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I watched the current series on Netflix about UFOs. Which was interesting and many people were discussing their interactions with UFOs.
And then today on YouTube theres this latest Congress committee thing that was held yesterday. These seem like qualified and serious people giving testimony.
This stuff is easy to poke fun at, but why would these guys want to make stuff up?
I find reading this thread so fascinating, bumping it up to get others thoughts.
I suspect my previous post is a bit buried on that last page but for anyone who wants to see something the UK Military have actually put together on the subject, follow the links and download the PDF
Other earth creatures - id say zero chance. Seems hugely unlikely.
Military tech - its just too advanced. Not an incremental step.
One explanation someone put forward on the netflix series is that its humans from the future. But i dont think even in theoretical physics we believe its possible to tine travel backwards.
Ive always been highly dubious but these video sightings, pilot sightings and people from the military saying they have seen it...it makes you wonder.
Having been down this rabbit hole for the last 10 years or so, and fortunate enough to interview people like Lue Elizondo through work, the 'smart money' does seem to be that whatever the phenomena is, most likely is now Earth based, probably based in the oceans. Whether it originated here, is actually here (!), who knows. Not me but I expect the answers and true nature of the universe are more complex than we can currently comprehend.
While there does seem a lot of nonsense surrounding the subject, I always refer back to David Fravor, the lead pilot/ witness of the 2004 Nimitz encounter. I have zero doubt he's as credible a witness as they come. And he saw a 40 foot tic tac without any visible means of propulsion, manoeuvre in ways our aircraft can't. And it only takes one white crow to prove not all crows are black...
Not a Mummy. Don't have short arms.
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UFO stuff or UAP on 21:41 - Nov 16 with 1254 views
You have started with a premiss that it did come about by chance. The odds of a coding system as complex as DNA arranging itself and coding for anything that works are zero let alone for processes as complexes that are vital for complex life.
Of course, if you do not accept the existence of a designer, you are left with it having to have happened by chance.
Nobody ever sees something like a passenger aircraft and says to themselves that's fascinating. I wonder if it was designed or just happened to arrange itself like that. And yet that plane is nothing like as complex as self-replicating living beings.
But if you have to eliminate the possible existence of a designer you have to accept that what we see and understand must have simply appeared by chance. Give it huge numbers of stars, massive periods of time but none of it changes the fact it is clearly not possible.
Before I start I understand that you are coming from a position of belief and I don't want to offend so apologies if I do.
"You have started with a premiss that it did come about by chance. The odds of a coding system as complex as DNA arranging itself and coding for anything that works are zero let alone for processes as complexes that are vital for complex life."
This is simply scientifically incorrect. You have absolutely no evidence to specific the odds of DNA originating through natural means and certainly no evidence to declare the odds as "zero". This is just another version of the Irreducible Complexity (IC) argument pushed by intelligent design advocates that has been disproven many times and I don't really feel the need to do it again.
The implication that DNA emerged as DNA is also incorrect. DNA is the result of hundreds of millions of years of incremental evolution where at some point in that time the situational parameters were supportive to an incremental stage forming. Each incremental stage brings you closer to the end result so to say that "DNA arranging itself" isn't really true either and if I was being unkind I would say it was "poisoning the well".
"Of course, if you do not accept the existence of a designer, you are left with it having to have happened by chance."
This is also not really correct. Removing a designer doesn't mean it's just down to chance. I've outlined why in my previous paragraph.
"Nobody ever sees something like a passenger aircraft and says to themselves that's fascinating. I wonder if it was designed or just happened to arrange itself like that. And yet that plane is nothing like as complex as self-replicating living beings.
This is the "Junkyard Tornado" fallacy which is often cited by people who believe in ID but has been widely discredited by scientists [1]. In fact the existence of a divine creator is far less probably than the spontaneous creation of anything. Theoretically something like a Bolzman brain is more probable [2].
"But if you have to eliminate the possible existence of a designer you have to accept that what we see and understand must have simply appeared by chance. "
This is fallacious reasoning.
Firstly it's not accepting that it's chance. It's accepting that a series of incremental processes inevitably leads to a scenario where the possibility of life is heavily probable. To say it's pure chance like the lottery simply isn't correct.
"Give it huge numbers of stars, massive periods of time but none of it changes the fact it is clearly not possible."
Statistically this is incorrect and any statistician would be able to tell you so. If you start with a non-zero probability of something (which the evolution of life certainly is) and you increase the number of instances of the scenario then sooner or later it'll happen. This is used widely in modelling of various scenarios which don't have closed-form solutions and is known as a Monte-Carlo model.
