cryptologist/ language expert question

[the game]

So I have a question. So I've read the article about a signal that we supposedly received in 1998 that turned out to be an SOS from another galaxy that supposedly came from a civilization that had destroyed itself and they sent out an intergalactic cry for help and we had just recently in 2011 properly decoded it. I understand it's a hoax. That's not my question. My question is that if we did receive a message from an alien civilization how exactly would we know that we've decoded and translated it properly? I'm not a language expert so I'm genuinely curious how this would work when we have nothing to compare it to. I'm linking the hoax report about the story.

Do we have any like language/cryptology experts here?



http://www.hoax-slayer.com/nasa-dist...axy-hoax.shtml

[Blueobelisk]

There's no way to decode it without some kind of translation guide or some other reference.

[Christan]

if it was pure math, we'd be able to decoded it, as long as there were stepping stones, for how their math converts into ours.
example would be, X energy is required for an electron to jump from the first to second orbit in a hydrogen atom value is universally the same,
light speed is universally the same, etc...math with some rosettas stone, starting at the basics, we could decode, and maybe get some slipstream / warp bubble / energy cheap wormhole(lol right)

if they started with basic principles, then we could convert to base10 relatively easy, (we think in base10 because we are taught to, 10 fingers n all, aliens could think in base 8(like computers or base2) or 16 hexadecimal, or 4 or...base50, but with a bit of info...meh

things like language, maybe a written form but we'd have no idea how it'd SOUND, what some of the words mean (it'd be like trying to explain empathy to a psychopath and have them actually get it, instead of being like ohh yeah blah blah) we might get a base understanding, maybe as far as the science goes, but things like culture would be out of our reach

[PACOX]

We use pictures and math based messages in the hope that if an alien species intercepts one of our signals that they would invest the time into deciphering it. Where your average layperson wouldn't be able to decipher it, a team of people who study signals, language, communication, etc have a chance of coming up with something.

This is what we put on Voyager





This is an explanation of it



The idea is that simply diagrams and binary should be universal across any intelligent species thats interested/capable of scientific thought. Binary isn't exactly something we invented, its seen as the logical conclusion to solve a number of problems. We use 1s and 0s, aliens might use As and Bs, but binary patterns aren't impossible to pick up on if you're a mathematician/computer scientist.

[Independent voter]

It says "Where u at?"

[Deathquoi]

It says "Where u at?"

"New phone, who dis?"

[Theodarzna]

So I have a question. So I've read the article about a signal that we supposedly received in 1998 that turned out to be an SOS from another galaxy that supposedly came from a civilization that had destroyed itself and they sent out an intergalactic cry for help and we had just recently in 2011 properly decoded it. I understand it's a hoax. That's not my question. My question is that if we did receive a message from an alien civilization how exactly would we know that we've decoded and translated it properly? I'm not a language expert so I'm genuinely curious how this would work when we have nothing to compare it to. I'm linking the hoax report about the story.

Do we have any like language/cryptology experts here?

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/nasa-dist...axy-hoax.shtml

I am a linguist by degree, and I will say it would be mind boggling to actually decipher an alien language.

As an example we do have a mathematical way to determine if someone or something IS conveying information (Well we believe it works) and we can deduce that Humans are not alone on Earth in having something like Language. Ravens for example have Language of some form and can communicate information and talk to one another, which we can prove via study and mathematically based on types of calls and body gesture. They have some crude form of communication. Granted they aren't about to discuss Aristotle any time soon, but also Dolphins have a vocal form of communication akin to our own, we know they "Talk," but beyond that we have no idea.

But that is it. In linguistics we have human languages we cannot even make sense of without either a living speaker to interact with or a sort of Rosetta stone or finding out what languages are related to it. Consider our problems in Linear A or Minoan is likely the Minoan language, but we haven't a clue how to read it because we don't know what the symbols mean or even what sounds they make, once more we have zero to go on so mostly we are just shooting in the dark.

Deciphering an alien signal would be a Godlike task as we cannot even decipher the speech of ancient humans, OR dolphins which are at least technically cousins of ours on the family tree of animals and fellow mammals. An alien being would come from a completely different tree of life. With a completely separate evolution.

We have trouble deciphering the languages of our own species, let alone species from the same tree of life. An Alien signal would likely be impossible to decode.

[Machismo]

Written or spoken language would require a very large amount of source material to decipher. It is translated via process of elimination, and the grouping of common sequences. It's very time consuming, often inaccurate, and still only allows for very basic communications.

Visual is much more efficient, especially if it is seen by an entity that shares even a single physical trait with humans. It can also easily depict basic mathematical principles that most people can understand rather easily.

Mathematics is also the more efficient manner to communicate, since there's actually far less translation to do. Instead of trying to compile all the possible random sequences of words from hundreds of languages, you can simply work with a universal "key."

