-30T02:27:36Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > what if we ended up with a film of what looks like sea urchins performing Chinese opera, and “speaking” in an unending trill that’s at too high a frequency for humans to hear normally? That would be pretty cool, actually. > [@SandyHook](#): > > … who only has the farting scent in “Blazing Saddles,” I don’t thinkt hey had the necessary technology in 1973 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/7 "2004-06-30T02:32:01Z")
Suppose the aliens were analagous to ants or some other social insect, and communicate through chemical trails. How could we decode a message meant to convey smell or taste? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/8 "2004-06-30T03:06:25Z")
We’re not going to pick up on incidental traffic for a long ways yet… Our receiver technology is not nearly powerful enough yet to pick up something that was meant for an audience on the same planet. So any message we do receive will be something intended as a message to other planets. And in any such transmission, the most interesting piece of information will be the simple fact that alien civilizations exist. This could be communicated quite readily by transmitting some simple piece of mathematics, such as a list of prime numbers or digits of pi. After that, they might follow up with more information about themselves in whatever format they deem easiest to decode, but if we should manage to figure that out, that’d just be the icing on the cake. ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/9 "2004-06-30T03:58:15Z")
> [@Enola Straight](#): > > Suppose the aliens were analagous to ants or some other social insect, and communicate through chemical trails. > > How could we decode a message meant to convey smell or taste? Perhaps that is what **SandyHook** was refering to here. > [@](#): > > … who only has the farting scent in “Blazing Saddles,” ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/10 "2004-06-30T04:28:33Z")
> [@SandyHook](#): > > The idea that “mommy” means a member of parental unit would be mind bogglingly bizzare to a plant of millions of species that do not use sexual reproduction. No, it wouldn’t. If some ETs could pick up and view TV signals from Earth, they’d very quickly realize that our species uses sexual reproduction. The same way if we picked up the TV signals from a planet that didn’t use sexual reproduction, we’d quickly conclude that was the case, because all families just had one parent. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/11 "2004-06-30T04:33:04Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > No, it wouldn’t. If some ETs could pick up and view TV signals from Earth, they’d very quickly realize that our species uses sexual reproduction. Depends on what channel they get. And if they’re paying for premium services. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/12 "2004-06-30T04:46:10Z")
> [@Enola Straight](#): > > Suppose the aliens were analagous to ants or some other social insect, and communicate through chemical trails. > > How could we decode a message meant to convey smell or taste? Considering the shit on television, I don’t think smell would be a barrier. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/13 "2004-06-30T04:59:39Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > No, it wouldn’t. If some ETs could pick up and view TV signals from Earth, they’d very quickly realize that our species uses sexual reproduction. The same way if we picked up the TV signals from a planet that didn’t use sexual reproduction, we’d quickly conclude that was the case, because all families just had one parent. That’s assuming sexual reproduction actually exists on their planet. Plus, they’d also have to identify which is the female of the species, which could actually be difficult. But I think we’ve missed the point that it may be fairly easy to decode the alien language if we were watching along with visual cues. It just may take a few linguists. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/14 "2004-06-30T05:33:07Z")
> [@xgxlx](#): > > But I think we’ve missed the point that it may be fairly easy to decode the alien language if we were watching along with visual cues. It just may take a few linguists. That might be difficult, if their language is too…well, _alien_ for us. I mean, if they just sound like humans speaking a funny language, that’s one thing (and probably a pretty unlikely thing). But what if it’s beyond a human’s ability to speak, or even _perceive_ properly? Just listen to whale songs…it seems to be _some_ manner of language (we think). And since whales are less inteligent than humans are, that should make their language even _easier_ to decipher than, say, an unknown human language, shouldn’t it? Obviously, not so. And that’s after decades of observation and exhaustive research. Well, I’m tired. Feel free to lambast and/or debunk the above. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/15 "2004-06-30T05:58:35Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > No, it wouldn’t. If some ETs could pick up and view TV signals from Earth, they’d very quickly realize that our species uses sexual reproduction. The same way if we picked up the TV signals from a planet that didn’t use sexual reproduction, we’d quickly conclude that was the case, because all families just had one parent. I once read a fascinating journal article on semiotics and the search for intelligent life written by a person who was both fascinating and borderline crackpot. I managed to track down [a similar paper he wrote](http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/9902/vakoch.html). You seem to be making too many assumptions about that intelligent life. For one, what makes you think they can even _see_. Maybe they process optical information in a way completely different of humans. What happens if their primary form of communication relies on olfactive-like senses, or magnetic emissions? The article I linked to deals with many of those issues, but essentially it boils down to the fact that there’s no way that we can know how to communicate with entities we know nothing about. Think about animal species that have relatively high intellects, here on Earth. Sure, great apes are a lot like humans and we can communicate with them, kind of. Dogs are social animals and in that way a bit like humans and yes, there’s some amount of meaningful exchange of information that goes between a pet and its owner. What about dolphins, though? Pigs? Crows? Expand the definition of “intelligent” a bit, what about ants? Sure, individual ants aren’t too bright or complex, but the species as wholes _have_ achieved domestication of other animals, specialization of tasks and complex “urban” infrastructures. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/16 "2004-06-30T07:19:03Z")
People aren’t thinking far enough outside the box here; even if they _did_ have something analogous to sexual reproduction, the concept of ‘female’ might be alien to them; the idea of visual clues (or the idea of vision itself) might be unfamiliar, if they have a very different set of sensory apparatus. ---
**Author:** ![Balle\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/13edae/32.png) [@Balle\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balle_M)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/17 "2004-06-30T13:57:57Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > People aren’t thinking far enough outside the box here; even if they _did_ have something analogous to sexual reproduction, the concept of ‘female’ might be alien to them; the idea of visual clues (or the idea of vision itself) might be unfamiliar, if they have a very different set of sensory apparatus. Oh yeah? Then how come on the Tee-Vee the aliens always kidnap the gal with the largest yabahoes? Answer me that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Science Guy. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/18 "2004-06-30T14:02:17Z")
To probe her anus, of course; we can be certain that aliens will understand the _anus_ concept. ---
**Author:** ![FX45\_4Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4bbf92/32.png) [@FX45\_4Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FX45_4Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/19 "2004-06-30T14:20:49Z")
IMHO: We would be no more able to communicate with Aliens than we can communicate with dolphins, whales, dogs, primates, elephants etc. Personally I can only communicate with about 2% of the worlds “human” population. I think we all grew up watching Star trek and have a complete misconception of our own intelligence. :smack: 😛😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807/20 "2004-06-30T14:30:11Z")
The trouble is with dolphins is that _we’re not actually sure they’re interested_ - they make all these squeaky clicky noises, but that could be nothing much more than bird song, or it could be that they are trying to tell us to bugger off and die. Now, I’m sure that the same _could_ be argued of alien intelligences, however, the sort of signals that SETI is looking for are those which have been deliberately transmitted for the purpose of being intercepted by SETI-type endeavours. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-finally-found-something-now-what/252807.md?page=2)