Life Lexicon update collection thread

[dvgrn]

Creation of the poll is misleading. I do not consider the poll legitimate. Instead of creating even more and more scattered threads (misleading/diverting attention of community to irrelevant issues), it would be much more reasonable and productive to keep the discussion in a single place, and take into account already stated replies/opinions/feedback.

I certainly agree with part of that. Before creating the poll thread, I asked you multiple times to please avoid flooding the poll thread with your own commentary, so that there would be room for other community members to have a discussion. If people want to scroll through endless discussions between you and me, they can always come and read through this thread.

Your responses currently make up a majority of the posts on the poll thread, and definitely a majority of the length. This is exactly the kind of thing that a few people have mentioned as being problematic in previous threads -- it gave them a sense of being "drowned out", and therefore of not being able to participate usefully in the discussion. In the future, could you please try to keep your responses to a reasonable number and length in that thread?

You are pretending that the whole set of issues can be reduced to a single choice regarding a single LifeWIki page. In reality, there are large-scale consequences across multiple pages. The content of the LifeWIki entry signal is not an isolated choice, but a part of a larger issue.

Life Lexicon lists words and phrases. LifeWiki aims to document knowledge in the form of articles about specific topics or concepts. You are ignoring this difference.

The word 'signal' is ambiguous, with several different meanings. You are essentially ignoring this.

More importantly, creation of this poll ignores that there was previous substantial discussion, in several forum threads and elsewhere. You are effectively discarding all the previous relevant discussion.

As far as I can tell, I'm not ignoring any of those things. I've reviewed all of the discussion quite carefully, multiple times, and have considered all of the points that have come up. Unfortunately, most of the arguments that you've been repeating seem to be irrelevant to the basic issue of what word to use on the LifeWiki (and elsewhere) for "active object traveling through signal circuitry".

The poll acknowledges the fact that there's a reasonably simple binary choice between adjusting the definition of "signal" on the LifeWiki to match current usage, or leaving it the same. Of course there are "large-scale consequences across multiple pages" of either choice! But we either have to change the "signal" article, or not change it. Not surprisingly, my preference would be to make this one change in the "signal" article, and thereby avoid making changes to dozens of other pages and LifeWiki entries that I think are generally just fine the way they are.

Of course, if during the course of this discussion, most of the community has been silently agreeing with your plan of leaving the 2003 definition of "signal" in place, then I would definitely want to know that! The poll thread was an obvious step to take to try to gather more information. The results so far don't seem to indicate any kind of silent majority in favor of your idea.

The definition of signal did in fact stay the same since 2003.
You are proposing to re-define signals in your preferred way.

By that you mean that the LifeWiki definition stayed the same. That's correct. However, the LifeWiki definition was incomplete even in 2003. It didn't account for regular pre-2003 uses of the term "signal" for the moving non-information-carrying signals in periodic signal sources and sinks. Signals that don't necessarily carry binary information, but that still move through signal circuitry in the Life universe, have become a lot more important in discussions in the last two decades.

It's perfectly possible for a LifeWiki definition to be reasonably adequate and correct in 2003, but to need an update twenty years later.

The existing definitions are still fine as they are. Just because the word is ambiguous, does not mean there is anything wrong about the concept.

No, not at all -- your information-theory "confocaloid-signal" concept is a fine concept. It's just that if you try to exclude the "dvgrn-signal" sense, "confocaloid-signal" is not actually the primary, useful meaning of the term "signal" in a CA context. The current LifeWiki definition implies that it _is_ the primary meaning, so the LifeWiki definition needs to change. It should probably have been changed half a decade ago when all the other new signal-circuitry definitions went in -- that would probably have successfully avoided this whole lengthy discussion -- but that's just hindsight at this point.

[confocaloid]

what word to use on the LifeWiki (and elsewhere) for "active object traveling through signal circuitry".

It suffices to use the phrase 'active object'.
In the context of circuitry, an active object is an active object traveling through circuitry.
In the context of reusable circuitry, an active object is an active object traveling through reusable circuitry.
In the context of one-time circuitry, an active object is an active object traveling through one-time circuitry.

The poll acknowledges the fact that there's a reasonably simple binary choice between adjusting the definition of "signal" on the LifeWiki to match current usage, or leaving it the same.

The current usage of the word does not have anything to do with the definition of the concept.
Instead of trying to redefine the long-standing useful concept of signals, one should list meanings of the word 'signal' separately from the definition, and separately from each other.

The poll is misleading -- it does not explain what are the real underlying issues, and mixes together several different issues. You are trying to make it look like a single yes-or-no choice. That is wrong. It is not a single choice.

Creation of the poll ignores the fact that there was previous discussion, with several people giving and explaining their opinions.

The definition of signal did in fact stay the same since 2003.
You are proposing to re-define signals in your preferred way.

By that you mean that the LifeWiki definition stayed the same.

By that I mean that the current LifeWiki definition matches the 2003 Life Lexicon definition --

As far as I can tell, the current definition of signal comes from (no later than) 2003 version of Life Lexicon:

:signal Movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a glider (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using glider duplicators or other fanout devices, and can be used up by causing perturbations on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in pseudo-random glider generators, the unit Life cell and the Fermat prime calculator, among others.

It didn't account for regular pre-2003 uses of the term "signal" for the moving non-information-carrying signals in periodic signal sources and sinks.

Those uses of the word 'signal' refer to a different concept. That should be explained by listing different meanings of the word, rather than by re-defining existing concepts in a mishmash fashion.

The existing definitions are still fine as they are. Just because the word is ambiguous, does not mean there is anything wrong about the concept.

No, not at all -- your information-theory "confocaloid-signal" concept is a fine concept.

It is not "my" concept. Please stop ascribing it to me as if it was something I invented.

It is the existing concept of signal, moving information that is "carried by" and "encoded", as already documented in Life Lexicon since at least 2003, and on LifeWiki since 2016.

It is your proposed re-definition that needs specific changes to the entry "signal".
I disagree with your proposed changes. The existing old definition of the concept of signal is fine the way it is. To explain other uses of the word 'signal', you need a disambiguation page.

[dvgrn]

It is not "my" concept. Please stop ascribing it to me as if it was something I invented.

I've found it enormously useful to clearly distinguish the two senses of "signal" that we're discussing here. So far I've done that by referring to them as "confocaloid-signal" and "dvgrn-signal". This makes it totally clear which definition is being discussed -- "confocaloid-signal" is the limited definition that you think is implied by the current LifeWiki article that you want to keep unchanged, and "dvgrn-signal" is the wider more inclusive meaning that I'm suggesting.

