348 replies to this topic

[psyche101]

laver, on 17 January 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

Arthur C Clarke was talking about the probability of a visit which most people would consider valid when the vastness of the Universe and time are taken into account.

I do not believe that, most people do not consider visitation stories valid because of the size of the Universe, the probability of visitation is increased, but it in no way conceivably indicates that visitation has, or even will happen. That is a leap of faith.

laver, on 17 January 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

The creation stories in the bible have over very many years been shown to be incorrect and often based on a rehash of much earlier accounts from places like Sumer.

And with them all being incorrect, does that not indicate dubious origin? It is the only way many could wrap his head around nature.

laver, on 17 January 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

The Sumerian creation stories clearly indicate a visit or visits from external sources. So a reasonable person would no doubt conclude that this is a possibility and that if it has happened in the distant past could well happen again.

Not at all, unless perhaps you want to consider that Australia creation stories that say a giant snake carved all of Australia's river systems and lies under the ground. Where do we dig to have a look at this giant snake?

laver, on 17 January 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

This affects how we consider the balance of probabilities when looking at crop circles and some which do not
due to the way they are formed and/or the circumstances in which they appear seem to be of human origin

It affects your personal view, and I am afraid that is all.

[laver]

psyche101, on 17 January 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

I do not believe that, most people do not consider visitation stories valid because of the size of the Universe, the probability of visitation is increased, but it in no way conceivably indicates that visitation has, or even will happen. That is a leap of faith.



And with them all being incorrect, does that not indicate dubious origin? It is the only way many could wrap his head around nature.



Not at all, unless perhaps you want to consider that Australia creation stories that say a giant snake carved all of Australia's river systems and lies under the ground. Where do we dig to have a look at this giant snake?



It affects your personal view, and I am afraid that is all.

And the view of many others who are looking for some truth in all the garbled nonsense we were taught as children to believe... some still are today which has been termed abuse by some prominent individuals

[cachibatches.]

_{This is a gross misuse of Occum's razor.}

[psyche101]

laver, on 18 January 2013 - 02:08 AM, said:

And the view of many others who are looking for some truth in all the garbled nonsense we were taught as children to believe... some still are today which has been termed abuse by some prominent individuals

I have no inkling of what the garbled nonsense is that you refer to. Might I impress upon you to elaborate? That is rather a broad brush you are using there. I have a strong feeling I doubt I will agree with you on this.

[lost_shaman]

cachibatches., on 18 January 2013 - 02:10 AM, said:

_{This is a gross misuse of Occum's razor.}

Seems to me that most people who invoke Occum's razor don't actually understand it.

[laver]

psyche101, on 18 January 2013 - 02:25 AM, said:

I have no inkling of what the garbled nonsense is that you refer to. Might I impress upon you to elaborate? That is rather a broad brush you are using there. I have a strong feeling I doubt I will agree with you on this.

Religious dogma, Genesis, which we now know is a garbled tale based on much earlier myths and legends but spun to suit the then writers agendas. This is only relevant to the present discussion in looking at the possibility of 'foreign' influence in our creation.

[psyche101]

laver, on 18 January 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

Religious dogma, Genesis, which we now know is a garbled tale based on much earlier myths and legends but spun to suit the then writers agendas. This is only relevant to the present discussion in looking at the possibility of 'foreign' influence in our creation.

Ahh, thanks, and you do indeed have a point there.

But, is that taught in all Schools?

I do not have a problem with "religion" per say, I think it has some valuable lessons and opens the mind, but I do not advocate creationism for a moment. We know it is wrong, and to my perspective, more of a spin off from religion. I think many religions have positive aspects such as "Do unto others as they would have do unto you" or "Love thy neighbour". I think though, that saturation of anything is a bad thing. I feel all things should be taken in moderation, and never at face value. Life is one big learning curve. Not having had my parents around much, I seem to have broken the mould so to speak. My parents although separated, and my Father sadly now gone, they were powerfully religious. Me, I consider myself agnostic.

My kids go to an Ecumenical school, but they learn evolution, not creationism. Religious lessons are there, but my hope is that they mould a person into valuing benevolence. We all get over Santa and The Easter Bunny right? We stil celebrate them when we know it's bunkum don't we. I think it's how you wield a tool.

Edited by psyche101, 18 January 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[laver]

psyche101, on 18 January 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

Ahh, thanks, and you do indeed have a point there.

But, is that taught in all Schools?

I do not have a problem with "religion" per say, I think it has some valuable lessons and opens the mind, but I do not advocate creationism for a moment. We know it is wrong, and to my perspective, more of a spin off from religion. I think many religions have positive aspects such as "Do unto others as they would have do unto you" or "Love thy neighbour". I think though, that saturation of anything is a bad thing. I feel all things should be taken in moderation, and never at face value. Life is one big learning curve. Not having had my parents around much, I seem to have broken the mould so to speak. My parents although separated, and my Father sadly now gone, they were powerfully religious. Me, I consider myself agnostic.

My kids go to an Ecumenical school, but they learn evolution, not creationism. Religious lessons are there, but my hope is that they mould a person into valuing benevolence. We all get over Santa and The Easter Bunny right? We stil celebrate them when we know it's bunkum don't we. I think it's how you wield a tool.

