Is ESP More Probable Than Advanced Alien Life?

[Daylightstar]

... As I said early on, proving impossibility is very very hard. You basically have to show a logical contradiction.

It's also unnecessary.
If there is a claim for the existence of something, than the burden of proof or evidence is on the claimant.
You basically have to show that the subject of the claim exists.

 

[zengirl]

Esp and aliens both exist.....the aliens use esp to talk to humans most of the time-----"Ufo Crash in Brazil"-----The doctors worked on a grey alien's broken leg while armed guards watched.---------------"We slowly approached the table. When I saw the individual lying there I was in a state of shock. It was far from a human face.-----The patient was apparently awake. It mainly stared upward at the ceiling. The blood was dark red. We also found the blood would coagulate immediately upon release from a blood vessel. It's respirations were shallow, as if it needed very little air to sustain life.------(surgery was finished)------------My eyes caught the gaze of the being. They were pulling me in deeper and deeper. All at once giant portions of information came pounding into my head. Over and over ,and over, like someone pounding me over the head with a hammer. He downloaded a tremendous amount of knowledge into my head. It caused me to have headaches lasting over two weeks. -----------------Essentially he told me his race felt very sorry for the human beings for basically two reasons. The first is that all humans have the same potential and abilities to perform the very same things his race could do. He told me they either individually or joined together could produce all the healing necessary to repair their bodies. The second reason they felt sorry for us was we did not seem to realize we were spiritual beings only living in a temporary shell and we were totally disconnected from our spiritual self.----------We checked on the patient from time to time. The wound healed completely in less than 24 hours. This was also true of the bone."

 

[Daylightstar]

It IS possible there's a heard of T-Rex's in Brazil. It's a logically coherent inductive claim. All such claims are possible. I wouldn't give good odds on it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Have any living T-Rex been established to exist?

 

[Daylightstar]

Esp and aliens both exist.....the aliens use esp to talk to humans most of the time-----"Ufo Crash in Brazil"-----The doctors worked on a grey alien's broken leg while armed guards watched.---------------"We slowly approached the table. When I saw the individual lying there I was in a state of shock. It was far from a human face.-----The patient was apparently awake. It mainly stared upward at the ceiling. The blood was dark red. We also found the blood would coagulate immediately upon release from a blood vessel. It's respirations were shallow, as if it needed very little air to sustain life.------(surgery was finished)------------My eyes caught the gaze of the being. They were pulling me in deeper and deeper. All at once giant portions of information came pounding into my head. Over and over ,and over, like someone pounding me over the head with a hammer. He downloaded a tremendous amount of knowledge into my head. It caused me to have headaches lasting over two weeks. -----------------Essentially he told me his race felt very sorry for the human beings for basically two reasons. The first is that all humans have the same potential and abilities to perform the very same things his race could do. He told me they either individually or joined together could produce all the healing necessary to repair their bodies. The second reason they felt sorry for us was we did not seem to realize we were spiritual beings only living in a temporary shell and we were totally disconnected from our spiritual self.----------We checked on the patient from time to time. The wound healed completely in less than 24 hours. This was also true of the bone."

Some aliens took me to the Moon yesterday. I could walk around Aristarchus without a space suit, as long as I wore sunglasses.
Even though Aristarchus was fully in the shade but in Earth shine, the landscape there is still pretty bright.

 

[Fudbucker]

^{Hilite by Daylightstar}
How does it help to advance such a discussion?

It usually doesn't even come up because it's a basic tenet of epistemology that something is possible until it's shown to be impossible. That was being disputed by some people, so I had to back track a little.

I was hoping to jump right into the arguments about assigning equal probability to the claims that alien life and ESP exist. Some good arguments have been presented. I've responded to them the best I could.

Claiming ESP is impossible, end of story, is not a good argument. I could simply do the same for alien life- the habitable zone for life is too narrow. The odds of abiogenesis are too low. Alien life is impossible. Thank you, good night!

 

[Fudbucker]

That's what they all say.

