Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Are what?
Alex
10 rules for true believers to follow
- Thread starter billvon
- Start date
Alex
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
I say prove whales .
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
The options are limitless we can make up anything.
Alex
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Whats the point ; Aliens exist ; but you will find any way to twist it so they don't .
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
The point is this.
I can establish whales exist.
However you can not prove aliens exist.
You establish aliens exist then we can discuss if aliens or whales are in UFOs.
I at least start with something that can be established as real.
So I am ahead..to catch up you need to establish aliens exist.
Alex
Read the books
The evidence is clear .
Oh I'm way ahead .
Time to snooze . Any last minute ....thoughts Alex ?
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
No River it is not clear aliens exist but it is clear whales exist.
No unfortunately until you come up with evidence you remain behind.
Look if you have real evidence put it forward, if you can't it will become clear.
Good luck prove your case.
Alex
Go back to my post #54
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
I am sorry River I do not understand what you are saying.
Alex
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
You said moving objects look blurry in photos. Not always..
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Returning to Paddo's reply to my post #18...
The issue is how best to interpret sightings that can't be immediately identified. It's a question that doesn't have a simple answer.
Extraordinary according to what standard? Extraordinary according to whose expectations?
Waving an arm towards "science" won't help here, since ufo reports aren't obviously violations of any laws of nature.
Sure, but providing sufficient evidence to convince people like you might be an impossible task. I'm not really concerned about convincing you or Billvon or Xel47 of anything. My interest is more in exploring epistemology at its boundaries, in what is clearly a problem situation. The most interesting conceptual and logical issues typically arise in problem situations.
The mere fact that you three aren't personally convinced that at least a few ufos have extra-mundane explanations (I'm not either, if that makes you feel any better) doesn't imply that some fraction of them don't have extra-mundane explanations, or that they can't. It doesn't justify the sarcasm and abuse that are directed at ufo believers by ufo unbelievers.
That's the weakest interpretation of 'ufo'. 'Unidentified flying object'.
My concern is with what appears to me to be the as-yet unjustified leaps from 'unidentified' to stoutly-defended identifications. Both the 'believers' and the 'skeptics' seem to me to be making a similar mistake in that regard.
The believers announce: They are alien spaceships! The so-called "skeptics" announce: They aren't alien spaceships and it's stupid to suggest they might be! While all the time in real-life they are unidentified and nobody knows what they are.
Of course. I doubt whether we are ever able to eliminate all possible sources of error from any judgement we make, no matter the subject (that includes science). Yet we stumble through our lives like fools. Eliminating all possible sources of error doesn't seem to be a necessary precondition for our knowledge claims. Sometimes it turns out that we are right, other times wrong.
Sure, but that doesn't imply that it's necessary that all unknowns must always resolve into one of those things.
That's my point. (Sometimes I think that I'm the only one who acknowledges it.) If either MR or his opponents really believed it, they wouldn't be fighting each other as violently as they are.
Sure, it might be. Or it might be something extra-mundane. If it's unidentified, all that we really know is that we don't currently know what it is.
MR isn't out of line arguing that some sighting reports are consistent with our expectations of how intelligently constructed and guided craft might behave. (That doesn't logically prove that any of them are intelligently guided artifacts though.) And the rest of our pseudo-"skeptics" aren't out of line arguing how some sighting reports are consistent with things like weather balloons or lenticular clouds or whatever other mundane possibility they concoct. (That doesn't logically prove that all ufo reports should be explained that way.)
The opposition to people who even suggest that ufos may have extra-mundane explanations is emotional and vehement. The sarcasm and insults can be almost impenetrable at times. Disbelief in such things is clearly a vital part of some people's worldviews and something that they seem to want very badly to protect.
I'm arguing for something more subtle, for the possibility that ufos might sometimes be something extra-mundane. I'm not arguing for the the much stronger claim that they are. I certainly don't know that and frankly, based on my own entirely informal expectations about the probabilities, I don't think it's likely. But it does seem to me to be possible. The pseudo-"skeptics" are making a basic error when they deny that possibility, either explicitly, or implicitly when they ridicule anyone who takes the possibility seriously and is willing to look at ufo reports with an open mind. (That isn't necessarily MR who I perceive as excessively credulous in these matters.)
I'm suggesting that the more peculiar corners of life such as "ufology" might need further investigation, not knee-jerk sarcastic dismissals and insults. Nothing concrete might come of those investigations, but that's fine. At the very least, we might have learned something about how best to approach problematic subject matters and identified possible weaknesses in our assumptions and methodology.
