Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum I grew up watching Star Trek and believing

or at least strongly WANTING to believe that there are alien intelligences out there somewhere and that some day we would communicate with them, perhaps even meet them.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/newmedia/la-et-ufo22aug22,0,2266445.story

The claim by UFOlogists that people just "don't want to believe" is ludicrous. I think most people - myself included - WANT to believe. But some of us are willing to ignore every ounce of natural skepticism we might possess.

I'm with you on that.

The most impressive UFO I ever saw was when I was 3 or 4 yrs old, gazing up through a bedroom window and being enthralled by a red light traversing the black sky. Even at that time, I was old enough to know that it was most likely a plane - but knowing also that it just might be 'spacemen'!

I've never given serious attention to the UFO speculations. It was always the stuff of exciting black and white movies. But I'm more convinced than ever that we are surrounded by vast and wonderful intelligences who themselves are as newborns among the ineffable spirits of the cosmos.

The world does not begin and end with science alone. There's magic, beauty, wonder, music and poetry. These things, also, are real, and have real meaning...Horatio...

Surely any person who thought about it as they looked at the night sky and all those stars would have to concede that there may be other intelligences/beings out there, wouldn't they?

Senior member indeed!!!!! (OK so it's accurate!!!!

"Surely any person who thought about it as they looked at the night sky and all those stars would have to concede that there may be other intelligences/beings out there, wouldn't they?"

The difference in this particular millenium is the move away from anthropo-centricity. It doesn't have to be solely about us anymore. But that's all jolly scientific and philosophical.

Actually, there must be a lot of people like my mum. When she looked into the night sky she saw beauty, romance and poetry - aspects of reality that many wanna-be-Dawkins types seem to see as having no intrinsic reality whatsoever. I hope and trust that those great and wonderful wizards in the sky are much more than soulless purveyors of materialism.

Why would Dawkins be saddled with the responsibility for the abolition of beauty, romance and poetry? And what is more romantic than space and everything that could exist there?

Ellis: "Why would Dawkins be saddled with the responsibility for the abolition of beauty, romance and poetry?"

Fortunately (as far as I can see) it hasn't been abolished. And Dawkins himself, judging from what I've heard from him, acknowledges their reality as emergent qualities of biological processes. However, there are on the internet a good many people who assume that anything intangible that eludes scientific measurement must be unreal. This is invariably an atheist stance. Perhaps I appear to take the name of the honorable arch-atheist Dawkins in vain; that's not my intention - but there appears to be a cult arising in his wake that is distinctly malicious and undesirable.

Ellis: "And what is more romantic than space and everything that could exist there?"

Nothing, probably, but that's a rhetorical question (isn't it?).

Probably rhetorical- but I found watching last night's spectacular Lunar eclipse romantic (dict. def.) "impractical or overtly idealistic; having no basis in real life"-- when in fact it was manifestly scientific! I am surrounded by scientific types(!) and I think the most successful are the ones who develop and keep a sense of enthusiasum and wonder at the beauty, romance and poetry of the sciences.

PS Does measurement confer reality?

I thought the eclipse was tonight. Darn, I missed it!

Ellis: "PS Does measurement confer reality?"

Not unless one is referring to quantum theory, superposition, and multiple universes. What I was referring to is the fact that some people seem to limit the use of the word 'real' to those things that can be measured, i.e all physical things, and regard emergent qualities (consciousness, and all that is associated with it)as unreal.

I've just finished reading Carl Sagan's 'The Cosmic Connection', first published in 1974. It's a book full of romance*** and optimistic speculation. He was a scientist (and atheist), ranking among the best in the field of planetary science, yet delightfully untrammeled by the 'scientist' stereotype of the emotionless logic machine.

*** a spirit or feeling of adventure, excitement, the potential for heroic achievement, and the exotic.

Interestingly, before this video came out, there were professionals who were saying that Jamaican video take an immense amount of time, skill, and effort to produce.

There are probably people who even now will assert that it couldn't possibly have been faked.