Aliens Thread

[Old Man Mike]

Questions too casual and too large.

As to numbers: there are approximately 500,000 incidents recorded in Dr. Don Johnson's UFOCAT. Dr. Hynek used to poll people at his lectures to see if they had even reported their UFO experiences. Less than 10% had.

As to "behavior": I suggest that any of us thinking that we have insight into what alien behavior should be demonstrates high hubris. We too often convict one another because we invent the other guy's personality for him based on our own. Inventing alien personalities seems at least one step further risky.

Beyond that, on my blog I have delineated my best guess as to what very advanced non-human cultures [those who had conquered diseases and aging and thereby had indefinitely long lifespans barring violence/accident] and three "orientations" emerged. None of these orientations would feature a desire for overt interfering contact, though each would value covert observation. That covert observation might involve total stealth but others might favor intense individual overtness while remaining short of becoming undeniable and thereby culture-altering.

Again these matters are full books of thought and information. I have yet to see "simple" arise in this business.

 

[IrishLion]

Beyond that, on my blog I have delineated my best guess as to what very advanced non-human cultures [those who had conquered diseases and aging and thereby had indefinitely long lifespans barring violence/accident] and three "orientations" emerged. None of these orientations would feature a desire for overt interfering contact, though each would value covert observation. That covert observation might involve total stealth but others might favor intense individual overtness while remaining short of becoming undeniable and thereby culture-altering.

Again these matters are full books of thought and information. I have yet to see "simple" arise in this business.

You keep blowing my mind, OMM.

It's crazy enough to try and fathom a society of beings that have conquered aging and disease.

Then, considering how these beings might feel, this is again perplexing to even try and consider: "others might favor intense individual overtness while remaining short of becoming undeniable and thereby culture-altering."

Do you mean certain individuals of this type of life would value complete secrecy as to their existence, while others might become "playful" with a less advanced culture such as humanity, while not completely revealing themselves so as to avoid altering the history of that culture?

 

[tko]

yet he keeps dodging my question.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Lion: very briefly... each type of culture of these sorts seems to be likely to value one of two qualities in other cultures: Freedom and/or Novelty. These two things are not identical but closely related.

If a culture respects the freedom of persons to choose, they will not wall-up that open-ended imagination and future drive by showing us "how they did it" nor anything close to that. Thus covertness is required while interest in acquiring novel information is still served.

If a culture has no necessary such respect, they still will not overly influence another, as all they have to live for is novelty, and influencing others to be at all like themselves defeats that.

Cultures will mature into basically moral, basically amoral, and still-trying-to-find-our-way. The moral will value the freedom. The amoral will value the vicarious novelty. The still-searching will value the uniqueness of the new culture. None of the three types have any interest in "landing on the White House Lawn", which forever alters the natural progress of a civilization on its own. And no such super-advanced culture has any energy, material, money or power needs. Their technology is WAY past all that.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Questions too casual and too large.

As to numbers: there are approximately 500,000 incidents recorded in Dr. Don Johnson's UFOCAT. Dr. Hynek used to poll people at his lectures to see if they had even reported their UFO experiences. Less than 10% had.

As to "behavior": I suggest that any of us thinking that we have insight into what alien behavior should be demonstrates high hubris. We too often convict one another because we invent the other guy's personality for him based on our own. Inventing alien personalities seems at least one step further risky.

Beyond that, on my blog I have delineated my best guess as to what very advanced non-human cultures [those who had conquered diseases and aging and thereby had indefinitely long lifespans barring violence/accident] and three "orientations" emerged. None of these orientations would feature a desire for overt interfering contact, though each would value covert observation. That covert observation might involve total stealth but others might favor intense individual overtness while remaining short of becoming undeniable and thereby culture-altering.

Again these matters are full books of thought and information. I have yet to see "simple" arise in this business.

OMM, please keep posting. Your posts are very thought-provoking and as a result of an earlier post you made, I now have:

"The End of Certainty by Ilya Prigogine" on the way from amazon (and
"What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketche... by Erwin Schrodinger" since it was suggested along with it). Your posts have ignited a fire in me to learn more, that is the greatest complement I can give you.

