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DentArthurDent
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13 Oct 2013, 4:47 am

cyberdad wrote:

Our ignorant friend obviously bases his......


To whom are you referring and in what context is 'he' ignorant?


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cyberdad
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13 Oct 2013, 5:07 am

DentArthurDent wrote:
cyberdad wrote:

Our ignorant friend obviously bases his......


To whom are you referring and in what context is 'he' ignorant?

Ignorant in this context is not intended to be rude, just that the person is assuming they can think on behalf of alien life forms based on their experience with Hollywood.



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13 Oct 2013, 5:09 am

cyberdad wrote:
DentArthurDent wrote:
cyberdad wrote:

Our ignorant friend obviously bases his......


To whom are you referring and in what context is 'he' ignorant?

Ignorant in this context is not intended to be rude, just that the person is assuming they can think on behalf of alien life forms based on their experience with Hollywood.


If you're referring to me, you have it all wrong. I don't assume aliens must be like how they are depicted in Hollywood.



DentArthurDent
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13 Oct 2013, 5:15 am

MCalavera wrote:
In other words, even the aliens you speak of must bow down to the laws of this universe.


Indeed. Unless of course new discoveries change that. Maybe quantum mechnics will bring forth teleportation who knows.

I find it interesting that cyberdad would accuse me of anthropomorphising non earth life ( something I would argue that I have not done) and then goes on to talk about civilisations. Also cyberdad that it is improbable that earth is the only planet in this universe to contain life does not make it impossible, nor does it allow for statements such as "must be" and "must have". Such statements have no place in an objective world. You are using objective science to be utterly speculative and then describe this speculation in factual terms.


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Last edited by DentArthurDent on 13 Oct 2013, 5:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

DentArthurDent
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13 Oct 2013, 5:17 am

Once again cyberdad to whom are you referring. If it is me then I am demanding an apology. I have no desire to be associated with Hollywood BS, nor do I believe I deserve such an insult.

Am I ignorant about the universe most definitely. Do I accept the non objective, non empirical hogwash that many ignorant people put forward to explain events and circumstances they do not actually understand no I do not.


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fibonaccispiral777
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13 Oct 2013, 5:26 am

cyberdad wrote:
fibonaccispiral777 wrote:
In what way is he doing that? I agree with you, we should open up our minds to the possibilities of aliens not possessing any human traits, I myself believe that aliens may exist as some ethereal ectoplasmic ball of light that perhaps might only communicate telepathy but I suppose it is easier to make guesses of how they may exist on the basis of what we know to be true, which is our own humanistic reality tunnel. The reason you have given is also why I do not believe in many of the alien abductions stories given, mainly because they are most of time depicted in a very human way with two eyes, a nose, two legs and so forth and are able to communicate in English. This makes one think that they are perhaps then projections of the abductees mind and have tried to weave it into the dominant cultural narrative at the time. Surely if such aliens have evolved light years away on such radically different conditions, their biological structure would also be radically different from ours.


Our ignorant friend obviously bases his assumption on what an alien is thinking based on hollywood movies like aliens are looking for an excuse to invade Earth. If you read my previous post, an alien life form that is even a few hundred years more advanced would have nothing to gain from interacting with us (honestly we are so primitive we are only a few million years separating us from monkeys and our behavior is still largely driven by the same needs and wants) . Aliens that are millions of years more advanced are probably capable of creating life forms like us for fun.


I can empathize with your position as it has irritated me in the past that people believe aliens should look so human and anthropomorphized in their appearance, however I do not believe Dentaurthurdent was necessarily doing so. All he said was if they have traveled millions and millions of light years, assuming they have not created a wormhole(though as someone has already said they too must abide by the laws of physics), why do they come for an exceptionally brief moment and then dart off again never to be heard of again. This does not imply that they are anyway like the aliens one sees in the movies but is based on the factual observation that many people have said they have witnessed ufos but only for a brief second, which is very odd.

Furthermore, there seems to be a slight contradiction is what you are saying. There may not be, perhaps it has not been clarified but you seem to be critical of people making too many similarities between aliens and humans, just like 1950's alien movies do( when are surely biologically very different from one another ), and yet you say that we should take abduction stories more seriously even though most of them feature highly anthropomorphized aliens. Surely, these are opposing points of view.

