My Personal Ongoing Worldview: Part Two

Everybody has his or her own particular worldview, philosophy, a set of truisms, a concept of reality, and overall, a degree of certainty on just how the world works. Equally true, that worldview evolves as you grow older. Santa Clause was probably part of your worldview when you were five years old, but unlikely at fifty-five. I’m no exception to the rule, so here are my latest ‘set-in-cement’ thoughts on how the world operates.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

HUMAN AFFAIRS

* There is no God or supernatural deity (or deities) of any kind. Religion can however serve useful purposes, not the least of which it keeps some percentage of the human population employed.

* As suggested earlier, in an infinite cosmos there is no need for a deity of any sort. Therefore it is rather improbable that there is no Heaven or Hell (or associated places) since these must represent actual physical geographies. That being the case, we would have probably discovered them by now.

* No deities, specifically no Christian God does mean that there ain’t no end times, no second coming, no apocalypse or Armageddon, no rapture, no end-of-days or end times. In fact, all religious texts, all those allegedly that are divinely inspired, are pure bovine fertilizer.

* There is no before-the-fact meaning or purpose to your existence other than what you yourself give it. There is nobody from ‘on high’ tapping you on the shoulder or whispering into your subconscious mind that the following (fill in the blank) is your destiny or ultimate fate. 

* There is no such thing as a separate-and-apart part of you termed a soul, spirit, or any other related concept associated with a soul.

* You have no free will. That follows on from my belief that causality (a predetermined clockwork universe) rules absolutely – yesterday, today, and tomorrow. However, free will, even if illusional, serves a useful social purpose forming the general foundation for humanity’s legal system – you are responsible for your actions.

* Death is not something to be afraid of. You experience dying, but not death since once dead, you have no existence and you need to have an existence, you have to be alive, in order to experience something, anything, even death. So you never experience death, only that which is up to but not including death.

* Death is final – there is no afterlife. Post-death is an identical state to pre-life or pre-conception. You get one go per universe between conception and death – make the best of it and enjoy. However, if there are an infinity of universes in space and/or in time, then you can expect to be reincarnated both as yourself and with variations on the theme of yourself (i.e. – you might marry someone else as an example). Perhaps, just perhaps, that’s the real meaning behind the phrases of life everlasting (or everlasting life) or eternal life (or life eternal).

* Given the wide range of highly improbable human characteristics – human uniqueness such as a bipedal gait and high IQ – and extremely rapid rise to a state of having culture and ‘civilization’, the odds are extremely high that human origins and evolution were all genetically engineered by outsiders – aliens for lack of a better word.

* It’s a sweeping generalization I know, but the philosophy of the average human is “it’s all about me. I and my needs come first.”

* If the human species was created, it was a very bad mistake on someone or something’s part. If the human species was an unplanned accident of evolution, Mother Nature screwed up big-time. If one is honest, one would be very hard pressed to name another terrestrial species that has caused more unwarranted death, destruction and overall suffering to all and sundry than Homo sapiens. To be honest, while I can’t speak for the rest of the cosmos, we are surely the scum of the earth and the cosmos should rejoice if we cause our own extinction. It would be well deserved.

* Behind every mountain of mythology lies a molehill of reality. So, as an example, there are mountains of mythological deities; there is a molehill that acquaints these deities as actual realities, the reality being flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials.

* Probability is a human concept with relevance to human worldviews but which has no relevance or application outside of the human experience, or perhaps that should be extended to any self-aware life forms. The real world that’s totally divorced from human affairs and the human species, deals with certainties, not probabilities. But what about quantum physics, surely that’s probability personified. But when you read all about quantum physics, sure you get probability this and probability that, but the references are all with respect to observers and measurements – in other words, with respect to human worldviews.

* Philosophy is like jazz – 95% of it is crap, but what’s good is very, very good. [At least jazz comes out vastly better percentage-wise than rap, hip-hop, heavy metal, ‘music’ which is 100% crap.]

* For obvious reasons, empty what’s full; fill what’s empty; scratch where it itches.

* Finally, you may have to grow old, but there’s no requirement to grow up!

There’s No Free Will

Just about every human on Planet Earth holds near and dear to their worldview that they have control over their own lives, or at the very least control over their own mind. Even if you live in a dictatorship or you are a slave or a prisoner you have free will of the mind. You can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking. But wishing or believing or faith doesn’t make it so and there are many scenarios that render your alleged free will to the state of an illusion, if not a delusion.

Here are a few reasons why your alleged ‘free will’ is in fact an illusion at best; a delusion at worst.

* We’re all simulated beings living in a virtual reality obeying the commands of the master computer software program. Characters in a video game do what they are programmed to do, no more and no less.

* God lied! All our strings are being pulled by outside evil (satanic, demonic, etc.) vs. good (angelic) forces. Humans are trapped in the middle of this tug-of-war, mere pawns for the larger forces at work. But as someone once told me, “I have free will because I take responsibility for my own actions”. Well actually that’s just those goody-goody-two-shoes angels pulling your strings. And if you argue in court say that “the devil made me do it”, well that’s probably spot on the case. The devil should be on trial, not you!

* Make of this what you will, but many people who report having involuntary visitations by otherworldly entities, be they described as aliens, shadow ‘people’, beings from other dimensions or parallel realities, etc. note that they were compelled against their will to carry out the wishes or instructions of these entities who have complete, total, absolute control over their human victims. If you have free will, it apparently can be overridden, but then that’s known from case studies in hypnoses. 

* Classical physics rules! Cause and effect rules! Causality rules, OK? All the laws, principles and relationships of classical physics were established and set in motion at the moment of creation (the Big Bang event) and all follows as clockwork (Newton’s point of view) from that in a totally deterministic way as far into the future as you care to calculate. The clockwork, causality rules universe of which you are a part, means no free will for you.

* Quantum physics rules too! Quantum physics apparently has no causality (Einstein disagreed) which immediately sets my teeth on edge, but that’s another matter. Quantum physics is expressed in probabilities, like either/or. Since your brain which houses your mind isn’t exempt from quantum physics (nothing is exempt anytime, anywhere, anyhow), all those billions of either/or quantum physics reactions collectively can give rise to all the apparent free will choices you apparently have at your command. It’s all one massive superposition of state after another after another as your mind lurches from one decision to the next. But whether it’s one either/or or the sum total of billions of either/or probabilities, the possibilities are still finite. You may not do the same thing twice in identical scenarios, but that’s not your free will, just the coming to the fore of one of those random probabilities that result from all those either/or possibilities inherent in quantum physics that hold sway over your mind, which, if truth be known, is comprised of the same matter and energy regimes that are the realm of physics, classical or quantum. 

* Your body cells, tissues, organs, organ systems on up the line are all on biochemical autopilot. No free will need apply. So why should your brain, housing your mind, be an exception to the rule? Your mind is not a something which exists independently of your body.

* Your ‘conscious’ decisions are by-products of what’s already happening within your subconscious. Our subconscious mind comes to a decision before we are consciously aware of it as has been demonstrated by actual experimentation.

* If you accept the probability of a Megaverse, a conglomerate of the Multiverse, with each individual universe having associated Parallel Universes and an infinite space (volume) and time (thus eliminating the awkward questions of ‘what’s beyond’ and ‘what was before’) then every possible timeline and history and scenario has happened – an infinite number of times. An infinite number of you have made every possible decision you can possibly make, compatible with the laws, relationships and principles of physics, an infinite number of times. How do you reconcile free will with that?

