where do you sit on ancient astronaut theory?

[Munjibunga]

Is science objective even in principle? For one it employs methodological naturalism, which implies that it can only evaluate phenomena within a certain scope. Not that I endorse this view, but what if there are entities out there which are not naturalistic? If there were, science would be unable to study them. Plus there is the matter than science does not have unhindered access to all aspects of reality. That appears to challenge the notion that science is objective. Then there is the practical aspect, that science done by humans comes packaged with human biases. Increasingly, science is becoming a corporate matter which is focused upon applied technology for profit rather than basic research. So what often happens is that scientific findings are framed within the goals of those who are funding the research, which violates the requirement for disinterestedness. Thus, although this is an oversimplification, it appears that science cannot be objective in practice, nor even in theory (unless metaphysical naturalism is true and science has access to all possible aspects of reality). Still, none of this shows that science is not a trustworthy source of knowledge... just that it is not completely objective.

So then, how does one investigate these "not naturalistc" phenomena? Do we leave it to those knuckleheads on Ghost Adventures? Do we just accept the words of the mystics and other superstitious people? I doubt that science has access to "all possible aspects of reality," but what is the alternative? I can't think of any relevant means of investigating the metaphysical. Also, I don't believe that there is anything that is "not naturalistic." If it exists, it is natural.

Think about it. Absent tools like telescopes, scanning electron microscopes, particle accelerators, gas chromatographs and a plethora of others, our ability to investigate the world would be seriously limited (as it was prior to the invention of those instruments). We are limited to our five senses, but we have amplified them tens of orders of magnitude to reach our current understanding of the world.

I have to believe that science will continue to develop means to investigate deeper into the complexities of the universe, perhaps even discovering things we now consider to lie in the metaphysical realm.

It seems like you want to give credence to the ramblings of people who make up things like ghosts and aliens, even though their beliefs are baseless. I'm not down with that.

BTW, did you know that no one knew what causes earthquakes until after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

 

[jmattbassplaya]

So then, how does one investigate these "not naturalistc" phenomena? Do we leave it to those knuckleheads on Ghost Adventures? Do we just accept the words of the mystics and other superstitious people? I doubt that science has access to "all possible aspects of reality," but what is the alternative? I can't think of any relevant means of investigating the metaphysical. Also, I don't believe that there is anything that is "not naturalistic." If it exists, it is natural.

Think about it. Absent tools like telescopes, scanning electron microscopes, particle accelerators, gas chromatographs and a plethora of others, our ability to investigate the world would be seriously limited (as it was prior to the invention of those instruments). We are limited to our five senses, but we have amplified them tens of orders of magnitude to reach our current understanding of the world.

I have to believe that science will continue to develop means to investigate deeper into the complexities of the universe, perhaps even discovering things we now consider to lie in the metaphysical realm.

It seems like you want to give credence to the ramblings of people who make up things like ghosts and aliens, even though their beliefs are baseless. I'm not down with that.

BTW, did you know that no one knew what causes earthquakes until after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

+100

 

[12bass]

So then, how does one investigate these "not naturalistc" phenomena? Do we leave it to those knuckleheads on Ghost Adventures? Do we just accept the words of the mystics and other superstitious people? I doubt that science has access to "all possible aspects of reality," but what is the alternative? I can't think of any relevant means of investigating the metaphysical. Also, I don't believe that there is anything that is "not naturalistic." If it exists, it is natural.

Think about it. Absent tools like telescopes, scanning electron microscopes, particle accelerators, gas chromatographs and a plethora of others, our ability to investigate the world would be seriously limited (as it was prior to the invention of those instruments). We are limited to our five senses, but we have amplified them tens of orders of magnitude to reach our current understanding of the world.

I have to believe that science will continue to develop means to investigate deeper into the complexities of the universe, perhaps even discovering things we now consider to lie in the metaphysical realm.

It seems like you want to give credence to the ramblings of people who make up things like ghosts and aliens, even though their beliefs are baseless. I'm not down with that.

BTW, did you know that no one knew what causes earthquakes until after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

Somehow my point was misinterpreted. I tend to agree that anything that exists must somehow be physical and therefore observable, at least in principle. There was a disclaimer in my previous post to this effect. What I was trying to say is that science does employ a premise of naturalism as part of its methodology of inquiry. There is no denying that science has incredible explanatory power and has been perhaps the most efficacious means of human knowledge production ever known. In no way am I supporting pseudoscience or appeals to mysticism. Just acknowledging that scientific inquiry comes with a certain metaphysical bias... though that bias may be well justified (perhaps mostly on pragmatic grounds, as non-physical entities have dubious explanatory power and are beyond empirical study).

