348 replies to this topic

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

"once you eliminate the improabale, whatever remains no mstter how impossibe must be the truth" Dirk Gentle, holistic detective.

[laver]

Wearer of Hats, on 01 February 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

"once you eliminate the improabale, whatever remains no mstter how impossibe must be the truth" Dirk Gentle, holistic detective.

Rather depends on how rate improbable and impossible it would seem...

[bison]

I'm an admirer of the late Douglas Adams' work, especially the original version ( the BBC radio series) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I still prefer Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle's version of the impossible/improbable maxim, though.  He seems to have realized that where human affairs are concerned, some very improbable things can and do occur. This in undoubtedly true of intelligent life in general. Adherence to probable courses of action are fine for elementary particles, but no so much for complex beings.  Or as Dr. Einstein said it: "Not everything that counts can be counted".

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

laver, on 01 February 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

Rather depends on how rate improbable and impossible it would seem...

It's improbable that aliens come here to vandalise our cereals. You claim it's impossible that it was only done by men.
Therefore, we've eliminated the improbable, and are left with the impossible as the truth! It was men.

[bison]

If it's merely improbable that extraterrestrials make some crop circles, then it is not *the truth* that humans make all crop circles, but only another probability. Thomas Jefferson once made a statement about some relative probabilities.  As you may know, he was a man of learning and science.  He opined that it was improbable that rocks fell from the sky, and much more probable that a couple of  astronomers had lied about seeing them do so. As it turned out, he got his probabilities rather wrong. Meteorites are now a commonplace of scientific knowledge.

Edited by bison, 02 February 2013 - 01:21 AM.

[laver]

bison, on 02 February 2013 - 01:09 AM, said:

If it's merely improbable that extraterrestrials make some crop circles, then it is not *the truth* that humans make all crop circles, but only another probability. Thomas Jefferson once made a statement about some relative probabilities.  As you may know, he was a man of learning and science.  He opined that it was improbable that rocks fell from the sky, and much more probable that a couple of  astronomers had lied about seeing them do so. As it turned out, he got his probabilities rather wrong. Meteorites are now a commonplace of scientific knowledge.

It is a balance of probabilities based on the interpretaion of observations and this must surely be subjective. So if you asked someone who had been watching over a field at night with cameras etc, and seeing no human activity, only to find a crop design at dawn they would probably have a different opinion to someone many miles away being asked to believe that the design was created by non human actions. There are many factors that might make someone conclude that on balance all crop circles are not made by humans; if more evidence comes to light which affects the issue then that might change that opinion or confirm it.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

if tou can find an objective report of just that, then we'd all  be convinced.

[laver]

Wearer of Hats, on 02 February 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

if tou can find an objective report of just that, then we'd all  be convinced.

There are stacks of reports and factors about crop designs that make one question the proposal that all crop circles are made by humans, this is available on the internet. The problem seems to be that an incident years ago when two guys claimed to have made them all, with a board and a length of string, stuck in some peoples minds who then believed, and maybe also 'wanted' to believe, that all crop designs had this sort of origin. Evidence and reports to the contrary are then dismissed to keep the hypothesis of 'all man made' going. But when you dismiss factors that do not agree with a hypothesis you invalidate the hypothesis and Occum's Razor then tells us that the cleanest solution is that some crop circles are caused by some non terrestial agent. Some people might find that hard to accept because the implications could be very considerable, and possibly worrying to them, but we will make no progress if we turn a blind eye to what is going on.

[bison]

For some reason, this website no longer accepts links from me. Anyone wanting a compilation of eyewitness accounts of the formation of crop circles in very short periods of time, together with other odd phenomena associated with their appearance can google: 'Crop circles and their message'. This website has a whole section, part 6, of these, titled 'eyewitness reports'

Edited by bison, 02 February 2013 - 07:32 PM.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

It does itself very little credit by using "there are reports" and then not citing them. It does go into length about some reports, but ones thst have had too believable counter-arguments attached.

"we sae lights, then found a crop circle" - there are two answers "they were spaceships" or "they were torches". Occam's Razor on this one uggests "torches" as the makers would need to see, the design in question was all circles, there's a pattern of collapse reminscent of knwn hoaxed circles.

[bison]

There is much more to the group of reports to which I referred than beams of light that might reasonably have been those of persons making crop circles as night. Just to cite a couple of examples: The July 1934 case might appear superficially like a whirlwind, but left the flattened crop hot to the touch.  I am not aware of a whirlwind that can do that.
An April, 1991 incident involved the daylight sighting of a craft-like object in the air that projected a conical beam of light down into the crop, which flattened it very quickly. If even a few cases have features that do not support the man-made explanation, it must be granted that many more, where the creation of the circle was unobserved, could have such features, too.

Edited by bison, 02 February 2013 - 10:54 PM.

[laver]

bison, on 02 February 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

There is much more to the group of reports to which I referred than beams of light that might reasonably have been those of persons making crop circles as night. Just to cite a couple of examples: The July 1934 case might appear superficially like a whirlwind, but left the flattened crop hot to the touch.  I am not aware of a whirlwind that can do that.
An April, 1991 incident involved the daylight sighting of a craft-like object in the air that projected a conical beam of light down into the crop, which flattened it very quickly. If even a few cases have features that do not support the man-made explanation, it must be granted that many more, where the creation of the circle was unobserved, could have such features, too.

The question of why a non terrestial agent(s) might choose to use some crop designs as a means of sending messages would require a detailed knowledge of the thinking behind those agent(s) which of course we do not have. That does not mean that it is an illogical way to communicate because that would be based on possibly limited human understanding of a much bigger picture but we could surmise that it might be a very intelligent way to guide us to a greater understanding.

[laver]

With the World Economic Forum allocating time to discuss non terrestial life, as noted in the UM article today, it is clearly not an issue to be dismissed out of hand because of the possible impact on some human belief systems and hence our economies. If we are close to establishing that there is other life out there, 10 years they say, then the idea that this external life is much more advanced than us is equally worth considering. The WEF says that governments should prepare people for the possibility to reduce the possible shock reaction and this just might also be the reason for an increasing number of well recorded sightings and messages, like crop circles, which might be to prepare us for the improbable. Will governments address the issue? - not much sign so far it would seem, at least on the surface.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

laver, on 03 February 2013 - 08:38 PM, said:

With the World Economic Forum allocating time to discuss non terrestial life, as noted in the UM article today, it is clearly not an issue to be dismissed out of hand

And the American government (for example) routinely runs projections to see what an invasion from Canada would be like for the mainland United States.
Doesn't mean it's possible, just that it's an idea worthy of consideration.

[laver]

Wearer of Hats, on 03 February 2013 - 09:51 PM, said:

And the American government (for example) routinely runs projections to see what an invasion from Canada would be like for the mainland United States.
Doesn't mean it's possible, just that it's an idea worthy of consideration.

It is obviously generally considered quite possible with the immense scope of the universe that Earth is not the only form of life in it, and yes it is an idea worthy of consideration and how we might become aware of that in some way.