Personally, I never thought the original version of MAGIC needed expansion, except to extend the sheer pleasure of reading it. Granted, the ending was a tad abrupt, but I thought all the salient points had been thoroughly and brilliantly covered already. Still, Director's Cuts are always more enjoyable to me. So, thanks.

As always, a great, GREAT job, Bill. A stylish, snappy, humorous expression of your own beliefs, presented in such a logically circuitous fashion that, by the time you're done, the points are almost unassailable. It's what you do best... being persuasive.

Of course, that doesn't mean you're always right, as I'm sure you'd readily admit. It just means you're that convincing. You're well-read, well-informed, and best of all, you're a great, great writer who can make even your most contrary points of view palatable to even your most dissenting readers just because it's such a damned entertaining read. But, like all of us normal mortal humans, you are, first and foremost, a student of your own preconceptions, and therefore just as biased in your research as you are in your conclusions.

Evidence---the centerpiece of all scientific reasoning---still just comprises the pieces of the jigsaw, not the finished puzzle itself. Evidence gives you a REASON to believe something is true, but does not necessarily tell you what the truth is.

The obvious and easily observable evidence is that the sun goes around the Earth. And until about 500 years ago, "hard science" held that conclusion as a fundamental and immutable FACT, provable and RE-provable by the simplest of experiments... you go outside, and you WATCH the sun track across the sky, from horizon to horizon. There you go! Sun goes around Earth! A scientifically proven, evidence-based FACT. Done.

It turned out to be wrong, of course. Granted, it was the self-correcting nature of science itself that eventually figured out the truth, and that's where its greatest value lies... in its capacity to constantly cross-check itself and dispute its findings whenever new evidence comes to light. The flipside of that coin though, is that you can never know when "science" has found the absolute bottom line. In fact, you have to presume that it never will (or at least not for a long, long time). To presume otherwise is to presume that we've discovered all there is to know about any given subject already... that every "physical law" in our books is already complete and all-encompassing, that nothing new will ever be discovered, no variations or special exceptions will ever come to light, and no technology will ever be invented that can detect or measure those things that cannot be detected or measured today. And I know you well enough to know that you don't believe that.

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was a breakthrough of epochal proportions, and, as you pointed out, it has yet to be disproven, despite all manner of attempts to do so. Does that mean that it's infallible? That it will NEVER be altered by later discoveries? If so, then why is anyone bothering to examine it anymore? What's to examine? That's a complete A-to-Z, all-encompassing, carved-in-stone, gospel LAW now, isn't it? It hasn't been disproven YET, therefore it never WILL be. Right? Of course not. (speaking of which, I loved the little twist they gave it in the movie "K-PAX," starring Kevin Spacey, in which he "clarified" that Einstein hadn't said that matter couldn't TRAVEL at the speed of light... only that it couldn't be ACCELERATED to that speed... maybe just happy fiction, but outside-the-box thinking nonetheless)

Any good scientific mind will acknowledge that there is always more to learn, more to quantify, and new tools to pursue that knowledge with coming on-line all the time. Therefore it is safe to presume---hell, it's downright LIKELY---that SOMEDAY in the future "Something New" is going to be discovered about good old "E=mc2" that will at least enhance the existing theorem, if not correct or even, God forbid, DISPROVE it, in lieu of a more accurate, more complete concept, based on newly acquired evidence of the time.

And, having acknowledged that possibility, how can anyone flatly debunk an entire premise SOLELY on the basis of a current lack of "scientific evidence" to support it? You can hold whatever opinion you like, and express it as JUST THAT... your opinion, based on this or that logic. But to use a current lack of "scientific evidence" as "proof" that something doesn't or COULDN'T exist is just "bad science." That's not how the scientific method works.

As you've said yourself, "an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

To me, any time anyone says with "scientific certainty" that something is impossible, it will almost invariably be proven otherwise. I always loved that little note in that one planetarium show that you and I once ran down in Miami, in which scientific assertions about the impossibility of a flight to the moon were listed, one after the other in a fast sequence, right at the beginning of the show. Scientists "proving" mathematically how humans would never survive the crushing Gs of a cannon-shot into space... once again failing to take into account the possibility of alternative means being discovered at a future date.

This is one place---probably the ONLY place---you and I have regularly disagreed in the past... over your premise that, if it hasn't been "proven" through creditable scientific experimentation, that one must therefore presume that it (whatever "it" is) doesn't exist at all. I'm sorry, but, at least in MY world, that's just wrong. Worse, it's shortsighted and even (to use your own word) lazy.

