Are There No Real Words for UFO's?

[Burnt State]

I was thinking about how the strange objects humans have reported seeing in the skies in our earliest stories and recorded history have shifted from being gods in chariots of fire to aliens from other planets. And now perhaps they are ultraterrestrials wielding wicked technology in a parallel setting that our limited consciousness can not quite see.

Maybe we once called them gods, or worshipped them as kings, but now we fear them coming in the night to abduct and experiment on us. They were once Star Gods and now they're visiting foreign scientists who just need to take a good look at us, "Breathe deeply and cough twice while I probe you for a minute." These interpretive shifts seem to be a sociological reflection of the times.

The other noted parallel is that their technology seems to shift according to our own technology, just ahead of our own imaginations of what it was we saw in the sky: chariots, airships, metal saucers, triangular craft, football field size craft or dematerializing, shifting sentient creatures of light?

Maybe those things in the sky are just something we can't accurately describe because we do not have the words to define this unique, anomalous experience. As quantum reality starts to assert itself I wonder what our new imaginative, descriptions of reality will bring in how we define what the UFO mystery is.

 

[Jeff Davis]

This is an excellent post! I apologize for my recent lack of forum attentiveness as i was out of town on a short business trip for a few days. It's not like I think I was missed but it ties in nicely with your post here. Hear me out. It was an extremely cool, fast, and completely distracting affair in Vegas. My first time ever of being there. I was ultimately delighted by the complimentary show that that hosting company provided of Cirque du Soleil performing their stunning O aquatic affair. It was literally as surreal beyond any and all expectancy, as was it's performers exhibition of skillful precision and grace. My wife even managed to coordinate a tour bus for a truly breath taking visit to the Grand Canyon! Which incidentally fully occupied the last day just prior to our departure after the convention's close. That my friend is where your post here comes in.

Nature's signature of unfathomable potential, and the evolutionary progress of mankind as a sentient being within it, and perhaps even more so importantly, without it.

Respectively, mankind is given the opportunity to produce visionary and imaginative spectacles consisting solely of his/her efforts to a truly remarkable end. Eye dazzling is an understatement. However, his environment's glorious unfolding is limited only by his sentient ability to captivate it, as much as he is captivated by it. As we are taught that life's sentient insignificance progressively evolved as emerging no longer a captive of the sea from whence it came, forwarding the cognitively guided grasp of new and "alien" surroundings, perhaps so are we logically and naturally evolving in sentient progressive status, emerging ever so deliberately, as being no longer captivated by the temporal constraints of our present sea of material and physical fixation.

I listened to the AMAZING NOW PLAYING! March 3, 2013 — John Greenewald, Jr. | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio show this evening. It was an excellent paracast to say the least. John's enthusiasm is just so real and obvious. I'm telling you man, this is a GIFT. Just like Stan Gordon. I couldn't stop listening. Here's the thing though:

There seems to be a very genuinely perceived discrepancy between being a "nuts n bolts" guy, and what I think was light heartedly referred to as the 9th dimension approach. I so enjoyed this great show. (thank you Gene and Chris, you do it once again!)

Think on the simple, common sense, and ultimately logical evolution allegory provided above. This nuts n bolts vs. 9th dimension discrepancy would seem to be an illusion caused by what could be referred to as "growing pains" relevant to our species present sentient relationship and orientation to it's environment. Concerning that "sea from whence we came", do we not presently return to as much at will via our own nuts n bolts technological advantage? Now, find yourself several hundred thousands of years removed from our former wet environmental sub developmental captivity, standing upright and barely dried off on the shores of our new sentient surroundings. Would it really be any easier to imagine such a presently well understood and routine trans environmental facilitation then? Would it not seem like just another 9th dimensional fairytale? Of course it would.

It would seem that to facilitate access to the past we must transcend the present. The scope of which reeks of the illusion that is the notion of our temporally bound physical linear progress. Another illogical and illusory growing pain I would imagine.

Hypothetically, Time and space is an observational relationship product of our present environmental orientation within the reference field of consciousness. Somehow our cognitive observations are a post consciousness navigation means within our sentient environment's construct. This field referred displacement of consciousness would seem to be what defines the material relationship we have to our current evolutionary fixation with regards to sentience. Possibly much like mass warps spacetime, possibly what I am referring to as field referred quantum consciousness is the byproduct of black matter's displacement in the universe much like gravity is to mass's orientated warp displacement in spacetime.

 

[Burnt State]

...

Nature's signature of unfathomable potential, and the evolutionary progress of mankind as a sentient being within it, and perhaps even more so importantly, without it.

Respectively, mankind is given the opportunity to produce visionary and imaginative spectacles consisting solely of his/her efforts to a truly remarkable end. Eye dazzling is an understatement. However, his environment's glorious unfolding is limited only by his sentient ability to captivate it, as much as he is captivated by it. As we are taught that life's sentient insignificance progressively evolved as emerging no longer a captive of the sea from whence it came, forwarding the cognitively guided grasp of new and "alien" surroundings, perhaps so are we logically and naturally evolving in sentient progressive status, emerging ever so deliberately, as being no longer captivated by the temporal constraints of our present sea of material and physical fixation.

I have to say, I can be pretty verbose at times, but your post really made me think, and at times I started researching some space physics so I could respond adequately. I was initially speaking from Jerome Clark's contention that our inability to describe the UFO phenomenon is a failure of vocabulary and that what we need to do is continue to find new models of thinking about these experience and event anomalies.

I agree with you that our appreciation for the unfolding of our environment is key to moving past the linguistic limitations. Many on this forum's frequent discussions on global warming, evolution etc. seem to limit us to the status of predator animal. Because we have a sophisticated language and means of representation of ideas we certainly have more to offer and create for ourselves than the simple consumption of resources.

Think on the simple, common sense, and ultimately logical evolution allegory provided above. This nuts n bolts vs. 9th dimension discrepancy would seem to be an illusion caused by what could be referred to as "growing pains" relevant to our species present sentient relationship and orientation to it's environment. Concerning that "sea from whence we came", do we not presently return to as much at will via our own nuts n bolts technological advantage? Now, find yourself several hundred thousands of years removed from our former wet environmental sub developmental captivity, standing upright and barely dried off on the shores of our new sentient surroundings. Would it really be any easier to imagine such a presently well understood and routine trans environmental facilitation then? Would it not seem like just another 9th dimensional fairytale? Of course it would.

I don't know. In my future 9th dimensional habitation I would like to think that the new words learned along the way would help us to transcend that fairytale and perhaps give us a more functional understanding of how consciousness and sentience relates to our habitat.

It would seem that to facilitate access to the past we must transcend the present. The scope of which reeks of the illusion that is the notion of our temporally bound physical linear progress. Another illogical and illusory growing pain I would imagine.

Hypothetically, Time and space is an observational relationship product of our present environmental orientation within the reference field of consciousness. Somehow our cognitive observations are a post consciousness navigation means within our sentient environment's construct. This field referred displacement of consciousness would seem to be what defines the material relationship we have to our current evolutionary fixation with regards to sentience. Possibly much like mass warps spacetime, possibly what I am referring to as field referred quantum consciousness is the byproduct of black matter's displacement in the universe much like gravity is to mass's orientated warp displacement in spacetime.

