Landrew wrote:

mindhack wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Landrew wrote:
This is the last of your straw man arguments I'll set a match to, but I've never claimed ET visitation or expressed my belief that it happened with certainty, but I have acquired an opinion of the likelihood based on the factors I've already mentioned. Any more than that would just be inane repetition.

Anyone other than Landrew like to explain precisely how this is a strawman argument?

Strawman? No doubt Landrew thinks you're saying he's making a claim while in his mind he doesn't. All he thinks he's doing is keeping an open mind. He gave examples of reasons to keep his mind open about the ET-earth-holiday-hypothesis. He's putting up an effort never to claim knowledge or belief. He is Neo the True Skeptic, one of the lucky few with access to the right pil.

Plus of course, Spearthrower, what you've been doing is dismissing evidence out-of-hand, which is disingenuous, and substituting X's for zero's (unscientific) to cover up your unsceptical attitude to feel selfishly better about yourself.

Ps: Also, ridicule does not falsify.

Am I close, Landrew?

Yes, great example of straw man building. I realize I've not done a great job of communicating, therefore I should have expected this.

Hold on, let me clarify here.

Do you think that mindhack was strawmanning you now, or were you agreeing with Mindhack's attempt at working out what was going through your mind?

Landrew appears to have forgotten a) the topic (ancient aliens visiting Earth) and b) most of his argumentation in the thread. Consequently I am presenting a strawman because I am filling in the gaps (incidentally, I had to catch back up some 40 pages first, so it was all fresh - he may well have forgotten).

For example: what does the existence of extremophiles have to do with the plausibility of alien astronauts visiting Earth? Really, it's anyone's guess. It looks very much like one of those attempts to bolster an unestablished claim by pretending that sundry disconnected factlets have a bearing on it. If it is not connected, why is it even being mentioned?

I am not convinced even Landrew knows.

Extremophiles would appear to tend to show that it is possible for life to exist in extreme environments. There are lots of extreme environments in space (extreme compared to what we consider to be conducive to life on Earth). So, to see creatures that can exist without the kind of environment that we require to live, tends to show that there might be such creatures also living on other planets. I get that, and I don't think anyone denies it. Although, the fact still remains that no life has been discovered off of the Earth, and any evidence of life having existed off the Earth is dubious. However, I don't think anyone suggests that it's not possible for there to be life elsewhere, and most folks seem to look at the perceived size of the universe and the estimated number of planets and surmise that life may well be pretty plentiful in the universe. It is certainly possible that that is the case.

That being said -- the question remains, is there any good reason to think that intelligent aliens have, in fact, actually visited the Earth. That's different than "is it possible?"

We've gone through some of the intelligent alien visitation evidence throughout this thread, and in general it seems to be speculative, isolated, thin, and easily explainable as mundane in light of the cultures in which the various art pieces and carvings were created. These are speculative items, because a carving of a costumed human on a rock wall that, at best, vaguely could be interpreted to look as a poor depiction of a space suit doesn't really tend to show anything, given that it might well also be a fantastical creature, or just a constumed or adorned human.

The amazing theories about ancient Egyptians creating giant incandescent bulbs to see inside their temples and pyramids are also vague and speculative. The drawings look like many other things -- like big palm leaves -- or perhaps are depictions of things we are unaware of. No evidence of shards of glass, wiring or power sources have ever been discovered, anywhere. No similar depictions in homes or palaces ever found. If the Egyptians knew how to create lights, why wouldn't they use them all over the place? Or, at least among the aristocracy? It just doesn't stand to reason that a few hieroglyphs which sort of, at best, vaguely depict oddly shaped light bulbs, but might also be depictions of other more mundane things, would actually be persuasive.

Same thing with Nazca Lines and Stonehenge. There is nothing beyond the technology of the local peoples in these constructions and there are plausible, mundane reasons for the existence of these things.

