[FRIAM] something serious from something silly

[Prof David West]

A discussion of UFOs occupied some time in FRIAM today, including the observation that despite looking for "intelligent signals" ala SETI have failed. 

Made me think of octopi (& other cephalopods) that communicate with brilliant displays of rapidly changing color. We think that these displays are more than reactive, that they are "intelligent communication." Mostly, it seems to me, we infer this because we have a lot of context, including interacting octopi, but if all we had was the "signal" absent the context, would we recognize it as "intelligent?"

I am not phrasing the question very well, but if we had nothing except a 5-minute video of an octopus' surface changing color, would we be able to detect a hidden order or structure that would allow a reasonable determination that it originated from an intelligent species?

davew