cat conversation.txt
CONVERSATION:

Apparently:  water-covered planet.
What would civilization be like in a water-covered world?
        I've been thinking about that little essay.
        Makes me wonder if it's possible.
        + (Do you still believe the capsule is from another planet?)

Imagine a species of sentient beings evolving in a 3-dimensional envioronment.
(Not 2-D like our world, living on the surface of a solid planet, surrounded by a gasseous atmosphere.
Not a race of land-crawling creatures, where occasional bodies of water are an obstacle to ford or bridge or fly over.
Nor a race of flying creatures, able to glide and soar in the air, but always needing to stop and rest on the solid ground or in a solid branch of a solid tree.

What if it were not necessary to land at all?
Living in the sea, oxygen is absorbed directly, neutral bouyance is easily achieved.
No need to descend to the ocean floor; no need to surface -- in fact, the surface is to be avoided, as it can be quite deadly!

Life "Under the Sea" must be very different!

For example, it's virtually impossible for a nation or army to surround the enemy.
    Sun Tzu:  it is best to surround on 3 sides, not 4.
    (6 sides under the sea.)
    Completely enclosing a foe leads only to bad choices:
        annihilation / slavery / chasing away
        creating resentment and an excuse for retaliation
        (Consider Treaty of Versailles, Armenian genocide, 
        UN mandates in Palestine & Iraq, Hatfields and the McCoys, 100-yrs war, 
    If there is always escape, then things cud be more peaceful.

< But how could a true civilization exist in a water world?
Wouldn't a true civ. need walls & buildings
> What is civ.?  Pyramids & Skyscrapers?  (Maybe a land-based civ.)

< Well, doesn't t about technology?
Doesn't science need laboratories and machinery?
> Us 2-D creatures can build a lab on an island or a boat.  Even a factory.
Why not a bouyant structure.
Then, there's always the sea floor, if u need stability for experiments or mfg 

< Books & computers?
> That's a  more-interesting objection.
But you're assuming that communication must be written.
You're assuming that must be language, in order to collaborate.
< Yeah.  How else  can intelligent creatures share ideas.
>  Hmmm.  Let me think about that.

Does all comm have to be verbal?
(Well, no, we can comm w images.  But I'd agree that images are not enouh.
Some concepts can be shared w/o words (or pictures).   [strokes arm]

 Or chemical bonding or or relativity.
 Fascinating challenge.
Is there any other way todescribe things and share concepts besides words.
Can relationships be conveyed w/o and graphs diagrams.

----
OK books are imp for preservg knlg,
but oral rtradition existed long before writing and phonetic languages.
Some animals communicate very complex ideas w/o words or language.

SO,... here is the 64-cent question:
    Is written or spoken language necc for communicating & preserving knowledge?
    Is there any way to do so w/o words or pictures?
I wonder if i's possible to have an advanced civilization amoung intelligent creatures who are deaf and blind!  Is that possible?  If so, then how?
----
(<) Now that u mention it, our brains don't actually store words or even pictures.
We have no cameras or tape recorders in our brains,  > and no printed pages, either

< All we have is neurons.  
    Neurons don't Daactually have fetch digital or analog storage
How do neural nets actually store information?
[BOTH]  Weightings.

But HOW can one neural network communicate to another.
We are creatures that use sounds and images to communicate ideas.
+   and actions; don't forget those mirror neurons.

How could one NN possibly convey an idea directly to another NN.
(w/o translating it into language ?  w/o expressing it in words? )
< Even if there was some way to exchange NN weightings and patterns, 
your subjective weightings are completely different from mine,
so the patterns would be meaningless.
> Not if I had a sample of your NN weightings.

 Well, you could copy some basic patterns, and send th(the copy) to me.

Comm via NN.  Send patterns from one NN to another?
First u exchge some sort of subjective baseline.

Protoplasm, maybe.

+++++ In those dreams, there was a preliminary exchange bfr comm was started.
Yes, and there seemed to be a receptor organ that rcvd a sample from the creature who wanted to send a message.
----
Hmmmm.
Patterns.  They resonate (if ur on the same fqy)
 well, sorta like that.

Outline the main idea; point the way.
Then you fill in the blanks.
[x march in a single file.
But consensus, cooperative action.
Get it done.
< "Forward"
> Yeah, but . . .

                                                             2018-03-03 11:30:36[s004- bam@rand: ~/<1>WRITE/NOVEL]%