UFOs in Texas - Page 8

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 01-23-2008, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sordavie

That they fail at abductive reasoning is the reason why they come to silly, unreasonable conclusions. That is why reasonable people regard these people as kooks.

Abductive reasoning is, in other terms, inference to the best explanation. Conspiracy theorists and such fail at this sort of reasoning because they ignore or don't recognize what the best explanation is, and instead infer something else.

If you can't see why that's important to this discussion, I don't know what to say to you.

Firstly, you made it sound as if you where revealing something new. I am pretty sure most of us realize that some are not coming up with the best explanation given commonly known facts.

You also seem to be saying that this is a bad thing.

You don't think that abductive reasoning is the only way to come up with explanations, do you? Even if it is used it isn't always going to come up with the correct answer, right?

So failing at abductive reasoning may, in fact, come up with the correct explanation. Right?

Or maybe they are not even trying to use that type of reasoning. Why should we always use that type of reasoning? It doesn't always work.

So you might have been saying that they are using their marvelous human imagination to come up with better explanations of odd occurrences.

But even the basic assumption that they failed in the first place is not entirely correct. If it is a fact that we are commonly visited by extraterrestrials and that the government works hard to cover it up then they did not fail at all. And among that group this is a fact.

Plus in the beginning it was a fact that the Air force did not have any planes in the area even though some reported seeing military jets. If you believe that fact and also believe the reports of the eye witnesses then your method reasoning kinda fails. Now you are left with opposing facts and it just doesn't work.

So if that was indeed a fact and you rule out things like clouds and meteors then how can abductive reasoning work? The process itself fails. This comes up often in life and then you are left using heuristics or things like statistics. Those things are not foolproof either, of course.

Even with all that I don't see how a UFO sighting even can be solved using abductive reasoning. To use it you would have to use, as a fact, that extraterrestrials don't enter our field of view on a regular basis. That really isn't a fact. We know little about the universe at large. That fact is based on our limited understanding. And that understanding doesn't preclude the possibility. It is just unlikely that it is happening.

After all, likelihood of intelligent life being in the universe is pretty good.

Likelihood that the intelligent life has visited us, pretty darn small. All it takes is one confirmed sighting to change the small probability to a very big probability.

**sordavie** · 01-23-2008, 10:51 PM

um what?

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 01-23-2008, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sordavie

um what?

I expected as much.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 01-23-2008, 11:04 PM

I don't want to leave it there. That isn't why I created the thread.

What is your explanation given the facts as reported in the beginning and show us your reasoning you used.

Kerostasis · 01-23-2008, 11:56 PM

Wait, so Abductive reasoning isn't the reasoning used to create stories about alien abductions?

...

Sorry...

Back on topic, on the one hand it is far more likely that flashy lights in the sky are the result of our planes flying overhead then that they are UFOs. Even before the government came out and made this claim, it was still more likely. On the other hand, in the off chance that the lights really were generated by UFOs, would it not be in the governments best interests to claim that they were ordinary fighter planes anyway?

mentholated · 01-23-2008, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sordavie

um what?

Why is it people always say simple things like that when they're unable to come out with a logical reply?

Wait, that was a rhetorical question.

mentholated · 01-24-2008, 12:02 AM

I fully endorse deductive reasoning.

Check it out, its useful!

Quote:

Deductive reasoning is supported by deductive logic (which is not quite the same thing).

For example:

All apples are fruit.
All fruits grow on trees.
Therefore all apples grow on trees.

Or

All apples are fruit.
Some apples are red.
Therefore some fruit is red.

Intuitively, one might deny the major premise and hence the conclusion; yet anyone accepting the premises accepts the conclusion.

ScratchMonkey · 01-24-2008, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Wait, so Abductive reasoning isn't the reasoning used to create stories about alien abductions?

I don't think I've heard of it before, so I just assumed Sordavie was making a pun.

For those as confused as I:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning

We could also assume that UFO's are just appearances by the IPU (blessed be her mighty hooves) or the FSM.

