UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Exactly! Very well said and I thoroughly agree.

I think that human beings just naturally seek explanations for things. It's a big part of what makes us human and what separates us from our dogs, who seem to just accept things as they are, as givens.

The problem is that as you suggest, that drive to explain leaves us uncomfortable with what remains unexplained, we sense it as a potential source of danger or at the very least as a frustration. So we have this tendency to jump to premature conclusions so as to convince ourselves that things are more comprehensible than they really are.

I expect that even paleolithic people sitting around their campfires assumed that they had everything pretty much figured out. People have assumed that they do throughout human history.

I think that both sides in this thread are doing it. And what's more, one side is often very insulting and abusive in how they do it. (A piss-poor way of winning friends and influencing people.)

I don't want to argue that UAPs are unidentifiable in principle (though conceivably they might be). Being human (really, it's true!) I'm inclined to accept the principle of sufficient reason, that everthing that happens has some kind of explanation. (That isn't something that I actually know, it's more of a heuristic... in much the same way that our logical intuitions seemingly are. How we identify and solve problems.)

But in situations where insufficient evidence exists to make a determination, I don't want to prejudge where that (assumed) explanation must come from. I'm certainly not going to jump to alien spaceships. And I don't want to be brow-beat by our movement "skeptics" into believing that explanations must always be found within the world-conception that particular species of true-believers already embraces. (Basically "mundane" (familiar, everyday) experience or sometimes at a stretch, the more exotic phenomena of "science" as currently conceived.)

I prefer to think that there might very well be new things for us to discover not only out there, but right here. My belief is that even today in our "enlightened" age, we still understand far less of reality than we like to think we do.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Critical thinking, as it is commonly referred to, seems to me to amount to little more than the demand that you think like how I think so you will reach the same conclusions I reached. Here it seems to be a club to hit posters over the head with to get them to agree with some view or opinion. I prefer thinking for myself, not conforming to some dubious objective method for "proper thinking." When people start referring to an "island of rationality" I am nervously reminded of Big Brother in 1984. We all think and reason differently, arriving at the truth thru a multitude of various paths. Some thinking is plodding and logical, while other thinking is messy and intuitive. Wouldn't it be boring if we all thought the same way?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yeah, just to put Magical Realist's "thinking for myself" in perspective:

We don't need to baselessly comment on what it "seems to us" an opponent is thinking; that's his thinking, posted by him, for all to see - petard-hoisting and all.

There is no better proponent in favour of rational and critical thinking than MR serving in the role of counter example. I say we shouldn't try to quash him; we should feature his posts, bold and hilit, as a cautionary tale.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

My thinking must be ok. I actually refuted that ufo case myself after reading a youtube comment about it.

 

Welcome to the club; sign in at the front desk.

 

I've always felt that critical thinking is about being able to see/understand both sides of an argument, with the intention of getting to the truth. It requires self-reflection, examining your own biases, and exploring new ideas. In a way, critical thinking challenges us to ask why we are taking a particular side of an argument, not necessarily assuming that the side we're taking is right or wrong.

When it comes to UAP's, how can one become ''better'' at critical thinking? For me, it means that I need to leave emotion out of the process. If you have high ''emotional intelligence,'' that may serve as a challenge at first, but it's worth looking at what holds you back from becoming a more critical thinker.

The difficulty with examining UAP claims, is that if you're applying critical thinking, the best you can do is compare what you know of the world and how it works, with this seemingly out-of-the-ordinary experience that has no reference point. You've concluded what it's not (after rigorous investigation) but you still don't know what it is. But, critical thinking will lead you to an extraordinary explanation, if there is one. Critical thinking doesn't need to persuade, it just eventually leads you to what is truth, if you're doing it right.

Although, it’s exciting to speculate about UAP’s, we should be mindful that we can’t stay stuck there.

 

LOL. Oh the irony! He's giving you a dose of your own medicine James. Not very fun being flamed and insulted is it now? Come on! Be strong and take it like a man! Your anonymous fans are counting on you...

 

But you don't do it in that fashion, JamesR. You're not a teacher, and this isn't an institute of higher learning. This is you, quite clearly, using MR as a punchbag. You can dress it up however you want. You can paint little flowers, wrap it up in a bow, but it's still you using him as a punchbag. You can't help yourself.

No, I'm not. You putting a tree in front of someone and claiming it a forest, though.

I do. The criticism is not with moderating him, but in your continual use of him as a punchbag, and how that has derailed this thread.

Then stop using him as a punchbag! Moderate his behaviour, but do it as a moderator.

