ABSTRACT
To revert to a naïve question: what ‘is’ matter? Is it possible that we could receive a message that could respond to this interrogation? There is an anthropocentric conception of messages as transmissions between beings that share a code. According to such a definition the reception of a message depends upon a prior agreement with the sender. One can receive messages from other humans, or from personal beings such as God or angels, as long as there is a pre-established system of significations. If a message is not coded according to the rules of a familiar system it might still be possible to translate it into the terms of such a system, deciphering or interpreting it. It is thus possible for messages to be retrieved from extinct languages, as long as sufficient similarity exists between them and familiar languages for a systematic series of correspondences to be established. Such similarities can be described as the ‘formal’ or ‘structural’ properties of the signifying system, distinguished from its ‘material’ or ‘empirical’ instantiation.