Somewhere around the second sentence of this paragraph I lost grip a little on what your consciousness was navigating. By the third sentence I was feeling like my own sentience was being displaced. By the time I got to the last sentence, no matter how many times I re-read it or researched its potentials, I felt like I needed DMT to see what you were describing. Can you simplify those statements for me?

 

[Jeff Davis]

I have to say, I can be pretty verbose at times, but your post really made me think, and at times I started researching some space physics so I could respond adequately. I was initially speaking from Jerome Clark's contention that our inability to describe the UFO phenomenon is a failure of vocabulary and that what we need to do is continue to find new models of thinking about these experience and event anomalies.

Jerome is an exceptionally brilliant man. I consider his research to be indispensable to my interests in these matters. Both directly and inadvertently, Jerome Clark is *why I am posting on the Paracast Forums these days. I could go into *that, but it's not pertinent to our discussion here.

I agree with you that our appreciation for the unfolding of our environment is key to moving past the linguistic limitations. Many on this forum's frequent discussions on global warming, evolution etc. seem to limit us to the status of predator animal. Because we have a sophisticated language and means of representation of ideas we certainly have more to offer and create for ourselves than the simple consumption of resources.

I agree wholeheartedly. Once a caveman, not always a caveman. It's the nature of progressive sentient evolution. Incidentally, NOT my idea but rather one that dates WAY back many centuries. It seems to be utter truth IMO and that's why I accept it and have chosen to consciously run with that ball.

I don't know. In my future 9th dimensional habitation I would like to think that the new words learned along the way would help us to transcend that fairytale and perhaps give us a more functional understanding of how consciousness and sentience relates to our habitat.

No, and naturally none of us do "know", but rather we hypothetically (and hopefully logically) speculate the future content/constructs of relative words not yet born unto the commonality of socially organized linguistics. So in this I agree with you fully that some day these words will be common to our understanding in practice. I was unfair in my flightiness of mind due to the paragraph your responding to here actually being deeply rooted in the context of the very recent John Greenewald Jr. Paracast episode as I felt it inter meshed with the content of your thread. Perhaps my mind was hyper threading. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough making reference to as much. These things run together sometimes.

Somewhere around the second sentence of this paragraph I lost grip a little on what your consciousness was navigating. By the third sentence I was feeling like my own sentience was being displaced. By the time I got to the last sentence, no matter how many times I re-read it or researched its potentials, I felt like I needed DMT to see what you were describing. Can you simplify those statements for me?

Here is a sentence by sentence simplification in retrospect. Please remember our qualifying contextual model in the making here, for this relative speculation, is HYPOTHETICAL. Imagination is key albeit a very logical comparative with respect to basic quantum reasoning.

Hypothetically, Time and space is an observational relationship product of our present environmental orientation within the reference field of consciousness.

This is to state that we typically, in a physical sense, experience space and time relative to consciousness as a result of sentient (awareness based) cognition. In short, this relationship means that we we are an energetic point of awareness in consciousness first. Our perception of space and time are the relative result of cognition post observation. This is not to state that either do not exist apart from cognition, but rather that our perceived definitions in terms of finite measurements like speed, distance, temperature, etc. are the result of as much. This speaks of a field within a field that refers reality prior to the act of observation which defines it's concepts. Our waking cognitive abilities, at the point of observation, give the physical world and all it's relative measurable attributes, their familiar construct in relation to our physical being. This material world It's what gives us our finite grasp on reality. This being all post observation. But here's the thing. This is where it gets REALLY interesting. Our sentient awareness exists outside the realm of cognition. Cognition acts as a furthering relative interpreter. What does this tell us? It speaks quite frankly of the fact that our awareness of reality is not bound by the temporal nature of our human existence relative to itself apart from awareness itself. As a point in consciousness, we are aware of a reasoned linearity of time only be means of our physically relative cognitive functionality. What is utterly amazing about this? We have proved that our awareness is capable of being navigated vast distances without any relationship to time or actual physical distance while still in yet maintaining a comprehensive referred relationship to these physically measurable attributes.

Somehow our cognitive observations are a post consciousness navigation means within our sentient environment's construct.

This states that our sentient evolution within the environment of consciousness that it exists within and is driven by, operates via the same instinctual drivers in parallel to those that serve to motivate our basic laws of survival in the jungle so to speak. The jungle being the physical realm wherein we need our most acute physical powers of awareness to keep us from becoming dinner at the waterhole. Our advanced cognitive features provide us a similar advantage. What does physicality and mortality find enmity with precisely, and more precisely, how could our advancing sentient instincts serve us to overcome such threats?


This field referred displacement of consciousness would seem to be what defines the material relationship we have to our current evolutionary fixation with regards to sentience.

In physics a field is merely a point in space. Measurements can then be made in relation to other points in space. Within quantum reasoned happenstance we are an energetic point in consciousness. The physical nature of space, matter, and time are references that we cognitively identify relative to our energetic point of awareness within consciousness. In as much we are a field within a field and the very construct of cognitively determined physical reality is a reference from one field to the other. An interpretation if you will. Where this gets incredibly interesting IMO is the translation process wherein it may become possible...we'll save this for a later time. When you see me use the hypothetical terms "sentient evolution" this merely refers to the advancing state of human awareness and how it facilitates not only our understand of reality, but also it's formulation and how we find ourselves "fixed" in relationship to it. Basically our physical time based orientation to as much.

Possibly much like mass warps spacetime, possibly what I am referring to as field referred quantum consciousness is the byproduct of black matter's displacement in the universe much like gravity is to mass's orientated warp displacement in spacetime.

This is a very speculative and sketchy analogy that seeks logical comparative relevance to other quintessential components within our universe. Gravity is big. Real BIG. The understanding that Einstein's powerful physic's construct gave us with regard to gravity's direct relationship to the manner in which mass warps spacetime is a truly mind blowing consideration. To me, it's even more mind blowing that gravity can and does warp time itself. However, all this pales by comparison to the consideration that time itself is a byproduct of a post sentient observational relationship that we share as an energetic point in consciousness with our interpretive cognitive faculties. Ask yourself this. Since we know that observation as driven and directed by independent volition (willful intent) can and does exist apart from typified physically based cognitive reason, what happens to time when mass and gravity hold no meaning for awareness? Let's back up just a minute. What is our awareness prior to our cognitive powers of interpretation? It's an energetic point. How would time impact energetic awareness minus the physical constructs of mass and gravity? It believe at best it possibly becomes a form of pure resistance that has very little if any sentient impact on us.

Black Matter is very cool and mysterious stuff. We don't know what it is but we do know it's both real and extremely abundant. I forget what the actual percentages are within the universe but the analogy of it's volume comparatively is something akin to an ocean in relation to the vacuum of space itself being a drop of water. It's pretty vast. Gravity is the result of large bodies of mass bending/warping the interwoven fabric of spacetime. In a universe wherein no present mysteries remain (fat chance!) what might be the effects of black matter's displacement within whatever it's displacing? Could the resulting attribute, as cognitively relevant gravity is to mass's warp of spacetime, be in some way related to consciousness? What about that energetic point of awareness and it's secondary counter part that is cognitive reason....?

 

[Randall]

I was thinking about how the strange objects humans have reported seeing in the skies in our earliest stories and recorded history have shifted ... As quantum reality starts to assert itself I wonder what our new imaginative, descriptions of reality will bring in how we define what the UFO mystery is.