When it comes to Nazca, they've been offered as signals or signs to aliens coming in from space. One has to forget that anything capable of space flight is not going to need line drawings on the ground to know where they are on the globe or where to land. It just is very very thin to think that they indicate ancient aliens. It seems just as plausible that they are pictures being shown to the gods. It's not like ancient peoples weren't superstitious.

horacerumpole wrote:
When it comes to Nazca, they've been offered as signals or signs to aliens coming in from space. One has to forget that anything capable of space flight is not going to need line drawings on the ground to know where they are on the globe or where to land. It just is very very thin to think that they indicate ancient aliens. It seems just as plausible that they are pictures being shown to the gods. It's not like ancient peoples weren't superstitious.

I've seen it suggested somewhere or other that the culture responsible for Nazca (or at least someone hanging around there) had developed a preHispanic hot air balloon (I'm sure you can see where this is going in reference to the lines) which seems quite an exciting idea given that it would have been entirely technologically feasible at the time. Unfortunately though, regardless of excitement quota, it seems this idea has turned out to be bollocks.

With regards to 'showing pictures to the Gods' (or variations thereof), considering the significance that South American cultures tended to attach to aspects of landscape, geography and so on (Mexican temple platforms mirroring nearby mountains being the most obvious example I can think of without bothering to leave my chair - most notable at Teotihuacan) I'd actually go further than suggesting this simply be considered plausible, rather it would be significantly unlikely that the lines could be anything other than of geographical ritual significance, unless everything else we understand about South American religion turns out to be wrong.

Looking at Nazca and concluding that it must be there for the benefit of space monsters is like listening to The Beatles white album and assuming the messages you seem to hear have been written specifically for you.

Landrew wrote:I don't believe our ancestors got any help with the heavy lifting, in fact there's no solid evidence that superhuman technology was used in building any of the ancient monuments. That is not to say that advanced ETs have never visited earth. I actually think it's far more likely than not, merely due to my own version of the Drake equation.

So in this case, you don't actually think there is any evidence that people are ignoring?
But you are seemingly keen to deride people who come to a different interim conclusion to you as being closed-minded?

Landrew wrote:But that's the implication. I do not believe Aliens have visited, but I also know that you can't prove a negative in this case, therefore I also make no assertions that they never visited earth.

By weighing the evidence, which includes reasonable and informed speculation, I consider it possible, especially in light of some fairly recent discoveries of earthlike planets, and the discovery of extremophiles. I consider this viewpoint the only reasonable one, in light of available evidence.

But a few posts ago, you were not merely saying it was possible, but probable.

Spearthrower wrote:

Landrew wrote:

mindhack wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:


Anyone other than Landrew like to explain precisely how this is a strawman argument?

Strawman? No doubt Landrew thinks you're saying he's making a claim while in his mind he doesn't. All he thinks he's doing is keeping an open mind. He gave examples of reasons to keep his mind open about the ET-earth-holiday-hypothesis. He's putting up an effort never to claim knowledge or belief. He is Neo the True Skeptic, one of the lucky few with access to the right pil.

Plus of course, Spearthrower, what you've been doing is dismissing evidence out-of-hand, which is disingenuous, and substituting X's for zero's (unscientific) to cover up your unsceptical attitude to feel selfishly better about yourself.

Ps: Also, ridicule does not falsify.

Am I close, Landrew?

Yes, great example of straw man building. I realize I've not done a great job of communicating, therefore I should have expected this.

Hold on, let me clarify here.

Do you think that mindhack was strawmanning you now, or were you agreeing with Mindhack's attempt at working out what was going through your mind?

I still think I'm pretty close on this one. His latest comment about strawmanning had possibly to do with me relabling the hypothesis to a somewhat disdainful ET-earth-holiday-hypothesis.

In my mind Landrew doesn't really read to comprehend, so he spots a word or two and decides to comment on that. And given that he shows to be in some sort of cognitive loop about what constitutes being a skeptic, his comments mostly boil down to the same kind of reply. At least this is my take on it, but feel free to correct me Landrew.

mindhack wrote:
I still think I'm pretty close on this one. His latest comment about strawmanning had possibly to do with me relabling the hypothesis to a somewhat disdainful ET-earth-holiday-hypothesis.