Also, it is a fact that the ufo phenomenon arose during the nineteen fifties. Carl Jund, in his book flying saucers, analyzed this phenomenon in depth and came to the conclusion that man was suffering from an existential crisis at that point. The western world was in ruins after the second world war, Hitler's regime had exposed a cold and bitterly ruthless form of social Darwinism and there was also conflict between Russia and the west. Thus humanity, staring into a void of nihilism, turned to the skies in the hope that some strange and advanced extra-terrestrial creature would come and redeem their sins. In Jung's view, because of this existential crisis and the cinematic obsession with ufos, humanity literally suffered from a mass hallucination. This does not make them not real, says Jung, since the whole of reality in some sense is a collective manifestation but it means the source of such a phenomenon is social and one has to take into account the historic context in which these sightings happened. I agree, one should look at alien abduction stories. Even if you do not believe them to be true, they are fascinating and are compelling nevertheless.



DentArthurDent
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13 Oct 2013, 5:31 am

Fib. Thank you


@cyberdad now that I have smoothed my hackles, demanding an apology is somewhat arrogant and hardens back to my colonial English heritage :wink:

Regards

Dent


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Last edited by DentArthurDent on 13 Oct 2013, 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

fibonaccispiral777
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13 Oct 2013, 5:34 am

DentArthurDent wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
In other words, even the aliens you speak of must bow down to the laws of this universe.


Indeed. Unless of course new discoveries change that. Maybe quantum mechnics will bring forth teleportation who knows.

I find it interesting that cyberdad would accuse me of anthropomorphising non earth life ( something I would argue that I have not done) and then goes on to talk about civilisations. Also cyberdad that it is improbable that earth is the only planet in this universe to contain life does not make it impossible, nor does it allow for statements such as "must be" and "must have". Such statements have no place in an objective world you are using objective science to be utterly speculative and then describe this speculation in factual terms.


The statement I put in bold I very much agree with. A lot of people seem to get confused I feel with thinking something is probable and then thinking that that probable thing is thus fact, even though it isn't, it just means that it exists within a realm of possibility. Yes, it seems highly likely that there is another planet out there with intelligent life, that seems highly probable, however that does not make it fact since we do not have the empirical evidence at our disposal to prove it and until then we must remain agnostic about the issue I feel. It would be very odd for us to be the only ones in the entirety of the universe, the incredible sparse emptiness of space, but you never know, there always is the possibility that we are the only ones regardless of the likelihood of other organisms. The implications, if we were, would be absolutely huge and we would wonder why the hell we could be the only ones to occupy this strange, fragile spinning blue sphere? Some would link it to a creator? Some would link it to a creative intelligence? I would personally find the implications massive but in terms of chance, the fact that there was a cosmic lottery and we were the winners. Saying this however, maybe we will find out it wasn't chance but statistically inevitable. I have always theorized that perhaps if the universe expands and then contracts, perhaps the big bang has happened billions of times and it was just statistically inevitable that we would arrive on the cosmic scene one day.



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13 Oct 2013, 5:43 am

DentArthurDent wrote:
Once again cyberdad to whom are you referring. If it is me then I am demanding an apology. I have no desire to be associated with Hollywood BS, nor do I believe I deserve such an insult.

Am I ignorant about the universe most definitely. Do I accept the non objective, non empirical hogwash that many ignorant people put forward to explain events and circumstances they do not actually understand no I do not.

I apologise, it wasn't my intention to insult, I also accept your point that my reference to hypothetical aliens as living in civilisations is an attribution error on my part.



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13 Oct 2013, 5:55 am

fibonaccispiral777 wrote:
Carl Jund, in his book flying saucers, analyzed this phenomenon in depth and came to the conclusion that man was suffering from an existential crisis at that point. The western world was in ruins after the second world war, Hitler's regime had exposed a cold and bitterly ruthless form of social Darwinism and there was also conflict between Russia and the west. Thus humanity, staring into a void of nihilism, turned to the skies in the hope that some strange and advanced extra-terrestrial creature would come and redeem their sins. In Jung's view, because of this existential crisis and the cinematic obsession with ufos, humanity literally suffered from a mass hallucination. This does not make them not real, says Jung, since the whole of reality in some sense is a collective manifestation but it means the source of such a phenomenon is social and one has to take into account the historic context in which these sightings happened. I agree, one should look at alien abduction stories. Even if you do not believe them to be true, they are fascinating and are compelling nevertheless.


The phenomenon of "foo Fighters" (not the rock band) predates Jung's book and the Hollywood obsession with UFOs and aliens in the 1950s. WWII Fighter pilots saws strange orbs of light under (apparent) intelligent control following their aircraft in such frequency that it prompted the prime minister of Britain Sir Winston Churchill to write to General Dwight Eisenhower of the US forces asking for an explanation after similar lights wee seen over Washington in 1952. Jung would be hard pressed to call the foo fighters or Washington lights as figments of people's imagination when it was witnessed by hundreds of thousands. This is the problem with selective cherry picking...critics like to claim most of the sightings are by the town drunk who saw a constellation of stars and erroneously reported to them to the local newspaper as UFOs.



