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Ted Chiang has an excellent short story on this subject, regarding the construction of the Arecibo radio telescope as told from the perspective of a parrot: htt

Ted Chiang has an excellent short story on this subject, regarding the construction of the Arecibo radio telescope as told from the perspective of a parrot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Silence_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Silence_(short_story... It's very short. Worth a quick read and a long thought.

Blahah 2y ago
The actual story is here: https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/
tetrisgm 2y ago
It (like the rest of his oeuvre) is a wonderful read
theamk 2y ago
Here is my long thought: People have been trying to talk to animals for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years, and no "animal myths" were discovered. Some researchers have dedicated their live trying to understand the animals (story mentions one of them), but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. And alien life is not special in that regard - if we are able to successfully contact aliens, and then many thousands of people spend a century or two interchanging the messages with them, and all this would yield same artifacts that most Earth's 5-year-old kids can produce... then people would lose interest in aliens as well, and stop building things like Arecibo.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  > but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. It's a good thing people who accomplish great things don't think like that or we'd have no science at all, because for millions of years we didn't. If they did, they would have had to conclude it isn't possible to predict the future. Yet here we are, knowing why apples fall (or whatever.)
  - theamk 2y ago
    Some people searched for structure of the atom, and found great things. Other searched for perpetuum mobile, and found nothing. We know that they will never find anything, but it does not stop them, there are still youtube videos being made today. It's important to tell former from latter. Unexplored things are not the same as things that have been explored and found false.
    - guerrilla 2y ago
      People started searching for the structure of the atom in like 400 BC and didn't make any progress until they knew how. We know why perpetual motion isn't going to be found, so there's no reason to look for it in the first place. This isn't a relevant argument.
      - card_zero 2y ago
        Searching for animal intelligence certainly feels like an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines, and similarly, people keep on enthusiastically nearly finding it. And of course this is plagued by a lack of a good definition, and crows unlocking puzzles and other animals doing other scraps of smart stuff.
        guerrilla 2y ago
        It seems like nonsense to be searching for things without perfectly clear criteria. Don't look for things if you don't know what you're looking for, or at least don't call it "looking for", just call it what it is: "poking around and brainstorming."
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Though perpetual motion is reasoned to be false, rather than declared false because statistically we never had any luck trying, or by an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines.
      - 2y ago
- Cupertino95014 2y ago
  There's plenty to find. Ask any dog or cat owner. I think if your 4-year-old aliens were found, many humans would find them charming and fun pen pals (assuming they're not dangerous). It would be useful as the fly by of Pluto, where we finally found out things we couldn't possibly have known looking from here.

Blahah 2y ago

The actual story is here: https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/

tetrisgm 2y ago

It (like the rest of his oeuvre) is a wonderful read

theamk 2y ago

Here is my long thought: People have been trying to talk to animals for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years, and no "animal myths" were discovered. Some researchers have dedicated their live trying to understand the animals (story mentions one of them), but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. And alien life is not special in that regard - if we are able to successfully contact aliens, and then many thousands of people spend a century or two interchanging the messages with them, and all this would yield same artifacts that most Earth's 5-year-old kids can produce... then people would lose interest in aliens as well, and stop building things like Arecibo.

guerrilla 2y ago
> but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. It's a good thing people who accomplish great things don't think like that or we'd have no science at all, because for millions of years we didn't. If they did, they would have had to conclude it isn't possible to predict the future. Yet here we are, knowing why apples fall (or whatever.)
- theamk 2y ago
  Some people searched for structure of the atom, and found great things. Other searched for perpetuum mobile, and found nothing. We know that they will never find anything, but it does not stop them, there are still youtube videos being made today. It's important to tell former from latter. Unexplored things are not the same as things that have been explored and found false.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    People started searching for the structure of the atom in like 400 BC and didn't make any progress until they knew how. We know why perpetual motion isn't going to be found, so there's no reason to look for it in the first place. This isn't a relevant argument.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Searching for animal intelligence certainly feels like an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines, and similarly, people keep on enthusiastically nearly finding it. And of course this is plagued by a lack of a good definition, and crows unlocking puzzles and other animals doing other scraps of smart stuff.
      - guerrilla 2y ago
        It seems like nonsense to be searching for things without perfectly clear criteria. Don't look for things if you don't know what you're looking for, or at least don't call it "looking for", just call it what it is: "poking around and brainstorming."
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Though perpetual motion is reasoned to be false, rather than declared false because statistically we never had any luck trying, or by an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines.
    - 2y ago
Cupertino95014 2y ago
There's plenty to find. Ask any dog or cat owner. I think if your 4-year-old aliens were found, many humans would find them charming and fun pen pals (assuming they're not dangerous). It would be useful as the fly by of Pluto, where we finally found out things we couldn't possibly have known looking from here.