354 replies to this topic

[quillius]

Nuke_em, on 17 January 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

Yes and at the end you either show a proof of some kind ( firm evidence ) or it is your own silent belief ( well not so silent on forums ).

yes, but not having teh proof doesnt stop it from being a fact (assuming it really happened as told)

[cormac mac airt]

quillius, on 17 January 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

yes, but not having teh proof doesnt stop it from being a fact (assuming it really happened as told)

"Assuming" it happened, I could see your point. But I think you realize my problem is with "assuming" to begin with. That wouldn't be working from a position of strength, but of weakness in a claim.

cormac

[Slave2Fate]

Hey Quill, I see what you are saying about a personal fact still being a fact. I'll just fail to mention things like confirmation bias, fluid memory, less than ideal sensory organs, psychological/physiological disorders and other things of that nature that can have a negative impact on a human's ability to objectively appraise the physical world around them, as that would just be opening an existential can o' worms. (crap, I guess I failed at failing to mention them)

All that aside however, in order to relay a fact from one person to another it still becomes a claim and as such still falls under the same rules as any other claim that is made. It has to be verified. It sucks to be the one to make the claim and not be able to verify it but that's the world we live in I'm afraid. Without all of those things I (failed to) mention along with human's penchant for mischief and fabrication we wouldn't need to verify every little fact. Sadly, in order to account for every instance of lies or misidentification or what have you, we must.

[spartan max2]

My Soc professor in college made crop circles when she was in her 20's to mess with people. Her and her freind just used cardboard i think on there feet so they could walk and flatten the feild. so needless to say iv never taken crop circles as a creditabel thing. Why would aliens use them in the first place?

[SwampgasBalloonBoy]

spartan max2, on 17 January 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

My Soc professor in college made crop circles when she was in her 20's to mess with people. Her and her freind just used cardboard i think on there feet so they could walk and flatten the feild. so needless to say iv never taken crop circles as a creditabel thing. Why would aliens use them in the first place?

What she did is a bad, bad thing. She is a devious person that take pleasures in messing with people.For such a behavior she deserves to be spank real hard.

[TheMacGuffin]

quillius, on 16 January 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

its about winnning the argument rather than getting to the truth....

look how many pages I argued with Ryleh as to whether Santa is claimed to be seen more than Aliens, these discussions wouldnt happen if its progress we are looking for. Pride has such a big part to play on this forum (probably others too), once we type something out we feel like we must defend it come hell or high water......

I think we are all guilty of this at some point or another, myself included.

I guess its caused by the extremes, skeptics who wont even admit to some UFOs being an unknown and cannot be explained by what we know today, to the other extreme of if its in the air its a UFO (UFO=alien).

keep dropping those hints though I am sure that many of us are following your trail

If I thought it was all just false, bogus, misinterpreted conventional objects, etc, etc, I wouldn't be spending any of my time on it.

If the military really thought that, they wouldn't have had these organizations like the Army's Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, Project UFO, Project Moon Dust and so on.  These organizations were real, and probably still continue under various names, so the military did NOT believe the version of the UFO story it was handing out to the public.  Anyone who looks at the records objectively knows that, and if they have not looked at all these records then they are definitely not arguing from all the facts and evidence that is available.

No one simply has to take my word for this because I "feel" it is correct, since they are quite capable of doing their own research and thinking, just as I have over many decades.

I wouldn't have been doing that if I had not seen a UFO myself and then been given more information when I was in the military.  Frankly, though, most of the people who keep insisting there's 'nothing to it' are not very well-informed about all these things. This has been my experience anyway.

Edited by TheMacGuffin, 18 January 2013 - 05:59 AM.

[topsecretresearch]

nopeda, on 11 January 2013 - 10:45 PM, said:

And not always realistically about that either. For example I've never heard or read a good explanation about how people could microwave the stems of plants making them lay down and form complex designs in fields using no light and making no sound in about 3 hours time, but some just seem to take it for granted that people are doing it. How to produce the microwave energy without a generator people could hear? How to control and direct the energy if they could? How to control the fall of so many plants so they lay in the correct way while the microwave energy is somehow being created and applied?

Look into UFO landing trace cases = Ted Phillips



Physical Trace cases:

www.ufoevidence.org/topics/physicaltracecases.htm

[quillius]

cormac mac airt, on 17 January 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

"Assuming" it happened, I could see your point. But I think you realize my problem is with "assuming" to begin with. That wouldn't be working from a position of strength, but of weakness in a claim.

cormac

'assuming' was a bad choice of words by me....I meant in this hypothetical lets 'pretend' that its all factual, this would then show a situation where a fact cannot be proven but the claim is still accurate (and a fact).

[quillius]

TheMacGuffin, on 18 January 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

If I thought it was all just false, bogus, misinterpreted conventional objects, etc, etc, I wouldn't be spending any of my time on it.

If the military really thought that, they wouldn't have had these organizations like the Army's Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, Project UFO, Project Moon Dust and so on.  These organizations were real, and probably still continue under various names, so the military did NOT believe the version of the UFO story it was handing out to the public.  Anyone who looks at the records objectively knows that, and if they have not looked at all these records then they are definitely not arguing from all the facts and evidence that is available.

