If you have to choose a song....

[physics user1]

To send to a solar system where there is a planet that may have intelligent aliens able to get it, what would you send?
Consider that they are probably not capable to understand the words but just to listen it

(every kind of music you like, pop, rock, love songs and every singer or group, beatles, michael jackson, katy perry, victoria justice and so on)

The choice is up to you

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Beethoven

 

[einswine]

Well perhaps Beethoven' late quartets. I would prefer Bach's, kunst der fuge. A version for string quartet, or maybe Glen Gould's truncated version on organ.
Second choice, the last chorus from Bach's "Saint Matthews Passion" (assuming they could not understand the words).

 

[DennisN]

Imperial March (Star Wars), no, strike that, they might think we were about to invade. On other days I would probably also choose some classical music like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart. But today I choose

 

[Borek]

Something that not only sounds great, but also looks quite interesting.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I don't think it would be a good idea to send music. It is expecting them to be way too much like us to even get the concept. Even assuming they get the concept, they might still not recognize any given genre as music. Their music might have parameters that exclude ours.

 

[Borek]

I don't think it would be a good idea to send music. It is expecting them to be way too much like us to even get the concept. Even assuming they get the concept, they might still not recognize any given genre as music. Their music might have parameters that exclude ours.

Which is more or less why I thought about something that is interesting in more than one way.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Which is more or less why I thought about something that is interesting in more than one way.

Yes, if you forced me to choose, I'd choose Bach, but I still think that is expecting them to be more like us than we have any good reason to expect.

 

[physics user1]

Yes, if you forced me to choose, I'd choose Bach, but I still think that is expecting them to be more like us than we have any good reason to expect.

I think we should send something that all humanity likes so that those aliens could make an idea about us and about what we like, even if they don't get the concept of music or they have different music in ours (whatever the genre) there is a pattern that can be observed, and if they are intelligent they probably going to appreciate that pattern, at least that's what i think

 

[zoobyshoe]

I think we should send something that all humanity likes so that those aliens could make an idea about us and about what we like, even if they don't get the concept of music or they have different music in ours (whatever the genre) there is a pattern that can be observed, and if they are intelligent they probably going to appreciate that pattern, at least that's what i think

The problem is that the patterns in music are decorative. If they don't get art, they just won't get music, and might run themselves ragged trying to decipher some deep math insight that isn't there, or some communication of information that isn't there.

 

[Sophia]

The problem is that the patterns in music are decorative. If they don't get art, they just won't get music, and might run themselves ragged trying to decipher some deep math insight that isn't there, or some communication of information that isn't there.

so true. But as far as I understand, this thread is more about people than about the aliens.
I'd choose a piece of classical music- Mozart, Beethoven, Chajkovskij (no idea how you spell him in English)

 

[zoobyshoe]

so true. But as far as I understand, this thread is more about people than about the aliens.

A person's answer would reveal some of their assumptions about aliens, yes, but my answer is no different in that regard.

 

[einswine]

so true. But as far as I understand, this thread is more about people than about the aliens.
I'd choose a piece of classical music- Mozart, Beethoven, Chajkovskij (no idea how you spell him in English)

It's spelled Tchaikovsky here in Amurica.

 

[einswine]

The problem is that the patterns in music are decorative.

Some but by no means all. Many patterns in music are structural, see A Generative Theory of Tonal Music by Lerdahl and Jackendoff, and I think I could go to my book shelves and pull out three or four other volumes on structural patterns in music.

 

[Astronuc]

How about natural sounds, like wind, ocean waves, running streams, bird songs, . . . ?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Some but by no means all. Many patterns in music are structural, see A Generative Theory of Tonal Music by Lerdahl and Jackendoff, and I think I could go to my book shelves and pull out three or four other volumes on structural patterns in music.

I threw out the word "decorative" a bit hastily, yes, waving my hand at the distinction between what is done for esthetic purposes and what is done for practical purposes. There's no reason to think aliens would have any esthetic motivations for anything they do, but it would be impossible for them not to have practical ones. And, even if they did have an esthetic sense, there is no reason to think it overlaps with ours.

