Return to Answer

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can visualize them all as a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human in the chamber would think that something on the ship just exploded. But what they actually heard was an explosion of knowledge. In less than a second, the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about that star system. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current economical and political situation in it.

"But is that really possible for a lifeform to evolve like this?" ... thinks the lifeform whose retina currently absorbs the light waves emitted by a rectangle of millions of tiny red, green and blue lights, forming patterns its neural network interprets as "letters", which form "words", which forming "sentences" representing abstract ideas which it visualizes.

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can turn them all into a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human in the chamber would think that something on the ship just exploded. But what they actually heard was an explosion of knowledge. In less than a second, the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about that star system. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current economical and political situation in it.

"But is that really possible for a lifeform to evolve like this?" ... thinks the lifeform whose retina currently absorbs the light waves emitted by a rectangle of millions of tiny red, green and blue lights, forming patterns its neural network interprets as "letters", which form "words", which forming "sentences" representing abstract ideas which it visualizes.

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can visualize them all as a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human in the chamber would think that something on the ship just exploded. But what they actually heard was an explosion of knowledge. In less than a second, the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about that star system. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current economical and political situation in it.

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can visualize them all as a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human in the chamber would think that something on the ship just exploded. But what they actually heard was an explosion of knowledge. In less than a second, the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about that star system. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current economical and political situation in it.

"But is that really possible for a lifeform to evolve like this?" ... thinks the lifeform whose retina currently absorbs the light waves emitted by a rectangle of millions of tiny red, green and blue lights, forming patterns its neural network interprets as "letters", which form "words", which forming "sentences" representing abstract ideas which it visualizes.

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can visualize them all as a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human who hears that would perceive it like the sound of an explosion. But the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about it. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current situation in it, as far as it is known to the ship's computer.

Imagine an alien pilot in the middle of a spherical chamber. The chamber is covered by millions of tiny speakers. Some of those speakers - perhaps a thousand - emit sounds. Each of those speakers represents a star in that direction. Its volume, frequency and timbre represent various properties of the star like distance, mass and spectral class. A language encoded in melodic overtones of each sound encodes the name of the star.

A human in that chamber would only hear a terrible cacophony of noise. But not so the alien with its superior hearing ability and its brain specifically evolved for making sense of it. It can isolate every single source of sound at once, and its mind can visualize them all as a clear 3d representation of its interstellar surrounding.

When the alien hums the name of a star, speakers from all direction blurt soundwaves at the alien. A human in the chamber would think that something on the ship just exploded. But what they actually heard was an explosion of knowledge. In less than a second, the alien just learned everything the ship's database knows about that star system. What planets and moons it has, the history of its exploration and the current economical and political situation in it.