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There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

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Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#91

Post by mrkramer »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #90

This article makes a familiar error in thinking that I routinely see when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life. It goes like this: 1) There exist billions and billions of stars, each of which can be thought of an independent Bernoulli trial with probability P as to whether intelligent life exists in that star system. 2) P must be a non-negligible quantity, because we ourselves exist 3) Therefore intellige…

I think instead of taking billions of stars we should look at the "alien life" from the aspect of chemistry and biology.

What is the basic chemistry and biology of life? Chemicals, heat, water, single celled organisms, multi cellular organisms, bacteria, viruses, genetic materials, gene transfers etc. All of that in the context of universe, stars and planets.

I would like to see a research from that point of view. If anybody knows of such research papers I would like to read them.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#92

Post by mrkramer »

arcanon wrote: post #66
dahfizz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resources are always scarce. Energy and raw materials will always be expensive, and the demand for energy and materials both increases as they become more available (keeping the price high).

Nothing is scarce in space. There is limitless energy in the atom’s nucleus. We just dont have an effective power plant yet.

Maybe nothing is scarce but you should know how, when and where to look for it.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#93

Post by buzzin__ »

grp000 wrote: post #31
gdubs wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always been more on the skeptic side, FWIW — but the two pilots on 60 Minutes came across as very credible. And they — and others — claimed to have seen these things with their own eyes. The one pilot described the object as being around the same size as their fighter jet. I’m not arguing it’s “aliens” — just saying that while we’ve only seen grainy weapons-tracking footage, there seems to be a decent number of…

I believe fighter pilots (maybe all pilots?) are required to have very good eyesight as well.

Flies a 100 million dollar equipment. Does not bring a 100 dollar gadget that records what you see.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#94

Post by buzzin__ »

mellosouls wrote: post #28
ctvo wrote: post #13

A person without actual expertise dismisses numerous accounts by trained pilots who saw this first hand by Googling for YouTube explanations and calling these witnesses liars or incompetents. Does this person happen to work in tech?

The pilots are expert in flying and no doubt in-the-moment aerial observation; but its not clear why we need to take their opinion as final and impartial in post-event video analysis.

If a pilot of a $1000 kite can manage to glue a Gopro on himself, perhaps a $millions fighter plane pilot on a training mission can do the same.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#95

Post by sterlind »

RobertoG wrote: post #68
WJW wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people with conspiracy theorist hats, any name can smells like an intelligence community front. Too weird and it's obviously fake, too normal and it just shows you that the intelligence community is Very Tricky Indeed and almost managed to fool us by choosing such a normal name. But luckily, due to our Advanced Conspiracy Theorist Hat Technology advantage we knew upfront that anything we look at is an intelligenc…

Oh, but it's not the name what smells like a "intelligence community" front. It's that if you check the founders they are related to the "intelligence community", and the way the video was "leaked" to the NYT feels kind of funny too. This guy Luís Elizondo (1) is clearly from the "community", what it's not so clear is that he was in charge of investigating UFOs as he is claiming. I don't know, maybe they just want to…

for whatever reason, over decades, it seems like Air Force or IC veterans tend to be more into UFOs than the average person. maybe because of rumors they hear, or maybe they get interested because most of the UFO sightings have some military connection. so it could just be that the people who are most into UFOs join organizations like TTSA or MUFON or what have you.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#96

Post by dennis_jeeves »

mrkramer wrote: post #91
anthuswilliams wrote: post #90

This article makes a familiar error in thinking that I routinely see when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life. It goes like this: 1) There exist billions and billions of stars, each of which can be thought of an independent Bernoulli trial with probability P as to whether intelligent life exists in that star system. 2) P must be a non-negligible quantity, because we ourselves exist 3) Therefore intellige…

I think instead of taking billions of stars we should look at the "alien life" from the aspect of chemistry and biology. What is the basic chemistry and biology of life? Chemicals, heat, water, single celled organisms, multi cellular organisms, bacteria, viruses, genetic materials, gene transfers etc. All of that in the context of universe, stars and planets. I would like to see a research from that point of view. If…

>I think instead of taking billions of stars we should look at the "alien life" from the aspect of chemistry and biology.

I _thought_ that was the underlying assumptions of all these probability figures including Drake's equation. I could be wrong...

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#97

Post by goatse-4-u »

soared wrote: post #30
gdubs wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always been more on the skeptic side, FWIW — but the two pilots on 60 Minutes came across as very credible. And they — and others — claimed to have seen these things with their own eyes. The one pilot described the object as being around the same size as their fighter jet. I’m not arguing it’s “aliens” — just saying that while we’ve only seen grainy weapons-tracking footage, there seems to be a decent number of…

OP's point is in that situation the government should/would have data gathered from onboard sensors about the UFOs. A fighter jet costs hundreds of millions of dollars, so we'd expect there to be various sensors with recordings of these objects, rather than just pilot's eyesight and memory.

