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Comment by danenania | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think aliens and magic belong in the same category though.

Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding.

But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. It would be a shock, obviously, just like it was a shock when we discovered that other galaxies exist, or black holes, or that nuclear fission is possible.

If intelligent aliens do exist and are close enough to us to be detected (or to detect us), which is certainly possible and maybe even probable, then we’re likely going to find out about them someday. Is that what’s happening now with these UAP? It seems that we don’t know yet, but it’s as unscientific to throw out the aliens hypothesis a priori as to insist it’s definitely aliens and no other explanation is possible.

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>But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus.

The existence of aliens, sure. But the presence of aliens on Earth pretty much does. There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible, and it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships to cross the great interstellar gulfs just so that they can fuck around with pilots and anally probe hayseeds.

That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave.

For us, it's just another 5 years old.

Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.

We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us.

There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons.

Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.

There is absolutely zero data on the presence of life in the universe. You are imagining that life out there. Which is fine! I sometimes imagine it too. It's fun to imagine, but we are just filling in gaps with imagination. As an example, note that people imagined life on Mars based on "evidence". Life with canals and everything. [1] But once our telescopes got better, those same alien civilizations got pushed back just out of their range.

A process strikingly similar to what religious people do with gods, angels, etc. There's also no real data on where the universe comes from, so they can imagine that it is due to god(s). God used to be on a high mountain, or just above the sky. But like the Martians, He has had to up sticks and move to loftier realms.

I'll also note that some of the alien-imaginers use exactly your reasoning to derive gods. Statistically, aliens must exist, and they must have existed long before us, and they must therefore be so technologically advanced that UFOs are real and we can't prove it just because they are so superior. Or, alternatively, that those aliens caused us in one way or another, from shaping our evolution to seeding our planet to creating the universe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals

According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument.

You can doubt the existence of intelligent aliens. But they obviously aren’t in the same category as religious beliefs. On the other hand, assuming we are somehow special and must be the only intelligent life is quite in line with religious thinking.

We do have data on life in the universe: earth. Very few natural phenomena occur a single time and never again. Apart from early universe events like the big bang and expansion, I can’t think of an example.

> According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument.

Nah. All of those were things that there were specific reason to believe based on theory and evidence. But it can be a fine line. Look at how quickly quantum mechanics went from abstruse high theory to being used to support absolute woo. [1] Or look at how black holes went from interesting mathematical concept to magic plot device. [2]

Do I grant the theoretical possibility of intelligent life somewhere? Sure, and I never said otherwise. Do I believe it's a lock? Not at all. If we somehow survey the universe and discover we are alone, then our theories will adjust just fine. There is no evidence to the contrary to be overcome.

So yes, in terms of an explanatory device for phenomena observed on earth, aliens and gods are in exactly the same category of "unevidenced anthropomorphic agents that people have been inappropriately using as explanations for millennia". Because people are like that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

[2] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film)

Again, according to your argument, because some people employ quantum physics in pseudoscience and woo, that makes quantum physics like religion.

Sorry, you’re just wrong. The possibility of intelligent aliens is on firm scientific ground, which is why we have projects like SETI running. Aliens aren’t like gods or angels, regardless of how many times you repeat it. Certain people might treat them that way, just like people abuse all kinds of scientific concepts. That doesn’t merit a categorical dismissal.

You really don't seem to be getting my argument. Indeed, you don't seem to be trying.

I never said the possibility of aliens somewhere in the universe and somewhere in time was scientifically impossible. Indeed, I've said the opposite, something you seem dedicated to missing if you're still acting otherwise.

I am specifically saying that there's no scientific justification for using aliens as an explanatory device for things that are happening right here on earth. That's just fantasy.

I obviously don't think quantum mechanics is like religion when it's in the hands of Paul Dirac. But I do think it's effectively religion in the hands of Deepak Chopra. Similarly, I don't think the SETI folks are religious kooks, but I do think UFO cultists are.

What you are doing is rejecting a valid hypothesis based on emotion and bias rather than evidence. Aliens could be causing the UAP that have been extensively documented by the US military. You have put forth nothing to rule it out. You can’t, because no conclusive evidence has been found so far (or at least made public) that rules it out.

We know intelligent aliens might exist. We know that if they did visit earth, it would mean that they have technology that far exceeds our own. We have extensive documentation of events that, naively, look like some kind of extremely advanced technology that is far beyond human capabilities. So far, we have found no natural explanation, no explanation involving instrument malfunction, and no explanation involving human actors. That doesn’t mean it’s aliens, but it does mean it could be. If you think they should be crossed off the list, you’ll have to do better than making assertions.

Sure. Gods could also be causing the UAP. I can't rule that out either.

But my point is that there is exactly the same level of evidence for gods and aliens being behind these. I'm not saying either one's inconceivable. I'm just saying that I'm going to treat them both with the same level of seriousness. That is, approximately none.

