Can we use bees as a model of intelligent alien life to develop interstellar communication? |
Humans have always been fascinated with space. We frequently question whether we are alone in the universe. If not, what does intelligent life look like? And how would aliens communicate?
The possibility of extraterrestrial life is grounded in scientific evidence. But the distances involved in travel between the stars are vast. If we do contact aliens, it would likely be via long distance communication, with our nearest neighbouring star being 4.4 light years away. Even being optimistic, it would likely take more than ten years for any round-trip communication.
How could that work when we have no shared language? Well, consider how we can engage with creatures here on Earth with minds quite alien to our own: bees.
Despite the vast differences in human and bee brains, both of us can do mathematics. As we argue in a new paper published in the journal Leonardo, our thought experiment lends weight to the idea that mathematics may form the basis for a “universal language,” which might one day be used to communicate between the stars.
The idea of mathematics as universal is not new. Writing in the 17th century, Galileo Galilei described the universe as a grand book “written in the language of mathematics”.
Science fiction, too, has long........