In my mind Landrew doesn't really read to comprehend, so he spots a word or two and decides to comment on that. And given that he shows to be in some sort of cognitive loop about what constitutes being a skeptic, his comments mostly boil down to the same kind of reply. At least this is my take on it, but feel free to correct me Landrew.

It's interesting when people arrive at this site with axes all ready to grind.

tolman wrote:

Landrew wrote:But that's the implication. I do not believe Aliens have visited, but I also know that you can't prove a negative in this case, therefore I also make no assertions that they never visited earth.

By weighing the evidence, which includes reasonable and informed speculation, I consider it possible, especially in light of some fairly recent discoveries of earthlike planets, and the discovery of extremophiles. I consider this viewpoint the only reasonable one, in light of available evidence.

But a few posts ago, you were not merely saying it was possible, but probable.

All that work to establish the inches - the miles will follow naturally!

Spearthrower wrote:

tolman wrote:

Landrew wrote:But that's the implication. I do not believe Aliens have visited, but I also know that you can't prove a negative in this case, therefore I also make no assertions that they never visited earth.

By weighing the evidence, which includes reasonable and informed speculation, I consider it possible, especially in light of some fairly recent discoveries of earthlike planets, and the discovery of extremophiles. I consider this viewpoint the only reasonable one, in light of available evidence.

But a few posts ago, you were not merely saying it was possible, but probable.

All that work to establish the inches - the miles will follow naturally!

How am I not saying that now? Given the scope of time and space, along with our increased knowledge, I would consider it more probable than not that intelligent life has visited this planet at some time in its long history. Lack of evidence should not really be a surprise when you think about it.

Landrew wrote:
How am I not saying that now? Given the scope of time and space, along with our increased knowledge, I would consider it more probable than not that intelligent life has visited this planet at some time in its long history.

I don't think probability works the way you think it does. For one thing, to calculate the probability of an event, you'd need to know the component parts:

You don't even know if there is intelligent life in our galaxy.
You don't even know the probability of intelligent life developing technology that permits interstellar travel.
You don't even know if biological organisms can ubiquitously sail between the stars.
You don't even know if such a motivation is quintessentially human, and it's not of interest to other technologically advanced civilisations.

Let's face it - you know jack shit. That's not a personal criticism as every other member of your species, and all the other species on Earth are in exactly the same position as you.

It's called a belief, Landrew. Now, if you want to maintain that belief, good for you. People believe in all manner of things for which they have no evidence.

But once you actually appreciate this notion of it being a belief, then you can stop playing this retarded 'scientific' card - it's not a scientific position', and you can stop using your belief as a stick to batter at your boogeymen skeptics. If you could apply this new enlightenment to your other beliefs, for which you have equally no evidence, then we'd be good. Until then, expect me to keep pointing out the fragility of your position to you everytime you post such credulous guff as if it were a perfectly reasoned, and validated position.

I think it might be a good idea to recall that probability is actually about quantifying uncertainty, and in the case of this topic, the uncertainty is nigh on total.

Landrew wrote:Lack of evidence should not really be a surprise when you think about it.

That's right. The best kind of claims are those with no evidence. It makes the claim so refreshingly lacking in substance and free of the restraints normally imposed by credibility.


But with regards to the topic - there is no evidence, so the point is that people hold these beliefs as a faith position. I think it's plausible that there is intelligent life in the galaxy. I do not find it quite so plausible to accept that any given technologically advanced civilisation automatically decides its going to pop to every system in the galaxy, fly down to each planet, and do whatever it is that everyone seems to think they do. I think that would take an awfully long time for very little tangible benefit, and I don't have any evidence to suggest that technologically advanced civilisations actually last that kind of time, nor that there would necessarily be such a universally held motivation to do so. I think the notion of an alien species actually visiting Earth in person, or whatever descriptive term might be appropriate, is plain whacked. Any technologically advanced civilisation is going to use automated probes and focus on doing useful stuff rather than spending drab centuries and millenia traversing interstellar space.

