Originally posted by Amagnon

Originally posted by xelamental

Originally posted by finnegan
Conspiracists, I think some of you may be taking the Op to personally, although I do think it may have been better if any particular cases were left out of the discussion. Another problem lies with people who are just utterly deniable of anything no matter what information is presented to them. But I don't think it's too much to ask to provide solid evidence and to look at it logically.

Here is a video I posted in another thread which is also very applicable here

video by QualiaSoup

YouTube Link

That's the best video on this topic I have ever seen.
I would love to see some "believers" takes on this.

This video represents in my view - the 'normal' approach to thinking. I wish I could make a small video to show how ludicrously limited and biased the style of thinking it advocates really is - however, it is largely how people think.

The problem occurs when you 'accept' something as true. So your skeptical - but finally evidence piles up - and you say, ok ET's really do exist. That decision of yours, did not pop aliens into existence - they either existed, or did not exist before you made that choice, and the same state of the universe continued smoothly along after you made that choice.

However, what has happened now is that you have biased your mind. Any evidence that aliens cannot exist can now safely be discounted. Even further than that, if you see a book titled "The Impossibility of the ET Presence" - you will not glance at it, nor read it. Reading it would be a waste of your time - because you already 'know' that ET's exist.

Any evidence that they do exist, no matter how flawed can safely be assumed to be true. With a little bit of mental tweaking from yourself - you can convince yourself the most tenuous evidence becomes 'solid' evidence.

My conclusion then - if you wish to retain a critical mind, and truly be able to assess data in an unbiased way - then you must suspend belief - all belief.

My model of thought goes like this.

Everything goes in - all data, all evidence - it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is. It is then assembled into groups - perhaps it is assembled underneath a statement of possibility. Such as Do aliens exist. Then you just pour all the evidence into that space. Then you have a good understanding of how the question might be answered both in the affirmative - and in the negative. Now you can also start to assign a probability to the likely hood that the possibility is real (true), or unreal (false).

For myself - the evidence I have indicates that intelligent aliens exist somewhere (lets say over 99%), that they have visited earth in the past (around 70%), that they are visiting today (maybe 60%).

The correct mental exercise here is to look for ways to reduce those percentages - because a high percentage is likely to create bias - such my 99% for aliens existing somewhere. To reduce that number I would be looking for info that tells me there are less stars than originally estimated, that the plants so far located are errors - that perhaps the earth and liquid water are freakishly improbable and so forth.

[edit on 18-10-2009 by Amagnon]

Originally posted by finnegan
Conspiracists, I think some of you may be taking the Op to personally, although I do think it may have been better if any particular cases were left out of the discussion. Another problem lies with people who are just utterly deniable of anything no matter what information is presented to them. But I don't think it's too much to ask to provide solid evidence and to look at it logically.

Here is a video I posted in another thread which is also very applicable here

video by QualiaSoup

YouTube Link