**sordavie** · 01-24-2008, 03:05 AM

You seriously need me to explain why there are more reasonable and plausible explanations than "aliens with the ability to make artificial wormholes fly over small towns in Texas" for why some people in Stephenville report seeing unfamiliar things in the sky?

Reasoning in general is the process whereby we figure out what we're warranted or justified in believing. Abductive reasoning is inference to the best explanation. It is used in cases of incomplete knowledge or uncertainty about the world, and it is related to a form of reasoning which we colloquially call "educated guessing." In such cases, which is almost all of the time, there is no form of reasoning that will "always work." We believe what we're best justified in believing--even if we know that we're fallible, or perhaps because we know we're fallible. It is the most common form of reasoning that we use from day to day--especially in cases of problem solving when our knowledge is incomplete.

You wake up and find that your car doesn't start, that even the lights don't turn on. Given this evidence, what should you believe? Most people decide what to believe by first looking at the evidence and considering what could possibly cause it. Here are some possible explanations for why your car doesn't start and the lights don't turn on: you left your lights on over night and the battery died; the gas tank is empty; the government is conspiring against you and sent CIA operatives to change your healthy battery for a dead one while you were asleep; rogue clowns stole your spark plugs during the night; your car teleported itself to Australia right before you woke up and a replica (albeit with a dead battery) sprang from the ground where your car used to be; you're hallucinating the whole situation, there's actually no car, and you're standing next to a tree, trying to shove a tooth brush into it's base. Any of these would explain your evidence--that you can't seem to start your car or get the lights to work. But, some of these explanations are better than others. Doubtless there are other possible explanations, but for the purposes of this exercise it should be clear that you're warranted in believing the first explanation and not any of the competing ones.

In particular, you're warranted in believing the first one because it is the "best," of any competing explanation, for your evidence. Moreover, the reason you're not warranted in believing the others is because they aren't the "best." What counts as the best explanation? Well, that's a complex matter of the prior probability of the explanation, the conditional probability of the explanation given the evidence, coherence of the explanation with other things we know, simplicity of the explanation, explanatory power, and so on. Although it is hard to spell out the exact rules governing when something is the best explanation--just like it's hard to spell out the exact rules governing English grammar--most of us have no trouble coming to the correct conclusions.

As gamers, we use abductive reasoning when we troubleshoot hardware and software issues. We have a bunch of evidence and then we think of what would best explain why the computer is doing what it's doing. We don't just jump to esoteric conclusions. We first consider the hypotheses that we're most warranted in believing. Those would be the ones the ones that are most likely causing our issues. That's inference to the best explanation.

Conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts fail to recognize, ignore, or just refuse to believe the best explanation for their evidence; and thus, they come to have unwarranted beliefs. The reason such people are kooks is because they fail at this sort of reasoning. This is not to say that anyone who fails at this sort of reasoning is a conspiracy theorist or UFO nut. We all make mistakes in reasoning from time to time. I'm just pointing out the particular sort of mistake these people consistently make regarding certain issues. It's interesting because you can pinpoint a certain kind of mistake that they share.

Consider your own piece of abductive reasoning: Either it was a meteor that broke up or it really was an alien spacecraft. So, you come to believe that it was probably a meteor that broke up because you think it's the best explanation of the two. Problem: do you really think that those are the only two possible explanations? There are other explanations that are much better than a real spacecraft or a meteor breaking up. There's one in the link I posted. There was miscommunication in the report that no planes were flying in the area at that time, and there actually were. That's a much better explanation than either of the two you came up with. That would have been a better explanation even if information about the miscommunication--those kinds of things happen all the time--didn't surface. That new information served to make this explanation even better. Still, you did you did try to make an inference to the best explanation. That's good. You didn't make the sort of mistake that conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts make. You didn't make the mistake of refusing to believe the best explanation, you didn't fail to recognize that you should believe the best explanation, and you didn't just ignore the best explanation. Unfortunately, you failed to recognize that there are other explanations, and many of them better explanations than the ones you considered.