What I think and what you think are equal in the sense we're both speculating based on zero evidence, and at best applying a human-centred metric out onto an unknown. However, you do need to bear in mind that when you have zero ability to test your notions, then assumptions are dangerous things. There's little point in assuming that just because there's been adequate time for a civilisation to become highly advanced, that it actually has done so. There's little point in assuming that just because humans are driven to exploit natural resources with an ever-increasing hunger, that other civilisations would necessarily mirror that. There's so little point in making these assumptions because they lead you down the garden path where you suddenly formulate all these necessary consequences of those assumptions, when really you might as well have pulled the lot from your derriere. We all have imaginations; it's just that some people allow themselves to be carried away by them rather than employing them within a sensible framework. Your ability to formulate an argument from comparisons supporting your imagination doesn't actually make your imagination any more true.

Spearthrower wrote:

Landrew wrote:
How am I not saying that now? Given the scope of time and space, along with our increased knowledge, I would consider it more probable than not that intelligent life has visited this planet at some time in its long history.

I don't think probability works the way you think it does. For one thing, to calculate the probability of an event, you'd need to know the component parts:

You don't even know if there is intelligent life in our galaxy.
You don't even know the probability of intelligent life developing technology that permits interstellar travel.
You don't even know if biological organisms can ubiquitously sail between the stars.
You don't even know if such a motivation is quintessentially human, and it's not of interest to other technologically advanced civilisations.

Let's face it - you know jack shit. That's not a personal criticism as every other member of your species, and all the other species on Earth are in exactly the same position as you.

It's called a belief, Landrew. Now, if you want to maintain that belief, good for you. People believe in all manner of things for which they have no evidence.

But once you actually appreciate this notion of it being a belief, then you can stop playing this retarded 'scientific' card - it's not a scientific position', and you can stop using your belief as a stick to batter at your boogeymen skeptics. If you could apply this new enlightenment to your other beliefs, for which you have equally no evidence, then we'd be good. Until then, expect me to keep pointing out the fragility of your position to you everytime you post such credulous guff as if it were a perfectly reasoned, and validated position.

I think it might be a good idea to recall that probability is actually about quantifying uncertainty, and in the case of this topic, the uncertainty is nigh on total.

Landrew wrote:Lack of evidence should not really be a surprise when you think about it.

That's right. The best kind of claims are those with no evidence. It makes the claim so refreshingly lacking in substance and free of the restraints normally imposed by credibility.


But with regards to the topic - there is no evidence, so the point is that people hold these beliefs as a faith position. I think it's plausible that there is intelligent life in the galaxy. I do not find it quite so plausible to accept that any given technologically advanced civilisation automatically decides its going to pop to every system in the galaxy, fly down to each planet, and do whatever it is that everyone seems to think they do. I think that would take an awfully long time for very little tangible benefit, and I don't have any evidence to suggest that technologically advanced civilisations actually last that kind of time, nor that there would necessarily be such a universally held motivation to do so. I think the notion of an alien species actually visiting Earth in person, or whatever descriptive term might be appropriate, is plain whacked. Any technologically advanced civilisation is going to use automated probes and focus on doing useful stuff rather than spending drab centuries and millenia traversing interstellar space.

What I think and what you think are equal in the sense we're both speculating based on zero evidence, and at best applying a human-centred metric out onto an unknown. However, you do need to bear in mind that when you have zero ability to test your notions, then assumptions are dangerous things. There's little point in assuming that just because there's been adequate time for a civilisation to become highly advanced, that it actually has done so. There's little point in assuming that just because humans are driven to exploit natural resources with an ever-increasing hunger, that other civilisations would necessarily mirror that. There's so little point in making these assumptions because they lead you down the garden path where you suddenly formulate all these necessary consequences of those assumptions, when really you might as well have pulled the lot from your derriere. We all have imaginations; it's just that some people allow themselves to be carried away by them rather than employing them within a sensible framework. Your ability to formulate an argument from comparisons supporting your imagination doesn't actually make your imagination any more true.