When it comes to what we mean by the word "UFO", and we look at it objectively, tracing its origin back to the who, what, when, where, and why of its creation, and following its use through to contemporary time, there is one common thread ... one common denominator ... one overwhelmingly obvious and consistent idea that applies to all settings, past present and future, and that is that UFOs are alien craft.

If it's a strange seismic light discharge, then it's not a UFO. If it's a vague light off in the distance, it's not a UFO. If it's a holographic projection up in sky, it's not a UFO. However when we're talking about some sort of craft that is alien to our civilization, if not our world, there is no doubt or that we're talking about UFOs ... pure and simple.

We need to step away from the tendency to make UFOs into whatever we want them to be, whatever sells best, whatever is less boring. For ufology to progress it needs a solid foundation based on objective evidence, not shifting sand based on biased preferences or religious beliefs, sci-fi trends, new-age fads or "new imaginative, descriptions of reality". I realize this may not be quite as entertaining for some people, but IMO, ufology should be more concerned about the truth than what people want to see or hear, and I make no apologies for that.

So let's wipe the fog off our lenses and make it clear: If we're talking about anything else besides alien craft then we're not talking about UFOs. It's perfectly fine to go off in search of whatever other phenomenon we like, but even if we should manage to capture an Earthlight or a Pegasus ( or an antique yellow helicopter ), all we've done is secured evidence for a seismic theory or a Greek myth, or an aviation museum, not recovered a UFO.

 

[Jeff Davis]

When it comes to what we mean by the word "UFO", and we look at it objectively, tracing its origin back to the who, what, when, where, and why of its creation, and following its use through to contemporary time, there is one common thread ... one common denominator ... one overwhelmingly obvious and consistent idea that applies to all settings, past present and future, and that is that UFOs are alien craft.

If it's a strange seismic light discharge, then it's not a UFO. If it's a vague light off in the distance, it's not a UFO. If it's a holographic projection up in sky, it's not a UFO. However when we're talking about some sort of craft that is alien to our civilization, if not our world, there is no doubt or that we're talking about UFOs ... pure and simple.

We need to step away from the tendency to make UFOs into whatever we want them to be, whatever sells best, whatever is less boring. For ufology to progress it needs a solid foundation based on objective evidence, not shifting sand based on biased preferences or religious beliefs, sci-fi trends, new-age fads or "new imaginative, descriptions of reality". I realize this may not be quite as entertaining for some people, but IMO, ufology should be more concerned about the truth than what people want to see or hear, and I make no apologies for that.

So let's wipe the fog off our lenses and make it clear: If we're talking about anything else besides alien craft then we're not talking about UFOs. It's perfectly fine to go off in search of whatever other phenomenon we like, but even if we should manage to capture an Earthlight or a Pegasus ( or an antique yellow helicopter ), all we've done is secured evidence for a seismic theory or a Greek myth, or an aviation museum, not recovered a UFO.

Ufology,
Although I normally have found myself in complete agreement with you, I don't know if I can fully agree with you on this one. You're attempting to remove the most important adjective from the phrase "unidentified flying object". Is that fair? Isn't the act of assuming a predisposed definition the antithesis of the very declaration that is Unidentified Flying Object?

I am certainly not doubting the premise that you are putting forth here, as much as I seem to find flaw within it's proposed methodology.

I think that the understanding of reality itself, more so straight toward the notion of the direct involvement of consciousness itself, may in fact solve many taken for granted misconceptions concerning the UFO phenomenon itself. To do so certainly does not lighten the weight of the argument put forth that UFOs are alien craft. If anything it serves to provide a far greater and advanced level of scientific acceptability that indeed UFOs in some cases do in fact represent a controlled "craft" or technological deployment of a type we are yet unfamiliar with.

However, to assume that UFOs are in fact solely technology piloted by aliens may in fact represent the specific pathology that has served to stagnate the advancement of a real understanding concerning the phenomenon itself.

The width of our perspective may in fact be less a key and more so the redesign of the phenomenological lock's accommodation. A map is a broad spectrum affair. If we pinpoint a destination on the map, there are certain to be multiple routes that arrive at this singular destination. Perhaps, and in no way detracting from the reality of as much, "alien craft" while providing a certain route to our destination, may find itself at an impasse unless we provide facilitation to get over and past the depth of an unfathomable ravine. I am simply more concerned with our destination than I am the route we take to arrive. Godspeed to all of us on our journey.

 

[Randall]

Ufology,
Although I normally have found myself in complete agreement with you, I don't know if I can fully agree with you on this one. You're attempting to remove the most important adjective from the phrase "unidentified flying object". Is that fair? Isn't the act of assuming a predisposed definition the antithesis of the very declaration that is Unidentified Flying Object?

Hey Jeff, it's totally cool if you disagree because it shows you're thinking for yourself and I wouldn't want it any other way. But at the same time I think that if you'll bear with me on this ( and it may take some further time and reflection ), you'll eventually see that the rationale actually makes perfect sense, and that our views aren't really at odds.

To help clarify, the first thing to consider is that my post begins by saying we need to be objective in our analysis. To assure objectivity, I traced the word's origin back through books and the NARA archives to its creator and documented the evolution of the official definitions. I also consulted several dictionaries and did an extensive search on the Internet. The result is that the common theme, either stated or implied in words or in pictures, is that the word UFO is used to convey the idea of an alien craft. Not only is it the first thing that comes to people's minds, try doing a Google image search and look at the results. It's so overwhelmingly obvious that it simply cannot be denied without invoking significant personal bias.

However it's not just a matter of how it is most commonly used. It's also a matter of how the word is perceived when its broken down into its long form ( Unidentified Flying Object ). As you point out, it seems to make sense to apply the long form of the acronym ( Unidentified Flying Object ) to the definition of the acronym ( UFO ), and you ask, is it fair to "remove the most important adjective from the phrase 'unidentified flying object'. The answer is that in the context of the definition, yes, it's perfectly fair, and it's in keeping with the best practices of the English language. Specifically, In the English language, acronyms are not properly defined by simply stating their long forms. For example the acronym ELINT stands for Electronic Intelligence and the acronym RADAR stands for radio detection and ranging, but if we didn't know what these acronyms meant, we'd have no idea what they are used for by simply looking at their long forms. Proper definitions require some indication of context and usage. UFOs are no more about flying objects that are merely "unidentified" than ELINT is about the intelligence of electronics. That's why better dictionaries ( e.g. Oxford ) define UFOs this way:

Definition of UFO
noun (plural UFOs)

• a mysterious object seen in the sky for which it is claimed no orthodox scientific explanation can be found, often supposed to be a vehicle carrying extraterrestrials.

Origin: 1950s: acronym from unidentified flying object

But it goes even deeper than that. Common dictionaries usually only scratch the surface of most words. To find the most accurate definitions specialty dictionaries for technical terms related to specific fields often go into further detail. And if we take that route, and try to formulate an objective accurate definition for use in ufology, it still all boils down to the same thing. For further documentation on this particular point, I suggest that you check the links in my signature line. There you will find the references to the official definitions and how they leave no room for anything other than alien craft.