If we each just keep using the plain word "signal", but when you say "signal" you always mean "confocaloid-signal", and when I say "signal" I always mean "dvgrn-signal", then that's a recipe for horrible confusion. Confusion is very evident in this thread and others, as we keep talking past each other.

I have never intended to claim in any way that you originated the concept. I do, however, claim that you are one of the primary proponents of restricting the definition of "signal" to the "confocaloid-signal" concept -- and certainly the most vocal proponent by far.

If you can come up with some other equally good way of distinguishing the two definitions in these discussions, I will happily stop using "confocaloid-signal" as per your request. Maybe you would prefer "information-theory signal"?

In the meantime, I think that it's potentially extremely confusing that you continue to insist on using the term "signal" in these discussions to mean "confocaloid-signal", without acknowledging that there are other common meanings of the word. Possibly it's mostly confusing you rather than anyone else, but it makes it hard for other people to read through this thread and understand what you mean when you say "signal". You repeatedly assume that your reading of the definition of "signal" is the only possible correct one, and then base your arguments on that assumption.

If you take your conclusion as one of your premises, it's not likely that I'm going to take your arguments very seriously. I simply don't accept that premise. Arguments based on that premise are bound to be irrelevant in my view.

For example, in the poll thread you say

An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Now, clearly "signal" here isn't intended to mean "dvgrn-signal", because the statement wouldn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if you are intending this to mean

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

That statement, once you make it clear with the extra qualifiers, is perfectly true -- but it's not necessarily a useful distinction in many Life-circuitry contexts. When I'm building complex circuitry and talking about the active objects moving through it, I very seldom actually have to think about that particular distinction -- it would be an irrelevant distraction.

So, if the community consensus turns out to be that the plain term "signal" should really always be taken to mean "information-theory signal", then that basically means that I'll stop using the term "signal" -- it will become useless for the purposes that I need it for, and have been using it for, because of all this extra information-theory baggage that is coming along with it that doesn't make any sense in a local context.

Conversely, once you experimentally accept the idea that "signal" means "dvgrn-signal", the whole awkward phrasing about active objects carrying things becomes unnecessary, because "signal" refers directly to the active object. In many contexts, it is a complete waste of time to bother thinking about whether an active object is "carrying" some information-theory signal or not. If it is carrying an information-theory signal, that's generally clear from the context. But if you can see an active object moving through signal circuitry, you can very easily call it a "signal" in the dvgrn-signal sense. That allows "signal" to be a very useful general term, in my opinion.

Where To Go From Here?
At the moment there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that the community wants all of the extra information-theory baggage to always be hanging around the neck of the simple term "signal". That would seem to indicate that the LifeWiki definition of "signal" needs to be adjusted, to explicitly cut that link between "signal" and "information-theory signal" that you've been wanting to preserve as a required part of the definition.

The last decade or two of common usage allows "signal" to refer to active objects moving through circuitry -- including signals moving through wires, periodic signals from a signal source, etc. -- those are all variations of the same basic dvgrn-signal concept, not distinct separate meanings as you seem to think. So once the definition is adjusted, we can just keep on saying "signal" when we mean "dvgrn-signal", and nobody will have to get confused by that.

We might need a disambiguation page for "signal" in the limited sense of "information-theory signal", but that's not clear to me yet. Most of the hundreds of uses of "signal" on the forums could equally well be interpreted as "dvgrn-signal" or "information-theory signal" -- they make sense either way. I think that it's only a fairly small number of cases where the context makes it clear which sense was actually intended.

For example, I'd be interested to see uses of "signal" on the forums or in other LifeWiki articles that explicitly support your contention that "there can be no mirror image of a signal." Uses along those lines seem to be fairly rare (but I haven't been through all 137 pages of forum results for "signal" yet!)

[hotdogPi]

Have "dvgrn-signal" and "confocaloid-signal" become standard terms now? [s]That might be our solution.[/s]

[dvgrn]

Have "dvgrn-signal" and "confocaloid-signal" become standard terms now? [s]That might be our solution.[/s]

No, confocaloid has objected to "confocaloid-signal", so I'm trying to find an equivalent term so that it's possible to discuss the alternatives clearly. I guess the current placeholder is "information-theory signal".

[confocaloid]

Have "dvgrn-signal" and "confocaloid-signal" become standard terms now? [s]That might be our solution.[/s]

No, confocaloid has objected to "confocaloid-signal", so I'm trying to find an equivalent term so that it's possible to discuss the alternatives clearly. I guess the current placeholder is "information-theory signal".

Regardless of whatever "placeholder" is chosen for this discussion, my basic point here is that it is the existing old definition of signal (LifeWiki / Life Lexicon).
https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=116950
https://web.archive.org/web/20030624015 ... /lex_s.htm

I am simply following what is written in the definition --

A signal is the movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a glider (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using glider duplicators or other fanout devices, and can be used up by causing perturbations on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in pseudo-random glider generators, the unit Life cell and the Fermat prime calculator, among others.

(the highlighting is mine; the text is copied from LifeWiki).

The definition explicitly distinguishes between a signal and a carrying thing. The carrying thing can exist by itself, without necessarily carrying any signal.
I believe this distinction is useful, and it should be preserved.
Other meanings of the word in various contexts should be listed separately.

[confocaloid]

Maybe you would prefer "information-theory signal"?

Just to be (probably unnecessarily) clear: I would prefer that the plain word 'signal' continue to be used in the sense defined in Life Lexicon since at least 2003, and on LifeWiki since 2016.

Just because that same word also can be used (and is used) in several other meanings, does not in any way invalidate the definition of the concept of signals -- moving information carried somehow through Life universe.

An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Now, clearly "signal" here isn't intended to mean "dvgrn-signal", because the statement wouldn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if you are intending this to mean

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

That statement, once you make it clear with the extra qualifiers, is perfectly true -- [...]

Given that you admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear in the original statement, it is quite unclear to me exactly why one would need to "make it clear with the extra qualifiers". If it is already clear, then it is already clear.

[...] -- but it's not necessarily a useful distinction in many Life-circuitry contexts. When I'm building complex circuitry and talking about the active objects moving through it, I very seldom actually have to think about that particular distinction -- it would be an irrelevant distraction.

