Bilboe

And now back to the SETI example,

Some of you out there think a radio signal with the prime numbers from 2 to 101 would be incontrovertible proof of intelligent design, no matter if it was Scenario 1 or Scenario 2. You might be right. I still tend to think there would be room for doubt in Scenario 2. How had aliens managed to make the signal come from everywhere? Or if it had been somehow embedded in the Big Bang, how? I would think hypothesizing that the signal had been intelligently designed would be a reasonable thing to do. But shouldn't we try to figure out how, first, before teaching it as accepted scientific theory?

Likewise, I think ID in biology is a reasonable hypothesis. However, until we can answer How? or Who?, I don't think we should accept it as theory.

wdog

Such a signal would be incontrovertible proof if natural mechanisms could be ruled out with great certainty, which is very likely. As for it coming from everywhere, you create a highly improbable situation, then you ask "how could that be?". I fail to see the logic of that. If it did happen then we should start to try and figure out why, but why waste time figuring out every concievable scenario? What if it came from pluto? What about pluto and venus? What about pluto sometimes, venus sometimes, and deneb all the time?

Jimmy Higgins

There's an old urban legend of a Native American quote of, "If you've been shot with an arrow, deal with it and get help." You don't sit around wondering who shot it. Why they shot it. From where they shot it. You take the obvious fact and go from there.

If a signal were to broadcast any "unnatural" set of numbers, then the signal must be from an intelligent source, because anything "unnatural" must be created by an living process. Of course, it would need to be determined that the signal was extratrestrial to assume intelligent life outside of earth first. But as long as the signal was "unnatural" and not from earth, there is no other conclusion but design from another being. Who that being is, where it is, why it is, etc... is irrelevent to the entire process.

The question being answered here is as follows. Is the signal natural or intelligently designed? Everything else are details.

Principia

Jimmy,

I don't think the matter is so simple. The details can only help to answer the question here... Science works by gathering details.

In any case, I believe the 1967 discovery of pulsars is applicable to this discussion. Pulsars appear as pulsating signals, apparently directed at Earth and originating from a localized source. At the time, the scientists actually entertained the notion of LGMs.

What eliminated the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligences, however, were the details.

I wonder how SETI researchers, who already have trouble of their own legitimizing their work, feel about being used by IDists as justification as an example of design inference.

lpetrich

That's actually from an Asian Indian -- the Buddha -- but the principle is correct.

Bilboe

Scientiae: "I wonder how SETI researchers, who already have trouble of their own legitimizing their work, feel about being used by IDists as justification as an example of design inference."

Me: Ya' gotta' feel sorry for 'em. That's probably why DrGH gets so pissed off when IDists refer to archaeologists. I think you're right about science being in the details. But I could be wrong. I waffle back on forth on whether Scenario 2 gives us enough evidence for intelligent design. But I know I would feel a lot more confident about Scenario 1.

Principia

Bilbo(e),

I think you confidence in Scenario 1 stems from your a priori knowledge that primes are in fact mathematical constructs, which are in the end human ideas. But, this example taken to one extreme can even put doubt about just how 'intelligent' these originators of the signal might just be.

What if they broadcast the KJV of Genesis instead? perhaps Elvis? or a translation of 'little green men' in all of the known human languages past and present?

What if all of the sudden, all of the signals that we have ever put into outer space come back to us?

Would we still look for LGMs then? Even in the movie, Contact, I remember that there was some doubt about how the signal of primes may have been a hoax. But, I think the plot device was used for another purpose...

In any case, I think you have succeeded in illustrating why it is so difficult to remain impartial in searching for 'intelligence' that is not our own.

Scientiae

[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]</p>

Jimmy Higgins

I agree to a point, a hindsight point. When I mention an "unnatural" signal, that is one with some sort of complexity. The pulsars, I believe were extremely simplistic, pulsating in very exact intervals of time. If we were getting prime numbers, why is the movie Contact brought against us?, that would be indicative of an intelligent source because prime numbers, as far as I'm aware, have no value in nature. Whereas, the "simplicity" of the pulsar certainly does. But that is a hindsight point.

Bilboe

Scientiae
Secular Web Regular

Member # 6036
posted May 13, 2002 05:24 AM

Bilbo(e),

I think you confidence in Scenario 1 stems from your a priori knowledge that primes
are in fact mathematical constructs, which are in the end human ideas."

Me: Actually it comes from listening to Carl Sagan in his TV show, Cosmos. He thought that mathematics would be a truly universal language, understood by any cosmic species able to invent a radio. So if one wanted to contact an alien species, it would make sense, according to Sagan, to transmit a mathematical signal. And you would want to make it complex, but with a recognizable pattern, so that the alien species would know that it wasn't a result of chance or physical laws (remind you of Dembski?), but still be able to see the pattern. I don't know if anyone ever challenged Sagan's idea. I don't even know if it was originally his, or if he got it from someone else. Anyway, assuming Sagan was right, discovering such a signal would be a strong indicator of intelligence. Would it be strong enough, even in Scenario 2? Maybe not. But I think it would at least give us good reason to hypothesize intelligence. Then would come the task of figuring out how or who.


Scientiae: "What if all of the sudden, all of the signals that we have ever put into outer space
come back to us?

Would we still look for LGMs then?"

Me: Do you mean like what if there was something in nature that "reflected" our signals to us? That's a good question. I would think that's one of the things SETI would have to consider, wouldn't they?

Scientiae: "In any case, I think you have succeeded in illustrating why it is so difficult to
remain impartial in searching for 'intelligence' that is not our own."

Me: Gosh, I hope I didn't refute ID. I was just suggesting that we IDists need to take a more modest postion. Like Scenario 2, ID is faced with some tough problems. Unless we can somehow show that all of the intelligent design was frontloaded at the very origin of life, we have to explain how the designers have been around for over 3 billion years, adding design from time to time. I think that God did it, but that's difficult, if not impossible to test for. So I don't think my version of ID -- theistic -- could ever be considered a scientific theory. I do think it could be a hypothesis. Just one that could never be proven.

[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: Bilboe ]</p>

Principia

Bilbo(e),

My point was that we perceive 'intelligence' self-referentially. The Carl Sagan movie attempted to make that point, when the characters in the end suspected a hoax in the whole affair. Mathematics as a descriptive language may be in fact a universal concept, but there isn't necessarily a universal system of conveying the same concepts. Why must primes be universal?

I think it is illustrative that, in Scenario 1, you went straight from a description of the phenomenon (i.e. 'signals of primes') to a conclusion (i.e. 'intelligent design') without exploring or offering any alternative hypotheses. Are you claiming that they don't exist? I was merely trying to provide a few in order to illustrate how SETI might work differently than ID. Yes, you are right: SETI does scrupulously eliminate the possibility of terrestrial or natural phenomena... and well, they should. Has ID?

I believe we do a great job of detecting human intelligence. Still, I think we have a poor understanding of that aspect of our intelligence that may be in fact mechanistic. We have an even worse understanding of other types of intelligence than our own, possibly so different that it may be imperceptible to us.

Primes? Coming apparently from a star system? With planets? Sure, but then why not Elvis singing 'Hound Dog' from Tatooine? Because the example is biased and unrealistic. If only detecting extraterrestrial intelligences were so simple...

But, I agree: ID should remain a hypothesis in the meantime.

Scientiae