Counting on Beauty: The role of aesthetic, ethical, and physical universal principles for interstellar communication

Authors: Guillermo A. Lemarchand

(Submitted on 28 Jul 2008)

Abstract: SETI researchers believe that the basic principles of our science and the science of extraterrestrial beings should be fundamentally the same, and we should be able to communicate with them by referring to those things we share, such as the principles of mathematics, physics, and chemistry (a similar cognitive map of nature).

This view assumes that there is only one way to conceptualize the laws of nature. Consequently, mathematics and the language of nature should be universal.

In this essay, we discuss the epistemological bases of the last assumptions. We describe all the hypotheses behind the universality of the laws of nature and the restrictions that any technology should have to establish contact with other galactic technological civilization. We introduce some discussions about the limitations of homocentric views. We discuss about the possible use of aesthetic cognitive universals as well as ethical ones in the design of interstellar messages. We discuss the role of symmetry as a universal cognitive map. We give a specific example on how to use the Golden Section principles to design a hypothetical interstellar message based in physical and aesthetical cognitive universals.

We build a space of configuration matrix, representing all the variables to be taken into account for designing an electromagnetic interstellar message (e.g. frequency, polarization, bandwidth, transmitting power, modulation, rate of information, galactic coordinates, etc.) against the limitations imposed by physical, technological, aesthetical and ethical constraints.

We show how to use it, in order to make hypotheses about the characteristics and properties of hypothetical extraterrestrial artificial signals and their detection by existing SETI projects.

Comments: To appear in "Between Worlds: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition," Douglas Vakoch (ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge MA. This manuscript was originally submitted to the editor of the book on November 2002

Subjects: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); Astrophysics (astro-ph)

Cite as: arXiv:0807.4518v1 [physics.pop-ph]

Submission history

From: Guillermo Lemarchand [view email]

[v1] Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:33:18 GMT (185kb)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.4518