Re: POLL: The Fourth Kind, Alien Abductions
Since I gave my personal experience, I'll now discuss science. Most arguments against ETs being here are not valid scientifically:
* The argument about sleep paralysis cannot be applied. It assumes too much about how cognition works and what is real or not real. For instance, it assumes something experienced in the waking REM state is imagined or a hallucination. What if when in that state we are just open to seeing more? I think there are too many questions that can't be answered, and all the study about sleep paralysis shows is physiological affects versus having any insight on what it means to see something. However, it is also foolish to assume something experienced during sleep paralysis is necessarily real.
* Arguments about if there were ETs out there then at least one would be bad and attack us is invalid. I can think of two arguments: (1) We could be protected (2) Most races that survive sufficiently long enough to develop interstellar travel could be socially more advanced. It would only take the local group.
* Arguments that interstellar travel is too tough or there would be no reason for them to come here: We are assuming interstellar travel is difficult to a more advanced race. I can think of reasons for coming: curiosity, connection, or caring.
* Arguments that based on the assumption they will look one way or another or may not look like us, etc, etc: Huh? We have detected 3 dozen planets. We now know that most if not all stars have planets. How do you know what's out there? How do you know they are even physical?
* Why wouldn't they announce themselves to the government authorities? (1) Why would they recognize our government? For instance, what if they have a collective consciousness and consider the collective consciousness of humanity as the authority - then wouldn't they be interested in making a connection to our probably not very cohesive collective consciousness? (2) Why would they want to create a panic? (3) How do you know they even consider humans the species to talk to on the planet? Perhaps they come to talk to whales and dolphins?
* If they are here we'd see them. Silly. An advanced race could probably watch us without being seen and potentially could even change their form to walk amongst us without being detected.
Furthermore, keep in mind that a lot of arguments against tend to be based on physicality, realism, determinism, etc. You really have to expand discussions to not be so tied to these outdated ways of thinking. For instance, you can't ignore the possibility that mind has some influence and those who aren't open don't attract their energies here. You can't assume they are physical. You can't assume they are even able to see our world unless we subconsciously invite them here. Perhaps that's why accounts always seem familiar to us (insectoids, reptoids, greys - like ants). Perhaps that's what we invite because it's familiar? Perhaps most are in alternate realities and only few get through. Obviously, I'm just giving examples of why speculation based on what we think we know is nonsense. There is a lot we don't know and we may not be able to answer this question until we can answer other of the age old ontological questions.
There is a lot we don't know - telepathy, are there souls, is consciousness physical or non-corporeal, etc, etc. There are "new" scientific directions that may chip away at this and other questoins. Quantum mechanics throw out determinism and potentially yields insight into the mind works if our minds end up working more like quantum computers. Quantum states exist in superposition until an observation / measurement is made. That allows for quantum computers to take advantage of entanglement for data transmission in what is called quantum networking (note this doesn't allow faster-than-light communication) through what is known as quantum teleportation (which essentially moves, not copies, the quantum state). Entanglement involves the Bell state 1/sqrt(2) * (|00> + |11>) or other similar variations. Note that entangled qbits is considered a resource, however entangelement is not necessarily consumed by an operation because it can be reversed after a measurement is made (though with some limitations for such things as quantum decoherence). What if one key component to sentient life is that somehow sentient life harvests some form of entanglement and then can pass the entanglement along to offspring? What if the other side of the entangled "bits" is non-physical and it is in fact the entanglement that allows our brain to communicate with our non-corporeal mind and translate that through our brain circuitry into something our body can work with? What if it's this same mechanism that also allows telepathy (e.g. the non-corporeal mind "stuff" can also communicate regardless of physical distance here)? Makes you think, huh? Obviously, we don't know a way to devise an experiment to test this yet, though it is probably testable. This exercise should be a reminder of what little we currently know about the deep questions.
String theory also brings up some interesting points. M-theory exposes the potential of anywhere from 9 to 11 dimensions. some are wrapped up in the Calibri Yau space and some wrap us. What if sentient life can exist in some of these other dimensions, though nothing like us? What if they can also interact with us at will? What if their existance within that space makes interstellar travel easier for them than us? What if they know how to enter our space somehow (or at least influence it somehow)? Again, just another example of what little we know since we can't answer that question yet.
Just because we don't know how to devise experiments for these questions doesn't mean they aren't solvable. We need to keep plugging away. For instance, the theory that there are multiple universes doesn't seem testable because other universes would be unreachable and temporally disconnected. However, a mathematician devised a way to determine if our universe has collided with other universes, by figuring out the imprint it would leave. Now cosmologists have something to go on and are looking for that imprint.
Although I have interacted with ETs myself, I want nothing more than for others to know we are not alone as well. However, I know that unless they touch down in a city somewhere and say "hi", we may need to become more advanced to detect them ourselves, especially considering the ones I interacted with are non-physical. Therefore, I am hoping we have some breakthrough that allows this and I think that as we advanced more in quantum mechanics and string theory, and perhaps our understanding of consciousness, we may just have that breakthrough.
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