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I don’t think aliens and magic belong in the same category though. Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding.

I don’t think aliens and magic belong in the same category though. Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding. But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. It would be a shock, obviously, just like it was a shock when we discovered that other galaxies exist, or black holes, or that nuclear fission is possible. If intelligent aliens do exist and are close enough to us to be detected (or to detect us), which is certainly possible and maybe even probable, then we’re likely going to find out about them someday. Is that what’s happening now with these UAP? It seems that we don’t know yet, but it’s as unscientific to throw out the aliens hypothesis a priori as to insist it’s definitely aliens and no other explanation is possible.

LarryMullins 4y ago
Magic that works isn't called magic, so magic not working is basically tautological. Inscribing intricate patterns on crystals to summon non-human intelligence you can converse with? That's not magic, that's computer engineering and science. It's not magic, because it works. Magic is whatever hasn't been demonstrated to work. Transmuting lead into gold? That was magic until we figured out nuclear physics, then it became not magic. Aliens haven't yet been demonstrated to exist, so they're in the same domain as fantastic claims that haven't yet been demonstrated to work. Magic.
- danenania 4y ago
  Aliens haven’t been demonstrated to exist, but we have seen that life exists in the only solar system we’re capable of closely observing. We humans have a long history of erroneously assuming that we’re the special case. Magic implies we have no idea of how a phenomenon is possible, but we know perfectly well that the existence of aliens is possible. They’re like black holes or gravitational waves before we found physical evidence for them, not magic.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    There's a whole lot of seemingly rational and well grounded theorizing about why aliens should exist. But there's no evidence for it, despite many years of looking. At a certain point, when you can't reconcile observed reality with your beautiful theory, you've got to question the theory. That's the essence of science, discarding theories that cannot be reconciled with observed reality. It may be the case that advanced life capable of sending radio signals or traveling the stars is so exceedingly unlikely to form that even life on earth was a freak fluke of luck. Remember that life on earth got stuck in the mono-cellular stage for billions of years. There was no assurance it would ever get past that stage. And the number of stars in the universe is a weak rebuttal to this line of thinking, since it only takes a handful of independent "one in a million" chances to create a a probability so stupidly small that it makes the number of stars in the entire observable universe seem mundane.
    - revscat 4y ago
      There’s “no evidence” only if you ignore what has been happening on our skies for the past 70+ years. To be sure SETI has found nothing, nor has Hubble, nor JWT, nor Sloan nor Voyager nor Opportunity. Yet something keeps showing up in our skies, year after year, decade after decade, and that something is widely and roundly ignored.
      - Eisenstein 4y ago
        How is unexplained phenomena 'evidence'? Because 'aliens might exist' is a theory and 'there is stuff that happens in the sky that has not been formally explained' is a fact, why should we connect the two as evidence of one another? 'Cockroaches taste like jellybeans' is a theory. 'Many people waking up in the middle of the night, having heard a rustling, without being able to see put something in their mouth that tastes like a jellybean, living near and employed at a jellybean factory' is not evidence of this theory.
        revscat 4y ago
        Let me rephrase it: “Is there evidence of something unexplained going on in our skies?” Answer that question before moving on. If your answer is “no” then no further discussion is warranted. If yes then further investigation is needed.
XorNot 4y ago
Aliens isn't being thrown out a priori, because the hypothesis isn't just "it's aliens". The hypothesis, to fit the evidence is: "it's aliens, using technology advanced enough that it can do things nothing else on Earth can do, without generating the normally expected physical effects, and are also mostly but not entirely undetectable".
- danenania 4y ago
  Given what we’ve learned about the challenges of interstellar travel, it’s safe to assume that any civilization capable of visiting us would be thousands of years beyond our current understanding of physics. If you compare our current understanding of physics to what humans knew thousands of years ago, it’s logical that the technology of an interstellar civilization would be as far beyond our understanding as a nuclear reactor would have been to the ancient Romans.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    This is not remotely a safe assumption. We know interstellar travel is resource intensive, but it's within the capabilities of todays technology. It was probably doable with some effort with 1960s technology. This is the same basic error of reasoning where people say because the moon landing happened, faking the moon landing was also possible (it wasn't: video editing technology of sufficient capability did not exist - space flight and CGI are two entirely separate lines of technical problem solving).
    - danenania 4y ago
      It’s not within today’s technology to actually visit an extrasolar planet. We could possibly do a flyby with a solar sail but we don’t have a way to slow down and enter the planet’s atmosphere. And even that only gets us to the relatively small number of stars that are in our immediate vicinity in any kind of human-civilization-scale timeframe.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      Space is 3-dimensional and astronomically, cosmically huge. Getting from a planet to space is trivial compared to getting from space to a planet.
jack_pp 4y ago
Magic/ supernatural isn't unscientific by definition. We don't believe in it because there isn't anyone able to do those things for all of us to see. Science is defined by the scientific method and our curiosity to apply it not by our scepticism.
- epgui 4y ago
  If it was real, it would not be called “supernatural”, by literal definition.
  - louison11 4y ago
    Supernatural (adj): (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding.