I am not hung up on it, JamesR. Maybe your continuing misunderstanding is something you need to work through, yourself? I am simply pointing out what I consider your appalling behaviour in trying to assert your superiority over him. You are using him as a punchbag when actual moderation should suffice. As you say, it should require no special effort: so why make all the special effort that you do? It's because you see value in having him around as an example, as a punchbag.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

You do you, JamesR. You are clearly incapable of "doing" anyone else. It's laughably pathetic, and you continue to do it, but, well, it's you. So, yeah, whatever.

At least if you admitted that you were confused you may stop making up so many strawmen.

I'll feel better if it helps you recognise when your posts are being hypocritical.

But then you think a lot of wrong things, and this is just one more.

Your lack of apology? Oh, I got over that the moment you refused to acknowledge calling me a bigot. Oh, look, that lack of apology is now influencing my posts! Doh!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Someone has exploded? You think I have exploded?? Well, misunderstanding things is sort of your MO these days, isn't it. But thanks for the life tips, JamesR. Concern for my well-being from someone like you really means a lot.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

It's never been relevant to me whether MR thinks them "the best of the best", as I'm quite capable of judging for myself whether a case is interesting to me or not, whether it is a simple case to debunk or not. I don't need someone else telling me. But, again, just another of your misunderstandings that we're all getting so used to. It wasn't relevant to my initial comment that he filtered. It's still not relevant.

You had a point? Do share, please? Or was it just another strawman that you're now dropping?

So not derailing a thread, not stopping using him as a punchbag, getting more actual sensible discussion, even possibly more activity... all of these you consider weak? And instead you have decided to engage with him thus derailing the thread (current status), still using him as a punchbag, etc... yeah, sure, you do you, JamesR.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

As has your abhorrent treatment of a member, but, hey, we are where we are.

Exccept it ends up getting derailed because (a) you want to use him as a punchbag, and (b) you claim it's all part of the meta-discussions. Yeah, right.

??? So it'd be breaching guidelines regarding ad hominem attacks if in another thread, but you, as a moderator, think it acceptable if in this thread?

Garbage. It would take a quick summary of the meta-issue, and a link to the other thread. Stop making poor excuses for your behaviour.

Then it begs the question of why you do it, doesn't it? And if you don't recognise that about yourself, that it is what you are doing, well, that speaks volumes as well.

Your attempts to punch down just make you look foolish, JamesR. But, hey, if you want to keep looking at your navel, that's up to you.

Never said it had. Just laying out the overall way it could work, whether parts are already there or not.

Again you can't spot a rhetorical question.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I have laid out my motives, JamesR. They should be abundantly clear by now, even to you. Bad intentions? If the cessation of you treating MR like a punchbag is a bad intention, then yeah, I guess so. If you not derailing this thread with meta-discussions that should, per site rules, be moved to another thread, then yeah, bad intentions. If you finally recognising that keeping someone around, as you admit, to serve as an example to others is rather abhorrent behaviour for a moderator, then yeah, bad intentions.

Oh, will the irony never end!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Reality can often be unpleasurable, I guess.

Nope, the issue was about the lull in the thread, which you haven't addressed. Begs the question of why you're evading, doesn't it.

I'm not trying to bully, JamesR, but now you've raised the issue, if I could just hold you up as an example of how not to act, you know, for the discerning audience and all that. Keep pointing out your hypocrisy, your strawmen, your own dishonesty, your poor treatment of MR etc. Is that okay?

I never said it was problematic for me, JamesR. Another strawman, but thanks.

I get no satisfaction from watching what was a somewhat interesting little community gradually collapse under the weight of sanctimonious bile. But, hey, whatever.

Strawman. Please stop. I like activity. But I don't like people being used as punchbags, and if that is all the activity you feel you can muster....

In what way do you consider it strange? That may actually help you address it rather than raise more strawmen.

My private correspondence on this matter with MR is none of your concern.

No, that's another strawman on your part. My advice in this specific case was to use this thread as a repository, to allow MR to post his videos here etc (where no commentary, analysis or brain activity is required). To then set up another thread to discuss what you find most interesting: the meta-issues etc; and separate threads for any specific case - as is currently being done.

What is illuminating is your deliberate conflation of issues. Strawman much?
If MR posts against site rules, he should be moderated. No issue there, and there never has been. People can respond to his posts as they see fit... and similarly be moderated as necessary. Again, no issue. But you are deliberately allowing MR to post so that you can hold him up as an example. That is treating him as a punchbag. That is (as far as I am concerned) abhorrent behaviour for a moderator. That I have issue with.
The point about moving discussions to different threads would, in my view, keep discussions better contained, i.e. on topic and not tangential, as this one nearly always seems to be. But hey, you're the moderator, so "you do you", and I guess this site will be the measure of it.

If I make an argument, and your counter argument doesn't address the issue, it is by its very nature irrelevant. Period. Something may be relevant to you in other ways, but it will still be irrelevant to the point being made if it does not address the issue. Maybe you not appreciating that is why you end up creating so many strawmen.

