http://organelle.org/glossary/signi.html

Re: The Voyager Plaque

“In case someone finds one of our later Voyager probes, we included a plaque, with which we represent a physical version of a ‘signal of recognition’ — a signal whereby an intelligent lifeForm presents a coded demonstration of their symbolic understandings such that they might be recognized by another similar species or intelligence.

In the tracing of a man, his hand is raised in the most common human version of the signal of recognition — the raised open hand, palm facing the viewer. On our world, this generally is known to mean something akin to ‘Greetings’. For us, this gesture has a variety of subtexts, including: ‘I am not holding a weapon’ which is sometimes translated as ‘I arrive with peaceful intention.’.

Our choices of what to include in our signal are confusing, however, and starkly mechanistic. There is no sign for ‘tree’ or ‘animal’ on the plaque, and no symbol for ‘family of life here’ or for ‘child’ — simply a man, a woman, and a machine. The single most important thing in the image, Sol — is barely larger than the man’s head and thus has not been ‘properly glorified’ but instead reduced to a counting-token.

One simple translation would be that we are either the children of machines, or machines are our children. Either idea would be terrifying to any complexly sentient being, and could be interpreted as clear evidence that our minds are damaged to the point where we can ‘only value machines’. On the plus side, message says we know stuff about molecules, stars as objects, and quasars — plus a teensy bit about making two-dimensional greetingCards which function as maps allowing one to locate the sender.”

— from an unfinished essay on “The Signal of Recognition”

http://organelle.org/glossary/signi.html