    - naasking 4y ago
      > Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding I think you're reading that wrong. "Beyond scientific understanding" doesn't mean "beyond current scientific understanding", it actually means, "beyond any possible scientific understanding". So a supernatural phenomenon would defeat any possible attempt at characterizing it scientifically.
      - jack_pp 4y ago
        Have you considered that you're interpreting it wrong? Go back in time with self-replicating, able to construct themselves to predefined structures, nanobots and you'll have supernatural powers that "violate" scientific understanding of the time. Doesn't mean it can't be explained. It is true hubris and actually kind of sad to think we know all laws of nature and nothing new could stump us and our cherished laws of nature. Also, read my other comments. Science is about explaining the previously unexplainable. So nothing, no phenomena you sense with your senses, is beyond science.
wpietri 4y ago
>But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. The existence of aliens, sure. But the presence of aliens on Earth pretty much does. There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible, and it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships to cross the great interstellar gulfs just so that they can fuck around with pilots and anally probe hayseeds.
- ElFitz 4y ago
  That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave. For us, it's just another 5 years old.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.
    - danenania 4y ago
      We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us. There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons. Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        There is absolutely zero data on the presence of life in the universe. You are imagining that life out there. Which is fine! I sometimes imagine it too. It's fun to imagine, but we are just filling in gaps with imagination. As an example, note that people imagined life on Mars based on "evidence". Life with canals and everything. [1] But once our telescopes got better, those same alien civilizations got pushed back just out of their range. A process strikingly similar to what religious people do with gods, angels, etc. There's also no real data on where the universe comes from, so they can imagine that it is due to god(s). God used to be on a high mountain, or just above the sky. But like the Martians, He has had to up sticks and move to loftier realms. I'll also note that some of the alien-imaginers use exactly your reasoning to derive gods. Statistically, aliens must exist, and they must have existed long before us, and they must therefore be so technologically advanced that UFOs are real and we can't prove it just because they are so superior. Or, alternatively, that those aliens caused us in one way or another, from shaping our evolution to seeding our planet to creating the universe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals
8note 4y ago
You're sayihg that not only do aliens exist, but that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong? Or the universe is non local, and these aliens have developed ftl teleportation? In order to get here, aliens have to have traveled here, and while traveling, and alive, they'll give off heat -- glowing brightly if they have to turn or accelerate to avoid crashing really hard into the earth. An alien arriving before they traveled breaks a lot of things, and makes them much closer to magic than some single cell equivalents on a distant moon
ilyt 4y ago
> Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding. Many of the "UFO" observations fall into that. As is "under known physics it is impossible explanation"
- danenania 4y ago
  The observed behaviors do appear to contradict physical laws. My point is if we’re looking for an explanation, it’s either some natural phenomenon or illusion that we don’t understand, human technology, or alien technology. In either of the latter two options, we are either talking about new physics or very advanced spoofing tech that looks like new physics but isn’t really. For human tech, we’ve never seen anything resembling a leap like that being accomplished by a government in total secrecy. It’s hard to imagine. I think this holds even if it’s just crazy advanced spoofing, given the details of the various encounters. But for alien tech: if intelligent aliens do exist and they did visit us, it would follow that their technology and scientific understanding are far beyond our own. It’s basically impossible that they wouldn’t have knowledge of new physics that we have no current inkling of, just as a scientist from a thousand years ago could have no inkling of relativity or black holes. In this sense, strange inexplicable phenomena that break the laws of physics (as we currently understand them) are consistent with aliens. So to me, the real question is whether we can figure out a natural phenomenon to explain this. If it is something natural, it seems like it has to be something pretty weird. If it’s not, aliens seem like a valid candidate, pending further evidence.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    The reverse of that is assuming our instruments (which eyes totally are) are perfect and therefore if they saw something it must be the first guess and not just an error or misinterpretation. You're basically saying "alien tech is un-understandable however we can still easily tell it is alien and not measurement error"
    - danenania 4y ago
      Measurement artifacts or malfunction (and mistaken eyewitness accounts from multiple credible observers) are another possibility, but they're difficult to square with the data. There's just too much signal, measured in too many different ways, to handwave it away like that.
zopa 4y ago
The trouble with the aliens is that it’s too good an explanation. Inscrutable beings with tech we don’t don’t understand works as an explanation of just about anything, so if we allow that in our explanatory toolbox we’ll end up crying “aliens” for all sorts of hard-to-explain phenomena. In most of those cases we’d have found a mundane explanation if we looked longer and thought harder. Non-falsifiable, broad spectrum theories like aliens and magic need to go last on the list, down below “we don’t know yet, let’s gather more data,” or we’ll end up fooling ourselves. If there really are aliens, eventually we should have enough evidence that we can build specific, falsifiable theories about particular, well-defined entities with at least rough bounds on capabilities. But we’re not close to that point yet.

