Talk:Addressing the UFO Problem

From Razing-Wiki

Contents 1 Study how people come to form their beliefs on the UFO phenomenon 1.1 Reasons for believing 1.2 Reasons for disbelieving 1.3 Other possibilities 2 Understanding the Unknown 2.1 Known-Unknowns reveal details about Unknown-Unknowns 2.2 Finding correlation using Proximity 2.3 Induction as a questionable methodology 2.4 Knowledge-based Proximity 3 The disbeliever 4 Getting government involvement 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further Reading 8 External Links

Study how people come to form their beliefs on the UFO phenomenon

Reasons for believing

The ATS - Why do you believe in alien UFOs thread has a lot of good data explaining how a large variety of people (granted on a conspiracy board) arrived at their belief that UFOs are alien in nature.

At quick glance I divided them in to several categories:

Reason for believing	Description
faithers	people who choose to believe for no other reason than they want to.
logical disposition	people who are compelled by a belief logic (ie/ the size of the universe is infinite, therefore the universe must have many lifeforms). While a good principle to help guide research it lacks substance in details and has to be considered similar to religious ideology (ie/ rare earth theory contradicts the "abundant life" theory and may be just as probable). Thus the belief logic is foremost belief, logic secondary.
saw one	as they say, seeing is believing.
trustworthy source told me	parents, friends, authoritative acquaintance in related field, inter-personal relationships play an important role in shaping peoples views due largely to built-in trust.
scientific data	requiring an abundance of data with less focus on circumstantial, witness testimony.
current authority	people who wait for official government announcement, or recognition of the phenomenon from academia.
tangible evidence	evidence in the form of a craft, lifeform, etc.

These can be abstracted in to three categories. Evidence, appeal to authority, and internal (or personal) confirmation.

1. Objective evidence
   1. scientific data
   2. tangible evidence
2. Appeal to authority
   1. trustworthy source told me
   2. whistleblowers
   3. current authority
3. Internal confirmation
   1. saw one
   2. logical disposition
   3. faithers

I shouldn't be surprised but it seems the leading factor determining whether people believe is based on (3.1) personally witnessing a UFO.

Reasons for disbelieving

Just as valid is to understand the holdouts position. My best example of this so far is C.H.U.D.

Reason for disbelieving	Description
faithers	people who don't believe for no other reason than they choose not to.
logical disposition	people who are compelled by a belief logic (ie/ rare earth theory). While a good principle to guide research it lacks substance in details and should be considered similar to religious ideology (ie/ 'abundant life' theory contradicts the rare earth theory and is statistically probable). Thus the belief logic is foremost belief, logic secondary.
trustworthy source debunked it	parents, friends, authoritative acquaintance in related field, inter-personal relationships play an important role in shaping peoples views due largely to built-in trust.
lack of scientific data	requiring an abundance of data with less focus on circumstantial, witness testimony. From the disbelievers perspective the mountain of evidence is largely a mountain of BS.[1]
lack of current authority[2]	people who wait for official government announcement, or recognition of the phenomenon from academia.
public consensus	the "no sane person believes in UFOs" argument.
lack of tangible evidence	evidence in the form of a craft, lifeform, etc.

This is pretty similar in structure to how believers are categorized:

1. Objective evidence
   1. lack of scientific data
   2. lack of tangible evidence
2. Appeal to authority
   1. trustworthy source debunked it
   2. public consensus
   3. lack of current authority
3. Internal confirmation
   1. logical disposition
   2. faithers

Other possibilities

The thing that I'm thinking about the most here is a quote from C.H.U.D. In reply to MarrsAttax post,

“

Yes, but you haven't told us what you mean by proof. Would you not believe in aliens even if you met one? That would still be evidence - the evidence of your own eyes.[3]

”

C.H.U.D wrote,

“

I have no preconceived idea as to what would constitute proof, and I therefore would not be able to say what form proof would have to take in order to be incontrovertible. It could be meeting an alien face to face, but until it happened, how could I possibly say for sure? This hypothetical situation might arise and turn out to be an elaborate hoax, or perhaps I had a stroke and my brain started manifesting things that were not really there.[3]

”

This is interesting, because it implies that proof, at least in C.H.U.D's eyes anyways, can not be established by following a set of rules. I'll have to reflect on this. What it suggests is not everyone's willing to accept the "atmospheric phenomena" needs to be ruled out.

Understanding the Unknown

NOTE: To open this up to debate I posted this an article on ATS.

A few nights ago I found several rice-like pellets on the top of a monitor on the bottom shelf of my computer stand. At first I thought it was dried up rice from a meal that I had eaten the evening before (but they were oblate rather than cylindrical). Then I smelled the pellet and it had the faint odor of the cats litter box. This made me think it was something the cat had gotten caught in his feet which he then tracked in to the bedroom. I couldn't imagine what though, because it was obviously bigger than the odorized rocks, it was bizarre, but since there were just a few of these things I decided it was the best explanation and my thoughts on the matter stopped there. I collected the granules and threw them out.

A bit later I looked down and again there were the same beads on top of the monitor! I looked directly above it and my eyes stopped at the wrist-wrest. I flipped it over and sure enough there was a hole in it.

