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[Eric Blank]

Through what means, exactly, could one not be able to think and yet achieve a level of technological and societal advancement to put together a spacecraft and embark on an expedition across the stars and spy on another civilization?

[GlyphGryph]

greatorder, what would it take for someone to be a "real" psychic, to you?

[Putnam]

Aliens: yes. Our solar system isn't special in any way we can tell except that it is the only one that we know has life. But remember that 10 years ago, it was the only one known to have more than 4 planets; 21 years ago, the only one known to have planets at all; 100 years ago, it was thought to be in the only galaxy in the universe; 400 years ago, it was thought to orbit the center of the universe; and 500 years ago, it was thought to be the center of the universe. I won't get fooled again. They don't come here, though; why would they? All we have is an extremely rare (as far as we know, won't get fooled again :I) solar eclipse with visible corona.

Ghosts: No.

Psychics: Hell no.

Mediums: Fuck no.

Magick: I love reading about this. But no.

[Pnx]

Sometimes I do wonder about the solar eclipse thing... I mean as far as I know everything says that it's some kind of serendipitous coincidence that our eclipses wind up being such a near perfect match in terms of size and positioning of the sun and moon. But when that kind of thing happens I wonder if it has less to do with coincidence and more to do with some kind of physical property that makes far more likely than it might at first seem.

[Eric Blank]

They don't come here, though; why would they? All we have is an extremely rare (as far as we know, won't get fooled again :I) solar eclipse with visible corona.

You could probably make a killing shipping tourists around on vacations to other worlds with exotic phenomena or to ogle other lifeforms. Not to say that there is any possibility that there are spacefaring EVIL CAPITALIST aliens or anything...

[alexandertnt]

Sometimes I do wonder about the solar eclipse thing... I mean as far as I know everything says that it's some kind of serendipitous coincidence that our eclipses wind up being such a near perfect match in terms of size and positioning of the sun and moon. But when that kind of thing happens I wonder if it has less to do with coincidence and more to do with some kind of physical property that makes far more likely than it might at first seem.

There is a very low probability of specific rare and miraculous events happenings, but there is a very high change that any rare and miraculous event will happen. So when people point out the extreme inprobability of some event happening, they tend to ignore the fact that dice are rolled continuously all the time on wheather some improbable event will happen.

Its like the difference between rolling a single 1000 sided dice to try to get a 50 and rolling 99999 1000 sided dice to try to get a 50, except you dont notice the 99995 dice that diddnt get 50.

[GlyphGryph]

greatorder, what would it take for someone to be a "real" psychic, to you?

As in 'read minds, telekinesis' sort of psychic. Using only their minds without any sort of modification so it rules out any potential future technologies. Medium's the whole 'Communicate with the dead' side of it.

Of course, there are people who are very good at using tricks to make it seem like they're psychic.

It's hardly fair to say someone can't do something (if they are not allowed to use what is needed to do a thing). Boo to your inconsideration for technopsychics!

Mediums are total whack-jobs though.

[Steelmagic]

Whenever mediums are brought up, I immediately think of that guy with the big white Afro. Also apparently the word Afro should be capitalized.

[Sergarr]

This thread is too boring. Somebody call LordBucket here.

[Helgoland]

Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket Lord-Bucket
/ominouschanting

Now, we wait.

[Jelle]

Belief is such a silly thing. One should consider all possabilities, but take none as truth until proven. It especially irks me when people starting substituting possibilities with probabilities. Probably this, highyl unlikely this, good chance that this.
The whole alien debate is a prominant example, as if these probabilities are based on anything but theoretical fantasies.

[Helgoland]

Belief is such a silly thing. One should consider all possabilities, but take none as truth until proven. It especially irks me when people starting substituting possibilities with probabilities. Probably this, highyl unlikely this, good chance that this.
The whole alien debate is a prominant example, as if these probabilities are based on anything but theoretical fantasies.

You know about solipcism, don't you? Most if not all beliefs that we hold are 'theoretical fantasies'. A good non-solipsistic example is the Higgs boson: It is considered detected because the probability of it not existing has been shown to be sufficiently low.

[Jelle]

Belief is such a silly thing. One should consider all possabilities, but take none as truth until proven. It especially irks me when people starting substituting possibilities with probabilities. Probably this, highyl unlikely this, good chance that this.
The whole alien debate is a prominant example, as if these probabilities are based on anything but theoretical fantasies.

You know about solipcism, don't you? Most if not all beliefs that we hold are 'theoretical fantasies'. A good non-solipsistic example is the Higgs boson: It is considered detected because the probability of it not existing has been shown to be sufficiently low.

I will read more on solipcism. On your example, is that not normal practice of the scientific method? Measurements provide only probabilities (normally distributed if I'm not mistaken), to prove is to make the margin of error aceptably low is it not? I must admit I should brush up my statistics.

[Helgoland]

Pretty much - it's like the mathematically correct expression of "We need control experiments". Not that it matters much in day-to-day research, but it's generally desirable that a researcher knows that he can't really know stuff.

If you want more info on the subject, you should read about Karl Popper. Solipcism is rather boring - an idea that doesn't lead to further insights.

[Eagleon]

Pretty much - it's like the mathematically correct expression of "We need control experiments". Not that it matters much in day-to-day research, but it's generally desirable that a researcher knows that he can't really know stuff.

If you want more info on the subject, you should read about Karl Popper. Solipcism is rather boring - an idea that doesn't lead to further insights.

It's only boring if you don't take it as an invitation to embrace introspection, surrealism, and existential awe. Or, if you're feeling morbid and depressive and such, existential dread - same thing, only one has rainbows and trees and things. You just have to take the day-to-day as an internally consistent fragment of its own, and you're set to be as pants-on-head twisted in your take on the realness of things as you'd like!

Of course, that might also be the road to schizophrenia, but philosophers have gotten to be so safe these days, with their cappuccinos and their college degrees...

Edit: More seriously, knowing that you don't know something, and being able to produce internally consistant Gedanken, is pretty essential to producing new thought and finding ways to break past academic dogma. Yes, there is scientific consensus for certain things. Those things are probably true, whatever that means. Yes, it can be useful to follow that consensus to focus your attention into new areas. But when that well dries up, and there's nowhere else to go but fantasy, your obligation is to fantasize. The idea that we're close to understanding the way the world works is attractive, but it's as much of a dead end as the idea that we can't understand it at all. The key difference is that the latter provides new direction and movement, rather than just butterfly collections.