* Any competent neuroscientist worthy of their salt and status can stimulate parts of your brain using electromagnetic (EM) energy and get a physiological response, like your fingers twitching, ditto your arms and legs flapping like puppets on a string, your head turns and your posture changes - all grist for the neuroscientist’s mill. What you experience under the EM stimulation is the urge to do it (say tap your toe) and then you do it but you do not get the urge to, nor perform the action, voluntarily or willingly. Someone else, in this case the neuroscientist, is in control. That applies equally to your emotions as well as your movements. Stimulate this brainy bit and you cry; here and you laugh; somewhere else will hit your guilt complex, etc. What makes you, you, is just being reduced to the basics of electrical signals.

Conclusion: You are a part of life, the Universe and everything, or, to shorten things, a part of Mother Nature. Mother Nature operates on a select number of non-negotiable laws, principles and relationships, starting with the most basic of elementary particles and forces and working on up the line. No correspondence will be entered into or answered by Mother Nature. As such, you dance to Mother Nature’s tune. Do not attempt to change the tune and adjust reality. She controls the horizontal; She controls the vertical; She controls all that you see and do. Mother Nature is a bitch, but there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.  Myth busted!

But, and there’s nearly always a ‘but’, while ‘free will’ may well be, and probably is, an illusion (or delusion), it does have practical applications in the real world (like forcing one to be accountable for their actions) and thus is a concept unlikely to bite the dust anytime soon. It’s akin to the notion that God may not, and probably does not exist, He forms a useful function in society by keeping a lot of people here on Terra Firma employed!

P.S. If there is such a thing as free will, why is there such an obesity epidemic? You’d think one of the last things people would want to look like is blubber personified. But what do I know? Maybe roly-poly is the latest in body fashion statements!

Further Reading:

Harris, Sam; Free Will; Free Press, New York; 2012:

Theory vs. Observation: Part One

There’s many a conflict that rages between observation and theory. What is observed cannot be; what cannot be alas is observed. Sceptics, those supporting theory, dump down on those who contradict theory because they witnessed something to the contrary. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t.” The witness dumps down on the sceptic with the statement, “I know what I saw”. Impasse! Perhaps there is a third option, one where both theory and observation can coexist.

In any sort of legal dispute, if you’re the prosecutor, it’s good to have documents – a paper trail – fingerprints, video camera footage, someone caught red-handed in the act or with the goods, as well as a documented trilogy of available time, substantive motive and ample opportunity against the alleged perpetrator.  But sometimes all you have to base your case on is the observation of a witness or witnesses. That’s often been enough, even more than enough, to either convict someone or provide and substantiate that someone with a legal alibi.  Eyewitness testimony alone, well it’s not perfect but it’s not something inadmissible in court either. 

While documents, including pictographs, rock carvings/paintings, hieroglyphs and related archaeological relics, including human remains; films and photographs too, are all excellent means to document history, an awful lot of what we accept as historical gospel comes from what someone or a group of people have witnessed, especially in the days before sound recordings and film. Then too many a document is nothing more than the recorded word of an eyewitness; an observer(s). 

Lastly, you couldn’t last or survive a day without your powers of observation being accurate and reliable. If your vision was unreliable or faulty, could you drive to work? You’d better know a red light when you see one, and exercise superb judgment based of your observations if thinking about overtaking and passing another vehicle. Ditto if you cross a busy street. You’d better be spot-on in your observation if approaching a down staircase. You’d better be able to observe and tell the difference when meeting up with a bear or a deer in the woods if you intend to pet it. Your ability to observe and report accurately (if only to yourself) those observations are absolutely critical to your survival.

You probably tell lots of people every week events that you observed and many people no doubt relate to you things they have witnessed. Nobody bats an eyebrow – nobody questions anyone’s bona fides. Expect of course when its something that expert authorities, professional sceptics included, say cannot be. Then eyebrows get raised. 

Issue number one: If 99.99% of what you observe is accurate, believable, a no-brainer in terms of  credibility, then why are you all of a sudden an unreliable witness if you observe something others, so-called expert others, dismiss as an impossible anomaly?

Issue number two: So-called, and really-real experts can indeed dismiss an impossible anomaly, witnesses be damned, if it is indeed an impossibility by the science of the day.

Issue number three: We have a contradiction between theory (what the experts say) and observation (what the witness sees)

On the one hand, throughout history, there’s been many an observation of something anomalous and considered downright impossible, according to the sceptics, that’s now part and parcel of the standard norm, like meteorites – stone that fall from the sky. Score points for the observer.

On the other hand, how many observations have been credited as legit though later found to be less than credible. Score points for the sceptic.

Now if someone has a track record of telling tall tales or taking substances that are known to hinder accurate observations and judgments, that’s one thing, but if not, are you prepared to call someone into doubt just because their observation are anomalous according to the state of the world?

For the purposes of this essay, I’ll ignore the philosophical concept inherent in quantum physics that the observer actually creates what is being observed; or in other words, nothing exists or has reality unless it is being observed. Let’s go with the more down to earth philosophy that something has, or has not, a reality regardless of whether it is being scrutinized or not.

Let’s examine a quintuplet listing of those it-can’t-be-therefore-it-isn’t anomalies contradicted by observations of just that, which could easily be expanded by two orders of magnitude, but then this is an essay and not a book-length encyclopaedia.

The realm of the once animate: Ghosts – Even if you haven’t seen a ghost, you probably know of someone who has or lacking that, you can go to your nearest library or the Internet and find ultimately hundreds of thousands of reported observations of ghostly manifestations. Are you prepared to call all these witnesses deluded or liars or under the influence? Now, try to come up with a viable explanation that’s compatible with physics, chemistry and biology that explains the relationship between a dead body and its post-death yet animated counterpart. Good luck!

Apart from the gap between observation and there being no theoretical way for ghosts or phantoms or spirits or wraiths, call them what you will, those remnants of the dead of people recently, or even not so recently, deceased, to exist, there is also the question, why aren’t sighted ghosts, or phantom hitchhikers, etc. naked? I mean it’s the person who died, not what they were wearing, so if a ghost is the essence of a former living person, and clothing doesn’t contribute to the nature of that essence, then ghosts should be seen naked! They’re not, so that’s anomaly number two between theory (should be undressed) and observation (ghosts are decently attired).

The realm of the animate: Botany: Crop Circles – This time there is absolutely no doubting the observational bona fides of the anomaly.  Thousands of witness and thousands of photographs and more measurements than you can shake a stick at have been made of (mainly British) crop circles. Sceptics counter that since natural complex geometric crop circles cannot be; and aliens obviously didn’t make them since there are no aliens on or near Planet Earth, then, since not even sceptics can explain away the reality of the circles, it has to be all a human hoax. Sceptics of the sceptics point out that the sheer logistics of human involvement, in total darkness, without mistakes, without leaving traces, without ever being caught, are also as close to theoretically impossible as makes no odds. Observations can’t be disputed; no theory can adequately explain them.

