What about UFOs

[Koshmenk]

Okay so here is the thing… There are a lot of people who are skeptical, and that is fair, but why is all UFO or UAP information classified if they don't exist? Is anyone saying there are no classified documents on UFOs? When people ask for specific videos and radar information relating to UPAs, it's highly classified. Why won't they release the rest of the videos for tic-tac, go fast, and gimbal? If UFOs don't exist, why are they classified...

On the other hand, I start to think about what Grusch said, we as ephemeral beings cannot afford to travel thousands of light years to study a planet or without even thousands of light years but rather our own planets of the solar system, we have to send probes to relay information back. Now I ask you the following: if an extraterrestrial intelligence wanted to study both us and society or the planet's resources, wouldn't it be better to send probes to do the studies or collect data? and therefore where would this data go? (ignoring the part that would be sent back to your civilization) just as it happens in modern wars, an outpost near the target territory is always needed for practical purposes... these beings that are spoken of, will be attached to our system solar or are they foreigners?

As Carl Sagan once said (sort of), if we build an eight lane track next to an anthill, will the ants know what the eight lane track means? Or will they even notice it's there? Just as we would be able to offer our knowledge to the ants or our technologies?

 

[CR8Z]

Indeed.

 

[Blivot3]

On the American view point on this.. any time there seems to be information that leaks or damaging news comes out….

We seem to get a dump of UFO hype at the same moment. bReAkInG nEwS.

Just my two cents.

 

[Blivot3]

 

[Koshmenk]

I didn't want to get into the political arena but the USA is well known for providing disinformation or at least diverting attention for "national interest" purposes. I think that a large part of the population takes for granted that we are not alone in the universe and they are accepting that a cosmic consciousness did not only create us.

In the event that it is true that they are diverting attention, what is behind the smoke screen?

 

[The0bamessiah]

A lot of UFO stuff is classified because it is related to secret weapons or technology programs.

 

[zazo]

foia

 

[Koshmenk]

A lot of UFO stuff is classified because it is related to secret weapons or technology programs.

It is not that they are classified or not, but rather, the denial by the government even having the information that they exist...

 

[No1YeeTer818]

It is not that they are classified or not, but rather, the denial by the government even having the information that they exist...

Too much for the public to accept and would try to steal my spaceship. Anyways I came down here almost 129 years ago and crashed into a tree because I was texting and flying.

Word in the galaxy is we once wore this single lens like glasses and it projected what we are thinking in front of us like a hologram.

I can't wait to get back to party on and see my babe from the xenon sector.

Btw you earth beings stink!

 

[The0bamessiah]

It is not that they are classified or not, but rather, the denial by the government even having the information that they exist...

What denial? What information? What is it that exists?

I would say that the fact that any hearings regarding the existence of UFOs are being held is the opposite of a denial. If the US federal government were to deny their existence then holding hearings about them would be a very strange way to go about doing that.

If the US federal government has information about certain UFO sightings then it is entirely possible - and in fact quite probable in my opinion - that the information they do have is of a classified nature. What could cause this information to be classified is up for speculation of course. I would guess that either the UFOs being sighted are themselves classified objects under the direction of the US federal government, or that any information that the government may possess could have been gained through methods which are classified. The capabilities of radar, and other observational systems are not exactly the type of thing which the US is keen to publicize if it does not need to. Something like assuaging the worries of some people about some things they have seen in the sky is apparently not a good enough reason for the US federal government to disclose classified information.

The phenomenon of unidentified flying object sightings certainly exists. People see things in the sky which they can not identify, this is indisputable. But what these unidentified things may be is up for speculation. How likely it is that this speculation will produce a satisfactory answer for everyone is uncertain. One reason for this uncertainty is that some people already have preconceived notions about what UFOs are or are not. Some absolutely believe they are evidence of aliens. Other are certain that they are not aliens. No amount of discussion will change the minds of these people because they have already made them up.

UFOs are simply that : objects in the air that are currently not able to be identified by the person or persons observing them. Nothing about the phenomenon necessitates that it is or is not evidence of extraterrestrial beings. There are myriad possible explanations for them, ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary. Each individual sighting could have a different explanation as well as the phenomenon is not a unified one confined to a specific area, time, or group of people.

It might sound like I am dismissing the idea that UFOs are aliens, or super-secret human technology, or something else entirely but I'm not. In fact I actually have seen a UFO : it was a cylindrical, cigar-shaped object with rectangles coming off both of the "long" sides of it. It didn't look like any airplane I recognized and it was too high - it passed above multiple clouds - to be a bird so I don't know what it was. Instead I am just open to any possible explanation for UFOs so I don't want to ascribe any preconceived notion on them.