LarryMullins 4y ago

Magic that works isn't called magic, so magic not working is basically tautological. Inscribing intricate patterns on crystals to summon non-human intelligence you can converse with? That's not magic, that's computer engineering and science. It's not magic, because it works. Magic is whatever hasn't been demonstrated to work. Transmuting lead into gold? That was magic until we figured out nuclear physics, then it became not magic. Aliens haven't yet been demonstrated to exist, so they're in the same domain as fantastic claims that haven't yet been demonstrated to work. Magic.

danenania 4y ago
Aliens haven’t been demonstrated to exist, but we have seen that life exists in the only solar system we’re capable of closely observing. We humans have a long history of erroneously assuming that we’re the special case. Magic implies we have no idea of how a phenomenon is possible, but we know perfectly well that the existence of aliens is possible. They’re like black holes or gravitational waves before we found physical evidence for them, not magic.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  There's a whole lot of seemingly rational and well grounded theorizing about why aliens should exist. But there's no evidence for it, despite many years of looking. At a certain point, when you can't reconcile observed reality with your beautiful theory, you've got to question the theory. That's the essence of science, discarding theories that cannot be reconciled with observed reality. It may be the case that advanced life capable of sending radio signals or traveling the stars is so exceedingly unlikely to form that even life on earth was a freak fluke of luck. Remember that life on earth got stuck in the mono-cellular stage for billions of years. There was no assurance it would ever get past that stage. And the number of stars in the universe is a weak rebuttal to this line of thinking, since it only takes a handful of independent "one in a million" chances to create a a probability so stupidly small that it makes the number of stars in the entire observable universe seem mundane.
  - revscat 4y ago
    There’s “no evidence” only if you ignore what has been happening on our skies for the past 70+ years. To be sure SETI has found nothing, nor has Hubble, nor JWT, nor Sloan nor Voyager nor Opportunity. Yet something keeps showing up in our skies, year after year, decade after decade, and that something is widely and roundly ignored.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      How is unexplained phenomena 'evidence'? Because 'aliens might exist' is a theory and 'there is stuff that happens in the sky that has not been formally explained' is a fact, why should we connect the two as evidence of one another? 'Cockroaches taste like jellybeans' is a theory. 'Many people waking up in the middle of the night, having heard a rustling, without being able to see put something in their mouth that tastes like a jellybean, living near and employed at a jellybean factory' is not evidence of this theory.
      - revscat 4y ago
        Let me rephrase it: “Is there evidence of something unexplained going on in our skies?” Answer that question before moving on. If your answer is “no” then no further discussion is warranted. If yes then further investigation is needed.

XorNot 4y ago

Aliens isn't being thrown out a priori, because the hypothesis isn't just "it's aliens". The hypothesis, to fit the evidence is: "it's aliens, using technology advanced enough that it can do things nothing else on Earth can do, without generating the normally expected physical effects, and are also mostly but not entirely undetectable".

danenania 4y ago
Given what we’ve learned about the challenges of interstellar travel, it’s safe to assume that any civilization capable of visiting us would be thousands of years beyond our current understanding of physics. If you compare our current understanding of physics to what humans knew thousands of years ago, it’s logical that the technology of an interstellar civilization would be as far beyond our understanding as a nuclear reactor would have been to the ancient Romans.
- XorNot 4y ago
  This is not remotely a safe assumption. We know interstellar travel is resource intensive, but it's within the capabilities of todays technology. It was probably doable with some effort with 1960s technology. This is the same basic error of reasoning where people say because the moon landing happened, faking the moon landing was also possible (it wasn't: video editing technology of sufficient capability did not exist - space flight and CGI are two entirely separate lines of technical problem solving).
  - danenania 4y ago
    It’s not within today’s technology to actually visit an extrasolar planet. We could possibly do a flyby with a solar sail but we don’t have a way to slow down and enter the planet’s atmosphere. And even that only gets us to the relatively small number of stars that are in our immediate vicinity in any kind of human-civilization-scale timeframe.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    Space is 3-dimensional and astronomically, cosmically huge. Getting from a planet to space is trivial compared to getting from space to a planet.

jack_pp 4y ago

Magic/ supernatural isn't unscientific by definition. We don't believe in it because there isn't anyone able to do those things for all of us to see. Science is defined by the scientific method and our curiosity to apply it not by our scepticism.