Lastly, let's also clear up another misperception. Accepting that the word UFO is meant to convey the idea of an alien craft does not mean we're presuming that all the objects in UFO reports are alien craft. Again that's why context is so important. The objects described in UFO reports may or may not be UFOs. Upon investigation they may turn out to be any number of other things. This is easily handled in the definition by USI which includes a usage reference in the second level of the definition:

UFO or ufo Pronunciation: yoo-ef-oh ( plural UFOs ) or yoo-foe ( plural ufos ) noun

1. A craft of alien origin.
2. The object or phenomenon that is the focus of a UFO report or investigation.

Word Origin: [ Mid-20th century (1952) acronym formed from the words unidentified flying object. ]

What we have above is an objective accurate definition of what is meant by the word UFO. The only other point to comment on is what we by the word "alien". I sometimes hear that by using the word "alien" we're making a presumption as to origin, when in fact we're not. Being alien simply means foreign to our civilization. For popular and logical reasons this is often presumed to be extraterrestrial, but it neither says ET nor necessitates ET, and therefore several other possibilities remain.

I am certainly not doubting the premise that you are putting forth here, as much as I seem to find flaw within it's proposed methodology.

I think that the understanding of reality itself, more so straight toward the notion of the direct involvement of consciousness itself, may in fact solve many taken for granted misconceptions concerning the UFO phenomenon itself. To do so certainly does not lighten the weight of the argument put forth that UFOs are alien craft. If anything it serves to provide a far greater and advanced level of scientific acceptability that indeed UFOs in some cases do in fact represent a controlled "craft" or technological deployment of a type we are yet unfamiliar with.

However, to assume that UFOs are in fact solely technology piloted by aliens may in fact represent the specific pathology that has served to stagnate the advancement of a real understanding concerning the phenomenon itself.

I see your point, however I don't see it as being a problem. All that defining UFOs does is give us a foundation to keep us focused. For example, if during our ufology studies, we find that some other phenomenon besides UFOs is responsible for some UFO reports, then we can add one more thing to our list of things that UFOs aren't and pass the data along to whoever makes that type of thing their specialty.

The width of our perspective may in fact be less a key and more so the redesign of the phenomenological lock's accommodation. A map is a broad spectrum affair. If we pinpoint a destination on the map, there are certain to be multiple routes that arrive at this singular destination. Perhaps, and in no way detracting from the reality of as much, "alien craft" while providing a certain route to our destination, may find itself at an impasse unless we provide facilitation to get over and past the depth of an unfathomable ravine. I am simply more concerned with our destination than I am the route we take to arrive. Godspeed to all of us on our journey.

Again I see your point, and again I see no problem. To use your map analogy, by defining UFOs in no uncertain terms, we're not allowing our destination to meander wherever or morph into whatever we want them to be based on our biases or what will help sell a particular story. And if there is more than one route to that destination, the more we study it while keeping it in our focus, the more likely we are to find those paths.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I certainly see where you're coming from logically, and respect it completely. As you stated, we are actually in working agreement. When I think of UFOs, I think of intelligently controlled technology that is foreign or alien to what sciences are touted as being representative of our public's basic awareness.

There are so many apparently interconnected facets to the phenomenon, that I am forced to conclude as a basic hypothetical exclusive premise, that we are not dealing with spacefaring extraterrestrials. Possibly not even aliens in terms of being non human in nature. When we look at the universe and the vast and assuredly improbably physical traversed distances that it represents, I am confident that the basis for encapsulated mechanical space travel does not represent the phenomenon accurately. However seemingly insurmountable these distances may comprehensibly play into the equations of those considering them from our own spacefaring scientific vantage point, we now know that sentient awareness is not bound by the finite confines of the physically probable with respect to the universe. I believe what this does is to give us a less than fully comprehensible working hypothetical glimpse, if only in small part, into the technological orientation and realm that may underline the nature of many observed UFOs.

 

[Randall]

I certainly see where you're coming from logically, and respect it completely. As you stated, we are actually in working agreement. When I think of UFOs, I think of intelligently controlled technology that is foreign or alien to what sciences are touted as being representative of our public's basic awareness.

I sense that we're both working in the spirit of seeking the truth, but at the same time, I submit that UFOs go well beyond any of the public's "basic awareness". UFO reports from the Early Modern Era are so far in advance of the technology of the day that there is no reasonable rationale for suggesting that they were representative of any human technology. This can be confirmed by reviewing the witness reports and the USAF studies by the best technical engineers of the day. The most significant report was the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation which concluded that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin.

There are so many apparently interconnected facets to the phenomenon, that I am forced to conclude as a basic hypothetical exclusive premise, that we are not dealing with spacefaring extraterrestrials. Possibly not even aliens in terms of being non human in nature. When we look at the universe and the vast and assuredly improbably physical traversed distances that it represents, I am confident that the basis for encapsulated mechanical space travel does not represent the phenomenon accurately.

There is nothing unscientific or non-plausible or insurmountable about interstellar travel. Even at sub-light speed there are reasonable possibilities. However the evidence in support of the ETH is only based on extrapolation. We ( the public at large ) have no direct evidence that they come from deep space, and therefore, although there seems to be no question about them being alien to our modern civilization, we still cannot be certain they're actually from some distant location in our spacetime.

However seemingly insurmountable these distances may comprehensibly play into the equations of those considering them from our own spacefaring scientific vantage point, we now know that sentient awareness is not bound by the finite confines of the physically probable with respect to the universe. I believe what this does is to give us a less than fully comprehensible working hypothetical glimpse, if only in small part, into the technological orientation and realm that may underline the nature of many observed UFOs.

Could you please elaborate. For example what do you mean by, "Sentient awareness is not bound by the finite confines of the physically probable with respect to the universe." and how does that relate to the "nature of UFOs", particularly in the sense that they have often appeared to have been metallic, tracked on radar and chased by military jets?

 

[Jeff Davis]

I sense that we're both working in the spirit of seeking the truth, but at the same time,(a) I submit that UFOs go well beyond any of the public's "basic awareness". UFO reports from the Early Modern Era are so far in advance of the technology of the day that (b) there is no reasonable rationale for suggesting that they were representative of any human technology. This can be confirmed by reviewing the witness reports and the USAF studies by the best technical engineers of the day.

a) What you submit is what I stated. UFOs are beyond the best of our present scientific public awareness.

(b) IMO, this much is utterly false. Can anyone deny that the Earth has experienced several measurable and documented extinction level events? This view point takes for granted that mankind's present evolutionary staging represents itself singularly. I would refer you here, to my last two submissions within this thread, for a quick run down on what I hold to be far and away more so plausible than "aliens from outer space" Intelligence Agencies-UFO Research | The Paracast Community Forums

The most significant report was the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation which concluded that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin.

IMO, this was a "best guess" from 1948. Hardly relevant in terms of an actual contemporary representation of a "most significant report". Again, JMO.

There is nothing unscientific or non-plausible or insurmountable about interstellar travel.