I strongly disagree. The difference between the active object (which might be
(a) carrying some specific immutable piece of information through an engineered pattern, or
(b) might be part of a formation of active objects, collectively carrying some particular immutable piece of information through the Life universe, or
(c) might be circulating in a closed track forever, without having any particular information or meaning attached to it,
) versus the signal (which is the immutable piece of information, somehow carried / transferred through circuitry by some mechanism),
is a useful distinction that helps to understand how things work.

Just because you maybe do not have to think about it when you are writing or talking about it, doesn't mean the readers or listeners do not have to keep it in mind when reading or listening. As long as you are writing for someone else besides yourself, the difference between signals and active objects is very helpful.

The last decade or two of common usage allows "signal" to refer to active objects moving through circuitry -- including signals moving through wires, periodic signals from a signal source, etc. -- those are all variations of the same basic dvgrn-signal concept, not distinct separate meanings as you seem to think.

I do not consider 'dvgrn-signal' to be a useful concept, in comparison to the existing definition in signal.
When the context (circuitry; reusable circuitry; one-use circuitry) is clear, then in that context the concept 'dvgrn-signal' reduces to plain old 'active object'.
Outside of that narrow context (many things in Life aren't circuitry), it is even more important to clearly distinguish between "logical" information and "physical" objects.

Another way to say this might be, that in my view, you are attempting to replace a more useful and natural concept (signal) with a less useful and artificial concept (dvgrn-signal).
I would prefer to keep the existing, more useful concept.

[dvgrn]

An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Now, clearly "signal" here isn't intended to mean "dvgrn-signal", because the statement wouldn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if you are intending this to mean

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

That statement, once you make it clear with the extra qualifiers, is perfectly true -- [...]

Given that you admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear in the original statement, it is quite unclear to me exactly why one would need to "make it clear with the extra qualifiers". If it is already clear, then it is already clear.

Please read the statement that you quoted again.

I didn't in any way "admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear".

I only said that it was clear what you *didn't* mean. It was clear what you *did* mean only after the extra qualifiers were added.

I'm asking you to please try to stop assuming the conclusion that you're trying to reach as one of your main premises, and actually try to engage in this discussion, rather than trying to score points with this kind of "given that you admit..." stuff.

For quite a number of posts I've been trying really hard to make it clear when I'm talking about my preferred definition of "signal", and when I'm talking about your preferred definition of "signal". That requires picking two temporary placeholder terms, neither of which anyone really wants to use in the long term.

Currently we've got "dvgrn-signal", and now it's "information-theory signal" instead of "confocaloid-signal", I guess -- except that you still keep insisting on using just plain "signal", even right now in the middle of discussions where we're trying to sort out what the definition of "signal" should actually be.

[confocaloid]

An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Now, clearly "signal" here isn't intended to mean "dvgrn-signal", because the statement wouldn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if you are intending this to mean

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

That statement, once you make it clear with the extra qualifiers, is perfectly true -- [...]

I didn't in any way "admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear".

I only said that it was clear what you *didn't* mean. It was clear what you *did* mean only after the extra qualifiers were added.

You said that the statement only makes sense if the intended meaning is

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

Hence it is already clear. There is no need for extra added qualifiers.

[dvgrn]

You said that the statement only makes sense if the intended meaning is

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

Hence it is already clear. There is no need for extra added qualifiers.

I've done my best to explain why two placeholder terms are needed for this discussion, not just one.

In response, you've restated the exact same thing you said before, without responding to anything I said. This seems to me like a microcosm of the way this whole discussion has gone. Can you please stop copy/paste replicating things that everybody has seen before? It takes up a lot of space in the thread, makes the discussion very difficult to read, and is very much less convincing with every new copy.

Let's move to a somewhat new angle. Can you find some representative sample usage from the forums or somewhere, where your preferred "information-theory signal" definition of "signal" has actually been used in discussions of a recently completed pattern, or a pattern under construction -- something like that?

We have lots of examples where it's necessary to interpret "signal" as "dvgrn-signal" to make sense of the usage -- i.e., all of the places that you've said the usage is wrong according to the current LifeWiki definition. Existing usage is "wrong" because (information-theory) signals can't be mirrored, or loop oscillators don't have (information-theory) signals in them unless they're being used as memory cells, or conduits have "input active objects" and "output active objects" but not necessarily input/output (information-theory) "signals".

Most examples that I've been looking at either require the wider "dvgrn-signal" interpretation, or allow it with no problem. It seems relatively rare that the "information-theory signal" definition is actually needed to understand what people are communicating.

Take this post, for example: "The output signal of the converter is a G1 glider pair..."

The usage here requires the "dvgrn-signal" interpretation, because an information-theory signal can't be a G1 glider pair, it can only be carried by a G1 glider pair.

A lot of the uses in the "Stable signal converters" thread are like that -- not at all surprisingly, because the phrase "signal converter" itself needs the "dvgrn-signal" interpretation. A converter is a conduit, and if it's conveying an information-theory signal -- which it may or may not be -- it's bound to be exactly the same information-theory signal going out as it was coming in. It can't really be said to have been "converted" unless it's a dvgrn-signal.

I hope this explains why I'm so strongly opposed to keeping the restricted "information-theory signal" definition, now that you're insisting on reading the signal article that way. That strict information-theory sense of "signal" is just plain not a term that is needed very often -- it would mostly just get in the way, requiring convoluted "carried by" syntax that isn't in any way necessary for clarity.

[confocaloid]

[...]
Take this post, for example: "The output signal of the converter is a G1 glider pair..."

The usage here requires the "dvgrn-signal" interpretation, [...]

It does not require turning everything around and going mad and redefining the underlying concept of signals, though.

The most that might be needed, is a list of existing different meanings of the word 'signal' in different CA-related contexts. The concept remains the same. When you discuss what you call 'signal converters', the meaning is that these things can be used to transmit information, with active objects actually carrying signals. If it cannot carry signals, then it is not a signal converter.

You wrote

Now, clearly "signal" here isn't intended to mean "dvgrn-signal", because the statement wouldn't make a lot of sense.

It only makes sense if you are intending this to mean

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

That statement, once you make it clear with the extra qualifiers, is perfectly true -- [...]

Given that you admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear in the original statement, it is quite unclear to me exactly why one would need to "make it clear with the extra qualifiers". If it is already clear, then it is already clear.

Please read the statement that you quoted again.

I didn't in any way "admit that the intended meaning of 'signal' was already clear".

I only said that it was clear what you *didn't* mean. It was clear what you *did* mean only after the extra qualifiers were added.

I'm asking you to please try to stop assuming the conclusion that you're trying to reach as one of your main premises, and actually try to engage in this discussion, [...]