I'm going to treat unexplained, poorly documented phenomena as unexplained, poorly documented phenomena. Does that mean I'm missing out on the Virgin Mary or aliens or ghosts or whatever? Possibly. But as a practical matter, a century's worth of paranormal hoohah shows I could waste my entire life on this stuff and never get anywhere. I am content that there are enough devoted skeptics out there that if any of the paranormal brigade comes up with some clear and repeatable evidence, I'll hear about it. Until then it goes in the bucket with dowsing and spirit guides and whatnot.

"Gods could also be causing the UAP. I can't rule that out either."

You can rule it out because we've never found evidence of gods existing in the universe, and there's never been a scientific theory put forward for how they could exist that is consistent with our understanding of biology, astronomy, and physics. This obviously doesn't apply to intelligent life, but something tells me you aren't going to concede that. Thanks for the discussion.

There is no evidence of aliens existing in the universe either. None!

Indeed, the god-believers have a lot more "evidence" than the alien-believers do, even if I think it's all pretty specious. And I'll note that the god-believers don't have to prove consistency with biology, etc, in that in their view, that's god-created. Plus, there are things that the god hypothesis explains that the alien hypothesis doesn't, like why we have universe at all.

Again, I think it's all claptrap. I get that you're mad that I see them as the same. Most religious people would be insulted in the opposite direction. But from my perspective, religious people are like that. So yes, you're very welcome for the discussion, and I hope you find it helpful down the road.

> There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible

This seems like fairly closed thinking. We’ve observed strange behavior at the quantum level. We have plausible theories of wormholes and multiverses. It’s conceivable that some civilization has assembled FTL travel from these and other natural phenomena yet unknown.

> it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships

We’re working on AI and we can sequence DNA. A sufficiently advanced civilization could send a ship that can synthesize its crew upon arrival.

We have observed quantum entanglement. Perhaps information can travel faster than light and all you need to send physically is the equivalent of a quantum modem attached to a Star Trek replicator.

This is exactly how the spiritualists sounded in their day. They had facially plausible theories of the phenomena they claimed to observe with no actual evidence described in ways that fit in with the gaps in understanding of the moment.

I too consume a lot of science fiction, but it's important to remember that it's just writers making shit up. Perhaps FTL is possible. Perhaps angel are real. Both are things people want to believe in, and both have facially plausible literary explanations, but they have equally good scientific evidence at the moment.

The fact that there is no way to know means that at most we should say "no idea". It is also the least knowledge we should pretend to have on the subject.

Well, we do have some idea.

Take gods. Even most theists don't believe in most gods. An atheist, as the saying goes, is just a person who disbelieves in one more god than average.

In theory, everybody has to admit that all gods are possible. Does Zeus exist? No idea. Does Bast exist? No idea. Does Yahweh exist? No idea. It's not like we can prove that they aren't out there somewhere.

But what we do know is that a lot humans have made up a lot of gods. We know that people make up and believe in all sorts of things with no evidence at all. So if something fits the same pattern, then we actually have reasonable evidence that it's just another one of those things.

So in a world of people who will take "no idea" as permission to rant more about their theory of chemtrails or ZOG or how the true Messiah lives in a heavily fortified compound outside of Waco, TX, I think an honest and accurate "no idea" isn't enough. Would that it were.

Did you happen to notice the phrases “it’s conceivable” and “perhaps” in my reply? I’m not making any categorical assertions. I think people who make categorical assertions in the negative regarding other life in the universe and its potential capabilities are engaging in scientism.

Lots of things are conceivable. Gods are conceivable, as are angels and demons. It's conceivable that you are the only sentient being in existence besides me and that I am a vast superintelligence controlling everything you see and hear, posting little reminders of the truth like this just to fuck with you.

However, I doubt you're going to spend much time on that, and I'm not going to spend much time on other things that are merely conceivable.

until there is a theory of everything i don't think its reasonable to rule out the possibility of FTL travel. even physicists got all worked up few years ago when they detected FTL neutrinos at CERN (which turned out to be a sensor malfunction but still)

The trouble with the aliens is that it’s too good an explanation. Inscrutable beings with tech we don’t don’t understand works as an explanation of just about anything, so if we allow that in our explanatory toolbox we’ll end up crying “aliens” for all sorts of hard-to-explain phenomena. In most of those cases we’d have found a mundane explanation if we looked longer and thought harder. Non-falsifiable, broad spectrum theories like aliens and magic need to go last on the list, down below “we don’t know yet, let’s gather more data,” or we’ll end up fooling ourselves.

If there really are aliens, eventually we should have enough evidence that we can build specific, falsifiable theories about particular, well-defined entities with at least rough bounds on capabilities. But we’re not close to that point yet.