 

[einswine]

I threw out the word "decorative" a bit hastily, yes, waving my hand at the distinction between what is done for esthetic purposes and what is done for practical purposes.

I am afraid I don't understand what you are trying to say. Would you mind explaining that somewhat.

 

[einswine]

How about natural sounds, like wind, ocean waves, running streams, bird songs, . . . ?

I like that idea very much.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I am afraid I don't understand what you are trying to say. Would you mind explaining that somewhat.

Consider some big abstract sculpture in a city somewhere. It has some structure, but the sculpture is ultimately not practical. No one lives in it, it isn't used for storage, nor are meetings held in it. It's there for purely esthetic reasons. An alien intelligence could easily be unable to grasp that.

 

[Evo]

To send to a solar system where there is a planet that may have intelligent aliens able to get it, what would you send?
Consider that they are probably not capable to understand the words but just to listen it

(every kind of music you like, pop, rock, love songs and every singer or group, beatles, michael jackson, katy perry, victoria justice and so on)

The choice is up to you

We already did, are you aware of Voyager?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record

 

[collinsmark]

[Edit: previous post deleted in lieu of this one.]

Wait, my last post might have been premature. On further thought, this might be more appropriate:



It's tough to go wrong there. That song is a safe bet, particularly if the video is transmitted too. Especially.

 

[Sophia]

We already did, are you aware of Voyager?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record

I wonder if they could understand it. But it's the best we can do. I hope that they can understand the music as something created by intelligent beings. Even if they can't appreciate it, perhaps they would be curious to find out who sent it. Provided they have something like ears!

 

[einswine]

Consider some big abstract sculpture in a city somewhere. It has some structure, but the sculpture is ultimately not practical. No one lives in it, it isn't used for storage, nor are meetings held in it. It's there for purely esthetic reasons. An alien intelligence could easily be unable to grasp that.

Thanks, yes, I see what you mean now.

 

[Psinter]

We already did, are you aware of Voyager?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record

Yup, I've heard of it. To be honest I wouldn't know how to make a device to play it back. I would probably break it trying to figure it out. And I follow human logic.

Did they shipped a player with it?

 

[edward]

Yup, I've heard of it. To be honest I wouldn't know how to make a device to play it back. I would probably break it trying to figure it out. And I follow human logic.

Did they shipped a player with it?

They should have included pictures and diagrams on how to build a simple version of an old Edison hand cranked player.

 

[Evo]

Yup, I've heard of it. To be honest I wouldn't know how to make a device to play it back. I would probably break it trying to figure it out. And I follow human logic.

Did they shipped a player with it?

Yes, it came with the stylus in place to play.

In the upper left-hand corner is a drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record – about an hour.

The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#Playback

 

[PhanthomJay]

I'd send a few 'tones' like the ones used in the movie 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. It worked then, why not now?

 

[Hornbein]

I don't think it would be a good idea to send music.

Too late! Louis Armstrong's Melancholy Blues was sent out on Voyager.

 

[Evo]

Wow, I never realized how much crack, uhm, odd things were sent. first of course were the whale songs which were a huge fad at the time, but I just found out that the record included an AN ENTIRE HOUR of Carl Sagan's wife's brain waves as she transcendentally sent the aliens messages through her brain waves while meditating. OMG.

 

[Psinter]

I don't think it would be a good idea to send music. It is expecting them to be way too much like us to even get the concept. Even assuming they get the concept, they might still not recognize any given genre as music. Their music might have parameters that exclude ours.

I agree, but since we are in the subject, if I could put some song (anything) it would be some Epic Music dignified of an epic movie:


(Look at the comments for a laugh of what some ears made out of the lyrics)

epic - a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.

Or this. Which is weird because in between the giberish, at first, in 2:12, I sort of heard it said 逃がさない 逃がさない [nigasanai nigasanai] which roughly translates to 'you won't escape' or 'I won't let you escape' depending on the context ('not escape' is the literal translation). But I read it actually says 'Lacrimosa Lacrimosa'. Now I hear it actually says Lacrimosa and I can't go back to what I previously heard.

These epic songs always have choirs that people put parody choirs in the comments of what their ears make out of it.