You can also refer to [3] to highlight how statistically life could easily evolve even just randomly without the incremental steps (although this is clearly much more unlikely and not what happened in reality).
Evolution explains what we see around us, there is no need for a designer and eventually we will find a second tree of life (possibly even on Earth [4]) that will make the ID argument hard to sustain.
Having been down this rabbit hole for the last 10 years or so, and fortunate enough to interview people like Lue Elizondo through work, the 'smart money' does seem to be that whatever the phenomena is, most likely is now Earth based, probably based in the oceans. Whether it originated here, is actually here (!), who knows. Not me but I expect the answers and true nature of the universe are more complex than we can currently comprehend.
While there does seem a lot of nonsense surrounding the subject, I always refer back to David Fravor, the lead pilot/ witness of the 2004 Nimitz encounter. I have zero doubt he's as credible a witness as they come. And he saw a 40 foot tic tac without any visible means of propulsion, manoeuvre in ways our aircraft can't. And it only takes one white crow to prove not all crows are black...
If you can be bothered to wade through the linked PDF in this link, the report from the UK Military would tie in with what is being suggested there
I suspect the Rendlesham Forest Incident is covered by their findings here too
Wow, some incredible leaps there. Where's your evidence that life coming about by chance is impossible? If you can prove that then you have indeed proved the existence of God!
If your God/designer hypothesis is true, as Stokie said: who or what created the designer? Surely a designer who designed all this couldn't themselves come about by chance, following your logic?
Your passenger aircraft analogy is a bit silly. We all know planes are designed, we don't know how life came about. Just because one was designed and is complex doesn't mean the other must've also been designed as it's more complex. There's just no relation between the two.
What complex machines come about by chance? You may see that as silly and non-evidence; I don't.
Of course, the existence of a designer begs the question of who created the designer. My answer is that God has always existed. I would assume that yours would be that matter always existed without a designer. It was simply condensed into a pinpoint and exploded into the Universe we know by chance. Mine would be that God existed outside of this and was prime mover. We exist in a Universe where we only understand things with beginnings and endings. Scientists are in fairly complete agreement that the Universe had a clear beginning and will likely come to an end.
As you rightly point out, there is always an assumption and always more questions. My answers accept that God is beyond what we can ever fully comprehend; yours are that existence and origins are.
Before I start I understand that you are coming from a position of belief and I don't want to offend so apologies if I do.
"You have started with a premiss that it did come about by chance. The odds of a coding system as complex as DNA arranging itself and coding for anything that works are zero let alone for processes as complexes that are vital for complex life."
This is simply scientifically incorrect. You have absolutely no evidence to specific the odds of DNA originating through natural means and certainly no evidence to declare the odds as "zero". This is just another version of the Irreducible Complexity (IC) argument pushed by intelligent design advocates that has been disproven many times and I don't really feel the need to do it again.
The implication that DNA emerged as DNA is also incorrect. DNA is the result of hundreds of millions of years of incremental evolution where at some point in that time the situational parameters were supportive to an incremental stage forming. Each incremental stage brings you closer to the end result so to say that "DNA arranging itself" isn't really true either and if I was being unkind I would say it was "poisoning the well".
"Of course, if you do not accept the existence of a designer, you are left with it having to have happened by chance."
This is also not really correct. Removing a designer doesn't mean it's just down to chance. I've outlined why in my previous paragraph.
"Nobody ever sees something like a passenger aircraft and says to themselves that's fascinating. I wonder if it was designed or just happened to arrange itself like that. And yet that plane is nothing like as complex as self-replicating living beings.
This is the "Junkyard Tornado" fallacy which is often cited by people who believe in ID but has been widely discredited by scientists [1]. In fact the existence of a divine creator is far less probably than the spontaneous creation of anything. Theoretically something like a Bolzman brain is more probable [2].
"But if you have to eliminate the possible existence of a designer you have to accept that what we see and understand must have simply appeared by chance. "
This is fallacious reasoning.
Firstly it's not accepting that it's chance. It's accepting that a series of incremental processes inevitably leads to a scenario where the possibility of life is heavily probable. To say it's pure chance like the lottery simply isn't correct.
"Give it huge numbers of stars, massive periods of time but none of it changes the fact it is clearly not possible."
Statistically this is incorrect and any statistician would be able to tell you so. If you start with a non-zero probability of something (which the evolution of life certainly is) and you increase the number of instances of the scenario then sooner or later it'll happen. This is used widely in modelling of various scenarios which don't have closed-form solutions and is known as a Monte-Carlo model.