Agnostic is probably the only sensibile position with our present level of knowledge, but that level of knowledge is growing all the time as new discoveries are made. One major problem with some religions is that they promise reward in the 'afterlife' if people do what they are told in this life. As we see from history and even today this can be used to get people to carry out acts that we could only class as inhumane and evil. It also tends to create a 'them' and 'us' attitude which divides humanity instead of trying to bring it together, the tale of the Good Samaritan, if it was indeed told by Jesus, is an example of how your neighbour should be treated whether they are part of your group or not. As I am sure you are aware the dispute between the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern Samaria was a major issue at the time of Christ but Samaritans feature in some very important bible events.

Since we now know that the creation story of the bible OT is deeply flawed we have to consider where it came from and the origins seem often to be Sumer a fact that was obviously covered up until recent times. The Sumerians had a very different view of deities, which were both male and female, and it was we hear the Goddess who created human kind and the way this was done does sound like a bit of genetic manipulation. Genetic studies today seem to show that our origins are from just a very few individuals. Who were these deities who the Sumerian creation story tell us created humans? Where did they come from with maybe a knowledge of genetics?
The Sumerians tell us they 'came down' and we have to consider if they were not of this Earth, do we not?

This is relevant to the crop circle issue because if we accept that we MAY have been visited in the distant past we COULD be getting messages from an extraterrestrial source and there are indications that all crop designs are not of human design and construction. Time for an open mind maybe?

[laver]

lost_shaman, on 18 January 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

Seems to me that most people who invoke Occum's razor don't actually understand it.

Could you please explain that as it relates to present topic, thanks

[lost_shaman]

laver, on 26 January 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

Could you please explain that as it relates to present topic, thanks

It's been explained to you several times now by other posters. You seem to think that Occum's razor say's the simplest answer is the correct answer. That is not what Occum's razor says at all. It would suggest we shave away your arguement for a "non-human" explaination for crop circles.

Here is a short explaination of what Occum's razor is about.  http://math.ucr.edu/...eral/occam.html

I hope you understand how you've been incorrectly attempting to apply Occum's razor, but I'm not going to be holding my breath.

[laver]

lost_shaman, on 26 January 2013 - 09:50 PM, said:

It's been explained to you several times now by other posters. You seem to think that Occum's razor say's the simplest answer is the correct answer. That is not what Occum's razor says at all. It would suggest we shave away your arguement for a "non-human" explaination for crop circles.

Here is a short explaination of what Occum's razor is about.  http://math.ucr.edu/...eral/occam.html

I hope you understand how you've been incorrectly attempting to apply Occum's razor, but I'm not going to be holding my breath.

Going back to Newton's definition we can only consider things that are TRUE and some crop circles exhibit things that by the way they appear, the effects on plants and the effects on humans and electrical equipment etc cannot be reasonably explained by the hypothesis that all crop designs are made by humans. The recent idea that humans are using microwave devices to replicate the effects on plant just does not stand up to any reasonable consideration. Therefore we have to discount these sort of arguments and look for a simpler solution which stands out a mile... some crop designs are not designed and created by humans. Some people may not accept that but this seems to be their mind set which excludes the possibility of some non terrestial force at work in our world.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

yes, but that's not Occam's Razor, if anything Pccam' Razor would suggest that none pf them are by aliens, because that is the preposition that requires the least unknown/unknowable variables.

[Oppono Astos]

laver, on 27 January 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

Going back to Newton's definition we can only consider things that are TRUE and some crop circles exhibit things that by the way they appear, the effects on plants and the effects on humans and electrical equipment etc cannot be reasonably explained by the hypothesis that all crop designs are made by humans. The recent idea that humans are using microwave devices to replicate the effects on plant just does not stand up to any reasonable consideration. Therefore we have to discount these sort of arguments and look for a simpler solution which stands out a mile... some crop designs are not designed and created by humans. Some people may not accept that but this seems to be their mind set which excludes the possibility of some non terrestial force at work in our world.

No, we can discount arguments that are presented here with no evidence or references to peer-reviewed research.

[bison]

Wearer of Hats, on 27 January 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

yes, but that's not Occam's Razor, if anything Pccam' Razor would suggest that none pf them are by aliens, because that is the preposition that requires the least unknown/unknowable variables.

It's quite correct, of course, according to scientific method, to require the fewest unknown variables. But let's not leave out the rest. The explanation must cover *all* the observations, not discount some out of hand, in order to fit a particular scenario.  As Dr. Einstein said: a scientific explanation should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

[laver]

bison, on 27 January 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

It's quite correct, of course, according to scientific method, to require the fewest unknown variables. But let's not leave out the rest. The explanation must cover *all* the observations, not discount some out of hand, in order to fit a particular scenario.  As Dr. Einstein said: a scientific explanation should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Occum's Razor and Newton's definition in respect of considering a phenomena says we must only consider factors that are TRUE and as noted above not discount some clear observations which do not fit the human creation of all crop designs. We would be meerly kidding ourselves if we ignored these and went for a solution that said that all crop designs were of terrestial/human origin, when many details do not support this, simply because the alternative is beyond our present understanding.