UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by Magical Realist, Oct 10, 2017.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    No it isn't. Presenting the most plausible explanation of a phenomenon is the height of honesty and good logic. There is simply no other option as to what ufos could actually be unless you are willing to consider the interdimensionals theory of Jacques Vallee. But I doubt skeptics are any more ready to entertain that than ET's.
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    No. That's simple inferential logic. When no other options exist, the only plausible one becomes the accepted explanation. We do this on a daily basis. And we do it science.
     
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  5. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Not to mention
    - conflating multiple, independent events as if they are one event, and
    - pretending they are facts, when they are actually witness reports.
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    The fact that you personally accept it as "plausible" does not - in any way - make it "no other option" for anyone else except you.

    There are plenty of other options.
    And the one you're currently vying for is at the very bottom of the plausibility tower, by any rational account.
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    The fact that skeptics can offer no plausible explanations for the ufo phenomenon tells me that I have the total right to accept the most plausible explanation of ET origin.
     
  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Skeptics have suggested many options more plausible than aliens.

    You just have a very different threshold of plausible than any skeptic.

    And no one denies you this.
    What they deny is your insistence that it is more than your personal threshold.

    And personal beliefs of plausibility are not science.
     
  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I guess that rules out the skeptics' claim of plausible alternative explanations for the ufo phenomenon as actual science then.
     
  11. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    No conscientious skeptic insists that his explanation is the only possible one.

    That's kind of the point of skepticism.

    They don't tend to say "It must be" or "It can't be", they say "I don't grant that it can't be or must be without further evidence."

    You've studied up on skepticism enough that you should know this. I think you are arguing just to be vexatious.
     
  12. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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  14. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Or believe the most plausible explanation. As ufologists do.
     
  15. birch Valued Senior Member

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    the positive reasons for the fringe subforum is to keep an open mind but not to dismiss or accept everything as false or true. the positive aspect of religion is the questioning of the origins of life. it really is more about the questions than the answers because there are less real answers to most of these inquiries.

    there are scammers out there in every venue and there are those who make hoax videos/pics but not all of them are hoaxes, some are just mistaken identity or some may even be the real thing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  16. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    sciforums spell-check seems not to be geared to science(anthropology).
    Just a few minutes ago, it wanted to change denisovans to Slovenes.
     
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  17. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed.
    'May' is the operative word of the rational skeptic.
    'Must' is the operative word of the wishful thinker.
     
  18. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    What if it's magic? Can you prove it isn't magic? Can you prove magic doesn't exist?

    I'm going to say it's magic... maybe from the school of Illusion, or perhaps a Prestidigitation cantrip.
     
  19. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    That's not a helpful distinction. It's all magic. From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch. From cradle to grave. Everything that happens and can happen and will happen. Pure fuck'n magic. Enjoy it while it lasts..
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2017
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    [#intermission]

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Time out: Click to glide.

    I keep thinking the state of the discussion is indicative ... or, at least, suggestive ... of something, but ... here we are.

    One more: Click for whale music.
     
  21. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    As Arthur C. Clarke said:
    1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
    2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
    3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
    Just because we observers on the ground do not know what it is, that does not make it magic, nor does it make it aliens. It is simply the unknown. Hundreds of years ago, the unknown included things like Viruses and Bacteria and all the little pathogens that make us sick, and so people prayed and plead to their pantheon hoping to cure their dying children. Now, thanks to Science, we can not only tell what the problem is, but work to actually cure it, instead of hoping their body is strong enough to fight it off alone.

    If I were to take such medicine back to, say, the the 1200's and cure people with something as simple as a pill... well, honestly, I'd probably be either revered or feared as one that "holds life and death in my hands".
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Candidates for superintelligent non-human beings are very limited. Ironically the most scientific of them all is advanced extraterrestrials. Most scientists accept the possibility of their existence. Other possible beings can be posited, but then we get into non-human terrestrials, time travelers, interdimensionals, or even some sort of demonic entities or tricksters of a supernatural bent. I'm personally satisfied with not knowing the true identity of the ufonauts. The mystery of who or what they are and what they want remains a core issue in this phenomenon. But this does not detract in any way from the fact that they exist, are intelligent, and have capabilities far exceeding that of humans.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2017
  23. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    And that's all well and good - however, the point still stands that you cannot see an "unknown light in the sky" that you have no way of identifying and go "OH, that's an alien craft for sure!" and claim that to be fact, for the simple fact that you cannot prove it actually is.

    Likewise, we circle back to an old argument... why is it so many "Alien Abduction Stories" come down to "Some hyper advanced race crossed interstellar distances to stick a bit of metal up my butt"...? Seriously? A civilization capable of crossing interstellar distances the same way we drive down the highway, and their medical examination technology is like something from the dark ages? That just seems extraordinarily unlikely.
     

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