34 - Looking Forward: The Basic Questions Again

Summary

Normally the final section of a book on language matters would simply be labelled ‘Conclusion’, where the author reviews the main arguments in the book, draws the threads together and presents the results and insights in summary form. However, with this book there can be no definitive conclusion as the subject matter is speculative. But what one can do is summarise the possibilities of exolanguage as a series of questions with tentative answers. Admittedly, the following may be regarded by some readers as unduly anthropocentric, too heavily reliant on what we humans are like. However, in keeping with the principle applied throughout this book, the speculative sections begin with what we know from our existence on our Earth and then move in careful steps to consider what might be the case for exobeings on an exoplanet.