Notice how you still haven't addressed the issue. You've simply tried to make excuses for bringing in an irrelevancy. It remains an irrelevancy to the point made. Care to try again?

Why would you think it only applies to you? If I'm being hypocritical then I am being hypocritical. Do you think I'm being hypocritical in trying to get you to not treat MR as a punchbag, for example?
Me trying to tell you what I think you should do would only be hypocritical of me if I didn't allow you to tell me what you think I should do. See how it works? Since I don't stop you trying to tell me what you think I should do, I am not being hypocritical in tell you what I think you should do. I might argue against the specific things you are trying to tell me to do, but I'm not stopping you from trying. So no hypocrisy there. See how it works?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

More irony.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Respond to the points and arguments, JamesR. Not me.

Can I miss what isn't there? Maybe you can highlight one of the "zingier zingers" that you think I missed, so I have a better understanding of the standard you think represents an example of how to conduct a UFO investigation properly? So your audience are aware of it, as well?

Because I'd like to think you've got some intelligence. But, hey, whatever.

The only mess is created because of your continuing use of strawmen. Drop those, address the actual points raised, and...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

whatever.

 

Your dismissal of them as such are telling, but then anything to avoid having to face up to things, eh.

 

I have a feeling that anyone reading this thread, would get more value out of MR’s perceived “wild UFO speculations,” than this incessant mud-slinging and drama.

 

Yes, in the context in which many people use the phrase, that's often the case.

But I do think that critical thinking can oftentimes be a valuable thing. 'Critical' without favor or bias I might add, not just a critical stance towards the other-guy's ideas while our own pieties go unquestioned and unexamined. The (true) skepticism implicit in critical thinking is most important when applied to one's self and one's own faith commitments.

I don't believe that "the proper method for thinking" has ever been discovered, or even that it exists.

People point to logic, but logic is still striving to model natural thought processes. Most of the dramatic advances of 20th century logicians have consisted of strengthening traditional logic with many forms of modalities for example. Alethetic logics (which introduces necessity and possibility), Epistemic logics (where knows and believes become logical operators), temporal logics (since what is true today might not be true tomorrow), deontic logic (where should and shouldn't are introduced). There's not only deductive logic, but induction and abduction as well. There are many-valued logics that can model probabilities or degrees of belief.

The take-away from all that technical stuff is that logic is still playing catch-up as it tries to model the thinking that people effortlessly (in most cases) do every day. Logic is the attempt to formalize everyday thought in the manner of mathematics. It isn't a procrustian bed into which everyone's thinking needs by force to be crammed, even if that means cutting off some bits of normal human thought.

I should add that learning a list of "fallacies" isn't particularly helpful either. Formal fallacies are simply thought patterns that aren't deductively valid. If you start with what are assumed to be true premises, a fallacious pattern of reasoning won't provide a conclusion that has to be as true as the premises are. But the fallacious pattern of reasoning might still be very useful and informative. Scientific induction is the classic example of a deductively fallacious pattern of reasoning upon which much of science is based.

This famous quip is attributed to logician Morris Cohen: "All logic texts are divided into two parts. In the first part, on deductive logic, the fallacies are explained; in the second part, on inductive logic, they are committed."

Abduction/Inference to the Best Explanation, in which one argues from evidence to conclusions about what best explains that evidence, is another example of fallacious reasoning upon which we rely. Our best evidence, in science as in the rest of life, rarely justifies our conclusions with deductive certainty. But it does seem to make our conclusions more likely somehow. (How is still a work in progress that requires use of probabilistic logic, hence the current popularity of the Bayesians.)

All of the attempts to reveal and explain the logic of science (usually taken to be physics), so popular back in the 1950's-1970's period, were ultimately unsuccessful. Biologists don't think like physicists. Mathematics and physical law play very different roles for one thing. (Cell biologists don't fill chalkboards with mathematics like theoretical physicists do.) Scientists observe, they interpret their observations, they measure in many different ways, they hypothesize, they model (whether mathematically or mechanically), they derive this from that mathematically or logically, they predict, they experiment in countless ways (experimental procedures)... and most of those cognitive tasks are in large part logically distinct, they draw upon different preexisting assumptions (and all of them have a huge literature and generate many questions).

Mathematical derivations from accepted physical law might fit that description. There's simply a step-by-step rule-governed aspect to how they proceed (numbered steps in a proof). But even in mathematics, creativity and insight are essential in ways that still aren't fully understood.

Hypothesis formation and scientific creativity. August Kekule imagining the structure of benzene in a dream. Certainly testing the products of speculation is very necessary and will likely need to be more structured, but producing the speculations in the first place needn't be.