If you've never witnessed an unresolved "UFO sighting" yourself, never seen a ghost, had a premonition, done a firewalk, experienced a past-life regression... WHATEVER... if you've never read the works of the people who do these things, see these things, or have experienced them... if your only sources of information on these subjects are the debunkers... then your readiness to wave them all off in one grand dismissive gesture is just as "lazy" as that of the person who reads and attends courses in only those areas and then consigns all of "hard science" to the sterile laboratories and soulless, tunnel-vision-afflicted gnomes that they believe all researchers to be. Those "New Age" and "pseudo-spiritual" pursuits may BE all bunk and self-delusion, but approaching them with that very preconception and prejudice, accepting outright only the judgments of the debunkers and the opinions of those who have also done, seen, and experienced none of those things for themselves, and then holding up the lack of hard, documented scientific evidence as reason enough to presume that those phenomena do not even EXIST is just as lopsided and "lazily biased" as the point of view from the other side of the fence.

Having said all that though, I push this perspective only to the extent that it applies to the "otherworldly belief systems" that you so cavalierly brushed aside as hooey (much as Dr. Sagan did in the only non-fiction work of his that I ever read). To the extent that "magical" or "wishful" thinking applies to the politics of our nation however, you and I are in complete agreement. And you did a dazzling job of showing how the constant unfurling of history so clearly presents us with the hard data needed to "steer our ship of state." Hard data. Not the presumption of incorrectness based on an absence of data.

Every one of your politically based essays to date has just been amazing to me... broad in scope, rooted in more than just the arms-length perspective of "right here, right now," and very original in the connections made to other seemingly unrelated fields. I've always said that you're the only true "genius" I've ever met in my life, and I don't say that lightly. You know (and UNDERSTAND) more about more things than anyone else I've ever known, and with the skill of a Master Debater (that never sounds right) you are eminently convincing on any point you seek to present. I do believe that, if challenged, you could put on an equally convincing show for the exact opposite side of every point you've ever made as well. I would just say to be careful around the trap of "intellectual disdain" when it comes to those things whose sole lacking is insufficient scientific backing. Choose to disbelieve if you like, but avoid categorizing such things as "impossible," and asserting that every scientific principle we hold so dear today is inviolable, or incapable of being expounded upon, enhanced, or corrected at a later date. "Unfurling history" has amassed quite a catalogue of debunked debunkers already.

Still, keep up the fabulous work. What you're doing here isn't just enlightening, educational, and hugely entertaining... it's not just brilliant, erudite, and original... it's IMPORTANT!

You're on a big stage now, right where you ought to be.

When I buy the first five copies of your book, I want them all autographed.

ZOO-HA!

First of all, Bill, I'd offer to bear your children, but I have the feeling my partner might not go for the idea. ;)

On to the main point... I don't know Bill at all except through his essays. So I could be completely wrong about him in the particular case, Silverback. But I didn't get out of "Magic", the original or the revisted, the sense of rejection of all possibilities not immediately in line with established science.

I do, however, feel that the comparison of general and special relativity to New Age mysticism is a reduction to absurdity. I don't know about Bill, but I DO read the stuff these people put out. I have read about homeopathy, and magnets, and crystals, and pyramids, and UFOs, and telekinesis, and long-range viewing. I like to get primary source material whenever I can. And I generally come to the exact same conclusion as the debunkers. The distinction between the homeopath and Einstein is, in fact, weight of evidence; Einstein didn't come up with relativity from a dream or musing, he came up with it by observing the behavior of the universe and applying a whole lot of math. All science and scientists are open to change, they merely require a good reason. And this is a very logical way to behave, because quacks and crackpots outnumber genuine revolutionaries millions to one.

Everything we experience in life is a myriad of possibilities. If you'll permit me my own absurdity: My cat likes to wake me up by yowling urgently at five in the morning. He still has food, so he's not hungry. He has plenty of fresh water, so he's not thirsty. It is possible that he is being tickled awake by very efficient ninja clowns, and he is sounding the general alarm. But the reason I reject entirely the Stealth Clown Premature Siamese Waking Hypothesis is that it is extremely improbable compared to the leading theory, which is that he's simply bored and lonely and wants me to pay attention to him. So improbable, in fact, that it is simply not worth my consideration until I find something more compelling, like clown footprints in the front garden. And in the absence of footprints, or tufts of Bozo wig, I'm also unlikely to lend any credence to the idea even if advanced by my neighbor, who claims he saw them and has a known clown obsession.

