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Nobody but actual tinfoil hats are saying ”it’s definitely aliens”. Nobody is jumping to conclusions. It’s all probabilities, and disregarding a possibility wit

Nobody but actual tinfoil hats are saying ”it’s definitely aliens”. Nobody is jumping to conclusions. It’s all probabilities, and disregarding a possibility without evidence to contrary despite its improbability is, to my eye, as naive as their counter opposites.

JohnFen 4y ago
But why entertain this particular vanishingly unlikely explanation, when there are myriad other vanishingly unlikely possible explanations as well? That's the problem with considering the unlikely (especially when there is a lack of evidence for the phenomena prior to this). When you're that far down in the weeds, it's all noise. There are too many technically possible but extremely unlikely explanations to spend time on them all, and in the absence of evidence, there's no reason to single any one of them out.
- mach1ne 4y ago
  I understand your point, but I don’t believe the probability to be vanishingly small, just extremely small (in this particular case, based on what we currently know). I believe you and I differ in our prior estimation of the probability of extraterrestial observers. I find that the two prior base scenarios, one with galactically widespread advanced civilizations and one with only us alone in the vastness of space, would very probably look practically identical to us. There’s no reason advanced civilizations would use radiowaves for communication, and little reason for them to interfere in the development of a primitive civilization. I find that we would see an empty galaxy in both priors with a high likelihood. Given this, the core problem in assigning an actual probability for either scenario is that we don’t know how easy or difficult it is for intelligent life to emerge. At this point it is quite impossible to assign the probability, since our sample size is 1. It is no more true to assign a probability close to 0 than it is close to 1. This must then either be set to 0.5 or eyeballed by circumstantial info, which is never real proof to one direction or another. I believe it to be sufficiently high that the scenario where the apparently-empty galaxy is full of life is far from vanishingly small - and far from certain.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > I don’t believe the probability to be vanishingly small I consider it vanishingly small because of the screaming lack of even moderately firm evidence that it's ever actually happened. > I believe it to be sufficiently high that the scenario where the apparently-empty galaxy is full of life is far from vanishingly small - and far from certain I believe it is likely to the point of virtual certainty that there are other intelligent forms of life in the universe. We don't disagree there. But the universe is unimaginably enormous, and the chances of any two such life forms being within reach of each other is miniscule. In order for it not to be, the universe would have to be absolutely packed with such life, and if it were, we'd very likely have some sort of evidence of it. But my point still stands. Of all of the very unlikely things that might be true, why fixate so hard on this one? My suspicion is because people want it to be true, and starting with that stance makes error and misunderstanding very likely.
    - mach1ne 4y ago
      > But the universe is unimaginably enormous, and the chances of any two such life forms being within reach of each other is miniscule. In order for it not to be, the universe would have to be absolutely packed with such life, and if it were, we'd very likely have some sort of evidence of it. Yes, this is where we differ. Even at sub-light speeds, an advanced civilization would take only a few million years to colonize the entire galaxy. Thus, distances within a galaxy are trivial for intelligent life. Observable-universe-tier distances, however, are not - if we stay within sub-light speeds. If we assume that intelligent life could have emerged only within the last billion years, the observable universe would need to have quite many intelligent lifeforms indeed for some to have reached us. But then again, that's only a question of numbers. We have no idea of the probability of intelligence emerging and reaching space age. It could be very low or very high. We cannot make inferences about distances due to this. We can only consider evidence. If the universe and our galaxy was packed with life, and we assume they would not want to interfere with our development, what evidence would we have? Personally I can come up with no other possible evidence than radio signals. We can't image other solar systems yet with our equipment. Detecting Dyson spheres under construction is a reach for a number of reasons. And radio signals may easily be phased out very quickly as means of communication - we have only been using them for 100 years or so. This is why I don't find it convincing to use lack of evidence as evidence - what evidence would there be which we could detect short of direct contact? > Of all of the very unlikely things that might be true, why fixate so hard on this one? My suspicion is because people want it to be true, and starting with that stance makes error and misunderstanding very likely. You may be right on this point. However, I also believe that the historical stigma on discussing the extraterrestial scenario as a realistic possibility clouds the judgement of many towards overt caution, using strawmen where steelmen should be used. Evidence we have on the general subject points to no direction. Thus it's a question of probability for a very simple event - an intelligence reaching space age in any given planet, which we (almost) know to be non-zero. Therefore things like pooling extraterrestials together with wizards further strenghtens the stigma which greatly inhibits assessment of probabilities for explaining unexplained phenomena.