I responded to that

You said that the statement only makes sense if the intended meaning is

"An active object (moving through circuitry) does not have to carry an information-theory signal."

Hence it is already clear. There is no need for extra added qualifiers.

You responded to that

In response, you've restated the exact same thing you said before, without responding to anything I said.

At this point, I am not terribly motivated to "try to engage in this discussion" further. It is not the first time you are ignoring / misrepresenting my attempts to do so / previous discussion.
It is also not the first time you are trying to blame me for something that I did not do.

[dvgrn]

You wrote...
I responded to that...
You responded to that...

Right! First you said something that I thought was quite misleading (about what I had "admitted"). Then you said

If it is already clear, then it is already clear.

And then in the response you didn't acknowledge that you had mis-attributed a statement to me, and that I had objected -- followed by

Hence it is already clear. There is no need for extra added qualifiers.

The "it is already clear" repeated what you'd said before, and again you didn't acknowledge my good-faith attempt to explain why the temporary "extra added qualifiers" are desperately needed in a discussion like this.

You didn't really either agree or disagree that qualifiers are needed in this discussion. You haven't ever even seemed to register any of my multiple requests to be careful to use some kind of qualifiers for the two meanings of "signal", so that the discussion of these competing definitions has some hope of being comprehensible.

That's fine, you can disagree that they're useful. It's just quite frustrating when you don't even seem to notice that the request has been made.

At this point, I am not terribly motivated to "try to engage in this discussion" further. It is not the first time you are ignoring / misrepresenting my attempts to do so / previous discussion.
It is also not the first time you are trying to blame me for something that I did not do.

True enough! I do make mistakes sometimes, and I try to acknowledge them and correct them when they're pointed out. However, many of the "misrepresentations" you've accused me of, I still couldn't tell you whether they actually happened or not -- you say that they happened but then refuse to explain them.

In this latest case, maybe you can see how "it is already clear" was, in my mind, a not-very-useful repetition of "it is already clear". I'm sorry that I implied that your entire response was an exact repetition.

At this point I've spent a lot of time trying to have a productive and polite discussion with you on this topic. In the course of the discussion, you've accused me several times of misrepresentation, ignoring feedback, being "controlling, attacking and aggressive", promoting my own point of view, having an attitude of "superiority", being highly arrogant ... and now of "going mad".

None of these seem like they were a particularly good way of moving the discussion forward.

For my part, among other things, I've definitely said you've been repeating the same arguments far too much, often to the extent of exact copy/pasting. I still think it would be a huge improvement if you could (mostly) stop doing that. And I've said that you've been "assuming the conclusion that you're trying to reach as one of your main premises".

You certainly aren't required to agree with that second statement. But if you can't even see why I might think that that those two criticisms are justified, then ... quite simply, you don't seem to be looking at your own behavior carefully enough.

You're a really good detail-oriented and energetic LifeWiki editor, most of the time, and I'm very grateful for all the work you've done.

However, when a disagreement comes up, it just doesn't even seem to occur to you that you might not succeed in overpowering your opposition. It sometimes seems as if your arguments are so completely convincing to you, that you can't understand how copy/pasting them repeatedly won't eventually convince everyone else. In practice what seems to happen is that any possible useful discussion gets drowned out by the repetition, instead of anyone actually being convinced by it.

[confocaloid]

Incomplete reply. (Trying to make a complete reply would be counterproductive.)

You didn't really either agree or disagree that qualifiers are needed in this discussion.

When you write "in this discussion", you do not disambiguate what you mean by that. "In this discussion" is ambiguous. That could mean
- this thread specifically, or
- all forum discussion related to the concept of signals, or
- all forum discussion related to the terminology to be used when discussing topics where signals are relevant, or
- all forum discussion related to the terminology to be used when discussing topics where the word 'signal' (is / can be / should be -- choose one) used,
- anything else specifically,
- nothing specifically.

Adding qualifiers to everything would be detrimental in several ways, including quickly making things unreadable.

Regarding signals, there is the concept, and there is the word.
What I mean by the concept of signal, is what is already defined in the existing old long-standing definition --

signal Movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a glider (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using glider duplicators or other fanout devices, and can be used up by causing perturbations on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in pseudo-random glider generators, the unit Life cell and the Fermat prime calculator, among others.

A '''signal''' is the movement of information through the [[Conway's Game of Life|Life]] [[universe]]. Signals can be carried by [[spaceship]]s, [[fuse]]s, [[drifter]]s, or [[conduit]]s. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the [[speed of light]].

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a [[glider]] (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using [[glider duplicator]]s or other [[fanout]] devices, and can be used up by causing [[perturbation]]s on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in [[pseudo-random glider generator]]s, the [[unit Life cell]] and the [[Fermat prime calculator]], among others.

[dvgrn]

Incomplete reply. (Trying to make a complete reply would be counterproductive.)

You didn't really either agree or disagree that qualifiers are needed in this discussion.

When you write "in this discussion", you do not disambiguate what you mean by that. "In this discussion" is ambiguous.

"This discussion" is the discussion that you and I and others have been having about what the definition of "signal" on the LifeWiki should be, going forward. You recently linked to all of the relevant threads that constitute "this discussion".

The confusion about what each of us means by the term "signal" started quite early. The different uses in this discussion of the word 'signal' seemed to be causing significant conceptual problems, preventing us from understanding each other's points of view.

When this started to become clear, I experimentally introduced the term "confocaloid-signal" -- i.e., "what 'signal' has been meaning when confocaloid says it". This was helpfully formalized in this summary by yoleo a few days later, and you posted agreement with the definition of "confocaloid-signal". Yoleo's post also introduced the counterpart term 'dvgrn-signal" -- "what 'signal' has been meaning when dvgrn says it".

I suggested that you could try using yoleo's terminology in the ongoing discussion to avoid confusion, rather than just plain "signal". But I don't seem to have been successful in getting that request across to you. We kept having exchanges like this one, which seems fairly representative:

Using 'signal' to mean 'moving object' / 'active object' is technically incorrect, according to the existing definition of signal.
A signal is information carried by an object -- not the object itself.

Now, of course in conversations the word 'signal' is used informally to refer to objects carrying signals. However, in the above pattern (proposed for discussion), the Herschels don't carry any signals.

To avoid assuming the conclusion you're arguing toward here, you could say "the Herschels don't carry any confocaloid-signals". The Herschels certainly are dvgrn-signals. It would usually be conversationally awkward to mention that they might or might not be "carrying" something.