[Deleted]

Well, the perfect example for you here would be the Kryptos statue. No one has managed to decipher all of it, I've tried myself, I spent weeks boggling theories for the fourth and final paragraph, eventually I just conceded. In that case you have the key in front of you. Any alien message would be so incomprehensible in comparison that Kryptos would be an age 1+ childrens puzzle toy.

As previously stated though, a mathematical message would be far easier to decipher as we basically already have the key to solving it.

[PACOX]

@Theodarzna , symbols would be different but I would think if we sent or received something like the 4 kinematics equations (physics equations used to solve for distance, velocity, acceleration, time, and foundation of many of physics equations), shouldn't we be able to at least figure out what one or another is trying to communicate. If both parties know the equations then both would at least know each other know the foundations of physics. A lot can be extrapolated from that common ground, in theory.

In programming, non-English speakers can be said to code in English. Variable names might not be in English, but variable names aren't really in any particular language. The reserved keywords of a particular language have familiarity to an English speaker but its not exactly necessary for an non-English speaker to know that the keyword "int" means a number in most programming languages. I believe that if we can overcome such barriers then an alien species capable of picking up one of our broadcast signals would be able to do so as well.

[Vanyali]

@Theodarzna , symbols would be different but I would think if we sent or received something like the 4 kinematics equations (physics equations used to solve for distance, velocity, acceleration, time, and foundation of many of physics equations), shouldn't we be able to at least figure out what one or another is trying to communicate. If both parties know the equations then both would at least know each other know the foundations of physics. A lot can be extrapolated from that common ground, in theory.

Because not all math is done or expressed the same way we express math.

We use Base-10 (for most things) because we have ten digits. We use certain symbols because someone felt like drawing it that way. Now let's take someone that has 13 digits (ignoring symmetry issues for now) and doesn't use symbols, but spacing... figuring out that it's an equation would be a challenge, let alone figuring out WHAT equation. Not to mention they might not even calculate in the same manner we do for distance and instead rely on something like scent measures rather than meters.

[Theodarzna]

@Theodarzna , symbols would be different but I would think if we sent or received something like the 4 kinematics equations (physics equations used to solve for distance, velocity, acceleration, time, and foundation of many of physics equations), shouldn't we be able to at least figure out what one or another is trying to communicate. If both parties know the equations then both would at least know each other know the foundations of physics. A lot can be extrapolated from that common ground, in theory.

In programming, non-English speakers can be said to code in English. Variable names might not be in English, but variable names aren't really in any particular language. The reserved keywords of a particular language have familiarity to an English speaker but its not exactly necessary for an non-English speaker to know that the keyword "int" means a number in most programming languages. I believe that if we can overcome such barriers then an alien species capable of picking up one of our broadcast signals would be able to do so as well.

Non-English speakers can figure out English primarily because it in a Human language. Int, Null, Value, If Than Else, all can be figured out because if worse comes to worse another person who does understand their meaning could explain it to them. However try to get a dolphin to understand that and you are in the same ball park as say an alien human contact situation. A Chinese Human and an English Human both can figure out each others speech because they are human speech and at least have a common ancestor and we can interact with each other. Now try deciphering the script of an extinct human language with no speakers?

We would likely know that communication occurred but what language they use to communicate even these mathematical symbols might be indecipherable to us as our seemingly simple math formulae might be total gibberish to them. Both may know the equations but both would be looking at symbols alien to them and with no clear meaning as to what the symbols are trying to say. That is however the best hope is that they might figure out that we, or we might figure out that they, were sending mathematical formulae.

"Int," would just be lines to alien, they might conclude its language, but figuring it out is a whole different leap. The base assumption is it might HAVE to be mathematical as that might be the only even remotely close frame of reference. But that also assumes they would think of math as universal or even have the exact same math as us. Depending on their "advancement," theirs could be completely backward (Though likely if it was they could never send or receive a signal) OR its so advanced that ours is a math so old and wrong that they no longer know of it or recognize it.

[Tradewind]

I feel like more people need to watch Contact.

[Tradewind]

I feel like less people need to have watched it.

Fuuuuck that, great movie. All this thread makes me want to do is watch it again now.

[Deletedaccount1]

That hoax slayer site is really good. Thanks for linking it.

[Forogil]

Because not all math is done or expressed the same way we express math.

We use Base-10 (for most things) because we have ten digits. We use certain symbols because someone felt like drawing it that way. Now let's take someone that has 13 digits (ignoring symmetry issues for now) and doesn't use symbols, but spacing... figuring out that it's an equation would be a challenge, let alone figuring out WHAT equation. Not to mention they might not even calculate in the same manner we do for distance and instead rely on something like scent measures rather than meters.

The abstract math people that people are likely to communicate has very few numbers - and assuming these aliens want to communicate they should be smart enough to write down something like: ʖ ȵ ϫ Щ δ Δʖ ʖʖ ȵʖ ϫʖ Щʖ δʖ Δȵ and we will understand their number system.

