Re: Developing a focused set of questions for IDists - Comments encouraged


topmind wrote:
neverbetter wrote:
topmind wrote:
neverbetter wrote:
topmind wrote:
neverbetter wrote:
topmind wrote:
Mark VandeWettering wrote:
<snip>


SETI has got a set of criteria, useful or not, and Columbus had enough
sailing experience to recognize dry land when he saw it. How can an ID
researcher tell if she's found an intelligent string?

"Tell" is a continuous scale. Nothing may be 100% certain. It is kind
of like that Mars meteor that appears to have signs of fossilized
bacteria. Nobody has enough info to answer with anything close to
certainty (at this point). There is no guarentee that clues will be
easy or complete. EXPLORATION MAKES NO GUARENTEES.

Exploration makes no guarantees but it makes nothing at all without
some sort of usable criteria for telling what one's looking for. "Let's
go look for meaningful messages, any kind" is too vague to be very
useful.

That is pretty much what archeologists do: explore until they spot
something curious, using nothing but their eyes, feet, and brains.

Well go and look at some DNA strings then, using nothing but your eyes
and brains. How will you recognize a meaningful message?

In the case of DNA, some kind of "candidate finder" would probably be
necessary, similar to what SETI is doing. Most SETI-ists don't claim
that their candidate-finding techniques are intended to be the final
word.


SETI is looking for artifice, not abstraction. The entire project is
geared towards detecting a narrow-band transmission.




Actually I don't think it's true. Archaeologists are not groping in the
dark with no expectations as much as you want to make it seem. They
know from previous experience what kind of objects are to be expected
and what kinds of objects are likely to prove interesting. The criteria
in their brains may not be as exact as the criteria programmed to a
computer doing Bible code but they exist nevertheless.

Similar to SETI, one can look for things/technologies that we are
familiar with. This does not mean we *assume* the message senders will
be somewhat like us, but only that we search for signals that we are
generally familiar with to aide in our recognition. It is the
"low-hanging fruit" of detection technology.


That is not quite correct. The assumption is made that ET will be
sufficiently like humans as to be detectable. This assumption is based
on various evidences within science, the properties of carbon and
water, the ubiquity of organic compounds, the vast numbers of stars and
their predicted planets, the fundamental nature of electromagnetic
radiation (radio), and so on.



Designers of Mars biology detection systems face a similar problem.
They know more about detecting Earth-like biology, so they focus on
that. It may cost 10 times as much to send a general life-detection
kit.


You can't program a computer to search a genome for "anything
will do, as long as it's meaningful, I don't care what it is and I
don't know what it would look like".

Three suggestions have already appeared: Pi, primes, and images. That
is not meant to be exhaustive, but at least something automatable.

Do you think that the designer is likely to have used gif or jpg
formatting or something else we are currently familiar with?

See above WRT familiarity.

> > > > > If SETI finds a candidate signal, they may be faced with the
same
question.

I think if somebody found TV signals in DNA of 5-eyed green aliens
reinacting Earth sitcoms from the 60's, most would consider that good
evidence of intelligent fiddling with DNA.

Let us know when you find those.

Irrelavent. The claim was lack of a potential test, not existing test.

It's just silly conjecture and not a potential test until some criteria
are established to enable us recognize TV signals in DNA. How would TV
signals be encoded in DNA? How should we go about decoding them and
getting them digi-tv compatible?

I don't understand why you keep asking such questions. Are you
skeptical that it is possible? Or, are you just dicking with me? I
can't tell.

I'm asking because you don't seem to be answering them elsewhere, just
ducking and ignoring them, changing the subject and asking others to do
your work for you.


I find that a mischaracterization. Often they try to deflect the burden
back to me, but it is really on them.

How can you say the burden is on them? It's *you* who have claimed
that ID is a valuable scientific opportunity because it's supposedly
easy to detect meaningful messages and TV broadcasts in the DNA.


I didn't claim that. This is a misrepresentation of my stance. I don't
ever remember claiming it was easy and valuable. I may have claimed
"relatively easy", which is different than "easy". Nor did I claim it
was necessarily valuable. It may be a waste of time. SETI may be a
waste of time. But that is an economic question, not a scientific one.


By that reasoning, the study of patterns in chicken entrails is just an
economic decision.


Zachriel
http://zachriel.blogspot.com/





If you've done so elsewhere I would appreciate a
link. It might be possible to recognize TV signals in DNA. But we need
some criteria to do that. What kind of patterns can be expected of a
string of DNA that is part of an alien sitcom? What can be expected of
a string of DNA that is not?

Non-compressed images are usually composed of "scan lines". Each line
tends to resemble the prior line such that a delta-difference function
can be applied. If enough sequential line candidates have a small total
difference, they are flagged for further inspection. However, multiple
palettes and multiple line widths will probably have to be tried, and
this is why ID@Home would be nice to split the load of such volumous
trials.

What about compressed images? What if ID compresses images differently
from us? Is there some way to recognize them?

See above WRT familiarity.

-T-

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Developing a focused set of questions for IDists - Comments encouraged
    ... Well go and look at some DNA strings then, ... that artificiality is often a difficult criteria to use by itself. ... They know more about detecting Earth-like biology, ... I think if somebody found TV signals in DNA of 5-eyed green aliens ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Humans cant produce informationally complex DNA?
    ... SETI scientists aren't looking for an information-rich signal. ...  There are many ways to produce DNA. ... We can also see radio signals change in real time in nature. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Chez Watt: Natural narrow-band radiosignals
    ... signals are not generated by natural astrophysical processes - only by ... so YOUR OWN REFERENCE says that CONTEXT is critical since SOLAR ... origin of DNA. ... as i've pointed out ad nauseum, radio waves do NOT have the capability ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Harshman, Felsenstein & Dembski
    ... message IS DNA. ... It is the order of the radio signals and of DNA that is relevant - not ... Not all materials are useful. ... to mark artificially produced sequences - like sequence tags. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Where does information come from?
    ... Is he asking for the origin of DNA? ... The second is an apparently random string of letters. ... since it depends entirely upon the context in which it is found. ... been murdered it might be used to help identify your murderer. ...
    (talk.origins)