Ritual, meaningfulness, and interstellar message construction

Abstract

In this paper, I am interested in exploring the potential of ritual performance as a means of communication with ETI. I argue that the study of ritual and ritualized behavior, understood as a technique for representation of meaning and meaningfulness about the world, has potential to inform how scientists think about the construction and interpretation of interstellar messages. I do not suggest that ritual activities themselves provide more than limited potential for communication with ETI. However, the structural elements of ritual and the manner in which meaning is conveyed through the formality and repetition of ritual is at least to some extent decipherable cross-culturally and provides one way to think about how to express important aspects of humans and their cultures to ETI and to represent, if not specific meanings themselves, the fact that a message is meaningful.