From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Sun Nov 24 2002 - 05:43:14 EST
Vernon wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: vernon jenkins [mailto:vernon.jenkins@virgin.net]
>Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 10:47 PM
>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.
Why? The finding of the Fibonacci series in plant growth doesn't
automatically indicate design except for those who decide apriori that
design is there. (see Brian Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), p. 132). Finding mathematical patterns in
nature can't automatically be ascribed to design until one rules out a
purely natural process.
Consider General Relativity:
"There is a moral in this story Einstein's motivations for
devoting eight or more years of his life to deriving the General
Theory were not observational or experimental. Sometimes people
argue that , 'Well, physicists look for patterns in their
experimental results and then they find some nice theory which
agrees with these. Maybe this explains why mathematics and
physics work so well together.' But, in this case, things were
not like that at all. The theory was developed originally
without any observational motivation the mathematical theory is
very elegant and it is physically very well motivated. The point
is that the mathematical structure is just there in Nature, the
theory really is out there in space it has not been imposed upon
Nature by anyone. That is one of the essential points of this
chapter. Einstein revealed something that was there. Moreover,
it was not just some minor piece of physics he discovered it is
the most fundamental thing that we have in Nature, the nature of
space and time." Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the
Human Mind, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 21-
25
We can't automatically claim that the finding of a very complex set of
Riemannian tensor mathematics in nature automatically means design. To claim
that is to assume design before it is proven.
Secondly, unless the civilization is spending resources in order to transmit
to us a set of mathematical functions (something very unlikely to be
detected because we don't spend much of our resources sending such patterns
to them), we are more likely to detect their voice communications or their
information transmissions. I am not sure we would recognize it as anything
significant unless it sounded like us. Since most species on this planet
sound nothing like us, I expect that the alien vocalization will sound
different from us and thus even if we both take notice of each other, we
will be mutually incomprehensible. That is why I said something about trying
to communicate with a cat. Their entire mental experience is foreign to us.
I don't crouch on the floor and put my ears back everytime a small furry
thing wanders by.
>
>
>
>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.
I would say that finding mathematical sequences in the electromagnetic
spectrum coming from a distant star would get our attention. But the only
way to be sure it is designed intelligently is to communicate with it.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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