Do you think any aliens exist in the universe?

[Kylie]

Yes, neither of us know

In my personal opinion, magical fairies are probably NOT the default mechanism for any kind of life anywhere. However, my personal opinion doesn’t mean shit without data, which we do not have except for ONE example, here on earth. And, as noted, you cannot reliably extrapolate from one example to make generalizations.

Therefore, we must remain open to the possibility that magical fairies are present on other planets.

Once again, to reiterate — and this is becoming pretty tedious — I never said that magic fairies are a viable or likely option. Please stop shoving words into my mouth.

What I said is that there could be competing naturalistic explanations for how life arises and develops on different planets, and given that we have only one data point, we have no way to compute any probability of alternative explanations or whether to stick with the explanations we have on earth, which themselves are incomplete and defeasible.

Again, please stop deliberately misconstruing what I say and stop putting words into my mouth,

Thanks in advance.

And yet you are saying that MAYBE Lamarckianism IS a viable option, and yet you give absolutely no justification for why it would be more viable there than it is here!

 

[Kylie]

Here on earth, epigenetics suggests a mild form of Lamarckism, though not a driver of evolution.

Source please?

Look it up for yourself. Google is your friend, except for Google AI.

It's not my job to support the claims you make.

It is not my job to respond to you at all. Fortunately, out of the goodness of my heart, I gave you a link to a scientific study that supports just what I said — that epigenetics supports a mild form of Lamarckism in gene expression. You could have looked that up yourself but I did the work for you, without any pay so far.

I do take PayPal.

Give me something of actual value and I'll consider it.

Like an actual STUDY, not the article you seem to think counts as a study.

Here is the study, linked right in the article, which itself is a science article.

Consider that we were talking about your claim that Lamarckianism, which is largely ineffectual here on Earth, could play a more important role in evolution on other planets.

I did a search for the term "Lamarck" in that link, and found it was mentioned only twice. Let me give you the context for those instances:

"Furthermore, to explain the fact that the gene fusion effect applies to both germline and somatic genes (72) without resorting to Lamarckism, it has been proposed that the transcriptional promiscuity of the germline (78–80)—the fact that somatic genes are regularly transcribed in the germline—exposes close regulatory somatic connections, allowing somatic as well as germline genes to participate in mutational mechanisms such as the one described in a heritable mode (65, 71, 72, 76)."

And

"According to this view, the causes and consequences of individual mutations are meaningfully related without involving Lamarckism: The internal information affecting mutation probabilities itself has accumulated under past selection pressures and reflects current structures and functions, and therefore the distribution of individual mutation rates across the genome at any one time in evolution is specifically relevant to the adaptations evolving at that time (65, 71, 99)."

Neither of those shows any support for Lamarckian evolution.

So, please tell me: What claim of yours do you say is being supported by that article, and what part of the article specifically supports said claim?

 

[Kylie]

The efficient Lamarckian spread of life in the cosmos

Study challenges evolutionary theory that mutations are random

I post these not as endorsements, but to encourage discussion. This is a discussion board. I would advise certain people to refrain from nasty snark and smack. Again, if such idiocy needs rebuttal, I do not think that magic fairies and natural selection are equally good accounts for life on other worlds,

Do you think these sources make any relevant points to the discussion? Yes or no please.

 

[pood]

So, support the claims you make.

You are the one making unsupported claims, not me.

Please support them.

What unsupported claims did I make?

That evolution must work the same on any life forms on other planets. Duh.

Perhaps that is true. But, as I have repeatedly explained, we have one data point, earth, and we have no idea how to extrapolate our experience to hypothetical living things on other worlds, living things which might be radically different from us and arise and develop in different ways. In no way have I suggested that “magical fairies” might account for the development of life or life-like structures on other planets, one of your usual baseless claims in this alleged discussion. Did you read the links I provided or are you just going to spout off more of your petulant, argumentative, and pointless bullshit?

 

[excreationist]

What unsupported claims did I make?

That evolution must work the same on any life forms on other planets. Duh.

Perhaps that is true. But, as I have repeatedly explained, we have one data point, earth, and we have no idea how to extrapolate our experience to hypothetical living things on other worlds, living things which might be radically different from us and arise and develop in different ways. In no way have I suggested that “magical fairies” might account for the development of life or life-like structures on other planets, one of your usual baseless claims in this alleged discussion. Did you read the links I provided or are you just going to spout off more of your petulant, argumentative, and pointless bullshit?

"Duh" and "pointless b*llshit"? Sounds like being "petulant, argumentative".

 

[pood]

What unsupported claims did I make?

That evolution must work the same on any life forms on other planets. Duh.

