Hi Steve. Skepticism is healthy, provided it doesn’t get in the way of science.
And skepticism is unhealthy when it becomes cancel “culture.”
This is not the case of Shermer, who is a thinker I like and often agree with. But those I call “bureaucrats of science” want to cancel the researchers on UFO/UAP and other politically incorrect topics. This is no good, and I oppose them.
Having said this, I must confess that I’m sort of skeptical myself on UFO/UAP claims. But my heart is with the starry-eyed believers!
Concerning UFOs you say "I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be yet another empty conspiracy theory" and I agree with that. You then say "I don’t think we could detect the ultratech of really advanced aliens", but if those "advanced" aliens can't or won't do anything that we can detect doesn't that mean they're not very interesting? At any rate, I am confident very soon there will be a non-human ultraintelligent being that is extremely easy to detect and perhaps be a little too interesting; but we won't find it in the sky, we will make it ourselves.
Hi John. Aliens that can come here but make themselves and their technology undetectable would be *very* interesting to me and I’d do my best to try and detect them anyway. Working around their undetectability would teach us new and likely very advanced science.
I’m following both ET and AI developments and waiting for more information with an open mind.
The two developments may not even be completely unrelated. What if UFOs are posthuman time-traveling historians who are studying the run up to the Singularity and therefore try not to alter their past by not actively engaging with us? Alternatively, they could be simulators simulating their ancestors with UFOs being the higher-dimensional equivalent of mouse pointers. In our simulations, our mouse pointers are not subject to the physics engine of the simulation so why would theirs be?
But, if they are biological NHI, then that would still be very interesting, although I suppose that once nanotechnology has fully matured, meat or metal bodies would be a matter of choice.
But truth be told, we don't need saviors from the sky and we never have. We wondrous humans progressed from 260 meters of powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to landing at the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon in the span of 66 years. Then for an encore, New Horizons reached Pluto a mere 46 years after that. Given time, we would reach the stars on our own.
That being said, in the interest of not reinventing the wheel, what is this and how does it work?
I'm open minded on all these possibilities. Stay tuned for the next Turing Church podcast (already recorded, to be published in a few days) where we talk about all these things and more.
<once nanotechnology has fully matured, meat or metal bodies would be a matter of choice.>
Perhaps not metal as we know it, not for the brain. It can be argued that only exotic quantum phases of matter can support consciousness. Time will tell.
<we don't need saviors from the sky and we never have. We wondrous humans progressed from 260 meters of powered flight at Kitty Hawk...>
But did we really do all that without symbolic saviors from the sky? I think the aspiration to higher worlds sustained by the world's religions has played a very important role in all sci/tech developments so far. Symbols and myths are powerful. If we have lost the ability to relate to the old myths, we must find new ones. I started reading "Flying Saucers : A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies" by G.G. Jung.
Michael Shermer, on Substack, posted a great essay: There's a UFO in My Garage.
Hi Steve. Skepticism is healthy, provided it doesn’t get in the way of science.
And skepticism is unhealthy when it becomes cancel “culture.”
This is not the case of Shermer, who is a thinker I like and often agree with. But those I call “bureaucrats of science” want to cancel the researchers on UFO/UAP and other politically incorrect topics. This is no good, and I oppose them.
Having said this, I must confess that I’m sort of skeptical myself on UFO/UAP claims. But my heart is with the starry-eyed believers!
Concerning UFOs you say "I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be yet another empty conspiracy theory" and I agree with that. You then say "I don’t think we could detect the ultratech of really advanced aliens", but if those "advanced" aliens can't or won't do anything that we can detect doesn't that mean they're not very interesting? At any rate, I am confident very soon there will be a non-human ultraintelligent being that is extremely easy to detect and perhaps be a little too interesting; but we won't find it in the sky, we will make it ourselves.
John K Clark
Hi John. Aliens that can come here but make themselves and their technology undetectable would be *very* interesting to me and I’d do my best to try and detect them anyway. Working around their undetectability would teach us new and likely very advanced science.
I’m following both ET and AI developments and waiting for more information with an open mind.
The two developments may not even be completely unrelated. What if UFOs are posthuman time-traveling historians who are studying the run up to the Singularity and therefore try not to alter their past by not actively engaging with us? Alternatively, they could be simulators simulating their ancestors with UFOs being the higher-dimensional equivalent of mouse pointers. In our simulations, our mouse pointers are not subject to the physics engine of the simulation so why would theirs be?
But, if they are biological NHI, then that would still be very interesting, although I suppose that once nanotechnology has fully matured, meat or metal bodies would be a matter of choice.
But truth be told, we don't need saviors from the sky and we never have. We wondrous humans progressed from 260 meters of powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to landing at the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon in the span of 66 years. Then for an encore, New Horizons reached Pluto a mere 46 years after that. Given time, we would reach the stars on our own.
That being said, in the interest of not reinventing the wheel, what is this and how does it work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qiZ_L8wX4
Hi Stuart,
<What if UFOs are...>
I'm open minded on all these possibilities. Stay tuned for the next Turing Church podcast (already recorded, to be published in a few days) where we talk about all these things and more.
<once nanotechnology has fully matured, meat or metal bodies would be a matter of choice.>
Perhaps not metal as we know it, not for the brain. It can be argued that only exotic quantum phases of matter can support consciousness. Time will tell.
<we don't need saviors from the sky and we never have. We wondrous humans progressed from 260 meters of powered flight at Kitty Hawk...>
But did we really do all that without symbolic saviors from the sky? I think the aspiration to higher worlds sustained by the world's religions has played a very important role in all sci/tech developments so far. Symbols and myths are powerful. If we have lost the ability to relate to the old myths, we must find new ones. I started reading "Flying Saucers : A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies" by G.G. Jung.