If the lifeforms you are considering have indefinite life spans, you are correct. Otherwise, it's not likely in the least. But that's not what we "see" when we envision extraterrestrial travel based on UFO reports is it? We imagine we see FAST, as in imperceptibly fast, mechanized friction based air travel, correct? I believe that's a basic misconception of applied technologies in the sentient framework of our best understanding throughout the ages. That's what I am stating. I am referring to hypothetical technologies that would manipulate the temporal nature of the environment we are speculatively misappropriating by thinking of them traveling ultra fast in a physical sense. This is to state that because of a limited understanding of our environment, and therefore due to a relative limited applied technological understanding in relation to it, we are attributing characteristic abilities to UFOs that they do not actually exhibit. Just as we attribute their origin as being extraterrestrial, when in all likelihood, they originate right here on or near Earth.

Even at sub-light speed there are reasonable possibilities.

No, to the best of my understanding there are not. Not according to the best minds I've encountered within experimental, or working cutting edge astrophysics at least. Most contend that it would be utterly impossible, and this includes most of the higher profile adventurous minds within the expressed channels of working science. There are those that are presently researching exotic laser based forms of warp bubble interstellar travel, but no applicable breakthroughs have been made to date, let alone the accommodation of life in tandem to such means. This, to me, would seem to exclude "reasonable possibilities". At least for the time being.

However the evidence in support of the ETH is only based on extrapolation. We ( the public at large ) have no direct evidence that they come from deep space, and therefore, although there seems to be no question about them being alien to our modern civilization, we still cannot be certain they're actually from some distant location in our spacetime.

Yes, and I agree in a most literal sense. That's why I see a far more likely and logical alternative. One that certainly does not discount the reality for UFOs being representative of hypothetical technologies far and away removed from the best of "our" present understanding.

Could you please elaborate. For example what do you mean by, "Sentient awareness is not bound by the finite confines of the physically probable with respect to the universe."

This is to state that we (this present evolutionary stage of mankind) have, in a literally documented and confirmed scientific sense, with complete independent human volition and sentience, traveled to specific locations in the universe apart from any friction based mechanized means as related interactively to the physical universe. Solely by the means of natural consciousness, apart from the constraints of physicality and indeed time itself, we have traveled vast distances via remote viewing.

and how does that relate to the "nature of UFOs", particularly in the sense that they have often appeared to have been metallic, tracked on radar and chased by military jets?

I propose (as do many) that some UFOs represent extra temporal based technologies, primarily of human origin, albeit not the existing evolutionary understanding of humanity that you and I are directly apart of. It would seem that possibly they do not use propulsion in any sense. Rather, they navigate apart from the construct of physicality itself. They travel and navigate the same environment we know and are aware of by means of our physical senses, by cognitively interfacing the emanation of what we call reality, ie. consciousness, and design reality's construct to facilitate and accommodate their willful travel. That doesn't mean that UFOs cannot be metal or other physical alloys. It just means that their technology exhibits the ability to transcend the limitations of time/space as we physically understand them to be, in the same sense that our consciousness can transcend as much via remote viewing. Much like this "barely outside the cave" age of mankind has come to know and utilize computer based facilitation and functionality within many of it's "advanced" technological applications, and is only now developing what is referred to as AI, much older and evolutionarily advanced stages of human existence may have developed what might be termed Artificial Consciousness.If you think clearly about the matter Ufology, you will find that every single advancement of mankind in a technological sense, represents an exponential extension of either nature, or himself. (there is no difference) Our highest known technological achievements to date have been the material replication of cognitive ability. In a logical progressive sense, what would naturally come next?

If you will think long and hard my friend, you will come to realize that such a consideration dispenses, if not solves, almost every Fortean, Mythical, and Religious conundrum ever imagined.

 

[Randall]

a) What you submit is what I stated. UFOs are beyond the best of our present scientific public awareness ... (b) IMO, this much is utterly false ...

This is turning into a more in-depth and interesting and intelligent conversation, but it's also going to go off the rails if we try to deal with the separate issues in each exchange, so at this point I'm going to break it down into separate posts focused on the individual points in the following order :

1. The Technology Gap Between UFOs & Contemporary Human Technology.
2. The Plausibility Of Interstellar travel.
3. The Plausibility of Time Travel.

The Technology Gap Between UFOs & Contemporary Human Technology

Can anyone deny that the Earth has experienced several measurable and documented extinction level events? This view point takes for granted that mankind's present evolutionary staging represents itself singularly. I would refer you here, to my last two submissions within this thread, for a quick run down on what I hold to be far and away more so plausible than "aliens from outer space" Intelligence Agencies-UFO Research | The Paracast Community Forums

Good post in the link above. The ironic thing is that it pretty much says the same thing as I suggested in that UFO is beyond any human technology, to compare quotes:

• From your post: " The difference here is that this real UFO technology that we cannot at this point even begin to grasp ...".
• From my post: "There is no reasonable rationale for suggesting that they [UFOs] were representative of any human technology."

So we actually seem to agree on this, but are perhaps looking at the issue here in a slightly different context.

IMO, this was a "best guess" from 1948. Hardly relevant in terms of an actual contemporary representation of a "most significant report". Again, JMO.

You're absolutely right, but you also seem to be missing the point. If the "best guess" of some of the best minds in 1948 was that UFOs are real and so far beyond the technology of the day as to have been extraterrestrial in origin, then we are looking at a scenario where it was very obvious that the technology gap was so wide as to be unambiguous, and we're dealing with something alien, not necessarily ET as they concluded, but certainly alien not just to the public, but also the USAF analysts.

The post in your link goes on to mention the possibility of hybrid technology that could be under development in secret locations today. That is perfectly reasonable. I don't doubt for a minute that there are programs dedicated to figuring out how UFO propulsion works. We know Bigelow Aerospace was hiring scientists to pursue it. But again, this only reinforces my point. If we're still trying to get it right 60 years later, it's beyond any reason to suggest they had it back when we were still using propellers and the jet age was in its infancy. If we're going to do that we might as well go all the way back to myths about Atlantis, in which case we're still dealing with something alien to our contemporary global civilization.

 

[Burnt State]

To summarize:

I really appreciate that self-reflexive detour into defining the word, 'UFO'. After all, for me this thread is about finding new words to help think more clearly about these tricky and elusive things.

That's an important exercise, just as important to redefine what a working hypothesis around the phenomenon could be including the core debate around nuts and bolts craft vs. alternative explanations for lights that appear to be under some sort of sentient control. All the leading thinkers concede that we are looking at more than one point of origin for these experience and event anomalies.

Consequently, there is a great range in how we define ways of thinking about the problem. Jeff and ufology represent two extreme positions: alien craft and quantum consciousness. In between these two positions contain a great range of possibilities. IMO trainedobservor provided a fairly clear collection of options in a previous post but for the life if me I could not find his very thoughtful list in any past thread i was watching. He had listed about 15 possibilities for what lies between your two positions. But defeating in his perspective is his consistent contention that our perception of reality is only a perception and nothing to do with reality in the first place. That sounds conspicuously like defining all of life as an experience anomaly.

Still, time traveling folk, consciousness projecting minds, aliens in glass/metallic craft or future humans, who simply have access to technology that supersedes our simplistic definitions of time, all seem to have equal probability.

In the lengthy thread on Substrate-independent Minds Mike asked this important question:

Which beggers the question do all civilisations chase this prize ?

ie Is ET post biological ?

Will scientists ever discover the secret of immortality? - Science - News - The Independent

That spawned a huge discussion on AI and alernatives to how consciousness could be housed.