Perhaps that is true. But, as I have repeatedly explained, we have one data point, earth, and we have no idea how to extrapolate our experience to hypothetical living things on other worlds, living things which might be radically different from us and arise and develop in different ways. In no way have I suggested that “magical fairies” might account for the development of life or life-like structures on other planets, one of your usual baseless claims in this alleged discussion. Did you read the links I provided or are you just going to spout off more of your petulant, argumentative, and pointless bullshit?

"Duh" and "pointless b*llshit"? Sounds like being "petulant, argumentative".

This in response to his/her/their responses to me, when I tried to conduct a civil and intellectual discussion and in return got charged with saying that “magical fairies” were equally likely as Darwinian evolution to explain how life arises and develops on other planets. I, obviously, said nothing of the kind.

Now, could you perhaps kindly explain, for the first time, your evidence for your claim that we live in a simulation but you are the only one conscious in it?

 

[pood]

So you think that if we can't rule something out, it must be equally likely?

No, I did not say that. This would mean that everything is 50/50, so far as I can tell from your comment.

I am saying that with one example of anything, we cannot estimate probabilities at all.

That doesn't mean that Lamarckian evolution is as plausible an explanation as natural selection though, does it?

I don’t know. Nor do you.

In my personal opinion, natural selection is likely the default mechanism for any kind of life anywhere. However, my personal opinion doesn’t mean shit without data, which we do not have except for ONE example, here on earth. And, as noted, you cannot reliably extrapolate from one example to make generalizations.

Yes, neither of us know

In my personal opinion, magical fairies are probably NOT the default mechanism for any kind of life anywhere. However, my personal opinion doesn’t mean shit without data, which we do not have except for ONE example, here on earth. And, as noted, you cannot reliably extrapolate from one example to make generalizations.

Therefore, we must remain open to the possibility that magical fairies are present on other planets.

This is a ridiculous non sequitur that proves you are only interested in stirring up a fight and not in having a discussion.

I have never said that any old explanation at all is equally valid for how life might arise or develop on other planets, I certainly have never suggested the possibility of magic fairies. Your tripe is getting quite tiresome.

Epigenetics, a mild and largely non-influential form of Lamarckism, is observed here on earth. It is a fact. It is not “magic fairies.” Who is to say it may not play a larger role on other planets if they are inhabited? Certainly not you.

So if you agree that it is largely non-influential, why do you propose that it may be important on other planets?

Because it may be important on other planets even if not largely important here. I don’t know. Nor do you. What is hard for you to understand about this?

If it is, conditions on other planets would have to be different to what they are here on Earth. Can you say what differences would be required? Because I've asked you many times, and you have refused to answer.

I don’t know. I have already said that. Is this hard to understand?

Let’s recap: we have one example, life on earth. We cannot logically generalize this to life or life-like structures on other planets. As noted, we do not even have a clear definition of life on earth. Is a virus alive? There is disagreement. Do you know, in your monumental self-imagined wisdom?

So you are just claiming that MAYBE things on other planets are different and MAYBE those differences mean that a process which is largely uninfluential here has a greater effect on these other planets, but you CAN'T tell us anything about what sort of differences would be required.

Why would I be able to tell you that? I already said I DON’T KNOW, and neither do you. The point, once again, is that we have ONE EXAMPLE of life or life-like structures, here on earth, and from that you cannot extrapolate or generalize to life or life-like structures on other worlds. AS I HAVE SAID, it MAY BE THE CASE that some form of neo-Darwinian evolution pertains everywhere, but we do not KNOW that, and, to reiterate, I have never suggested “magic fairies” are equally likely to explain life or life-like structures on other worlds as neo-Darwinian evolution. Can you finally grasp this point?

In other words, you are making vague claims and offering no support for those claims.

The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that neo-Darwinian evolution operates the same way everywhere, even assuming there is life anywhere but here.

And you wonder why I don't take you seriously?

No, I don’t wonder, nor do I care. It is I who don’t take you seriously.

Do you even know what “agnostic” means?

Yes.

Really? Explain it.

BTW, you asked me for links to scholarly science articles concerning whether all mutations are random with respect to to environment and whether some form of Lamarckism might hold on other worlds or even universally. I provided you what you asked for.

Did you read them?

My guess:

NO.

 

[pood]

We don’t know how life arose on earth. We don’t know whether the current paradigm of evolution via natural selection, sexual selection and genetic drift here on earth is complete — I have linked to studies suggesting that not all mutations are random with respect to the environment, for example. We don’t know if life exists on other worlds and if it does, whether it would arise and develop the same way as here on earth. We don’t know if we can dismiss Lamarckism entirely; as noted, a mild form of it via epigenetics seems to exist here on earth. Who knows on other worlds? We don’t know.

We don’t know. Which is why I identify as an agnostic, or perhaps more properly, as previously noted, a philosophical skeptic.