In response to a request from you, I've since tried introducing "information-theory signal" as an alternate synonym for yoleo's "confocaloid-signal". Ideally, for consistency, I would have preferred to keep using "confocaloid-signal" for this key concept in this discussion, but it seemed as if your dislike of the term was causing distractions.

[confocaloid]

"This discussion" is the discussion that you and I and others have been having about what the definition of "signal" on the LifeWiki should be, going forward. You recently linked to all of the relevant threads that constitute "this discussion".

Thanks for the clarification.

Re: qualifiers -- these qualifiers fail to address the question "what the definition of signal is". Existing ambiguous uses of the word are another question.
Also, introducing two "temporary placeholders" fails to cover any other possible meanings and interpretations by people other than me and you.

I think a sensible way to refer to the existing definition of signal, is to write plain 'signal' (both in general and in this discussion). A signal is what a signal is defined to be by the existing long-standing definition, which of course does not "belong" to either of us.

When this started to become clear, I experimentally introduced the term "confocaloid-signal" -- i.e., "what 'signal' has been meaning when confocaloid says it".

About the linked post specifically: what exactly one wants to document, or describe, or explain to someone else (who does not yet know everything about the topic)?

If the goal is to explain "just a p100 oscillator", then signals are not relevant. There is no movement of information through Life universe -- it is just an oscillator. Examples of relevant concepts would be common properties that can be checked for any oscillator, i.e. period, minimum population, rotor, stator, and so on.
If a glider duplicator is inserted to turn the oscillator into a glider gun, then signals are still not relevant -- it is just a p100 glider gun.

If someone chooses to consider the oscillator (or gun) as an example of circuitry, and if someone chooses to use the word 'signal' with meaning "active object moving through circuitry", then that p100 oscillator becomes something that contains things that are described as 'signals'. But these are choices, and not anything written in the definition of the concept of a signal.

Now, both viewers in the linked post are zoomed in on a single Snark. If the goal is to talk about how the Snark works in that pattern "locally", then one can say that the Snark reflects some gliders coming from somewhere else (apparently those gliders arrive every 100 ticks, but it may or may not be known whether that pattern will continue forever).

If it is already known and understood that the zoomed-in part of the pattern is in fact part of some circuitry, and if it already known and understood that those gliders reflected by the Snark are in fact a mechanism by which "movement of information through the Life universe" happens in the larger circuitry pattern, then of course it makes sense to talk signals -- precisely because there is some actual communication that should be mentioned when you are explaining the pattern in question.

The zoomed-in Snark that is reflecting gliders in that post may be -- but does not have to be -- part of any circuitry.
The zoomed-in Snark that is reflecting gliders in that post may be -- but does not have to be -- part of any mechanism by which "movement of information through the Life universe" happens.

Also, there are several issues not mentioned in the above, and which also should taken into account. For example,

• the jargon that is found to be convenient when someone is building some engineered patterns / discussing those patterns (completed or work-in-progress) with other experienced "pattern builders",
• will be significantly different from the defined terminology to be used when explaining those same patterns to a wider audience (including newcomers and other people who do not have experience / have less experience in the area).

Just because some wording is convenient in discussions with other long-term members, does not mean that the same wording should be used on LifeWiki and in Life Lexicon. Those sources are aimed at a significantly wider audience than just "people who already know the stuff".

[dvgrn]

Also, introducing two "temporary placeholders" fails to cover any other possible meanings and interpretations by people other than me and you.

We are the two people primarily involved this discussion. No one else has joined in to offer additional competing definitions. Other people are welcome to join in and propose alternate definitions, any time they want to.

In the meantime, hypothetical "other possible meanings" seem to me like an irrelevant distraction in a discussion that's already plenty difficult enough. Let's look for ways to usefully simplify the discussion, rather than ways to complicate it further.

I think a sensible way to refer to the existing definition of signal, is to write plain 'signal' (both in general and in this discussion). A signal is what a signal is defined to be by the existing long-standing definition, which of course does not "belong" to either of us.

Thanks for the clarification. It's perfectly clear that that is what you think. I hope it's also clear that I do not think that that's a sensible way to refer to the idea of "confocaloid-signal" in this discussion. It looks to me as if that way of referring to the idea has already directly caused a huge amount of confusion in this discussion.

So ... even if you don't think it's necessary, are you sure that it's actually harmful? As a favor to me, since I'm participating in this discussion just as much as you are, would you mind trying the experiment in this discussion of saying "confocaloid-signal" when you're using "signal" with your preferred meaning, and I'll say "dvgrn-signal" when I'm using "signal" with my preferred meaning?

(If you still really don't like yoleo's term "confocaloid-signal", then please substitute "information-theory signal" in the above question, and I'll do the same from now on.)

About the linked post specifically: what exactly one wants to document, or describe, or explain to someone else (who does not yet know everything about the topic)?

If the goal is to explain "just a p100 oscillator", then signals are not relevant. There is no movement of information through Life universe -- it is just an oscillator...

I'm taking this to mean "what exactly does one want to document...?"

Personally, I think that "just a p100 oscillator" is not a good way to describe the pattern at all. It's not a simple engine-based p100 oscillator like a centinal. A very useful thing to highlight about this p100 oscillator, and other loop-based oscillators like it, is that it is a (dvgrn-) signal-loop oscillator with multiple dvgrn-signals traveling in the loop. This makes it possible to remove some of the dvgrn-signals and change the period of the oscillator -- an interesting property not shared by the engine-based p100 centinal.

Labeling this p100 oscillator as "(dvgrn-) signal circuitry" allows us to highlight the dvgrn-signals traveling around the loop, as an important feature. Calling them "gliders" would be inaccurate, and calling them "active objects" would be vague and awkward.

For these specific kinds of active objects -- specifically moving active objects in the context of circuitry -- "signal" is an established term. So I strongly advocate continuing to call them "signals", and (since you've been citing the LifeWiki definition in your objection to this) adjusting the LifeWiki definition accordingly.

Also, there are several issues not mentioned in the above, and which also should taken into account...
Just because some wording is convenient in discussions with other long-term members, does not mean that the same wording should be used on LifeWiki and in Life Lexicon. Those sources are aimed at a significantly wider audience than just "people who already know the stuff".

I absolutely agree with all of this! However, in this case, I do very strongly believe that the term "signal" should be defined on the LifeWiki, in such a way that it's not confusing to the wider audience who comes to the LifeWiki looking up what the People Who Already Know The Stuff are talking about when they say "signal". That's the purpose of the LifeWiki, as we've established many times -- to document existing usage, ultimately with the purpose of increasing the number of People Who Know The Stuff.