You can also refer to [3] to highlight how statistically life could easily evolve even just randomly without the incremental steps (although this is clearly much more unlikely and not what happened in reality).
Evolution explains what we see around us, there is no need for a designer and eventually we will find a second tree of life (possibly even on Earth [4]) that will make the ID argument hard to sustain.
I accept we are coming from very different views on this and I doubt either of us will ever accept the other's. If you really want to understand the arguments I would recommend to you John Lennox, but you are clearly coming from a very thoroughly formed opinion.
I am unsure how your second paragraph removes the dichotomy of designer or chance. What are you saying lies behind the existence of life without the need for one or the other? What do you mean by "natural means" if you mean neither a designer nor chance? The existence of proteins to make DNA is not life. The existence of those proteins arranged into a DNA molecule is not life. Life as we know it relies on the existence of DNA within cells.
The argument of complexity indicating design is rejected ... by those who do not accept it. Hoyle, though an atheist, could not accept the idea that life came about by chance and so concluded that it was always pre-existent in the Universe. This would contradict the scientific consensus that the Universe had a beginning. I would repeat wherever you see any complex machine you immediately recognise it has been designed.
What complex machines come about by chance? You may see that as silly and non-evidence; I don't.
Of course, the existence of a designer begs the question of who created the designer. My answer is that God has always existed. I would assume that yours would be that matter always existed without a designer. It was simply condensed into a pinpoint and exploded into the Universe we know by chance. Mine would be that God existed outside of this and was prime mover. We exist in a Universe where we only understand things with beginnings and endings. Scientists are in fairly complete agreement that the Universe had a clear beginning and will likely come to an end.
As you rightly point out, there is always an assumption and always more questions. My answers accept that God is beyond what we can ever fully comprehend; yours are that existence and origins are.
Your complex machine point is silly because we know the creator: us. We are the 'God' in this instance. So we move up a level and ask what created us. At this point we don't know. Saying it's another designer is the God of gaps - because we don't know we insert a God, which is a fallacious argument.
Saying God doesn't need a creator as they're outside time, they always existed, just strikes me as another get-out clause that can't be tested. As you say, I could easily apply your logic to matter. If a God could always exist why couldn't matter?
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, we simply don't know and either option has problems. Nor am I wedded to chance. Chance looks good because we see it all the time. I'm presumably here by chance - the odds of being born are estimated to be 1 in 400 trillion. My parents were both married to other people before they met - if one of those relationships survived would I be here? Certainly not in the form I am now.
But I do also entertain the notion of some kind of creator or facilitator of 'stuff happening'. Not a traditional 'God' in the religious sense, because all religions are man-made. (I presume you're a member of a particular religion - how do you know it's the right one? Where you were brought up and who your parents were likely had a huge impact in your choice. If you'd been born in say India, would you be following something else?
I'd lean more to 'Mother Nature' for want of a better word. A force that keeps things improving in order to survive, which we call evolution. So things like humans weren't 'designed' as such, they just developed by a tiny amount again and again over billions of years, from a single cell to the humans we are now. If a God had designed us (or anything natural that appears designed) where were these things for billions of years? Humans have been evolving for approximately six million years; the universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old... so did this designer just sit on his/her plans for all that time? It makes less sense than evolution.
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
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UFO stuff or UAP on 17:44 - Nov 17 with 1065 views
Your complex machine point is silly because we know the creator: us. We are the 'God' in this instance. So we move up a level and ask what created us. At this point we don't know. Saying it's another designer is the God of gaps - because we don't know we insert a God, which is a fallacious argument.
Saying God doesn't need a creator as they're outside time, they always existed, just strikes me as another get-out clause that can't be tested. As you say, I could easily apply your logic to matter. If a God could always exist why couldn't matter?
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, we simply don't know and either option has problems. Nor am I wedded to chance. Chance looks good because we see it all the time. I'm presumably here by chance - the odds of being born are estimated to be 1 in 400 trillion. My parents were both married to other people before they met - if one of those relationships survived would I be here? Certainly not in the form I am now.
But I do also entertain the notion of some kind of creator or facilitator of 'stuff happening'. Not a traditional 'God' in the religious sense, because all religions are man-made. (I presume you're a member of a particular religion - how do you know it's the right one? Where you were brought up and who your parents were likely had a huge impact in your choice. If you'd been born in say India, would you be following something else?
