Some questions I have about introducing new people to the field.

[smileytheone]

I have looked back and listened to 70-80% of the Paracast Shows. I found myself coming up with some questions of my own in relation to introducing the paranormal to young people.

<O</O
The main question I want to raise is, how can UFO investigators or whoever, make the field more attractive to young people to get into?

<O
· Internet use is so high among young people if someone views several good/bad videos, articles, etc that they lose interest to investigate for themselves from the large amount of stuff that’s there. How true is it? & can it be a symptom of the UFO field or the generation?

· What truth is there to find? Roswell (the headline grabber of the field) is redundant, and the number of highly respected investigators has left the field due the mess the field is in or they’ve found as much as they can. What’s there left to investigate?

· What breakthrough do we need to push things forward? Without getting into any Billy Meier or well known belief system that is highly disputed.

• What can investigators, etc can do to encourage more of a rewarding dialogue with the official side of the government? I think this would be important in giving a sense of credence to the subject and open the subject more to the wider world.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

I have looked back and listened to 70-80% of the Paracast Shows. I found myself coming up with some questions of my own in relation to introducing the paranormal to young people.

<O</O
The main question I want to raise is, how can UFO investigators or whoever, make the field more attractive to young people to get into?


<O
· Internet use is so high among young people if someone views several good/bad videos, articles, etc that they lose interest to investigate for themselves from the large amount of stuff that’s there. How true is it? & can it be a symptom of the UFO field or the generation?


· What truth is there to find? Roswell (the headline grabber of the field) is redundant, and the number of highly respected investigators has left the field due the mess the field is in or they’ve found as much as they can. What’s there left to investigate?

· What breakthrough do we need to push things forward? Without getting into any Billy Meier or well known belief system that is highly disputed.

• What can investigators, etc can do to encourage more of a rewarding dialogue with the official side of the government? I think this would be important in giving a sense of credence to the subject and open the subject more to the wider world.

Don't go down the rabbit hole

 

[J.T.]

Have them read or listen to Robert Anton Wilson. He was a funny and appropriately blasphemous thinker, both of which make him attractive to kids who are curious, smart and still wish to remain hip. His street cred runs near infinity.

 

[Paul Kimball]

I think people spend too much time trying to figure out how to make the subject interesting to people. Unless you're making money off of it, by organizing conferences or making films or radio shows, what does it matter?

Having said that, point them to the work of Hynek, Vallee, Clark, Hall, MacDonald, Sturrock, and from a skeptical point of view, Carl Sagan, and see what they think. If they're worth a damn, that's all they should need to get interested. If that doesn't work, then they're a waste of time.

 

[cyberknight]

Don't go down the rabbit hole

Ha... agreed! Way too many doors down there, and that damm cat appears out of nowhere and then disappears.. just like those damm ufo's do..

Just walk away....

 

[smileytheone]

Does the UFO field need lots more of the younger generation (i.e. aged 16-30) to come into the field? To make sure that the paranormal is coninuely discussed and investigated in the future.

Or is it all coming to a head in 2012 or whatever and we won't need to think of such things?

Sorry for bringing these things up, but I can not stop thinking of such things. Just trying to get it out of my system.

 

[justcurious]

Sorry for bringing these things up, but I can not stop thinking of such things. Just trying to get it out of my system.

Don't apologise, bring whatever questions you have... I love questions, because they bring ... answers...
And then more questions, and then... then...

 

[Sean Elifritz]

I think people spend too much time trying to figure out how to make the subject interesting to people. Unless you're making money off of it, by organizing conferences or making films or radio shows, what does it matter?

Having said that, point them to the work of Hynek, Vallee, Clark, Hall, MacDonald, Sturrock, and from a skeptical point of view, Carl Sagan, and see what they think. If they're worth a damn, that's all they should need to get interested. If that doesn't work, then they're a waste of time.

That's a damned good list.

I use to try to get my friends and family interested in this subject but eventually I gave up. They just don't care. Sure, some of them think there might be something to it but despite that they don't give a hoot. I remember an x-girlfriend even saying to me that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it one way or the other so she wasn't going to concern herself with the subject. I have a friend that reads more books than anyone else I know and I have quite a few books about all sorts of things and he use to borrow them from me a lot. Well, after a bit I started slipping him UFO books, ha ha. He'd say he wasn't really interested in that but I'd say, "It's that or nothing." Well, he read a few of them. Eventually I loaned him Passport to Magonia and he returned it the very next day saying it was the most boring tripe he'd ever read in his life, lol. So even after forcing a few UFO titles on him I failed to elicit any interest out of him.

