What Is The Best Hypothesis

[exo_doc]

Good point. Where is the trash?

They could be from somewhere in the local system and we just haven't found them yet for that matter.

If you want to adopt the Bob Dean "We are in a zoo" concept then things could be constructed in such a manner that prevents us from seeing them normally. They are here but our 3 dimensional consciousness does not perceive them under normal conditions. They watch us from a blind so to speak. How scary to you want to get with it?

Yeah, that would be real funny if an alien that is cloaked or (dimensionaly out of OUR eyesight but not theirs) invisible in some other way,....was standing next to you as you read this.
I suddenly need a stiff drink.

 

[Ron Collins]

While I think the planet Venus and swamp gas are waaayy to overused I have not found any credible sources for life from other planetes. I'm afraid I kind of lean toward the ole boring "black ops" explanation of earthly origin.

I don't buy it. I can identify and have posted in the past many roles such a craft would be suited for. All of those roles have an evolution of equipment/vehicles/aircraft that can be traced from the 1930's in most cases. None of these have ever ended with craft that display UFO type characteristics. Look no further than the assault on Osama's hideout. What better Op to use such a craft. You are going in at night in full "Black Ops" mode. You are are trying to be quick in, quick out, quiet, and undetectable to radar. Instead of the silent hovering and super speed of a 60 year development of a UFO type craft we see that the military developed a stealthy version of a Blackhawk helicopter. That reality should honestly be enough to squelch this particular origin hypothesis.

If we have had this technology for 40 or 50 or 60 years then where are they being used? What is the utility they keep being designed and produced for? In my opinion there is absolutely no indication that these are military aircraft. The U.S. military does not fund a research and development project for 60+ years without deploying iterations of the technology. I would challenge anyone who believes that they would to show me any such president. I know they can't because it is never done. The military wants a deployable product. The Military Industrial Complex wants to mass produce a product so they can make gigantic profits off of the technology they just spent money developing. Nobody wants to throw money art something that is not of practical use. They care about killing the enemy and breaking things the enemy would use not about esoteric research pursuits. Plus, i would bet it is an unwritten rule that you do not put flashy lights on your top secret craft and fly it at night or day ops over populated areas. That kinda seems like a bad idea.

Just pronouncing it "Black Ops" doesn't cut it. You have to show how you got there and where it is going.

 

[trainedobserver]

Ok, let's say we somehow acquire reliable information that the U.F.O.s reported by Gordon Cooper, the JAL 1628 UFO, and the Skylab 3 UFO all of extraterrestrial origin. Now, what do we do with that?

Ron makes an excellent point about the impracticality of developing whiz-bang flying saucers and not using them. What are they waiting for? What disaster is going to be bad enough? Certainly, if there were any technology available to neutralize things like Chernobyl and Fukushima it would have been whipped out.

The Ultra-terrestrial idea is very interesting. It would do away with the need to explain why they would travel such great distances at such great expense or how they would have even found us to begin with. It also speaks to the issue of the limitations and possible manipulation of human perception. But there again, if you had certain knowledge that this was the case what would you do with it?

It seems to me that the first and foremost use of any such knowledge would be to use it to develop some method of neutralizing the threat they pose. If there is some non-human technological species operating on the planet that would pretty much have be the primary goal. Therefore it would be in the best interests of whatever is behind the phenomena to make damn sure we never figure that out. Which really does seem to be the case. The reason being once we figure out where they actually come from, we will bust a gut to go there and play time about terrorizing them.

This is all just speculation of course. I don't know what is going on and I don't think anyone else does either. Which I think is the general consensus here anyway with a couple of exceptions.

 

[Xylo]

I'm still not sure what I believe because I think that the hypothesis has to suit the reality in which we live. I, personally, don't really understand the nature of reality.

The 3 choices I made, I don't think are all that different from each other. I chose ETH, Extra-dimensional and Extra-temporal-with an emphasis on extra-dimensional and extra-temporal. (My own belief is that time is not linear and that it intersects itself and loops and diverges infinitely.) If this is the case then Extra-dimensional and extra-temporal are essentially the same thing.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Terjarv]

I've debated in this forum on this subject before...I think any UFO hypothesis is fair game at this point although I lean toward the inter-dimensional hypothesis due to the high-strangeness aspect.

 

[boomerang]

We could also posit a convergence of any or all of these hypotheses. Has humanity joined (voluntarily or otherwise) the classic "Intergalactic Federation"? This would make us akin to the colonies of Imperial Britain or Ancient Rome--but with an unfathomably greater gap between cultures and even species. Overlaps between our "Administrators" and terrestrial leadership, and the best of earth's technology could then be kept secret and accessible to a select few. This phenomenon has an uncanny control over events and individuals, after all.

This is a paranoid and sadly inadequate theory. But any theory adequate to explain such helplessness on our part in view of known high strangeness, is bound to sound a little wacko.

 

[Randall]

I'm still not sure what I believe because I think that the hypothesis has to suit the reality in which we live. I, personally, don't really understand the nature of reality.

