Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence #2 -

"Lingua Cosmica." A language for extraterrestrial communication developed by Hans Freudenthal, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Utrecht. Details of it are presented in Freudenthal's book¹ published in the Netherlands in 1960.

LINCOS represents an extension of the logistic language of mathematics developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. It is intended to be conveyed by unmodulated radio signals of varying duration and wavelength which represent phonemes. The signals would be combined to make up concepts or words.

Lancelot Hogben, who himself described a code for communication with alien intelligence, called Astraglossa, discussed Freudenthal's work.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Sciemce

Chapter III: Behaviour

3 00 1. For the time being it would be premature to try to describe

human behaviour by a system of general rules like the mathematical

and chronometric rules of the preceding chapters and some of the

mechanical laws of the next chapter.  Instead we shall show behavior

by quasi-regular examples, from which the receiver may derive as

many general behaviour rules as he pleases.
...
3 00 2. As the program events are to display behaviour, it is necessary

for at least part of them to be acts, i.e. caused by persons.

Our Lincos vocabulary is still far from sufficient for introducing the

bodies of the acting persons.  So the only kind of act that can be displayed

immediately is the act of speaking.  The Lincos word that designates this

activity, is written Inq (fL inquit = says). The terrestrial reader should

guard against a too narrow interpretation of this 'Inq'.

In the present chapter the physical background of the Inq-events,

whether it be accoustical or optical or tactile or anything else, will remain undiscernable.
...
3 00 3. The names of the dramatis personae will be written Ha, Hb, Hc,
 and so on.  In due course we will state that these persons are
 members of the set called Hom (fL homo = man) in written Lincos.

3 00 4. Our theatre is still incomplete.  Besides persons and acts a third
 thing is needed.  We have been able to build a vocabulary of
 mathematics without valuating our propositions.  We had only to
 confine ourselves to true propositions.  The falsehood of 1=2 could
 be formulated as 1<>2.  Yet we cannot show behaviour by good
 actions only.  We must stage bad ones too, if we wish to condemn
 them.  We have to create a vocabulary that contains words meaning
 "good" and "bad" and intermediate valuations.
   To begin with, we shall stick to two values.  Of course they
 cannot be 'Ver' and 'Fal', which are values of propositions.  What
 we wish to valuate are acts, not propositions.  (We are not here
 considering value-judgements of esthetics.)
   Our valuating words will be written Ben (fL bene = well) and
 Mal (fL male = badly).  They mean "good" and "bad" respectively.

LINCOS: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse Hans Freudenthal

Depression

your thoughts – clemmed, treacle slow, laden with seams of pit shaft dark – tread an endless groove, blinkered as a pit prop pony moithered by light your mind – dimmed, dunnock shy, cradled with songs of wind swept moors – dreams a fearless path clinkered as a wind squall diamond mantled with night your self – numbed, fossil still, layered with seals of sun starved gold – furls a nubless cloth crinkled as a sun coaxed rock rose ambered in time. by Helen Overell

Ley Lines #1

The concept of "ley lines" is generally thought of in relation to Alfred Watkins, but the stimulus and background for the concept is attributed to the English astronomer Norman Lockyer . [3] [4] [5] On 30 June 1921, Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire , and went riding a horse near some hills in the vicinity of Bredwardine , when he noted that many of the footpaths there seemed to connect one hilltop to another in a straight line. [6] He was studying a map when he noticed places in alignment. "The whole thing came to me in a flash", he later told his son. [7] It has been suggested that Watkin's experience stemmed from faint memories of an account in September 1870 by William Henry Black given to the British Archaeological Association in Hereford titled Boundaries and Landmarks , in which he speculated that "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe". [8] Watkins believed that, in ancie

Extinct Promotion

My story "Connect" was published last year in the anthology "Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever," edited by the formidable Phoenix Sullivan. On Tuesday, January 31, you can download the entire anthology Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever free from the Kindle store. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, you can download each of the 18 single stories for free, including my story, Connect . By any reasonable measure we are dead. Unity -- slow, cold and broken -- is leaving me behind. It’s a slowly boiling mass of speckled gray now. I’m walking away from it, building, understanding, memorizing as I go. And to do these things, to tie them together, I use my memories. Of being alive, of dying, of being dead. Other authors in the anthology are participating in this promotion: Chrystalla Thoma: "The Angel Genome" Peter Dudley: "Distractions" Shona Snowden: "Blood Fruit" Scott Thomas Smith: "In Ring" Jo Antareau: "My Own

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