epgui 4y ago
If it was real, it would not be called “supernatural”, by literal definition.
- louison11 4y ago
  Supernatural (adj): (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding I think you're reading that wrong. "Beyond scientific understanding" doesn't mean "beyond current scientific understanding", it actually means, "beyond any possible scientific understanding". So a supernatural phenomenon would defeat any possible attempt at characterizing it scientifically.
    - jack_pp 4y ago
      Have you considered that you're interpreting it wrong? Go back in time with self-replicating, able to construct themselves to predefined structures, nanobots and you'll have supernatural powers that "violate" scientific understanding of the time. Doesn't mean it can't be explained. It is true hubris and actually kind of sad to think we know all laws of nature and nothing new could stump us and our cherished laws of nature. Also, read my other comments. Science is about explaining the previously unexplainable. So nothing, no phenomena you sense with your senses, is beyond science.

wpietri 4y ago

>But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. The existence of aliens, sure. But the presence of aliens on Earth pretty much does. There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible, and it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships to cross the great interstellar gulfs just so that they can fuck around with pilots and anally probe hayseeds.

ElFitz 4y ago
That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave. For us, it's just another 5 years old.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.
  - danenania 4y ago
    We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us. There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons. Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      There is absolutely zero data on the presence of life in the universe. You are imagining that life out there. Which is fine! I sometimes imagine it too. It's fun to imagine, but we are just filling in gaps with imagination. As an example, note that people imagined life on Mars based on "evidence". Life with canals and everything. [1] But once our telescopes got better, those same alien civilizations got pushed back just out of their range. A process strikingly similar to what religious people do with gods, angels, etc. There's also no real data on where the universe comes from, so they can imagine that it is due to god(s). God used to be on a high mountain, or just above the sky. But like the Martians, He has had to up sticks and move to loftier realms. I'll also note that some of the alien-imaginers use exactly your reasoning to derive gods. Statistically, aliens must exist, and they must have existed long before us, and they must therefore be so technologically advanced that UFOs are real and we can't prove it just because they are so superior. Or, alternatively, that those aliens caused us in one way or another, from shaping our evolution to seeding our planet to creating the universe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals

8note 4y ago

You're sayihg that not only do aliens exist, but that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong? Or the universe is non local, and these aliens have developed ftl teleportation? In order to get here, aliens have to have traveled here, and while traveling, and alive, they'll give off heat -- glowing brightly if they have to turn or accelerate to avoid crashing really hard into the earth. An alien arriving before they traveled breaks a lot of things, and makes them much closer to magic than some single cell equivalents on a distant moon

ilyt 4y ago

> Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding. Many of the "UFO" observations fall into that. As is "under known physics it is impossible explanation"

danenania 4y ago
The observed behaviors do appear to contradict physical laws. My point is if we’re looking for an explanation, it’s either some natural phenomenon or illusion that we don’t understand, human technology, or alien technology. In either of the latter two options, we are either talking about new physics or very advanced spoofing tech that looks like new physics but isn’t really. For human tech, we’ve never seen anything resembling a leap like that being accomplished by a government in total secrecy. It’s hard to imagine. I think this holds even if it’s just crazy advanced spoofing, given the details of the various encounters. But for alien tech: if intelligent aliens do exist and they did visit us, it would follow that their technology and scientific understanding are far beyond our own. It’s basically impossible that they wouldn’t have knowledge of new physics that we have no current inkling of, just as a scientist from a thousand years ago could have no inkling of relativity or black holes. In this sense, strange inexplicable phenomena that break the laws of physics (as we currently understand them) are consistent with aliens. So to me, the real question is whether we can figure out a natural phenomenon to explain this. If it is something natural, it seems like it has to be something pretty weird. If it’s not, aliens seem like a valid candidate, pending further evidence.
- ilyt 4y ago
  The reverse of that is assuming our instruments (which eyes totally are) are perfect and therefore if they saw something it must be the first guess and not just an error or misinterpretation. You're basically saying "alien tech is un-understandable however we can still easily tell it is alien and not measurement error"
  - danenania 4y ago
    Measurement artifacts or malfunction (and mistaken eyewitness accounts from multiple credible observers) are another possibility, but they're difficult to square with the data. There's just too much signal, measured in too many different ways, to handwave it away like that.

zopa 4y ago

The trouble with the aliens is that it’s too good an explanation. Inscrutable beings with tech we don’t don’t understand works as an explanation of just about anything, so if we allow that in our explanatory toolbox we’ll end up crying “aliens” for all sorts of hard-to-explain phenomena. In most of those cases we’d have found a mundane explanation if we looked longer and thought harder. Non-falsifiable, broad spectrum theories like aliens and magic need to go last on the list, down below “we don’t know yet, let’s gather more data,” or we’ll end up fooling ourselves. If there really are aliens, eventually we should have enough evidence that we can build specific, falsifiable theories about particular, well-defined entities with at least rough bounds on capabilities. But we’re not close to that point yet.