Tuesday, February 11, 2020

IT'S FINELY SPATIAL

What if the space aliens had multiple limbs (or tentacles) and were covered in chromatophores? They would think us rather deficient, and wonder how we expressed ourselves; surely emotional content was missing? Possibly they'd think that the disco era was our highest state of development, yet curiously depressing because, ultimately, meaningless.
Spectacular colours, but no depth.

A very superficial species, adept at moving around, but incapable of actual thought.

Not very edible either, alas.

Tastes like chicken.


I wonder about these things when I'm half awake.


Undoubtedly, they'd have a form of synesthesia: in a narrow sense, associating numbers, letters, or whole words and phrases, with colours and textures. Which might make their personal names really interesting, and help them enormously with mathematical processes.
Some letters are metalic.

[Numbers and letters relate to moods and smells too. Take my word for it, the number 5 is greenish, and smells good. And it's comforting. The name 'Padron' (a cigar company, Nicaraguan) tends to feel warm and velvety. And Balkan Sobranie (an old brand of pipe tobacco) has reds and blues, with a touch of lemon yellow, completely at odds with the tin art, which was black and white, and rather austere. The term "bitter melon" has none of the hues and textures of the actual vegetable itself, which is quite frissonatic. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I like it so much. Sopropo (its name in Sranantongo) is beautiful, ampalaya and peria are ugly colour combos. Fu gwa (苦瓜 Cantonese for bitter melon) is a harmonious juxtapositioning of raw umber and medium crimson.]

The space aliens would then also have a vast vocabulary for such things. Which means on the one hand that their finest literature would be almost incomprehensible AND untranslatable, and on several other limb terminations they'd find our writings quite gibberant.
As the essay above might seem.

But they'd probably love our tendency towards rectalinearity.
So balanced, so elegant, so Zen-like!
Spare and simple.






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