Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1320 sci.astro:2368 sci.philosophy.tech:665 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!mejac!gryphon!pnet02!bilbo From: bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett) Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: DNA for interstellar messages Message-ID: <4790@gryphon.CTS.COM> Date: 9 Jul 88 18:20:16 GMT Sender: root@gryphon.CTS.COM Organization: People-Net [pnet02], Redondo Beach, CA. Lines: 32 bs_wab@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Bains) writes: >i) The interstallar grains that Hoyle was concerned about were meant to be >the remains of entire organisms (if I understand Hoyle's ideas right, >which I quite possibly do not), not of 'pure' message. If you use an entire >organism as a messenger, then you have the problem of how to stop your >message evolving into meaningless garbage. (The same problem attends the >idea put forward in a previous posting (sorry, I don't have it in front >of me) that such a message exists and 'we are that message'. Apart from >anything else, which 'we'? There is about 1% genetic difference between >different individuals, so which 'us' is the right message? But I digress.) Nothing is perfect. I mean some message is better then no message and so far we have no message. The DNA transmitter may not be "intelligent" and it would include ALL life and not just some "special" sentient creature dreaming of a way to communicate with anther planet. The point is you do not stop the message from evolving into menaingless garbage. Meaningless garbage is exactly what has created us for 5 billion years (or so). If it is TRUE, does the human species resemble the original DNA message transported through time and space from so many distant places? This is what I meant by WE (may be) are the message. It can't be whole. As far as how a planet would transmit all its DNA stuff through space perhaps when its star dies and novas the explosion rather then consuming the third planet from the sun would break it up and spew it out into the cosmos to land a tiny portion someday on another planet? This was never the way I thought of communicating with other life in the universe. It sort of ruins Star Trek. Bill UUCP: {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax rutgers!marque}!gryphon!pnet02!bilbo INET: bilbo@pnet02.cts.com * Sometimes The Dragon Wins! * Still looking for the best Amiga BBS software to resurrect Bilbo's Hideaway on - but not holding breath!