 

[12bass]

Perhaps to put it another way, absolute objectivity would entail holding no bias (or absolute disinterestedness), no preconceptions, and would require omniscience (which is why I don't think human science can be completely objective). Once metaphysical stipulations are made that brings a bias to the process of inquiry. I'm not suggesting that this bias is unwarranted. Indeed, what sort of fruitful empirical inquiry could possibly occur without framing inquiry within the bounds of physicalism?

 

[Munjibunga]

Perhaps to put it another way, absolute objectivity would entail holding no bias (or absolute disinterestedness), no preconceptions, and would require omniscience (which is why I don't think human science can be completely objective). Once metaphysical stipulations are made that brings a bias to the process of inquiry. I'm not suggesting that this bias is unwarranted. Indeed, what sort of fruitful empirical inquiry could possibly occur without framing inquiry within the bounds of physicalism?

The scientific method entails the development of a hypothesis, with subsequent substantiation (or refutation) by experimentation. The hypothesis can be outside the box, but it still must withstand the razor of experimental proof. So you're right. We're stuck with the physical world. It seems to me that that's where anything relevant to our existence would reside anyway, and the comparative relevance of the non-physical would be miniscule.

We live in the macro world. At some point, things of the ultra-large and ultra-small scales don't really affect us much. What would happen if the LHC exposes the Higgs Boson (and god doesn't kill us for it)? Now that we'd know god on a first-name basis (Higgs), would our lives really be any different? And what if strings really turn out to be the key to the GUT? Will that feed all the starving people of the world?

 

[12bass]

The scientific method entails the development of a hypothesis, with subsequent substantiation (or refutation) by experimentation. The hypothesis can be outside the box, but it still must withstand the razor of experimental proof. So you're right. We're stuck with the physical world. It seems to me that that's where anything relevant to our existence would reside anyway, and the comparative relevance of the non-physical would be miniscule.

Perhaps... but what if non-physical entities somehow have causal power in the physical realm? Indeed, proponents of such notions tend to claim great causal powers for non-physical entities. Again, I don't seriously entertain these claims... but they do pose a number of challenges if you're willing to think "outside of the box" called physicalism. The scientist may retort in the spirit of Feynman... "if there is no possible way to find evidence for it, there's no good reason to think it exists".

We live in the macro world. At some point, things of the ultra-large and ultra-small scales don't really affect us much. What would happen if the LHC exposes the Higgs Boson (and god doesn't kill us for it)? Now that we'd know god on a first-name basis (Higgs), would our lives really be any different? And what if strings really turn out to be the key to the GUT? Will that feed all the starving people of the world?

Hmmm... the world of our everyday perception may be the macro world... but we actually live in the world of all orders of scale. Quantum mechanics, molecules, dark matter, neutrinos, etc... are all very much a part of our reality... we're just unable to observe them directly. Our choices, our actions, our very existence, are all contingent upon the existence of these things, whether we're aware of it or not. As for the Higgs, it is likely to be akin to the Omega-minus... one more piece of the puzzle which is the subatomic realm, nothing too Earth shattering.

 

[Tituscrow]

The scientific method entails the development of a hypothesis, with subsequent substantiation (or refutation) by experimentation. The hypothesis can be outside the box, but it still must withstand the razor of experimental proof. So you're right. We're stuck with the physical world. It seems to me that that's where anything relevant to our existence would reside anyway, and the comparative relevance of the non-physical would be miniscule.

We live in the macro world. At some point, things of the ultra-large and ultra-small scales don't really affect us much. What would happen if the LHC exposes the Higgs Boson (and god doesn't kill us for it)? Now that we'd know god on a first-name basis (Higgs), would our lives really be any different? And what if strings really turn out to be the key to the GUT? Will that feed all the starving people of the world?

Exactly. The great engineering feats of the Egyptians and the Romans, all the way through history to the Victorians and beyond, didn't suddenly crumble and fall apart once Rutherford identified the atomic nucleus with his alpha particle scattering experiment.

 

[hrodbert696]

At the risk of quibbling about semantics, the discovery of microbes involved rendering them visible. Your class might have interpreted the term "invisible" to mean supernatural.

That they would make such an interpretation reinforces the main point. People differentiate between things they think they are supposed to believe in or not believe in, not on the basis of critical thought, but on what they have taught to believe in or not, and their assent or denial is triggered by keywords. We often have a slightly more extended discussion here, because it's usually the case that most or all of the students have at least seen an amoeba in a microscope - but then, have they witnessed these microbes actually making anyone sick? Could they prove that these little thingies in the microscope are the cause of disease?