It wouldn't just be boring, it would be the essence of totalitarianism 1984-style where people are not only forced to physically obey, but where it has been made impossible for them to even think of disobeying.

And we still haven't established that science is or provides us with a single unique golden road to truth. It's just an assumption seemingly often shared on this board but the argument remains to be made.

People engage in all kinds of cognition that isn't science or scientific per-se, but still seems to have some relationship with truth. Sensory perception is certainly the paradigmatic way of for human beings to intuit truths. There's also mathematical and logical intuition. (Science is firmly built atop these kinds of intuition as its fundamental basis.) Historians, psychologists and the "social sciences" generally are often engaged in interpreting human behavior. People argue ethics, public policy, international relations or politics, as this board's moderators love to do on Sciforums' political and ethics fora where strangely, there's no incessant demand that the fora be "scientific" as there is here in fringe (why is that?).

Getting back to the narrower subject of "critical thinking", I'm just skeptical that there's some one-size-fits-all procedure that can be taught to kids in school that will prepare them to cognize correctly in every instance, in all the varied situations in which they might find themselves.

Perhaps the simplest way to be a true skeptic and to really practice critical thinking is simply to ask "why should I believe that?" about every proposition. Don't just ask it about the other-guy's idea that you disagree with. Ask it about your own most cherished beliefs as well. (I did it a bit with logic and science up above.)

I think that doing that will result in a sort of fallibilism in which nothing is believed to be absolutely certain, but where different ideas are accepted provisionally with different degrees of credence. Some of our beliefs might seem to be very close to certain even if we can't justify them satisfactorily. Others are just shots in the dark. But none of our beliefs is immune from being wrong.

That's what I take the essence of skepticism to be in the historical philosophical sense.

 

UFOs are no laughing matter for us: Behind the scenes of France's real life 'Ovni' hunters (phys.org)

"GEIPAN's goal is clear: to present or attempt to present a rational answer for the misunderstood, unusual and sometimes spectacular occurrences spotted by witnesses, and to explain the reasons for their presumed irregularity."

Of course, that's fine, but sounds like they're approaching these UAP's, assuming they'll all be debunked? Maybe I'm being cynical.

Interesting though, that they'll be assisting NASA with their group, as well.

 

Keeping your head in the sand doesn't do you any favours. If you judge content by that which you are willing to honestly reply to, sure, it's mostly contentless. Predictable? Aren't we all. You certainly are.

He says while posturing in a silly playground manner.

Nope, just dragged back by you and your pathetic attitude. Show that you can step out of the playground, JamesR. Don't just say you're not there but do it.

Not only is that another Strawman, but it is hypocrisy, again. Stop it, please.

In so far as seeing him treated as a punchbag, I am feigning nothing, and it is shameful of you to think otherwise.

I honestly couldn't give a shit whether you believe me or not. It is just yet another example of your dishonesty to claim that it matters to the points made.
If MR wants to confirm that we have conversed, that is up to him. No doubt you'll claim that any message was only sent after your prompt, which would be another unsupported assertion on your part if you did, and incorrect. But, hey, it hasn't stopped you so far.

Finally you are beginning to understand. Hypocrisy to make a point is quite useful.
The main difference, however, is that you fight back more than MR does, but treat him as a punchbag you do. Imagine, for once, if you can, how he feels. Not just as being used as a punchbag but by very assertion that you allow him to remain here to be treated as such, as an example. How do you think he feels, JamesR?

No, it is enhanced, by your own reaction. If you don't like it done to you, stop doing it to others! Simples, really.

If that makes you feel better, sure, you believe that. The truth of it, however, is different. You are the bully, JamesR, and have been bullying MR for a long time. Moderate him, sure, but for once try to imagine how he feels. Should be easier for you to do now, perhaps.

Still in the playground, eh. :Rolleyes:

Your false dichotomy is not lost on me, nor the continuing insults, you know, the type of ones you keep telling me not to do.
Imagine, for a second, if you can, that there are other options, such as you underestimating me, that I am concerned about your bullying of him, and your abhorrent treatment of him, and that my treatment of you here is to put a mirror in front of you.
Oh, I know, you'll say how it hasn't been a mirror, that it hasn't worked, and any other face-saving excuse you want to make. That's fine, as long as you know the reality of it, and it ultimately makes things better.

You've exposed nothing that wasn't deliberately there for you to eventually recognise. Hopefully now the lesson will get through to you and your treatment of MR will improve, and hopefully you'll also address your own penchant for strawmen, ad hominem, and woeful failure to understand other people.

But, hey, if you simply want to dismiss it all, and continue to think I'm feigning concern for MR, and you want to carry on punching MR as you have been... well, you're the moderator. All hail Caesar and all that.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!