Alien Abduction cases

Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
41

TimB, I think you, Lausten and I are really on the same page. Lausten points out that we want an answer we can accept, a sentiment I sense you share. The scientific method serves us pretty well in many cases, but not all. Every event is unique; the scientific method works for those events which we can isolate from the factors that would otherwise make them unique. Proof is generally defined as as a preponderance of evidence such that we accept it. It is generally agreed that we can never be 100% sure of anything. I think it was Jacob Bronowski who used mathematics to prove that one could not prove anything using mathematics. Not sure; its been a long time since I visited that.

Widdershins, on the other hand, seems to prefer to add words and conclusions I did not post and then to posit that he knows better than I do just exactly what I think.

Widdershins, your definition of “personal experience” is spot on as is your criticism of making conclusions about what else the experience might mean. You might want to pick up a copy of Hume’s “An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding” if you have not already. Two points from that work are that all you think you know is what you remember and every experience you have prejudices you for every experience that follows. I expect that eventually you may realize that there is an absolute frame of reference for the universe and the origin point of that frame of reference is directly between your eyes.

42

That was a good almost Bob.

I don’t have time to read any Hume right now, but I don’t need to for this conversation. Widdershins is well aware of how our experience of the universe comes through our minds. It’s another principle of science that reflects who we are and how we perceive anything. Science has also shown us that by extending our senses through instruments and by using that data to extrapolate, we can predict things we don’t directly experience, then test those predictions to increase our certainty. All of this is just extending our natural ability to reason, just like I managed to walk down an icy sidewalk and get to work without falling this morning. I was constantly evaluating data and making predictions and confirming them.

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You might want to pick up a copy of Hume’s “An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding” if you have not already.
I don't hold philosophy in high regard and could not care less what some philosopher thinks about the nature of thinking. While philosophy does have some very real and pragmatic uses, that's not how it is generally used. It is generally used to "sound smart" without actually taking the time to "be smart". It's thinking in circles and using vague, poorly defined concepts in pseudo-intellectual thought which really says a whole lot about nothing at all.

Please tell me where I erred in adding words or conclusions to what you said. As far as I see I quoted you directly with a copy/paste and then commented on that quote. I pointed out that “personal experience” was a very broad, encompassing term so vague that I could give you an example of a “personal experience” that I had and you would not be able to tell me what that was “evidence” of. The point of that was to point out the flaw in using personal experience as “evidence” for something.

Let me give you an example. Let’s take the personal experience, “I saw some lights in the sky. They looked and moved unlike anything I had ever seen before. I know of no terrestrial explanation for those lights”. What is that “evidence” of? If we’re being honest the personal experience is evidence of nothing more than that I had the personal experience. But that is not the significance you are assigning to it, that the personal experience evidences the experience itself. You are assigning more significance to it. Now let’s say that I believe those lights in the sky were alien spacecraft. What you’re essentially saying is that my personal experience is evidence of my belief. But of course you’re not saying that in my case. If you don’t believe what I believe then, to you, that is not what it is evidence of at all. If you do believe what I believe then it is evidence of it.

The attempt there was trying to point out the very serious flaw of counting personal experience as “evidence” of something. People generally think that a personal experience is evidence of the conclusion they drew from the personal experience, which also happens to be some preconceived belief. In my experience, this is what people think when they believe personal experience is more meaningful than the “hearsay” of scientific study. It has also been my experience from years of such discussions that people who tout personal experience as having any significance generally do so because without personal experience there is no evidence to support them. I haves seen similar arguments about the Gospels, insisting that they were firsthand accounts. Because being firsthand accounts, they would be “personal experience” which, in the mind of the arguer, would make them all but absolute proof. From that starting point the rest of the argument could be built. Why would they lie about this? What did they have to gain?

All the philosophical nonsense in the world asking seemingly deep, but ultimately meaningless questions like, “How can we really know anything, man?” and “How do we know we’re not all just a computer simulation? (pass me the weed, dude)”, that’s all just meaningless garbage. I see things, I hear things, I have thoughts and feelings. There is no evidence there is anything more or less to my reality than that. So why would I bother pondering whether there was? If I’m going to do some heaving thinking it’s going to be about something tangible and interesting. It’s not going to be the kind of crap people talk about as they’re passing around a bong. This is philosophy in my eyes. It is meaningless, it is pointless and it is not worth my time. But do keep in mind there is a pure philosophy, used in scientific method, by which we can ask “what if?” That is respectable. It’s when you start using philosophy as a method of creating “proofs” of something, or to ask questions to which there are no answers and for which there is no reason to ask that philosophy breaks down into meaningless garbage. Again, in my opinion.