Part of this debate is moot if you agree that all of these are plausible, and in the infinity of the universe, and in its simultaneity of time, all do appear very plausible. These multiple options at work in various combinations over the history of recorded anomalous phenomena seem to be likely to me. Trying to put weight on any specific theory would require some very detailed categorizations of these anomalies. I like Clark's two categories of event and experience anomalies as they help to support both of your two disparate positions: experiencing something that resides in conscious perceptions and recording the physical details of an event that has some very physical features.

Either way, I have greatly appreciated all the detailed thinking here on these familiar themes. I'm still digesting different chunks of it and love all the inventive and critical thought.

 

[Randall]

The Plausibility Of Interstellar Travel

I had said that there is nothing unscientific or non-plausible about interstellar travel. You responded:

If the lifeforms you are considering have indefinite life spans, you are correct. Otherwise, it's not likely in the least. But that's not what we "see" when we envision extraterrestrial travel based on UFO reports is it? We imagine we see FAST, as in imperceptibly fast, mechanized friction based air travel, correct? I believe that's a basic misconception of applied technologies in the sentient framework of our best understanding throughout the ages. That's what I am stating.

Indefinite lifespans aren't required, just really long lifespans or multigenerational ships, which interestingly seem to correspond well from a logistics point of view to the mother ships that have been reported. Also, indefinite lifespans aren't far fetched. There are a couple of natural organisms on Earth that seem to have indefinite lifespans, and our own efforts to scientifically conquer aging are now within sight. There's no reason to think that a species capable of performing interstellar travel would not have also figured out the aging problem.

I am referring to hypothetical technologies that would manipulate the temporal nature of the environment we are speculatively misappropriating by thinking of them traveling ultra fast in a physical sense. This is to state that because of a limited understanding of our environment, and therefore due to a relative limited applied technological understanding in relation to it, we are attributing characteristic abilities to UFOs that they do not actually exhibit. Just as we attribute their origin as being extraterrestrial, when in all likelihood, they originate right here on or near Earth.

There is no evidence that any of the logistical infrastructure for the manufacturing of UFOs anywhere on or near Earth, or for that matter, on any planet we've surveyed, and given our present monitoring, exploration, and surveillance technology and programs, to my knowledge, no reasonable argument has been made to explain how such massive undertakings could be concealed from our present day global civilization.

No, to the best of my understanding there are not [other considerations that make interstellar travel possible]. Not according to the best minds I've encountered within experimental, or working cutting edge astrophysics at least. Most contend that it would be utterly impossible, and this includes most of the higher profile adventurous minds within the expressed channels of working science. There are those that are presently researching exotic laser based forms of warp bubble interstellar travel, but no applicable breakthroughs have been made to date, let alone the accommodation of life in tandem to such means. This, to me, would seem to exclude "reasonable possibilities". At least for the time being.

Funny how those in the "impossible" category always seem to be anti-ufology skeptics who despite being among the "best minds" conveniently fail to do the basic math. There are over 1400 star systems within 50 light years of Earth. So even at 1/3 light speed, the trip to the farthest system could still be done in only about 150 years.

• http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/50lys.html

Also, we've already built some of the technology straight out of Star Trek, including ion propulsion. Plus NASA is now saying that warp drive may require only a fraction of the energy they thought it would. Sure an ion drive would still take a long time to get to another star, but it's far from "impossible". In reality all that is needed are the resources and the time. We've already got the technical ability.

• NASA working on faster-than-light space travel, says warp drives are ‘plausible’ | ExtremeTech
• Ion propulsion - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
• NASA’s NEXT ion drive breaks world record, will eventually power interplanetary missions | ExtremeTech

Yes, and I agree in a most literal sense. That's why I see a far more likely and logical alternative. One that certainly does not discount the reality for UFOs being representative of hypothetical technologies far and away removed from the best of "our" present understanding.

This is to state that we (this present evolutionary stage of mankind) have, in a literally documented and confirmed scientific sense, with complete independent human volition and sentience, traveled to specific locations in the universe apart from any friction based mechanized means as related interactively to the physical universe. Solely by the means of natural consciousness, apart from the constraints of physicality and indeed time itself, we have traveled vast distances via remote viewing.

I'd rather not stray too far from the topic of the thread and off into the realm of psychic whatever, so forgive me if I keep this short. Although I find psychic phenomena interesting, at the present time it's practical applications are unreliable, limited in scope, and usually conveniently ambiguous enough to claim some level of success regardless of the outcome. When there is sufficient evidence to consistently prove otherwise, then perhaps we can take it more seriously.

I propose (as do many) that some UFOs represent extra temporal based technologies, primarily of human origin, albeit not the existing evolutionary understanding of humanity that you and I are directly apart of. It would seem that possibly they do not use propulsion in any sense. Rather, they navigate apart from the construct of physicality itself. They travel and navigate the same environment we know and are aware of by means of our physical senses, by cognitively interfacing the emanation of what we call reality, ie. consciousness, and design reality's construct to facilitate and accommodate their willful travel. That doesn't mean that UFOs cannot be metal or other physical alloys. It just means that their technology exhibits the ability to transcend the limitations of time/space as we physically understand them to be, in the same sense that our consciousness can transcend as much via remote viewing. Much like this "barely outside the cave" age of mankind has come to know and utilize computer based facilitation and functionality within many of it's "advanced" technological applications, and is only now developing what is referred to as AI, much older and evolutionarily advanced stages of human existence may have developed what might be termed Artificial Consciousness.If you think clearly about the matter Ufology, you will find that every single advancement of mankind in a technological sense, represents an exponential extension of either nature, or himself. (there is no difference) Our highest known technological achievements to date have been the material replication of cognitive ability. In a logical progressive sense, what would naturally come next?

Interesting speculation. However once again we find that our two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In other words, even if UFOs use a means of travel that, "transcends the limitations of time/space as we physically understand them to be." it only further suggests that UFOs are in fact alien in nature and in origin. I would also enjoy exploring this area of speculation further in a separate discussion.

If you will think long and hard my friend, you will come to realize that such a consideration dispenses, if not solves, almost every Fortean, Mythical, and Religious conundrum ever imagined.

There is no denying that the more knowledge we acquire about the way the universe works, the more mysteries we can solve, including those that have the mythical, religious, and psychic elements attached to them.

 

[Randall]

To summarize:

I really appreciate that self-reflexive detour into defining the word, 'UFO'. After all, for me this thread is about finding new words to help think more clearly about these tricky and elusive things. That's an important exercise, just as important to redefine what a working hypothesis around the phenomenon could be including the core debate around nuts and bolts craft vs. alternative explanations for lights that appear to be under some sort of sentient control. All the leading thinkers concede that we are looking at more than one point of origin for these experience and event anomalies. Consequently, there is a great range in how we define ways of thinking about the problem ...

Forgive me, but because the thread's topic is: "Are There No Real Words for UFO's?" I don't see how discussing the definition constitutes a detour, or is self-reflexive. I base this comment on the Miriam Webster definition of self-reflexive: "marked by or making reference to its own artificiality or contrivance". If you can point to any elements that are either "artificial" or "contrived" and back that up, then I'd be happy to consider a revision.