And so it is with science and mysticism; I retain the opinion that homeopathy is nonsense because it has little to no solid evidence of efficacy, the principles its adherents claim it operates on contradict everything currently known about chemistry and the behavior of drugs in the body, and the theory that its adherents are either credulous, ill-educated, or with a deep and fundamental distrust of the medical establishment is far more likely. If someone comes up with a good reason for me to reject chemistry and accept homeopathy, I'm all ears. Because no one has doesn't mean I'm closed-minded, it means in all likelihood there probably isn't any such reason.

There is a difference between rock-ribbed dogmatism and healthy skepticism. But they can be easy to confuse, especially when what you are being healthily skeptical about is so unlikely as to warrant total dismissal in the absence of a LOT more evidence than it has.

The scientific process may be slower than the credulous leap, but its hit-to-miss ratio makes it more than worth it.

Until mine, the comments are nearly as good as the essay. Good job Bill! Who knows who is going to be coaching my favorite college football team this fall? A lame, but well publicized reason for sanctions against him. Sad...

Where does religion fit in all of this? My personal belief is that it's a crutch for those who need one, and I don't mean that in an entirely negative way. Unless we're talking Islam and there my lack of familiarity with the religion leaves me totally baffled except for watching the atrocities committed in the name of it. I'd put it right up there with magic myself although it has served some useful purposes. It's also caused a lot of problems, not only against other religions, but between various factions. One of the most important points in the Constitution separates church and state. Why is that? Why is that point continually being fought in very small battles? Why is religion continually seeking power? Shouldn't it be content nurturing and providing contentment to the followers? If I look at it from a followers perspective I wonder why God needs more power when theoretically he already has it. While I agree with your concept of "magic", until you tackle the most pernicious version, I'll keep the faith.

cheers,

Dick

Excellent! I was hoping that LabRat would be one of Bill's earliest commentors. Besides Bill himself, I've always felt that you presented some of the best and most interesting monologues in all the previous essays' comment lists. Good to hear from you, LabRat.

But to clarify, I wasn't trying to COMPARE Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to "New Age mysticism." They were two separate points. I brought up the relativity thing only to show that, as groundbreaking as it was, one mustn't presume that it is the end-all be-all on the subject... that at some point in the future, they aren't going to learn more, on the basis of a broader evidentiary base and more advanced testing technology... that merely because we've got a sound basis here for cogent discussion on the likelihood of ever exceeding the "lightspeed barrier," we'll therefore NEVER learn more than we know today, NEVER find any new physical properties that can be taken advantage of, and NEVER come up with some completely novel outside-the-box way of approaching the problem. Therefore I recommend against such statements as would imply that we, by definition, will never be able to rise above this obstacle because the physical laws as we know them today are complete, inviolable, and will never be found wanting in the future.

In other words, Einstein was a genius, and pushed us into a whole new epoch of scientific forward motion, but I'd be willing to bet that even HE didn't think he'd "gotten it ALL" in that one leap. There was much more yet to understand. If I recall, he was still wrestling with some kind of a Unified Field Theory at the time he died, trying to reconcile the big picture of his breakthrough with the smaller picture of quantum physics. And who knows what that might have turned up eventually... or WILL yet turn up... and how that might contradict or enhance that good old reliable e=mc2.

Hence the reason for including the little aside about the planetarium show that started with all the "hard science" declarations about how man would never be able to go to the moon because he couldn't survive the crushing Gs of a cannon-shot out of the atmosphere. Their science was completely correct, their math detailed and brutally succinct, but their PREMISE was flawed because it started with the idea that they'd already thought of every METHOD we might use to get there. Rockets hadn't been invented at the time of those turn-of-the-century quotes.

And that's what I'm hearing whenever I hear anyone scoffing at something that is currently considered "improbable," labeling it "impossible" because our current understanding of the laws don't allow for it. The short form, I guess, is to never say anything is impossible... unlikely, implausible, even laughable perhaps. But never "impossible."