I sense that you need the last word, even if it means repetition of what you've said before many times, which amounts to little more than trashing your own straw-man arguments and "support your claims." Since I am making no claims, only speculating, informed by the rationale I have previously outlined, I'll let you have one last kick at the can, and then hopefully we can assume that everything we needed to say about the subject has finally been said.

Did anyone else notice how my post, which was expansive and, I should hope, at least partially thought-provoking, was completely ignored by Landrew. Now ain't that telling.

Indeed.

Landrew.. Your going to probability on this one? Seriously?

First off even the most GENEROUS assumptions made with the Drake equation give off a low potential for Intelligent life that can make interstellar travel, but worst of all... You forget to then factor the potential fact that they have MANY other worlds to potentially go visit instead of us.

No matter how you play with the Drake Equation. Each time you increase the potential factors to have planets with life and then intelligent life on those planets etc.. you increase the potential places those Aliens may want to actually go and visit instead of here... And that's assuming they aren't more interested in lifeless rock planets so they can carve them up for resources without destroying the potential for life.

Spearthrower wrote:Did anyone else notice how my post, which was expansive and, I should hope, at least partially thought-provoking, was completely ignored by Landrew. Now ain't that telling.

Seems to be his preferred method of engagement.

So, what's the evidence?

I've suggested some before - anything other than the Nazca lines, pyramids, sporadic humaniform rock carvings, religious writings about stuff flying around, and megaliths? If there is something other than that stuff, I would love to know about it.

Wuffy wrote:Landrew.. Your going to probability on this one? Seriously?

First off even the most GENEROUS assumptions made with the Drake equation give off a low potential for Intelligent life that can make interstellar travel, but worst of all... You forget to then factor the potential fact that they have MANY other worlds to potentially go visit instead of us.

No matter how you play with the Drake Equation. Each time you increase the potential factors to have planets with life and then intelligent life on those planets etc.. you increase the potential places those Aliens may want to actually go and visit instead of here... And that's assuming they aren't more interested in lifeless rock planets so they can carve them up for resources without destroying the potential for life.

I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that such an advanced race would need to be involved in the commodities market. I think it's fair to assume that once the energy barrier is conquered, energy and matter would be interchangeable; allowing any material to be synthesized, and matter to be converted to abundant energy. As for shackling them with the burden of conventional space travel, we are already beginning to visualize the physics of potential teleportation. I think the mistake is to define potential intelligent extraterrestrial life within our own terms.

Oh man, what ignorant horseshit.

Landrew wrote:

Wuffy wrote:Landrew.. Your going to probability on this one? Seriously?

First off even the most GENEROUS assumptions made with the Drake equation give off a low potential for Intelligent life that can make interstellar travel, but worst of all... You forget to then factor the potential fact that they have MANY other worlds to potentially go visit instead of us.

No matter how you play with the Drake Equation. Each time you increase the potential factors to have planets with life and then intelligent life on those planets etc.. you increase the potential places those Aliens may want to actually go and visit instead of here... And that's assuming they aren't more interested in lifeless rock planets so they can carve them up for resources without destroying the potential for life.

I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that such an advanced race would need to be involved in the commodities market. I think it's fair to assume that once the energy barrier is conquered, energy and matter would be interchangeable; allowing any material to be synthesized, and matter to be converted to abundant energy. As for shackling them with the burden of conventional space travel, we are already beginning to visualize the physics of potential teleportation. I think the mistake is to define potential intelligent extraterrestrial life within our own terms.

. . . Agreed. But then it would also be a mistake to assume they value us or our planet in some way. It would seem to me that they would be much more likely to pass us over since we're just another hum-drum planet with violent, brutal, and primitive carbon-based life. Boring.