**sordavie** · 01-24-2008, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Back on topic, on the one hand it is far more likely that flashy lights in the sky are the result of our planes flying overhead then that they are UFOs. Even before the government came out and made this claim, it was still more likely.

That's a piece of abductive reasoning there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mentholated

I fully endorse deductive reasoning.

Check it out, its useful!

Um, thank you. I teach a course in logic. However, deductive reasoning is not the kind of reasoning that is relevant here.

Kerostasis · 01-24-2008, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sordavie

That's a piece of abductive reasoning there.

I know, I was just trying to make a joke based on the coincidence of the word "abductive" (which is extremely rare in normal conversation) coming up in a discussion on UFOs. I guess I should have added a smiley or something. The "sorry" tacked on the end was due to my belief that bad puns inherently deserve to be followed by apologies.

mentholated · 01-24-2008, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sordavie

You seriously need me to explain why there are more reasonable and plausible explanations than "aliens with the ability to make artificial wormholes fly over small towns in Texas" for why some people in Stephenville report seeing unfamiliar things in the sky?

Reasoning in general is the process whereby we figure out what we're warranted or justified in believing. Abductive reasoning is inference to the best explanation. It is used in cases of incomplete knowledge or uncertainty about the world, and it is related to a form of reasoning which we colloquially call "educated guessing." In such cases, which is almost all of the time, there is no form of reasoning that will "always work." We believe what we're best justified in believing--even if we know that we're fallible, or perhaps because we know we're fallible. It is the most common form of reasoning that we use from day to day--especially in cases of problem solving when our knowledge is incomplete.

You wake up and find that your car doesn't start, that even the lights don't turn on. Given this evidence, what should you believe? Most people decide what to believe by first looking at the evidence and considering what could possibly cause it. Here are some possible explanations for why your car doesn't start and the lights don't turn on: you left your lights on over night and the battery died; the gas tank is empty; the government is conspiring against you and sent CIA operatives to change your healthy battery for a dead one while you were asleep; rogue clowns stole your spark plugs during the night; your car teleported itself to Australia right before you woke up and a replica (albeit with a dead battery) sprang from the ground where your car used to be; you're hallucinating the whole situation, there's actually no car, and you're standing next to a tree, trying to shove a tooth brush into it's base. Any of these would explain your evidence--that you can't seem to start your car or get the lights to work. But, some of these explanations are better than others. Doubtless there are other possible explanations, but for the purposes of this exercise it should be clear that you're warranted in believing the first explanation and not any of the competing ones.

In particular, you're warranted in believing the first one because it is the "best," of any competing explanation, for your evidence. Moreover, the reason you're not warranted in believing the others is because they aren't the "best." What counts as the best explanation? Well, that's a complex matter of the prior probability of the explanation, the conditional probability of the explanation given the evidence, coherence of the explanation with other things we know, simplicity of the explanation, explanatory power, and so on. Although it is hard to spell out the exact rules governing when something is the best explanation--just like it's hard to spell out the exact rules governing English grammar--most of us have no trouble coming to the correct conclusions.

As gamers, we use abductive reasoning when we troubleshoot hardware and software issues. We have a bunch of evidence and then we think of what would best explain why the computer is doing what it's doing. We don't just jump to esoteric conclusions. We first consider the hypotheses that we're most warranted in believing. Those would be the ones the ones that are most likely causing our issues. That's inference to the best explanation.

Conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts fail to recognize, ignore, or just refuse to believe the best explanation for their evidence; and thus, they come to have unwarranted beliefs. The reason such people are kooks is because they fail at this sort of reasoning. This is not to say that anyone who fails at this sort of reasoning is a conspiracy theorist or UFO nut. We all make mistakes in reasoning from time to time. I'm just pointing out the particular sort of mistake these people consistently make regarding certain issues. It's interesting because you can pinpoint a certain kind of mistake that they share.