 

[-bZ-LongTrang1]

That the UFO/UAP thing is real is at this point sufficiently established that the people who argue against it seem to be the crazy tin-foil mad hatters these days.

I am not willing to buy into the alien bit though. Not without more evidence.

As it stands someone has tech that the rest of us don't understand and I don't know why this is so hard to accept in a society where bloody everyone has a smartphone and almost none of them know how to make one.

 

[The0bamessiah]

That the UFO/UAP thing is real is at this point sufficiently established that the people who argue against it seem to be the crazy tin-foil mad hatters these days.

I am not willing to buy into the alien bit though. Not without more evidence.

As it stands someone has tech that the rest of us don't understand and I don't know why this is so hard to accept in a society where bloody everyone has a smartphone and almost none of them know how to make one.

To be fair I doubt many people in the past outside of those who produced them knew how to make a horseshoe, or a plowshare, or many other types of items. Conversely I doubt the people who make the smartphones know how to farm their food, or refine their gasoline either. The agricultural revolution enabled specialization. No longer did every person need to know how to make every object or tool in their life. The smartphone is not too different in that regard : it's a tool crafted by a specialist for others to use.

However I agree with you about your point that since seemingly spectacular technology like the smartphone is commonplace so it can't be too unreasonable that something similarly wondrous in the realm of aeronautics might too exist.

 

[FluffMuffin94]

We live in a simulation.

Nothing is real.

Especially not UFOs

 

[Koshmenk]

I would say that the fact that any hearings regarding the existence of UFOs are being held is the opposite of a denial. If the US federal government were to deny their existence then holding hearings about them would be a very strange way to go about doing that.

since Roswell at 46' there has been talk of possible extraterrestrial life and it wasn't until technology gave us the opportunity to capture moments that before could only have been stories told by word of mouth that the government began to release information, not it is no lie that they have denied the existence in the past and that is what I was talking about.

We live in a simulation.

Nothing is real.

Especially not UFOs

When we talk about living in a simulation, we are referring to semiotic theories where there is a word that describes everything: Umwelt, for each organism the perception of reality is different and is reduced to how our brain interprets our environment as per for example, the blind and deaf world of ticks, their perception is based on temperature and the smell of butyric acid, or for the horsefish that is based solely on electromagnetic fields. Our reality is based on the perception of each organism and it is thanks to our brain that we can perceive the world as we perceive it, by how it works anatomically and physiologically.
This is what we mean by living in a simulation because our brain simulates what is around us according to the given perception, that nothing is real comes from the same stupidity of the Terralanists, when these semiotic theories came out the light the most skeptical people decided to think for themselves and ended up speaking like this... (no offense intended)

 

[No1YeeTer818]

Thoughts about my fellow aliens landing in someone's backyard a few months back?

 

[NorthropGunman]

We live in a simulation.

Nothing is real.

Especially not UFOs

Unlikely.

The simulation argument is just a modern restatement of the dream argument; these ideas are almost as old as philosophy itself.

The dream argument says that since we can dream, and dreams are often indistinguishable from reality, we can never be absolutely certain that we're not currently dreaming. In fact, it's possible that we've simply always been dreaming, and have never woken to experience reality at all.

There's another related idea regarding perception of reality (i.e. physical): do we perceive reality identically to one another? There are clearly people who observe reality radically differently than the average person, we usually call these people "insane". But is it possible that everyone experiences it slightly differently? And if so, what does that imply about the reality "out there": is it somehow contingent on the observer?

I think the major issue with the simulation argument is: where the hell does the computational power for such an intricate simulation come from? The processing power to model physics for the entirety of the universe for just one second seems, to me anyway, to require more energy than is likely to exist in said universe. Recall that we're living in a "simulation" and so it seems reasonable to assume that "reality" isn't different from our simulation: there can't be exotic laws of thermodynamics in the reality which is simulating us.

Essentially, believing in the simulation argument is equivalent to believing that you are insane, or that you are living in a dream, or that everyone experiences his own personal reality. None of these are really tenable beliefs.

 

[NorthropGunman]

Thermodynamics also makes the probability of being visited by intelligent life, even via probes, almost impossible. That intelligent life exists does not mean that it will be anywhere near us, and even the most advanced lifeforms would be bound by thermodynamics: interstellar travel is all but impossible due to the time scales involved (going faster requires light speed requires infinite energy, not unlike simulating the universe). By the time a civilization who develops interstellar flight receives return communications from a sufficiently distant probe, the civilation will be extinct. Given that the universe is expanding (and is VAST), the probability that ANY lifeform, intelligent or otherwise, will be beyond this reach seems to be very high.