 

[Grahambo]

OMM, please keep posting. Your posts are very thought-provoking and as a result of an earlier post you made, I now have:

"The End of Certainty by Ilya Prigogine" on the way from amazon (and
"What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketche... by Erwin Schrodinger" since it was suggested along with it). Your posts have ignited a fire in me to learn more, that is the greatest complement I can give you.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Veritate: the finest compliment that a teacher can receive. I am honored and humbled. Maybe it wasn't as terrible an idea as I thought to open up in this thread.

 

[Irish#1]

Questions too casual and too large.

As to numbers: there are approximately 500,000 incidents recorded in Dr. Don Johnson's UFOCAT. Dr. Hynek used to poll people at his lectures to see if they had even reported their UFO experiences. Less than 10% had.

As to "behavior": I suggest that any of us thinking that we have insight into what alien behavior should be demonstrates high hubris. We too often convict one another because we invent the other guy's personality for him based on our own. Inventing alien personalities seems at least one step further risky.

Beyond that, on my blog I have delineated my best guess as to what very advanced non-human cultures [those who had conquered diseases and aging and thereby had indefinitely long lifespans barring violence/accident] and three "orientations" emerged. None of these orientations would feature a desire for overt interfering contact, though each would value covert observation. That covert observation might involve total stealth but others might favor intense individual overtness while remaining short of becoming undeniable and thereby culture-altering.

Again these matters are full books of thought and information. I have yet to see "simple" arise in this business.

Lion: very briefly... each type of culture of these sorts seems to be likely to value one of two qualities in other cultures: Freedom and/or Novelty. These two things are not identical but closely related.

If a culture respects the freedom of persons to choose, they will not wall-up that open-ended imagination and future drive by showing us "how they did it" nor anything close to that. Thus covertness is required while interest in acquiring novel information is still served.

If a culture has no necessary such respect, they still will not overly influence another, as all they have to live for is novelty, and influencing others to be at all like themselves defeats that.

Cultures will mature into basically moral, basically amoral, and still-trying-to-find-our-way. The moral will value the freedom. The amoral will value the vicarious novelty. The still-searching will value the uniqueness of the new culture. None of the three types have any interest in "landing on the White House Lawn", which forever alters the natural progress of a civilization on its own. And no such super-advanced culture has any energy, material, money or power needs. Their technology is WAY past all that.

OMM I am very impressed so far and I want to clarify that I don't want this to sound like I'm being a smart ass, but aren't you contradicting yourself with these two statements? If we tend to create things based on our own experiences aren't you doing exactly that with Aliens?

 

[Old Man Mike]

Irish: I've been asked to comment, and my life has been consistently asking me to think. I believe the difference in what I have just done and shallow hypocrisy is:

1). I'm trying to do the best I can to serve the discussion rather than just stop it;
2). My remarks in that regard did not come from the top of my head nor my streetcorner instincts, but are the product of several years of mulling these exact issues;
3). The ideas were delivered I thought with enough humility to give the reader the proper impression that they were humbly offered as tentative. In that at least I have failed;
4). The ideas do not result in a unified single idea, but in fact occurred in the context of a "complete set" of options [moral, amoral, still evolving] and therefore are at least slightly less absolutely restrictive and biased;
5). hypothesis properly offered and consistently examined in the spirit of the scientific method is an allowable speculative mind state, even though fixed judgement based upon little data and much assumption is not.

The strength of my "White House Lawn" comment comes from the fact that all of several different scenarios [not one line of thought] converged there, and though phrased apparently too strongly, was meant to present a counter theory to the sentiments even more strongly spoken in this thread as reasons to disregard the UFO phenomenon without needing to even read, study, nor deeply think about it.

However, I take your point and will moderate my posts. This sadly will make them much less interesting, I fear. But if it serves the readers' preferences then OK.

 

[Irish#1]

OMM,
Your response was directed to Lion, but the "White House Lawn" reply makes me think your reply was intended for me? Do not moderate your posts. Your points are very interesting and I for one enjoy them very much. I was just pointing out that there seems to be some contradiction in the statements, but your reply clarifies it very well for me. Please keep posting and do not hold back. My apologies to you if I offended you. It was not my intention at all.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Well, maybe I read the reply as not understanding the difference between making a proper hypothetical model [based upon a lot of thoughtfulness] and continuing to monitor that theory for possible adjustment due to more data [i.e. the scientific open-mind set] vs me being just another " throw a knee-jerk thought out there as if it had authority and then fight about it" type of commentator. When I read the response I thought: "Ha! Let no good deed go unpunished. That's what you get for trying to share everything you've built for thirty years."