Consider your own piece of abductive reasoning: Either it was a meteor that broke up or it really was an alien spacecraft. So, you come to believe that it was probably a meteor that broke up because you think it's the best explanation of the two. Problem: do you really think that those are the only two possible explanations? There are other explanations that are much better than a real spacecraft or a meteor breaking up. There's one in the link I posted. There was miscommunication in the report that no planes were flying in the area at that time, and there actually were. That's a much better explanation than either of the two you came up with. That would have been a better explanation even if information about the miscommunication--those kinds of things happen all the time--didn't surface. That new information served to make this explanation even better. Still, you did you did try to make an inference to the best explanation. That's good. You didn't make the sort of mistake that conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts make. You didn't make the mistake of refusing to believe the best explanation, you didn't fail to recognize that you should believe the best explanation, and you didn't just ignore the best explanation. Unfortunately, you failed to recognize that there are other explanations, and many of them better explanations than the ones you considered.

[quote]
The first week of January 2008, came with shocks for at least three dozen people living in Dublin, Stephenville and Selden, Texas, southwest of Fort Worth. The shocks were yellow, red, blue and white lights that showed up after sunset – lights so bright that eyewitnesses compared them to a welder’s torch.

Some of the red lights moved together in pairs. Other red, blue and yellow lights moved around as if “dancing” with each other and then would all turn to a bright, white light and disappear.

Even pilots were eyewitnesses and estimated unidentified lights moving at least 3,000 miles per hour.

One of those pilots is Tim Allen of Selden, Texas, not far from Glen Rose. Mr. Allen is owner of L & S Enterprises and Texas Freight in Glen Rose. It was Tuesday, January 8, about 6:15 PM when he noticed flashing, white lights about 3,500 feet above the ground. He told ABC network News that the lights formed a rectangle pattern that “spanned about a mile long and a half mile wide and the pattern was headed toward Stephenville at 3,000 miles per hour.”

While watching, Mr. Allen said the white lights changed into two sets of huge rectangular patterns in the sky and then disappeared. But 10 minutes later, the lights returned and “two military jets, possibly F-16s, were in pursuit.”

That was Tuesday, January 8. A week before on or around New Year’s Day, 37-year-old metal welder and machinist Ricky Sorrells felt like going deer hunting in the back woods of his Dublin, Texas, home that he shares with his wife and two daughters. Dublin is only about 8 miles west of Stephenville. Both of those small towns form a triangle with close-by Selden.

The sun was a just lowering below some oak trees near his house and Ricky thought he had enough time. He put on his hunting camouflage, grabbed his rifle that was set at 9-Power for deer hunting, and headed for his feeders and a game trail.

Little did Ricky know that he was about to encounter something so large just above his woods that he could not even see the edges of the huge craft. This New Years shock would also be the only day light description so far of what might be flying around at night only visible by the odd patterns of changing, intense lights. [quote]

Planes don't do that, sir. And if it were one of ours, it wouldn't have been built on Terra Firma, though we do have quite a few extremely large subterranean ET bases in the southwest, none of them are large enough to accommodate something like that. It could've been built in orbit or on the mars base, or the moon base. Still, from the behavior, I'd say it wasn't ours. And in this case, that would be a good thing.. because if it was one of ours, I'd be concerned about where the unaccountable two thirds of the gross tax revenue goes.

Whoops, mr Rothschild.. http://dak42.blogspot.com/2007/12/bi...black-ops.html
Sorry mr Rockefeller.

They were just studying our reaction. Thats what they do, and what they're going to do much more frequently because we still collectively refuse to acknowledge their presence and the true nature of our relationship to the rest of this highly populated universe. By they, I mean all of them. Its not as if theres just one race interacting with us, if thats what you believe (or disbelieve). The greys are just working for the Draco's.

We're kind of like a group of babies that refuses to accept that we've been adopted by a gorilla, a comodo dragon, and a group of tibetan monks. The monks are concerned though, because we're destroying the balance of nature here.

**leejo** · 01-24-2008, 10:58 AM

You seem to know an awful lot about the thoughts of these magic space gorillas who have adopted us. May I ask how you came to know so much about their activities, plans, and concerns? What are their intentions? Should I keep saving for retirement or, you know, **** it, I'll just mooch off the space dragons when I'm old?

