Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. This is
Speaker 1: Robert lamb Um Julie Douglas. Tell me, Julie, have you
Speaker 1: ever been stuck on an elevator and find yourself in
Speaker 1: a situation where you feel like you have to make
Speaker 1: smallpop with another person, a stranger. Yeah, it's kind of tough.
Speaker 1: I mean usually sort of look around and for some
Speaker 1: reason or another, weather is pretty reliable as a topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's instantly relatable. Everybody has to deal with it, and uh,
Speaker 1: opinions are not going to vary too much, you know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's not a lightning rod subject usually, and unless
Speaker 1: there's a right lightning rods are the subject, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then then that's an entirely different elevator you're in, and
Speaker 1: it's a pithy subject. You don't just spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time on it. Yeah. So yeah, so it's in's
Speaker 1: instantly relatable. But then you know it's they're all these
Speaker 1: cultural things too. Just you know, you're talking to somebody
Speaker 1: that you have no idea where they're coming from. On
Speaker 1: um on saye like hand gestures um like uh I
Speaker 1: believe it was Amanda Arnold, how Stuff Works editor who
Speaker 1: blogs for Cool Stuff on the Planet. She did this
Speaker 1: really cool blog entry about how like different hand signals,
Speaker 1: how they mean vastly different things, you know, depending on
Speaker 1: where you are in the world. Like, you know, thumbs
Speaker 1: up is great here some you know, other places you'll
Speaker 1: get you know attacked for that, um, you know, making
Speaker 1: a little like wolf sign with your hands, like over here,
Speaker 1: that means you're like rocking out or you know, or
Speaker 1: enjoying heavy metal. Other places it's you're saying something like
Speaker 1: really bad about somebody's mother, right, showing the bottom of
Speaker 1: your foot too, right, you can pass your legs, yeah
Speaker 1: like that actually, um yeah, that's like Thailand. That's a
Speaker 1: huge thing there. And when my wife and I visited there,
Speaker 1: like that was something that's like we're just really on
Speaker 1: edge the whole time, Like, oh my goodness, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure I do not gesture with my feet when
Speaker 1: I sit down, you know, make sure I don't you know,
Speaker 1: cross my legs so that I'm pointing the bottom of
Speaker 1: my foot at somebody. And even in the airport, like
Speaker 1: leaving um and flying on the Thailand air Uh. They
Speaker 1: they had like a separate container to for your shoes
Speaker 1: to be x rayed in then separate from the rest
Speaker 1: of your stuff, because the idea of putting your shoes
Speaker 1: in with your pocket things is just, you know, not acceptable,
Speaker 1: It's insane. Yeah. So it's like I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 1: kind of like washed off on me, and I still
Speaker 1: find myself like I'll be in a meeting like here
Speaker 1: at work, and I'll be like, oh, my goodness, did
Speaker 1: I just point the bottom of my foot at my boss?
Speaker 1: What am I thinking? You know? And then I have
Speaker 1: to remind myself he doesn't care because he's not tie right.
Speaker 1: But Yeah, So I think what that kind of makes
Speaker 1: me think of is how difficult it is to actually
Speaker 1: communicate with one another. Yeah, and that's just on this planet.
Speaker 1: So when we start talking about the possibility of speaking
Speaker 1: with other worlds and you know, other you know, interstellar civilizations, uh,
Speaker 1: it just gets entirely more complicated, right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: how we how would you even know what the cultural
Speaker 1: norms are of another civilization? Yeah? Or what what do
Speaker 1: you have in common with something that lives, you know,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the galaxy and evolved, you know,
Speaker 1: in completely different situations, which leads us to our subject today,
Speaker 1: which is all right, if we do actually engage in
Speaker 1: conversation with these beings. Yeah, what's the adequate yea, what
Speaker 1: do we do? How do we behave? What do we
Speaker 1: talk about? How do we talk about it? Yeah? Who's
Speaker 1: regulating this anyway? Yeah? Yeah, it turns out a lot
Speaker 1: of people are giving it some serious thought. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's really it's been in the news lately for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One I think it's because there were
Speaker 1: some ex military personnel who signed an affic David that
Speaker 1: basically said, hey, we saw some UFOs hovering of our
Speaker 1: military silences. Um, you know, we've got to put that
Speaker 1: out in the open. And then there was what has
Speaker 1: turned out to be a false rumor that Malaysian asked
Speaker 1: your physicist Maslin Offman was to become the UN spokesperson
Speaker 1: for Earth just in case aliens engaged us. So it's
Speaker 1: like the aliens, you know, contact us, and it's it's
Speaker 1: the middle of the night in Malaysia. Then people are like,
Speaker 1: whoa hold on, give us, give us thirty minutes. We
Speaker 1: have to go wake somebody up. Yeah, and they're like, hey, Offman,
Speaker 1: you're on you're on deck, right, and so that again
Speaker 1: that turns out to be false. But definitely aliens are
Speaker 1: on the mind. And in fact, there's a booking company
Speaker 1: that places bets that actually has a hundred to one odds.
