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282 probes, their messages might be intelligent machine language, undecipher- able for us. Computer scientist Michael Arbib challenged the assumption that com- municating with artificial intelligences would be more difficult. Diver- gences in biological evolution may be so great that we would find more in common with an anthropomorphic robot than with many organic beings."* Optimistic speculations about comprehensibility rest on best-case assumptions: The signal we receive will be a structured message; the extra- terrestrials want us to understand it and will adjust it to our level; we will grasp the method they choose; we will find enough commonality with our methods of communication to enable translation. We cannot assume that this scenario will prevail. We might be faced with a magnificent puzzle, without all the clues needed to solve it. Those who are most optimistic about interstellar communication claim that we and the extraterrestrials will have science in common. University of Arizona mathematician Carl De Vito put it this way: We assume that the alien technology that we detect is supported by a reasonably advanced science; that there is an objective reality that is the same throughout the universe; that this reality can be recognized and understood by any intel- ligent beings; that science is the quantitative study of this reality. Some philosophers would challenge these assumptions; the same reality may be described, even quantitatively, in many ways.” Nature is observed selectively, argued Rescher; we and extraterrestrials might not perceive the universe in the same way. The sameness of the object does not guarantee the sameness of ideas about it. In any case, the language of science is not outside the psychological constraints that deter- mine all other modes of human expression. The differences might be so great, warned Dick, as to prevent the mutual examination of objective knowledge.” When two scientists differ in biology, culture, and history as much as humans and extraterrestrials would differ, Vakoch cautioned, their models of reality may vary considerably. At the core of this problem is the idea that no intelligent species can understand reality without making certain methodological choices. Their metaphors, similies, and other concepts will be quite different. Metaphor plays a very important role in science; to eliminate it would be to alter science drastically.” Western-style science may be critical to the entire process, speculated White. Yet, the development of our kind of science may be a chancy thing. Assumptions: After Contact They Will Speak Science Science is the Greek of the interstellar Rosetta Stone. —Carl Sagan, 1975"°