Cranes have been overpopulating the skyline of Champaign, as of late. From the twin behemoths overseeing our remarkable football season, to the daisy being pushed up from the grave of our late Burger King, the endangerment of their species is greatly exaggerated. Another has sprung up just outside my door; suspending itself above the formerly barren field just north of Springfield Avenue, between Third and Fourth streets of Campustown.

Although some might find these cranes an unfortunate obstruction to the blue skies behind them, I am always happy to see them. I must confess, this is mostly because I like to imagine hurling oversized water balloons from them onto Green Street, just after the bars close. I’m sure everyone would appreciate the humor.

Recently, when walking home from class, I was treated to a new addition sitting atop my neighborhood crane: a line of Christmas lights leading up to a bright glowing star. I was struck by how thoughtful a gesture it was, an unnecessary expression of good will to all the little bundled people below.

It reminded me, somewhat circuitously, of the Arecibo message. For those of you not hip to the SETI scene, the Arecibo message was a radio transmission sent out in 1974 from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, to a cluster of stars about 25,000 light years away. The message contained some basic information about Earth and humanity, encoded in 1,679 binary digits, which is the product of two prime numbers, making it a semiprime.

Prime numbers are important here because they are believed to have an inherent meaning only comprehensible to intelligent life, and they do not naturally occur in any greater amount than other numbers. So, when transmitting a message to other sentient beings, the use of prime numbers is recognized as a mark of intentionality.

The gulf between human intelligence and anything that picks up the Arecibo message is probably much more significant than between the crane operators and me. However, I think both situations speak to the same dilemma. Given the great gulf between our minds and the minds of others, how meaningful is communication?

Although we do not find it difficult to accept that when others communicate with us they have an intention, we rarely consider how unavailable that intention is to us. What are the people who put the lights on that crane trying to say to me? Perhaps, after reading this column, they will send me a letter explaining their intention. However, the problem persists. Because their intention is described to me through a system of communication, which is limited by its nature, how am I to know that their intention has accurately been communicated to me?

This is a question that I think about very often. It will never be possible to overcome this paradox of communication; it is the stuff philosophy is made of, and we have been trying to solve that for about the entirety of human existence. Some people are confronted with this problem and find God, who transcends the whole issue. Finding myself unable to come to this conclusion in good conscience, I instead think in terms of art.

I define art as the degree to which an author intends to evoke an interpretation. This has two important consequences for art, and for our paradox. First, the value of art should not be based on the kind of interpretation we ascribe to it; whether it is ugly or beautiful. Instead its value is the intentionality of the artist, a value we can only estimate. Secondly, the line between art and life is blurred beyond distinction.

Those lights over Champaign are very much a work of art, as is the Arecibo message, as are my columns. My intention, if you want to know, is to encourage you all to think of your lives as works of art. Communicate with each other, it’s all we have.