From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sun Sep 08 2002 - 06:18:05 MDT
Anders Sandburg noted:
<<I think what would distinguish an engineered object from a natural one
is that the engineered object would optimize something. Now, most
natural objects are also local or global optima of something - soap
bubbles minimize area for a given volume, planets are spherical to
minimize energy, galaxies are shaped by the virial theorem etc. So the
trick of discovering artificiality would be to find optimization of
something nature wouldn't normally optimize. Systems that maximize their
free energy, information storage or information capacity would be
suspicious. The shape doesn't tell us much, since there is no reason an
optimal device need to look like anything - it is the function that
would be relevant.>>
Would lines of communication be functional, in a ring? I wonder if Hoag's
object could indeed be a "transversable wormhole"? In other words, would
astronomers know it if they see it? Or am I seeing Chapperelli's channels
become canals? Have the Sagan's and the Shostak's tricked ourselves into
believing all life and technology can do is build massive radio arrays? Radio
and laser communications are certainly easier to accomplish. Is Hoag's object
a ring of stars, with dark matter (non-reflective) filling the inside? Is
that optimal, for nature, or functional by technological life? Hmmm..
(ponder..ponder)
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