UFOs, Language and Occam's Razor

[Michael Allen]

UFOs, Language and Occam's Razor

While I understand why you say that I think it could be argued that the serious circles of high dollar, high resources, and high skill are already under regulation and control

.

Not likely, unless the "high dollar, high resource and high skill" are policing themselves. Centralized control would overturn the proposition (it would imply these attributes are not needed for control). And at any rate, I am not speaking of an "elite"--I am speaking of the serious researchers (who are not necessarily wealthy).

I think it could be argued that there is a serious inner circle that already studies and knows the truth (a mercurial thing at best) about the subject. However, the manipulation of the consciousness of society or sub-components of it has other uses and implications.

Project Grudge, Blue Book, the Robertson Panel and the Condon Study do not bear this out--indeed, some of the individuals involved in these "studies" (phenomenon deniers, detractors, etc) would later seriously consider the possibility (a real one) that the phenomenon was perpetrated by Soviet and/or communist sympathizers--i.e. psi-ops. One could hardly make the case that this "inner" circle would spend some much time trying to clamp down on the hysteria while simultaneously pumping it up and blaming it on the Soviets (which might have angered them and perhaps escalated the cold war into a "hot" and rather nuclear one).

However useful, the "inner circle" trickster argument fails to match up with historical fact.

The prevalence of E.T.s, Grays, the MJ-12 myth, Zeta Reticuli, in modern pop culture cannot be ignored or underestimated in it influence on the consciousness of society as a whole. The origins of these things can be largely traced to known hoaxes and counterintelligence campaigns. I think Vallee hinted at this and has expressed concern about the use of UFOs as a mechanism of societal control.

Sure, we don't have to ignore the possibility, but we can see if the proposition matches historical fact and then integrate or discard it from the thesis. Vallee may be right concerning the "use of UFO's" in this manner (implies an active agent) -- but for the wrong reason. Firstly, its like saying a U.S. battleship or destroyer in the Persian Gulf is a "mechanism of societal control" -- may be true in a derivative sense, but not in a deliberate sense.

Indeed, to suggest Vallee's thesis is the correct one is to discount thousands of reports which do not fit this paradigm. However Vallee may wring his hands when certain "high strangeness" (what does that mean anyway?) reports seem to overthrow more mundane explanations, you cannot simply argue away the (less strange) simple manifestations which do not require such complications.

And if so, the argument fails to eliminate the possibility that the Aliens themselves are behind the manipulating--then my former proposition stands.

 

[trainedobserver]

UFOs, Language and Occam's Razor

We agree to disagree. I'm cool with that.

 

[Michael Allen]

Wow...I wrote this word salad?! Geesh it's been a long time since I thought about these things...

 

[Burnt State]

Salad aside by reactivating the thread you gave me a chance to read through it. I do appreciate the discussion around a deficit in language to talk about the phenomenon. While more data would be great I think Jerome Clark's points regarding our lack of vocabulary to talk about UFO's and related phenomenon ring true.

I also feel that Michael Allen's argument that it's not paranormal vs. normal is a better way of thinking about the label "anomalous" that we map onto these unique human experiences. Many people above made some very interesting suggestions regarding the role of UFO's in pop culture as well as the role of elite power structures and their relationship to paranormality. Personally, I feel that the codes and UFO memes used in various ways by military and other control structures do not outweigh the preponderance of good witness reports. These narratives of experiencing the alien other or their crafts are compelling and indicative of a facet of human experience we have not figured out how to describe it accurately.

Regarding some of the opening preamble on a lack of language development as a source of our future annihilation: certainly the new specialized languages of science, medecine, technology and space exploration are creating gaps in power amongst the classes. But within these new global enclaves of shared linguistic eviction we get to witness new interdisciplinary discussions that are simultaneous and galloping untethered through a creative pool of fresh words.

Perhaps, if the UFO mystery ever matters to enough people, in a serious manner, then we
might get to learn something about ourselves and what appears to be a technological and experiential puzzle. But as the puzzle holds little currency for the ultra elite who manipulate us best through infomercials, home shopping and limited political options I don't see them even caring about ET.

It remains a mystery of multiplicity until we can learn how to be more specific in how the data is described and investigated.

 

[Randall]

I know this is going to be a bit ... bitchy. But I can't be bothered reading this thread. Why? Because the original poster can't seem to be able spell "Occam's Razor". Come on already. Its not difficult just to do a quick search on the net to find the correct spelling.