Jeff and ufology represent two extreme positions: alien craft and quantum consciousness. In between these two positions contain a great range of possibilities. IMO trainedobservor provided a fairly clear collection of options in a previous post but for the life if me I could not find his very thoughtful list in any past thread i was watching. He had listed about 15 possibilities for what lies between your two positions. But defeating in his perspective is his consistent contention that our perception of reality is only a perception and nothing to do with reality in the first place. That sounds conspicuously like defining all of life as an experience anomaly.

Actually I think Jeff and I are less polarized than you suggest. Plus I don't think either of us are too fixed on any particular view. Jeff indicates that UFOs could be nuts and bolts craft that operate on some far-out principles we just don't understand yet. I have no argument with that. My essential point is that when it comes to the core subject matter of ufology, we're studying UFOs, not psychic projections or whatever else the new-agers or religions or sci-fi fans or Jungian psychologists want them to be.

This doesn't mean that the subject in some UFO report might not turn out to be the Archangel Michael, it just means that even if it does, all we've done is proven angels exist, not that angels are UFOs. We'd be discussing two entirely separate concepts, but there is a tendency to fuse ufology with these other subjects. IMO this seems to be done to exploit people's interest in ufology, and in doing so adds to the confusion and in some cases does real harm ( think Heaven's Gate ).

Angel:

UFO:

None of the above means that elements of religion or mythology don't have a place in ufology studies. Indeed they do. However if we are considering the possibility that the Archangel Michael may have in fact been a UFO, we're not considering the idea that angels are UFOs, but that the witnesses of the day had no other way to relate to a UFO other than to portray it as a bright a shining bright flying winged being in the sky.

Today we often depict UFOs as "flying saucers" and equate them to "craft", not because we can't relate to them ... but because we can. We've matured into an age where we can step away from the superstition and ignorance and recognize them as advanced technology, not supernatural beings. We've tracked them on radar and visually intercepted them and they've been described as flying disks with domes on top. Sure there are also other configurations, but you get my point. Only a few hanger's-on are calling them "transports from Hell".

Still, time traveling folk, consciousness projecting minds, aliens in glass/metallic craft or future humans, who simply have access to technology that supersedes our simplistic definitions of time, all seem to have equal probability. In the lengthy thread on Substrate-independent Minds Mike asked this important question: That spawned a huge discussion on AI and alernatives to hiw conscioysness could be housed.

More on this in the next post: Plausibility of Time Travel.

Part of this debate is moot if you agree that all of these are plausible, and in the infinity of the universe, and in its simultaneity of time, all do appear very plausible. These multiple options at work in various combinations over the history of recorded anomalous phenomena seem to be likely to me. Trying to put weight on any specific theory would require some very detailed categorizations of these anomalies. I like Clark's two categories of event and experience anomalies as they help to support both of your two disparate positions: experiencing something that resides in conscious perceptions and recording the physical details of an event that has some very physical features.

Either way, I have greatly appreciated all the detailed thinking here on these familiar themes. I'm still digesting different chunks of it and love all the inventive and critical thought.

So far so good ... looking forward to where it goes from here .

 

[Randall]

The Plausibility of Time Travel

Still, time traveling folk, consciousness projecting minds, aliens in glass/metallic craft or future humans, who simply have access to technology that supersedes our simplistic definitions of time, all seem to have equal probability. In the lengthy thread on Substrate-independent Minds Mike asked this important question: That spawned a huge discussion on AI and alernatives to hiw conscioysness could be housed.

The above all depends on what you mean by time travel. We all travel about 24 hours forward through time every day, therefore time travel in our daily lives is a virtual certainty. Also, the faster we go, the more time slows down. Therefore in relative terms time can be manipulated. However once we move into the realm of time machines, where we imagine that we can zap ourselves forward or backward in time by and experience events that have already taken place or will happen in some distant future, that is another story, and we are entering the realm of sci-fi fantasy. What allows people to believe that such a thing is possible, whether in the context of a scientific theory or in fiction, is a suspension of a key logical component in our understanding of what time is.

When it comes to understanding what time is, we often find ourselves immersed in a sort of quasi-scientific mysticism that leads us to think of it as a thing that it can be bent like a pretzel. The logical flaw is that time isn't a thing. It's a condition. It's roughly analogous to the temperature of something as opposed to the thing itself. We can speed the molecules of the thing up or slow them down all we want, but whether they freeze solid or burn off into a gas will not return the thing to the past or send it into the future. From the point of view of the material however, for example if it were a cryogenically frozen human, the passage of time from the moment they were frozen to when they were revived may seem to be very short. The common denominator here is that time is wholly dependent on change ... all the way down to the subatomic level. In fact, that is how the most accurate clocks work, by measuring change at the subatomic level ( atomic clocks ). If nothing changed all the way down to the subatomic level, time would stop. Therefore in order to reverse time, we need to not only stop all change, but reverse it all the way down to the subatomic level. Assuming this were possible, time would then be travelling backward. But let's take a brief moment to reflect on this.

Imagine just trying to reverse the direction of all the photons that have left Earth since 1900. Not only would you have to imagine reversing the photons still traveling out in space for over a hundred light years in all directions, you'd also have to contend with all the ones that have hit something else along the way and been absorbed, or reflected off the Moon and back to Earth where they were absorbed by some plant and turned into a chemical and eaten by an animal that was in turn eaten by some human who has since died. How do you reverse the path of that photon? You can't without undoing a whole lot of other things including resurrecting the dead human. On this basis alone there is no rationale to support the idea that it is equally as probable that UFOs are time machines as they are relatively normal metallic craft from our current spacetime.

Now let's also add to the above all the other changes that would need to be undone, plus the mathematics that tell us that for many calculations we can never begin with a present state and extrapolate backward with any certainty how the present state ( value ) was arrived at. So the bottom line here is that getting everything to retrace itself all the way down to the subatomic level is akin to trying to put the Genie back in the bottle. It's simply impossible from within this continuum. But even if we could somehow manage it, we're still left with the problem of insulating ourselves and our time machine from the effect so that we can travel back in time unaffected ourselves. Clearly we can see how this poses a whole other problem because we and our time machine are made of the same stuff as the world and universe we're in. So we can't undo what has happened to the world around us without also undoing what has happened to us, or ignoring all those consequences, which over time could conceivably result in our target state ( time period ) being in a completely different state from what it had actually been before.

By now it should be really clear that time machines and interstellar craft are on two entirely different scales of plausibility. The only conceivable way that sci-fi like time travel could be made possible is by invoking a multiverse whereby our universe is contained in and generated by another universe that keeps track of every single change in our universe all the way down to the subatomic level. This is a hypothetically plausible and it explains a number of strange phenomena. However, even if that is true, in order for our time machine to be able to work, we'd need access to this "hyperverse" in order to cut our selves out of the present moment in time and paste ourselves into some point in the past. Then to experience any time ( change ) at our target point in time, we'd need to either run the entire state of the universe at that point in a separate process, or archive or delete the current state and rewrite a new timeline. But doing that wouldn't really be travelling in time so much as creating an alternate universe, and relative to the hyperverse, we're still travelling forwards in time at the same rate we were to begin with. We wouldn't really be travelling in time at all, just rearranging all the building blocks on a universal scale.

