Another question arising in this matter is how to treat evidence of extraordinary things.
Dealing with extraordinary claims has not gotten the attention it deserves, IMO.
It gets to the distinction between an explanation, and a predictive model. Explanations assuage mental anxiety over the unknown. Predictive models, in general, allow you to do something. If, in some particular case, the predictive model associated with an explanation doesn’t allow me to do something, it is not a useful model.
Let’s assume some advanced alien intelligence is patrolling the globe. What then? What can I do with this knowledge? As far as I can tell, nothing. The aliens have chosen to hide from us. They seem very good at it. Shouldn’t a space faring civilization be beyond our ability to force an interaction with? So, if there is nothing I can do with this knowledge, I’m going to ignore the possibility until they seem more interested in getting together. A predictive model whose predictions tell you that the model is useless, is useless.
At most we should ascribe a prior probability of zero and then do some Bayesian updating to get a posterior.
I believe if you start with a zero prior, you end up with a zero probability.
What can I do with this knowledge? As far as I can tell, nothing.
This MIGHT argue against putting much resources into refining your estimate of what is really going on with these aliens. It hardly argues for the validity of the hypothesis.
I think the continuing novelty of the world, the fact that the world continues to unfold in a way consistent with their being just gobs and gobs more you don’t know than that you do know, argues for assuming that there is very much knowledge that you, or perhaps your children or your children’s children, won’t be able to do something with eventually. What of knowledge of aliens among us who may or may not be much more intelligent than us, who may or may not have motives that are hostile to us, that are essentially much more unknown than unknowable? I can think of millions of ways this might be useful, to me as an individual, to my family in contrast to the rest of humans, and so on.
If nothing else, I will be better prepared to act if/when the aliens are exposed or if/when they expose themselves, while my more skeptical friends will be caught flat footed and will wind up in the test kitchens.
Dealing with extraordinary claims has not gotten the attention it deserves, IMO.
It gets to the distinction between an explanation, and a predictive model. Explanations assuage mental anxiety over the unknown. Predictive models, in general, allow you to do something. If, in some particular case, the predictive model associated with an explanation doesn’t allow me to do something, it is not a useful model.
Let’s assume some advanced alien intelligence is patrolling the globe. What then? What can I do with this knowledge? As far as I can tell, nothing. The aliens have chosen to hide from us. They seem very good at it. Shouldn’t a space faring civilization be beyond our ability to force an interaction with? So, if there is nothing I can do with this knowledge, I’m going to ignore the possibility until they seem more interested in getting together. A predictive model whose predictions tell you that the model is useless, is useless.
I believe if you start with a zero prior, you end up with a zero probability.
This MIGHT argue against putting much resources into refining your estimate of what is really going on with these aliens. It hardly argues for the validity of the hypothesis.
I think the continuing novelty of the world, the fact that the world continues to unfold in a way consistent with their being just gobs and gobs more you don’t know than that you do know, argues for assuming that there is very much knowledge that you, or perhaps your children or your children’s children, won’t be able to do something with eventually. What of knowledge of aliens among us who may or may not be much more intelligent than us, who may or may not have motives that are hostile to us, that are essentially much more unknown than unknowable? I can think of millions of ways this might be useful, to me as an individual, to my family in contrast to the rest of humans, and so on.
If nothing else, I will be better prepared to act if/when the aliens are exposed or if/when they expose themselves, while my more skeptical friends will be caught flat footed and will wind up in the test kitchens.