[ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

[Lloyd Miller]

Aren't numbers derived from counting objects?
Lloyd Miller,



On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 6:58 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 28/07/2026 04:44, spike wrote:
> > ... It tells us only what we need to know, which might be only that it
> exists and the signal is intentional.  The first seven prime numbers,
> signaled in base 1, would do for that purpose.  That would signal to more
> primitive civilizations (us) that getting thru the Great Filter is
> possible, and that it has been done.
>
>
> Why would The first seven prime numbers, signaled in base 1, be
> unambiguous evidence for an artificial, deliberate process?
>
> I'm just thinking that the prime numbers are (kind of) a natural
> phenomenon in maths, so why can't they be a natural phenomenon in, er,
> nature? If maths underlies all reality, as some people think, it would be
> strange if this didn't happen.
>
> Do we know for sure that there are no natural processes that would
> generate the sequence . .. ... ..... ....... ........... ............. . ..
> ... ..... ....... ........... ............. etc.?
>
> If the prime numbers are not a natural phenomenon in maths, but are
> something that we've devised (which seems a reasonable idea to me, but I'm
> no mathematician), then there's no reason an alien civilisation couldn't
> devise something similar, but not the same (and who knows what sequences of
> numbers an advanced intelligence could devise/discover, that have as much,
> or more, significance as prime numbers do for us, but that we wouldn't
> recognise as a sign of intelligence?).
>
> The point is, if prime numbers are natural, then they're not an indication
> of intelligence, and if they're not natural, then they're made-up, and
> different civilisations could plausibly make up different sequences of
> equivalent significance, and not necessarily recognise what someone else's
> are supposed to be.
>
> We think of maths as a 'universal language', but is it? Maybe it is for
> creatures like us, but not for aliens with different ways of perceiving the
> world, and of interacting with it. We've never met any, so we don't really
> know.
>
> (It's always seemed to me that maths has something wrong with it, that
> we're missing something, maybe several somethings. Yes, I know it's more
> likely that it's me that's missing something, but I still can't help the
> feeling that someone, somewhere, might well have a 'better' maths, that
> makes more sense. Maybe we're locked-in to a less than optimal maths, just
> as we're locked-in evolutionarily to a less than optimal mechanism for
> storing and replicating biological information).
>
> I don't think there can be any unambiguously 'artificial' signal. We can
> never be sure that some message isn't a product of a natural, unthinking
> process. All we can say is that it becomes less likely with some, long,
> messages, but there is no single 'shortest unambiguously artificial
> message'.
>
> If we did receive the above sequence of dots, what would we conclude? That
> an alien civilisation sent it, but that they don't have exactly the same
> concept of prime numbers that we do (unfashionably (but reasonably)
> including the number 1 (we used to, and the only reason we don't now,
> afaik, is to force a consistent definition)), or that it's a natural
> process that we don't know about?
>
> One thing's for sure: There would be an argument. So, it's not an
> unambiguous signal.
>
> Finally, what makes us think that there's just one Great Filter? It could
> be that the truly Great filter only occurs after a civilisation becomes
> capable of signalling its presence to the universe. If we ever do get such
> a signal, it might be all that's left of a dead civilisation, the cosmic
> equivalent of "Look, ma, no hands!! .. SPLAT!".
>
>
> --
> Ben
>
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