The issue is how best to interpret sightings that can't be immediately identified. It's a question that doesn't have a simple answer.
Extraordinary according to what standard? Extraordinary according to whose expectations?
Waving an arm towards "science" won't help here, since ufo reports aren't obviously violations of any laws of nature.
Sure, but providing sufficient evidence to convince people like you might be an impossible task. I'm not really concerned about convincing you or Billvon or Xel47 of anything. My interest is more in exploring epistemology at its boundaries, in what is clearly a problem situation. The most interesting conceptual and logical issues typically arise in problem situations.
The mere fact that you three aren't personally convinced that at least a few ufos have extra-mundane explanations (I'm not either, if that makes you feel any better) doesn't imply that some fraction of them don't have extra-mundane explanations, or that they can't. It doesn't justify the sarcasm and abuse that are directed at ufo believers by ufo unbelievers.
That's the weakest interpretation of 'ufo'. 'Unidentified flying object'.
My concern is with what appears to me to be the as-yet unjustified leaps from 'unidentified' to stoutly-defended identifications. Both the 'believers' and the 'skeptics' seem to me to be making a similar mistake in that regard.
The believers announce: They are alien spaceships! The so-called "skeptics" announce: They aren't alien spaceships and it's stupid to suggest they might be! While all the time in real-life they are unidentified and nobody knows what they are.
Of course. I doubt whether we are ever able to eliminate all possible sources of error from any judgement we make, no matter the subject (that includes science). Yet we stumble through our lives like fools. Eliminating all possible sources of error doesn't seem to be a necessary precondition for our knowledge claims. Sometimes it turns out that we are right, other times wrong.
Sure, but that doesn't imply that it's necessary that all unknowns must always resolve into one of those things.
That's my point. (Sometimes I think that I'm the only one who acknowledges it.) If either MR or his opponents really believed it, they wouldn't be fighting each other as violently as they are.
Sure, it might be. Or it might be something extra-mundane. If it's unidentified, all that we really know is that we don't currently know what it is.
MR isn't out of line arguing that some sighting reports are consistent with our expectations of how intelligently constructed and guided craft might behave. (That doesn't logically prove that any of them are intelligently guided artifacts though.) And the rest of our pseudo-"skeptics" aren't out of line arguing how some sighting reports are consistent with things like weather balloons or lenticular clouds or whatever other mundane possibility they concoct. (That doesn't logically prove that all ufo reports should be explained that way.)
The opposition to people who even suggest that ufos may have extra-mundane explanations is emotional and vehement. The sarcasm and insults can be almost impenetrable at times. Disbelief in such things is clearly a vital part of some people's worldviews and something that they seem to want very badly to protect.
I'm arguing for something more subtle, for the possibility that ufos might sometimes be something extra-mundane. I'm not arguing for the the much stronger claim that they are. I certainly don't know that and frankly, based on my own entirely informal expectations about the probabilities, I don't think it's likely. But it does seem to me to be possible. The pseudo-"skeptics" are making a basic error when they deny that possibility, either explicitly, or implicitly when they ridicule anyone who takes the possibility seriously and is willing to look at ufo reports with an open mind. (That isn't necessarily MR who I perceive as excessively credulous in these matters.)
I'm suggesting that the more peculiar corners of life such as "ufology" might need further investigation, not knee-jerk sarcastic dismissals and insults. Nothing concrete might come of those investigations, but that's fine. At the very least, we might have learned something about how best to approach problematic subject matters and identified possible weaknesses in our assumptions and methodology.
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Or that they are not made of delicious, creamy milk chocolate! No wonder the government is hogging them all.
(Excellent example of Rule 5, by the way!)
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
There is also no evidence that UFOs are not Santa's Sleigh.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Delicious creamy milk chocolate doesn't glow brightly or fly intelligently thru the skies.
Santa's sleigh isn't a metallic disc shape.
Next?
Santa's sleigh isn't a metallic disc shape.
Next?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Do you agree or disagree with the proposition "There is no evidence that UFO's are not ETL"?
If you agree, then what justification is there for denying the possibility that they might be?
If you disagree, then what do you think the evidence is that "UFO's are not ETL"?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
River's claim stands and falls on its own merit.
He asserts that there's no evidence that there isn't ETL out there.
That is a vacuous assertion.
Oh, and by the way, what shape is Santa's sleigh?