What would you think if definitive proof of alien life emerged? Would it consign all religious thought to, as Mark Twain once predicted, the fate of a stuffed ornament in museums? How would suggestive confirmation of the principles of uniformity and plenitude - that if life can form on Earth it can form anywhere and thus will for everywhere - mix with confirmation of the principle of mediocrity (nothing special about humans)? Would mediocrity impact humans relation with technology and would plenitude turn science skyward?
Disclosure Day (2026), Spielberg: https://youtu.be/icDuEHSxE-w?si=jKBowVzx1K6IggNh
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Who gets to decide what is and isn't an extraordinary claim? I'm sure Sagan and the people who quote him have a convenient answer to that one.
Great question, Pou. Often it's obvious. Compare these claims. I saw a dog at the park (ordinary claim). I saw an alien riding a dragon at the park (extraordinary claim).
I suppose mainstream science is the guide but not the Pope nor infallible. As we discover new things and broaden our understandings the bar for claims might change.
Who knows? A thousand years from now aliens in the park might be an ordinary claim. But not today.
Dont confuse the Pope with Poppa Hoey!
You having seen an alien riding a dragon isn't something you can prove any more than you can prove you saw a dog at the park, HOE. These are experiential claims, and therefore in the realm of the supernatural.
Perhaps if you wore a GoPro everywhere, you would have evidence of everything you might claim to have seen. But you're a man who wants others to have evidence of their experiences. Would mandatory GoPros be suitable? Bodycams perhaps?
Doesn't work for the Police.
Poupou, why is testimony about seeing an alien riding a dragon in the park on par with testimony about seeing a dog in the park? I cannot see any good argument for treating each with the same scepticism. The former is testimony about a departure from ordinary experience whereas the latter is testimony about ordinary experience.
You appear to equate "experiential" with "supernatural". This is like reading Descartes' dream argument without turning the page to see his cogito reply.
Straight to the appeal to authority Daz? Don't let Descartes do your thinking for you. He is dead.
Sagan is dead, you now have Neil Agrasse Tyson (spell check)
Poupou, Sagan was just adapting David Hume's argument against miracles. Hume advised exercising suspicion about any claim that violates every material experience you have ever had. But that's insufficient as we routinely discover new things. So he said we know the claim is a miracle claim - what Sagan generalized as extraordinary - because it is an intrinsically unlikely departure from evidentiary experience AND it relies more on testimony than any directly prevalent evidence.
Pou, You're moving the goal posts on the key idea.
It would be ridiculous to give equal weight to "Paris exists” or “I was born in Sydney” (birth certificate is evidence of that claim) to “I’m the Queen of Mars with a dragon army."
Not sure what you're looking for? Certainty? Irrefutable evidence?
Not sure there is much absolute certainty in life beyond death and suffering.
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