6 hours ago, martin-w said:

I suspect there's more than one great filter.

It would be ironic if some new strain of virus wiped out the entire population of the planet except the 39 inhabitants of North Sentinel Island.

29 minutes ago, DaviiB said:

but there is a huge assumption in thinking that something you "build" will become sentient

 

That something being "built" is an organism, an animal, an organic being. Organic beings have a central nervous system and the primary component is a brain. You would therefore have to grow your organism with a minimal number of neurons so you knew it was unlikely to be sentient. And if it has a minimal number of neurons then it's of minimal capability and thus you would have to install an electromechanical device in place of, or to augment, its neuron lacking brain anyway. 

Given the above and given you were resorting to an electromechanical device anyway, why bother. It's obviously far easier to simply use an electromechanical device to gather your data.

And again, the dexterity of an organic body, as you describe, isn't required. A swarm on nanites, or scanning from orbit is all that would be required to amass all the data required.

What you are doing, is fighting tooth and nail to defend the claims by Grush and numerous others that have claimed the military have alien bodies. 

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

...numerous others that have claimed the military have alien bodies. 

I don't suspect, I am certain that many in the upper echelon of military officers have alien bodies!

Oh, you didn't mean it that way, my bad. 🤣

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

We are discussing David Grusch, and his claims, not the UFO community at-large.

 

No, the two are connected. Connected in the sense that Grush is repeating the same claims, the classic UFO mythology that's been around for decades. Crashed craft, alien bodies, government pacts with aliens, special metals that can't be identified... its not new, its all been claimed for decades. And despite these claims being around for decades, there still remains zero proof its true.  This so called metal, for example,  that can't be identified is a claim that's been around for a very long time, and yet still it hasn't materialized and appeared at a top university for analyses, it remains just a claim.  Anybody could have simply googled for this stuff and said the same thing. 

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Grusch is not a member of the UFO community, and represents the highest credentialed whistleblower on this matter to come forward in recent history.

 

And yet he's a whistleblower with no whistle. He's told us nothing that hasn't been claimed in UFO mythology before.

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Here's a thought that's worth pursuing: If this is a psy-op.....let's poke at that theory.....Would it not have to be an extremely well coordinated, multi-organizational operation, spanning decades and multiple administrations? How difficult would that be to pull off?  <<Actual question.

 

In terms of the entire UFO phenomenon no, not easy, some would say impossible. The Romans saw flying shields in the sky and strange figures in white suits.

In terms of just this recent "revelation" .. pretty easy I would have thought. You repeat a load of UFO, alien, crashed craft, stuff that's been around for decades and because you have qualifications and appear respected you are believed. Grush may well believe it too, but the question is if those that fed this information to him are truthful and if there's an agenda behind it all. 

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Especially, the time taken for advanced life to evolve on this planet.

 

Are you saying that you believe an advanced technological species evolved on this planet before we did?

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Either way, we're using a sample size of one and extrapolating.

 

Correct. The people like Brian Cox that point this out admit that. 

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

That's a huge assumption. Also, rapid scientific advancement and discovery has really only been happening for about 500 years. 3000 years has seen many civilizations / empires rise and fall. Not a very conducive environment for scientific advancement.

 

Logic, not an assumption. Science can be traced back 3000 years. The scientific method as we know it back 500 years. 

 

17 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Also, more toward your point, a fundamental law, or effect that enables "advanced" capability might be difficult to discover from a paradigm that doesn't allow for it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the law (or effect) isn't a simple one to understand, or use once you understand it.

 

The key words are in bold. Difficult to discover means discovered later than easy to discover. If there is some kind of principle that enables FTL, anti-gravity or interdimensional travel, it will be difficult to discover because it relies on an understanding of the easy stuff first, precisely why, with the level of scientific advancement we currently have, and  the scientific method being around for a very long time... we still haven't developed such capabilities and still don't know if they are even possible.

As I said before, serendipitous discoveries are possible, but they don't suddenly enable us to make gigantic leaps into the future, and suddenly zoom around in Star Trek style ships with inertial dampeners, force fields and warp drives. To imply it does, is to ignore plausibility and probability and adopt the improbable, in order to grasp tightly to the desired concept of "we  are being visited by aliens".

I suspect you are highly biased in this direction and want this to be true. I do too (as long as they are benevolent) but I refuse to ignore plausibility, probability and likelihood. 

We seem to be repeating ourselves, much of this stuff I've replied to before. 

 

Edited June 25, 20232 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

Science can be traced back 3000 years

Are you responding to DaviiB's exact words and saying there has been "rapid scientific advancement and discovery" for the last 3000 years? Perhaps he got his 500 year figure from Brian Cox's statement in the video.

Edited June 25, 20232 yr by dmwalker

On 6/24/2023 at 5:42 PM, martin-w said:

What you are doing, is fighting tooth and nail to defend the claims by Grush and numerous others that have claimed the military have alien bodies. 

 

13 hours ago, martin-w said:

I suspect you are highly biased in this direction and want this to be true. I do too (as long as they are benevolent) but I refuse to ignore plausibility, probability and likelihood.

