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I'm going to take a stab at phrasing the question in terms of a simple yes or no answer. Do you believe it is possible that there exists a physical phenomena

by zzzeek 8y ago

I'm going to take a stab at phrasing the question in terms of a simple yes or no answer. Do you believe it is possible that there exists a physical phenomena that, if described to you right now, would clearly be a "flight of fancy", however would in fact turn out to be real? Note I'm not asking you to state what that phenomena is or to "imagine" anything at all. Just that it can be ruled out that anything is really left to be discovered. Just as though it were the year 1500 and someone described radio waves to you. Because if you say no, that seems awfully confident that science has basically discovered every significant aspect of physical reality, it's just the small details left. The same attutide would have existed hundreds of years ago.

jerf 8y ago
"Do you believe it is possible that there exists a physical phenomena that, if described to you right now, would clearly be a "flight of fancy", however would in fact turn out to be real?" Yes, of course. I think those of you who are finding your feathers ruffled need to go back to the initial post. The question is, do you want to answer the question based on current science, or do you want to imagine whatever you want to be the case? Both are valid options. But pick one. You do nobody any favors when you try to blurrily flick back and forth on a whim. And the truth is, if you are going to just imagine whatever you like, there isn't much interesting to say about it precisely because anything could be true. Could aliens be communicating by getting high on DMT and have found a way to use DMT entities to transmit real, useful messages? Sure, whynot, but what's there to say about that? By contrast, we can discuss what real science currently has to say about what aliens may be doing. Current science says there's not much reason to expect anything but EM. If you find that unfortunate somehow, that's a psychological thing, not a scientific thing. Or, at least, we COULD discuss what real science has to say about it if people didn't immediately pop up with the equivalent of "But what about DMT-entity-based communication???!?" every single time.
- zzzeek 8y ago
  Good answer, except for the last part. I think there is not much reason to expect we will detect aliens using anything other than EM, because that is all we know. But for all we know they could be sending messages to other galxies by communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe.
  - jerf 8y ago
    Your turn: Yes or no, is "communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe" something we have zero evidence for? Is that not reasonably categorized as a "flight of fancy"? If yes, why do you expect to be able to say anything sensible about it? And why are we apparently obligated to discuss it despite explicitly setting up a premise of "let's discuss things using the physics we know?" This is failing on the most basic level of philosophical discussion here. We are allowed to discuss "If X, then Y" without being obligated to also discuss "if ~X", nor is it a reasonable philosophical objection to "If X, then Y" to say "Well, what if not X?" It is a reasonable objection to disprove X and prove the whole "If X, then Y" conversation is thereby vacuous, but if you can disprove science as it stands today, this is hardly the place to do it. (I'd also point out I did discuss "what if ~X" even so. It's just that if we're going to assume anything we like, we can get any answer we like. There's a profound sense in which there isn't much to say at that point.)
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      From Littlewood's Miscellany: "Schoolmaster: 'Suppose x is the number of sheep in the problem.' Pupil: 'But, Sir, suppose x is not the number of sheep.' (I asked Prof. Wittgenstein was this not a profound philosophical joke, and he said it was.)"
    - zzzeek 8y ago
      > Your turn: Yes or no, is "communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe" something we have zero evidence for? Is that not reasonably categorized as a "flight of fancy"? absolutely > If yes, why do you expect to be able to say anything sensible about it? I said somehting I think was sensible, which is that we have no way of knowing such a thing. > And why are we apparently obligated to discuss it despite explicitly setting up a premise of "let's discuss things using the physics we know?" We are not. We are obligated to acknowledge we don't know everything, which you admitted to by stating that sure, something that's a flight of fancy today could someday prove to be true, hence, there are possibly things we don't know. We of course cannot do anything with that, because we have no way to know. > This is failing on the most basic level of philosophical discussion here. We are allowed to discuss "If X, then Y" without being obligated to also discuss "if ~X", nor is it a reasonable philosophical objection to "If X, then Y" to say "Well, what if not X?" It is a reasonable objection to disprove X and prove the whole "If X, then Y" conversation is thereby vacuous, but if you can disprove science as it stands today, this is hardly the place to do it. all I wanted to state was that there may be things that prove to be true which if we were to hear them today, we would only be able to conclude they are flights of fancy and nothing more. and we agreed. I'm not attempting to make the "how do you know X doesn't exist?" argument because there's no X that has been suggested except for an intentionally ridiculous example. I'm more making a comment on what seemed to be your absolute certainty that electromagnetic energy is definitely the only way any intelligent life form would ever communicate across distances, science has successfully and provably ruled out any other possibility.