OK so we all make the odd typo. Whether we spell it Ockham or Occam ( both correct ), the point Mike makes is valid. I've run across the propensity of skeptics to either dismiss or arbitrarily change the elements of a UFO sighting to suit their preconceived simplistic explanations as rationalized under the banner of Ockham's Razor. For example my sighting has been dismissed as nothing but a firefly, which in consideration of the facets of the observation is entirely preposterous. Mike also makes an excellent point about language and the continual problems associated with it within the field.

Salad aside by reactivating the thread you gave me a chance to read through it. I do appreciate the discussion around a deficit in language to talk about the phenomenon. While more data would be great I think Jerome Clark's points regarding our lack of vocabulary to talk about UFO's and related phenomenon ring true ...

No doubt Jerome recognizes the same problems with the jargon of ufology as the rest of us who have spent any time studying the field. That's why I took it upon myself to get some of the key words sorted out. Anyone who is interested can review them at any time by selecting the links in my signature line. When I took the time to sort out the word mess surrounding "UFO" and "ufology" I had anticipated a backlash from the skeptics because it takes the wind out of their sails when they start in with their misinformation about UFOs being nothing more than some vague unidentified objects off in the distance that could be anything at all including Santa Claus, witches, or the FSM.

What I never anticipated was the backlash from within the ufology community. Here was valid counterpoint to a particularly damaging tactic used by the skeptics, and yet some people in the ufology community were actually supporting the same faulty notions as the skeptics. Why? The only reason I can think of is that these people have made the same types of statements themselves, sometimes in print, and to change their views means either having to admit they are wrong or they're promoting the same misinformation as the skeptics. If they're genuinely interested in UFOs then the only explanation is that they're so invested in their egos or their status that they're willing to compromise the field in order to protect it. This was being discussed in some detail in the thread Damage Control - Ufology in Flames | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[DaveM]

I am not a fan of Occam's Razor theory. In the UFO field, I sincerely doubt the simplest explanation is the answer to what is going on.

 

[Burnt State]

No doubt Jerome recognizes the same problems with the jargon of ufology as the rest of us who have spent any time studying the field. That's why I took it upon myself to get some of the key words sorted out. Anyone who is interested can review them at any time by selecting the links in my signature line. When I took the time to sort out the word mess surrounding "UFO" and "ufology" I had anticipated a backlash from the skeptics because it takes the wind out of their sails when they start in with their misinformation about UFOs being nothing more than some vague unidentified objects off in the distance that could be anything at all including Santa Claus, witches, or the FSM.

I don't think Clark is talking about which acronyms we use or what they translate into at all. Clark's contention is that the nature of the anomalous experience, as it relates to UFO's, are often indescribable in many ways. What these objects do - how they interact with us in our reality - is something we can not define because we don't have words for them. I think this idea runs parallel to Michael Allen's exegesis above.

Perhaps, as Michael suggests, UFO's are not paranormal. Maybe they are something that we have not invented a vocabulary for and when we do we will come to know them, integrate them into our reality and they will no longer be mysterious. In the same way we continue to pursue the laws of physics, in our slow human crawl, we constantly redefine our reality. We know now that matter is mostly empty space and that there really is a lot of dark matter in the universe.

As we grow as a species we grow linguistically and suddenly we're not crying, "Witch! Witch! Burn her!" anymore. UFO's will follow suit one day.

 

[Randall]

I don't think Clark is talking about which acronyms we use or what they translate into at all. Clark's contention is that the nature of the anomalous experience, as it relates to UFO's, are often indescribable in many ways. What these objects do - how they interact with us in our reality - is something we can not define because we don't have words for them. I think this idea runs parallel to Michael Allen's exegesis above.

Perhaps, as Michael suggests, UFO's are not paranormal. Maybe they are something that we have not invented a vocabulary for and when we do we will come to know them, integrate them into our reality and they will no longer be mysterious. In the same way we continue to pursue the laws of physics, in our slow human crawl, we constantly redefine our reality. We know now that matter is mostly empty space and that there really is a lot of dark matter in the universe.

As we grow as a species we grow linguistically and suddenly we're not crying, "Witch! Witch! Burn her!" anymore. UFO's will follow suit one day.