JohnFen 4y ago

But why entertain this particular vanishingly unlikely explanation, when there are myriad other vanishingly unlikely possible explanations as well? That's the problem with considering the unlikely (especially when there is a lack of evidence for the phenomena prior to this). When you're that far down in the weeds, it's all noise. There are too many technically possible but extremely unlikely explanations to spend time on them all, and in the absence of evidence, there's no reason to single any one of them out.

mach1ne 4y ago
I understand your point, but I don’t believe the probability to be vanishingly small, just extremely small (in this particular case, based on what we currently know). I believe you and I differ in our prior estimation of the probability of extraterrestial observers. I find that the two prior base scenarios, one with galactically widespread advanced civilizations and one with only us alone in the vastness of space, would very probably look practically identical to us. There’s no reason advanced civilizations would use radiowaves for communication, and little reason for them to interfere in the development of a primitive civilization. I find that we would see an empty galaxy in both priors with a high likelihood. Given this, the core problem in assigning an actual probability for either scenario is that we don’t know how easy or difficult it is for intelligent life to emerge. At this point it is quite impossible to assign the probability, since our sample size is 1. It is no more true to assign a probability close to 0 than it is close to 1. This must then either be set to 0.5 or eyeballed by circumstantial info, which is never real proof to one direction or another. I believe it to be sufficiently high that the scenario where the apparently-empty galaxy is full of life is far from vanishingly small - and far from certain.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I don’t believe the probability to be vanishingly small I consider it vanishingly small because of the screaming lack of even moderately firm evidence that it's ever actually happened. > I believe it to be sufficiently high that the scenario where the apparently-empty galaxy is full of life is far from vanishingly small - and far from certain I believe it is likely to the point of virtual certainty that there are other intelligent forms of life in the universe. We don't disagree there. But the universe is unimaginably enormous, and the chances of any two such life forms being within reach of each other is miniscule. In order for it not to be, the universe would have to be absolutely packed with such life, and if it were, we'd very likely have some sort of evidence of it. But my point still stands. Of all of the very unlikely things that might be true, why fixate so hard on this one? My suspicion is because people want it to be true, and starting with that stance makes error and misunderstanding very likely.
  - mach1ne 4y ago
    > But the universe is unimaginably enormous, and the chances of any two such life forms being within reach of each other is miniscule. In order for it not to be, the universe would have to be absolutely packed with such life, and if it were, we'd very likely have some sort of evidence of it. Yes, this is where we differ. Even at sub-light speeds, an advanced civilization would take only a few million years to colonize the entire galaxy. Thus, distances within a galaxy are trivial for intelligent life. Observable-universe-tier distances, however, are not - if we stay within sub-light speeds. If we assume that intelligent life could have emerged only within the last billion years, the observable universe would need to have quite many intelligent lifeforms indeed for some to have reached us. But then again, that's only a question of numbers. We have no idea of the probability of intelligence emerging and reaching space age. It could be very low or very high. We cannot make inferences about distances due to this. We can only consider evidence. If the universe and our galaxy was packed with life, and we assume they would not want to interfere with our development, what evidence would we have? Personally I can come up with no other possible evidence than radio signals. We can't image other solar systems yet with our equipment. Detecting Dyson spheres under construction is a reach for a number of reasons. And radio signals may easily be phased out very quickly as means of communication - we have only been using them for 100 years or so. This is why I don't find it convincing to use lack of evidence as evidence - what evidence would there be which we could detect short of direct contact? > Of all of the very unlikely things that might be true, why fixate so hard on this one? My suspicion is because people want it to be true, and starting with that stance makes error and misunderstanding very likely. You may be right on this point. However, I also believe that the historical stigma on discussing the extraterrestial scenario as a realistic possibility clouds the judgement of many towards overt caution, using strawmen where steelmen should be used. Evidence we have on the general subject points to no direction. Thus it's a question of probability for a very simple event - an intelligence reaching space age in any given planet, which we (almost) know to be non-zero. Therefore things like pooling extraterrestials together with wizards further strenghtens the stigma which greatly inhibits assessment of probabilities for explaining unexplained phenomena.