Reading the Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang, I found some very interesting theories/assumptions about the communication ways of the aliens.
The aliens’ usage of language and communication skills are different from human beings. They have two language systems, one is for speaking and one is for writing. The two language systems are quite different from one another, and play different cultural or cognitive roles that using separate languages makes more sense than using different forms of the same one. The storyteller, Louise, clearly considers their writing language an advanced language system. The aliens’ writing language is uniquely two-dimensional without any interaction with the oral language that could count as another dimension. There’s a high degree of integration in their writing, and the whole sentence or paragraph seems to be whatever number of semagrams they wanted to join together, which showcases the “teleological” mode of thinking.
These kinds of unparalleled ways of communication of the aliens are shaped by the strong influence of their body structure. In the beginning of the story, Louise described the physical structure of the “heptapods” when she saw them for the first time. ” It was radially symmetric, and any of its limbs could serve as an arm or a leg (5).” “Seven lidless eyes ringed the top of the heptapod’s body (5).” And they do not need to turn their bodys to see different directions, because “with eyes on all sides, any direction might as well be ‘forward’.” So this special physical structure enables them to think in a way that adapts to the perspective they observe and feel the world. For example, they experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all. Or, as Louise demonstrated, the priority between different thoughts or concepts are the same, thus they don’t seek for a causal logic to explain things. However, human beings can only see things that are in front of them and feel things with their two hands, which means that they can only sense a part of the world at one moment. And that caused the result of the linear thinking mode of people.
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