Interesting take. I can appreciate what you're saying, and I think you've reviewed my posts enough to know how I would normally respond, but there are a few new people on the forum, so for their benefit:

By defining the subject matter in no uncertain we can leave behind debates about whether or not UFOs are or aren't paranormal or what class of objects they are because those issues have already been determined by the framework we're working in. This doesn't mean that there may not be some other thing out there that people mistake or confuse with UFOs that we have yet to classify, it just means that it's not what our focus is for the purpose of defining the core subject matter of our field.

So for example because we've defined UFOs as alien craft, this removes them from the realm of the paranormal, and we can focus on how science can possibly explain them. On the periphery the other phenomena that form part of the overall field can then be cataloged accordingly because we have started with a solid foundation from which to proceed. To be more specific we wouldn't ask whether or not UFOs are paranormal, but whether or not an object is a UFO or something paranormal.

 

[Michael Allen]

Perhaps, as Michael suggests, UFO's are not paranormal. Maybe they are something that we have not invented a vocabulary for and when we do we will come to know them, integrate them into our reality and they will no longer be mysterious.

Part of my issues with the term "paranormal" is that the term seems to denote nothing more than a relation between the observer and the phenomenon. Once the term is used to indicate somehow an intrinsic facet independent of the observer, it loses its meaning and casts us into a world of paranormal and normal events. The strangest argument I've ever heard against the "paranormality" of a UFO encounter as a relation was one that was absolutist in scope. Irony of ironies when you find the very skeptics of unexplained phenomenon try to press as many explanations as possible (no matter how improbable the "normal" explanation is) into one recalcitrant event that sits comfortably outside what is considered a normal canon of events and logic.

Even if we create a new vocabulary for the phenomenon (analogous to the terminology created by those who studied quantum mechanics), that won't necessarily dampen the mystery of the same. On the other hand we cannot expect dogmatically that certain phenomenon mysterious to us now will remain so in the future. Contrary to the mysteriacs (my term for adherents to a current prominent philosophic stance), phenomena now more or less comprehended by the human intellect was once termed "a mystery."

To ask if something is "paranormal" is a strange question -- by 17th century standards, particle trails in a chamber might be considered "paranormal." I have no issues with the term as it indicates a relation to a human being, however we have found too often a term infused with a certain ontic (or ontological) significance that it really does not deserve.

Likewise for the Cartesian mind-body dualism (which is wrong), regarding human minds as something ontically different than the substance or "matter" of the world. One might now understand this superstition as it really is, a wrongheaded idea that has finally lost its way in proper philosophic discourse. However to those who are still holding on for dear life to such a proposition--it represents the core mystery of human existence. The problem with this sort of mystery is that its source is a misunderstanding--like the chained prisoners in Plato's cave, viewing the shadows and images on the wall and giving them a certain independent ontological grounding. For us we are the creators of our own mysteries--and it is far better to walk out into the light of day and allow these mysteries to dissolve in the light, than to continue nurturing them like a child holding a broken doll.

 

[Michael Allen]

I am not a fan of Occam's Razor theory. In the UFO field, I sincerely doubt the simplest explanation is the answer to what is going on.

Might be considered a heuristic more than a theory. However we must be careful complicating the phenomenon beyond what the evidence indicates--even if it somehow satisfies a certain urgency to give a thorough answer to the skeptics. There are many once thought "mysteries" that were dissolved by looking at the problem from a different perspective (or even in the sudden realization that our investigation was based on a less-than-meaningful question) and thus the complicated became simple in the blink of an eye. The simplest explanation for a strange light may be a drop of water on the lens refracting light (in the case of the many security camera footage posted on the web) , or venus and autokinesis of the eye--but its not going to create the level of visceral experience as indicated by many first-hand observers, nor can a bright planet be the explanation for a long police high-speed pursuit (that lasted hours) after seeing a huge wide object hovering over a road in Ohio . Somehow the skeptics found out that drowning an event with enough noisy explanation--i.e manufacturing artificial doubt--was equivalent to science. Nothing can be further from the truth.

There's a reason why Friedman calls them "noisy negativists" (its a technical term, not just a nice verbal poke in the eye)

(1) Noise drowns the signal in the phenomenon -- if you manufacture enough alternative explanations, the human mind takes the probabilities and sums them up, even if the disparate explanations are mutually exclusive or at least contradictory.
(2) Negative because their goal is to undermine the rational beliefs and attitudes of a sincere subject trying to see the phenomenon for what it is