http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/12/17/ready-to-meet-aliens/ A blog about life, past and future. Written by DISCOVER contributing editor and columnist Carl Zimmer. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:41:26 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/12/17/ready-to-meet-aliens/comment-page-1/#comment-12830 Ian Tindale Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:56:00 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/12/17/ready-to-meet-aliens/#comment-12830 I wonder if alien life just coincidentally happens to also map structural relational representations in their heads through a convoluted transformation onto flat two-dimensional surface alterations in reflectivity like we do? I wonder if the paradigm of representing objects by the shorthand notion of simply rendering an outline shape (eg, in cartoons - people don't actually have thick black lines around their perimeter) is truly universal? I wonder if they have heads? I wonder if alien life just coincidentally happens to also map structural relational representations in their heads through a convoluted transformation onto flat two-dimensional surface alterations in reflectivity like we do? I wonder if the paradigm of representing objects by the shorthand notion of simply rendering an outline shape (eg, in cartoons – people don’t actually have thick black lines around their perimeter) is truly universal? I wonder if they have heads?

]]>