 

[mike]

The Anderson Institute

Is Time Travel Possible? - the physics of time travel

 

[Randall]

The Anderson Institute

Is Time Travel Possible? - the physics of time travel

Thanks for those videos Mike. I've seen them and many others. Unfortunately I don't have the special effects budget to create my own video. I'd love to though. Here are my comments on the videos:

• Hawking himself says, "I'm not saying it is possible" ... and on that I'll chalk his comments up to sensationalism for the sake of a cool FX sequence. But what these kinds of illustrations are actually doing is applying spacetime as a dimension in a way that gives the illusion of time travel similar to the way the geometry of Escher gives us an impossible staircase. There is plenty of other math that clearly demonstrates that extrapolating everything backwards is simply not possible with any certainty. It isn't even possible to extrapolate everything forwards with accuracy, otherwise we'd be able to figure out everything that would ever happen in the future. But it's still a cool FX sequence.
• On the Anderson Institute video. If I could get Morgan Freeman to narrate my video, I'm sure everyone would believe it too. Unfortunately for the Anderson video, it also fails to account for the same problems described above and also gives us a healthy dose of that quasi-scientific mysticism that I spoke of in order to get us to think nobody understands what time is, when actually, I, and I'm sure many other people do ( at least within the confines of the present ). In fact, the irony is that the same video goes on to explain how we understand time so well that we can use it for GPS systems and know why there are changes in the accuracy of atomic clocks. Also none of these factors are in conflict with the content of my post.
• Kaku is always entertaining, but he makes the same common logical fallacy as the rest of those who treat time like a thing ( a cylinder or a pretzel ) and the examples he uses are also countered in the previous video by the person ( Tippler ) who created the theory Kaku is talking about. Tippler himself says he realized his theory was actually impossible.
• The one guy IMO who is on the right path is the guy who talks about quantum entanglement.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Just wanted to state for the record how elated I am with the progress of this thread. Burnt State my friend, you should feel hugely proud. I think more importantly than being ultra context, or topic specific, it serves to underline the seeming unfathomably elusive nature of such observation based quandaries throughout history. As people that all find real exhilaration in both the hard and defined parameters of known science, as well as the far reaching expanse of the imagination unbound hypothetically speculative, it's a real treat to take in and further contemplate as many diverse relevant insights as this thread contains. Kudos to us all!

Here are a few speculative points of personal interest that reflect on what I have just read throughout our threaded thoughts.

1) Just wanted to emphasize that when I refer to multiple evolutionary stages of mankind being responsible for some/most UFOs, I am not referring to anything that would directly reflect on our present global age of mankind or it's achievements. I don't doubt in the least that we have some VERY exotic technologies that very few within the realm of publicly acknowledged scientific advancement would be familiar with, but that is definitely not what I am referring to. I am more so referring to notions akin to some of what Lloyd Pye proposes with the absolute and expressed exception of many of his Zecharia Sitchin parallels.

This implies that far and away prior to this age's evolutionary timeline including what we know of as the prehistoric fossil record , so much so that most any previous relevant social fossil record has been primarily obliterated via cataclysmic event, save numerous isolated anomalies present to this day, consisted of either (a) a nearby extraterrestrial race of human beings (possibly proto humans) that for whatever reason came here and started a colony, or (b) more so likely, started and evolved right here on what is planet Earth. Those that I choose to believe may be the responsible agents with respect to UFOs may not have even been the first, or original strain of indigenous genetic material to start the evolutionary staging process.

So just to be clear, or clearer, I am not in any way hypothetically stating that UFOs are the result of some present day Atlas Shrugged type secret science society that is withholding ancient esoteric or otherwise secret knowledge. I am referring to a race of human beings so advanced (or quite possibly naturally accommodating/exhibiting) as to have made an actual transcendent leap in natural environmental displacement. An evolutionary shift or orientation that may have meant a form of non localized existence that we simply have no defining parameters for which to even imagine a natural existence within.

All I ask you to do is to consider just how such a seemingly impossible quasi environmental status could explain almost an entirety of Fortean phenomena. And more specifically, how the sentient crown of such a quasi non localized environmental inhabitation could develop almost unimaginable technologies to facilitate such an existence. Still in yet, I fully realize and accept that this is all just speculative.

2) My views do not imply the classic HG Wells version of "Time Travel". Not in the least. I am not stating that those I believe to be responsible for UFOs are "time travelers" unfixed linearly from our future. I contend what most of the high profile physics commentators do. Namely that both interstellar travel as well as time travel are touchy subjects that we are quite some ways off from actually managing in any sense. While either are theoretically possible, much more so time travel according to MR. Kaku anyhow, neither seem to be within human practical facilitative reach apart from small particle experiments at this time. So the scientific ball of progress bounces and hopefully not the empirical checks of those who sponsor most of these spokespeople.

3) Concerning what is "time". Frankly, I don't personally know, however I tend to think of it as a byproduct of our sentient cognitive relationship to consciousness. In other words, I believe time is relative to us, not the universe. In fact, I believe the construct of what we witness as the universe is measurably relative to our sentient physical state of observation. Again, I call this resulting process of our waking state of cognition, cognitive mechanics. I think in reality this similar to what you refer to as a condition, however, I do see time as we are effected by our variable relationship to it, as a medium inter meshed with the medium of space resulting in a composite environmental factor relative specifically to us as an energetic point in consciousness. The whole affair is interlocking. Logically therefore, via our non localized awareness, it unlocks.

 

[boomerang]

These are fascinating discussions offering enough food for thought to keep me happily digesting for quite a while. I would just make a distinction between constructing a taxonomy or classification system to categorize what witnesses seem to report, vs attempting to explain the underlying nature of the phenomenon. The latter is an ongoing process consisting of attempts to match data gathered from witness experience (such experiences may go well beyond the visual) and the relatively little "hard" data we have with explanatory models arising mostly from speculation and thought experiment. The phenomenon itself either refuses to be the subject of our experiments or perhaps experiments on us! It is either unwilling or unable to act rationally, and therefore eludes the scientific process.

The first part is mostly convention arising by virtue of the phenomenon's history in the context of agreed upon labels for strange but seemingly recurrent aspects of the ufo experience. But I think it is important in order to keep those interested "on the same page". I still think Hynek has done some of the most thoughtful work on this:

Hynek Classification System - UFO Evidence

http://www.ufocasebook.com/Hynek.html

Unfortunately, his system is as adequate today as it was in the 1960's. I say "unfortunately", because we can hope increased understanding will someday make it obsolete or at least in need of revision. I don't think this has happened as of yet.

My pet theory re the ufo phenomenon is a view of the universe as an information processing device (?) with our consciousness creating concepts of time and dimension as artifacts of some larger algorithm. This would presume other intelligences in charge of "programming" (with control implied) and relegate both time and space to the realm of pure information. It might account for why time seems to be a series of ever changing states instead of dimension as we normally perceive dimension. This must be a lame analogy at best.

There is also the David Deutsch view of an almost infinite number of instances of discrete universes in the ever branching multiverse with self-awareness and memory as a modality capable of bridging at least some. A surreal upshot of this view is a kind of guaranteed immortality, in that the individual must, in a multiverse of infinite possibility, find a way to survive in some fashion--no matter how extreme or outlandish.

We are driven to create AI. Perhaps we constitute but one instance of AI in an infinite regression of an AI hierarchy.

Must go now. It's time for my red pill.

 

[RonReyes]

Maybe dinosaurs could witness the ship coming in for a landing. LOL