Speaker 1: They're offering this that either the U S President or
Speaker 1: the serving British Prime Minister will announce existence of e
Speaker 1: t s within a year of the bet being placed.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can place bets on whether it
Speaker 1: will be announced like during elections, you know, or in
Speaker 1: the lead up to elections, Like how would that like? What?
Speaker 1: What are what works? Like? If you're if you want
Speaker 1: to be re elected, do you you tell everybody they're aliens?
Speaker 1: Or do you you set on it right right? I
Speaker 1: don't know. We need to talk to some bookies about this,
Speaker 1: all the different factors that contribute to the odds, but
Speaker 1: in any case, it's definitely on our minds. And there
Speaker 1: are a couple of reasons for that. I mean, beyond
Speaker 1: the fact that it's been in the news. One of that.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons is because of the Setti Institute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these folks they make it their job to search
Speaker 1: for extraterrestrial intelligence. That's what they do day in, day
Speaker 1: out satellites. UM. There list basically cosmic eavesdroppers, if you will,
Speaker 1: searching for some sort of signal that our little green
Speaker 1: friends are out there, and they're really pondering in a
Speaker 1: really significant way, what would happen if they were out there?
Speaker 1: What if we did establish contact? Yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of this UM. One of the key ingredients in in
Speaker 1: in their belief and a lot of people believe that
Speaker 1: there there is intelligent life out there somewhere is the
Speaker 1: Drake equation, which is if if you look at the
Speaker 1: entire equation, it's like the one that looks like inn
Speaker 1: equals are with a little star by it. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: fd N E f L f I, f c L
Speaker 1: and these all stand for different things like in equals
Speaker 1: the number of communicative civilizations are equals the rate of
Speaker 1: formation of suitable stars FP is the fraction of those
Speaker 1: stars with planets. Uh. Then you know it breaks down
Speaker 1: along lines of like the you know, number of Earth
Speaker 1: like world per planetary system, the fraction of those planets
Speaker 1: that where life actually develops, the fraction of life sites
Speaker 1: where intelligence develops, um, you know, and and uh and
Speaker 1: contendering like communication issues as well, So it's we we
Speaker 1: don't really we can't always say definitively what the value
Speaker 1: would be for each of these letters, but we can
Speaker 1: we can sort of make we can make educated guesses.
Speaker 1: So we make educated guesses, and then when we plug up,
Speaker 1: plug all those numbers into the equation, we get a
Speaker 1: sort of a rough, very rough, you know, estimate of
Speaker 1: how many intelligent civilizations there might be. And based on
Speaker 1: Drake's um own current solution to his own equation, the
Speaker 1: Drake equation, uh, he thinks there would be ten thousand, uh,
Speaker 1: communitive civilizations in the Milky Way, right, And again this
Speaker 1: is kind of this is rough science. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different parts of this equation that criticism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people will put in different numbers and say, actually it's
Speaker 1: not ten thousand, it's more like one. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it varies tremendously, but it's a it's something that gives
Speaker 1: people a lot of Um. I don't know if hope
Speaker 1: is really the word, because I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of concern and know a little fear about
Speaker 1: the possibility there being something out there, But a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, continue to work, you know far
Speaker 1: you know it's set because they believe there's a really
Speaker 1: good chance that it's there. And if it's there, we
Speaker 1: need to know about it. Line up, you know, protocol, right.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact too that astronomers have discovered
Speaker 1: that there are three planets beyond our Solar system. There's
Speaker 1: the idea that one of them could be an earthlike
Speaker 1: planet in their for could produce life forms. So, given
Speaker 1: given everything that's been in the news, the fact that
Speaker 1: study is is making this grand exploration into the question
Speaker 1: of extraterrestrial life, the Drake equation, I think what what
Speaker 1: it's all pointing to is, Okay, it could It could
Speaker 1: happen in two years, it could happen in forty years.
Speaker 1: We're not quite certain. We've got some math and science
Speaker 1: to bear out different results. But what if it did
Speaker 1: happen tomorrow? Yeah, what would we do? Would it just
Speaker 1: be it would be in a situation where would just
Speaker 1: be chaos? Would it just you know, be everybody with
Speaker 1: a radio station and TV going on and pretending to
Speaker 1: be the spokesman for humanity, right, introducing themselves with the
Speaker 1: President of the United States or president of the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I don't know people using it as a you know,
Speaker 1: an excuse to appeal to voters or to slam that,
Speaker 1: you know, candidates. You know, the sky's the limit, you know,
Speaker 1: So you end up having to have some sort of
Speaker 1: protocol in place, you know, some sort of maybe a
Speaker 1: decision making body, but at least a body that can
Speaker 1: you know, direct policy and let a thought into how
Speaker 1: can you effectively communicate given that, as you said before
Speaker 1: at the top of the podcast, that it's hard enough
Speaker 1: for us to communicate with one another, let alone some
Speaker 1: sort of being out there. Yeah, because like in the elevator,
Speaker 1: the message is pretty simple. It's hey guy, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: a normal dude too. The fact that we're talking to
Speaker 1: each other and in this owner and stuck in this
Speaker 1: elevator together, it's not weird at all, right, right, that
Speaker 1: we're sealed up right now, You're right, and that that
Speaker 1: is really if you're reading between the lines, that's saying.
Speaker 1: You're saying I won't threaten you, You won't threaten me either, right. Um, Yes,
Speaker 1: the weather is great outside. So what what have we
Speaker 1: actively been telling aliens or think that we've been telling them? Well,
Speaker 1: it's I like to kind of think of it in
Speaker 1: terms of Facebook. Um, not because Facebook is constantly on
Speaker 1: my mind, though I do have to use it for work,
Speaker 1: so I guess it is. But but like in Facebook,
Speaker 1: you have like your profile right everything you know, profiles
Speaker 1: out there, and certain aspects, certain corners of that profile,
Speaker 1: depending on how you have your setting, may be locked
Speaker 1: so that if there if someone's not your friend on Facebook,
Speaker 1: they can't see everything about you. Maybe they can only
Speaker 1: see your picture and some you know, basic stats and
Speaker 1: you have no idea who's looking at it. You know,
Speaker 1: it could be people from high school that you don't
Speaker 1: want to have contact with. It could be crazy people
Speaker 1: in other countries, um, you know, aliens surfing the Internet.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. We have a lot of information
Speaker 1: out there that's just sort of leaked away from the
Speaker 1: planet and is you know, conceivably available, such as TV
Speaker 1: and radio signals. So that's what from the last fifty
Speaker 1: years we've been we've had some leakage, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, there are actually some really cool
Speaker 1: charts online that show like just how far they've spread
Speaker 1: into what, you know, what stars, these different you know
Speaker 1: shows have reached. You know, there are portions of the
Speaker 1: of the Milky Way that are you know, geting um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're getting the untouchables, or they're getting Gilgigins Island.
Speaker 1: You know, they're getting you know, Buck Rogers there. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, it's like cultural leakage, you know, through
Speaker 1: television and just sort of expanding outward. So if some
Speaker 1: being were cosmic doing some cosmic eavesdropping, that being would say, wow,
Speaker 1: this these people are kind of nuts. Maybe they've gone
Speaker 1: through a lot of strife, They've created a lot of strife,
Speaker 1: They've had moments of grace, and they have Jersey Shore. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's like what kind of message you're sending. It's like,
Speaker 1: especially they choose to like focus just on say the
Speaker 1: Second World War and Jersey Shore. You know, right, you
Speaker 1: know they could you could. It's it's pretty I mean,
Speaker 1: I hate to be too pessimistic, but if you had
Speaker 1: to compile an argument for the eradication of Earth just
Speaker 1: you know, based on television programming, you could probably make
Speaker 1: a pretty strong argument. You know, but you're right, it's
Speaker 1: it's a bleak thought. But yeah, and then and then
Speaker 1: there's all like if Heaven forbid aliens get a hold
Speaker 1: of our Internet. I mean, it's there's just so much
Speaker 1: stuff out there. You know. It's like our we we
Speaker 1: put like so much of our our culture and our
Speaker 1: global civilization into television, into the Internet and into these things,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily the best um argument for who
Speaker 1: we are or not the argument we want to put
Speaker 1: forth to other planets. Would would be like if you
Speaker 1: had your complete Facebook all the way open to everybody
Speaker 1: in the world, you know, and like, you know, potential
Speaker 1: employer logs on and they're like, oh, you know, he's
Speaker 1: really a fan of you know, these films that are
Speaker 1: kind of weird or oh that. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: his profile pictures is Halloween costume and he looks like
Speaker 1: somebody I don't want to employ, you know. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's that it's that kind of thing. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that we don't necessarily want to put
Speaker 1: out there for public you know, consumption in the universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So where to begin? I mean, we're going to describe ourselves.
Speaker 1: What's the best way to do? I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're pretty complex, multi multifaceted human beings. Um. It
Speaker 1: makes me think of one of the first things to
Speaker 1: go out there in a in a very um an
Speaker 1: actually organized way, which is the Pioneer plaque, Yes, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. Uh, this was a plaque that was adhered
Speaker 1: to Pioneers eleven and twelve the spacecraft, and it had
Speaker 1: an image on or has an image floating around right
Speaker 1: now of a woman, a man, the Solar System, the sun,
Speaker 1: essentially a side section of the spacecraft. A couple other
Speaker 1: things on there. Yeah, there's um maybe like a hydrogen
Speaker 1: hydrogen molecule, molecule diagram. Um, there's a they also have
Speaker 1: on the map of the Solar System that shows the
Speaker 1: directory of the craft to show where it came from,
Speaker 1: where it's going, and uh, and some other stuff too
Speaker 1: to judge, like is there's some stuff in there about
Speaker 1: the frequencies of pulsar um. They'll enable other civilizations to
Speaker 1: potentially determine the time that has lapsed since the Pioneer
Speaker 1: was launched, you know, things of that nature, and you know,
Speaker 1: and just to sort of show that like, hey, these
Speaker 1: are the this is the ship. You know, these are
Speaker 1: the creatures that made the ship, and this is a
Speaker 1: general idea of their you know, scientific proficiency, right and
Speaker 1: sort of like where it's sort of like where we
Speaker 1: are in the world, um you know, I mean the
Speaker 1: solar system, where earths in the solar system, the side
Speaker 1: section of the aircraft as it relates to the dimensions
Speaker 1: of a human being as well, So trying to get
Speaker 1: some sort of scope on that. But what I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting about this is if an alien were
Speaker 1: to intercept this, I still think it would be a
Speaker 1: little bit baffling. Yeah, because who's to you know, we
Speaker 1: we bring a little uh anthropomorphic chauvinism to just about anything.
Speaker 1: So you know what if you know, you look at
Speaker 1: these these these people, I mean, we look at and
Speaker 1: we know it's an the very at least we you know,
Speaker 1: you know it's an animal, and you know, and we
Speaker 1: know it's a human. But that, you know, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean another you know, civilization, you know, another alien species
Speaker 1: would be able to look at that and figure out
Speaker 1: what it was, you know, I mean like is it
Speaker 1: a living thing? Is it sculpture? Is it you know,
Speaker 1: is it a rock formation? You know? Is it just lines?
Speaker 1: I mean, like you think of things like um like
Speaker 1: like just human you know, neurological things like face blindness
Speaker 1: and the like, you know, things that that prohibit the
Speaker 1: mind from understanding, um, a form something out of context.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they could look at it and see nothing
Speaker 1: they I mean, maybe they could tell at the very
Speaker 1: least that it is not a natural, you know, composition.
Speaker 1: But who's to say they could decide for anything beyond that, right,
Speaker 1: And it might even look like a cave drawing to them,
Speaker 1: you know, so so primitive that they have to stare
Speaker 1: at it for a very long time. Say whoa, wait,
Speaker 1: hold on, I think this is some sort of object
Speaker 1: that it was useful to them. But I think what
Speaker 1: I want to look at the drawing a little closer,
Speaker 1: because I think it more than saying anything to aliens,
Speaker 1: I think it says a lot to us as as
Speaker 1: a culture. Um. And if you look at the drawing,
Speaker 1: you've got the male and the female and they're both nude.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this caused some controversy when it
Speaker 1: first came out. Oh yeah, there was. I have to
Speaker 1: read this. I got this out of UH one of
Speaker 1: Sagan's books. This is a copy of a letter that
Speaker 1: went into Los Angeles Times, UH and the times it published,
Speaker 1: you know, a picture of that image on the front
Speaker 1: of the newspaper, and this this person wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: I must say I was shocked by the blatant display
Speaker 1: of both male and female sex organs on the front
Speaker 1: page of the Times. Surely this type of sexual exploitation
Speaker 1: is below the standards of our community. That below the
Speaker 1: standards our community has come to expect from the Times.
Speaker 1: Isn't it enough that we must tolerate the bombardment of
Speaker 1: pornography through the media of film and smut magazines. Isn't
Speaker 1: it bad enough that our own space agency officials have
Speaker 1: found it necessary to spread this filth even beyond our
Speaker 1: own solar system. It's kind of awesome you think about,
Speaker 1: especially in the context of this image. Is really actually
Speaker 1: puritanical looking at it now, But at the time, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was interstellar pornography. They thought that, some people thought.
Speaker 1: And you have, um, the male who is he's signifying
Speaker 1: a sort of good will chester with his hand up.
Speaker 1: He looks very awkward. I think he does like I do.
Speaker 1: You think it just drives home just how ridiculous masculine
Speaker 1: nudity is anyway, saying he looks really uncomfortable, he really
Speaker 1: wishes he had his clothes on, I think. And then
Speaker 1: you have the female standing next to him, and the
Speaker 1: weird thing about her is that because she's not signifying
Speaker 1: at all. She's not waving, so that's saying something right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like she's going to be an antisocial Yeah yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: how okay? And this is this is the female. She
Speaker 1: doesn't speak, and the other thing is right right, I
Speaker 1: am the master of the universe, I think, is what
Speaker 1: maybe that's saying. And the female is shifted slightly to
Speaker 1: one hip, so one of her legs is um sort
Speaker 1: of like at a forty five degreeing. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you would describe that, and she it looks a
Speaker 1: little suggestive. And if I were an alien and I
Speaker 1: could start to kind of pick up on some of
Speaker 1: the nuances here, I might think that she would be
Speaker 1: open to dinner and drinks later. Well, but a part
Speaker 1: of that is that she does look more natural and
Speaker 1: that the guy just looks like just very stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: she does she does. She actually looks like she's she's
Speaker 1: used to being naked a lot. And it's the seventies
Speaker 1: right when this is being drawn, so it's very possible
Speaker 1: that this is modeled after someone. Well. Another interesting you know,
Speaker 1: aspect of that, speaking of her nudity in particular, is
Speaker 1: a NaSTA official censor this image before you go out.
Speaker 1: It was originally uh and this is this according to
Speaker 1: like to say, you know a lot of people like
Speaker 1: it's been discussed enough that it's just not Nobody Nasty
Speaker 1: even denies it that they they decided to edit her
Speaker 1: a little bit so that she's not completely anatomically correct,
Speaker 1: Like she's more Barbie Doll than you know, smut magazine
Speaker 1: rights the language of the La Times, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: to be specific, the line that would define the Volvo's
Speaker 1: this's correct was e racist. Yeah, and I mean with
Speaker 1: the male it's it's still very simple, but it's obviously
Speaker 1: you know, there's some frank and beans or something going.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like I can imagine like
Speaker 1: aliens look in this and be like, well, where does
Speaker 1: that even go? How does this work? I don't, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't get this. Really, these are two
Speaker 1: different a sexual species, right, they lay eggs in the
Speaker 1: water and then yeah, I wouldn't be able to get
Speaker 1: a lick of sense out of this. I think I
Speaker 1: was an alien. But it is fascinating because it really
Speaker 1: is kind of spelling out who we who we think
Speaker 1: we are. Um at least in nineteen seventy two. And
Speaker 1: the other thing I was thinking about is, Okay, so
Speaker 1: the plaque we know is going to exist well beyond
Speaker 1: our lifetimes, So I don't know, forty years from now,
Speaker 1: someone can intercept this, So we as a as a
Speaker 1: race might look very different or evolve into a very
Speaker 1: different type of being than what's represented in nineteen seventy two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not to mention, um, you know how much like I mean,
Speaker 1: just you know, this is just that this is the
Speaker 1: human body, and it's like you know, un costumed form,
Speaker 1: you know, and when you talk about like the you know,
Speaker 1: the future revolution of humans and how like wearable computer
Speaker 1: technology factors into it, I mean, it's this may not
Speaker 1: really be a complete picture of you know, even if
Speaker 1: if biologically we don't evolve all that much, will this
Speaker 1: be a good you know, image of what human society is? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, you know this that that far into the future,
Speaker 1: like right, so because we'll have certain as presumably you
Speaker 1: will have certain uh types of equipment attached to our
Speaker 1: it's at least we think this right now. And if
Speaker 1: we indeed, if technology ends up, if we end up
Speaker 1: having more of almost a symbiotic relationship with our technology,
Speaker 1: you know, factoring in things like the idea of a
Speaker 1: technological singularity where computers you know exceed you know, human capacity,
Speaker 1: and and you know, maybe we end up with something
Speaker 1: kind of like in the the n and Bank Banks
Speaker 1: culture novels, where you have like computers are kind of
Speaker 1: like looking after people and taking care of all the
Speaker 1: the real serious stuff, while humans have kind of, um uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of you know, free society where
Speaker 1: they kind of do what they want, don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about, you know, any kind of serious situations. Like
Speaker 1: maybe in that respect, it's it makes sense that voyagers
Speaker 1: there in the background, and maybe they'll say, hey, there's
Speaker 1: the computerized machine that's that's actually does everything, and they
Speaker 1: are these are the naked people that just kind of
Speaker 1: do what they want. There's their gut in the background, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but that's that's what I think is just this is
Speaker 1: very interesting. It's a little time capsule of that shot
Speaker 1: out there, but it's not the only one, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we follow this up with the voyager missions and we
Speaker 1: in a little we're a little more robust with this
Speaker 1: this mission. My understanding of sagan Um I wanted to
Speaker 1: actually include like more like naked like photographs, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, nothing like you know, something very yeah, clinical,
Speaker 1: you know, just to show exactly this is the this
Speaker 1: is the human organism. And that was that was you know,
Speaker 1: completely censored, and I think they went with a silhouette instead.
Speaker 1: But we also included the Golden Records. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: Golden Records, in which, uh they're like what hundred sixteen
Speaker 1: images on this record? There are greetings and fifty nine languages.
Speaker 1: There's uh, bits of ephemera, so to speak, a sound
Speaker 1: of a kiss, wind and thunder birds, whales, other animals,
Speaker 1: fifty five languages, um printed messages from President Carter. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know why I'm laughing about that.
Speaker 1: He's a wonderful man. But yes, for I guess it's
Speaker 1: just the quality of oh well, it's nineteen seventy seven. Again,
Speaker 1: here's this representation of life specifically in this one year,
Speaker 1: in this universe, which is kind of funny. And we
Speaker 1: included I think some classical music, yeah, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean and it is definitely a fuller representation of the
Speaker 1: human experience in n rather than this sort of crude
Speaker 1: line drawing um from the pioneer plaque. But I think
Speaker 1: what's interesting about it too is that um and actually
Speaker 1: this was a piece on NPR that they did. They
Speaker 1: talked about how Carl second and and drew in his
Speaker 1: second wife, how that that period in time that UM,
Speaker 1: that Golden Record is, in a weird way, sort of
Speaker 1: an example of their versioning relationship and when they were
Speaker 1: falling in love. And I thought it was interesting is
Speaker 1: that they also recorded the electrical impulses of Anne's brain
Speaker 1: and her nervous system, turning them into sound. And then
Speaker 1: the hope was that maybe in a one million years
Speaker 1: or one thousand million years actually, um, some alien civilization
Speaker 1: might be able to turn that data back into thoughts.
Speaker 1: And at the time when she when they were recording that,
Speaker 1: she actually meditated, and she was meditating on the awe
Speaker 1: of love and being in love. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: such a romantic scientific thing. You gotta love it. It is,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's a great story of scientists and love.
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, it's it's well if you haven't heard it,
Speaker 1: it's well worth looking up. Yeah. Absolutely, But yeah, here's
Speaker 1: here's another piece of um or pieces of data that
Speaker 1: we've thrown or we've flung into space trying to explain
Speaker 1: who we are. Yeah, it's interesting to include like the
Speaker 1: music in the art because I was reading some stuff
Speaker 1: from Paul Davies, be cosmologist, who's um really awesome guy.
Speaker 1: I got to interview it for a Discovery News article
Speaker 1: earlier this year and just you know, just very just
Speaker 1: brilliant dude, very relatable though, and can just break down
Speaker 1: these topics with these but he pointed out that like
Speaker 1: art in music are are, they're very tied to our
Speaker 1: cognitive architecture. Like in one sense, like music is like
Speaker 1: a great example of who we are, but it's something
Speaker 1: that an alien species could easily have no frame of
Speaker 1: reference and just totally not appreciate on any level. You know, right,
Speaker 1: it might be some kind of weird squawking thing that
Speaker 1: we Yeah. Yeah, so in in a way it's like
Speaker 1: it's the perfect example of who we are, but there's
Speaker 1: a very good chance nobody could read it. Which is
Speaker 1: interesting because um in in talking about how we could
Speaker 1: communicate with aliens, and this is this is what study
Speaker 1: has really been queuing itself up to do or actually
Speaker 1: to think about. Music has has come up as one
Speaker 1: of the ways that might be a language that we
Speaker 1: could share. Yeah, and um, And what I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: too is that that there was a workshop that the
Speaker 1: Study Institute had in Paris in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and the invited people from all the disciplines and they
Speaker 1: got them in a room and said, let's really start
Speaker 1: thinking in a very serious way about how we can
Speaker 1: communicate with aliens effectively and what sort of modes we
Speaker 1: can do that in. How can you now? No, this
Speaker 1: was an actual workshop, but the college credit came later
Speaker 1: because I can just imagine like a lot of jocks
Speaker 1: signing up for that one thing and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: an easy course. Yeah, they're gonna be like, we just say, hey,
Speaker 1: not to stereotype jocks, because you wouldn't say that. Then
Speaker 1: maybe you never know, there could be scientists out there
Speaker 1: and we salute you. Prove me wrong. But there was.
Speaker 1: There was actually a college credit that you could get
Speaker 1: at the University of Wyoming in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and it was a program sponsored by NASA and the UH.
Speaker 1: The name of it is called Interstellar Message Composition. They
Speaker 1: have eleven students. The students were asked ponder how aliens
Speaker 1: might communicate, whether they'd be able to translate human language,
Speaker 1: and if they'd be able to see or hear them.
Speaker 1: So those were just some thoughts to get them going
Speaker 1: thinking outside the terrestrial box. Yeah, yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is their um, their college think tank, I suppose. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at what studies doing is
Speaker 1: actually pretty interesting, is that they are picking the brains
Speaker 1: of everyone they can about about this problem of communication,
Speaker 1: how do we do it and how do we do
Speaker 1: it effectively? And one of the communications that came out
Speaker 1: of it was from a student who wrote a poem
Speaker 1: about menstruation with syllables arranged in the fibonacci sequence. A
Speaker 1: poem about menstruation. Yes, now you know women, do you
Speaker 1: represent populations? So, I mean that might be an interesting
Speaker 1: tidbit too share with the aliens, though out of context,
Speaker 1: I don't know that. Um, it seems like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, like when I meet people, like the
Speaker 1: first ing out of there, like I feel like I
Speaker 1: have met people before for the first thing they say
Speaker 1: does relate demonstration, and it it kind of makes the
Speaker 1: rest of the conversation a little awkward for me. Well,
Speaker 1: so if this is a perfect point that the actually Um,
Speaker 1: people have been making about what we're going to say
Speaker 1: to aliens, like do we do you just you know,
Speaker 1: do you lock down sort of uh like Facebook style
Speaker 1: some parts of your personal profile so that you don't
Speaker 1: scare people off. Me, You don't necessarily if you meet
Speaker 1: your neighbors, say hey, I'm so and so in about
Speaker 1: an hour, I'm going to be completely ripped and like,
Speaker 1: you know, naked in my backyard. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: not things that you normally say to someone if you're
Speaker 1: that person who does that. Um. But now, Douglas vatch Off,
Speaker 1: back off, excuse me, completely wrong. Douglas Vakoch, who is
Speaker 1: studies interstellar communication guru, basically says, you know what, we
Speaker 1: should be trying parent about who we are. UM, not
Speaker 1: necessarily being talking about minstruation or um binge drinking, but
Speaker 1: being more transparent about who we are as a human race. UM,
Speaker 1: that we we do have a lot of strife, that
Speaker 1: we do have warfare. I mean, he feels like being
Speaker 1: honest out of the gate is going to put us
Speaker 1: in a in a better position. What's like with any relationship,
Speaker 1: It's kind of the idea, it's like if you hide
Speaker 1: too much of who you are if this relationship is
Speaker 1: going to blossom, then that stuff's going to come out right, right,
Speaker 1: So like, don't lie. It's like, oh, we've never had worse.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Did you get that out
Speaker 1: of that leaked? Yeah? Just a show about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you let you let him know, you know, off
Speaker 1: the bat, Yeah yeah yeah. So I mean I do
Speaker 1: think that's interesting. And then I think the other really
Speaker 1: interesting part of this UM, this effort to try to communicate,
Speaker 1: is that people are in particular study are trying to
Speaker 1: regulate it, and space lawyers are getting in on the
Speaker 1: action UM and helping to create protocols so that not
Speaker 1: just every time to can Harry, can you know, put
Speaker 1: something out there UM and try to communicate with aliens
Speaker 1: and we can do it in a responsible way, yeah,
Speaker 1: or or not everybody can do like h Like in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight when Dorito's used the observatory in
Speaker 1: small bar to being a commercial forty two light years
Speaker 1: across the galaxy. So that was a little disappointing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a metaphorical tier just going down the pace
Speaker 1: right now. But it's just so sad, and I guess
Speaker 1: that's why you need space lawyers right not just to
Speaker 1: to um take up litigation over disputes among astronauts, but
Speaker 1: to possibly say, hey, that you know you're violating Code
Speaker 1: xx j Y seven. Don't please three thats don't do
Speaker 1: that again. UM. To go back briefly to Paul Davies.
Speaker 1: Davies is actually on a on set. He's a he's
Speaker 1: actually the chair of st he's a post Detection task group.
Speaker 1: And UM, so the idea of being that if we
Speaker 1: detect human life, then they call up like the task force,
Speaker 1: and Davies and company like march into like a I guess,
Speaker 1: like a special control room and start you know, figuring
Speaker 1: out what they're gonna say. But I read an interview
Speaker 1: where where Davies pointed out what he thought were like
Speaker 1: the key things to hit and during you know, any
Speaker 1: kind of communication with an alien civilization. And and he
Speaker 1: said that you you want to hit the number one.
Speaker 1: There's no um, you know, single government on the planet,
Speaker 1: which I guess is good in case they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: they just tune in and just you know catch something
Speaker 1: out of like a really destabilized region, you know, or
Speaker 1: some like or you know, you know, you can use
Speaker 1: your imagination any you know, corner of the world that
Speaker 1: is maybe not the best. Uh. Well, I guess every corner,
Speaker 1: no corner of the world is like a good representation
Speaker 1: of the whole. So you wouldn't you know, want them
Speaker 1: to give that impression, you know. Um. And then also, no,
Speaker 1: there's no unitary political philosophy or ideology again, you know,
Speaker 1: if they were just to tune in and just like
Speaker 1: you know, pick any religion, pick any you know, um
Speaker 1: political party in the world, and you can probably pick
Speaker 1: out some really extreme things that would you know, make
Speaker 1: them raise an eyebrow or whatever the alien you know
Speaker 1: equivalent is. Uh. And then he also said that it
Speaker 1: would be important to stress that we're a great place
Speaker 1: for freedom, if not anarchy. Uh. And so that we're
Speaker 1: and that we're putting we'd want to put together, you know,
Speaker 1: like the best possible coherent package about what we are.
Speaker 1: You know. Again, it would be kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: not saying we don't have wars, but here's an example
Speaker 1: of what's great about us to be like a users manual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's Earth and human beings and this is how we work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, here's here's a list, this is us words
Speaker 1: at all. But here's we're gonna highlight some stuff that's
Speaker 1: really good, you know, like you know, you highlight the
Speaker 1: music and the art and the humanitarian stuff, but don't
Speaker 1: like cross you know, it doesn't need to look like
Speaker 1: a like a declassified CIA document where you've you've you've
Speaker 1: marked out every horrible thing that done. And and then
Speaker 1: I guess too, it wouldn't be like the onions are
Speaker 1: dumb world either. We want to take out some of
Speaker 1: the sarcasm. But one thing that Davy is also stressed
Speaker 1: is that he thinks that in communicating with another another,
Speaker 1: you know, civilization, it's kind of like that the whole
Speaker 1: we were talking about the weather being like the one
Speaker 1: thing that we would have in common with the stranger
Speaker 1: and the elevator, Well, Davy says, the one thing we
Speaker 1: would have in common with this, uh, this galactic stranger,
Speaker 1: it would be mathematics. So all these things that we
Speaker 1: just listed, we'd have to somehow find a way to
Speaker 1: communicate them through pure mathematics, which is quite a challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again that's I think this is why study is
Speaker 1: thinking about this now and inviting so many people into
Speaker 1: the conversation. Um artist, musicians, astrophysicists, UM, anybody to say
Speaker 1: what is what is the common language that we can
Speaker 1: speak in? UM? And I do think the music thing
Speaker 1: is really interesting. But again, right if you don't have
Speaker 1: a context, but music is based on mathematics, and what
Speaker 1: sort of mathematics would they be using anyway? UM? Again
Speaker 1: would it would our mathematics look so um primitive that
Speaker 1: it would just be like, what what are these scratchings here?
Speaker 1: I really like the idea of the future where all
Speaker 1: communications with an alien species are conducted by like really
Speaker 1: talented DJs. So it's like you want to you want
Speaker 1: to convey a certain feeling that we have, like he goes,
Speaker 1: guy goes in, like grabs records and starts like mixing
Speaker 1: stuff together. I left that too. I like your idea
Speaker 1: of that you did this with the unit hemispheric um brains,
Speaker 1: where if if you were only using one side of
Speaker 1: your brain. I think that you wanted to have some
Speaker 1: sort of system where you could tell people like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't don't ask me a really hard question right now,
Speaker 1: I can't have my brain. So I'm liking this too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that music could be a wonderful way to
Speaker 1: for us to try to communicate with each other. Well, you, uh,
Speaker 1: everybody listening out there, you have to tell us what
Speaker 1: you think you're, if you're human or if you're an alien.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just putting that out there. We
Speaker 1: might have some alien listeners. Yeah, d D D d D,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
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