As for the "New Age mysticism" comments... perhaps I did wander into the realms of discussions that Bill and I have had in person there... I'm not sure... but I brought that up originally just to caution against accepting ONLY the words of the debunkers. Carl Sagan was also brilliant, and in the handful of his books that I read, he, like Bill, also did a brilliant job of showing the reliability of cognitive reasoning over uninformed wishing and pie-in-the-sky dreaming. But, in "Cosmos" in particular, his "in-depth" investigation into those spacey subjects was barely cursory, coming across instead as a dismissive wave of the hand before moving on to the "obvious truths." And even when I was in my most hardcore atheistic state of mind, that summary shrug when covering all that ground was a bit of a disappointment to me. I would rather have heard those arguments picked apart with "counter-proofs" than have them summarily exiled from thought. And yes, I realize, the book "Cosmos" was not the place to expound on such issues.

Short form... suffice it to say, I was raised by a Professor of Geology, and one of the co-inventors of the Carbon-14 dating process, and so I've been familiar... and comfortable... with the entire evolutionary process almost since my first days of social awareness. But at age 28, after a couple of decades of flaming atheism, I finally decided to actually EXPERIENCE some of those things that I'd decried so vehemently all those years. To determine FOR MYSELF how valid my own "dismissals" were. And I actually went on a little "binge" of "New Age mystical" pursuits for a while, all the while keeping my rabid arch-skeptical brain on a short leash until I could see for myself how much credence was warranted in each case. And though I never got any "good" at any of the things I tried, I did see and experience ENOUGH to convince me that there is more out there than what our 5 senses can detect. Unless you believe in MASSIVE, ongoing, consistent coincidences... or if you believe in vast, coordinated, and unbetrayed conspiracies that allow for some pretty extensive cover-ups of fraud and fakery... unless you think every single person who's ever had such an experience is either a liar or, at best, delusional... then you (well, at least I) have to allow some breathing room for that which is as yet unmeasurable, undetectable, or outside the realm of our experience.

I am not a devoted follower of anything, and I do not practice any of the things I looked into... including past-life regressions, energy work, hands-on healing, and firewalking, among others... but I do feel that, having looked beyond the debunking texts that I'd held so dear for so long, and having actually TRIED this stuff myself, I am at least somewhat qualified to express the opinion that there is more to this world than meets the skeptical eye. And I hate to hear it all being shrugged off in one lump-sum category called "New Age mysticism." Like I said in my comment to Bill, this stuff may BE all bunk and fluffy thinking... most of it almost certainly IS... but to have it all rounded up into one stinky, dirty little Evil Word that can be tossed aside en masse just because we haven't YET found an acceptably credible way to detect or measure or record or document these things (in some cases), well, that's not "good science" either. Curiosity is discarded, and is way too often supplanted with arrogance.

Fortunately, I also know Bill well enough to know that that is not the case with him.

Now for my own little pet-related absurdity... my dog, a weiner-dog named Megan, had an interesting little "ism" of her own. When I'd be back in the computer room, struggling through a simulated dogfight or tussling with uncooperative cards or just writing, there were times when something would really tick me off. I mean, punch the wall, yell at the computer, stomp out into the garage and kick the recycling bins kinda' pissed. But I didn't want anyone else to hear me losing it, so I'd just "tighten up"... clench my teeth and my fists and quietly wrestle away my anger in silence. And every time... and I do mean EVERY time... Megan, who had been out in the living room, sitting next to my wife, watching the blaring television, would suddenly trot into the computer room and start licking my ankles... until my funk blew over and I'd start talking goofy baby-talk to her and stroking her head. Then she'd stop licking, turn around, and trot right back out of the room. Every friggin' time.

It was a running joke between my wife and I, because she didn't NEED to actually HEAR me fuming back there... she could tell I was having a quiet little shit-fit whenever Megan would get up and trot back to the computer room.

Megan never came back there when I was just working on the computer... at least not if my wife was home at the same time. She'd only come back at those peaks of my anger. She couldn't HEAR me from the other side of the house and over the racket of the TV, if for no other reason than because I wasn't making any audible noise. There was no food or water kept back there, no toys, and no back door that she might want to take outside. So what's the simplest, most likely possibility here? That she came back repeatedly, consistently, and in the longest string of unbroken coincidences in history? Or that, far simpler still, she might have been "receiving" some kinds of heated signals from me? I don't KNOW what kinds of signals, and I'm pretty damned certain no scientist has ever come up with a device that could have detected or measured that "signal," but a scientist COULD have recorded the consistency and timing of her trips and then been forced to determine whether or not it was a magnificent string of coincidences or maybe just something that he had no way of explaining or quantifying.

