I like to imagine that someone does find life-forms on another planet, somewhere beyond alpha centauri, in some point of space whose atmospheric conditions mirror ours, on which similar accidents of evolution have taken place, causing to emerge a highly sophisticated genus which, like us, is capable of intergalactic travel and exploration. This person makes primaeval contact, takes photographs, even records their grunts and grimaces, but is turned down for the prize by the French academy because he cannot prove that real communication has taken place, and this, not because the extraterrestrials speak their own language, and it is incomprehensible, but because they have learned only one of Earth-Man's languages, and it is the wrong one, perhaps English, perhaps Russian, perhaps Arabic, perhaps Chinese; but not French.
(Addendum: when the prize was offered, Martians were excluded, on the grounds that this would be too easy!)
Five years before I learned about the fatuous absurdity of this unwinnable prize, I read a newspaper article on a similar theme, and responded by writing a poem, later published in my collection "Coins", and later still in "Welcome To My World". It seems to me appropriate to re-print it here:
9th July 1995
I
note that the first World Conference
of
people in contact with Extra-Terrestrials
has
been convened in Costa Rica
First,
may I raise objection to my personal exclusion
I
have tried repeatedly to talk to extra-terrestrial beings
and
do not see why I should be disbarred
simply
on the grounds that I have failed
where
you claim to have succeeded
In
my absence may I nonetheless request
that
those of you who are in touch with ETs
pass
on the following vital piece of information
that
we are very keen to make friends with them
but
only if they accept democracy
the
absolute sanctity of Christian marriage
American
goods guns films and pop music
a
total ban on abortion and gay marriage
join
the fight against pollution
allow
us to mine their oil and other minerals
and
boycott the State of Israel
Please
can you also make it clear
to
avoid any embarrassing misunderstanding
of
these complex scientific and philosophical determiners
that
we on Earth are an intelligent life-form
which
is not by any means the same thing
as
an intelligent species
And if, indeed, there is intelligent life out there in the cosmos, how splendid to have something that we ourselves could aspire to imitating, though I suspect that we should send our spaceships with a large warning banner attached at the front: "Beware. Humans approaching. You are about to become an endangered species".
Ford Madox Ford (Ford Hermann Hueffer), English novelist, born today in 1873
Willard Frank Libby, the man who invented "carbon dating", born today in 1908 (the jokes about the validity of this date are too obvious even for my low standards; and anyway I already made them on his death-date, Sept 8)
Lazarus died for the second time, today in 63 CE - that may actually be my favouritest historical record, ever (and so cool that it comes right after Libby)
[An] Aztec calendar discovered, today in 1790 (as I have stated many times, this process of "discovery", which is the key element of quality education, needs to be stated more clearly. Today, in 1790, somebody who had never seen one, who may not even have known that one existed, or thought to wonder if perhaps it might, that person, today in 1790, discovered what had been a commonplace and everyday item among the Aztecs for centuries, their calendar)
Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first airplane flight, today in 1903 (more on this in my novel "A Journey In Time")
You
can find David Prashker at:
Copyright
© 2017/2024 David Prashker
All
rights reserved
The
Argaman Press