What's the alien trade, the guys on Wall Street might ask.

mentholated · 01-24-2008, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

You seem to know an awful lot about the thoughts of these magic space gorillas who have adopted us. May I ask how you came to know so much about their activities, plans, and concerns? What are their intentions? Should I keep saving for retirement or, you know, **** it, I'll just mooch off the space dragons when I'm old?

What's the alien trade, the guys on Wall Street might ask.

Curiosity. I just know where to look, and its not as if this stuff is hidden knowledge. (it used to be)

They have no ill-will against us, only our so called leaders and those who hold all of the wealth of the planet and continue to allow it to be destroyed. They do not intervene directly.. kind of like in star trek, the prime directive. There are some groups we have technology exchange programs with, but that deal kinda fell apart. Point is, we have technology hundreds of generations ahead of anything you've ever seen, and they're in the hands of bad people. These people are trying to change, and they want disclosure to occur. There is a group that wanted/wants to stage an interplanetary confrontation on earth using what are called programmed lifeforms (they look like the greys, but they're engineered by us). This would be to dupe the planet into uniting in war against our pseudo-enemy. It won't work though.

If it comes to that, they won't let us because they know how violent our race is, so if they have to, they'll put a stop to it. In reality though, it is up to us to face up to our place in the universe and stop acting like children with guns. They're incredibly concerned about the welfare of the planet (not us, the planet.. because it is also a living organism and we are disrupting its homeostasis). The greys are responsible for some abductions (the rest being perpetrated by our own "shadow" government.. to spread disinformation and fear about the visitors). They (us, the shadow government) have scalar electromagnetic wave technology and remote viewing capabilities but I won't get into that stuff because I don't want to be killed just yet. Theres no point in being covert about what you talk about, because if they wanted to, they could just watch you directly.

Paranoid yet? Don't be. Everything is fine.

**leejo** · 01-24-2008, 12:26 PM

I'm sorry, did you answer my question? I want to know how to make money off of this new info. Do I save for retirement or can I take that trip to Vegas? What about the kids' education? Is that still my problem or will our new friends pick up the tab?

I'm willing to assume that everything you're saying is true. How do I change my behavior?

01-23-2008, 10:51 PM	#107 (permalink)
sordavie Join Date: Nov 2005 Age: 27 Posts: 2,260	Re: UFOs in Texas um what? __________________

01-23-2008, 11:04 PM	#109 (permalink)
El_Gringo_Grande Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: OKIE HOMY Age: 40 Posts: 2,862	Re: UFOs in Texas I don't want to leave it there. That isn't why I created the thread. What is your explanation given the facts as reported in the beginning and show us your reasoning you used. __________________ I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host. - "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson - "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta - If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette Last edited by El_Gringo_Grande; 01-23-2008 at 11:04 PM. Reason: spelling