 

[The0bamessiah]

since Roswell at 46' there has been talk of possible extraterrestrial life and it wasn't until technology gave us the opportunity to capture moments that before could only have been stories told by word of mouth that the government began to release information, not it is no lie that they have denied the existence in the past and that is what I was talking about.

You're speaking of the existence of extraterrestrial life as if it is a foregone conclusion. That life on other planets does exist and that it has visited us. What I am saying is that there is not enough evidence to make these kinds of conclusions. If you're going to say that the US federal government has evidence of extraterrestrial life and that it is actively suppressing this information then nothing I say is going to dissuade you from this belief because you've moved beyond reason and rationality and moved into the realm of cyclical conspiracy theory.

Thermodynamics also makes the probability of being visited by intelligent life, even via probes, almost impossible. That intelligent life exists does not mean that it will be anywhere near us, and even the most advanced lifeforms would be bound by thermodynamics: interstellar travel is all but impossible due to the time scales involved (going faster requires light speed requires infinite energy, not unlike simulating the universe). By the time a civilization who develops interstellar flight receives return communications from a sufficiently distant probe, the civilation will be extinct. Given that the universe is expanding (and is VAST), the probability that ANY lifeform, intelligent or otherwise, will be beyond this reach seems to be very high.

That's assuming that our knowledge of thermodynamics is correct, or that any of our scientific knowledge is correct for that matter. Remember that it was not too long ago that things like the firmament and miasma were considered to be accepted, settled facts. If an intelligent life form on some distant world exists it's entirely possible that they have reached a scientific conclusion ( as we would call it ) with a different understanding of their environment than our own. Perhaps their perception of the physical nature of their existence is different from ours and that perception allows for things outside of our current conception of reality. Things like faster-than-light travel or communication could be as inconsequential for them as something like the use of fire is for us.

I'm not saying to disregard the scientific knowledge humanity has accumulated though. Just that we should always keep an open mind to things. Drawing sweeping conclusions about things we have not observed is a bad idea because it creates a kind of cognitive barrier to new ideas : because something hasn't been witnessed it mustn't be possible. This is the same kind of closed-minded thinking that creates fanatical religious zealots and rabid atheists ; in this case neither of these extremes are valuable to a rational mind because they are clouded by personal biases and preconceived notions.

 

[The0bamessiah]

Unlikely.

The simulation argument is just a modern restatement of the dream argument; these ideas are almost as old as philosophy itself.

The dream argument says that since we can dream, and dreams are often indistinguishable from reality, we can never be absolutely certain that we're not currently dreaming. In fact, it's possible that we've simply always been dreaming, and have never woken to experience reality at all.

There's another related idea regarding perception of reality (i.e. physical): do we perceive reality identically to one another? There are clearly people who observe reality radically differently than the average person, we usually call these people "insane". But is it possible that everyone experiences it slightly differently? And if so, what does that imply about the reality "out there": is it somehow contingent on the observer?

I think the major issue with the simulation argument is: where the hell does the computational power for such an intricate simulation come from? The processing power to model physics for the entirety of the universe for just one second seems, to me anyway, to require more energy than is likely to exist in said universe. Recall that we're living in a "simulation" and so it seems reasonable to assume that "reality" isn't different from our simulation: there can't be exotic laws of thermodynamics in the reality which is simulating us.

Essentially, believing in the simulation argument is equivalent to believing that you are insane, or that you are living in a dream, or that everyone experiences his own personal reality. None of these are really tenable beliefs.

I think the "we're living in a simulation!" people are mostly memeing. Those who aren't have just taken the post-modern meta-philosophy to the extreme : because our perception is our reality that must mean that if we perceive our reality as being a non-real simulation that that must be the truth. It's like concluding that because you can think about a 6-headed-dragon-goth-girl-with-big-tits then that 6-headed-dragon-goth-girl-with-big-tits must be real because your perception of your thoughts is expressed in your mind in a manner in which your physical senses are capable of understanding. You can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste the 6-headed-dragon-goth-girl-with-big-tits in your mind so it has to be as real as the apple you are biting into because you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste the apple too.

In effect they are thinking too much about what it means to think.

Also lol The Matrix was cool XD

 

[HugoStiglitz165]

you can't physically travel faster than the speed of light. how could they (or us) get millions of lightyears across the universe? our galaxy is 100,000 lightyears across ffs...

even if we somehow figured out how to travel at the speed of light, it would still take that many years to get anywhere. i just don't understand how it's possible