Let's be very clear about what's happening here.

 

Grusch's allegations have been reported through the appropriate channels to the IGIC and Congress. The task of investigating the allegations, proving them true or false, falls on the legislative branch of the US Government (<<that's not us). Defending his claims will be for him and his lawyer to do in front of Congress. From the looks of it, that process seems to be underway and picking up momentum, so with any luck, we will eventually find out one way or another.

 

What you and I are doing is very different. We are speculating, using hypotheticals and a bit of logic, about what may or may not be possible, and what might make sense.

 

For example: If Grusch's allegations are true (e.g. bodies recovered), how or why might that be the case?  ...I am making a hypothetical case for it, and you're reasoning out a case against it. 

 

Along the way, I've invoked a series of theoretical technologies and scenarios like biological robots (engineered organisms) and fundamental laws of the universe which have escaped humanity's discovery thus far.

 

You've invoked nano bots, the ability to scan objects from any distance, and Brian Cox (<<He's not theoretical).

 

We both left "reality", plausibility and probability behind a long time ago. From where we both stand, biological robots and nanites are equally likely (or unlikely). So let's let Grusch defend his own claims with Congress, and we can stick to debating hypotheticals (which is much more fun that dealing with the real paperwork on this).

 

I enjoy playing with hypotheticals, and I find the "crowded universe" side of the argument much more interesting, so here we are. 

 

 

14 hours ago, martin-w said:

And yet he's a whistleblower with no whistle. He's told us nothing that hasn't been claimed in UFO mythology before.

 

Ignoring the subject matter for a moment....What does Occam's Razor output when higher and higher credentialed witnesses keep coming forward with the same information?

 

14 hours ago, martin-w said:

In terms of just this recent "revelation" .. pretty easy I would have thought. You repeat a load of UFO, alien, crashed craft, stuff that's been around for decades and because you have qualifications and appear respected you are believed. Grush may well believe it too, but the question is if those that fed this information to him are truthful and if there's an agenda behind it all. 

 

So in the case that Grusch is being misled, a series of "insiders" all coordinating to feed him disinformation over the course of a few years, and hoping he eventually tries do his job (and report the information), then subsequently leave his career behind and become a whistleblower.

 

In the case that he's just lying, he is doing so at great personal risk, given the (very) official measures he has gone to to get his story out.

 

Both require a bit of elbow grease to make work (for the psy-op angle) no?

 

14 hours ago, martin-w said:

Are you saying that you believe an advanced technological species evolved on this planet before we did?

There are a number of possibilities here. Among them:

 - Our evolution was not a straight-line process and was impeded somehow one or may times by a filter, or six.
 - The accepted theories might be wrong about when life started developing on this planet, or what kicked it off.
 - The "actual" conditions for life to start evolving are different to what is commonly thought
 - Same with the speed of development.

That's all, though if you take it to it's logical conclusion...

Any or all of these could leave lots of time for one, or multiple "advanced" civilizations to develop and disappear on this planet before "us" and be gone for long enough that any evidence of their existence is now dust.

 

15 hours ago, martin-w said:

On 6/24/2023 at 5:00 PM, DaviiB said:

Also, more toward your point, a fundamental law, or effect that enables "advanced" capability might be difficult to discover from a paradigm that doesn't allow for it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the law (or effect) isn't a simple one to understand, or use once you understand it.

 

The key words are in bold. Difficult to discover means discovered later than easy to discover. If there is some kind of principle that enables FTL, anti-gravity or interdimensional travel, it will be difficult to discover because it relies on an understanding of the easy stuff first, precisely why, with the level of scientific advancement we currently have, and  the scientific method being around for a very long time...

I think the key words were that the paradigm does not allow for it. If you are looking at something from a wrong paradigm, the truth could be staring you in the face, and you wouldn't see it. That's what makes it difficult to discover...the fact that you'd be looking at it the wrong way / backwards / sideways etc.

 

15 hours ago, martin-w said:

As I said before, serendipitous discoveries are possible, but they don't suddenly enable us to make gigantic leaps into the future, and suddenly zoom around in Star Trek style ships with inertial dampeners, force fields and warp drives. To imply it does, is to ignore plausibility and probability and adopt the improbable,

That's a problem for Engineering to sort out (the process of making something useful out of an effect discovered by Physics). They have a pretty good track record over the last 100 years.

Remember, we're talking about galactic time scales. 100 years, or even 500 years is hardly the blink of an eye, even compared to the known history of human civilization...and we went from sailing ships to space stations how quickly?

Cheers,

DB

16 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Are you responding to DaviiB's exact words and saying there has been "rapid scientific advancement and discovery" for the last 3000 years? Perhaps he got his 500 year figure from Brian Cox's statement in the video.

 

No, I'm saying the opposite. He contended that the alien visitors that its claimed have arrived, may not be very far advanced than we are, and that they may have benefited from some kind of serendipitous discovery that cast them on a different path and enabled them to have capabilities like inertial dampening and interdimensional travel, while still being barely more advanced than us.