I agree it's ad hoc, but it doesn't make it false. It's the same reasoning for explaining why the Fermi paradox isn't disconfirming- it only applies to aliens that would send out visible probes and/or colonize. That also seems ad hoc to me.

 

[ehcks]

Claiming ESP is impossible, end of story, is not a good argument. I could simply do the same for alien life- the habitable zone for life is too narrow. The odds of abiogenesis are too low. Alien life is impossible. Thank you, good night!

ESP is essentially magic.

Alien life is an extension of the life we already know exists and has traveled off of its own planet and is therefore itself alien.

 

[zengirl]

Esp is a normal ability all humans have...I have used mine often....it is not magic just because we don't fully understand it...

 

[Daylightstar]

Some aliens took me to the Moon yesterday. I could walk around Aristarchus without a space suit, as long as I wore sunglasses.
Even though Aristarchus was fully in the shade but in Earth shine, the landscape there is still pretty bright.

At one moment I decided to go down to the central peak, they gave me permission.
At the bottom of the central peak I discovered an apparently metal door like structure. I pressed the round depression on the left side of the door and the door opened.
A hall with lights, straight ahead, for what seemed like a couple hundred meters showed itself.
I decided to go in and find out what was at the end of that tunnel.

Yes, I did see it before I was transported back to the bottom of Aristarchus crater.

 

[Fudbucker]

Once again: we are only now beginning to acquire the ability to detect alien life, but we've had the ability to detect ESP for decades. If ESP existed we would certainly have objective evidence for it by now. We won't be able to say the same thing about alien life for many years.

Well, you could say that about advanced alien life. We should have observed probes or waves of colonizations (Fermi Paradox). Advanced alien life and ESP both share the same issue- if either exists, where is it hiding? Even travelling at just 5% the speed of light, the entire galaxy could be colonized in less than 100 million years. Self replicating probes beaming out hello messages would be even easier to construct. So where are they?

In the case of aliens, they may not care about colonizing, or sending out probes, or trying to contact other civilizations, or even revealing themselves. Perhaps they think it's dangerous to do so.

In the case of people with ESP abilities, they may not want to be tested. You can't just assume that someone with a paranormal ability is going to waltz into a laboratory and pass a Zener test with flying colors, or try to win Randi's prize. Such people might also think revealing such abilities could be dangerous.

 

[The Moog]

Is it possible there is a Bigfoot hiding in my back garden which waits for me to leave the house so it can use the computer?

 

[John Jones]

I don't know what you mean by "benefit". What I said is simply a truism in epistemology: all inductive claims (that are logically consistent) are possible. Claims about fairies and invisible dragons existing or not are inductive claims based on what we've observed.

There's no "benefit". It's a starting point to discussing whether something's possible or not. As I said early on, proving impossibility is very very hard. You basically have to show a logical contradiction.

Upon whom is the burden to 'prove impossibility"? I'm not seeing it.

 

[Fudbucker]

Fudbucker, let me reword my earlier, unanswered question:
What is the benefit of accepting the probability for ESP and advanced alien life (other than humans on Earth) being equal?

There's no benefit. It came up in another thread. It's an interesting discussion, that's all. I'm not proselytizing ESP. I think it's possible and we don't know the odds, and I think the same is true about alien life.

 

[The Moog]

I was hoping to jump right into the arguments about assigning equal probability to the claims that alien life and ESP exist.

The main problem with this is that it has been shown that it is possible for life to exist, there is however NO evidence that ESP exists or is even possible.

Claiming ESP is impossible, end of story, is not a good argument. I could simply do the same for alien life- the habitable zone for life is too narrow.

Planets in habitable zones around other stars have already been discovered.

The odds of abiogenesis are too low.

Except of course that it happened pretty quickly on this planet.
These arguments you make fail badly.

 

[Daylightstar]

It usually doesn't even come up because it's a basic tenet of epistemology that something is possible until it's shown to be impossible. That was being disputed by some people, so I had to back track a little.