I'd lean more to 'Mother Nature' for want of a better word. A force that keeps things improving in order to survive, which we call evolution. So things like humans weren't 'designed' as such, they just developed by a tiny amount again and again over billions of years, from a single cell to the humans we are now. If a God had designed us (or anything natural that appears designed) where were these things for billions of years? Humans have been evolving for approximately six million years; the universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old... so did this designer just sit on his/her plans for all that time? It makes less sense than evolution.
Since you asked, my personal faith is based on Jesus and his life and teaching. I find the argument for Christianity compelling but recognise that there are many who do not.
I accept we are coming from very different views on this and I doubt either of us will ever accept the other's. If you really want to understand the arguments I would recommend to you John Lennox, but you are clearly coming from a very thoroughly formed opinion.
I am unsure how your second paragraph removes the dichotomy of designer or chance. What are you saying lies behind the existence of life without the need for one or the other? What do you mean by "natural means" if you mean neither a designer nor chance? The existence of proteins to make DNA is not life. The existence of those proteins arranged into a DNA molecule is not life. Life as we know it relies on the existence of DNA within cells.
The argument of complexity indicating design is rejected ... by those who do not accept it. Hoyle, though an atheist, could not accept the idea that life came about by chance and so concluded that it was always pre-existent in the Universe. This would contradict the scientific consensus that the Universe had a beginning. I would repeat wherever you see any complex machine you immediately recognise it has been designed.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
A complex machine is entirely different to a complex organism. I don't understand your argument here or see any relation between the two.
The scientific consensus might well be that the Universe had a beginning, but there are plenty who posit that before that was another universe... when one dies another is born, expands, eventually dies and we begin again. So if a God could always have existed is it not possible that this universe life-death-life-death cycle could also have always existed, and each time the matter evolves and dies with it, simply because that's what it does (chance)?
The only evidence we have so far is a big bang and an expanding universe - which fits the hypothesis I've just outlined. We have no evidence for a supernatural God. I find it odd that someone would lean towards the thing we have no evidence for.
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
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UFO stuff or UAP on 17:54 - Nov 17 with 1053 views
Sometimes I walk to a field with no light pollution and look up into the night sky,there is so much stuff out there it’s unreal.
Not only that,it wouldn’t really be fair that we are it the only life forms in all that space man.
Indeed. It would be very odd and statistically unlikely that life would be so abundant on just one planet - absolutely teaming with it - and then there's absolutely nothing on the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of others.
Trust the process. Trust Phil.
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UFO stuff or UAP on 17:56 - Nov 17 with 1051 views
Since you asked, my personal faith is based on Jesus and his life and teaching. I find the argument for Christianity compelling but recognise that there are many who do not.
Do you accept the point that that is likely due to your upbringing and that if you'd been born in another part of the world, or even to non-religious parents, then your faith may have been different?
Indeed. It would be very odd and statistically unlikely that life would be so abundant on just one planet - absolutely teaming with it - and then there's absolutely nothing on the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of others.
I accept we are coming from very different views on this and I doubt either of us will ever accept the other's. If you really want to understand the arguments I would recommend to you John Lennox, but you are clearly coming from a very thoroughly formed opinion.
I am unsure how your second paragraph removes the dichotomy of designer or chance. What are you saying lies behind the existence of life without the need for one or the other? What do you mean by "natural means" if you mean neither a designer nor chance? The existence of proteins to make DNA is not life. The existence of those proteins arranged into a DNA molecule is not life. Life as we know it relies on the existence of DNA within cells.
The argument of complexity indicating design is rejected ... by those who do not accept it. Hoyle, though an atheist, could not accept the idea that life came about by chance and so concluded that it was always pre-existent in the Universe. This would contradict the scientific consensus that the Universe had a beginning. I would repeat wherever you see any complex machine you immediately recognise it has been designed.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I do understand the arguments for ID and IC and in reality they aren't scientific arguments but faith and philosophy based arguments. They are neither falsifiable or supported by evidence and to give them some form of equivalence isn't really right in my opinion.
If one is starting from a position where evidence isn't required then there is no debate to be had unfortunately. You glossed over many of my points and repeated ones you'd already made.
As a counter argument to a designer, how would you explain the fact that life is actually pretty poorly designed in many cases? There are things such as eyes which are poorly designed if you were starting from first principles but make perfect sense if you look at them as the result of a large number of random mutations [1].
Unless your argument is that evolution is true but that a designer kicked it all off? That doesn't really make sense though - why take the time to design the condition and then not continue to design creature within those conditions which are optimal?
It's something that we clearly won't agree on so we can revisit when a second independent tree of life is found.
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