As far as I can tell, the "dvgrn-signal" usage of "signal" is more common, more useful, easier to understand, and more relevant to common discussion topics than the "confocaloid-signal" usage. I really think that this could be a useful direction for this discussion to move in:

For example, I'd be interested to see uses of "signal" on the forums or in other LifeWiki articles that explicitly support your contention that "there can be no mirror image of a signal." Uses along those lines seem to be fairly rare (but I haven't been through all 137 pages of forum results for "signal" yet!)

Let's move to a somewhat new angle. Can you find some representative sample usage from the forums or somewhere, where your preferred "information-theory signal" definition of "signal" has actually been used in discussions of a recently completed pattern, or a pattern under construction -- something like that?

My contention is that you're interpreting the meaning of the current LifeWiki definition of "signal" far too literally, and so you're totally sure what it "really means". But in practice the term "signal" doesn't actually get used in that exclusive "confocaloid-signal" / "information-theory signal" sense, because A) it requires awkward syntax, and B) using it correctly would require too much thinking about things that are totally irrelevant in context. Even you don't use the "confocaloid-signal" sense when you're talking about actual patterns.

[confocaloid]

Let's look for ways to usefully simplify the discussion, rather than ways to complicate it further.

II think using plain 'signal' is a significant simplification, compared to your proposal to use qualifiers. Those qualifiers would make the discussion even harder to follow than it already is.

For example, I'd be interested to see uses of "signal" on the forums or in other LifeWiki articles that explicitly support your contention that "there can be no mirror image of a signal." Uses along those lines seem to be fairly rare (but I haven't been through all 137 pages of forum results for "signal" yet!)

Unfortunately I'm not finding 137 pages of search results. The search search.php?keywords=signal gives only 134 pages for me, while search.php?keywords=signals gives 65 pages, as of the time I'm writing this.

Even you don't use the "confocaloid-signal" sense when you're talking about actual patterns.

If you think so, then exactly why you are insisting that this meaning of the word 'signal' should be referred to using this particular "placeholder"?

In fact, when I wrote that post, I meant that that converter is usable for transmitting information. It might be considered "useless" in a number of contexts (in the sense that there will be simpler solutions to specific problems), but it is usable.
If the input Herschel is there, then the output glider pair will be created. If there is no input Herschel, there will be no output glider pair. Delay the input by one tick, and the output is delayed by one tick. You can repeatedly communicate a choice through that converter, in different ways (depending on the attached meaning/encoding/decoding) --

H-to-xq4_163zy1562 converter with repeat time 58 ticks (the priority is placed on repeat time). The output signal of the converter is a G1 glider pair that can do fast "fire + block pull by (5,5)" operation.

[confocaloid]

Personally, I think that "just a p100 oscillator" is not a good way to describe the pattern at all. It's not a simple engine-based p100 oscillator like a centinal. A very useful thing to highlight about this p100 oscillator, and other loop-based oscillators like it, is that it is a (dvgrn-) signal-loop oscillator with multiple dvgrn-signals traveling in the loop. This makes it possible to remove some of the dvgrn-signals and change the period of the oscillator -- an interesting property not shared by the engine-based p100 centinal.

Labeling this p100 oscillator as "(dvgrn-) signal circuitry" allows us to highlight the dvgrn-signals traveling around the loop, as an important feature. Calling them "gliders" would be inaccurate, and calling them "active objects" would be vague and awkward.

If one wants to highlight that the oscillator is a glider loop, then it would be more precise and clear to write 'glider loop'. Just because the circulating gliders are not always gliders (they are most of the time), does not mean you should not call a glider loop a glider loop.

The word 'signal' is misleading, because signals are irrelevant in this context; to an interested-but-not-invested reader (even before reading any definitions), the word 'signal' is associated with 'communication', but there is no communication in that p100 oscillator.

If one chooses to describe the oscillator as circuitry, with some signals in it, then that is another context. But on the basic level, it is a specific kind of an oscillator (a glider loop), but it is still "just an oscillator", rather than some circuitry.
Labeling the p43 Snark loop (or p67 Snark loop, for that matter) as 'circuitry' is unnecessary, and should not be done on the basic level.

Describing gliders as 'signals' becomes even more confusing and misleading for dependent reflector glider loop oscillators. Those things, unlike glider loops made out of independent reflectors and circulating gliders, cannot be adjusted to another period by rearranging parts and adding/removing gliders. You cannot repeatedly communicate information through a dependent reflector the way you could communicate information through an independent reflector.

[dvgrn]

Unfortunately I'm not finding 137 pages of search results. The search search.php?keywords=signal gives only 134 pages for me, while search.php?keywords=signals gives 65 pages, as of the time I'm writing this.

Not to worry -- it just means my search has access to some pages that you don't see, such as lots of pages where Nathaniel and I were hashing out chapters of the Life textbook. The 134 public pages of "signal" uses should be plenty enough to work with.

Even you don't use the "confocaloid-signal" sense when you're talking about actual patterns.

If you think so, then exactly why you are insisting that this meaning of the word 'signal' should be referred to using this particular "placeholder"?

I'm going to skip this question, since I've already done my absolute best to explain exactly why I'm requesting (not "insisting") that you try this experiment of using a placeholder in this discussion. Your question seems to conflate existing example uses on the forums and uses in this discussion. I'm happy to answer well-defined questions, but this seems too vague to be meaningful, and/or something I've already answered.

Now, if you won't try the experiment, I won't be offended or anything, just a bit disappointed. I can keep trying other ideas to move the discussion forward. Please just state clearly whether or not you will try the experiment, and also if you still object to my own use of yoleo's term "confocaloid-signal" in light of my clarifications above.

In fact, when I wrote that post, I meant that that converter is usable for transmitting information. It might be considered "useless" in a number of contexts (in the sense that there will be simpler solutions to specific problems), but it is usable.

It still looks to me as if your use in that post requires the "dvgrn-signal" meaning. The "confocaloid-signal" meaning doesn't allow the phrase "The output signal is a G1 glider pair". Confocaloid-signals can be carried by active objects, but they cannot be active objects. If a confocaloid-signal is a G1 glider pair, then it will be different from its mirror image, for example.