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13 Oct 2013, 6:13 am

cyberdad wrote:
I apologise, it wasn't my intention to insult, I also accept your point that my reference to hypothetical aliens as living in civilisations is an attribution error on my part.



All good. Did you see my edit describing the english colonial arrogant nature of my demand for an apology? : :oops:

Just for the record there is a chance I would have been less insulted if you had accused me of being a closet theist. :D

Seriously though I find the vapid acceptance of all that is spoon fed to the general population deeply disturbing. Especially so what Is often descibed as the "the war on reason and science". So no I do not look to Hollywood to increase my understanding of anything. :wink:


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fibonaccispiral777
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13 Oct 2013, 6:33 am

cyberdad wrote:
fibonaccispiral777 wrote:
Carl Jund, in his book flying saucers, analyzed this phenomenon in depth and came to the conclusion that man was suffering from an existential crisis at that point. The western world was in ruins after the second world war, Hitler's regime had exposed a cold and bitterly ruthless form of social Darwinism and there was also conflict between Russia and the west. Thus humanity, staring into a void of nihilism, turned to the skies in the hope that some strange and advanced extra-terrestrial creature would come and redeem their sins. In Jung's view, because of this existential crisis and the cinematic obsession with ufos, humanity literally suffered from a mass hallucination. This does not make them not real, says Jung, since the whole of reality in some sense is a collective manifestation but it means the source of such a phenomenon is social and one has to take into account the historic context in which these sightings happened. I agree, one should look at alien abduction stories. Even if you do not believe them to be true, they are fascinating and are compelling nevertheless.


The phenomenon of "foo Fighters" (not the rock band) predates Jung's book and the Hollywood obsession with UFOs and aliens in the 1950s. WWII Fighter pilots saws strange orbs of light under (apparent) intelligent control following their aircraft in such frequency that it prompted the prime minister of Britain Sir Winston Churchill to write to General Dwight Eisenhower of the US forces asking for an explanation after similar lights wee seen over Washington in 1952. Jung would be hard pressed to call the foo fighters or Washington lights as figments of people's imagination when it was witnessed by hundreds of thousands. This is the problem with selective cherry picking...critics like to claim most of the sightings are by the town drunk who saw a constellation of stars and erroneously reported to them to the local newspaper as UFOs.


Well Carl Jung also goes into other ufo sightings that were apparently seen hundreds of years ago and sees them as people wishing to project their need for totality into a flying disc since it is circular in shape so it is not like he completely ignores them, he just thinks they are different to the ones that were witnessed by people during the nineteen fifties when UFOs took on a more 'nuts and bolts' craft. Also, when I say hallucination I am not talking about the ones those with psychosis suffer from but instead I am referring to people suffering from an existential crisis and thus projecting a certain meaning onto the flying saucers they see. Whether the lights were there or not is a different issue, but I do not think it would be unfair to say that when people were still suffering from the aftershock of a war, they might see such lights and project an interpretation of 'here are the ufo, willing to save us' in order to relieve their psychological trauma. As regards for the sighting in world war two, the Nazi were apparently experimenting with various technological aircraft that were very similar to UFOs I believe. I am not saying that there have not been very odd cases in which people have seen very odd things and have yet to be explained, I agree the washington lights incident was a strange anomaly but that does not mean I am willing to say it was aliens. When I said mass hallucinations, I meant that people take what sensory stimuli is there present in objective reality and will distort it to correspond with a common cultural narrative and the more people that will abide by such a narrative, the more collective such a narrative will become and the more it will be believed and thus the object becomes distorted and almost, physically, to some extent, takes on a different a different form.



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13 Oct 2013, 6:35 am

With regard to human broadcasts this image gives an idea of just how far our radio waves have travelled in relation to our galaxy. I am taking this image on face value and have not checked the voracity of its claim.

[img][800:800]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/ic4fb562ab.jpg[/img]


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14 Oct 2013, 6:28 am

fibonaccispiral777 wrote:
Well Carl Jung also goes into other ufo sightings that were apparently seen hundreds of years ago and sees them as people wishing to project their need for totality into a flying disc since it is circular in shape so it is not like he completely ignores them, he just thinks they are different to the ones that were witnessed by people during the nineteen fifties when UFOs took on a more 'nuts and bolts' craft. Also, when I say hallucination I am not talking about the ones those with psychosis suffer from but instead I am referring to people suffering from an existential crisis and thus projecting a certain meaning onto the flying saucers they see. Whether the lights were there or not is a different issue, but I do not think it would be unfair to say that when people were still suffering from the aftershock of a war, they might see such lights and project an interpretation of 'here are the ufo, willing to save us' in order to relieve their psychological trauma. As regards for the sighting in world war two, the Nazi were apparently experimenting with various technological aircraft that were very similar to UFOs I believe. I am not saying that there have not been very odd cases in which people have seen very odd things and have yet to be explained, I agree the washington lights incident was a strange anomaly but that does not mean I am willing to say it was aliens. When I said mass hallucinations, I meant that people take what sensory stimuli is there present in objective reality and will distort it to correspond with a common cultural narrative and the more people that will abide by such a narrative, the more collective such a narrative will become and the more it will be believed and thus the object becomes distorted and almost, physically, to some extent, takes on a different a different form.


