This came up in another thread, so rather than derail it, I'll start a new thread. I'm going to argue that the existence of both is equally probable.
First, what is the probability of advanced alien life existing (by advanced I mean the same tech level as we are (or higher))? I would argue that, at best, it is simply unknown, for three reasons:
1. The probability of abiogenesis occurring anywhere other than Earth is unknown.
2. The "narrowness" of the "goldilocks zone" is unknown.
What I mean by (2) is we don't know how many things have to fall into place just right for life to be even possible. Perhaps the ratio of the size of the moon to the planet has to be within a few hundreths of a decimal. Perhaps the planet has to be tilted just right, and the position and size of the closest gas giant can only vary by a small amount. In other words, there could be a dozen things that can't vary by more than 1%, and .01 to the 12th power is pretty close to the number of planets in the universe.
3. The probability of intelligent life arising on planets that have primitive life is unknown.
Without these three probabilities, the Drake equation can't be used, and the Drake equation is necessary for figuring out the probability of alien life.
There is also some disconfirming evidence that advanced alien life exists:
1. SETI's continued silence
2. The lack of large-scale stellar or galaxy based projects.
3. The lack of self-replicating probes
While I don't think that this is strong disconfirming evidence, it does exist.
So, the best we can say about advanced alien life is that it's possible.
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Is ESP possible? Yes. The default position is that a thing is possible until it's been proven impossible. A tea cup floating around Jupiter is possible (though very very unlikely).
There has been some evidence of ESP abilities, but not much. Some laboratory results have been kind of interesting (the PEAR project has it's adherents), and there are, of course, anecdotal accounts, but I would assign as much value to this evidence as I would assign as much value to SETI's-continued-silence as evidence aliens don't exist: it's hardly evidence at all.
Is there disconfirming evidence of ESP? On the face of it, a whole lot of it. Every test has come up short. However, there's a huge assumption going on there- that people who have ESP will sign up to be tested for it. For whatever reason, such people might not want to be tested. Since the disconfirming evidence (lack of laboratory results) relies on an assumption that can't be assigned a probability, we can't assume that lack of results in controlled tests is disconfirming evidence. It disconfirms the hypothesis that "people who have been tested have ESP", but it doesn't disconfirm the hypothesis that "people who avoid being tested have ESP". The possibility of such people existing is unknown, and if they avoid being tested, all the tests in the world won't disprove their existence.
It's like arguing that the lack of galaxy-size engineering projects is evidence that aliens don't exist. It's only evidence if we assume that aliens would engage in such projects. It's entirely possible they don't.
Now, what would the causal mechanism for ESP be? This, of course, is unknown. However, unknown doesn't mean impossible (or even unlikely). It's unknown whether other universes exist. It's unknown how abiogenesis occurred. It's unknown if white-holes exist, if other dimensions exist, or if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct.
Does ESP violate any laws of physics or biology? Again, this is unknown and also presupposes our knowledge of biology and physics is complete enough to rule it out. When 95% of what makes up the universe is a mystery, and we can't even agree on how consciousness arises, our science still has a long way to go. Faster-than-light travel would seemingly contradict some firmly established laws of physics, but that hasn't stopped NASA from funding warp-drive projects.
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TLDR version: At present time, there are simply too many unknowns to assign a probability to the existence of either ESP abilities OR advanced alien life. The existence of one is as equally likely as the existence of the other.
Also, the disconfirming evidence for either is too weak to count for much. The lack of a signal from SETI (or observations of self-replicating probes) is only disconfirming evidence if we assume advanced aliens would be beaming us a message, or would build such probes (or allow them to be revealed to us if they did build them).
Likewise, the lack of evidence from controlled testing of ESP abilities assumes people with such abilities would agree to be tested.
While there is a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence for ESP, there is also a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence for Big Foot, alien abductions, visitations by the Virgin Mary, etc. I don't think the side that argues that advanced alien life exists (or is probable) is going to cite reports of alien abductions, so it wouldn't be fair to me to appeal to reports of ESP phenomena*
*Although I would argue that if ESP phenomena were never reported, this would disconfirm the existence of ESP to a large degree, but that's not the case.