The realm of the animate: Zoology: Loch Ness – Let’s take at face value that numerous witnesses have sighted, some have photographed even filmed some sort of relatively biologically large ‘sea monster’ in Scotland’s Loch Ness. No matter how good the testimony or reliable the witness, no matter the quality of the photograph or the film, can it be so? Unfortunately for us romantic naturalists, the odds that ‘can it be so’ are so low that no sane person would bet a sawbuck on the positive. And so it’s Biology 101 to the fore for a theoretical reality check. You cannot have just a one-off ‘monster’. At the very least you need a male ‘monster’ and a female ’monster’. In fact you need a viable breeding herd of ‘monsters’ in order to keep the lake population of ‘monsters’ an ongoing proposition, since if you had just the one male or the one female and either one was infertile or somehow both failed to get their act together, well it’s by-by birdie or rather Nessie. Unfortunately, if Loch Ness contained a breeding herd of ‘monsters’ then snags would have to rear their ugly head that would argue the contrary. One would be that sightings would be vastly more frequent. Two, sooner or later one of the herd has gotta die, then another, then another. Sooner or later a corpse, fresh or decayed, has got to get washed ashore. If that happens, mystery solved. Thirdly, well there’s the issue of an adequate food supply. Loch Ness could probably feed one ‘monster’, but not a herd of them. Loch Ness is large, but still quite finite in volume. Fish in the open ocean can roam the wide open spaces for a meal; not so in a relatively small fish tank like Loch Ness. So we have another unresolved conflict between observation and theory. 

The realm of the inanimate: The Vacuum Energy - This is probably the Mother of All Anomalies! A temperature of absolute zero, that is a state in which there is no available energy, is impossible. That’s because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which is one of those rock solid foundations of quantum physics. So there is always a minimum amount of energy available that pervades the Universe. It’s called the ‘vacuum energy’. Theoretically the vacuum energy should exist with such-and-such a value. The vacuum energy indeed exists (is has been observed and it has been experimentally confirmed) with such-and-such a value. However, you have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy. This discrepancy is the most embarrassing ‘oops’ in all of modern physics and nobody can figure out how to resolve the discrepancy. Oops indeed!  

The realm of the cosmos: Quasars - Quasars are ‘quasi-stellar objects’. They are ‘stellar’ because they aren’t all that large (unlike a galaxy). They are ‘quasi’ because they give off energy way, way, way more times greater than any star known in any astronomical catalogue. They seem to be primordial objects – they formed long ago and are now far away.  Quasars, like stars or galaxies, are their own entities and if two or more show very close and special causality relationships then they should show identical recessional velocities (since the Universe is expanding and they are part of the Universe and that expansion). Recessional velocities are measured by an object’s red-shift. Theory identifies red-shift with velocity. However, you apparently have observations of causality connected quasar pairs with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities). The anomaly, in an analogy, is that you can not have a runner running at 15 miles per hour holding hands with another runner running at 3 miles per hour!

To be continued…

UFOs: They Can’t Be, Therefore They Aren’t: Part One

UFO skeptics, that is those scientists who are skeptical against the position that some hardcore bona fide UFOs are serious indications of the existence of an advanced civilization of extraterrestrial beings, and unable to put a dent into any other pro-UFO position, go to their final fallback objection which is that the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) can’t be, therefore it isn’t; alright it might be but it still isn’t; don’t bother me with any facts to the contrary, my mind is absolutely made up; and in any event UFOs are just pseudoscience and I only deal with real science. Please trust me on this for I’m a scientist! And we all know scientists are 100% rational and right 100% of the time!

Now one of the more famous literary quotes comes from George Orwell’s novel, “Animal Farm”. The relevant quotation goes something along this line: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.

I suggest, that in terms of all things lumped together as ‘paranormal’ or the equivalent term ‘pseudoscience’, “All things paranormal are equal, but some paranormal things are more equal than others”.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all things sceptical, all those sceptical quasi-scientific organizations like the ‘CSI: Committee for Sceptical Inquiry’ and equivalents around the world like the ‘Australian Sceptics’ organization, all those self-proclaimed scientific sceptics, seems to me to just lump all things paranormal or pseudoscientific into one great melting pot where all those paranormal ingredients are equal, and equally yucky, and equally non-credible and equally preposterous. But are they? To that I say hogwash! - Hence my paraphrasing of the famous “Animal Farm” quotation.

Now I’d be the first to agree that there’s a hell of a lot of paranormal or pseudoscientific claptrap out there. Astrology is bunk; ditto such concepts as the ‘Mars Effect’; numerology;  ESP (extrasensory perception); telepathy; clairvoyance; reincarnation (remembering past lives); communication with the ‘spirit world’; talking to your plants; prayer & prayers answered - the power of prayer; magic; psychic surgery; telekinesis; teleportation; ley lines and mystical energy grids associated with megaliths, monuments, etc.; religious and/or medical miracles: weeping statues, stigmata, Biblical codes, prophecy, and precognition; sightings of elves, fairies, the ‘wee folk’, leprechauns, angels, witches, goblins, demons, nymphs, bogeymen, etc. ghosts, spirits, poltergeist, phantoms, etc.; and associated haunted houses; ghost ships; etc. 

However, not all of the paranormal can be confined to the rubbish bin quite so easily. UFOs aside, there’s some credibility for cryptozoology – lake and sea serpents; unknown ape-like creatures (Yeti, Bigfoot, etc.); alternative medicines and medical therapies; crop circles having a non-human origin; ball lightning; transient lunar phenomena (TLP);  mysterious falls of frogs or fish or ice or other unusual objects from out of a clear blue sky; fire-walking; and spontaneous human combustion.

In “Through the Looking-Glass” it’s stated that it’s possible to believe in six impossible things before breakfast. Science and associated philosophies have had to deal with impossibilities and wildly improbable things, some of which are straight forward, and some of which aren’t – perhaps to the point where something possible is in fact impossible and fundamentally wrong. Conversely, something considered impossible might in fact be possible and fundamentally right. 

A cautionary note: when it comes to what’s possible or impossible; plausible or implausible; probable or improbable, majority doesn’t rule. Science isn’t a democracy. If a billion people believe nonsense, it’s still nonsense. This however is in contrast to what has been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. If a billion people continue to disbelieve something that has been proved, say Darwinian evolution, then it’s those billion people who are full of nonsense, not the idea.

Time and time again the self-correcting nature of scientific investigation has invalidated the normal status quo of the day, resulting in a paradigm shift. Often the seemingly impossible has proved to be possible, even inevitable. Sometimes what’s been believed to be obviously plausible as proved to be anything but plausible. So, if today’s science says something’s impossible – well, maybe. If I say something is impossible – the same caveat applies. I tend to argue from common sense logic, which, as any philosopher or historian of science will tell you is no sure pathway to what is, and isn’t.

Okay, the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis is considered by most serious and therefore rational scientists to be just pseudoscience, and believers in the UFO ETH are therefore pseudo-scientists, only lacking the job description identified with being a bona fide scientist.

When it comes to pseudoscience, once upon a time Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus would have been considered pseudo-astronomers; Heinrich Schliemann (of Troy fame) someone who dabbled in pseudo-archaeology; Charles Darwin was a pseudo-naturalist; and Alfred Wegener, obviously put forth a theory (continental drift) that could only be described as pseudo-geology at the time. Even originally Albert Einstein was so far out in left field that his scientific seniors and superiors could easily have described his physics as pseudo-physics. Only time and history will be the judge whether or not the UFO ETH is pseudoscience or real science. The jury IMHO is still out on that issue.