I have never come barging in here babbling about magic fairies and such like.

 

[pood]

As I mentioned in the Philosophy of Science thread, there is this thing called the pessimistic meta-induction that counsels that because all our past theories have been demonstrated to be strictly or wholly false, we should have a little humility, and expect inductively that all our current theories may also be strictly or perhaps even wholly false.

A current example: General relativity and quantum mechanics are great theories in their own domains.

Yet they wholly disagree with each other.

Clearly, there is much that we do not know.

Except for @Kylie. He/she/they know everything, I guess.

 

[excreationist]

Now, could you perhaps kindly explain, for the first time, your evidence for your claim that we live in a simulation but you are the only one conscious in it?

I believe it because of scenarios I believe are plausible like the Roy game:

I've already explained the implications of that multiple times (including only the player being conscious)
In terms of proving that reality is like that I think "ALL evidence of God and simulations can be explained by skeptics as coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud"

God and the Bible - Life's Player

Is the Bible 100% true and moral? Does the supernatural exist?

lifesplayer.com

I believe it is non-obvious - i.e. there is no obvious proof for it. The simulations of the future would attempt to be indistinguishable from reality so it means it is hard to prove that they are simulations rather than reality.
I have reasons for believing in a simulation but I can't convince skeptics of this since they have evidence that that is not the case (using explanations like "coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud")
A related thing is what happened with Enigma... they were able to do things without science and statistics being able to detect it:

 

[pood]

Now, could you perhaps kindly explain, for the first time, your evidence for your claim that we live in a simulation but you are the only one conscious in it?

I believe it because of scenarios I believe are plausible like the Roy game:

I've already explained the implications of that multiple times (including only the player being conscious)
In terms of proving that reality is like that I think "ALL evidence of God and simulations can be explained by skeptics as coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud"

God and the Bible - Life's Player

Is the Bible 100% true and moral? Does the supernatural exist?

lifesplayer.com

I believe it is non-obvious - i.e. there is no obvious proof for it. The simulations of the future would attempt to be indistinguishable from reality so it means it is hard to prove that they are simulations rather than reality.
I have reasons for believing in a simulation but I can't convince skeptics of this since they have evidence that that is not the case (using explanations like "coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud")
A related thing is what happened with Enigma... they were able to do things without science and statistics being able to detect it:

Sorry, this still does not explain or provide any evidence for your claim that reality is a simulation and that only YOU are conscious in it.

Your idiotic Roy game is evidence of precisely nothing.

 

[bilby]

As I mentioned in the Philosophy of Science thread, there is this thing called the pessimistic meta-induction that counsels that because all our past theories have been demonstrated to be strictly or wholly false, we should have a little humility, and expect inductively that all our current theories may also be strictly or perhaps even wholly false.

A current example: General relativity and quantum mechanics are great theories in their own domains.

Well, there's false, and then there's false. Newton's Universal Gravitation was falsified and replaced by General Relativity; But that didn't mean that rocks suddenly started falling upwards or sideways.

A good theory is an approximate model of a part of reality. The better an approximation of reality it is, and the more of reality it encompasses, the less likely it is to be wildly wrong without anyone noticing yet.

As time goes on, more and more of our earlier theories are shown to be strictly false, and fewer and fewer are shown to be wholly false.

It is reasonable to predict that if and when a new theory replaces GR or QFT or both, that it will predict almost identical results to its predecessors, in their respective domains; Indeed, it would be unreasonable to predict that it will not.

Technology advances by increasing options - we develop new ways to exploit scientific principles, and so we tend to think of science and technology as providing new ways to do stuff, and ways to do stuff we couldn't do before.

But science and tecnology are dissimilar in this regard. Science does not provide new ways to do stuff - it just tells us which of our old guesses were mistaken. The strength of science is not in what it makes possible, but in what it rules out as a waste of time.

Technology advances and lets us do more; Science advances and lets us rule out more dead ends.

Medieval technologists wasted a lot of time and effort trying to build perpetual motion machines, or to use chemistry to turn lead into gold. Modern science tells us that these things are futile; If we want cheap energy, we need to get it from somewhere else, and if we want to turn lead into gold, we need nuclear reactions, not chemical ones.

Science doesn't make more things possible, and it never did. It makes fewer things possible, thereby allowing technologists to see the wood for the trees.

 

[excreationist]

Sorry, this still does not explain or provide any evidence for your claim that reality is a simulation and that only YOU are conscious in it.

Your idiotic Roy game is evidence of precisely nothing.

