Animal Intelligence and its Implications for Alien Life Part 4: Alien Math

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

We've spent the last three posts talking about why communicating with aliens might be difficult. Now, however, we've got a chance to talk about what we do have going for us when trying to talk to aliens, and our current attempts to prepare ourselves for translating alien languages. This series has gotten a little away from its original intent- examining some of the more alien creatures on Earth for the purposes of examining the possibilities for alien life- but I think it's been a good detour. The first, and possibly best strategy for talking to aliens? Math.

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Math is nowhere near so variable as language. There are quite a few mathematicians and scientists that consider math a feature of the universe, not just of human thought. An exchange of basic mathematical concepts, like pi for instance, could be an excellent way to begin talking. At the very least, exchanging enough math can confirm we're both intelligent enough to do math.

From there, we could find more common ground based on universal constants- the radioactive decay of various elements to determine time scales, etc. In fact, there are several artificially constructed mathematical languages designed specifically to communicate with aliens. Lincos, published in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal, was one such language. Freudenthal, an accomplished mathematician, designed the language to pre presaged by a 'dictionary', which would provide all the necessary information to function in the language. To this day Lincos remains the primary constructed language meant for communicating with aliens, but it's not the only one- there was others published in 1992 and 2010.

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We've actually sent a few messages out to the stars, often targeted to specific star systems. There are clearly some potential risks to this, of course. (Hostile aliens, hurrah!) There are, however, some potential problems with the math based approach to communication, largely based in how we approach math.

Different systems of number notation, for example, could be a problem. We currently use a base 10 number system. It's not the best system for us, but it works. Most mathematicians agree that a base 12 system is easier to use and more practical, but the sheer difficulty of converting the world over to base 12 time would be extraordinarily prohibitive, so we'll just keep having difficult fractions. We've had different number systems through history, even including base 64. Overcoming the difficulties of having different numerical notations isn't impossible, but if they have a really weird one it would cause a ton of headaches. And if they had a non-whole number based system? Sheer chaos.

There are others, as well. Many thinkers believe that it's perfectly reasonable for aliens to have completely different methods of doing math. There is little reason to imagine that the progression from Euclidean (planar) geometry to the various non-Euclidean geometries we also use to be universal- these aliens might describe motion and shapes in a completely separate geometrical system. They also might have completely different mathematical systems than us- they might lack calculus and have something crazy in its place.

One of the biggest challenges communicating to aliens in regards to math, however, will be a matter of math usage. How can we, for instance, be sure that aliens will have any attachment to prime numbers or whatever mathematical artifact we're sending to them? Beyond that, how can we even be sure they understand discreet entities in the way that we do? We see a group of people and count them as individuals- why would a hive mind alien race necessarily do that? A lot of our mathematical laws might be mere assumptions that we've been led to based off of our biology and history. Still, however, using math to talk to aliens is the best plan we have so far.

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Bibliography:

• https://www.space.com/37109-making-contact-aliens-language-math.html
• https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/78kmzx/an-astrolinguist-explains-how-to-talk-to-aliens-5886b75679af5446061b2672
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_extraterrestrial_intelligence
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)