Hi!

Hi Chelsea!

Claire, I started reading your PhD dissertation when we received the abstract of today's talk; extremely interesting topic! Congratulations!

I have some caveats and comments about how this experiment was designed

Would this paper be a good place to read up on that, Jason? https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab3fa8

That is a good place to get background on drift rates. We have not published the Tabby’s Star / De-Doppler work yet.

Ah, okay. Thanks! I’ll read this and then look forward to the next paper!

In fact you could say that the design of such experiments involves us imagining them imagining us…

That (infinite) recursion lies at the heart of Schelling’s concept of focal points in cooperative, non-communicative game theory.

we are looking for ”us” in the stars, so to speak

I totally agree with all the above! It's meta-anticipation, I'm working on that from a Futures Studies perspective and I was very happy to find that Claire had similar ideas!!!

Commensurability is a *testable* assumption. The way we test it is through SETI…

Thank you for a great talk!

Is it an intention or algorithm-driven step(s) toward the goal(s) which we cannot comprehend. Can these internal algorithms be decoded by us as intentional stance?

I have a comment

Intriguing talk!

Thanks for a wonderful perspective and presentation!!

Ha. Yup.

that is an interesting thought….intentional bio signature!

Maybe: a dog marking its territory?

Nontechnological intentional signatures is an interesting idea. Like if cetaceans, without any machines, were able to collectively set up some kind of observable vibration in our atmosphere that could be detected from afar…

Whale song?

yes but I was wondering about nontech signals, intended to communicate beyond earth

Hard to see how those whales would know that sending an intentional biosignature was worthwhile, without technology to know that a universe is out there...

(presumes a natural history which would allow non technological beings to have knowledge of the universe beyond their home planet)

What if we were to observe something like bird murmuration on a gran scale in an exoplanet atmosphere? We might infer intention from a non intentional biological phenomena in such a case.

If it an intentional biosignature does not involve some level of cognitive foundation, it would have to be the result of evolution

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, whale song is a form of interstellar communication

yeah, i was thinking how nouns would travel through space

graham that also suggests the possibility of a “false positive” for intention, depending on how we understand intention

*sound

I would say that the starling murmuration is a biosignature, not an intentional one. Unless it was by its nature communicative

Could artificially created biosignature fit in?

Like viruses from space or artificial sequences in our DNA?

Perhaps the case of multiple close-by habitable planets or moons in a star system would provide the evolutionary background for intentional biosignatures. For example, it would have to play a role in reproduction or capturing prey/avoiding predation

An artificially created biosignature (e.g. DNA message or synthetic microorganisms for panspermia) might be in fact a biotechnological technosignature!

We can’t even assume that ~half our fellow Americans are rational!

Ha. That was pretty much my thought when tying intentionality to rationality

A lot of this discussion has me thinking about that divide. Commensurability. Joint problem solving, etc….

I do have a slight problem with the idea of an "intentional biosignature", and how that would be different from "communication" itself

What about an artificial biosignature? manipulating a planet to appear to have obvious anomalous disequilibrium

Perhaps bounded rationality for the case of humans - not pure rationality!

Being rational does not mean being successful, it is just a sub product of evolution (frontal lobes)

very interesting talk, thank you!

Hi Arik. The “communication would be thought of as technosignature, surely/. Biosignature might be thought of as unintentional if, say, CFC’s are found in an atmosphere.

Intentional biosignatures strike me as odd - worth thinking about.

Artificial manipulation of a planet's biosignature? Interesting. But if the planet is, in fact, inhabited, this sounds harmful to the life forms on it. Perhaps you could "fake" biosignatures on uninhabited moons 😂

(Imagining that 5 note sequence from Close Encounters)

The concept of “intentional biosignature” has me thinking, for one thing, about Lamarkianism and what would happen if biological differences for another biosphere would make it so that species could control their phenotypic evolution.

We have selection, but what if an organism could control the expression of its own genetic material (whatever that would be)

A speculative intentional biosignature that does not involve some sort of biotechnology or technology would need to have ecological communication across two celestial bodies in the same star system and would need to involve ecologically-related species (intra-specific or inter-specific)!

Thanks for the very interesting talk!

Agreed! Claire, thank you for a very nice talk and for allowing a welcoming time for discussion.

Use a coral reef that spells out “SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH” across the face of the largest ocean on the planet.

An analogy drawn from terrestrial ecology might involve animal ethology in island ecology for close-by islands! Perhaps interbreeding populations that live in different territories and have to communicate for reproductive purposes!

Amazing talk!

I have to run. Thanks, Claire!

This was a great talk and fun conversation! Thanks Claire!!!

Thanks, Claire!

thank you for the talk!

thanks, Claire! wonderful talk!

thanks for the talk

Thank you, Claire. That was a very interesting talk. And I appreciated your disclaimer on the last slide.

Trivia: in Greek, technology and art actually have the same root! "Τέχνη", "techne", meaning something crafted!

Interesting!

Thank you for your comments!

I have to go, thanks again Claire!

ciwebb@mit.edu

Nice to see all of you here!

Fantastic, thank you Claire.