I'm saying that what could be loosely described as a form of science has been around on this planet for thousands of years, and that what we would term the scientific method has been around for around 500 (as Brian Cox said). And in all of that time the human race has seen no possibility of some miraculous serendipitous event that could suddenly grant us the capabilities assigned to the hypothesized alien's. Now, we cant say such a thing is impossible, but what we can do is consider plausibility and probability, because that is all we have at our disposal, and when we do that, such a suggestion is highly improbable. Now Dave will say that we are a small sample size of one, and that is true, a sample size of one planet and one species, but more accurately, its a sample size of thousands of scientists and the intellectually curious going back thousands of years, and no fantastical serendipitous occurrence has happened or been seen to be likely.

So no, for me, this entire notion of a species not much more advanced than us having the technological capability to travel from other dimensions and control inertia (as claimed) but still being utterly vulnerable to being shot down or crashing due to unreliable hardware makes no sense. The very fact that its claimed these craft can maneuver at incredible speed, withstand thousands of G, accelerate instantly, rules out "not much more advanced than us'". If you have the aforementioned capabilities, you are obviously much more advanced than us, by definition. 

What is probably missing here is the realization that technological capabilities don't appear in isolation. You don't serendipitously discover interdimensional travel, and then miraculously have that technology in your craft, unless ALL of the technologies and material science is in place to support that technology. 

3 hours ago, DaviiB said:

What does Occam's Razor output when higher and higher credentialed witnesses keep coming forward with the same information?

 

Given that an alien species visiting us, over absolutely unfathomably huge distances, or even from an entirely different causally disconnected realm, and having physics defying capabilities, is regarded as either impossible, or highly improbable by most scientists, then Occam's Razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is a combination of human fallibility and  disinformation. 

I'm not saying the above is my opinion. My opinion is that something weird has been manifest from a long time, but I am not prepared to claim I know what the nature of that phenomenon is. 

 

3 hours ago, DaviiB said:

 

So in the case that Grusch is being misled, a series of "insiders" all coordinating to feed him disinformation over the course of a few years, and hoping he eventually tries do his job (and report the information), then subsequently leave his career behind and become a whistleblower.

 

Its possible. If it is deliberate disinformation for some reason, he either could be in on it, or an innocent victim. As for "series of insiders" I don't think we know haw many fed this information to him. 

 

3 hours ago, DaviiB said:

In the case that he's just lying, he is doing so at great personal risk, given the (very) official measures he has gone to to get his story out.

 

Has he though. It was said recently, I recall by a member of Congress, that he is the first Whistle Blower to do everything by the book, and whistle blow exactly as the law requires him too. He's careful not to reveal classified information. 

 

Quote

 - Our evolution was not a straight-line process and was impeded somehow one or may times by a filter, or six.
 - The accepted theories might be wrong about when life started developing on this planet, or what kicked it off.
 - The "actual" conditions for life to start evolving are different to what is commonly thought
 - Same with the speed of development.

 

So for number 1, you are saying that its possible that there were technological cavillations on this planet before us that died out? I would say that's possible, the planet is old enough.

For number 2, life appeared on this planet as soon as it was cool enough, so I'm not sure how the theories could suggest any sooner. 

For number 3, again, life evolved on this planet as soon as it cooled. Thus VERY  early in the planets formation.

For number 4, Again you seem to be suggesting that technological life appeared on this planet and was somehow wiped out, the Atlantis hypothesis. Speculative, perhaps improbable, but there's a non-zero chance of that hypothesis being correct. 

This guy seems believable.

 

 

One thing all these witness's have in common is none of them have any physical evidence to show and it's always just a select few people that see them. If UFOs were really here then thousands and thousands of people would have seen them at the same time instead of some guy by himself away from any populated area were everyone would see but no...it's always one or two people with a blurry photo at best. We are way past the time of showing evidence...these single witness accounts aren't doing it for me.

Edited June 26, 20232 yr by Will273

3 hours ago, Will273 said:

One thing all these witness's have in common is none of them have any physical evidence to show

 

True.

 

3 hours ago, Will273 said:

If UFOs were really here then thousands and thousands of people would have seen them at the same time

 

Not sure about thousands, but numerous witnesses at  one time has happened. 

The mass sightings over Washington.

The Westall school incident in Australia. Where hundreds of kids plus adults' saw it.

A Florida school similar to the Westall incident. 

 

 

This has been beaten to death. Nobody's mind changed and still no definitive answers. We may never know for sure. The eternal question with no answer.

 

Bill W

4 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

True.

 

 

Not sure about thousands, but numerous witnesses at  one time has happened. 

The mass sightings over Washington.

The Westall school incident in Australia. Where hundreds of kids plus adults' saw it.

A Florida school similar to the Westall incident. 

 

 

All well and good but still no evidence...we need evidence and we have more than enough eye witness accounts...it's time for proof...these accounts while interesting lack in proof...without proof all these eye witness accounts are meaningless....eye witness accounts this and eye witness accounts that....yadda.....yadda...yadda...totally useless especially in this day and age when everyone has a cell phone with a built in camera...they catch everything else yet somehow fail to capture a descent video or photo that can be verified. To me it's all political distraction...the government and media work together...in case no one knows.