L’ordre compliqué

Lincos is a translation based on a book by the mathematician Hans Freudenthals titled Lincos – A language for extraterrestrial intercourse. Within it, Freudenthal constructs a language that can be understood by all intelligent entities, including alien lifeforms. The only thing presupposed on the part of the receiver is the concept of equal and non-equal – one is equal to one, one is not equal to zero. Based on this statement, further comparisons shed light on the complete principles of mathematics. This is followed by a chapter on the definition of time and introduces a kind of clock with which different points in time can be marked.
The concluding chapter discusses the teaching of more complex behaviors and emotional aspects of interpersonal communication. For this, Hans Freudenthal defines the variables Ha and Hb, writing a sort of theater piece where the two variables show different behaviors in their reaction to one another.

The resulting book takes this system and transfers it to the entirety of Freudenthal’s text. It is based on the described characters that behave in principle like the variables in equations. In addition to their names, they have arms, legs and a head with which they can refer to each other and express emotions.