[gongador]

Lots of misunderstandings in these comments, something that in itself shows of difficult communication is.

What Witkowski is saying is that communication, as we think about the concept, between species likely won't be recognizable as communication. We (and/or they) will literally not perceive the attempt at communication as communication.

As he has thought about this, he has tried to reduce the concept of communication to something approaching universality, and ended up (for now) with the realization that since (probably) all living things wish to continue living, an attempt to take a living things life will be seen as communication (with the message being: I want to kill you).

In other words, he is not at all (as far as the article is concerned) concerned with the question "What is a good, practical way of making contact with an alien species such that it leads to a positive outcome for us?" What he is concerned with is the question: "How will different species in our universe even realize that someone is trying to communicate?"

(Note: I don't know whether he's correct or not, but it would be nice if people read and understood the content instead of constructing straw men to argue with.)

[glimshe]

Another universal concept he forgot about: if you have nothing good to say, say nothing.