For symbols I would say that figuring out what symbols are the same is a bigger problem - e.g. consider dpD - how can we know that rotation does matter (so p and d are different), but d and D are the same? And even worse with handwriting.
But they will likely be sending some form of binary code (or similarly) and assuming they want to communicate with us - and are reasonable intelligent I don't believe that will be a major problem.

If they don't want to communicate it is unlikely we will be able to get a signal at all, as the signal will be too weak to travel between stars (or actually encrypted to be unreadable).

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Realized that there is one exception: they could be communicating with a probe similar to e.g. voyager (the signals sent back are likely to be much weaker - and likely to contain mostly images/movies) to steer it etc, but the signals will not really tell us much about their civilization.

[ranzino]

There are simple reasons you can translate a sentence like "grandmother died, funeral in 10 days" in every human language. Because humans are by biology 2 gendered including the easy concept of a mother of a parent. And we are all mortal, a funeral ( how elaborated it may be) is a common ceremony and all cultures developed a sort of calendar.
With aliens, you cannot count on such similarities. So dont expect a message in a language. Unless aliens are weird and think their language IS total universal.

[Shadowferal]

Symbols that we use isn't something that can be translated easily, even the symbols we use for math.
That said, the logical progression used in said math is something that we are basing a rather large assumption on that an alien community is using the same progression.

Both groups first need to find a commonality in symbol usage, and this can include verbal (sound based), colors, simple shapes (what we use for math), etc.

Of course we'll likely end up killing each other first.

[Tuor]

My thought about this.

There are so many problems, for example, the posted image that was attached to voyager does a very basic mistake, it presumes that aliens can see in very same specter of light we do, which is blue, but if for example they evolved in a red dwarf, their eyes will had adapted most likely infra-red, and they would not even be able to see it, hopefully someone though about that before, and the draw was not printed, but entailed in the gold plate.

And the problem of comunication is basicly this, if we want comunicate with an alien race, the first thing we have to do is presume, presume for example the frequency they sensitive (human ears are sensitive at around 20khz), we had to presume wats the specter of light they can see and... someone gave the example of dolphins, we also have to presume they way they spread their comunication.

Even if we use mathematics, we would still had to presume to vehicle to spread that mathematics, we could for example, have a radio signal that oscilates in a mathematical order easy to decode, for example using beeps, but offcourse, we had to presume they could actualy ear the beeps.

Establishing a comunication form wit an entity that didn't evolved the same way as we did, normally means they might have totaly diferent senses from ours, or at least, those senses have evolved in a totaly diferent way as ours, making comunication even in a mathematical form, very dificult at the beggining. The chances are that, even if they actually already tried to contct us, the chances are that we most likely didn't even noticed because we didn't searched were it was suposed for us to search, after all, we have to supose the vehicle form of their comunication (radio, light...) and then after that we had to supose what senses they using in that comunication (ears, eyes...). To resume, what might be simple and obvious for us or might not be that simple to the aliens and vice versa.

So concluding, i doubt we could actually decode such a message, there is so many things we need to presume, and obviously not all would be that obvious to us.

[Noradin]

But that is it. In linguistics we have human languages we cannot even make sense of without either a living speaker to interact with or a sort of Rosetta stone or finding out what languages are related to it. Consider our problems in Linear A or Minoan is likely the Minoan language, but we haven't a clue how to read it because we don't know what the symbols mean or even what sounds they make, once more we have zero to go on so mostly we are just shooting in the dark.

Deciphering an alien signal would be a Godlike task as we cannot even decipher the speech of ancient humans, OR dolphins which are at least technically cousins of ours on the family tree of animals and fellow mammals. An alien being would come from a completely different tree of life. With a completely separate evolution.

Keep in mind that such an signal would be designed to hopefully be translatable with just the signal and a certain level of understanding of the universe, thus it is a distinctly different problem from trying to translate an alien language.

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@TheodarznaIf both parties know the equations then both would at least know each other know the foundations of physics. A lot can be extrapolated from that common ground, in theory.

But we do not know which equations they use, or more importantly we do not even know what kind of detector the signal is supposed to be precieved with.
The law of small numbers would tell us that there are many ways to 'translate' such a signal and 'make sense of it'.
When we try to translate human communications (such as programming code) we do have knowledge of the circumstances surrounding it.

If it was a dialog with, then our chances would be much higher, I'll give you that, but such is not the scenario of this thread.

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There are so many problems, for example, the posted image that was attached to voyager does a very basic mistake, it presumes that aliens can see in very same specter of light we do, which is blue, but if for example they evolved in a red dwarf, their eyes will had adapted most likely infra-red, and they would not even be able to see it, hopefully someone though about that before, and the draw was not printed, but entailed in the gold plate.

It was engraved.