44
Bob: "...there is an absolute frame of reference for the universe and the origin point of that frame of reference is directly between your eyes."
I think you have the terms 'absolute' and 'relative' mixed up.
  • Absolute means that your frame of reference doesn't make a difference.
  • Relative means it depends on your frame of reference.
Widdershin's analogy is perfect. Had he seen the geese in better lighting conditions and not had the concept of aliens in his head, he never would have thought the flock were alien craft. What you see with your eyes (and then inevitably interpret with your brain) is the very definition of a relative view of things. That's why anecdotes are worth less than a bucket of sand in the desert to anyone looking for the truth.

As for philosophy, it has its place in some conversations and has value if used correctly. But if used incorrectly it can make you wrong and incapable of learning the truth [see many many threads elsewhere in this forum for examples of this]. So be careful with it and make sure you’re applying the it right.

 

45

My disdain for philosophy began with some philosophical argument for the necessity of God. Possibly the Kalam argument, but I can’t remember for sure. I had never really considered philosophy before that, but I started looking into this ancient philosopher’s notion of God’s necessity which people for some reason still thought of as relevant centuries or longer later. It was one of those things where you know it doesn’t sound quite right, but you can’t quite put your finger on why. But the way my brain works I had to know why. It took me weeks to unravel the thoughts, contemplate the meanings and finally recognized the bastardized form of philosophy being used. And that’s when I realized that people do that literally all the time. It has become a method of using a whole lot of words to say, essentially, nothing at all. It’s a way of tricking a person into coming to the conclusion you want them to come to.

There is a reason that philosophy is a required course for a law degree and it 'ain’t because it’s so good at getting to the truth.

46

I wouldn’t say that philosophy is a way of tricking people or using lots of words to sound smart. It’s a tool that can be used for good or evil, and unfortunately religious people and people who are not smart but want to sound smart, routinely use it for evil.

If it had more practical uses it might not suffer so much because of that, but it’s usually irrelevant to everyday life, so those who use it wrong really give it a bad name.

I admit to listening to Sye Ten Bruggencate and Willian Lane Craig and then wanting to punch the next person who brings up a philosophical argument, but that’s just my frustration with those who use philosophy to lie and sound smart.

Philosophy in and of itself is good.

47

I live near the town where Robert Bly raised his children, so I have spent a few years around the “Men’s movement”. You might have heard of the Warrior archetype. There is also the King, Queen and Wizard. Each is an aspect of being human. Some men’s group focus too much on one or the other, the idea is keep them balanced. You can look all this up.

What’s relevant here is, Robert once said that if you can maintain the Wizard, that’s the one that can be used to rebuild the other three. It’s why the jock typically burns out but the geek ends up happier in the long run. Alexander the Great almost left the legacy of the philosopher King, but his youthful ambition wanted to be a warrior and he died young.

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I wouldn’t say that philosophy is a way of tricking people or using lots of words to sound smart.
I had a detailed answer to this, but it was far too long, so I'm starting again. In pure philosophy, such as when used in the scientific method, philosophy is a way of getting possible answers which are then accepted or rejected based on the facts. But if you read any philosophy book, that's not what you're going to find in it. You're going to find the Kalam argument, the Five Ways argument or some other nonsense equally as intellectually deficient. In this arguments, and much of philosophy as it is actually used (especially in the courtroom), the purpose isn't to "prove" anything, it's to win an argument.

Take the first of the Five Ways argument (you can look it up). It, like many of these “God is real” philosophical arguments, starts out listing facts you can’t dispute, including to state something so obvious that it’s suspiciously so. Then they move on to stating things which are far more vague like, “Nothing can move itself”. Well, define “a thing”. Is a car “a thing”? It can move itself. Oh, now I understand the clarification in step 4! It’s a way to argue against anything moving itself, should the argument arise! The end of the argument is a “logical conclusion” which is anything but followed by a bold assertion which is far trickier that you would imagine. You’ll note in the conclusion, they’re not making the single claim, “My god exists!” They FIRST come to the “logical conclusion” that it exists AND THEN ease you into the possibility that this thing, which definitely exists, is what they describe as God. It actually separates “My God exists” into 2 separate claims, which require 2 separate rebuttals and those rebuttals now cannot be “Show me your evidence for that”. Because they just replaced “facts”, which can tell us if a thing is true or false, with “logical proofs”, which can go any way the arguer wants (hence why lawyers learn philosophy). And if you’re arguing with them then you let them do it. THIS is the philosophy I hate and, unfortunately, this is the only philosophy I ever see.

49

I just thought of a way to sum this up briefly which should completely clarify my thoughts on philosophy in a very short way.

Philosophy as a way of postulating potential answers which are then checked against facts to arrive at actual answers is a great thing.

Philosophy as a way of coming up with actual answers is a bastardization of philosophy and the bane of all that is good.

Philosophy as a way of contemplating potential answers to questions known to be unanswerable is a pointless waste of time best utilized by friends getting high together.

