[extropy-chat] UFOs hoaxes and Occam's razor. (was NSA Disclosures)

[Keith Henson]

At 11:42 AM 5/2/2006 -0700, The Avantguardian wrote:

>My
>original question was whether UFO phenomena are
>evidence of technologically superior extra-terrestrial
>intelligence in a Bayesian sense. I am trying to
>estimate a probability as to the existence of
>technologically advanced space-faring civilizations.
>
>Any phenomenon can have any number of explanations.
>Like the planets are orbiting the earth doing back
>flips regularly. These epicycles certainly explain the
>phenomena we OBSERVE but that doesn't make it correct.
>We have to use Occam's razor to find the SIMPLEST
>explanation that explains the phenomena and even then,
>that is no guarantee it is correct. But it is more
>likely to be. Thus I can bend over backwards to
>concoct a huge number of possible scenarios that
>explain the UFO evidence, but that is not what I am
>trying to do. I am testing a specific hypothesis: Are
>UFOs evidence that there are space- faring
>extra-terrestrials out there.

They certainly could be, but I really doubt it.

The first thing Eric Drexler did when he understood the implications of 
nanotechnology was to go looking for evidence in photos of unusual 
galaxies.  He was looking for ones with an expanding wave front that was 
dimming the stars behind the leading edge into IR by Dyson spheres or 
something similar.  To be particular, he was looking for galaxies that 
looked like Cookie Monster had taken a bite out of them.  He didn't find any.

>Far from being trivial, the existence of proof of
>principle that interstellar travel is indeed POSSIBLE
>is a question of singular importance for the long term
>survival of the human (or even posthuman) species.
>If ET can do it than so can we.

It isn't so much a question of long term survival as *short term.*

Reasoning runs this way.  If technologically capable races are common, 
something eats every one of them, because every direction we look we see 
wilderness, vast wastage of matter and energy.  We cap blown out oil wells 
for darn good reasons.  A civilization with the power to do would plug the 
black holes.  They certainly would be trapping the light output from stars.

Since we don't see such, or the occasional interstellar drive that happens 
to be pointed our way, the conclusion is that there are no technophiles 
inside our light cone.  Either they are so rare that we are the only 
example, or they commonly arise but something removes them from the 
observable universe.

If they are common, we face a bleak future, probably to be eaten by the 
local singularity.  If we are alone in our light cone, then our future may 
be a disaster, but it is not fore doomed.

>I asked for negative evidence and instead got a whole
>bunch of reactionary "ambiguous and inconclusive" from
>people. The only person that has given me a shred of
>negative evidence is Keith and that was by admission
>of some truly devious UFO hoaxes he pulled off.

Oh man, what we did was not particularly devious.  I should write up the 
smoking pavement stunt my friend Mike pulled on a night watchman, that was 
devious, but it's K5 fodder.

>The fact that somebody as smart of Keith would go to
>so much effort to for people for the simple motivation
>of "anonymous publicity" somewhat disturbs me but also
>adjusts my posterior probability down quite a bit.
>Something that all the skeptical hand-waving by the
>other responses did not.
>
>So I guess my question now is whether enough hoaxsters
>of Keith's caliber could have fooled the U.S. Airforce
>to render the posterior probability of the existence
>of UFOs negligible. It would be nice if I could find a
>way to quantify this analysis.

There were 6 of us in Arizona and 4 in New Mexico that I knew 
about.  Nation wide that would give you roughly 3600.

snip

>Of course these could be modified/hoaxed so I am
>looking thru the archives on the NOAA's websites.
>Although if they are carefully censored, it may prove
>useless.

True.  But worse, I would suspect inserted fake data, the modern day 
version of our lights in the sky.

snip

>Why would hallucinations and other "mental
>disturbances" manifest themselves in such a consistent
>manner over thousands of years and across numerous
>disparate cultures?

Not always.  Ezekiel described a B36 (four burning and six turning).  I 
never checked to see of one fell through a time warp, but I know how the 
army had an M60 tank vanish.

Keith Henson