Long Now Laurance Doyle: Interspecies Communication and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Jun 23, 2020
Laurance Doyle, an astrophysicist at SETI, dives into the fascinating realm of interspecies communication and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He discusses the use of Earth’s animal communication, like dolphins' syntax and bees' waggle dance, as models for detecting intelligent signals. Doyle explains how analyzing patterns can distinguish between natural sounds and intentional communication. From examining humpback whales' complex social acoustics to exploring the implications of Zipf's law in language, the conversation reveals the intricate connections between life on Earth and the cosmos.
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Information Theory As An Intelligence Filter
- Information theory can generalize an intelligence filter across species and signals.
- This lets SETI move from detecting transmitters to detecting language-like structure in messages.
Use Earth Diversity To Avoid Human Bias
- Deprovincialize definitions of intelligence by studying diverse Earth communication systems as proxies for ET signals.
- Apply mathematical measures rather than assuming human-like structure.
Finding A Real 'Tatooine' World
- Laurance Doyle described discovering the circumbinary planet Kepler-16b and nicknaming it Tatooine.
- The find showed planets can exist stably in double-star habitable zones, surprising the team.
