This sounds like the Anthropic Principle, which to me is a tautology or hasty generalization: "We're intelligent, and this makes sense to us, so this must be how intelligent beings make sense of things. QED bitches!"
The assumption is that the particular way of understanding the world that humans possess is the only intelligent way to comprehend it. First off, the way that we categorize the world is (as far as we can know) unique to us, and it is also the only way that we have to understand the universe -- it encompasses our math, science, epistemology, ontology and whatever other ways we categorize experiences.
We have no way of understanding anything that cannot be represented by this system of categorizing knowledge and experience, and that includes other incompatible systems which may in fact be superior. Nassem Taleb says that categorization is a necessary human activity, and I would agree. But it's not impossible to conceive of a worldview that is not predicated on categorization, and which could in fact be superior. It's not unthinkable also, that a being with such a worldview might use different (and possibly superior) informatics than our system, with its lists, maps and trees.
Suppose a two-dimensional being claims that his understanding of the universe is supreme and all other intelligent beings would likely use his own system of knowledge representation, manipulation and communication. It is likely that those techniques would seem feeble and impoverished to us. So why can we boldly claim -- a priori -- that all forms of intelligence we may encounter would use our systems?
DNA is a data structure, isn't it? (I'm not a biologist so perhaps it's more accurate to say that genomes, or the double-helix structure of DNA, or whatever, is a data structure, but I'm sure you get my point: there are data structures which were created without any human involvement whatsoever, so it doesn't seem to be a stretch to assume that alien species would understand them or perhaps even use them.)
I don't think you would refer to the raw sectors on your harddrive as a data structure. It may be more useful to view DNA as a just storage medium.
There's an encoding scheme on top of the nucleotides -- amino acids are encoded with trinucleotides. The RNA sequence AUG can be used as a start signal to indicate that peptide synthesis should begin at that point (it can also be used to encode the residue Methionine). Other sequences encode splice sites, these are used to signal the removal of sequences called introns.
Still other sequences (DNA binding sites, like the famous TATA box) have a high affinity for protein (those with DNA binding domains). The presence or absence of enhancers or suppressors can activate or deactive protein synthesis.
DNA also contains error checking information. Eukaryotic DNA undergoes methylation (think of this as adding meta-data to the DNA). After cells undergo replication, the new DNA is untagged. When error-checking enzymes happen upon a mismatch in the DNA, they remove the untagged base. There are also unrecoverable errors. For example, two adjacent Thymine bases can undergo cross-linking upon ultraviolet exposure -- the bases get stuck together. This sort of error can contribute to melanoma.
I don't think that the data structure analogy is appropriate for DNA, but there are certainly data structures encoded on top of it.
As you say, not all things are universal. Data structures, however, are based on principles, such as divide and conquer, that you may well argue transcend the human condition.
Yes it can be argued, but the argument would be unproductive: either idealizations correspond to fundamental conditions in the universe or they are merely artifacts of human perception. But we would know only when we meet intelligent non-humans, and not before.
Comments
This sounds like the Anthropic Principle, which to me is a tautology or hasty generalization: "We're intelligent, and this makes sense to us, so this must be how intelligent beings make sense of things. QED bitches!"
The assumption is that the particular way of understanding the world that humans possess is the only intelligent way to comprehend it. First off, the way that we categorize the world is (as far as we can know) unique to us, and it is also the only way that we have to understand the universe -- it encompasses our math, science, epistemology, ontology and whatever other ways we categorize experiences.
We have no way of understanding anything that cannot be represented by this system of categorizing knowledge and experience, and that includes other incompatible systems which may in fact be superior. Nassem Taleb says that categorization is a necessary human activity, and I would agree. But it's not impossible to conceive of a worldview that is not predicated on categorization, and which could in fact be superior. It's not unthinkable also, that a being with such a worldview might use different (and possibly superior) informatics than our system, with its lists, maps and trees.
Suppose a two-dimensional being claims that his understanding of the universe is supreme and all other intelligent beings would likely use his own system of knowledge representation, manipulation and communication. It is likely that those techniques would seem feeble and impoverished to us. So why can we boldly claim -- a priori -- that all forms of intelligence we may encounter would use our systems?
DNA is a data structure, isn't it? (I'm not a biologist so perhaps it's more accurate to say that genomes, or the double-helix structure of DNA, or whatever, is a data structure, but I'm sure you get my point: there are data structures which were created without any human involvement whatsoever, so it doesn't seem to be a stretch to assume that alien species would understand them or perhaps even use them.)
I don't think you would refer to the raw sectors on your harddrive as a data structure. It may be more useful to view DNA as a just storage medium.
There's an encoding scheme on top of the nucleotides -- amino acids are encoded with trinucleotides. The RNA sequence AUG can be used as a start signal to indicate that peptide synthesis should begin at that point (it can also be used to encode the residue Methionine). Other sequences encode splice sites, these are used to signal the removal of sequences called introns.
Still other sequences (DNA binding sites, like the famous TATA box) have a high affinity for protein (those with DNA binding domains). The presence or absence of enhancers or suppressors can activate or deactive protein synthesis.
DNA also contains error checking information. Eukaryotic DNA undergoes methylation (think of this as adding meta-data to the DNA). After cells undergo replication, the new DNA is untagged. When error-checking enzymes happen upon a mismatch in the DNA, they remove the untagged base. There are also unrecoverable errors. For example, two adjacent Thymine bases can undergo cross-linking upon ultraviolet exposure -- the bases get stuck together. This sort of error can contribute to melanoma.
I don't think that the data structure analogy is appropriate for DNA, but there are certainly data structures encoded on top of it.
As you say, not all things are universal. Data structures, however, are based on principles, such as divide and conquer, that you may well argue transcend the human condition.
Yes it can be argued, but the argument would be unproductive: either idealizations correspond to fundamental conditions in the universe or they are merely artifacts of human perception. But we would know only when we meet intelligent non-humans, and not before.
Once again, the philosophers are stuck in a busy-loop, waiting for empirical evidence to sweep their debate away into the tedious realm of science.