 

[Randall]

If we want young people to get interested we need to elicit the help of some high end realistic 3D animation experts. Young people don't read like the generation before. It's all instant gratification and video. If you know anyone who works with realistic 3D rendering software and can help, please let me know.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

i too have tried to get people interested. i think people have to come to this on there own, bit like religion. pushing it down their throats can have the opposite effect.

but i have also come to believe that some people do not want it to be true, and so they unconciously stay away from thinking about it. they just do not want their world view turned upside down. there are a few cases that cannot leave anyone in any doubt that something is going on, whatever that may be. it's hopeless trying to convince people to get interested. hopeless!

 

[mike]

I think religion has a large part to play as well.
The premise behind most of the creation myths, is that the creator made us in its image and us alone.
Indeed i was told by a church member when i was a lad that UFO's cant be real because the bible expressly says god created the world, the animals and man, if he had created "others" it would say so.
Ergo they cant exist.
And while the mindest of some has progressed over time, i still observe that bias today.

 

[Randall]

We used to get this guy on the radio up here ranting on about how UFOs are transports from Hell. But that's not as weird as the visit I had from three JWs who I swear were actually MIB.

 

[boomerang]

The bar for high strangeness is already set high for today's young people. They've grown up on a steady diet of mostly junk fiction and visual special effects that make anything seem possible. My wife is a public school teacher and she has observed a kind of blurring of the line between fact and fiction in kids' minds over the years. The media noise has gotten so high that it takes one heck of a signal to punch through it and make an impression.

Sometimes it seems like people aren't as drawn to the mysterious as they once were. Or (more likely) I'm just getting old and the times they are a' changin'.

 

[stonehart]

I think religion has a large part to play as well.
The premise behind most of the creation myths, is that the creator made us in its image and us alone.
Indeed i was told by a church member when i was a lad that UFO's cant be real because the bible expressly says god created the world, the animals and man, if he had created "others" it would say so.
Ergo they cant exist.
And while the mindest of some has progressed over time, i still observe that bias today.

I too dealt with that when I was younger, I was also told I asked to many questions and that I should not question my faith at all. So I did just that and spent years studying first Christianity and then on to Buddhism, Islam and many other traditions of which I still study to this day.
Now I am a non theist.. yep I do not think anyone has the right idea for you cant all be right but you can all be wrong.
So then as for UFO's and what not I will keep an open mind for lets face it it is no less crazy than believing in some all seeing all knowing sky daddy now is it?

 

[Voyager]

I too dealt with that when I was younger, I was also told I asked to many questions and that I should not question my faith at all. So I did just that and spent years studying first Christianity and then on to Buddhism, Islam and many other traditions of which I still study to this day.
Now I am a non theist.. yep I do not think anyone has the right idea for you cant all be right but you can all be wrong.
So then as for UFO's and what not I will keep an open mind for lets face it it is no less crazy than believing in some all seeing all knowing sky daddy now is it?

My father forced me to attend church, twice. I was forced to wear an ill-fitting suit. Rather than converting me, it had the opposite effect. As I stood there being introduced to the church members I was thinking: They must have released all the patients from Agnew State Mental Hospital, and they have all congregated here. I don't believe in UFOs, I have seen them, and I know they are real. God did not create man in his own image: Man created God in his own image. Whereas, I don't find any meaningful spiritual value in Christianity, apart from the Golden Rule which is rarely practiced; I do find value in Eastern beliefs. An inward spiritual journey makes sense to me. Attaining a balanced mental and spiritual state truly is an art and science. Our bodies don't last very long; if there is anything beyond our brief presence here on earth it must involve consciousness. Scientists theorize about how the Universe was created from a Big Bang. That energy and matter sprang into existence from nothing is incomprehensible, and may never be explained by science.