The 3 choices I made, I don't think are all that different from each other. I chose ETH, Extra-dimensional and Extra-temporal-with an emphasis on extra-dimensional and extra-temporal. (My own belief is that time is not linear and that it intersects itself and loops and diverges infinitely.) If this is the case then Extra-dimensional and extra-temporal are essentially the same thing.

Just my thoughts.

Hey Xylo ... thanks for the comment. Can you elaborate more on why you favor the extratemporal and why extratemporal and extradimensional amount to the same thing ( which BTW I would agree with under certain conditions ), but I suspect it might be new to some of our readers, and in any case I'd like to compare some of our thoughts on this aspect of time and space.

j.r.

 

[Xylo]

Hey Xylo ... thanks for the comment. Can you elaborate more on why you favor the extratemporal and why extratemporal and extradimensional amount to the same thing ( which BTW I would agree with under certain conditions ), but I suspect it might be new to some of our readers, and in any case I'd like to compare some of our thoughts on this aspect of time and space.

j.r.

I've been considering the human construct of "time" and what it really means. One could say I'm thinking of it in the way that Pirsig thought of "quality" and trying to define what it really is: to suit my own version of reality. I think that if "Time" were fully understood, we might see that the "paranormal" really isn't all that paranormal. We defined the "second" based upon our solar day, further we defined it as a function or property of matter. Either way we humans see it as linear. It makes sense that way.

What if "Time" wasn't really linear except to humans. What if "Time" was circular? What if "Time" was random? What if it was a ribbon floating in the inter-galactic framework, like a ribbon floating in a breeze? Then "Time" could intersect itself-thus another "Time" would be another dimension. These intersections could be the "dimensional portals" that people see. These intersections could be the "ghosts" that appear to haunt us....If those intersections were stable enough for photons or electromagnetism to pass through.

Perhaps some of those "portals" or intersections are stable enough for actual matter to pass through. If this were the case, it could explain some of the "forbidden archeology," and maybe some of the "Ancient Aliens" tales as well.

I don't know any answers. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this "paranormal" thing, and further trying to understand how, if possible, it can make sense in both my philosophical and my scientific worlds.

 

[SoCalGNX]

I think its more like the menu from a Chinese restaurant. Some of this, a few of those, one of this etc. Don't think it all fits in one box.

 

[Randall]

I've been considering the human construct of "time" and what it really means ... What if "Time" wasn't really linear except to humans. What if "Time" was circular? What if "Time" was random? What if it was a ribbon floating in the inter-galactic framework, like a ribbon floating in a breeze? Then "Time" could intersect itself-thus another "Time" would be another dimension. These intersections could be the "dimensional portals" that people see. These intersections could be the "ghosts" that appear to haunt us....If those intersections were stable enough for photons or electromagnetism to pass through.

Hey Xylo, I think you are onto something there when you say, " ... another 'Time' would be another dimension." Logically it would have to be. I think that if you expand on this idea, the picture will get even clearer for you. Consider using a computational-model for the existence of the universe and it will happen even faster.

j.r.

 

[Xylo]

Hey Xylo, I think you are onto something there when you say, " ... another 'Time' would be another dimension." Logically it would have to be. I think that if you expand on this idea, the picture will get even clearer for you. Consider using a computational-model for the existence of the universe and it will happen even faster.

j.r.

If I only had the mathematical skills to use a computational model...

 

[Michael Allen]

My thinking is that there is no "best hypothesis" for a body of observations that *may* come from a variety of non-related sources.

 

[Randall]

My thinking is that there is no "best hypothesis" for a body of observations that *may* come from a variety of non-related sources.

I dissagree, there can most certainly be a best hypothesis for the the reported phenomena. However if the question were which hypothesis is true or proven, then you might have a valid point. Nice try.

j.r.

 

[NTS]

Michael Allen makes a good point. Any number of situations can give rise to UFO reports. In the unsolved cases there may not be enough information to get any farther than "somebody experienced something weird". That doesn't give any basis to decide between various hypothesis.

 

[Michael Allen]

I dissagree, there can most certainly be a best hypothesis for the the reported phenomena. However if the question were which hypothesis is true or proven, then you might have a valid point. Nice try.

j.r.

I do not think you understood what I was trying to communicate. You seem to confuse a body of events/phenomena with a singular event or phenomena. A plurality of events that appear to be similar might warrant a unified hypothesis if and only if the events are themselves interdependent. In the case of UFOs and the paranormal, one cannot propose a singular hypothesis on the basis of an arbitrary body of unidentified or unexplained events alone. Each singular event may be related or unrelated to others of its kind within the arbitrary umbrella of "paranormal" (a human category caused by ignorance).

And at any rate one can find a counterexample that throws this "best hypothesis" out the window: there are events deemed paranormal that are man-made hoaxes -- and there are similar events that are caused by some natural phenomenon that we do not (as of yet) understand. These two events may appear similar to a human observer, but they do not fall under a "unified" best hypothesis (taken together).

In order to answer the question "what is the best hypothesis" one has to provide the context--i.e. the event or set of events which are deemed appropriately unified under one proposed scientific explanation.