Whatever. Believe it or not, I'm really not arguing here. I agree with everything you said. I'm just allowing for other as-yet-unmeasurable possibilities as well.

In the meantime, thanks for all the great commentary on Bill's work. You brought up some great stuff there.

And in case you're wondering, I've known Bill since he was 10 and I was 12, living on Key Biscayne in Miami. He got me my first job, working at the Miami Space Transit Planetarium, when he was 14 and I was 16. And you have no idea how incredibly proud I am of him and his accomplishments, and most of all his brilliance.

So again, to Bill... keep up the great work, dude. And to LabRat... ditto.

Flattery will get you nowhere, Silverback. (Actually, that's probably not true, but I've got to at least make the effort.) As for my being early on the scene... NOT being so would necessitate my having something better to do on a Saturday afternoon.

If your point was not directed comparatively toward such people and premises as have been attacked, then I'm honestly curious as to why you found it necessary to bring up Dr. Einstein at all. If the distinction between crackpots and genuine revolutionaries has been made, then what IS the issue? I hear what you're saying about how we don't know it all yet, but I don't see where it's been said or implied that we DO know it all. At least from his essays, I get the impression that intellectual curiosity is a trait Bill and I share. And I know that Sagan, champion of SETI, shared it as well.

I accept that there is that out there which is currently inexplicable. I have a- large- running mental "open file" of odd things that have happened to and around me, and that I can't explain. The distinction between that and that which I regard as an affront to science is that I acknowledge that I can't explain it acceptably, and then wait until I have the means. (I also accept that I may never. Such is the mystery of life.) The "new agers" that irritate me act like scientists in that they try to divine and explicate a system of rules for the world they live in, with the key exception that they do not bother with things like evidence or testability. It's not the existence of the unknown that gets to me, it's the wholesale invention of a new "known", for whatever purpose. And along with that goes the rejection of a sound known in favor of a more exciting "known".

"I am convinced that most great scientific discoveries begin not with 'Eureka!', but 'Hey, that's funny.'" - Isaac Asimov

In any case, I really AM off to take a stab at productivity now. Later.

About two years ago a friend and I were sitting in McSorley's Ale House decrying the growing number of crackpot internet sites. We both worried about the capacity for well-written propoganda, easily reached through search engines, to influence the under-informed or the under-critical. Any agenda driven sophist with a website and some blarney could post anything; without fact checking, references, peer review or accountablity.

One of my complaints was that I'd wasted some time at a site that claimed to have a convincing theory of Gravity, complete with excrutiating mathmatics and observational evidence. The theory basically held that Gravity was a product of Universal Expansion. The math was suspect, the observation was theoretic, and at the end the guy finally admitted that he probably didn't know what he was talking about. Harmless in the end. But other sites dealing with other subjects could be harmful to the unsuspecting curious and gullible.
We, of course, didn't advocate any form of regulation/censorship; we were just concerned for the future of critical thinking and fact-based debate.

But recent events seem to show us (me, anyways) that the effect of the internet -- the free exchange of ideas and debate -- is actually having the opposite effect. It's not the garbage on the internet that seems to have been in need our communal critique; it's the garbage in the old media. The crisis at the New York Times' and exposing Michael Moore's "documentaries" for the dishonest propoganda that they are are just two examples of the Blogosphere having real effect by throwing light on the hitherto dark corners of where the media mogul roaches used to be able to rest unmolested by fact-checkers.

And even a non-daily updated site like this -- with essays and Comments threads -- serves as a great forum for admirers and dissenters and keeps us all on our toes.

So, thanks Bill for making the time and effort to write these gems.

Congratulations, Bill, a wonderful though not exactly perfect thesis, "Magic." However, I've had a little Mnemone that I've used to allow myself some operating room most of my life, it is: Infinity IS.

Debunking is a subject I've got a lot of experience with, since I've been fighting the professional debunkers most of my life (Phillip Klasse, James Oberg, James Randi, et al). You start your essay basically pooh-poohing the idea that there can be a race not-of-this-Earth that has the ability to get to our 'here', from their 'there', apparently, based on the idea that its just too far away. Who said it was, "Too far away?"...I'd hate to think that I was the village idiot who still believed that distance would even be a problem for a fullblown "Level I" civiliation, let alone a "Level II or III."