I'd like to get your comments on the TV crews who captured the Washington lights on film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFkU3OK7pI

The US airforce quite early on attempted to claim they were caused by a temperature inversion. Later in 1959 they recanted this theory as more than 50 ground based radar operators testified they detected solid objects over Washington which is why they scrambled jet fighters. But 7 years after the event the media and public had forgotten about it and were more worried about Soviet nuclear weapons than what happened back in 1952.



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14 Oct 2013, 10:58 am

cyberdad wrote:
fibonaccispiral777 wrote:
Well Carl Jung also goes into other ufo sightings that were apparently seen hundreds of years ago and sees them as people wishing to project their need for totality into a flying disc since it is circular in shape so it is not like he completely ignores them, he just thinks they are different to the ones that were witnessed by people during the nineteen fifties when UFOs took on a more 'nuts and bolts' craft. Also, when I say hallucination I am not talking about the ones those with psychosis suffer from but instead I am referring to people suffering from an existential crisis and thus projecting a certain meaning onto the flying saucers they see. Whether the lights were there or not is a different issue, but I do not think it would be unfair to say that when people were still suffering from the aftershock of a war, they might see such lights and project an interpretation of 'here are the ufo, willing to save us' in order to relieve their psychological trauma. As regards for the sighting in world war two, the Nazi were apparently experimenting with various technological aircraft that were very similar to UFOs I believe. I am not saying that there have not been very odd cases in which people have seen very odd things and have yet to be explained, I agree the washington lights incident was a strange anomaly but that does not mean I am willing to say it was aliens. When I said mass hallucinations, I meant that people take what sensory stimuli is there present in objective reality and will distort it to correspond with a common cultural narrative and the more people that will abide by such a narrative, the more collective such a narrative will become and the more it will be believed and thus the object becomes distorted and almost, physically, to some extent, takes on a different a different form.


I'd like to get your comments on the TV crews who captured the Washington lights on film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFkU3OK7pI

The US airforce quite early on attempted to claim they were caused by a temperature inversion. Later in 1959 they recanted this theory as more than 50 ground based radar operators testified they detected solid objects over Washington which is why they scrambled jet fighters. But 7 years after the event the media and public had forgotten about it and were more worried about Soviet nuclear weapons than what happened back in 1952.


As I said in my post, when I said hallucination I was referring to the fact that, regardless of whether the objects are real or not, meanings are applied to such objects that generally correspond with the historical narrative at the time. It is much like the individual suffering from psychosis and could be considered to be hallucinating. They may percieve the people out in the streeet to be CIA agents out to get them. This is in no way to suggest that the people in the street are not there, just as I am not suggesting the ufos we are discussing are not physical, however they are applying a meaning to such physical entities that does not have a basis in objective reality but rather a meaning that has been subjectified. Plus, I do not know why tv crews should be considered the most rational source for the debate regarding those unidentified objects. By the way, I hope you do not feel as if I am ridiculing your beleifs at all. I hope I do not appear arrogant, I am just trying to indulge in a debate :oops: I agree with you in a lot of ways. I have had a very obsessional interest in Graham Hancock recently and it would seem dogmatic to dismiss such theories without looking at the evidence.



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15 Oct 2013, 4:46 am

I should say I don't have a belief,as such, but more of an interest in the subject.

I anticipate that there are plenty of people who fall in the category of folks trying to make sense of the modern era and project their fears etc in paranoia over lights in the skies etc. But are "all" cases in this category?

The evidence presented speaks otherwise. People were not projecting lights over Washington, pilots flying in WWII often flew in groups so the likelihood that all of them saw the same "phantoms" is pretty unlikely (assuming they were hallucinating). Recently there was an incident in the US army base in Rendlesham forest in the UK. A number of military personnel witnessed a saucer shaped object land nearby the base. Once again the problem with the hallucination theory is that the witnesses were highly reliable, there was group of witnesses and what they witnessed could not be put down to swamp gas as the UK government kept a record of the incident and it was only released to the public (under FOI) around 3 yrs ago, 30 years after the event. All a little strange for something that's supposed to be an illusion.