Finally, and most importantly, you have to condition not just on what we see, but what we don’t see. We get grainy videos of some weird thing in the distance, but never close-up HD video. Pilots report seeing something flying far away, but it’s always far away—the tic-tac never flies up close to a passenger jet so hundreds of people can look at it in detail. We get rumors that the government has clear high-resolution pictures, but they never get leaked. We get rumors that the government has recovered intact alien aircraft, but it’s always someone who heard someone else talking about it—we never have a whistleblower who actually analyzed the aircraft and can tell us what they’re made out of. There’s never a local government—anywhere in the world—that captures an aircraft and posts photos online.
I’m not sure about this reasoning. It seems compelling at first (and is my personal strongest reason against believing the latest rumors), but there’s a sort of anthropic issue where if we already had compelling evidence (or no evidence) we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Is there a prior for the likely resolution of fuzzy evidence in general? Maybe the issue is a lack of an observed distribution of mostly weak and some stronger evidence, rather than all weak?
there’s a sort of anthropic issue where if we already had compelling evidence (or no evidence) we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Yes, our discussion is based on the evidence we actually see. But, to then discount the evidence because if we had different evidence we wouldn’t be having the same discussion, is to rule out updating on evidence at all, if that evidence would influence our discussion.
Is there a prior for the likely resolution of fuzzy evidence in general?
In my view, there is a general tendency to underestimate the likelihood of encountering weird-seeming evidence, and especially of encountering it indirectly via a filtering process where the weirdest and most alien-congruent evidence (or game-of-telephone enhanced stories) gets publicly disseminated. For this reason, a bunch of fuzzy evidence is not particularly strong evidence for aliens.
I’m not sure about this reasoning. It seems compelling at first (and is my personal strongest reason against believing the latest rumors), but there’s a sort of anthropic issue where if we already had compelling evidence (or no evidence) we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Is there a prior for the likely resolution of fuzzy evidence in general? Maybe the issue is a lack of an observed distribution of mostly weak and some stronger evidence, rather than all weak?
Yes, our discussion is based on the evidence we actually see. But, to then discount the evidence because if we had different evidence we wouldn’t be having the same discussion, is to rule out updating on evidence at all, if that evidence would influence our discussion.
In my view, there is a general tendency to underestimate the likelihood of encountering weird-seeming evidence, and especially of encountering it indirectly via a filtering process where the weirdest and most alien-congruent evidence (or game-of-telephone enhanced stories) gets publicly disseminated. For this reason, a bunch of fuzzy evidence is not particularly strong evidence for aliens.