If a spacefaring race is so utterly alien they donât even have a concept of counting how did they manage space travel?
And, like I said, math only works for the (presumably large) subset of aliens we could eventually talk to.
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funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works â¨4⊠â¨hours⊠agowhat if they donât have the concept of atomic concepts: thereâs no such thing as âoneâ because everything can be divided, until you reach wave/particle duality in which case thereâs no singular state anyway? Thereâs no such thing as âtwoâ because there can be no dividing line between phenomena that have no external nor internal boundaries? What if they cannot see or hear but use other senses we have no names for?
DomeGuy@lemmy.world â¨2⊠â¨hours⊠ago
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works â¨1⊠â¨hour⊠ago
we did it without what loosely translates as blarglsnargling and they are equally confused as to how we did it. The downside to our approach being pollution of our air, the downside to their approach being pollution of their planetâs crust. Both of which would be catastrophic if occurred in each otherâs ecosystem but is a mild irritant heading towards and eventual catastrophe for each respective society.
glimse@lemmy.world â¨3⊠â¨hours⊠ago
I feel like any civilization advanced enough is going to have no problem with that.
A body of water is connected but you can count the waves. Theyâd surely count repetition, too, such as their planet rotating and and orbiting itâs starting. Or sound - âclickâ one âclick clickâ two.
And if theyâre as intelligent as humans, both species are able to learn new abstract concepts
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works â¨2⊠â¨hours⊠ago
I mean this is all a hypothetical, so let me throw some blockers at you:
They donât distinguish between wave and not-wave, assuming they dont have a Lacanian concept of language and their pre-language concept of what we would call a wave is actually the average distance from the bottom of the ocean in an arbitrary field of qualia whereby they average out âextendedâ phenomena from an âunextendedâ experience of the average of the different forms of background radiation.
In which case they couldnât count a planet rotation and have no concept of counting or rotation but would express it instead as an average speed and direction in relation to the absorbed radiation of different astral and planetary (by which I mean âterrestrialâ for lack of a better word when not talking about our planet) bodies? So what is a year to us is a limitless expression of the average rate of change of the comparative rate of radiation from the nearest star and the largest vent in the bottom of their ocean? They express this by making parts of their carapace emit different strengths of radiation in different directions. Would we even know to call those emissions a language?