... and yeh I blew the part about who I was directing the explanation to --- honest humbling apologies Lion.


I shouldn't mention the following but my informational posts DO exhaust me a little bit --- and I realize that you younger people can't understand that. But I do think about what I write and pulled out all my SETI materials to find the stuff I wrote about the WOW signal to get it factually correct. The point is: This isn't exactly pure fun for me. I do it only because I sense that someone else would like to really know something substantial about something for a change. I'll probably back off a little anyway, just due to that.

 

[Irish#1]

Well, maybe I read the reply as not understanding the difference between making a proper hypothetical model [based upon a lot of thoughtfulness] and continuing to monitor that theory for possible adjustment due to more data [i.e. the scientific open-mind set] vs me being just another " throw a knee-jerk thought out there as if it had authority and then fight about it" type of commentator. When I read the response I thought: "Ha! Let no good deed go unpunished. That's what you get for trying to share everything you've built for thirty years."

... and yeh I blew the part about who I was directing the explanation to --- honest humbling apologies Lion.


I shouldn't mention the following but my informational posts DO exhaust me a little bit --- and I realize that you younger people can't understand that. But I do think about what I write and pulled out all my SETI materials to find the stuff I wrote about the WOW signal to get it factually correct. The point is: This isn't exactly pure fun for me. I do it only because I sense that someone else would like to really know something substantial about something for a change. I'll probably back off a little anyway, just due to that.

There are quite a few on here that want to know more. I can tell your commitment and belief when you speak of going back to your files to reference something. Your passion shows. As I mentioned before, I used to believe in Aliens, but as I got older I wasn't sure and really was split 50-50. Your posts have actually pushed me back toward the side of Aliens existing. Keep them coming.

 

[Redbar]

Well, maybe I read the reply as not understanding the difference between making a proper hypothetical model [based upon a lot of thoughtfulness] and continuing to monitor that theory for possible adjustment due to more data [i.e. the scientific open-mind set] vs me being just another " throw a knee-jerk thought out there as if it had authority and then fight about it" type of commentator. When I read the response I thought: "Ha! Let no good deed go unpunished. That's what you get for trying to share everything you've built for thirty years."

... and yeh I blew the part about who I was directing the explanation to --- honest humbling apologies Lion.


I shouldn't mention the following but my informational posts DO exhaust me a little bit --- and I realize that you younger people can't understand that. But I do think about what I write and pulled out all my SETI materials to find the stuff I wrote about the WOW signal to get it factually correct. The point is: This isn't exactly pure fun for me. I do it only because I sense that someone else would like to really know something substantial about something for a change. I'll probably back off a little anyway, just due to that.

OMM,
The comprehensive understanding across a wide range of disciplines combined with the sensitivity and care you place in your posts is undoubtedly tedious and as you said "not exactly fun". You have a lot to offer this site, I appreciate your football analysis as much as anyone, and while some will see this as a transient lighthearted out of season thread, others are realizing that they will likely never have the opportunity to listen and interact with an individual resource like this on quite possibly the most incredible scientific phenomenon of all time, and the cultural, spiritual, opportunities/implications that it presents. I know that I am not alone in asking you to continue to vigorously contribute, teach, rebut, and refocus this thread wherever and whenever your time, energy, and conscience move you.

 

[Irish#1]

[/B]

OMM,
The comprehensive understanding across a wide range of disciplines combined with the sensitivity and care you place in your posts is undoubtedly tedious and as you said "not exactly fun". You have a lot to offer this site, I appreciate your football analysis as much as anyone, and while some will see this as a transient lighthearted out of season thread, others are realizing that they will likely never have the opportunity to listen and interact with an individual resource like this on quite possibly the most incredible scientific phenomenon of all time, and the cultural, spiritual, opportunities/implications that it presents. I know that I am not alone in asking you to continue to vigorously contribute, teach, rebut, and refocus this thread wherever and whenever your time, energy, and conscience move you.

