Dependent Reflector Terminology and Analysis

[confocaloid]

[...] Here's the post you're complaining about -- [...]
[...] It's kind of a technical topic, and certainly someone might be confused by it -- but it's not clear that the term "signal" is what they would be confused about! [...]

Here I'm complaining about the part of your post where your wording (i.e. "signals that make up the final synthesis") essentially implies that a glider synthesis might somehow consist of "signals". But that's false. A glider synthesis is made out of gliders.

More generally, I'm complaining about your tendency (visible in that post and elsewhere) to incorrectly apply the label 'signal' to Life/CA things that are interesting for different reasons unrelated to the concept of a signal, therefore misrepresenting those topics.

There are many interesting Life/CA-related topics that aren't either "logic" or "circuitry". There are many interesting topics that aren't one's favourite topic. It doesn't work very well to just pretend that the label 'signal' is an "universal silver bullet" to magically explain all interesting topics and puzzles in Life.

[...] But then when people do speak up to tell you that their intuition doesn't match yours, you just ... don't seem to pay any attention [...]

The post you linked to is irrelevant to the discussion of what constitutes a "signal".

Moreover, the very next forum post after that ( viewtopic.php?p=187872#p187872 ) directly contradicts your claim "don't seem to pay any attention".

[...]
An active object could either move or not -- there's no implication that circuitry must be involved.
[...]

"In the context of circuitry", the phrase 'active object' was used consistently over time, in different places, by different people, and with the specific meaning of an object moving through a circuit. See for example
https://web.archive.org/web/20160222193 ... .htm#track
https://web.archive.org/web/20160319221 ... tm#conduit
https://conwaylife.com/ref/lifepage/pat ... srefl.html
https://conwaylife.com/ref/lifepage/patterns/p1/p1.html
as well as multiple forum posts by different people at different time which can be found through forum search.

So in the context of circuitry (which is where the points of contention lie), there is an implication that circuitry must be involved.

[...] I understand that you disagree with all of this. But given how important you seem to think this issue is, there has been a strange absence of people speaking up to agree with you. [...]

I also disagree with that last claim. In different places, in different time, several people already did speak to disagree with you and to agree with me on some of relevant points. It is strange that you don't mention opinions of those people in any way.

[dvgrn]

... your wording (i.e. "signals that make up the final synthesis") essentially implies that a glider synthesis might somehow consist of "signals". But that's false.

Here again you're simply assuming what you're trying to prove. By the definition of "signal" that you're using -- and that you seem to want everyone else to use -- of course a glider can't be a signal. It can only carry a signal. That's if you define "signal" to mean something like "an information-theory zero-or-one bit".

But I'm not using that definition. As you say, my wording does clearly imply that a glider synthesis might consist of signals. For the last twenty-plus years I've been using the term "signal" to refer to things moving through circuitry that sometimes take the form of gliders, which then maybe sometimes get used in glider syntheses. That's what "signal" means to me in a CA circuitry context.

It is strange that you don't mention opinions of those people in any way.

I did say "with very few objections from anyone other than you". I didn't say there were no objections.

The definition I'm using is outlined in the poll from September of last year. In that poll, 25 people voted in favor of the definition that allows circulating gliders to be referred to as "signals", and seven people voted for the more restrictive information-theory definition.

People who have agreed with you include Jormungant and johamwit, and presumably most or all of the seven voters in that poll.

You've mentioned those opinions on several occasions, so those must be important opinions. But why is it not important to also acknowledge the two dozen or so people who agreed with the idea that "the p43 Snark loop contains eight circulating signals"? That sentence only makes sense if it's okay to refer to gliders as signals.

The alternative option, "the p43 Snark loop contains no signals", would make sense in the context of a restrictive information-theory definition of "signal". But that wasn't the option chosen by a supermajority of the community.

You've previously stated very specifically that it's okay for people to use whatever wording they prefer in forum discussions. I've been telling you the wording I prefer, and why I prefer it, and I have good evidence that I'm not alone in thinking this way -- and I was using "signal" in a forum discussion.

Especially given the obvious lack of any clear community consensus in your favor on this issue, how do you reconcile your continued complaints with your previous claim about not trying to restrict anyone's use of the word "signal"?

[confocaloid]

[...] That's what "signal" means to me in a CA circuitry context. [...]

Explaining a glider-to-spaceship converter doesn't reduce entirely to staying "in a CA circuitry context".

For example, a glider synthesis used to construct the target spaceship requires leaving the "comfort zone" of "CA circuitry context".
Syntheses are outside "CA circuitry context". Glider syntheses of spaceships live on the level of collisions, synthesis components, reactions.
Talking about so-called "signals" is a very noticeable distraction here (regardless of what you meant by "signal").

(Of course a glider synthesis is made out of gliders -- why the word 'signal' even seemed a relevant word to insert in that place? What the author meant by choosing that word in that place, exactly? Apparently nothing in particular, based on this discussion; but it's often hard for a reader to grasp that the word choice happened to be nothing more than an irrelevant distraction from the topic.)

The main story might be good or bad, but if I can't focus on the main story due to all the annoying distractions in how it's told (jumps between levels of understanding, unnecessary jargon, etc.) then the story doesn't matter.

[...] a supermajority of the community. [...]

I would avoid calling this "a supermajority of the community", that sounds too grandiose for what it actually is.

Firstly, the "poll" was confusingly arranged to begin with, and ended up being misleading and unhelpful about which I already wrote in that thread

For the record, I do not believe the poll is helpful. There are multiple different issues, several of which are lumped together in this poll. Several people already replied in previous forum threads. [...]

Second, even if it was meaningful, it would still be a bad idea to assume that it represents "What The Community Thinks", given the preceding (attempts at) discussion of the issues.

• The Life/CA community is much larger than "the people who are registered here on this website".
• "The people who are registered on this website" is much larger than "the people who are currently active and understand the topics and the disagreements well enough to participate and say what they think on the matter".
• Many of those people who are currently active and do understand the matter well enough to be able to comment on it, are likely either too timid to get involved, or too polite to get involved, or perhaps both.

So your phrase "a supermajority of the community" comes across as a serious misrepresentation of what the "poll" actually was.