that applications of maths to commerce, banking and gambling would be found among ETIs. The major problem with Lincos and other basic languages is that no message, however simple, can carry its own interpretation. This would seem to be a problem facing all cosmic-style languages.
Lincos is based on the assumption that mathematics is foundational in the acquisition of language, and the designers of Lincos and its successors maintain that its foundational concepts require no definition and must be truly universal. All of this rests on the belief that mathematics is truly universal and that language is based upon it, which flies in the face of much of twentieth-century philosophy of language where it is held that linguistic practices are non-foundational. The Lincos system depends upon numerous universals in mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology. But the problem is that diagrams, figures, etc., are representative and carry no guarantee that an alien intelligence will grasp their meaning. Symbols in themselves are meaningless and are not self-explanatory, requiring an interpretative framework and a shared background of tacit knowledge. This is unlikely in the event of first contact with an alien intelligence.
It could, however, be argued that a message transmitted by means of radio waves should in principle, be translatable as there would be a sufficient overlap in meanings displayed in the capacity by both sides to build and operate trans-mitters and receivers. There is, additionally, a possibility that communicative symbols could be supplemented with pictograms and automatic computer image recognition technology (Breuer, 1982: 134–5). Pictures are an economical medium of communication, and it is possible for certain abstract concepts to be communicated by pictures, providing that those receiving them have optical sense organs.
The controversial 3-minute message that Frank Drake sent out in 1974, from Arecibo to M-13, which is 24,000 light years away, consisted of 1,679 binary pulses arranged in a pictogram, which describes the biochemistry of man and other information regarding our location in the solar system. Providing that the astronomers of M-13 aim their telescopes at Earth for three minutes during the sixteenth of November in the year 25,974, they should receive the message. However, a search among stars which are already within range of the Arecibo radar beams, which has been proposed by Jean Heidmann (1997: 178), could well indicate that replies are being sent. The problem is that by the time the message reaches its destination the signal will have mingled with dust and starlight which will block off part of the message and add noise. An attempt to resolve the problem of an incomplete message was tackled when Lincos was revived during the 1990s by the Canadian scientist, Yvan Dutil, at the Defence Research Establishment near Quebec, and supported by an American organization called Encounter 2001, which sent out a 4-hour-long radio message on 24 May 1999. This message contained around 300,000 bits of information arranged in such a way that knocking out a particular bit should not detract
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from the overall level of information. The message has now travelled beyond the solar system.
Communicative problems – first contact
What kind of first contact is likely between Earth civilization and ETIs? They might come here unannounced and without warning. This could be indicative of desperation, fleeing from ecological disaster, a dying stellar system, or an act of stealthy aggression. In either case they would come armed and it is very likely that their presence would initiate a violent struggle. We might, at some future date, go to them equally unannounced, and invade them, initiating another struggle. These considerations aside, it would make sense, in terms of resources, for any civilization contemplating physical contact, to find out as much as possible before mounting an expedition. The most prudent policy would be to ensure that some form of communication is undertaken with a view to gleaning as much information as possible regarding the inhabitants before attempting a planned visit.
Yet the vast distances involved in interstellar space rule out most of the usual forms of two-way communication. Question-and-answer sessions over distances between ten and several thousand light years would be meaningless for beings with life-spans similar to those on Earth. Communicative signals would be received from societies that have very likely become extinct. Suppose they, the superior civilization, send us a radio message, which takes about 100 light years to reach us, for one day. Then they wait for 100 years plus a reasonable amount of time for us to decode it and organize our response. How long should they allow for this ‘reasonable amount of time’? Suppose they miss our reply? It is also likely that the generation which sent the initial signal has been replaced by one which does not wish to continue the project. But one thing is clear, communications over such a time lag cannot aspire to a conversation; at best it will be a cultural exchange. Frank Drake has pointed out that SETI scientists only aspire to a one-way system of communication, recognizing the difficulty involved in a conversation spanning millennia.
The most favourable option would be to begin with some form of recognition signal, followed by a stream of information to be slowly decoded over the next hundred years or so. Once one side realized that information was being transmitted, it could then begin transmitting information in return. This process could be initiated before the initial message had been decoded. The problem is that there are no guarantees that either stream of information will ever be understood.
Even if the time lag question was solved, there are still major barriers to a communicative exchange. With human communication there are various conventions and feedback loops which provide guidelines for the parties engaged in an exchange. For example, I speak in English but she answers in French, so I switch to French. Such loops are essential to human communication. In many
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