The issue is not whether the students believe or don't believe in true propositions, but the standards by which we accept that a person rationally believes in this or that proposition. My point is that a rational person can justifiably believe in propositions that they cannot themselves prove, scientifically or indeed by any standard. We all do it all the time. People knew that apples fall out of trees before Newton worked out the theory of general gravitation. And we accept the consensus of experts within their respective fields, until the ongoing debates and discussions among those experts lead to changes in the consensus.

The point that someone, I think it was 12bass made, about medieval scholastics "not counting" (to roughly paraphrase) as a body of experts in a defined field, is far too narrow. Theology was, and for that matter is, a field of academic study, and then (probably more than now) had quite specific rules of methodology. The methods accepted among medieval scholastics are no longer widely accepted, and the conclusions they drew are now not widely accepted either. The paradigm has shifted. But within their own time, they were certainly the authoritative expert community of their society, and the most rational assumption among laypeople would have been that they knew what they were talking about.

Every intellectual discipline has its appropriate subject and its corresponding methodology. They do overlap, and sometimes developments in one field can impinge significantly on another. On the whole, however, you don't read a chemistry textbook to understand Shakespeare. Physical sciences deal with physical phenomena. One may make an assumption that nothing exists which is not physical - but that is a rather whopping assumption, and utterly unprovable. How would one prove the negative? By using the methods of the physical sciences, and announcing that they can't detect anything non-physical, so it must not exist? The problem with the likes of Ghost Hunters (or Ghostbusters, if it were taken seriously...) is precisely that they treat non-physical questions as though they were matters for physical investigation.

Anyway, that's wandered pretty far from aliens.

 

[12bass]

The point about the Scholastics is that their methodology precludes any meaningful critical inquiry or the possibility of falsification. It is primarily an apologetic exercise, as their foundational premises are not critically assessed. Put another way, the goal of the theologian is to rationalize (through arguments) a preexisting set of dogmatic convictions which are assumed to be infallibly true. Thus, it fails to fit a reasonable standard for a genuine field of knowledge production, because knowledge, in any meaningful sense, must necessarily veridically reflect reality. What's required to obtain this is verifiable evidential justification. Arguments alone are insufficient... one can make all of the arguments they want, employing valid logic, and none of it matters unless the premises are true. Any intellectual endeavor which takes is premises to be beyond question cannot be truth seeking.

As for the general notion that people trust in the testimony of authorities for a great deal of what they take to be true. Sure, that might be. However, some types of claims are more reasonable to accept than others. By now, anyone with a decent public education ought to understand the basics of germ theory. As young children, most of us were probably told by our parents that we ought to stay away from Billy because he has germs, perhaps a cold or something. Although we may not directly observe the "germs" the inferential connection can easily be made between the speech act and seeing people around you become infected. These sorts of experiences occur over and over in a very coherent manner, which serves to reinforce the idea of germ theory.

Claims about ghosts, aliens, and other similar entities are drastically different. People may say all sort of things, hearsay, perhaps even personal experiences. But the evidence is seldom if ever presented in any coherent or verifiable way; it is scattered and incomplete, if not totally absent. Thus, while people might commonly hear such claims, the justifying evidential basis is extremely limited or absent. Belief under these conditions would require a commitment which goes well beyond the evidence.

 

[hrodbert696]

(Sigh) I keep trying to make a point about how the rational layperson arrives at a belief and keep getting sidetracked into whether the expert communities of another era or another culture would warrant modern assent. Not the point. I never brought up medieval scholastics to say that their views are a valid alternative to modern ones; I ONLY brought them up to illustrate the point that a reasonable medieval layperson accepted the ideas of the scholastics on the same terms as modern people accept the ideas of modern science.

I'll take 12bass' second paragraph as basic acceptance of my main point - surprisingly grudging, but acceptance nonetheless. A child could as easily make an inferential connection between the neighbor sneezing and their parents saying they've got an unclean spirit as they could infer the connection with the parents saying they've got germs. The recurrence of seeing people sneeze could reinforce either idea. The vast majority of children grow up to be laypeople who do not bother to question their parents' claim as to what makes people sneeze.

What does all this have to do with ghosts, aliens, etc.? As I stated earlier, I don't buy this stuff. None of what I said had to do with rehabilitating the belief aliens built the Pyramids. As an historian, I find it a completely unreasonable explanation of historical events. The scholarly community, which does have the competence to examine evidence for such claims, has a clear consensus that there is no reasonable evidence for them.