If you simply throw the entire bag of all UFO or paranormal related phenomena into one dish, you will end up with an explanation so ridiculous as to defy all human logic and understanding.

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

I forgot to mention that in the case of trying to unify all ufo and paranormal phenomena under a unified rubric has cause recent hypotheses to be less comprehensible and more mysterious than the actual phenomena to be explained.

IF a hypothesis is less comprehensible than what it attempts to explain, you are probably heading in the wrong direction.

 

[Randall]

... A plurality of events that appear to be similar might warrant a unified hypothesis ... I forgot to mention that in the case of trying to unify all ufo and paranormal phenomena under a unified rubric has cause recent hypotheses to be less comprehensible and more mysterious than the actual phenomena to be explained.

Ufology does have a "plurality of events that appear to be similar". As for "interdenpendency", that isn't necessary. For example aircraft can be entirely independent by way of materials, manufacturer and point of origin. However we can pretty much say for sure that they are all flying machines and they come from Earth. After thousands of aircraft sightings, we would probably become fairly certain of this even if we had never seen an aircraft before. You could do the same thing for balloons, ships, meteors and many other things.

As for counter-examples nullifying a hypothesis, that is the whole point of the excercise. However one cannot simply say, "I think UFOs are flying teddy bears" and claim that it nullifies the ETH. You need to do better than that. If you don't think the ETH is the best hypothesis for UFOs, provide the counter example that you believe nullifies it and discuss it.

As for asserting that by placing UFOs and paranormal phenomena under a "unified rubric" it becomes less comprehensible; first of all the poll is about UFOs, not UFOs and PSI phenomena. Nevertheless I would still disagree. The ETH makes it more comprehensible and provides a foundation for exploring other PSI related events. Secondly the poll is multiple choice, so you can pick more than one hypothesis.

Perhaps the failure to understand what you were trying to communicate was not on the receiving end.

j.r.

 

[Michael Allen]

I think you are still not understanding my point. Let's see if a reminder will help:

Quoting Stanton Friedman: "Some UFOs are Flying Saucers..."

However you cannot say ETH is the best hypothesis for the entire collection of UFO sightings. So now I understand the source of your apparent confusion--you must think I am throwing out all hypotheses when in fact I am simply saying that one must find a hypothesis that matches a particular subset of events/phenomena/observerations (a "signal" I suppose). As such I think the ETH is the best hypothesis for that particular subset of observations.

ETH however does not explain all UFO sightings. My point is that one should not expect any hypothesis to explain what it was not designed to do -- you cannot arbitrarily extend the "best hypothesis" for a particular set of unidentified observables to another.

Some examples:
(1) Ghost hunters shouldn't expect their theory to explain all UFOs via the spirit world
(2) ETH Ufologists shouldn't expect their theory to explain all Ghosts as manifestations of Alien spacecraft
(3) And finally, Smart Ass physicists shouldn't expect their toy theories (String Theory, Supersymmetry, EFTs, GUTs and such) as a viable blanket alternative (i.e. time travel, interdimensional travel, etc) to ETH

Actually, to propose "time-travel" and "interdimensional travel" as a viable hypothesis to compete with ETH is asinine in the extreme. However as long as the list of sightings piled under the title UFO continues to grow without bounds, one would be wise to stray away from any "best hypothesis" for all sightings. Then you'll end up having to answer the fools who think their own cherry-picked subset of leprechauns, smurfs and sprites are somehow related to your nuts and bolts "signal."

There's a plurality of signals out there confounding the human imagination under the title UFO (lit), you'd be wise to stray away from the notion that somehow they can all be unified into a less-than-vacuous or meaningful (non-trivial) explanation.

So...to recap with clarification:

There is no "best hypothesis" for a body of unidentified/unknown observations that *may* come from a variety of non-related sources.

Actually, to be clear--there may be a "best hypothesis" in this instance--and that is one that is either self-contradictory or vacuous.

 

[Randall]

Hey there Mike ...

I understood you perfectly the first time around. Further explanation is not necessary. I propose that it would be more interesting and productive to pick a contentious element of a given hypothesis and discuss its pros and cons compared with other hypotheses.

For example the sudden appearance or vanishing of a UFO has been used as a point in favor of the EDH. Proponents of the ETH say that this point can be explained perfectly well by the ETH.

If you believe the phenomena associated with UFOs cannot all be attributed to a single hypothesis, then there must be some logic whereby one hypothesis is granted favor over another as it relates to specific phenomena. These intersecting points in our analysis would make excellent points of discussion. Perhaps you could suggest one yourself? Anybody else?

NOTE: I've added reputation points to your profile for the depth of thought you are putting into your posts.

j.r.

 

[SoCalGNX]

No but we should able to delete OTHER'S posts if we want to.

 

[Randall]

Well this is pretty sad if it's the best we can do. Half the dialogue has been devoted to arguing about whether or not it's even worthwhile discussing the issue. And when we reach a point where some progress can be made, the whole thing stalls. I see this going on in other threads as well. What is the problem? Is it elitism, laziness, disinterest? Most people seem intelligent enough. Seems like there are only about 10 people who actually bother contributing content to the forum.