No one simply has to take my word for this because I "feel" it is correct, since they are quite capable of doing their own research and thinking, just as I have over many decades.

I wouldn't have been doing that if I had not seen a UFO myself and then been given more information when I was in the military.  Frankly, though, most of the people who keep insisting there's 'nothing to it' are not very well-informed about all these things. This has been my experience anyway.

hello McG. I dont think for one minute you would have seen a light in the sky and then started spouting 'aliens'. I also dont think someone would show you a picture and from this you then suddenly went from no interest in UFOs to believing we are/have been visited by ET......therefore there must more to it to have convinced you, of course I dont know 'whole' picture but as I said keep dropping hints and I can build my own picture, and maybe one day if the 'pressure' put on you by some is eased and decent conversation can be had we may just find out a lot more from you than has been given already....

[quillius]

Slave2Fate, on 17 January 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

Hey Quill, I see what you are saying about a personal fact still being a fact. I'll just fail to mention things like confirmation bias, fluid memory, less than ideal sensory organs, psychological/physiological disorders and other things of that nature that can have a negative impact on a human's ability to objectively appraise the physical world around them, as that would just be opening an existential can o' worms. (crap, I guess I failed at failing to mention them)

All that aside however, in order to relay a fact from one person to another it still becomes a claim and as such still falls under the same rules as any other claim that is made. It has to be verified. It sucks to be the one to make the claim and not be able to verify it but that's the world we live in I'm afraid. Without all of those things I (failed to) mention along with human's penchant for mischief and fabrication we wouldn't need to verify every little fact. Sadly, in order to account for every instance of lies or misidentification or what have you, we must.

Hey S2F, yes I agree there are a number of factors that can affect the perception of individuals. I did try to elliminate these by suggesting in the hypothetical that 20 people all saw and described the same thing without any influence from eachother or news and so on...The odds of a multiple (of 20) people having identical hallucinations goes beyond astronomical, again on the premise that we have elimanated any bias from before or after the event that may have influenced memory/perception of event......

On one point though about a fact reducing to a claim when relayed to others- I dont fully agree with....a fact is a fact and it cannot change or be reduced because it cannot be proven. The claimee cannot prove it a fact, but if that is what it is then it remains a fact but one that cannot be accepted by some without proof so for them it remains just a story/a claim.....however it is still a fact.

Edited by quillius, 18 January 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[mcrom901]

nopeda, on 16 January 2013 - 07:19 PM, said:

I don't consider it critical thinking to put your faith in the one possibility that no xts have ever been to this planet. To me that's as shallow thinking as a person could have. To accept the very real possibility that they have been here is a starting line from my pov, and would be a huge step up for anyone who can't consider it in a realistic way. They may not have ever been here. That's easy and another very real possibility. Since we could never know that they have never been here, putting faith in that possibility being the correct one seems pretty absurd from my pov.

why are you trying to enforce a 'false dichotomy'? is critical thinking synonymous with having an opposite belief? i don't think so... simply entertaining possibilities doesn't make them factual

[mcrom901]

bmk1245, on 16 January 2013 - 09:58 PM, said:

What a "surprise",  your question left unanswered... You are definitely on McG's ignore list.

that's what he claims sometimes... but he very well reads everything, it's just an easy way out.... to leave misinterpretations, over-interpretations, beliefs, etc... unchallenged... not even laughable anymore, meh

[mcrom901]

topsecretresearch, on 18 January 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Look into UFO landing trace cases

i think 'ufo trace cases' would be more fitting without "landing" in there...

[cormac mac airt]

quillius, on 18 January 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

'assuming' was a bad choice of words by me....I meant in this hypothetical lets 'pretend' that its all factual, this would then show a situation where a fact cannot be proven but the claim is still accurate (and a fact).

The claim can only be taken as a fact that your hypothetical 20 people saw "something". Not that that "something" automatically equates to extraterrestrials just because they say so. One doesn't, or at least shouldn't, assume that everything claimed is automatically the truth.  Although, obviously, if any or all of your 20 people specialized in the areas of biology, medicine or forensic pathology (as an example) the level of credibility ascribed to their account would be greater than, say, that of a group of construction workers.

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt, 18 January 2013 - 01:52 PM.

[quillius]

cormac mac airt, on 18 January 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

The claim can only be taken as a fact that your hypothetical 20 people saw "something". Not that that "something" automatically equates to extraterrestrials just because they say so. One doesn't, or at least shouldn't, assume that everything claimed is automatically the truth.  Although, obviously, if any or all of your 20 people specialized in the areas of biology, medicine or forensic pathology (as an example) the level of credibility ascribed to their account would be greater than, say, that of a group of construction workers.

cormac

I still dont think I have put my point across it seems. My point is simply that if aliens DID come down in a craft, and DID say hello to 20 people then vanished, with no evidence left to the witnesses to be able to prove aliens came down. Then their claim is a FACT. To you the claim without proof cannot be accepted as fact, however it DOES remain a FACT.

The points you raise above are on any sighting/claim are when we are not using the hypothetical of knowing teh event is a FACT.