EDIT: and I should grant a valid point; a good modern education should prepare laypeople to at least understand what is going on in fields where they themselves are not experts, and to have some sense of how various points get debated and the character of the evidence for them. Related to this is something I said earlier, that different fields of knowledge impinge on each other, and most people are experts in some things while being laypeople in others. I'm not saying that most folks are just sheep who should just shut up and believe what their betters tell them. With that caveat, though, my point holds.

However, I introduced the expert/layman discussion to correct what I saw as a misleading trend in the answers, to the effect that reasonable people don't believe anything unless it is scientifically proven to them. I don't think that's true or even being particularly honest with ourselves. Reasonable belief formation is a much broader process than mere scientific method, which is only usable under very controlled conditions. Beliefs reasonably formed may turn out to be mistaken, of course, but that doesn't mean that they were not reasonably formed in the first place. Very smart people believed in the Ptolemaic universe, after all.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I remember those Erich von Däniken books and TV specials when I was a kid. Sure, they were fascinating, fanciful ideas, but still mere speculation.

I wouldn't call the "ancient astronaut" stuff a theory. That would mean it has undergone repeatable tests with considerable conclusive evidence confirming it, like the theory of evolution, theory of relativity, electronic theory, etc. At best I would call it a hypothesis, and even that's a bit of a stretch.

 

[Munjibunga]

I remember those Erich von Däniken books and TV specials when I was a kid. Sure, they were fascinating, fanciful ideas, but still mere speculation.

I wouldn't call the "ancient astronaut" stuff a theory. That would mean it has undergone repeatable tests with considerable conclusive evidence confirming it, like the theory of evolution, theory of relativity, electronic theory, etc. At best I would call it a hypothesis, and even that's a bit of a stretch.

I'd call it a fantasy since there's no evidence even to suggest it.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I'd call it a fantasy since there's no evidence even to suggest it.

Good point.

 

[96tbird]

Back on topic, I think many things in the archeological record that look like alien encounters can be attributed to the religious use of naturally occurring drugs or simply ergot in their grains. Think of it, entire crops, consumed over an entire year, loaded with ergot. These people were wandering around in constant dream states.

 

[MatticusMania]

I think the myan calendar was cut short with the death of the myan civilization.

This doesnt make much sense, being that the Mayan Calander is a complete cycle. The "end" of the Mayan Calander is actually not an "end" at all, but rather the "end of an era" (or cycle. It does not predict the end of the world, armageddon, the apocolypse, or anything other sor of doom. What occurs at the end of one of these cycles is up for speculation. It could be something, or it could be nothing at all. From what I understand, we'll be moving from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarious.

 

[Valiant Bandit]

Back on topic, I think many things in the archeological record that look like alien encounters can be attributed to the religious use of naturally occurring drugs or simply ergot in their grains. Think of it, entire crops, consumed over an entire year, loaded with ergot. These people were wandering around in constant dream states.

You know, I never thought of that and that's an effing awesome point that NOBODY EVER BRINGS UP!

I mean let's be realistic - if you hallucinate, you believe things exist in front of you even though they don't. Perhaps a bunch of Sumerians were tripping and they thought they were talking to people from another universe.

I'm just not buying the fact ancient Egyptians moved these 100 TON slabs for such a distance without using the wheel. Something doesn't make sense there. Even if they had slave labor, how many people would they have to push/pull each slab and then lay it perfectly? I'll give you the mathematics part...But I'm just not buying the process of making these pyramids.

Currently there's no tangible evidence saying someone else was behind it. Maybe someday evidence will show up proving me right...Who knows? That's why it'll ALWAYS be a mystery.

 

[Batmensch]

You know, I never thought of that and that's an effing awesome point that NOBODY EVER BRINGS UP!

I mean let's be realistic - if you hallucinate, you believe things exist in front of you even though they don't. Perhaps a bunch of Sumerians were tripping and they thought they were talking to people from another universe.

proI'm just not buying the fact ancient Egyptians moved these 100 TON slabs for such a distance without using the wheel. Something doesn't make sense there. Even if they had slave labor, how many people would they have to push/pull each slab and then lay it perfectly? I'll give you the mathematics part...But I'm just not buying the cess of making these pyramids.

Currently there's no tangible evidence saying someone else was behind it. Maybe someday evidence will show up proving me right...Who knows? That's why it'll ALWAYS be a mystery.