Aliens isn't being thrown out a priori, because the hypothesis isn't just "it's aliens".

The hypothesis, to fit the evidence is: "it's aliens, using technology advanced enough that it can do things nothing else on Earth can do, without generating the normally expected physical effects, and are also mostly but not entirely undetectable".

Given what we’ve learned about the challenges of interstellar travel, it’s safe to assume that any civilization capable of visiting us would be thousands of years beyond our current understanding of physics.

If you compare our current understanding of physics to what humans knew thousands of years ago, it’s logical that the technology of an interstellar civilization would be as far beyond our understanding as a nuclear reactor would have been to the ancient Romans.

This is not remotely a safe assumption. We know interstellar travel is resource intensive, but it's within the capabilities of todays technology. It was probably doable with some effort with 1960s technology.

This is the same basic error of reasoning where people say because the moon landing happened, faking the moon landing was also possible (it wasn't: video editing technology of sufficient capability did not exist - space flight and CGI are two entirely separate lines of technical problem solving).

It’s not within today’s technology to actually visit an extrasolar planet. We could possibly do a flyby with a solar sail but we don’t have a way to slow down and enter the planet’s atmosphere. And even that only gets us to the relatively small number of stars that are in our immediate vicinity in any kind of human-civilization-scale timeframe.

Space is 3-dimensional and astronomically, cosmically huge. Getting from a planet to space is trivial compared to getting from space to a planet.

You said you don't think aliens and magic should be the same category, but now argue that they'd be so advanced that, would it even be differentiable from magic?

It would be differentiable in the same way any more advanced technology than what we have now would be. It will have been created through scientific research and engineering, just like our own technology. Not understanding how something works doesn’t make it magic.

> It will have been created through scientific research and engineering, just like our own technology.

It seems a touch hubristic to assume that an advanced civilization with technological capabilities far exceeding our own would have used our processes and techniques to get there.

They’d have their own processes and techniques, but on some level they’d have to be discovering the properties of reality, then using that knowledge to create vessels that could travel between stars, slow down to visit planets, and do various other tricks that seem to defy physics as we know it (based on UAP observations). To me that’s still science and engineering even if it was done in completely different ways.

If I met a wizard, he'd obviously be way better at magic than I am, and it'd be way beyond my understanding of physics. Those safe assumptions don't make magic exist

Magic/ supernatural isn't unscientific by definition. We don't believe in it because there isn't anyone able to do those things for all of us to see. Science is defined by the scientific method and our curiosity to apply it not by our scepticism.

If it was real, it would not be called “supernatural”, by literal definition.

Supernatural (adj): (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding.

> Something CAN be real and beyond current scientific understanding

I think you're reading that wrong. "Beyond scientific understanding" doesn't mean "beyond current scientific understanding", it actually means, "beyond any possible scientific understanding". So a supernatural phenomenon would defeat any possible attempt at characterizing it scientifically.

Have you considered that you're interpreting it wrong? Go back in time with self-replicating, able to construct themselves to predefined structures, nanobots and you'll have supernatural powers that "violate" scientific understanding of the time. Doesn't mean it can't be explained.

It is true hubris and actually kind of sad to think we know all laws of nature and nothing new could stump us and our cherished laws of nature.

Also, read my other comments. Science is about explaining the previously unexplainable. So nothing, no phenomena you sense with your senses, is beyond science.

The definition of "supernatural" has nothing to do with scientific understanding at any particular time, it's about whether a scientific understanding is possible even in principle. Deities and souls are not amenable to scientific understanding even in principle, that's why they're considered supernatural. Observed phenomena that defy current understanding don't qualify.

Let's look at the root word. "Natural" does not mean "familiar" or "understood". It just means that it's a part of the physical world we inhabit. Conversely, the "supernatural" is what exists beyond the physical world we inhabit: it's not real by definition.

This is all a semantic disagreement and not a question of hubris or overconfidence or of how advanced our knowledge really is.

Quantum effects, like those used by the LEDs on your computer, used to be "supernatural" until someone figured out the physics behind them and invented devices capable of exploiting these effects. If you could bring an LED back in time to the year 1500 and show it to people then (with a power source and current driver of course), they would surely call it "supernatural".

Breaking Special Relativity is not some 15th century "oh, there's some lovely dirt down here" impressionable pleb. We have machines that can confirm SR to within ridiculous level.

They were never supernatural. They were just not known or not understood. Physics is by some definition the study of the natural world. There is a lot we don't know about the natural world, but what we know and don't know aren't what make something "supernatural".

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

LEDs were absolutely supernatural. As I said, go back in time with one and show it to Medieval serfs and see what they say. Supernatural is anything that you can't explain given your understanding of the universe.

Quote from hpmor.com chapter 1.

