The modern Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is based on the premise that a systematic search of the cosmos may reveal artificial signals, transmitted either intentionally or, somewhat like the leakage of TV and radio signals from Earth today, as electromagnetic noise. But will these signals, if we ever detect them, be more than simple beacons telling us that we are not alone? What if the signals bear messages from an alien civilization, attempting to describe the universe from the perspective of an intelligent species evolved completely independently of humankind?
If an extraterrestrial radio or optical signal is packed with information, we might not know for sure until well after we have determined that the signal is artificial. The SETI programs currently underway focus their energies on finding strong artificial signalsnot on detecting fluctuations of those signals that might convey additional information. But with the detection of a sign of intelligent life beyond Earth, stronger search systems would no doubt follow, possibly revealing encoded messages from extraterrestrials.
able --> by examining past attempts to decode languages right here on Earth. But these scholars warn that we need to be cautious about which examples to use for our case studies.Finney and Bentley note an oft-cited analogy for detecting a message-laden signal from space: the transmission of knowledge from ancient Greece to medieval Europe. Though any major bookstore today has a wide variety of classics availableoften in paperback editions at bargain pricesduring the Dark Ages, Plato and Aristotle werent so easy to come by.
In fact, European scholars had lost vast numbers of Greek works on philosophy, literature, and science. But fortunately, copies of these works were well-protected by Islamic scholars, particularly in Spain and Sicily. Thus, as Europe entered the Renaissance, Western scholars were able to reclaim Greek classics from Islamic centers of learning, either directly from Greek editions or through Arabic translations. And thus, over decades and centuries, the "young" European civilization was able to learn from the older Greek civilization, although the two were separated by long expanses of time.
The analogy has natural affinities with contact between Earth and the much older extraterrestrial civilizations being sought by SETI. If we do detect information-rich signals, it is possible that they will come from civilizations long since dead. The impact, we expect, would be even more edifying than the influx of ancient thought was for early modern Europe. This reclaiming of ancient knowledge provided Europeans with alternative perspectives to some of their typical ways of viewing the world, in turn leading to new syntheses of modern European and ancient Greek insights. If some day we detect and decode messages from civilizations beyond Earth, we will have similar opportunities to juxtapose terrestrial and otherworldly views.
But, Finney and Bentley warn us, perhaps it wont be quite that easy. While the Greek comparison is informative, as with any analogy, it does not tell the whole story. For a more nuanced understanding, we can turn to other examples of decoding ancient scripts. In the next article in this series, we will follow Finney and Bentleys lead, and examine other analogues of decoding extraterrestrial messages, drawing on more recent attempts to translate ancient Maya and Etruscan texts.
advertisement