LOL, the reading comprehension of HN posters is astoundingly low. Or have you just not read any of the multitude of posts over the years pointing out that, at least according to the USG, there is plenty of sensor data involved in each of these sightings?

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#98

Post by dredmorbius »

mrkramer wrote: post #91
anthuswilliams wrote: post #90

This article makes a familiar error in thinking that I routinely see when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life. It goes like this: 1) There exist billions and billions of stars, each of which can be thought of an independent Bernoulli trial with probability P as to whether intelligent life exists in that star system. 2) P must be a non-negligible quantity, because we ourselves exist 3) Therefore intellige…

I think instead of taking billions of stars we should look at the "alien life" from the aspect of chemistry and biology. What is the basic chemistry and biology of life? Chemicals, heat, water, single celled organisms, multi cellular organisms, bacteria, viruses, genetic materials, gene transfers etc. All of that in the context of universe, stars and planets. I would like to see a research from that point of view. If…

I tend to agree, on pragmatic bases.

However in alternative universes, with different underlying constants, chemistry and biology might differ somewhat, possibly in unexpected ways.

That said, in this particular Universe, I suspect life is reasonably likely. Intelligence may be impossible, however.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#99

Post by inimino »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #90

This article makes a familiar error in thinking that I routinely see when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life. It goes like this: 1) There exist billions and billions of stars, each of which can be thought of an independent Bernoulli trial with probability P as to whether intelligent life exists in that star system. 2) P must be a non-negligible quantity, because we ourselves exist 3) Therefore intellige…

I'm not sure I can agree with this analysis.

Consider two hypothetical universes. In one, p = 10^-1000, but by a statistical miracle, here we are. We would certainly be alone in this universe, because the number of stars in the visible universe is inconsequential compared to this number.

In the second one, the universe is the same size, but p is such that there are 100 planets with intelligent life like ours.

If you cannot say "anything at all about P" from our existence, then we should be indifferent between these two hypotheses, on the basis of the evidence of our existence.

However, this is not the case. The evidence supports the second hypothesis much better than the first. If X occurred, and is more likely under hypothesis B than A, then X is evidence for hypothesis B, otherwise you don't have a consistent system of probability.

Now you can further imagine that God comes down from heaven and tells you that in fact both of these two universes actually exist, and they are the only two universes that exist, so you are definitely in one of the two, but doesn't tell you which one. Is your posterior probability now 50% between the two?

"God" here represents the anthropic principle leaning over and saying "psst, don't worry about the 10^-1000, because, well, here you are". But you still have to worry about the difference between 1 and 100. If N beings in universe A and 100 * N beings in universe B all face this same question, your only reasonable conclusion as one of them is that the odds are 100-to-1 in favor of you being in universe B.

So it's not the case that our existence tells us nothing about p. Of course, p is what it is, and only physics and chemistry and biology can actually reveal it, but the fact that we are here means that theories that make our existence much less likely are themselves much less likely.

Re: There Are Aliens, but Probably Not Here

#100

Post by anthuswilliams »

inimino wrote: post #99
anthuswilliams wrote: post #90

This article makes a familiar error in thinking that I routinely see when it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life. It goes like this: 1) There exist billions and billions of stars, each of which can be thought of an independent Bernoulli trial with probability P as to whether intelligent life exists in that star system. 2) P must be a non-negligible quantity, because we ourselves exist 3) Therefore intellige…

I'm not sure I can agree with this analysis. Consider two hypothetical universes. In one, p = 10^-1000, but by a statistical miracle, here we are. We would certainly be alone in this universe, because the number of stars in the visible universe is inconsequential compared to this number. In the second one, the universe is the same size, but p is such that there are 100 planets with intelligent life like ours. If you…

This is a very thoughtful rejoinder, thanks.

> If X occurred, and is more likely under hypothesis B than A, then X is evidence for hypothesis B, otherwise you don't have a consistent system of probability.

The point is, this idea breaks down when neither hypothesis would exist if X had not occurred. This differs from other questions of probability because the conditional probability of an event is predicated on the ability of an observer to ask about it. We should indeed be indifferent between the two hypotheses, if our own existence is all we have to go on. (This might seem strange, if you think of hypothesis B as having 100x the prior probability, but the point here is that we really don't have a basis for a prior at all.)

> Now you can further imagine that God comes down from heaven and tells you that in fact both of these two universes actually exist, and they are the only two universes that exist, so you are definitely in one of the two, but doesn't tell you which one. Is your posterior probability now 50% between the two?

No, of course I would assume I was in universe B. This is a very different question. Instead of "what is the nature of our universe" the question is "of the two existing universes God has described, which do I occupy?"

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