> The Professor turned and looked down at him, dismissive as usual. "Oh, come now, Harry. Really, magic? I thought you'd know better than to take this seriously, son, even if you're only ten. Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!"

...

> "Mum," Harry said. "If you want to win this argument with Dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um... off the top of my head I can't think of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of arguments -"

> Magic/supernatural by definition is contrary to physical laws and scientific understanding.

Many of the "UFO" observations fall into that. As is "under known physics it is impossible explanation"

The observed behaviors do appear to contradict physical laws.

My point is if we’re looking for an explanation, it’s either some natural phenomenon or illusion that we don’t understand, human technology, or alien technology.

In either of the latter two options, we are either talking about new physics or very advanced spoofing tech that looks like new physics but isn’t really.

For human tech, we’ve never seen anything resembling a leap like that being accomplished by a government in total secrecy. It’s hard to imagine. I think this holds even if it’s just crazy advanced spoofing, given the details of the various encounters.

But for alien tech: if intelligent aliens do exist and they did visit us, it would follow that their technology and scientific understanding are far beyond our own. It’s basically impossible that they wouldn’t have knowledge of new physics that we have no current inkling of, just as a scientist from a thousand years ago could have no inkling of relativity or black holes. In this sense, strange inexplicable phenomena that break the laws of physics (as we currently understand them) are consistent with aliens.

So to me, the real question is whether we can figure out a natural phenomenon to explain this. If it is something natural, it seems like it has to be something pretty weird. If it’s not, aliens seem like a valid candidate, pending further evidence.

The reverse of that is assuming our instruments (which eyes totally are) are perfect and therefore if they saw something it must be the first guess and not just an error or misinterpretation.

You're basically saying "alien tech is un-understandable however we can still easily tell it is alien and not measurement error"

Measurement artifacts or malfunction (and mistaken eyewitness accounts from multiple credible observers) are another possibility, but they're difficult to square with the data. There's just too much signal, measured in too many different ways, to handwave it away like that.

You're sayihg that not only do aliens exist, but that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong? Or the universe is non local, and these aliens have developed ftl teleportation?

In order to get here, aliens have to have traveled here, and while traveling, and alive, they'll give off heat -- glowing brightly if they have to turn or accelerate to avoid crashing really hard into the earth.

An alien arriving before they traveled breaks a lot of things, and makes them much closer to magic than some single cell equivalents on a distant moon

Magic that works isn't called magic, so magic not working is basically tautological. Inscribing intricate patterns on crystals to summon non-human intelligence you can converse with? That's not magic, that's computer engineering and science. It's not magic, because it works. Magic is whatever hasn't been demonstrated to work. Transmuting lead into gold? That was magic until we figured out nuclear physics, then it became not magic.

Aliens haven't yet been demonstrated to exist, so they're in the same domain as fantastic claims that haven't yet been demonstrated to work. Magic.

Aliens haven’t been demonstrated to exist, but we have seen that life exists in the only solar system we’re capable of closely observing.

We humans have a long history of erroneously assuming that we’re the special case.

Magic implies we have no idea of how a phenomenon is possible, but we know perfectly well that the existence of aliens is possible. They’re like black holes or gravitational waves before we found physical evidence for them, not magic.

There's a whole lot of seemingly rational and well grounded theorizing about why aliens should exist. But there's no evidence for it, despite many years of looking.

At a certain point, when you can't reconcile observed reality with your beautiful theory, you've got to question the theory. That's the essence of science, discarding theories that cannot be reconciled with observed reality. It may be the case that advanced life capable of sending radio signals or traveling the stars is so exceedingly unlikely to form that even life on earth was a freak fluke of luck. Remember that life on earth got stuck in the mono-cellular stage for billions of years. There was no assurance it would ever get past that stage. And the number of stars in the universe is a weak rebuttal to this line of thinking, since it only takes a handful of independent "one in a million" chances to create a a probability so stupidly small that it makes the number of stars in the entire observable universe seem mundane.

There’s “no evidence” only if you ignore what has been happening on our skies for the past 70+ years. To be sure SETI has found nothing, nor has Hubble, nor JWT, nor Sloan nor Voyager nor Opportunity.

Yet something keeps showing up in our skies, year after year, decade after decade, and that something is widely and roundly ignored.

How is unexplained phenomena 'evidence'?

Because 'aliens might exist' is a theory and 'there is stuff that happens in the sky that has not been formally explained' is a fact, why should we connect the two as evidence of one another?

'Cockroaches taste like jellybeans' is a theory. 'Many people waking up in the middle of the night, having heard a rustling, without being able to see put something in their mouth that tastes like a jellybean, living near and employed at a jellybean factory' is not evidence of this theory.

Let me rephrase it: “Is there evidence of something unexplained going on in our skies?”

Answer that question before moving on. If your answer is “no” then no further discussion is warranted. If yes then further investigation is needed.

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