
How Stephen Wolfram Figured Out Interstellar Travel in One Night - mirandak4
https://backchannel.com/i-had-one-night-to-invent-interstellar-travel-b2466882ef5c#.xy5as4r0d
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fuzzfactor
Almost at the end of the article, Wolfram has:

"What Is Your Purpose on Earth?

If aliens show up on Earth, one of the obvious big questions is: why are you
here? What is your purpose? It’s something the characters in Arrival talk
about a lot. And when Christopher and I were visiting the set we were asked to
make a list of possible answers, that could be put on a whiteboard or a
clipboard. Here’s what we came up with:"

the checklist:

[https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Z0GZ8w2y9daVvZq65Y...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Z0GZ8w2y9daVvZq65Y6HcQ.png)

"As I mentioned before, the whole notion of purpose is something that’s very
tied into cultural and other context. And it’s interesting to think about what
purposes one would have put on this list at different times in human history.
It’s also interesting to imagine what purposes humans — or AIs — might give
for doing things in the future. Perhaps I’m too pessimistic but I rather
expect that for future humans, AIs, and aliens, the answer will very often be
something out there in the computational universe of possibilities — that we
today aren’t even close to having words or concepts for."

Seems like the intention is for Wolfram to be anticipating what we should be
asking the aliens to tell us, about what they are doing on Earth to begin
with.

Conversely, it can also be read as the aliens asking us what we are doing on
Earth to begin with.

Good checklist. Might be a worthwhile idea not to wait for any aliens, and
just fill out the checklist ourselves. Probably less fictional to focus on
what humans think their own Purpose on Earth is all about. Start with
yourself. Especially if Earth is your home planet.

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beamatronic
Consider a spoiler warning on this one? I stopped reading because I haven't
seen the movie yet.

~~~
exabrial
I read the whole thing, no plot spoilers, just some content spoilers.
Originally I wasn't going to see this movie, but this actually made me change
my mind!

~~~
rurban
It's a good movie. Go see it. Villeneuve movies are always good.

The original URL btw is [http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/11/quick-how-
might-the-a...](http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/11/quick-how-might-the-
alien-spacecraft-work/)

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drivingmenuts
Would we have to worry about communicating with aliens if they showed up here?

Consider that the aliens would have flown their practically-magical craft
umpteen billion of miles to land on a specific planet, one would hope they
arrive with some sort of plan to speak to the natives.

~~~
pavel_lishin
This is the kind of thing I could spend hours talking and thinking about, and
often do, and now will by presenting some possible reasons why this may not be
the case:

1\. The aliens had no idea we were here; they expect life to be so rare as to
be practically non-existent. They no more expected us to be here than we
expected to see green-skinned Martians out of Curiosity's camera.

2\. Interstellar drives aren't like getting in a vehicle and driving to a
destination; maybe it's not possible to pick exactly where you're going, or
it's not possible to know where you'll end up until you get there - like
exploring a maze, eventually you'll have a map, but at first you're just
blundering around randomly.

3\. Perhaps they assume that being planet-bound and technologically unsavvy,
we'd figure that our only hope of getting anything done was to sit and wait
for aliens to arrive - so we'd be the ones preparing to make contact.

4\. They don't care about communication. We're not a threat, therefore we
don't matter. Or we're not like them in some way, therefore we don't matter.
Or we're not a fully-fledged member of the Galactic Federation, therefore we
don't matter.

5\. They're criminals, and don't wish to be identified. Communicating with us
would give us clues that would allow us to figure out who they are, or pass
those clues onto whatever passes for law enforcement, so it's in their best
interests to be as opaque as possible. ("Why yes, Officer Phsgogmkk, the
aliens who landed here last week communicated in subject-object-verb form,
didn't seem to have a specific noun form for plural objects, and had seventeen
terms for this color-spectrum-range that we just call 'green'." "Aha, we've
got 'em now! Will you testify in court?")

6\. Huh, you mean this thing translates me through space? I thought I was
inventing a time machine/new power plant/quantum dejuggliblier! Weird. Anyway,
what are these little two-legged things gathering around me?

7\. They don't communicate, because there isn't a them; the whole "species" is
some sort of hive, and all communication is implicit and internal and
"communication" isn't even a concept that their mind possesses.

8\. Similarly, they're unconscious and have nothing to say and no interest in
hearing anything we have to say. (Peter Watts' "Blindsight" touches on this a
bit.)

