Daniel Pargman wrote:
>
> Hello
>
> I hope I don't sound too unserious when I ask my question, but let me
> assure you that my intentions are honest, I really do wonder about this
> question...
>
> Regard this as a thought experiment (and do not try this at home, kids :-)
>
> In the program of a local (Swedish) Science Fiction conference
> (http://www.bahnhof.se/~anglemar/EFSF/konfekt.html ), I found a panel
> debate on the following subject:
>
> >Non-human communication
> >
> >What could a different type of communication look like?
> >What could for example communication with colours look like?
> >Geometry? Odours?
> (my translation)
>
> Just to clarify, we are not talking about communication among non-human but
> earthly animal here. We are talking about (radically) different beings who
> have evolved under (radically) different conditions compared to what we
> know from this planet. And we talk about a qualitative sort of
> communication that goes beyond sign systems and into the symbolic domain.
>
> Let me give some examples of the top of my head:
> - How could an intelligent gas cloud communicate (the example comes from a
> novel by the astronomer Frederick Hoyle)?
> - Or computer processes in a network (sort of like sophisticated - but
> perhaps benevolent - versions of computer viruses) that have "worked out"
> that they increase their chances of survival/reproduction by being able to
> communicate with each other?
> - Or beings who live in a two-dimensional world (the example comes from the
> novel "Flatlands" that was written 191X by XXX Abbott)?
> ...and so on.
>
> The ability and the modes of communication from an evolutionary perspective
> must be a function of the environment and the needs of the beings in
> question over million- or billion-year long time spans.
>
> This question is of course very difficult for us to think about and all
> thought by neccessity has to be speculations. I think it was McLuhan who
> said something in the line of "I don't know who discovered water, but it
> wasn't a fish". But perhaps there are some fish on xmca who dare to
> elaborate on the subject?
>
> /Daniel Pargman
>
> Daniel Pargman pargman who-is-at tema.liu.se
>
> Program for Human-Centered Information Technology
> Dept. of Communication Studies tel: + 46 13 28 29 58
> Linkoping University + 46 13 28 10 00 (vx)
> 581 83 Linkoping, Sweden fax: + 46 13 28 22 99
>
> "There are two sorts of people -
> those who divide people into two sorts and the others"