by zzzeek 8y ago

jerf 8y ago

"Do you believe it is possible that there exists a physical phenomena that, if described to you right now, would clearly be a "flight of fancy", however would in fact turn out to be real?" Yes, of course. I think those of you who are finding your feathers ruffled need to go back to the initial post. The question is, do you want to answer the question based on current science, or do you want to imagine whatever you want to be the case? Both are valid options. But pick one. You do nobody any favors when you try to blurrily flick back and forth on a whim. And the truth is, if you are going to just imagine whatever you like, there isn't much interesting to say about it precisely because anything could be true. Could aliens be communicating by getting high on DMT and have found a way to use DMT entities to transmit real, useful messages? Sure, whynot, but what's there to say about that? By contrast, we can discuss what real science currently has to say about what aliens may be doing. Current science says there's not much reason to expect anything but EM. If you find that unfortunate somehow, that's a psychological thing, not a scientific thing. Or, at least, we COULD discuss what real science has to say about it if people didn't immediately pop up with the equivalent of "But what about DMT-entity-based communication???!?" every single time.

zzzeek 8y ago
Good answer, except for the last part. I think there is not much reason to expect we will detect aliens using anything other than EM, because that is all we know. But for all we know they could be sending messages to other galxies by communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe.
- jerf 8y ago
  Your turn: Yes or no, is "communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe" something we have zero evidence for? Is that not reasonably categorized as a "flight of fancy"? If yes, why do you expect to be able to say anything sensible about it? And why are we apparently obligated to discuss it despite explicitly setting up a premise of "let's discuss things using the physics we know?" This is failing on the most basic level of philosophical discussion here. We are allowed to discuss "If X, then Y" without being obligated to also discuss "if ~X", nor is it a reasonable philosophical objection to "If X, then Y" to say "Well, what if not X?" It is a reasonable objection to disprove X and prove the whole "If X, then Y" conversation is thereby vacuous, but if you can disprove science as it stands today, this is hardly the place to do it. (I'd also point out I did discuss "what if ~X" even so. It's just that if we're going to assume anything we like, we can get any answer we like. There's a profound sense in which there isn't much to say at that point.)
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    From Littlewood's Miscellany: "Schoolmaster: 'Suppose x is the number of sheep in the problem.' Pupil: 'But, Sir, suppose x is not the number of sheep.' (I asked Prof. Wittgenstein was this not a profound philosophical joke, and he said it was.)"
  - zzzeek 8y ago
    > Your turn: Yes or no, is "communicating with the outside makers of the AI Elon Musk thinks created the universe" something we have zero evidence for? Is that not reasonably categorized as a "flight of fancy"? absolutely > If yes, why do you expect to be able to say anything sensible about it? I said somehting I think was sensible, which is that we have no way of knowing such a thing. > And why are we apparently obligated to discuss it despite explicitly setting up a premise of "let's discuss things using the physics we know?" We are not. We are obligated to acknowledge we don't know everything, which you admitted to by stating that sure, something that's a flight of fancy today could someday prove to be true, hence, there are possibly things we don't know. We of course cannot do anything with that, because we have no way to know. > This is failing on the most basic level of philosophical discussion here. We are allowed to discuss "If X, then Y" without being obligated to also discuss "if ~X", nor is it a reasonable philosophical objection to "If X, then Y" to say "Well, what if not X?" It is a reasonable objection to disprove X and prove the whole "If X, then Y" conversation is thereby vacuous, but if you can disprove science as it stands today, this is hardly the place to do it. all I wanted to state was that there may be things that prove to be true which if we were to hear them today, we would only be able to conclude they are flights of fancy and nothing more. and we agreed. I'm not attempting to make the "how do you know X doesn't exist?" argument because there's no X that has been suggested except for an intentionally ridiculous example. I'm more making a comment on what seemed to be your absolute certainty that electromagnetic energy is definitely the only way any intelligent life form would ever communicate across distances, science has successfully and provably ruled out any other possibility.