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280 acquisition signal; the second would be a decoding signal. The third essen- tially would be a language lesson. Similarly, Bracewell speculated that an alien probe in our solar system would teach us the language of its originating civilization.° In this case, the exchange could be much quicker. We expect the extraterrestrials to do the hardest work. As the process of decoding messages from another species may be too difficult for us, Vakoch proposed that it is a task best left to the more advanced species.’ However, that makes translation, like the operation of beacons, a question of alien intent. Similar historical backgrounds may be needed if we are to understand the set of symbols used by another civilization. Yet, the language of another intelligent community may have few points of contact with our own.® Language, or Symbols? To complicate matters further, what appears to be a text may be some- thing else. For more than a century, archaeologists have tried without success to decipher the symbols used by the Indus civilization between 3200 and 1700 BC. They assumed that this was a form of written language, paralleling the evolution of written languages in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Some scholars now challenge that assumption, arguing that this script is not writing, but a collection of religious—political symbols that held together a multi lingual society.’ Baird questioned the assumption of anticryptography. Aliens might have no real interest in talking with organisms that can never understand what is most dear to them; any messages they send into outer space will be made purposely difficult. If there is something resembling Sagan’s Encyclopedia Galactica, Lemarchand speculated, it is probably encrypted, so that it can be read only by ethically advanced civilizations." If we assume that the alien mind is humanlike in all essential respects, Baird proposed, we can expect to develop communications in the same way that one might teach a foreign language. However, we do not know what hidden assumptions underlie our proposed communication channel, assumptions that we are unable to evaluate because they are so intimately interwoven into our fabric of thought. Communications problems arising because of this mismatch cannot be planned for in advance. The formula for success must include a search for signal features that are common to human language in the broadest sense. Without the estab- lishment of a shared communication format, warned Baird, one civiliza- tion’s book of universal wisdom will be another’s book of universal confusion. We are at a point in history that predates discovery of a Rosetta Stone from the stars." Assumptions: After Contact