To be continued…

UFOs: The Skeptics, the Scientists and the Double Standards

We’d nearly all be aware that when it comes to the subject of UFOs, most scientists shun away from them like they would a skunk who let fly. Scientists and UFOs tend to party together in much the same way as oil and water mix. Professional sceptics have a field day with the topic by usually picking and choosing to give their middle finger to the easy targets, not the hardcore issues. For example, it’s easy to rubbish someone who says they took a trip in a flying saucer with the ‘space brothers’ to Saturn; it’s much harder to ridicule a military pilot who reports engaging in a dogfight with a UFO. So, is this behaviour rational or are there hidden agendas and double standards?

The UFO Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) can’t be therefore it isn’t; alright it might be but it still isn’t; don’t bother me with facts, my mind is made up; and in any event it’s all pseudoscience and I just deal with real science. Trust me on this – I’m a scientist! And we all know scientists are 100% rational and right 100% of the time!

Many professional scientists, and other sceptics, when and if they think about UFOs at all, have been preconditioned to think of them in terms of the lunatic fringe, nutters who accept any and all pseudoscience associated with the paranormal and therefore not worthy of their attention, or if worthy, then worthy in a negative sense as only something to ridicule. They like to in a sense ‘pour water on a drowning man’ and pat themselves on the back as how superior they are relative to the astrology-minded; the great unwashed set who believe non-avian dinosaurs and humans coexisted together.  

Firstly, let’s dispose of the sceptics, professional and otherwise, since their double standard amounts to treating all pseudoscience or all paranormal topics equally. Actually therefore sceptics only have a single standard – no shades of grey. One size fits all. That is to say, no matter what the anomaly, it’s rubbish. Sceptics just lump together all that’s paranormal, and call it pseudoscience as any sceptics’ website or monograph will more than adequately demonstrate – all pseudoscience is nonsense and all = all. However, I suggest that instead of all anomalies being equal; some anomalies are more equal than others. In short, some anomalies are really bovine fertiliser, but hardly all. To lump astrology and UFOs in the same basket is a double standard, since the theoretical and observational evidence for each isn’t really equal. Likewise, there’s more theoretical and actual evidence for the existence of the Sasquatch (Bigfoot) than there is for say telepathy. Since sceptics can’t distinguish serious anomalies from trivial ones, well I can’t treat sceptics seriously since when crunch comes to the crunch, they can’t be bothered to do the proper research and make distinctions.

Scientists on the other hand should take everything on their individual merits, and clearly in any scientific field, not all topics have equal merits. Saying life exists on Mars is not in the same league as saying life exists on Venus. Despite that, some topics do have equal merits, but that doesn’t stop scientists from pretending they don’t. Take SETI for example.

SETI (that’s the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists tend to poo-poo ufology buffs for failing to come up with a UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) smoking gun, or any compelling evidence, especially physical evidence for hardcore UFOs, in over six decades. That’s one topic. Of course they conveniently forget that SETI is entirely based on theory and SETI hasn’t produced a smoking gun conclusive of the existence of ETI either, over a near equal five decades of searching. But that’s another topic. However, both topics are in fact equal in that neither has produced a smoking gun that’s ‘killed’ the alien and provided a corpse for study. In fact, the amount of SETI evidence, including physical evidence, is but a short story compared to the full length UFO novel.

There is one other up-close-and-personal reason SETI scientists dump on the UFO ETH and/or ‘ancient astronauts’ is because they have a vested interest in SETI. They have spent careers, building equipment designed to look for alien intelligence out there, often been made fun of by other scientists (and the American Congress) in their hunt for ‘little green men’. It would be a serious blow to their egos, careers, reputations and an actual downright embarrassment if ET proven to be down here all along. So, it’s almost a natural reaction to rubbish any alternative idea. We’ve seen that any number of times in the history of science – Darwinian evolution vs. Lamarckian evolution; the Big Bang cosmology vs. the Steady State cosmology; catastrophism vs. uniformitarianism in geology. Debates have often been controversial, personal and bitter. So it’s interesting to note that when I communicate some of my unorthodox ideas to a well known SETI scientist, if I get under his skin, at worst I get no response; at best one that starts with “Dear Mr. Prytz”. Now if I say something he considers sensible (by his standards) the reply is “Dear John”. That’s a bit of a double standard too in its own right.

Now when it comes to SETI vs. the UFO ETH, that’s not to say SETI scientists shouldn’t continue to do SETI – they should – nothing ventured, nothing gained. But it gains them nothing to reject out of hand the rival idea that ET is or was down here are well as being up there.  

Quite apart from SETI, the majority of scientists, especially physical scientists, usually poo-poo the UFO ETH with a there’s ‘no evidence’ mantra. But such scientists leave themselves wide open to the double standard. Many a scientist will profess a firm belief in something that has absolutely ‘no evidence’ of any kind, conveniently forgetting that they have rubbished other people’s beliefs for having faith in six impossible things that appear on their dining room table prior to breakfast. And so we see here the beginnings of more general double standards.

A prime example of how some scientists have their lack of evidence and belief too is with respect to religion. Even as recently as 2009, a public opinion poll found that a significant (albeit minority) percentage of scientists had a belief in a God that was up close and personal in their lives. There’s not the slightest bit of evidence, physical or otherwise, that God exists. There’s absolutely no evidence for any deity (monotheistic or polytheistic), yet many scientists have no trouble accepting on faith and having a belief in a deity (or deities) sight unseen by anyone and everyone. No one verifiable has seen the monotheistic deity God and all the polytheistic deities are apparently, according to scholars, entirely mythological. Go figure. This essay could just as easily been constructed around a theme of double standards with respect to God: Show Me the Evidence!’ There just isn’t any.

That reminds me of God’s double standard of ‘do as I say, not as I do’. It’s just like God (of the Old Testament) to command “Thou shall not kill” while He goes off and nearly exterminates the entire terrestrial human and animal population vis-à-vis the universal deluge. Anyway, back to the scientist.

There are valid cases within science itself of scientists not only ‘having a lack of evidence for X’s reality but never-the-less a belief in X’s reality too’. Now without meaning to accuse scientists of pure hypocrisy, there are lots of current concepts in science that have absolutely no evidence of any sort apart from the purely theoretical to support them, yet are taken quite seriously by physical scientists. A partial list would include concepts like the Multiverse (there is more than one universe – ours - within the overriding cosmos); the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics; particle physic’s string theory; the Higgs Boson; the possible existence of ten or eleven dimensions; the Ekpyrotic (two string theory [mem]branes colliding and accounting for the origin of our) Universe theory; and, shock-horror for those interested in SETI , the total lack of any under-the-microscope, hardcore evidence whatsoever for any intelligent life forms anywhere out there other than intelligent terrestrial life forms (humans). Yet it is acceptable for scientists to research these areas without being subjected to having their sanity questioned. I fail to see why the UFO ETH is an exception to this. Even forget the UFO ETH – just the UFO phenomena full-stop is off limits. Be that as it may, it is.

Understandably for scientists, there is one very big and fundamental problem with UFOs. They tend to be unpredictable in time and space, and when they do show up; they don’t stand still and grant you an interview and allow you the leisure of taking out your yardstick or whatever other scientific instrument you care to name and measuring them.

But there are other case histories from the annals of science regarding ‘the nature of the evidence’ that have parallels with UFOs – physical phenomena that are unpredictable in time and space, that don’t stand still; that you can’t poke and prod, and that you can not put under the microscope and , examine at your leisure. These various phenomena; well ball lightning comes to mind; ditto Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP); and you can’t rewind the clock and prepare for (instruments at the ready) and witness the one-off Tunguska event are akin to UFOs in that scientists lack the means to lock them down, isolate them, and study the unfolding event at their leisure. Yet, it is one rule for one (ball lightning, TLP, Tunguska); one rule for another (UFOs).

