From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Nov 01 1999 - 13:24:38 MST
On Mon, 1 Nov 1999 hal@finney.org wrote:
> With regard to the recent proposals that E.T. may be on the net, I offer
> http://www.sightings.com/ufo5/seti.htm, an article from a UFO site asking
> why SETI supporters are so dogmatically resisting the evidence that UFOs
> are real and are extraterrestrial craft.
[snip -- long quote from the above URL]
In short because the views simply are not consistent with the known
laws of physics. Once you invoke "magic physics" you are in the
realm of "faith" and not "science".
Knowing the "potential" technological capacities that nanotechnology
allows (dismantling planets in days), one has to make arguments as to
why "they" haven't done that. I would guess that there are few people
who are associated with the UFO "movement" who are versed in this knowledge.
What UFO people have to do to make things acceptable is to present
coherent explanations for:
(a) Why would they bother to come here when they can do most of their
observations from their home at a much lower energy cost?
(b) Why are "aliens" are wandering around abducting people?
(c) Why do the abduction reports have"aliens" with a humanoid body
when it is a horrible body structure?
(d) If they do come here, Why don't they communicate with us when they
obviously could do so?
Believing in gravity is easy because it operates on everyone.
Believing in UFOs is a much harder sell because it happens to a select
few. The SETI people have a credible position because they do
not require magic physics and do not require the expenditure
of resources required to hurl spacecraft across interstellar
distances. They have a nice equation that incorporates the
probabilities of finding someone. The UFO believers, to my knowledge,
have not developed a credible framework in which reasonable arguments
can be made that would allow the position to be believable.
They need a "Probability of ET Visitations" equation.
Instead, it is much easier to simply say "believe me".
>
> This is the problem with fringe science. You can always find someone who
> has some modest credibility who will support the topic, at least with
> the idea of investigating it further (which would involve funding the
> researcher, of course). Once you open up the possibility that ETs may
> be here on earth, monitoring us, of course you have to deal with UFOs.
No you don't. If you assume that civilizations capable of interstellar
travel are 50+ years beyond our level, then you *must* assume (a) they
are fully nanotechnology capable or (b) nanotechnology is impossible.
[And (b) flies in the face of the available evidence.]
If you assume (a) then the *only* discussion that can occur is:
What are the characteristics of civilizations operating a the limits
of known physics and what can be constructed on relatively short
stellar time scales (say millions of years)? The answers to that
question must match those ideas with current observations of the
universe and provide a coherent picture. To my knowledge none
of the UFO/Aliens supporters have attempted this.
> Furthermore, because it is overwhelmingly likely that they would have
> been here for millions of years, you have to look at all the ancient
> artifacts, the "chariots of the gods", the possibility of meddling in
> the human genome, the stories of the Bible, all as possible confirmation
> of ET activity on earth.
Yep, the analysis isn't difficult.
(a) Is the artifact constructed using molecular nanotechnology?
If no, then its not alien.
(b) Does the genome show evidence of tampering?
Not enough is known to answer the question, but there is so
much junk DNA in it, that if they did play with it the did
a really poor job of it or wanted to remain "unrecognized".
(c) Stories of the Bible could be true, the flood apparently has
a historical basis as do many of the historical accounts in
the Old Testament. But because it is an largely unconfirmed
"history" with an "agenda" it can't be used as "scientific"
evidence. You can't subject it to repeated "experiments".
I've mentioned in previous posts (from a humorous perspective)
the possibility of agents of alien superintelligences deflecting
a comet to eliminate the dinosaurs so that H. sapiens (as something
more interesting) could arise. Entirely possible, however very
very difficult to prove.
>
> Maybe religion is true: maybe we are the creation of god-like beings.
Absolutely possible. We could be an experiment. But I want to
see evidence for those god-like beings before I spend time seriously
considering it.
> If ETs have been here throughout our evolutionary development, isn't
> it a significant probablity? Maybe Jesus was an extraterrestrial.
> He could have been, couldn't he? Water into wine and raising the
> (recently) dead shouldn't be too difficult for nanotech equipped aliens.
Yep, I've considered it. Once you allow nanotechnology and the possibility
of billions of SuperIntelligences in the galaxy you have to re-examine a
lot of "miracles" in history.
>
> I don't see how you avoid this slippery slope once you assent to the
> view that ETs are among us. Is there anyone here who denies the truth
> of biblical miracles yet maintains that there is a real probability that
> extraterrestrial intelligences are monitoring us right here and now?
What you need is:
(a) A Scientific case that the miracles don't violate the laws of physics.
(b) Reasonable scientific evidence the miracle *actually* occured.
(c) A plausible explanation for the motivation of the miracle.
Getting (b) is very difficult, but the evidence for the "flood"
shows that it isn't completely impossible. (c) Gets really
difficult, fundamentally you have to answer the question of
why a superintelligence would bother with us. Experimentation
on the scale of planets/civilizations is one I've offered.
But if you designed and setup the experiement in which we
are the "molecules", then you don't have to send in UFOs
to abduct people unless thats part of the experimental design.
Perhaps its an experiment in the willingness of creatures of our
limited capacities to believe things on the basis of hearsay
evidence. :-)
> How can you reconcile these views?
You don't have to reconcile them. If you are scientific about it
and they don't violate known laws of physics, you keep an open
mind about them and explore the possibilities. However, if you
want to do good science, you presumably fund efforts on the
basis the probability that something is true (or will be discovered)
based on our current (limited) knowledge base. You fund infrared surveys
on the bases of the scientific return we know they will provide,
not the hypothesis that intgelligence might actually be easy
and the population of the galaxy is dominated by superintelligences.
I will keep an open mind to UFOs and Alien abductions but I'm not
going to "believe" in them until *I* see one or *I'm* abducted.
And then I hope some of the other good people on the list will
try to convince me that I've been dreaming or hallucinating.
Robert
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