 

[Randall]

My father forced me to attend church, twice. I was forced to wear an ill-fitting suit. Rather than converting me, it had the opposite effect. As I stood there being introduced to the church members I was thinking: They must have released all the patients from Agnew State Mental Hospital, and they have all congregated here. I don't believe in UFOs, I have seen them, and I know they are real. God did not create man in his own image: Man created God in his own image. Whereas, I don't find any meaningful spiritual value in Christianity, apart from the Golden Rule which is rarely practiced; I do find value in Eastern beliefs. An inward spiritual journey makes sense to me. Attaining a balanced mental and spiritual state truly is an art and science. Our bodies don't last very long; if there is anything beyond our brief presence here on earth it must involve consciousness. Scientists theorize about how the Universe was created from a Big Bang. That energy and matter sprang into existence from nothing is incomprehensible, and may never be explained by science.

The computational model I've ranted on before explains how this universe sprang from seemingly nothing ( the big bang ), but it doesn't explain how anything beyond it came into existence.

 

[Voyager]

I haven't read your computational model rant. I think something is missing from the equation. It could be something beyond the reach of science. Perhaps some non-material aspect of existence.

 

[Randall]

I haven't read your computational model rant. I think something is missing from the equation. It could be something beyond the reach of science. Perhaps some non-material aspect of existence.

Basically the Computational Model of existence within this universe hypothesizes that everything that exists in this universe is a form of data being run on some kind of supercomputer, in which case the big bang is simply a collection of various algorithms. Prior to them being run, this universe would not exist. Furthermore, because algorithms are themselves immaterial the universe would essentially seem to spring into existence out of nothing.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Does not explain where the data originated? We are not talking random information, we are talking information that all gels together under the rules of maths and forces. Random noise instead of data could manifest in many ways. I kind of think the way our universe plays out, is the only way it can. Perhaps a different universe can have different rules and relationships between energy and matter.
But any explanation of the origin of the universe inevitable come back to the questions 'where did it all come from?' and 'what came before?'

Also in the computational model, what is the computer that this data is ran on? Is the data and the computer both the universe or 0ne played through the other so to speak?

I think all the matter can be accounted for in the relationship of matter and anti-matter, which when joined, annhilate eachother with a massive release of energy. The matter goes away, leaving a net mass of zero but a problem of all the energy. So if every piece of normal matter has a counterpart of negative matter, the sum leaves zero matter - which can come from nothing then, like the universe, so we don't have to explain where the matter came from. The energy required to 'be' matter is uncountable, but does/did it need 'space' to exist in some form before the formation of the universe, or can it have no mass and no dimension, basically out of nothing once more.

Whatever way you look at it, including religious and spiritual explanations, there is still always some sort of catch, or explanation that is out of the bounds of 'normal' things and laws of nature.
Really, this subject alone is the single greatest headache-generator in existence. Far, far more baffling than any paranormal subject, including UFOs, and certainly women!

 

[Randall]

Does not explain where the data originated? We are not talking random information, we are talking information that all gels together under the rules of maths and forces. Random noise instead of data could manifest in many ways. I kind of think the way our universe plays out, is the only way it can. Perhaps a different universe can have different rules and relationships between energy and matter.
But any explanation of the origin of the universe inevitable come back to the questions 'where did it all come from?' and 'what came before?'

Also in the computational model, what is the computer that this data is ran on? Is the data and the computer both the universe or 0ne played through the other so to speak?

I think all the matter can be accounted for in the relationship of matter and anti-matter, which when joined, annhilate eachother with a massive release of energy. The matter goes away, leaving a net mass of zero but a problem of all the energy. So if every piece of normal matter has a counterpart of negative matter, the sum leaves zero matter - which can come from nothing then, like the universe, so we don't have to explain where the matter came from. The energy required to 'be' matter is uncountable, but does/did it need 'space' to exist in some form before the formation of the universe, or can it have no mass and no dimension, basically out of nothing once more.

Whatever way you look at it, including religious and spiritual explanations, there is still always some sort of catch, or explanation that is out of the bounds of 'normal' things and laws of nature.
Really, this subject alone is the single greatest headache-generator in existence. Far, far more baffling than any paranormal subject, including UFOs, and certainly women!

The computational model doesn't account for the ultimate origin of the multiverse, only our particular universe, which consists of a set of algorithms that define the rules for existence and interaction of matter and energy and is run by a vastly powerful processing unit that resides outside the universe we do. The model explains certain odd phenomena and makes sense out of the Big Bang. In the beginning there would of course be nothing, but as soon as the program ( call it universe_1.exe ) is run, the algorithms, which are all at at zero value begin to iterate, resulting in "something from nothing". We have even begun to model how this took place ourselves: