Eternal language

In The Search for the Perfect Language, Umberto Eco mentions a project carried out in the 80s to create some sort of danger sign to warn future visitors away from nuclear waste dumps. Although it is something of a chapter-ender type passage, it caught my eye as an interesting thought experiment.

The original project was commissioned by the Office for Nuclear Waste Isolation. The US had decided to bury nuclear waste at several locations in the desert. The problem was not so much that some witless fool might open the vaults (they are presumably guarded). But that millennia from now the language and culture might have changed so much, and so discontinuously that future humans might not understand the warnings, and the measures used to safeguard them might have collapsed. On top of this there is the theoretical possibility of an alien visit to a future disinhibited earth. How could we communicate the contents of the vaults, and their danger to an extraterrestrial life form?

Future humans: Beginning with the weaker of these scenarios. The historical justification certainly exists for a fear of radical script discontinuity. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were lost within a few hundred years and it was only with the aid of the Rosetta Stone, a handy bilingual text that related to a known script, that it was possible to decipher it at all. While it is easy to take the loose system of ideographs in use as universal, and inherently meaningful, that is far from the case. Red coloured stop signs, the nuclear symbol, a raised hand in a ‘halt’ gesture. All of these warning symbols are only obvious to people that at the very least know the symbols already, and are expecting those symbols to be transmitted in that context (the colour red for instance while associated with danger, appears in a multitude of other contexts without this connotation). It is easy to imagine even contemporary disconnected societies that would misunderstand these symbols.

Understandably one gets very different answers if one predicts a very technologically advanced society that has lost some amount of contemporary knowledge, or if one imagines a kind of regression to stone age existence. This latter scenario is perhaps what the mind immediately goes to. While this, in the grand scheme of things has never happened in history to a significant extent, in the background of this inquiry lurks the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear holocaust. We can discern a hint of paranoia behind the attempts to create these kind of time-capsuled messages.

Aliens: The more extreme, and more existential question relates to the visit of extraterrestrial life. In an odd way the problem becomes more practical, because more abstract, and therefore more widely applicable. The question is much the same if we imagine travelling to meet an alien life-form, or leaving some message in the far reaches of space. The plot of the movie Arrival, revolves around similar questions. Is there a form of universal, and eternal, communication system, in any form?

The consideration of this problem leads inevitably to a realisation of the limits, and relativity of communication in general, and this is largely the use it takes in Umberto Eco’s book. It effectively holds up a darkened mirror to us. Is all communication through culture? Or determined by our shared humanness? It is difficult to tell.

Actual result: The original sign created based on the report by Thomas A. Sebeok was somewhat uninteresting. It consists of facial expressions of fear, along with some common symbols, and alongside were warnings in all the known languages. It was probably based on research by Paul Ekman among others that revealed the universality of core facial expressions. It partially fulfils the requirements of the weaker version of our test.

There was another proposal that was interesting which I will mention. There was a suggestion to create a kind of physical landscape of danger. Where the scenery itself would be a warning. The descriptions sound like travelogues from Mordor, all spikes and black concrete; it would be a fascinating concept to see realised.

Ideas: I will explore some ideas on this theme, however first I will clarify the precise model, and question I am trying to elucidate. I will be looking at forms of visual communication, due, as Sebeok mentions that any electrical, or auditory means of communication seems on the surface to be less reliable. I am interested in the stronger version of this problem, and thus I will briefly elucidate some ideas of communication with a human-like intelligence, without any cultural, or physical link, although human solutions will be mentioned. I make this restriction because theoretically speaking, it seems impossible to know even the limits of how distant, or how close cognition can be. The theoretical bounds. Its difficult to state if a hypothetical ‘alien’ would even see markings, would see isolated areas of information as separate entities, would understand the intention of messages etc. These are the obvious things, but not knowing, what one doesn’t know becomes a real problem when considering alien life. We will also assume that what we broadly know of physics is mostly accurate, and that there isn’t an entirely different way of conceiving of the same information that we have.