So there seems to be a double standard for acceptable evidence here. UFOs have apparently no verifiable evidence and a ‘giggle factor’; ball lightning and TLP have unverifiable evidence but no ‘giggle factor’, yet all of these have theoretical underpinnings that make their existence plausible. In the case of the UFO ETH, it’s the Fermi Paradox – that’s the ‘where are they, if they exist they should be here’ observation.

Ultimately the question here boils down to finding an answer (a smoking gun) to the question that humans have asked and speculated on for thousands of years – are we alone in the universe? There shouldn’t be any double standards employed when it comes down to addressing this issue. There are ultimately four choices: 1) We can choose not to answer the question because the world has bigger priorities than proving the existence of ‘little green men’; 2) we can, as SETI does, search out there, which obviously is a very logical thing to do even though it’s a proverbial ‘needle in the haystack’ search; 3) we can search down here – ancient astronauts and UFOs – which is a positive in that it restricts the haystack’s geography required to be examined, but on probability is less likely statistically that the needle will be there (another parallel being someone looking for a lost key underneath the lamppost just because the light’s better there); 4) or we can do both – search out there AND search down here and not put our quest for the ‘little green men’ into an either/or basket. Unfortunately, that’s way too idealistic a position to have accepted given the historical double standard already taken.

In conclusion, when it comes to the scientific community and evidence, there is often a double standard employed.  There’s not one shred of physical evidence for string theory, yet it’s an accepted area of funded academic research and has been for decades. On the UFO issue, many scientists while happy to accept the accuracy of eyewitness testimony when it provides data that turns a UFO event into an IFO, for some strange reason reject eyewitness testimony when it reinforces the unidentified or unknown status of the UFO event. That’s another double standard. Go figure!

Of course the ultimate conclusion to be drawn is that scientists are human too and have their own agendas, backgrounds and personalities which can and do colour their belief systems. Apart from the ever logical Mr. Spock, is there any human, past or present (and probably future) who hasn’t at one time or other employed a double standard? Not that that makes the double standard acceptable of course, but theoretical idealism and practical reality is two very separate things.

So, IMHO, the double standard fails because though sceptics and scientists rally against the UFO ETH, and perhaps they are right in their conclusions, skeptics and scientists aren’t all-knowing and often base their conclusions on faith or belief. They too are human with all the accompanying baggage that implies and they can, and do, make mistakes, and such is the case I believe when it comes to labeling the pro UFO ETH a pseudoscience. Once upon a time Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus would have been considered pseudo-astronomers; Heinrich Schliemann (of Troy fame) someone who dabbled in pseudo-archaeology; Charles Darwin was a pseudo-naturalist; and Alfred Wegener, obviously put forth a theory (continental drift) that could only be described as pseudo-geology at the time. Even originally Albert Einstein was so far out in left field that his scientific seniors and superiors could easily have described his physics as pseudo-physics. Only time and history will be the judge whether or not the UFO ETH is or was pseudoscience or real science. The jury IMHO is still out on that issue. 

My Top Baker’s Dozen Anomalies: Part One

The Universe is filled with mystery. There are a myriad of things that are, but shouldn’t be, or probably shouldn’t be. Adequate explanations are not only lacking, but even the wildest possible theoretical explanations are rather thin on the ground. There often tends to be a massive divide between observation and theory. These anomalies run the range from the Universe as a whole, down to your local neck of the woods, down in fact to the realms of the microscopic. Here are a few of my favorite anomalies from the top down.

There are thousands of books, articles, documentaries, TV shows and websites that are or have been devoted to anomalies or mysteries or the unknown. From UFOs and ancient astronauts to Bigfoot to Atlantis, to ESP to the Bermuda Triangle to religious miracles, the list is seemingly endless. Some are pretty iffy; some have a good bona-fide pedigree. No two people will come up with identical lists of what to them are their top anomalies. There’s just too many that capture the imagination of the great unwashed. Different strokes for different folks. Here’s my list – at this point in time anyway.

ACCELERATING UNIVERSE: The anomaly here is quite straightforward in that there’s considerable observational evidence that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. However, logic dictates that because of the overall gravity that the Universe has, the expansion rate of the Universe should be decelerating. The ‘antigravity’ energy required to accelerate the Universe’s expansi on has to come from somewhere, and in ever increasing amounts to keep on keeping on the ever increasing rate of acceleration, yet, the Universe, almost by definition, already contains all there is and ever will be. If extra ‘antigravity’ energy is being created, it’s being created out of nothing. Something from nothing is a clear violation of the basic conservation laws and principles that form the bedrock of modern science.  

NEITH: Neith is, or was, the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. now-forever-lost satellite of our twin planet (in size if nothing else), Venus. The anomaly here is that bona-fide professional astronomers, not one but numerous celebrated astronomers, including Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712), sighted, noted and logged the existence of the damn thing and wrote up their findings in their professional journals. Okay, the time period was the mid-1600s to mid-1700s, but the professional eyeballs and the professional equipment was good enough to verify one way or the other the presence or absence of a reasonably sized natural satellite in orbit around Venus.

Of over thirty sightings of Neith, the best known and verified were in 1645, 1672, 1686, 1740, 1759, 1761 and 1764 (multiple sightings on numerous days in March). Observations over that stretch of period would seemingly rule out the ‘satellite’ being a faint star or asteroid or outer planet like Uranus or Neptune that just happened to be way beyond Venus but in the direct line of sight. Sometimes the observed phase of Neith matched the phase of Venus, which again suggests that the object was in close proximity to the planet.

Venus, inward and closer to the Sun than Earth, is a very visible and prominent celestial object when viewed from Earth, commonly called the Morning and Evening ‘Star’. We’ve all seen Venus; in fact if you know exactly where to look it can be seen in the daytime sky. Venus is far enough away from the Sun that the Sun’s glare doesn’t drown out reflected light from Venus, and presumably any objects near or in orbit around Venus. A natural satellite of Venus of any reasonable size should be readily detectable with the astronomical equipment available at the time. And so it really didn’t raise any astronomical eyebrows when Neith was in fact discovered. The anomaly here is that all and sundry were wrong. Neith doesn’t exist. Venus has no natural satellite(s). Now either all and sundry were totally incompetent and wouldn’t know one end of a telescope from the other, or else Neith really existed but somehow exited the local neighborhood. If that’s the case, then Neith wasn’t natural at all but under intelligent control, and not by any terrestrial intelligence. What Neith was, and where it disappeared to, are major anomalies. 

DRAGONS: The anomaly here is that if dragons and dragon-lore was the product of just one culture at say one particular point in time, the concept could be easily dismissed. But when they appear in every culture, from ancient times even up through the 1700’s when they were still part of natural history, then one needs to pay closer attention. That’s all the more so since dragons were taken very seriously indeed. In China they were the emissaries between the gods and the emperor, and woe beholds any of lesser rank that wore a dragon image on their person. Dragons and dragon-lore form a major part of what passes for science-fantasy today. There’s probably no child over the age of five who can’t wax lyrical and tell you all about dragon-lore. The best guess scenario is that while dragons may be considered mythical today; they certainly were not, not too awfully that many generations ago. If that’s the case, if dragons were really real once upon a time, then the anomaly is – no fossils. 

