Speaking Beyond Earth

Paul E. Quast is an interdisciplinary scholar based in Scotland. He is a director for the Beyond the Earth foundation, an NGO studying the semiotics of information-exchange systems, while assessing emergent, long-term anthropogenic legacies for the benefit of future stewardship applications. David Dunr is a professor of history of science and ideas at Lund University, Sweden. He is a board member and director of METI International, and member of the working group on the Historical, Philosophical, Societal and Ethical Issues in Astrobiology within the European Astrobiology Institute.

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword: Beyond Ourselves: An Archaeological Reflection on Sending Messages to Other Worlds Alice Gorman A Brief History and an Imminent Future Part 1: Why We Speak Prologue: Murmuring from Earth: A Human Portrait of Representational Phenomena Across Deep Space and Cosmic Time Paul E. Quast A Cultural History of "Speaking" for Earth: A Taxonomic Approach for Exoatmospheric "Messages" Paul E. Quast Part 2: What We The Tyranny of Assumption: What We Should and Should Not Expect ETI to Understand in Our Messaging John W. Traphagan and Kelly Smith SETI and Terrestrial Visual Perception: What Can We Learn About Communicating with Other Species from Human Visual Perception and Visual Ecology? Christopher Gillespie Approaches to Communicating with Extraterrestrial Intelligence John W. Traphagan How We Think We Know What We Think We Know and How the Unknown Others May Think They Know What We Think We Know (and Show) Paul E. Quast and Klara Anna Capova Between pages 130 and 131 are 8 color plates with 14 photographs Part 3: Reading Outside the Message Per aspera ad astra: But Does One Really Speak for Them All? Klara Anna Capova and Paul E. Quast Finding Meaning in Terra Nullius and Beyond: Uncovering Clues in the Exoatmospheric Archaeological Record Paul E. Quast Who Will Speak for Earth? Stakeholders, Scholars, and Stewardship in the Future Exoatmospheric Record Paul E. Quast Afterword: Challenges Cornelius Holtorf Glossary Appendix: A Profile of Humanity: The Cultural Signature of Earth's Inhabitants Beyond the Atmosphere Paul E. Quast Bibliography About the Contributors Index