There's been plenty of repeatable and credible experiments showing how the Egyptians could have done such a thing with out resorting to help from Ancient Astronauts. The building methods used to build the pyramids and other similar structures are quite well known to current day archaeologists. Nothing mysterious about it at all.

 

[hrodbert696]

Back on topic, I think many things in the archeological record that look like alien encounters can be attributed to the religious use of naturally occurring drugs or simply ergot in their grains. Think of it, entire crops, consumed over an entire year, loaded with ergot. These people were wandering around in constant dream states.

Ergot is hardly better than aliens as a theory. Ancient people were not growing crops "loaded with ergot." It's not THAT common. You can't go explaining everything that's a little different from modern sensibilities by saying they were all on drugs. Just surviving was a lot harder in the ancient world than it is in the modern and whole populations "wandering around in constant dream states" were not likely even to survive, let alone build civilizations. In any case, ergot poisoning doesn't work like an LSD trip. You hallucinate, yes, but there are particular patterns - all misperceptions of the self; thinking that you're flying is one, and thinking that you're growing fur all over your body is another. You don't visualize imaginary creatures in front of you. At least, that's what I understand, it's out of my own expertise.

 

[96tbird]

Thanks for flaming my suggestion then on the basis of not being "in your expertise". You have heard of rye bread fever? Ergot. It affected entire villages before the advent of fungicides. They kept eating it because it was their crop for the year. How do you know how prevalent ergot was at any point on time? It's not now because of fungicides. I happen to know first hand the fungus troubles of farmers right here where I live. The chemicals can't keep up. Their crops are rotting as we speak, right In the bins. Millions in cash crop being lost in my community.

You don't think that people could adjust to a constant ingestion of a substance, yet could adjust to living in Machu Pichu where you or I would pass out after carrying a sack of corn a few hundred feet? Consider also that until the early twentieth century opiates were legal, available and in common use the world over. Somehow they got things done.

It was merely a speculation, but you know that the ruling class were into halucigens for religious purposes and I suggest they would indulge regularly as was their province to do so. They would also be the ones in charge of art and architecture. Just because possibly no one has put this thought forward nor researched it is no reason to dismiss it out of hand. I find it silly that researchers mention the use of drugs in ancient culture in passing but never consider it on a deeper level. They and you may disagree and poo poo it out of hand, but I still never have seen a lot of interest in asking these questions and I wonder why?

The Roman emporers were most certainly winos and they conquered much of Europe and the middle East. What else were they on? Please enlighten me "not my expertise".

 

[Papa Dangerous]

Thanks for flaming my suggestion then on the basis of not being "in your expertise". You have heard of rye bread fever? Ergot. It affected entire villages before the advent of fungicides. How do you know how prevalent ergot was at any point on time? It's not now because of fungicides.

You don't think that people could adjust to a constant ingestion of a substance, yet could adjust to living in Machu Pichu where you or I would pass out after carrying a sack of corn a few hundred feet? Consider also that until the early twentieth century opiates were legal, available and in common use the world over. Somehow they got things done.

It was merely a speculation, but you know that the ruling class were into halucigens for religious purposes and I suggest they would indulge regularly as was their province to do so. They would also be the ones in charge of art and architecture. Just because possibly no one has put this thought forward nor researched it is no reason to dismiss it out of hand. I find it silly that researchers mention the use of drugs in ancient culture in passing but never consider it on a deeper level. They and you may disagree and poo poo it out of hand, but I still never have seen a lot of interest in asking these questions and I wonder why?

The Roman emporers were most certainly winos and they conquered much of Europe and the middle East. What else were they on? Plead enlighten me "not my expertise".

Aside from the desire to claim land from someone or to scorn person cause they felt wronged somehow... I believe ergot is another theory behind the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trial epidemic. So ergot was a possible prevalent issue up until at least 1692.

As for most the world having access to opiates... Here we have a nice little bottle of....

Link Removed



DR POPPY'S WONDER ELIXER WITH CANNABIS EXTRACT!

Yup! Our lovely families during the 1930s were loving this stuff! Just read the bottle! One glass a day is all you need! It is great for colds through arthritis!

Not to mention, after this became illegal, and modern medicine was on the rise with prescription drugs we come across a little yellow pillow named Benzodiazepines! (I believe it is this one) This was abused by a lot of house wives/mothers to get through their day until it was realized how fatal these drugs can be in high, and abused dosages. Just listen to The Rolling Stone's - Mother's Little Helper for a reference.


In short, I believe what 96TBird is talking about it really not that far fetched and could possibly be an acceptable argument.