GHOSTS: The anomaly here is that you’ve had hundreds of thousands, probably even millions, of observations of ghosts or ghostly manifestations since recorded history started being, well, recorded. Sightings of apparitions or specters or spirits, whatever, have been made and reported from every possible type of person from every possible walk of life. They can’t all be mistaken. The fly in the ointment is that all of this is without there being the slightest shred of physical, chemical or biological theory that can back up the sightings. There is just no way a deceased body can split in two and end up being half dead (the part that’s buried or cremated) and half animated (the ghost), yet the ghost, since it is animated, it can been seen and heard and interact with the surrounding environment after all, must be composed of matter and energy which presumable had to have been part and parcel of the original body to start with. As such the ghost needs to feed to replenish that matter and expended energy and no doubt perform related bodily functions. No physics or chemistry or biology known to mankind can manipulate a deceased body’s matter and energy in such a way as to account for that body’s ghost.

So ghosts are all observation with no adequate theory to support them (unlike say the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis which has solid theory to back up the possibility). There is no viable way of splitting a body up into two whole (matter and energy) parts at least one of which is viable (alive) and that applies equally to out-of-the-body experiences and near-death experiences. Another question: If that were possible, why stop at two (the ghost and the dead body; the out-of-the-body body and the body it came from; the near-death body and its animated counterpart) – why not a trio or thirty or three hundred ‘clones’?

OLMEC STONE HEADS: Associated with the long since defunct cultures of the Olmecs, the first major civilization of the Americas, were multi-ton solid stone heads – just the heads; in the round. Anomaly one – nobody has any real clue why the Olmecs carved out these stone heads which would have taken quite some considerable effort. Anomaly two – the parent stones, weighing many, many tons, had to be transported from mountain quarries multi-dozens of miles away without benefit of the wheel or beasts of burden, through swampy jungle terrain; how was this done? Anomaly three – though the Olmecs were natives of Mexico, the stone heads look absolutely African, and there was no apparent cultural contact between Africa and Central America BCE.

SHAVED NAZCA RIDGE: On the dissected Plain of Nazca (or Nazca desert or plateau) in Peru, there is a famous landmark, or marks – the ‘carvings’ or etchings of dozens of images on the Plain than can only be appreciated or even recognized for what they are from the air, which is how they were discovered in the 20^th Century. The ground images aren’t the anomaly since it’s not difficult to construct them and their purpose was probably meant as a message or homage to the gods up in the Nazca version of heaven.

The minor anomaly is that in addition to the etched pictogram images there are many lines, even parallel lines, etched in the pebbly desert that run straight as arrows for long distances, purpose unknown, though some sort of obscure astronomical alignment might be their purpose. That’s still a theoretical option though obvious astronomical alignments have not passed muster.  

The real anomaly here is that one of the ridges in the local area has had it’s top lopped off, resulting now in a flat surfaced ‘ridge’, a surface as smooth as a baby’s bottom as if a hot knife sliced through soft butter. All other ridges in the area look like well natural ridges. Now the first bit is how. This flattened ridge is not a natural formation so presumably humans flattened it.  The second bit is why. It must have been a massive undertaking removing not dirt or soil or sand but solid rock for reason(s) unknown to us. The third bit is that there is no debris field or piles of rubble left over from the leveling. The rock must have been carted away, expending yet more time, effort and energy. Something is screwy somewhere. Erich von Daniken, of ancient astronaut fame, thought the flattened surface of the now ridge-less ridge could’ve served as a ‘runway’ for flying saucers, but that seems equally screwy. As I say, this is anomalous, full stop. 

To be continued…

Mission Impossible (Or Highly Improbable): Part Four

In Alice in Wonderland (or was that Through the Looking-Glass – I can never remember which one of the two it was*) it’s stated that it’s possible to believe many (as in six) impossible things before breakfast. Science and associated philosophies have had to deal with impossibilities and wildly improbable things, some of which are straight forward, and some of which aren’t – perhaps to the point where something possible is in fact impossible and fundamentally wrong. Conversely, something considered impossible might in fact be possible and fundamentally right. 

A cautionary note: when it comes to what’s possible or impossible; plausible or implausible; probable or improbable, majority doesn’t rule. This isn’t a democracy. If a billion people believe nonsense, it’s still nonsense. This however is in contrast to what has been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. If a billion people continue to disbelieve something that has been proved, then it’s those billion people who are nonsense, not the idea.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

FIFTHLY, there are those other apparent impossibilities that involve contradictions between solid theory and solid observation. For example, astrophysicists predict that in-the-beginning (the Big Bang event) equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created. Observation says otherwise – it’s a matter dominated Universe. Physicists predict a certain value for the vacuum energy. Experiment shows the vacuum energy to be some 120 orders of magnitude less that what theory mandates – the biggest discrepancy between theory and observation ever in the history of science. Theory suggests that the physical laws, principles and relationships that govern the Universe should be able to be unified into a Theory of Everything (TOE) – an ultimate equation that can fit on the front of a tee-shirt. The most brilliant minds on the planet have struggled decade after decade after decade to find one that works in practice.  Absolute failure has resulted – at least to date. Something’s screwy somewhere!

FINALLY there is a resolution to all of this that will make nobody happy! That resolution applies whether you consider something to be impossible but science doesn’t; science says something is impossible but you don’t agree; or everyone agrees something is just not on. And that resolution is that life, the Universe and everything is a work of fiction – an illusion. For example, there are art works that can depict 2-D images of objects that are impossible to construct or be realised in 3-D. You can believe hundreds of impossible things before breakfast, lunch and dinner if you take films, TV shows, holograms and video games at face value. The list of impossibilities that you’ll find written in novels, short stories, plays, fine literature or the pulps, comic books galore – well, fiction full-stop – would itself fill a goodly sized book, perhaps several volumes worth.

So, our Universe, filled with many paradoxes, contradictions, impossibilities, implausibility’s, or improbabilities reads more like sci-fi or looks more like a video game or computer simulation. If so, then we’re part of the Universe and then we’re part of the simulation by powers or people (aliens?) unknown and probably unknowable, just like a character in a video game can’t be aware of the identity of either who created the game, or the player.

The Universe isn’t real; Planet Earth isn’t real; you’re not real; I’m not real. However the Universe is virtually real; Planet Earth is virtually real; you are virtually real; as am I. We’re all the creation of someone, or something, else that is real. Or maybe that entity in itself is the creation of an even more remote – one step further removed – something. It’s like a character in a film making a film; a character in a video game creating a video game; a character in a novel writing a novel; a person depicted in a painting who is making a painting. 

The rational is that in any given reality that includes an advanced technological species, the number of virtual realities relative to the one that actually exists, could be in the ratio of thousands to millions to one. Reality is going to be vastly outnumbered by virtual reality. So the odds are rather in favour of us (humans and associated real estate) being one of the virtual realities.

Now if you imagine yourself as god (or a good computer programmer or creator of video games) creating a universe from scratch, well, being not quite Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Perfection, might you not for one reason or another cut corners or accidentally stuff things up and end up creating in your virtual world impossibilities, implausibility’s or improbabilities? 

In this scenario, as the song lyrics state, ‘heavens knows, anything goes’!

Could this mean the Loch Ness Monster exists? Of course!

Could radioactive nuclei go ‘poof’ for no reason? Yes indeed!

Could aliens be abducting humans from their beds? Of course!

Could two separate and apart sets of software (quantum physics and relativity) be collectively governing the Universe, meaning no TOE? You bet!

Could heaven and hell exist (as your afterlife software subprograms)? I think that could be the case!