Well stated. Reps coming your way.

 

[irish1958]

My problem with aliens is that their existence is incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them.. What is more probable: that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong or aliens exist?
I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's statement that the Bible is correct that the world is only a few thousand years old since the fuel of the sun would be exhausted in that time.

 

[woolybug25]

OMM gets voted "Most Overrated"... Then BAM!!!


Awesome Bombs start blasting everywhere. Lighting up the night sky.

 

[woolybug25]

My problem with aliens is that their existence is incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them.. What is more probable: that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong or aliens exist?
I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's statement that the Bible is correct that the world is only a few thousand years old since the fuel of the sun would be exhausted in that time.

How are aliens incompatible with physics?

Do you mean UFO's or simply the existence of other intelligent life?

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

My problem with aliens is that their existence is incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them.. What is more probable: that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong or aliens exist?
I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's statement that the Bible is correct that the world is only a few thousand years old since the fuel of the sun would be exhausted in that time.

Wait.
Wut?

 

[Old Man Mike]

If 1958 elaborates, I might respond. As stated, the assertion isn't true.

 

[Emcee77]

My problem with aliens is that their existence is incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them.. What is more probable: that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong or aliens exist?
I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's statement that the Bible is correct that the world is only a few thousand years old since the fuel of the sun would be exhausted in that time.

Yeah, please explain this. Why can't there be aliens? And what does Kelvin have to do with it? I know he claimed that the earth and sun were less than 100M years old, but that was because scientists didn't understand radioactivity at that time. Obviously we know now that the earth and sun are much older.

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/134/lectures/ages-of-earth-sun.pdf

 

[gkIrish]

My problem with aliens is that their existence is incompatible with the laws of physics as we understand them.. What is more probable: that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong or aliens exist?
I am reminded of Lord Kelvin's statement that the Bible is correct that the world is only a few thousand years old since the fuel of the sun would be exhausted in that time.

Are you saying you think the world is only a few thousand years old??

 

[irish1958]

Are you saying you think the world is only a few thousand years old??

No. I am saying Lord Kelvin was wrong because he assumed that his knowledge of energy was complete. My point is perhaps aliens are possible because our knowledge is incomplete.
Perhaps the speed of light isn't the cosmic speed limit. The limits imposed on life are perhaps wrong also. Etc.
The existence of other intelligent life in the universe is quite possible even probable. Several billion squared is quite a large number..
OMM. You may be right due to my inexact phrasing. However my main premiss is that either our present knowledge of physics (and biology) is wrong-- I should have said incomplete---or visiting aliens are not possible. I can't prove a negative, but I think the chance that the observed phenomena are due to visiting aliens is extremely improbable.
Occam's Razor or the Simplicity principle appears to apply here.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Still puzzled by the phraseology even of this second offering.

But...
A). everyone in theoretical physics admits that our current physics is incomplete so we could at least take that as a given. Most importantly, we have no useful model for describing the force relationships, which is why all the hullaballoo about many dimensions, Higgs Bosons etc.

B). as part of that humbling idea, some physicists consider that these dimensional factors may in fact supercede Four-dimensional Laws such as Einstein's General Relativity and the speed of light limitation except when motion is merely in those four dimensions.

c). Even if someone doesn't want to go there, technologists like Robert Forward [microwave lightsails] and The Daedalus Project [nuclear power] have shown that interstellar travel is in principle feasible even at our current crude knowledge.

d). Sagan himself envisioned a Galactic "colonization scheme" {based on a bad choice of expansion quotient --- no one in SETI pays any attention to corrections from the UFO community though}, which employed [otherwise reasonable] assumptions, and was used to accentuate The Fermi Principle conundrum.

e). When dealing with unknowns with large missing data requirements, a wise man said: "You can cut your throat with Occam's Razor". {i.e. that is precisely the wrong place to apply it.}


I'm heading for Mass now so won't be around for quite some time ... apologize for that.

