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.