My point being assumptions, though reasonable, are just guesses. They're not conclusive. Until we know all the characteristics it might not be possible to know where to further investigate to find more clues.

What this tells me:

If the characteristics we do know don't conclusively point to an answer it should behoove us to look for additional properties to better provide a more concrete understanding of the unknown-quantity. I think it's also fair to say that it's easier to deduce an answer from the characteristics we do know than it is from what we don't.

In a way this is somewhat similar to what Donald Rumsfeld said, "There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." In this case the beads were a known unknown. The wrist wrest was an unknown unknown.

It also suggests proximity is a way to find a correlation between the known and the unknown. This is a good method to exhaustively eliminate possibilities.

Known-Unknowns reveal details about Unknown-Unknowns

It's also worth mentioning we can often times determine the number of "unknown unknowns" by the characteristics of the "known unknowns." For instance in the above example there were many beads, but only one type of pellet. Therefore, had I thought about it more, I would have concluded there was likely just one source producing the pellets.

Finding correlation using Proximity

What's interesting is if you think about proximity as a way to find a correlation between the known and the unknown you start to understand why there are so many UFO hypotheses (ATS thread).

1. There's the atmospheric hypothesis (UFOs come from the sky - spatial proximity)
2. extra-terrestrial hypothesis (they look like vehicles and come from the sky, therefore must be space-borne - spatial proximity)
3. time-machines (the objects materialize and dematerialize - 4th dimensional / time proximity)
4. inter-dimensional (dematerialization might suggest adjacent N-th dimensional space / spatial proximity)
5. deep-water terrestrial species (UFOs are often seen in the water - physical / spatial proximity)
6. mythological creatures hypothesis (historical or time / transcendent proximity)
7. biblical angels or demons hypothesis (historical or time / transcendent proximity)
8. space creatures hypothesis (some of these objects wiggle and writhe, making them look as though they're living, since these things appear in our atmosphere, again spatial proximity)
9. quantum manifestation hypothesis (knowledge based proximity)
10. psychological hypothesis (questioning the tool used to interpret the sighting, knowledge based / spatial proximity)

I'd like to think transcendent proximity is incorrect because at its core it suggests the phenomenon is unknowable.

The most interesting category to investigate is knowledge-based proximity. It's easy to look for spatial / dimensional and time-oriented correlation. Whereas knowledge-based proximity requires a functional analysis of that which might be counter-intuitive, but is evidenced through repeated testing.

Induction as a questionable methodology

“

Ever heard a stone land on the floor in your close proximity? A very metalic sounding stone? A black volcanic stone?[4]

”

The initial observation can mislead a person to assume incorrect spatial proximity if all the properties about the object resulting in the observation aren't known. Therefore in this case induction fails us.

Which may suggest the means by which we're observing the UFO phenomenon are inherently misleading (which perhaps suggests transcendence) and we're not properly interpreting the proximity correctly.

Or that people are intentionally constructing false-positives for the purpose of throwing the scent (to hide another agenda).

Knowledge-based Proximity

In my mind knowledge-based proximity (or nonlocal correlation) is any association that is not evidenced by directly observing physical space, n-th dimensional space, time, and where there is verifiable evidence supporting causality.

For example, the psychological hypothesis is based on the idea that we as humans can misinterpret sensory input. This is something we learn. Thus it's an example of knowledge-based proximity. However it does partially take on the properties of spatial proximity in the sense that we observe the world through our bodies. So the spatial distance is specifically the sensory organ / brain to the object.

Quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance," is another great example because if it weren't for repeated tests demonstrating the relationship between one particle and another we would have never made the link that two disparate objects could be linked together over an arbitrary distance.

To get even more abstract math is a fantastic example of knowledge-based proximity. Humanity created simple rules using physically observable reality (spatial / time-based proximity). Now imagine trying to prove something like the associative property for addition using all real numbers without mathematical notation and human understanding (knowledge-based proximity). There is nothing physically observable in the world that demonstrates (-1 + -2) + -3 = -1 + (-2 + -3). However using physically grouped objects (spatial proximity) we can show (1 + 2) + 3 = 1 + (2 + 3). Performing arithmetic we know both statements are true, but the former is not observable (other than as a vector on the Cartesian plane). Using induction (knowledge-based proximity) and the fact that the numbers balance we trust that the associative property holds.

The disbeliever

I'll have to elaborate on this further, but after discussing this with a self professed debunker on ATS in his mind if something cannot be deduced and reproduced then it's hard for him to "trust" the veracity of the statement.

This is entirely valid. It's one of the reasons why I have such a hard time accepting the study of history or literature. It's all colored by interpretation.

Getting government involvement

Ideas how to make a stronger argument to NSF / NAS / DIA.

• In a March 3, 2004 minutes document for the Presidents Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy (full transcript) Ray Symanski (31 years at WPAFB) noted,

“

... that since 1947, the UFO term has been in our jargon, and perhaps after 50-some years we might want to put another set of eyes and ears up there to determine whether or not we are alone.

”

Notes

References

Further Reading

• List of cognitive biases - Excellent list resulting in decision-making and behavioral biases!

External Links

• ATS - When does evidence become proof?