Another Example of the Problem
Here's another related example, which I think shows why placeholders would be extremely useful in this discussion, if they were used consistently:

When you discuss what you call 'signal converters', the meaning is that these things can be used to transmit information, with active objects actually carrying signals. If it cannot carry signals, then it is not a signal converter.

Perfect example here! You've stated that you think it's sensible to use plain "signal" in this discussion when you mean your "confocaloid-signal" interpretation of the current LifeWiki definition. So presumably that's your intended meaning in the above, very recent quote.

However, the "confocaloid-signal" definition makes that quote incorrect in a couple of ways.

When I discuss what I call 'signal converters', my meaning is that these things can be used to transmit dvgrn-signals. I absolutely could not care less whether the active objects going through what I call a "signal converter" are actually carrying confocaloid-signals or not. In an actual pattern, sometimes they will be carrying confocaloid-signals, sometimes they won't be, and the distinction can be very subtle and confusing -- sometimes depending on parts of the pattern that are arbitrarily far away from a given signal converter.

But on the Stable Signal Converters thread, there's no point in thinking about confocaloid-signals at all. We're always talking about dvgrn-signals being changed from one form to another, in isolated signal-converter patterns -- changing an input dvgrn-signal to an output dvgrn-signal.

Signal converters are routinely strung together in a loop to make what you call "just an oscillator". That doesn't mean that the signal converters are suddenly "not really signal converters" in that context -- they're still converting the obvious dvgrn-signals that everybody can see passing through them, just the same as in any other context. This does not seem to me like a confusing or controversial use of "signal" -- it's a mainstream usage.

What does seem confusing to me is the attempt to restrict the term "signal" to the limited information-theory sense of the term, in the many existing cases like this where it's not at all relevant or useful. Updating the LifeWiki definition of "signal" to conform to current common usage would avoid trying to explain very complicated information-theory subtleties, in contexts where it's only necessary to explain something simple and intuitively obvious.

Once that adjustment is made, it would be fine to add disambiguation page to describe the restricted "confocaloid-signal" meaning, if that's what you want. (I still kind of think I'd prefer an additional section in the "signal" article itself, since "confocaloid-signal" is just a limited subset of "dvgrn-signal"). I'm not seeing many places where that limited meaning is actually required in practice, but it's certainly one of the accepted uses of "signal".

[confocaloid]

It still looks to me as if your use in that post requires the "dvgrn-signal" meaning.

It does not. The fact that an [information-theory] signal cannot "be" an active object, does not invalidate the corresponding usage of the word 'signal'. It is just that that ambiguous usage of the word does not invalidate the underlying concept of a signal (moving information), either.

I really think that this could be a useful direction for this discussion to move in:

You are missing the point of my objections. Examples where the word 'signal' is not used cannot be found by searching with the keyword 'signal'.

The question is not what jargon to use to discuss patterns on the forum, but rather what terminology to use (and, importantly, what terminology to avoid) on LifeWiki and in Life Lexicon.

The word 'signal' is redundant or irrelevant in a number of cases where it is added (including LifeWiki entries and Life Lexicon entries changed/added in last release). When the topic does not rely on the concept of signals, mechanically adding the word 'signal' does not add any clarity, and does not help in any way. After reading the word 'signal', a reader is misled to look for some kind of communication or logic, which is not there.

The existing definition in signal is actually helpful -- it explains the big idea behind signals, which is ability to communicate choices. The problem is that the word 'signal' is ambiguous; another problem is that that word is used on LifeWiki in many places where it is an irrelevant distraction.
But for some reason, instead of trying to fix/alleviate those problems, you are suggesting to re-define the whole concept to remove the underlying big idea.

[dvgrn]

I really think that this could be a useful direction for this discussion to move in:

You are missing the point of my objections. Examples where the word 'signal' is not used cannot be found by searching with the keyword 'signal'.

I do not understand this objection at all. Please explain.

I am absolutely asking for examples where the word "signal" is used, and can be found with just such a search -- examples where the "confocaloid-signal" interpretation is required to understand the meaning of the post. For example, I'm looking for existing uses in forum posts, where the use of "signal" makes sense only if the reader understands that "there can be no mirror image of a signal".

The existing definition in signal is actually helpful -- it explains the big idea behind signals, which is ability to communicate choices. The problem is that the word 'signal' is ambiguous; another problem is that that word is used on LifeWiki in many places where it is an irrelevant distraction.
But for some reason, instead of trying to fix/alleviate those problems, you are suggesting to re-define the whole concept to remove the underlying big idea.

Yup, all of that is pretty much correct -- except of course I don't want to remove your "underlying big idea". My current suggestion only adds a sentence, it doesn't remove anything at all. However, it does put that big idea into better context with other big ideas.

I would really like you to understand why I am making that suggestion. You absolutely don't have to agree with the suggestion, but it still seems like you're missing my basic reasons here.

1) You're focusing on what you call "the big idea behind signals". By that you mean "the big idea behind confocaloid-signals". This is not the only "big idea behind signals". There is also "the big idea behind dvgrn-signals" -- and it really seems to me that that idea needs to be explained first, before "the big idea behind confocaloid-signals" will make any sense to a newcomer.

The last quarter century or so has seen a huge amount of progress in the development of stable circuitry, which hardly existed at all before 1996. The big idea behind dvgrn-signals is that active objects can be conveyed from one place to another in conduits, in a repeatable way, and that they can be converted from one form to another with converters. In the context of Conway's Life, that's a really important development from the last quarter-century. We need a simple common general term for everyday use for the idea of "active objects traveling repeatably through circuitry" -- and we already have one, and (for better or worse) it's "signal".

Explaining signal converters -- one of the big new developments from the last quarter century -- does not require the "confocaloid-signal" concept at all. Active objects moving from place to place may carry a confocaloid-signal or not; that's not relevant to the local operation of a signal converter.

We don't really need a simple common general term for everyday use for the idea of "active objects in the context of circuitry that can carry unrestricted information-theory bits through the Life universe". Now, the "dvgrn-signal" definition can definitely do that job along with its regular job -- but it always seems to be completely clear from context when "signal" is being used in that sense: "The universal computer sends a SELF-DESTRUCT signal to its parent copy", or whatever. Sentences like that allow the "confocaloid-signal" meaning, but do not require it.

That's not a source of confusion in practice -- the wider "dvgrn-signal" meaning covers that case with no problem. But that special "confocaloid-signal" information-theory case, on its own, is no longer the primary meaning of "signal" in current usage. The LifeWiki's job is to document current usage.

