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What you're ignoring is that "signal" is in the interpretation. You're blind to that. You can crank up data, and wind down your "signal" to confirm your existin

by gadf 5y ago

What you're ignoring is that "signal" is in the interpretation. You're blind to that. You can crank up data, and wind down your "signal" to confirm your existing biases. In fact that's what you need to do to preserve your "no unexplained" belief system. And that's what you see, people reaching for every more crazy explanations to pretend they didn't see what they saw: "the pilots hallucinated, and the battlegroup sensors all hallucinated, at the same time, repeatedly, over a few months" I like the liminal theory but this isn't the same thing.

wpietri 5y ago
Nah. As I mentioned, I believe alien life is very likely to exist somewhere in the universe. I'd be fucking thrilled if it were to drop by for a visit. Fairies and wizards and dragons and whatnot would be cool too. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing that all of these have been on the margins for a long time, and continue to be on the margins despite the massive increase in our ability to document things over the last couple centuries.
- gadf 5y ago
  That part of you wants to believe in alien visitors, seems to be independent of the priors you have (about the impossibility of this) that filters your interpretation of the data. I think that's normal. People's ideas do not need to be self-consistent and can "contain multitudes". To extend the pirate rapists example from my other answer. Maybe you'd never known a pirate that had raped a person, but I think if you knew someone who told you that story, and you'd heard other people had similar experiences, you'd certainly believe them. Or maybe not pirates but Trump supporters. Or whatever group fit your priors for likely/payoff for you to do this. So the "aliens are not a smart possibility" here is just an interpretation skewed by the way you want to read signal in the evidence. It's equal that we can look at the same things and come to different conclusions. That's diversity of opinion and experience. But maybe you haven't even looked at the same things. Certainly we look at them in different ways. I believe aliens are here. But I'm not saying this Navy evidence points to that definitely. I'm saying it doesn't rule it out. It's smart to keep open to it. I'd say the preponderance of witness evidence over decades without a doubt points to that they are here. Does this evidence prove it? No to me. But I know it. It's what I believe based on my own knowledge and experiences. You have a different belief is normal. I don't think either of us can claim to be "right" on this topic re evidence (tho about the solar system, what do you think about those weird obelisks? structures on the moon? NASA's history of censoring space photos? Lights on Ceres, on Phobos, on Luna?) In one view, the lack of solid widely accepted data is why there's so much "meat" to be argued about, but actually I don't think that's the meat, that's just reaching the ground consensus that people will reach different conclusions and I think as long as they do so with an open mind to the evidence that's valid. I do think you have to admit that what you say about it comes not from evidence, but from your interpretation of it. It's not proven either way, it's just your belief that it's so. And that's all that matters so far right.

by gadf 5y ago

wpietri 5y ago

Nah. As I mentioned, I believe alien life is very likely to exist somewhere in the universe. I'd be fucking thrilled if it were to drop by for a visit. Fairies and wizards and dragons and whatnot would be cool too. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing that all of these have been on the margins for a long time, and continue to be on the margins despite the massive increase in our ability to document things over the last couple centuries.

gadf 5y ago
That part of you wants to believe in alien visitors, seems to be independent of the priors you have (about the impossibility of this) that filters your interpretation of the data. I think that's normal. People's ideas do not need to be self-consistent and can "contain multitudes". To extend the pirate rapists example from my other answer. Maybe you'd never known a pirate that had raped a person, but I think if you knew someone who told you that story, and you'd heard other people had similar experiences, you'd certainly believe them. Or maybe not pirates but Trump supporters. Or whatever group fit your priors for likely/payoff for you to do this. So the "aliens are not a smart possibility" here is just an interpretation skewed by the way you want to read signal in the evidence. It's equal that we can look at the same things and come to different conclusions. That's diversity of opinion and experience. But maybe you haven't even looked at the same things. Certainly we look at them in different ways. I believe aliens are here. But I'm not saying this Navy evidence points to that definitely. I'm saying it doesn't rule it out. It's smart to keep open to it. I'd say the preponderance of witness evidence over decades without a doubt points to that they are here. Does this evidence prove it? No to me. But I know it. It's what I believe based on my own knowledge and experiences. You have a different belief is normal. I don't think either of us can claim to be "right" on this topic re evidence (tho about the solar system, what do you think about those weird obelisks? structures on the moon? NASA's history of censoring space photos? Lights on Ceres, on Phobos, on Luna?) In one view, the lack of solid widely accepted data is why there's so much "meat" to be argued about, but actually I don't think that's the meat, that's just reaching the ground consensus that people will reach different conclusions and I think as long as they do so with an open mind to the evidence that's valid. I do think you have to admit that what you say about it comes not from evidence, but from your interpretation of it. It's not proven either way, it's just your belief that it's so. And that's all that matters so far right.