ProfessionalPause122 t1_j1qgceo wrote on December 26, 2022 at 4:11 PM

Reply to comment by Canadianacorn in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 26, 2022 by BernardJOrtcutt

Entirely fair about what you’re saying but there’s just some things I cannot come to terms with and don’t understand. Let me preface by saying I believe understand your perspective and the perspective of the general sceptic. I put myself In your shoes. But, I am genuinely curious. Wouldn’t you, in fairness, agree that if our planet was being visited by an extraterrestrial intelligence, we would have something of a philosophical obligation to enquire and understand the phenomenon? If there were any chance of it being true, shouldn’t we investigate, like how we investigated god? I’m just a fuckin idiot but my special power is logic.

Today, UFOlogy is a science first and foremost I would argue. It is data driven. It’s no longer the public that is espousing the potential of an extraterrestrial phenomenon, it is in fact the US government. The pentagon released the Nimitz encounters story and 3 videos to the New York Times in 2017. You can find all this on Google. It’s no longer stupid fucks like me talking about it, it’s our governments, who, let’s be real, they would be the only people who know about this besides anecdotes from an unfortunate few.

I would argue that philosophy has some catching up to do with science.

Canadianacorn t1_j1qjkzg wrote on December 26, 2022 at 4:36 PM

I'm not trying to talk you out of your position. I respect anyone who engages in rational thought on any given topic.

When I look at UFO/alien visits, I'm struck by two things.

First, Occam's Razor (as an example) would tell us that the argument that requires the least assumptions should form our starting point of investigations. The explanation for most UFO incidents would seem to have terrestrial explanations that, to me, require little assumptions compared to the large assumption that foreign living beings are visiting us. So I try, as a sceptic, to start my investigation assuming these phenomena are of "ordinary" origin.

Second, in the absence of any clear evidence, I struggle to imagine any conclusion about alien life that I can develop that isn't built on speculative premises. Having no clear body of facts, I can build no compelling conclusions.

Because of these two premises, I hold that any rational investigation of UFO is so rich in speculation and assumption, it can offer me very little certainty. And while exciting and sometimes compelling, I am personally forced to relegate it to entertainment rather than philosophical examination.

I'm a total amateur in this field though. I have a few undergrad courses and a lot of personal study, but I am hardly philosophically literate yet. Still a fun thought exercise!

wiltnotwither t1_j1qvm13 wrote on December 26, 2022 at 6:03 PM

"explanation for most UFO incidents would seem to have terrestrial explanations"

The thing is, the most recent reports released by the government, (which I believe the person you are replying to is referring to), stated that while (something like) 98% of UFO reports did have plausible terrestrial explanations, (something like) 2% of them had none. With even the most rare explanations being discounted by leading experts at NASA, the Pentagon, etc.

That is the new piece of information that has revitalized the discourse. I'm a skeptic, but I am personally still waiting to hear the rational counter-argument to that particular point, that can bring us back to Occam, so to speak.

HammerAndSickled t1_j1tglfn wrote on December 27, 2022 at 6:48 AM

“We don’t have a current rational explanation for this phenomena” doesn’t mean “it was aliens/God/ghosts/anything else made up,” it means “something caused this and we don’t know what.” There’s no need to involve aliens there, and no scientific approach would consider aliens a possibility without a presupposition of aliens existing.