Regarding signals and "signals", one recurring idea is that they appear to be "unnecessary entities" in explanations of many interesting patterns. Introducing the concept often amounts to additional unnecessary complexity.
In the p43 Snark loop, there are 344/43 = 8 circulating gliders. Each of those 8 gliders moves on the same glider track, in the same direction, with equal gaps between consecutive gliders. There is no objective reason to "single out" any one out of those gliders. (Any choice will be arbitrary. Neither of circulating gliders is "more important" or "more interesting" than any other glider on the same track.)
Further, it is straightforward to rearrange the Snarks and to add more gliders (while keeping essentially the same design, with all the same reactions, and without adding any new reactions that would require additional explanation/attention
beyond what was already explained/understood).
It appears obvious that the "interestingness" of the entire glider loop oscillator must be essentially unaffected by such trivial adjustments.
Each glider undergoes the same reactions in the same sequence, regardless of how many are there gliders on the same track.
But that just means that "interestingness" isn't really in the individual gliders to begin with. Instead, "interestingness" is in the specific design, leading to a family of engineered oscillators. The "interesting" part of a glider loop oscillator consists of those components and reactions that stay unchanged when the oscillator is adjusted. Those components and those reactions are likely to need additional attention, when one is trying to understand how the oscillator works.
In contrast, each individual glider doesn't need an explanation by itself, and doesn't require extra attention for itself. That implies that each individual glider in the oscillator doesn't carry any signal of interest at all:
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x = 65, y = 65, rule = B3/S23
27b2o$27bobo$29bo4b2o$25b4ob2o2bo2bo$25bo2bo3bobob2o$28bobobobo$29b2o
bobo$33bo2$19b2o$20bo8bo$20bobo5b2o$21b2o$35bo$36bo$34b3o2$25bo$25b2o
$24bobo4b2o22bo$31bo21b3o$32b3o17bo$34bo17b2o2$45bo$46b2o12b2o$45b2o14b
o$3b2o56bob2o$4bo9b2o37bo5b3o2bo$2bo10bobo37b2o3bo3b2o$2b5o8bo5b2o35b
2obo$7bo13bo22b2o15bo$4b3o12bobo21bobo12b3o$3bo15b2o22bo13bo$3bob2o35b
2o5bo8b5o$b2o3bo3b2o37bobo10bo$o2b3o5bo37b2o9bo$2obo56b2o$3bo14b2o$3b
2o12b2o$19bo2$11b2o17bo$12bo17b3o$9b3o21bo$9bo22b2o4bobo$38b2o$39bo2$
28b3o$28bo$29bo$42b2o$35b2o5bobo$35bo8bo$44b2o2$31bo$30bobob2o$30bobo
bobo$27b2obobo3bo2bo$27bo2bo2b2ob4o$29b2o4bo$35bobo$36b2o!
I believe mentions of the idea of signals should be avoided in situations like this.
The main reason why, is because the word "signal" suggests that it has to be something important, something worthy of attention, something that adds some additional complexity, something that needs an additional explanation.
In those cases when adding a glider fails to add something genuinely new to the pattern, it's misleading to describe the glider as "signal" or to claim that it carries a signal. That misleads the reader into searching for a "hidden meaning" where there is nothing of interest to be found (and distracts the reader from other components that may be more interesting and deserve more attention).
In a typical
glider synthesis, the colliding gliders don't carry any signals. The gliders just "do the work". This isn't circuitry. Intuitively, glider syntheses are much closer to chemistry.
The
R-pentomino emits six gliders during its evolution. Neither of those six gliders carries any signal; they just happen to be emitted, as one of many consequences of the rules of CGoL. Intuitively, this situation is much closer to "physics" than "circuitry".
A signal must be some moving information of interest, carried (in some way / by some mechanism) through the CA universe, and deserving (or even requiring) a specific mention in a human-readable explanation of how a given engineered pattern works.
If adding/removing/retiming a given moving reaction does have some "interesting consequences" for how the pattern works, then it may be helpful to assign (ascribe) some meaning to that particular moving reaction, and it may be helpful to say that
such-and-such moving reaction carries
such-and-such signal (encoded or represented in some specific way). Then
that particular signal can be tracked as it moves, even when the carrying reaction/object transforms/deforms in various ways, and moreover it might be helpful and not misleading to draw attention
to that particular signal (rather than to some other part of the pattern under discussion).