Like I say skeptics already have evidence that what they believe is true. That means that the simulation can be indistinguishable from reality. It does explain my claim but I've already explained that and like you sometimes say, look it up yourself.
Here's a thought experiment. Say there are 100 photos. One is real and the rest are AI generated. Say AI got to the point that people and AI can't tell the difference. When you look at one you can't be sure it is fake but you could assume that it is likely that it isn't real. Say there were people who didn't know about AI and just assumed the photos were all real... after all they are indistinguishable from real photos. Though I'm not sure that example makes my case any more persuasive.

 

[pood]

As I mentioned in the Philosophy of Science thread, there is this thing called the pessimistic meta-induction that counsels that because all our past theories have been demonstrated to be strictly or wholly false, we should have a little humility, and expect inductively that all our current theories may also be strictly or perhaps even wholly false.

A current example: General relativity and quantum mechanics are great theories in their own domains.

Well, there's false, and then there's false. Newton's Universal Gravitation was falsified and replaced by General Relativity; But that didn't mean that rocks suddenly started falling upwards or sideways.

A good theory is an approximate model of a part of reality. The better an approximation of reality it is, and the more of reality it encompasses, the less likely it is to be wildly wrong without anyone noticing yet.

As time goes on, more and more of our earlier theories are shown to be strictly false, and fewer and fewer are shown to be wholly false.

It is reasonable to predict that if and when a new theory replaces GR or QFT or both, that it will predict almost identical results to its predecessors, in their respective domains; Indeed, it would be unreasonable to predict that it will not.

Technology advances by increasing options - we develop new ways to exploit scientific principles, and so we tend to think of science and technology as providing new ways to do stuff, and ways to do stuff we couldn't do before.

But science and tecnology are dissimilar in this regard. Science does not provide new ways to do stuff - it just tells us which of our old guesses were mistaken. The strength of science is not in what it makes possible, but in what it rules out as a waste of time.

Technology advances and lets us do more; Science advances and lets us rule out more dead ends.

Medieval technologists wasted a lot of time and effort trying to build perpetual motion machines, or to use chemistry to turn lead into gold. Modern science tells us that these things are futile; If we want cheap energy, we need to get it from somewhere else, and if we want to turn lead into gold, we need nuclear reactions, not chemical ones.

Science doesn't make more things possible, and it never did. It makes fewer things possible, thereby allowing technologists to see the wood for the trees.

Completely agree with the above.

WRT to the ongoing so-called discussion, I am questioning whether the origin and development of life on other worlds must follow the neo-Darwinism we observe on our world; and also pointing out we simply do not know how life arose on this word. There may be many other possibilities we have not thought of.

Also finding no evidence for the idea that we live in a simulation AND that only one person in the simulation is conscious.

 

[pood]

And, if it needs to be repeated, I do not think “magic fairies” are responsible for anything.

 

[excreationist]

Also finding no evidence for the idea that we live in a simulation AND that only one person in the simulation is conscious.

Like I've just been saying, from the point of view of a skeptic there is no evidence. My main argument is that it would be likely that in the future there would be billions of simulations that are indistinguishable from reality. In order for there to be billions of simulations costs would need to be kept as low as possible.
Say you were in a VR game and this is what you were seeing:


Do you think it would be cheaper for AI to generate the visuals and their voices and script or for those characters to be truly conscious? The characters were absurd but it shows AI can be very creative (based on absurd inputs).

 

[bilby]

the idea that we live in a simulation AND that only one person in the simulation is conscious.

Well, if we are, that only conscious person is me, so the joke's on excreationist.

 

[bilby]

And, if it needs to be repeated, I do not think “magic fairies” are responsible for anything.

I agree. All the ones I meet are woefully irresponsible.

 

[lostone]

Trump supporting Republicans exist. How much more alien can you get?

I am certain, and without doubt, that this trivial truth has been noted here many times before.

The point being that some of our own species can seem more alien than many of our conceptions of aliens can be.

And we might find more in common with some aliens than we do with our own species. Even if they came to eat us.

 

[bilby]

And we might find more in common with some aliens than we do with our own species. Even if they came to eat us.

The idea that aliens might want to eat us is bizarre. I mean, even if we are sufficiently similar biochemically not to poison them outright, we are very unlikely to be palatable, and certainly not worth the enormous effort and expense of interstellar travel, just to get some food.

Of course, it's a scifi trope, but like the idea that Ming the Merciless might want to marry Dale Arden it is simply a thinly-veiled racist exaggeration of the threat posed to "us" by "them", in a context where both us and them are humans.

I mean, humans will engage in beastiality, but even that is usually limited to mammalia, and rarely is marriage considered. Beastiality across not just classes, phyla, or kingdoms, but between life forms from entirely different evolutionary histories is truly absurd.

As usual, it turns out that scifi is all about human relationships with each other, and has nothing to say about aliens at all. Scifi aliens are just an analogy for humans that the author doesn't want to explicitly name.