First, what is the probability of advanced alien life existing (by advanced I mean the same tech level as we are (or higher))? I would argue that, at best, it is simply unknown, for three reasons:
1. The probability of abiogenesis occurring anywhere other than Earth is unknown.
2. The "narrowness" of the "goldilocks zone" is unknown.
What I mean by (2) is we don't know how many things have to fall into place just right for life to be even possible. Perhaps the ratio of the size of the moon to the planet has to be within a few hundreths of a decimal. Perhaps the planet has to be tilted just right, and the position and size of the closest gas giant can only vary by a small amount. In other words, there could be a dozen things that can't vary by more than 1%, and .01 to the 12th power is pretty close to the number of planets in the universe.
3. The probability of intelligent life arising on planets that have primitive life is unknown.
Without these three probabilities, the Drake equation can't be used, and the Drake equation is necessary for figuring out the probability of alien life.
There is also some disconfirming evidence that advanced alien life exists:
1. SETI's continued silence
2. The lack of large-scale stellar or galaxy based projects.
3. The lack of self-replicating probes
While I don't think that this is strong disconfirming evidence, it does exist.
So, the best we can say about advanced alien life is that it's possible.
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Is ESP possible? Yes. The default position is that a thing is possible until it's been proven impossible. A tea cup floating around Jupiter is possible (though very very unlikely).
There has been some evidence of ESP abilities, but not much. Some laboratory results have been kind of interesting (the PEAR project has it's adherents), and there are, of course, anecdotal accounts, but I would assign as much value to this evidence as I would assign as much value to SETI's-continued-silence as evidence aliens don't exist: it's hardly evidence at all.
Is there disconfirming evidence of ESP? On the face of it, a whole lot of it. Every test has come up short. However, there's a huge assumption going on there- that people who have ESP will sign up to be tested for it. For whatever reason, such people might not want to be tested. Since the disconfirming evidence (lack of laboratory results) relies on an assumption that can't be assigned a probability, we can't assume that lack of results in controlled tests is disconfirming evidence. It disconfirms the hypothesis that "people who have been tested have ESP", but it doesn't disconfirm the hypothesis that "people who avoid being tested have ESP". The possibility of such people existing is unknown, and if they avoid being tested, all the tests in the world won't disprove their existence.
It's like arguing that the lack of galaxy-size engineering projects is evidence that aliens don't exist. It's only evidence if we assume that aliens would engage in such projects. It's entirely possible they don't.
Now, what would the causal mechanism for ESP be? This, of course, is unknown. However, unknown doesn't mean impossible (or even unlikely). It's unknown whether other universes exist. It's unknown how abiogenesis occurred. It's unknown if white-holes exist, if other dimensions exist, or if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct.
Does ESP violate any laws of physics or biology? Again, this is unknown and also presupposes our knowledge of biology and physics is complete enough to rule it out. When 95% of what makes up the universe is a mystery, and we can't even agree on how consciousness arises, our science still has a long way to go. Faster-than-light travel would seemingly contradict some firmly established laws of physics, but that hasn't stopped NASA from funding warp-drive projects.
-------------
TLDR version: At present time, there are simply too many unknowns to assign a probability to the existence of either ESP abilities OR advanced alien life. The existence of one is as equally likely as the existence of the other.
Also, the disconfirming evidence for either is too weak to count for much. The lack of a signal from SETI (or observations of self-replicating probes) is only disconfirming evidence if we assume advanced aliens would be beaming us a message, or would build such probes (or allow them to be revealed to us if they did build them).
Likewise, the lack of evidence from controlled testing of ESP abilities assumes people with such abilities would agree to be tested.
While there is a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence for ESP, there is also a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence for Big Foot, alien abductions, visitations by the Virgin Mary, etc. I don't think the side that argues that advanced alien life exists (or is probable) is going to cite reports of alien abductions, so it wouldn't be fair to me to appeal to reports of ESP phenomena*
*Although I would argue that if ESP phenomena were never reported, this would disconfirm the existence of ESP to a large degree, but that's not the case.
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