Could this illusionary or simulated Universe be one where things can both be and not be (particle and not-particle-but-wave) at the same time? Of course!

What would it take to swing one around to the simulation point of view? Well, you’d need a set of observations that could not be refuted, ideally experimental ones that are repeatable and repeated, that science, not even in it’s wildest theoretical best, can adequately and naturally explain, and which at the same time shatters some ultra well established and most fundamental of scientific principles – say gravity. What if all tennis balls, and only tennis balls, started floating upwards? Either that would demonstrate a simulated Universe, or else you’d better be prepared to think supernatural. Of the two, at least the former is still scientific and rational!

Since we don’t apparently have floating tennis balls, perhaps there is some other, maybe not quite so obvious an anomaly. One that comes to find are various observations of objects in deep space that appear connected by bridges of matter yet which have widely differing red-shifts, thus widely differing velocities.  The problem is that the red-shift – velocity relationship is one of the rock-solid foundations of all standard cosmology. On the other hand, the close distance relationships of objects with vastly differing red-shifts some via linking bridges is based on actual observations (usually associated with professional astronomer Halton Arp) which any astronomer can verify (if they want to; most don’t because it challenges their career’s work. It’s easier to just shrug and say ‘it can’t be, therefore it isn’t).  [For additional information see:]

Arp, Halton; Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge; 1989: 

Arp, Halton; Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science; Apeiron, Montreal; 1998: 

Arp, Halton; Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations, Apeiron, Montreal; 2003:

Another possible example is with respect to apparitions, ghosts, phantoms, spectres, spirits, spooks, wraiths – call them what you will like ‘things that go bump in the night’ if you wish.

Now I must stress that I am NOT, repeat NOT, talking about séances, ouija boards, spiritualism, mediums, channeling, and yucky ectoplasm. Rather, just old fashion unexpected, unplanned, undesired, unwanted close encounter with those things that go bump in the night and go ‘boo’ and like to haunt things. The unfortunate thing is that said encounters go back to the ancient Greeks (and probably before if there were records) and proceed through every century up through and including the 21^st. Ghostly encounters are recorded across the entire spectrum of the human condition. Young and old; male and female; every race, creed, culture, socioeconomic group, nationality, IQ level, etc. has recorded encounters. By now, that’s probably in the hundreds of thousands to millions of cases, not all by any means noted and logged in the literature. I’m sure many members of the great unwashed keep quiet for obvious reasons. Problem one: has each and every one of those witnesses to ghostly happenings been mistaken?

Problem two is the counterpoint. If you can see or hear ghosts, or photograph them or record them and their activity with other instruments, then ghosts must be composed of matter and energy, yet there is no way known to science to form these ghostly apparitions, comprised of necessity of matter and energy. Since ghosts are apparently whatever leaves the body after death, and since a body doesn’t lose any mass in that interval or transition between life and death, there’s no decrease of X amount of grams, the ghost has to be comprised of nothing and be 100% immaterial – but then you couldn’t see or hear them! That contradicts all those millions of witnesses.

One can invoke the idea of parallel worlds to explain ghosts, not as the remains of the dead but is barely perceptible images of living beings on a parallel world; a parallel Earth in all probability. But parallel worlds or universes are theoretical at best and the macro mechanism(s) by which these macro ghostly entities could appear in our realm is also very hypothetical, and it’s compounding one speculation by heaping on it another. 

So the bottom line is that science says they (meaning the remains of dead entities) can not be; witnesses testify otherwise. Impasse! On the other hand, the simulation argument works for me. Impasse no longer!

* Having since looked it up, I’ve confirmed it as the White Queen’s statement from Through the Looking-Glass.

Evidence and the Twelfth Man: How Much Is Enough? Part One

A phrase has appeared in many popular science books as well as sceptical books about various aspects of the paranormal and pseudoscience, but which has, in classic meme fashion, spread to other subjects as well. That phrase is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. However, I feel that phrase has well outlived its original purpose, is total nonsense, and has passed its ‘use by’ date by several decades at least. 

How much evidence does it take to convince someone of something like a jury; a scientist; a ‘professional’ sceptic; the great unwashed? The answer is obviously “Enough”. Any more than that is overkill. Of course what’s enough for any particular scenario will vary depending on the person. So, as per the film “12 Angry Men”, what’s enough evidence to convince 11 men wasn’t enough to convince the 12^th. Still, in theory there would come a point where additional evidence would be enough to sway that 12^th man. But that’s no more than just enough additional amount of evidence that he would require to join the other 11. The 12^th man requires some additional evidence, not extraordinarily more evidence; not overkill.

So why do scientists demand evidence overkill as per the way overused and illogical phrase “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE). No, claims of any kind require sufficient evidence to convince that 12^th man – no more and no less. ECREE needs to be consigned to the rubbish bin. I can understand the intent behind the phrase, but not the logic.

Sometimes you hear a song once too often and it loses its appeal. Sometimes it never had any appeal in the first place. In this case, it’s somewhere in-between. I didn’t object to the ECREE phrase at first, but after the 1000^th time, and especially upon more sober reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a nonsense phrase.

I gather an original purpose of ECREE was to separate the scientists making scientific claims, backed by independent verification and peer review, from the non-scientists making pseudo-scientific (i.e. – extraordinary) claims. This was all with the view on the grounds scientists don’t have the time and inclination to investigate every pseudo-scientific claim, so if they are to take the great unwashed seriously, a truckload of evidence had better be presented to them – far more than would be required initially from one of their peers. While that makes a bit of sense, it perpetuates an us vs. them dichotomy and makes scientists more elite than they really are, and/or makes the great unwashed even more unwashed than they really are. Anyway, this you’d better dump on me an extraordinary amount of evidence in my lap before I take you seriously (and even then I’ll probably take you with a grain of salt because I doubt I’ll have the right time of day for you because my mind is made up so don’t confuse me with facts or evidence) has become enshrined in the ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ mantra. 

Now at the onset, let me state that claims require evidence. That is not in dispute. That philosophy is an absolutely central concept part and parcel of our modern civilization. The entire foundation of our legal system answers to that principle. The scientific community, peer review, has adopted that principle. Even in everyday personal life, we insist on the viability of that principle. I mean if you claim you have a red dress, some doubting Thomas is perfectly within his rights to make you prove it – provide the evidence. And so you go to your closet, bring out the red dress, and so prove your claim. Now if you claim to have 1000 red dresses, which may seem like an extraordinary claim, but the nature of the evidence is exactly the same. You go to your closet, drag out 1000 red dresses, and dispatch Mr. Doubting Thomas quick-smart.

Oh, there is one great exception to the ‘claims require evidence’ principle – religion. When it comes to religious claims, however outrageous and illogical then may seem, you don’t have to provide any evidence, extraordinary or otherwise. It’s all about blind faith – faith is the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to believing in – to be honest – unsubstantiated claims.

Now the problem is that the work ‘extraordinary’ is in the mind of the beholder. What’s extraordinary to one individual isn’t even remotely extraordinary to another. It’s an emotive, personally judgmental word.

If I claim there’s a blue sedan parked in my driveway, that’s an ordinary claim.

If I claim there’s a ‘flying saucer’ parked in my driveway, you’d say that’s an extraordinary claim. However, both claims, ordinary or extraordinary, require the exact same amount of evidence. 

In the no-nonsense legal world, there’s no need for extraordinary evidence. You don’t require twice or thrice the number of witnesses to convict in the case of murder vis-à-vis shoplifting, even though murder is a far rarer and more extraordinary crime than shoplifting.