01-24-2008, 03:05 AM	#114 (permalink)
sordavie Join Date: Nov 2005 Age: 27 Posts: 2,260	Re: UFOs in Texas You seriously need me to explain why there are more reasonable and plausible explanations than "aliens with the ability to make artificial wormholes fly over small towns in Texas" for why some people in Stephenville report seeing unfamiliar things in the sky? Reasoning in general is the process whereby we figure out what we're warranted or justified in believing. Abductive reasoning is inference to the best explanation. It is used in cases of incomplete knowledge or uncertainty about the world, and it is related to a form of reasoning which we colloquially call "educated guessing." In such cases, which is almost all of the time, there is no form of reasoning that will "always work." We believe what we're best justified in believing--even if we know that we're fallible, or perhaps because we know we're fallible. It is the most common form of reasoning that we use from day to day--especially in cases of problem solving when our knowledge is incomplete. You wake up and find that your car doesn't start, that even the lights don't turn on. Given this evidence, what should you believe? Most people decide what to believe by first looking at the evidence and considering what could possibly cause it. Here are some possible explanations for why your car doesn't start and the lights don't turn on: you left your lights on over night and the battery died; the gas tank is empty; the government is conspiring against you and sent CIA operatives to change your healthy battery for a dead one while you were asleep; rogue clowns stole your spark plugs during the night; your car teleported itself to Australia right before you woke up and a replica (albeit with a dead battery) sprang from the ground where your car used to be; you're hallucinating the whole situation, there's actually no car, and you're standing next to a tree, trying to shove a tooth brush into it's base. Any of these would explain your evidence--that you can't seem to start your car or get the lights to work. But, some of these explanations are better than others. Doubtless there are other possible explanations, but for the purposes of this exercise it should be clear that you're warranted in believing the first explanation and not any of the competing ones. In particular, you're warranted in believing the first one because it is the "best," of any competing explanation, for your evidence. Moreover, the reason you're not warranted in believing the others is because they aren't the "best." What counts as the best explanation? Well, that's a complex matter of the prior probability of the explanation, the conditional probability of the explanation given the evidence, coherence of the explanation with other things we know, simplicity of the explanation, explanatory power, and so on. Although it is hard to spell out the exact rules governing when something is the best explanation--just like it's hard to spell out the exact rules governing English grammar--most of us have no trouble coming to the correct conclusions. As gamers, we use abductive reasoning when we troubleshoot hardware and software issues. We have a bunch of evidence and then we think of what would best explain why the computer is doing what it's doing. We don't just jump to esoteric conclusions. We first consider the hypotheses that we're most warranted in believing. Those would be the ones the ones that are most likely causing our issues. That's inference to the best explanation. Conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts fail to recognize, ignore, or just refuse to believe the best explanation for their evidence; and thus, they come to have unwarranted beliefs. The reason such people are kooks is because they fail at this sort of reasoning. This is not to say that anyone who fails at this sort of reasoning is a conspiracy theorist or UFO nut. We all make mistakes in reasoning from time to time. I'm just pointing out the particular sort of mistake these people consistently make regarding certain issues. It's interesting because you can pinpoint a certain kind of mistake that they share. Consider your own piece of abductive reasoning: Either it was a meteor that broke up or it really was an alien spacecraft. So, you come to believe that it was probably a meteor that broke up because you think it's the best explanation of the two. Problem: do you really think that those are the only two possible explanations? There are other explanations that are much better than a real spacecraft or a meteor breaking up. There's one in the link I posted. There was miscommunication in the report that no planes were flying in the area at that time, and there actually were. That's a much better explanation than either of the two you came up with. That would have been a better explanation even if information about the miscommunication--those kinds of things happen all the time--didn't surface. That new information served to make this explanation even better. Still, you did you did try to make an inference to the best explanation. That's good. You didn't make the sort of mistake that conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts make. You didn't make the mistake of refusing to believe the best explanation, you didn't fail to recognize that you should believe the best explanation, and you didn't just ignore the best explanation. Unfortunately, you failed to recognize that there are other explanations, and many of them better explanations than the ones you considered. __________________ Last edited by sordavie; 01-24-2008 at 04:58 AM.

01-24-2008, 10:58 AM	#118 (permalink)
leejo Join Date: Sep 2003 Age: 39 Posts: 7,839	Re: UFOs in Texas You seem to know an awful lot about the thoughts of these magic space gorillas who have adopted us. May I ask how you came to know so much about their activities, plans, and concerns? What are their intentions? Should I keep saving for retirement or, you know, **** it, I'll just mooch off the space dragons when I'm old? What's the alien trade, the guys on Wall Street might ask.

01-24-2008, 12:26 PM	#120 (permalink)
leejo Join Date: Sep 2003 Age: 39 Posts: 7,839	Re: UFOs in Texas I'm sorry, did you answer my question? I want to know how to make money off of this new info. Do I save for retirement or can I take that trip to Vegas? What about the kids' education? Is that still my problem or will our new friends pick up the tab? I'm willing to assume that everything you're saying is true. How do I change my behavior?

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