2) Because of my strong belief in the priorities described in item #1, a large proportion of the changes that you were trying to make recently on the LifeWiki look to me like they're making things gradually worse (more confusing) instead of better. I'm absolutely sure that you honestly believe that those are good attempts to "fix/alleviate those problems" that you see. I simply don't believe that the majority of the conwaylife.com community agrees with you on this.

How the "Signal" Poll Fits In
To get a better sense of community sentiment, I started the poll thread, after specifically asking you for help to make it as useful as possible. You declined to help to design a poll that we might both be able to accept the results of.

Nonetheless, the poll results so far have been quite illuminating for me; they're right in line what I expected to see. The majority of voters so far are not interested in prioritizing the narrow "confocaloid-signal" definition over the wider "dvgrn-signal" definition.

The poll is a way that I could easily have been convinced to change my mind on this issue. If the community's vote had been significantly in favor of Option 1 over Option 2, I would have withdrawn my objection to your suggested LifeWiki edits on this issue. I'm specifically asking for more feedback from people who prefer Option 1, so if a lot of that kind of feedback comes in and nobody defends EDIT: Option 2, I'm still happy to reconsider. That's what I think we would have to see, to allow us to reach a consensus decision (in the usual Wikipedia meaning of "consensus") to implement Option 1.

Can you describe what exactly you would have to see from the community, to allow us to reach a consensus decision to implement Option 2?

[confocaloid]

I think it should be "... defends Option 2, ...".

I'm specifically asking for more feedback from people who prefer Option 1, so if a lot of that kind of feedback comes in and nobody defends Option 1, I'm still happy to reconsider. That's what I think we would have to see, to allow us to reach a consensus decision (in the usual Wikipedia meaning of "consensus") to implement Option 1.

Can you describe what exactly you would have to see from the community, to allow us to reach a consensus decision to implement Option 2?

The "poll" is misleading. Either of two "options" presents several different issues in combined form as if they were a single issue (and ignores other issues).

Before that, there was recently created discussion thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6100
Instead of starting the poll thread only to request some non-poll feedback in it, it would be more productive to keep the discussion in the previously created threads. As I already wrote, I did not believe creating a new poll thread was going to be helpful.

[dvgrn]

The "poll" is misleading. Either of two "options" presents several different issues in combined form as if they were a single issue (and ignores other issues).

Can you see why I might be inclined to think that the poll is not misleading at all, but rather a very useful simplification of the issue?

I honestly wanted to know how people would vote on the exact question that I presented in the poll. I created the poll. Now I have information that I didn't have before.

Over three quarters of voters in the poll thread so far have voted to adjust the "signal" article to use the exact wording that I suggested, in preference to leaving the article as it is.

There are quite possibly better ways to word that paragraph (and/or the rest of the article, and/or disambiguation pages) to allow the wider "dvgrn-signal" meaning to be clearly defined, but also to address some of your and other Option 1 voters' concerns, and also without losing any of the current Option 2 voters.

We could find that out either by running additional polls, or more likely by going back to editing the "signal" article and making gradual improvements -- once we've come to a consensus about the basic issue that we're discussing here.

In the meantime, it's useful to know that even the specific change quoted in Option 1 is considered to be an improvement over the status quo, by a supermajority of the community members who have voted so far.

[confocaloid]

for example we can use green glider to signal "halt" and red glider to signal "does not halt"

Interestingly, this might be one of a number of recent examples where the word 'signal' is used in a way that does not make sense unless you accept that signals are immutable and are not spatial (i.e. no geometric shape, no mirror image, etc.)

It is a verb here ("to signal ..."), and of course it is not the only example -- e.g. viewtopic.php?p=160163#p160163 ("Where is the "reset the beehives" signal coming from?")
Whenever there is an attached meaning or communicated choice, that choice is the (unchanging-as-it-lives, shapeless) signal.

For example, I'm looking for existing uses in forum posts, where the use of "signal" makes sense only if the reader understands that "there can be no mirror image of a signal".

(Append:)

2) Because of my strong belief in the priorities described in item #1, a large proportion of the changes that you were trying to make recently on the LifeWiki look to me like they're making things gradually worse (more confusing) instead of better.

For the record, I still think the changes I am suggesting would be improvements. When the word 'signal' is unnecessary or irrelevant, omitting it is an improvement -- the word does not contribute to clarity of the statement. An artificial "enforced reinforcement" of a different meaning of the word 'signal' is obviously unhelpful.
Reflectors reflect gliders or other spaceships; a conduit takes an input active object and produces an output active object (not necessarily carrying a signal, but the signal would remain unchanged as the reaction goes through the conduit), and so on.

In the meantime, it's useful to know that even the specific change quoted in Option 1 is considered to be an improvement over the status quo, by a supermajority of the community members who have voted so far.

You might be missing the possibility that what you describe as "a supermajority of the community members who have voted so far" might be people who were confused by the wording in the poll and the "combined options". I think it is likely that people are confused as to what are the actual underlying issues.

[dvgrn]

Interestingly, this might be one of a number of recent examples where the word 'signal' is used in a way that does not make sense unless you accept that signals are immutable and are not spatial (i.e. no geometric shape, no mirror image, etc.)

It is a verb here ("to signal ..."), and of course it is not the only example -- e.g. viewtopic.php?p=160163#p160163 ("Where is the "reset the beehives" signal coming from?")

Neither of these is any problem at all for the dvgrn-signal definition. In these cases, it works fine to think of "signal" as meaning "active object carrying HALT message or RESET message". The active object can be a glider, among many other things. Gliders have a geometric shape and a distinct mirror image.

Under the dvgrn-signal definition, the signals can be gliders, but don't have to be gliders, and no awkward "carried by" syntax is needed -- and yet you can easily say with an additional identifying word or two what the message is that's being carried by the signal (RESET, HALT, etc.). That's what makes the current general term "signal", as it exists on the forums, so useful in lots of cases exactly like these.

What I'm looking for is any usage that needs the "confocaloid-signal" definition but does not allow the "dvgrn-signal" definition. I think you'd have to dig up somebody before this discussion, implicitly or explicitly claiming that there's no such thing a "mirror image of a signal", or that a Herschel or glider can carry a signal but can't be a signal.

If nothing like that can be found, I guess I'm also interested in anywhere that people use syntax along the lines of "the {NAME} signal is carried by such-and-such" -- i.e., where they're calling specific attention to the distinction between the active objects moving around in their pattern, and the abstract information-theory bits of data being carried by those active objects. That kind of phrasing generally seems pretty awkward, so I'm not too surprised that I haven't seen it much.