> From: Paul Hughes
> Watch yourself here. Sending a simple black and white photo
> presupposes:
>
> 1) That they have electromagnetic vision similar to ours.
>
> granted. but practically all complex lifeforms on this planet have evolved
> such a system.
> it is inherently useful in nearly all imaginable environments.
Even for nocturnal amphibians? Even for intelligent knots of
superfluid vortices in neutron stars? And just because they have
vision doesn't mean our 2D pictures mean anything to them, since they
might rely on phase information or have a movement-based visual system
like many predators on Earth.
> 3) That they would have the same spatial awareness to put something
> into a 2-d
> grid.
>
> we should explore what is the simplest possible "grid". is that a 2-d
> rectangular
> matrix? even if et has a different system as you suggest, it would occur to
> them to
> try the simplest possible grid.
But are grids obvious? Maybe the most obvious grid of all is a
hexagonal array (that patterns occurs very often in nature and complex
systems, while square arrays are very rare).
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