From: vernon jenkins (vernon.jenkins@virgin.net)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 17:46:51 EST
> >Heck, SETI has a set of criteria for determining
> >whether communications appear to be designed. Are you
> >saying that they cannot distinguish between ET
> >communications and background noise because you can
> >come up with a "code" that makes, say cosmic
> >background radiation, mean something? That is simply
> >silly.
>
> Tell me what exactly their criteria is? Is a dolphin sound designed or
> random? Even hearing a dolphin communicate with a mate, we can't
understand
> it. We have no idea what is being communicated or if anything is being
> communicated. Think of trying to communicate with a cat. How do I
interpret
> a meow? We will have the same problem if we hear Rigelian dolphins
> whistling in their microphones. Shoot, the first astronomers who heard
> pulsars thought they were cosmic lighthouses. They were wrong. We will
> only be able to detect aliens IF (sorry Iain) they communicate about
things
> and in a manner familiar to us. Only if they work anthropomorphically
will
> we be able to detect them. That is equivalent to being told that the
signals
> are designed.
> glenn
>
Glenn, you appear to make light of Blake's most valid comment re SETI - a
project based on the common belief that there are alien civilizations 'out
there' who (or so it is assumed) are currently registering their galactic
presence by broadcasting signals that would be appropriately interpreted by
a distant intelligent receptor. Clearly, such an exercise requires no undue
degree of sophistication; typically, the repeated transmission of a long
sequence of prime numbers would suffice.
The universal absolutes represented by the natural numbers and their simple
derivatives are obvious media by means of which proof of intelligence may be
readily conveyed - whether across distance or time.
Vernon
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