So how universal, and eternal, does it have to be? What seems at first a limitless void of possibility for what an alien visiting earth could be like quickly shrinks. For one, they would have to have mastered space-travel. They would thus know at least Newtonian physics, and the maths involved. In addition long distance travel through space almost certainly requires relativistic physics. So a highly technologically advanced species can be assumed. In addition a wide knowledge of chemistry, and astronomy. Then there are specific aspects that come with being at any point in the physical location on earth. They would know what earth looked like for example, as would they know the plants at least in the area, and the landscape, however this is liable to change. However the look of trees in the abstract, has not changed in 300 million years at least, less than the half life of uranium to be sure, but a substantial length of time. There have also been mountains for as long, as well as sea. In addition the day night cycle, the position of the sun, the moon. So we have on the one hand a huge amount of scientific knowledge, and some specific images, that we can assume for anyone coming to the planet after a human extinction.

One easy universal, as has been noted for millennia is numbers, and geometry. A system to communicate numbers in a way at least universally decipherable by a sufficiently technologically advanced species is quite easy to devise.

This set of symbols (top left) would function as a reasonably universal set of number ideograms, from which a set of derivative symbols could be taken if necessary. From there you could build up a system of mathematics, using equations of simple maths so the different functions could be derived. In combination with physical constants like the atomic nucleus, one could establish a set of symbols for each element, then simple molecules, then complex molecules, arriving at the complexity of DNA.

This suggests an interesting project: It would be possible to use this simple system convey all the information to create a human being from scratch. Theoretically providing a kind of final guarantee to the continuance of the species. It would require two pieces of technology that do not currently exist. Something called an artificial womb, a technology currently under development to help with birth complications, that can bring an embryo to birth. Secondly a method to codify and manufacture a sperm cell and egg. The understanding and technology to do this is a long way off but is plausible, eventually.

This aside, it would be easily possible to indicate the presence of uranium, and the precise method of its containment with a very simple version of the system described.

Which brings us to the other assumed method of communication, apart from physical universals, there are the visual universals mentioned. Complex pictures would presumably be at least possible to be deciphered, particularly if the above system exists to clarify. Eco mentions that Sebeok discarded the idea of pictograms based off of looking at a very old pictogram in which it was difficult to discern the activity of the person in the picture. However these are simple pictures. It is difficult to imagine a complex society being unable to decipher a photograph converted into an extremely detailed line, or shade drawing. These could be used to reference the universals of place mentioned such as the position of the sun, positions on the earth, the earth itself, areas of space etc.

While a species capable enough to make it to earth would almost certainly understand the dangers of large amounts of radioactive elements, perhaps this is avoiding the question. The original project sought to represent the complex concept of danger, or warning in a direct fashion. Can we arrive at the concept of danger through the system described? There is an important device here, that of quantity. A large quantity of examples allows both abstraction and closer certainty of transmission. We can imagine a huge number of examples showing the progressive destruction of objects, and abstract forms, all placed next to a symbol to assign with the meaning death/destruction/danger. This would function as a kind of rosetta stone. Any nuclear sites could then be labelled with this symbol.

The weaker form: So what about a less technologically advanced society than our own? This was more what the original project aimed at, it seems. We will assume a future, regressed, disconnected humanity. We can use much the same solutions as above, with an anthropocentric touch. With an assumption that a future regressed society walks blithely past the Rosetta Stone above, there are two pictographic ideas. One is to add on the system above a chain of knowledge to get them to the nuclear age. The second is to use quantity as above, to establish meaning.

The most direct form this would take is to directly cover the containers with every known method of death or destruction known to us. As gruesome as possible, containing natural disasters, animal deaths, killing etc. A veritable panoply of death. Based upon the principle that any human being should be able to understand the principle of decapitation or piercing wounds

As a last hope, an antechamber system could be set up whereby as successive chambers were opened small amounts of radioactive material sufficient to kill or disease some people would be released, in order that the rest of the earth could remain intact.

While both of these solutions are hardly certain, they seem the most likely to practically work. After all wouldn’t we open something like this if we found it? No matter the markings.

In conclusion, although I think none of these scenarios in any way likely, the consideration of these problems is interesting on its own. In Umberto Eco’s book he explores the search for ‘perfect’ languages throughout history, he constantly references the side effects of what were ultimately nonsensical theories, giving rise to Boolean algebra among other things. It is possible that this question could have such serendipitous results. The questions of interspecies communication, of inter-era communication, of how to eternalise, universalise, and preserve knowledge, have wide implications.