William Hong wrote: >On the wider topic at hand, there's one "experiment" whose results >I would wish greatly to see, but which probably none of us ever will. >That would be to see the reaction of some extraterrestrial being who >came upon the Voyager spacecraft that are streaming away from the solar >system, and who played the analog sound records that are lashed to them. >These are the records which carry a number of Western classical and other >types of art music, world musics, sounds of the earth, animals, people >etc. Would they associate a "language" to the music, in the same way >they might analyze the human speech or bird call samples? Thinking about that...I do wonder about bird songs...I know very little about them, but I wonder how large their "repertoire" might be. I am reminded of the parents who lived next door...they had a 3 note phrase they would sing out to tell their children it was time to come home for supper. Karl