“Consider the situation in which several different centers are netted together, each center being highly individualistic and having its own special language and its own special way of doing things,” he posited. “Is it not desirable or even necessary for all the centers to agree upon some language or, at least, upon some conventions for asking such questions as ‘What language do you speak?’At this extreme, the problem is essentially the one discussed by science-fiction writers: How do you get communications started among totally uncorrelated sapient beings?”