You go to the bank. Whether you withdraw an ordinary $1 or an extraordinary $10,000, you will be required to produce evidence that you are who you say you are – your signature, and perhaps photographic identification. But, in either case, it’s the same evidence.

To be continued…

Ghosts That Go Bump In the Night: Part Two

I think there might be a real scientific case to answer regarding an explanation for ghosts. However, IMHO ghosts have nothing to do with human spirits and evidence of an afterlife. Rather, all can be explained by postulating that we live in, and are the product of a simulated Universe. However, let’s look at alternative explanations first.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The immediate, and most obvious, explanation(s) revolve around routine, ordinary, physical events that witnesses misinterpret. There can be many natural sources for strange lights; many natural sources for weird noises, even apparent changes in temperatures associated with spiritual manifestations.

The next most obvious category of explanations resides within the mind. If you’re tired, under the influence, have through no fault of your own abnormal brain chemistry or disease or injury, then what you perceive might not be what you think it is. Some people might be extra sensitive in their perception of and able to be influenced by infrasound or magnetic fields. There are dreams that can be extremely vivid (lucid dreams), and hallucinations. For the ‘all in the mind’ theory to be credible, you’ve got to give equal opportunity to a whole range of other equally logical, yet equally nonsensical items like sightings of flying pink elephants. The mind can conceive of flying pink elephants equally as well as ghosts, yet where are the reports of flying pink elephants? There are millions of other plausible topics that could be imagined and reported as reality but aren’t. So when you get thousands of sightings of one data point in a landscape of plausible millions of data points (that aren’t ever noted and logged), what does that tell you about the ‘all in the mind’ theory?

However, I suggest that on balance, while there is certainly some truth in a sweeping generalization that each and every ghostly sighting has a prosaic explanation, I remain unconvinced that all those who experience apparitions are akin to having converted believers preached to. Sure, some people seek out ghostly encounters and expect to experience same just like some Bigfoot/Sasquatch hunters see a partly concealed animal a mile or more away in thick forest and immediately jump to the conclusion that it must be a Bigfoot. The will to believe is a powerful influence.

A believer in the ‘flying saucer’ explanation of all things UFO is more likely to look at the planet Venus and explain ‘There, an alien spacecraft’, than someone who poo-poos the whole UFO subject.  It takes something extraordinary to turn a non-believer/sceptic into a believer/convert, especially when extraordinary event conversions cut across all cultures over thousands of years!

So, we have extraordinary encounters and reports from far too many un-expecting and unprepared witnesses, from all walks of life, since at least the times of the ancient Greeks. There’s thousands of reports from witnesses not seeking out new (or any) ghostly encounters, those sober disbelievers who get bumped in the night anyway. Well, as I said, there are just a few too many to suggest that prosaic explanations can account for 100% of cases. 95% I’ll go along with; just not 100%. So, what other explanations are plausible? 

One can invoke the idea of parallel worlds to explain ghosts, not as the remains of the dead but is barely perceptible images of living beings (or inanimate objects) on a parallel world; a parallel Earth in all probability. But parallel worlds or universes are theoretical at best and the macro mechanism(s) by which these macro ghostly entities could appear in our realm is also very hypothetical, and it’s compounding one speculation by heaping on it another. However, there’s a better bet in theorising that on the quantum (micro) level, there could be interactions between parallel worlds. However, that probably doesn’t help us explain ghostly manifestations.  

It’s pretty obvious that the existence of a discrete chunk of matter/energy has an influence of other discrete chunks of matter/energy that influence remaining - for a while at least -even when the first chunk moves away or otherwise vanishes or changes in form. For example, the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is the ghostly remains of the Big Bang origin event of our Universe. The Big Bang is no more, but the influence remains. If you look at a bright light then turn the light off, you’ll still see, for a brief while, an afterimage of that light. You can also detect its infrared (heat) radiation for a spell, even after lights out! You might be able to tell that someone has recently been in a room because the temperature is slightly higher in one place coupled with a higher concentration of perfume in that same place not to mention that the sofa cushions (that same location) are still slightly depressed as if someone had been recently sitting on them. Footprints are another example of influence between one chunk of matter/energy and another – influence left behind even though the original chunk is now far away. Such are the clues from which Sherlock Holmes and kin make their living from.

Now to the best of my knowledge, ghostly manifestations tend to be recent – recent with respect to human history. That is, I know of no reports of ghostly dinosaurs, or sabre tooth cats or Neanderthals (there’s no haunted caveman caves). While I’m sure the ancient Greeks saw ghosts from their recent past, we don’t tend to see ghosts of ancient Greeks. It almost seems that after a certain period of time, whatever influence on the environment the original matter/energy chunk (human for sake of argument) had, the remnants, those ghostly manifestations, ultimately fades away to something no longer distinguishable from the ordinary or everyday background, and does so usually within several centuries. Imagine turning off a light having it slowly fade away, but taking perhaps many centuries to do so.

The problem with this idea is that I’m sure any physicist could calculate how long it would take for any residual trace of something to fade and blend into the background as to be indistinguishable from the background. It doesn’t take all that long after turning off the oven for its temperature to cool to that equalling the background temperature. So, explaining ghostly images days, months, years, even decades or many centuries after-the-fact is problematical at best. I like the idea, but I can’t see a way to make it work in practice. Be that as it may, there’s probably some wheat among the chaff here, although I’m not quite sure however what this observation (that ghosts fade away in time) all means, if anything. But I think it’s an important observation and offers up a clue towards an ultimate resolution. 

One could easily imagine a ghost (or any kind – formally animate or inanimate) as the product of a hologram. The only difficulty with that idea, of course, is that ghostly apparitions have been observed, noted and logged way, way before modern holographic technology came into being.

Simulations on the other hand could be a horse of a different colour. The basic premise here is that you and I and all we see and hear (and touch, taste and smell) is an illusion because we are all simulated beings ‘living’ in a virtual world, the creation of a person or persons (or even an alien or aliens) unknown. We, and our Universe, are as ‘real’ as the characters and their universe are in a computer game. In a simulation of that sort, it’s certainly possible, maybe even logical, to provide as a subroutine an afterlife – a plane of higher dimensional existence (whatever that means exactly) – perhaps something, a concept, we’ve come to identify as Heaven or Hell. But let’s just call that subroutine afterlife the ‘spirit world’. If we can have ghosts in our virtual computer game worlds, then by implication, our Supreme Simulator could have provided the software for ghosts or ghostly apparitions (animate or inanimate) inhabiting the subroutine spirit world!

On the other hand, why would a Supreme Simulator provide a software subroutine providing for ghosts? Well, who knows the mind and rational of our Supreme Simulator, especially if our S.S. is an alien? Actually, I think the simulation of ghostly phenomena could be a mistake; something not actually intended. I suspect our ghostly manifestations are just a previously deleted bit of software. Since nothing is ever truly deleted – deleted files can usually be recovered albeit by experts. Overwriting previous text doesn’t apparently actually destroy in total what was there before-the-fact. In a manner somewhat akin to receiving interference and ghostly images on your TV set, previous software, now deleted, might every now and again come marginally into the foreground.

So the bottom line is that science says they (meaning the things that go bump in the night, the afterlife remains of dead entities or non-biological things) can not be; witnesses testimony notwithstanding. Impasse! On the other hand, the simulation argument works for me. Impasse no longer!