I was watching a video on sounds from space and it drove me towards a line of thought I had not considered before. What would we do if we heard nothing but the voices of alien transmissions? All communication we experience seems dependent on an external sense of the world around us. In other words, one sense alone is insufficient for communication. While this may not apply to the alien voices, can we solve the general problem of agreed language?
So I’ve formulated a thought experiment. Imagine you’re a highly intelligent creature of thought. While it’s a bastardization of the term, let’s just call yourself “monadic.” The only sense you have is hearing. You have no sense of balance or spacial awareness. You also possess the ability to generate sound on your own such that you can hear it. Let’s call this “speaking.” These are meant to be abstract concepts of “hearing” and “sound,” not the traditional meaning of the terms. They exist in function but not as we humans experience it. They are instead the most basic qualifiers for those terms meaning. “Hearing” means to experience the data expressed from “speaking,” and nothing more.
The thought experiment is this: Given one other monadic creature such as yourself exists, can you create a fully developed common language in which to express statements of emotion and ask questions of the world around you. Furthermore, this monad’s speaking voice is the exact mirror of your own. To test this on a basic level, there are a few tasks that must be accomplished:
- Identify each other as separate conscious entities.
- Give yourself a name and tell this other entity your name.
- Receive the other entity’s name.
- Tell each other of other monadic entities you (may) have encountered.
- Express joy in finding you are not alone.
- Write a song together and sing.
- Teach this language to another monadic entity.
The purpose of this basic test is to identify the following (numbers correspond with the test):
- Be clear that you’re not speaking to yourself, and even if you were, its active consciousness is separate from yours.
- Establish a basic method of expression.
- Ensure the handshake for agreed expression occurred.
- Express both plurality and tense.
- Express qualia.
- Statement of command and coordinated communication.
- Transferability.
I am actually leaning towards the notion that this is not possible. Here are my thought on each point… in reverse order.
7- The communication is developed from a contextual understanding. When one being reaches another, the context has, inherently, changed. This is less of a blocker than a difficult problem, to be honest.
6- In a world without action besides speaking, the concept of a command will be very difficult to derive. While, again, not a blocker but a difficult problem, commands must be taught as the very concept of a command is not already known.
5- While one cannot experience the same qualia as another, agreeing for the “gist” of a qualia is next to impossible. One person’s moan could be another person’s laughter. You need a context to derive the agreed quale. I do not see how such a context can occur without adding another sense.
4- Plurality may not be an issue if you can encounter two beings at the same time or even another being with the same name, but when it’s just the two of you, the concept of “more” has not been conceptualized by either of you. This is tying back to #7 where you cannot transfer the language easily. That said, I do believe it’s possible. Imagine someone “clicks” twice, then says, “two”, then terminates. Then he “clicks” twice, and says “more”, then “clicks” again, then says “three”. It could be figured out.
3- Now this is the toughy. If you give your name, how can you tell if someone is recognizes this name? I haven’t figured out a method for this.
2- Furthermore, how can you give the idea of “me” or “my” to someone. Like if I said, “Rafajafar”, you wouldn’t know that’s my name unless I said, “my name is Rafajafar”. In old movies when cowboys encounter Natives, they point at themselves and go, “Me John,” and the Native American immediately gets it. In this case, there’s no pointing. How do you point to yourself in this universe?
1- And this is just plain solipsism. You either accept each other as separate or don’t.
So it’s my inclination that it may not be possible to communicate with another monadic being given only one sense and one method of stimulating that sense. (three senses if you insist on a sense of “selfness”).
Thoughts?