I was hoping to jump right into the arguments about assigning equal probability to the claims that alien life and ESP exist. Some good arguments have been presented. I've responded to them the best I could.

Claiming ESP is impossible, end of story, is not a good argument. I could simply do the same for alien life- the habitable zone for life is too narrow. The odds of abiogenesis are too low. Alien life is impossible. Thank you, good night!

I do not find this a convincing demonstration of advancing the discussion.

 

[Daylightstar]

There's no benefit. It came up in another thread. It's an interesting discussion, that's all. I'm not proselytizing ESP. I think it's possible and we don't know the odds, and I think the same is true about alien life.

Why put so much effort in for something that has no benefit according to you?

 

[John Jones]

Well, you could say that about advanced alien life. We should have observed probes or waves of colonizations (Fermi Paradox).

Take that up with Fermi, or advance your own explanations.

Advanced alien life and ESP both share the same issue- if either exists, where is it hiding? Even travelling at just 5% the speed of light, the entire galaxy could be colonized in less than 100 million years. Self replicating probes beaming out hello messages would be even easier to construct. So where are they?

We know that life exists in the universe. We don't have any good evidence that ESP exists, nor any reason to think it should.

Better luck next time.

 

[Daylightstar]

Upon whom is the burden to 'prove impossibility"? I'm not seeing it.

I'm not seeing why something which can not been demonstrated to exist at all, should be dis-proven.

 

[zengirl]

Actual aliens...no one has been able to explain this video-----http://youtu.be/GAuYyFm6UWA

 

[Aridas]

To arbitrarily jump in...

Earth life doesn't confirm alien life.

Obviously.

It just secures the possibility that alien life exists, but alien life is possible by virtue of it not being logically impossible. Same with ESP.

Now, you may be claiming that we know life is physically possible, but we don't know ESP is physically possible. That's a good point (covered by Red Baron), and here's my counter to it:

Yes, it's possible that ESP is physically impossible (in other words, it's a possibility that ESP doesn't exist in the universe). If the same is true about alien life, then the possibility of both are on equal ground again.

Your argument is deeply flawed here. The largest flaw, though is that your question is about relative probabilities, not whether they're possible at all. Focusing on whether something is possible at all or not is only a relevant argument if you can demonstrate that one or both options is logically impossible.

So, is it possible that alien life doesn't exist in this universe (i.e., is physically impossible)?

Yes, then no. Yes, it is possible that advanced alien life doesn't exist. No, it is not physically impossible, as demonstrated by our existence.

Yes, for two reasons:

1. It's possible the habitable zone for planets is so narrow that only Earth fits all the necessary conditions for life to even have a chance. If that's the case, then it would be physically impossible for alien life to exist.

"Habitable zone?" It looks like you're stretching the normal usage of that phrase well past the breaking point, honestly. Habitable zone is generally used for something quite different than the context suggests that you mean. If the conditions necessary for advanced life to occur have only occurred once, then yes, this would be the case. Given lack of relevant information and indications that many of the most basic requirements for life are likely reasonably common, this holds very little weight when dealing with questions of probability.

2. It's possible that abiogenesis is so unlikely that the number of planets in the universe in habitable zones isn't enough to make abiogenesis likely enough to believe it happened anywhere but here.

And... you're being inconsistent here. This doesn't make it physically impossible, like you were trying to work with before. Just unlikely. Again, though, lack of relevant information removes most of the weight that this could carry when it comes to questions of relative probability.

Overall, given that we exist, we are not currently aware of any overwhelming and solid reason why others couldn't exist, and there are many, many chances for them to do, have done, or will do, that has a higher probability than something that has not been confirmed to exist and that we do have solid, though not overwhelming, evidence against.

So while ESP may be physically impossible, alien life may also be physically impossible. We simply don't know. If we discover just one planet with life on it, the whole argument changes, but until then, the size of the habitable zone required for life to be possible and the likelihood of abiogenesis occurring on another planet are unknown.

Equivocation makes for bad arguments, especially when you're making a mockery of your own questions.