 

[irish1958]

OMM. I give up. I am a pediatrician, not a scientist and my last formal association to physics was at Notre Dame in 1955.
When I was lecturing my medical students later, one of my favorite lines was that when you hear hoof beats think of horses, not zebras. Unfortunately in medicine most of our decisions are made on varying amounts of incomplete data so we are trained to go with the odds. Good doctors will admit they are frequently wrong or perhaps, only partly correct; but there is the patient who is hurting or in some kind of distress and we must do something to help them immediately.
Therefore we go with the probable not the possible.

 

[Old Man Mike]

1958: in that you're being a good empirical scientist. Best guess trial and error --- Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes would salute you.

 

[Redbar]

OMM, I take it you have not found or heard any credible evidence that we may have recovered at some point, Roswell, or otherwise an extraterrestrial craft?

(UFO's and Government is in the mail)

 

[Old Man Mike]

There are MANY claims of crashed saucers in the files. Some folks, even some of my closest friends, think that there may be some substance to several of them. I don't share their optimism for any but one. And that is, of course, Roswell. Saying that however is not at all a simple thing, and is at least two more books.

REALLY intellectually dangerous to talk about Roswell briefly --- just can't get anything across. I am going to make a series of statements and you'll just have to decide want you want to make of them.

1). Where I get my information from: after Roswell began to gain some momentum, the Center for UFO Studies organized a research project on it. It was headed by Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle, who did the field work all over the country trying to find the flaws in the Moore/Friedman version. Back in Chicago, Mark Rodeghier, Frank Reid, Mark Chesney, and myself supplied the back-up support [and I found myself traveling to CUFOS almost monthly for our "top secret" meetings]. Randle and Schmitt found errors by Friedman and Moore, but surprisingly not to the basic information --- the testimony of Jesse Marcel, his son, Mack Brazel [the rancher], and several others seemingly involved was solid. Hoaxers also were cleverly involved and they were difficult to root out. Still we seemed to make progress and had a walloping good time doing so. My small contribution to the effort was to unravel the intelligence division at Wright-Patterson in the 1947-48 era. We thereby discovered names of people who may have had knowledge of the event.

2). What we found was that evidence for the so-called "debris field wreckage" was pretty good with at least a couple of handfuls of solid witnesses to the peculiarity of the metallic debris. Something unusual had wrecked there. We also discovered that General Ramey had clearly manufactured a bogus press conference showing of phony alleged debris --- even the USAF and the Roswell debunkers now admit this. Knowing that the USAF high command felt that they had to manipulate the press was suspicious. This, however, does not distinguish between secret government projects and non-terrestrial technology. But it does say that something important went down.

3). What is much less convincing is the "bodies" part of the story. Most of the worst hoaxers have been involved here, and have done great damage to the investigation. There are however a few who are still intriguing. Prominent in these is Bill Rickett, the number two internal intelligence officer [the guys who keep tabs on the other Americans on a base] [i.e. the "counter-intelligence" group]. Rickett hinted several times that he had participated in a body retrieval, and essentially admitted that clearly to Rodeghier late in his life [taped interview]. Still, this is shallower than the wreckage side.

4). The USA vs ET argument for what crashed is fought mainly on the grounds of the peculiarities of the metals. Debunkers have tried several approaches to sweep away the so-called "memory metal" testimony [aluminized plastic is the latest] but these things have not been suitable to anyone but those who don't want to believe it already. That is: the properties aren't a good match. Another prominent debunking approach has been to try to defame Major Marcel as some sort of fool or incompetent or disloyal scum. This is as about a ridiculous [and low] approach as one can make, as Marcel was a fine man, a fine intel officer [promoted thereafter], and a gentleman to the end. He WAS a bit pissed off that Ramey made him the fall guy at the presscon.

So, could there have been a crashed disk at Roswell in the middle of the summer of 1947 UFO flap? Yes. Can anyone prove it? No.

 

[Redbar]

As always, I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[gkIrish]

OMM, random question:

Based on your research and maybe even your gut instinct, which movie do you think has come closest to portraying what aliens and their UFOs are actually like? Some options:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Independence Day
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Alien
War of the Worlds

 

[koonja]

OMM, random question:

Based on your research and maybe even your gut instinct, which movie do you think has come closest to portraying what aliens and their UFOs are actually like? Some options:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Independence Day
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Alien
War of the Worlds

Ahem, Space Jam?