50

Widdershins, I suggest to you that one’s philosophy of, on or about a particular subject is one’s approach to that subject. We all come to consider any subject with the prejudices of our lifetime. There is a saying that we only know the songs we hear. Thus our need for learning and our respect for those that have achieved a high level of understanding of a particular subject. What we accept as objective is determined by our philosophy, and our philosophy is rooted in what we accept as a priori knowledge. I suggest that no one comes to any subject without some agenda. The degree to which another’s agenda appears “pure” is entirely dependent on our own philosophy.

This is really way, way off the subject of alien abductions.

51

It may be off the subject of alien abductions, but it’s where these conversations usually go. If you are going to start talking about something that has limited evidence and low probability, especially on a skeptics forum, someone is going to ask how you know. If you can’t answer that, there’s no point in continuing. If you want that kind of conversation, there are places to do it. You can find threads here about the Fermi paradox, the definition of a living organism, bacteria surviving a trip through space, the possibility of long distance space travel, and lots of other stuff that has to be answered before you can get to the possibility of aliens abducting humans.

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t had experiences in your life that lead to asking the right questions. If you bump into people who can explain why those are the right questions and you can’t respond to their points, you don’t get to just go around and pretend like the questions don’t exist. You can go back, you can find people who don’t care about how truth is determined, but you don’t get to tell someone they can’t ask legitimate questions because your experience is different. The word “legitimate” loses all meaning if you do that. It’s true that:

The degree to which another’s agenda appears “pure” is entirely dependent on our own philosophy.
But we don’t progress toward an understanding of our world by depending on only the philosophy that we have so far developed. As Feynman said, the easiest person to fool is yourself. Rather than worrying about other’s agendas, we progress by considering all points of view and filtering them with our skills of reason and logic.
52

Bob, you and I look at reality very differently. And that’s okay, so long as we can both agree that your way is wrong :wink:

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Lausten, do you know of any way to access David Frost’s interview of Feynman? I expect you know Feynman debunked the “o-ring failure” explanation for the Challenger disaster in that interview.

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There’s a whole documentary on that. He testified before Congress about it.

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Yes, I know what the official story was, but I saw a program maybe two years or so (maybe more) after that in which David Frost (BBC) interviewed Feynmen and Feynman told in detail how he had been duped into “discovering” the problem the o-ring material had with cold temps. He also related how he was prevented from traveling out of the country after he figured out he had been had. He was really bitter about that. In that one interview Feynman validated the alternate story (conspiracy theory, if you like) about what actually caused the disaster. I’ve tried, but I can find no evidence at all that the interview ever took place. I know I did not dream it up. Is there a way to search CFI for mentions of that sort of thing?

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I don’t have any special search powers. David Frost was a very popular show. If that interview happened, there would be a record of it.

57

Widdershins, I think your frustration with philosophy comes from bad philosophy. Kalam and other justifications for the existence of god are usually based on faulty logic. They annoy me because they are wrong not because they are philosophy. (There’s probably a great analogy here, but I’m in a hurry.)

Bob, if you’re wondering about Feynman’s O-ring discovery, he was basically led to that conclusion by some military person who knew about it and strongly hinted at it so that Feynman would ‘discover’ it for himself. I read about that years ago in some book on Feynman. Sorry I can’t say which book.

58

Yes, I do know that philosophy can be used for good as well as evil. Let me tell you, when I realized it was part of the scientific method a part of me died a little because I really hate the way philosophy is used these days. But facts are facts, so I adjusted my beliefs.

I’m talking about the way it’s actually used, though. It is far more common to use philosophy as a means of winning an argument (such as in a courtroom), usually by muddying the water and confusing the facts, or to ponder questions which are not only unanswerable, but for which there is no reason to ask them, such as if reality is as we perceive it to be. Why would I waste my time pondering that which is unknowable and has no affect on reality as I know it? What could I possibly hope to gain from that? Reality won’t change because I had a clever thought about its possible nature.

I cannot think of a single example of philosophy I have ever personally seen which was not pointless in its entirety, though. Not one. I must have seen at least one, but I can’t think of it. I know that it is a part of the scientific method, but I have never actually seen that as I am not a scientist.

59

Existential Comics puts it like this:

“Why does philosophy matter?”
“I don’t know, why does science matter?”
“Well because scie-”
“Annnnnnnd you are doing philosophy.”

We don’t know everything and maybe can’t know everything. You can’t find reasons to not use reason because you would be using reason to do it. I can’t physically prove you aren’t a brain in a jar, but I can explain why that is extremely unlikely. Those are all philosophies that you use every day.

 

60

Philosophy is the overarching tent that everything sits under. I can happily work under the tent while ignoring and not understanding it.

Maybe if those who wrote about it didn’t make their stuff incomprehensible to outsiders I would care more about it, but they either can’t or won’t write in a way that I understand.

I totally know why Widdershins has his opinion and have a pretty low opinion of it myself. But since I’m pretty sure my low opinion is mostly based on my lack of understanding, I won’t try to defend my low opinion.

And to be on topic, if I ever get abducted by aliens, I’ll ask their opinion of philosophy.