According to Kip Thorn, Stephen Hawkins, Michio Kaku and most of the real, formidable, "Theoretical Physicists" of the modern generation, we are just now emerging as a "Level ZERO" civilization, while (in fact) still not there.

To clarify where I'm going, I'll expand on my philosophy a little: "Infinity extends to all things, Space/Time, Energy Bands and Frequencies, Universes and, Realities. There are no absolutes, because that too is infinite." I've been following the tracks of the ancient "gods and goddesses" since I was a child in Sunday School who suddenly realized that some of the things I was being taught didn't ring true. Do I think they were Immortal? No...Do I think they were Omniscient and Omnipotent? No...Do I believe that they were immune to the effects of Aging? No...Do I believe that they were mortal, just as we are? Yes.

Do I believe they were "God"? No, first there was more than one, but, never more than 500 existing at one time on this planet. Second, they died of various things (accidents), executed several of their own (after due deliberation and conviction), and, killed each other in various ways for various reasons, including, in the various (documented) wars amongst gods and men. And, they weren't prone to using magic, just a science so advanced it still looks like magic to us, several thousand years after the last one "withdrew from the sight of man."

Am I a Christian? Yes, though I've learned that things in the Bible may not be exactly accurate, such as the 'name' "Thomas," which was 'deliberately' not translated. It means, "Twin."

Jesus' eldest brother, Judas, was called Judas Thomas. He was also called, Judas called Thomas, Judas called Didymus, Judas Didymus, Thomas Didymus, the Apostle Thomas, and, St. Thomas. Strangely, Didymus also means Twin, and, prior to the 16th Century, when either Mary, Joseph, or both, were depicted with a Christ Child, there was not one, but, two young boys in the picture, both with haloes, and, identical.

Think about Raphaels famous painting of the "Last Supper," where Jesus is in the center of the table, and, the Apostle Thomas is seen standing on the left side, glass raised in a toast, an identical twin to Jesus. Raphael got in a lot of trouble for that, because the Church had only recently declared the practice of depicting Jesus and Judas as twins would henceforth be anathema to those of Christian faith.

St. Thomas founded all of the Byzantine or Assyrian Christian Churches, as, St. Paul and Peter founded all of the Western faiths. Caused a schism, that, which came to a head in the early 16th Century. Paul and Thomas hated each other with an all encompassing vengeance that trickled down through the ages, coloring attitudes and 'painting' new histories, to the present day.

Do I believe there is life beyond the Planet Earth? Yes. Everything that Astronomers look at, and, check for the tools of Life proves, again and again, that the precursers and materials to allow the evolution of life is there...everywhere. Life is ubiquitous to the Universe, and, probably this Solar System.

Do I believe in UFO's? Yes. No equivocallity, flat YES. I've seen things that resembled Geese, like Madonna resembles a Main Battle Tank. Didn't need any pictures to prove what I saw, because I don't care what others think, and, never felt a need to prove anything...while fighting for the right of others to tell their stories, and, present evidence that has never been refuted, contrary to the "long-held-beliefs" and 'pat' statements and 'proof' of diehard skeptics.

Do I believe that there are senses that can't be explained? Yes, been there...walked the walk, talked the talk, and, did it myself.

Gordon DeSpain

Addendum:

First: Not only is the Universe larger than we can measure, but, the Infinite Sea of Knowledge is larger than we can imagine. If we take all the accumulated knowledge of the Human Race (extant or no), from the time the first 'critter' crawled ashore in some distant past, roll it into a vast ball, then, toss it into the Infinite Sea of Knowledge...how long would it take to find it again?...and, could we?

Do I believe in Leprechauns? Well...I don't know. It's an interesting question, but, I just never thought about it, before. But, I have an idea where we could find an answer...the Infinite Sea of Knowledge. Let's toss that idea, that question, into that Infinite Sea of Knowledge (along with all our other unanswered questions), and, see if an answer comes floating back.

Gordon

Geez,I feel like the neanderthal here;I don't even know if it is appropriate to use that last semicolon. I just read what Bill says and absorb it. Like movies. I watch a movie and either like or dislike it. It was information. Then critics pick it apart, piece by piece and find these little nuances I don't perceive.
I guess I tend to think of Bill as Steven DenBeste snorting a little Frank J.-informative yet fun and personable.
Hell, Bill, the longer the better because it always sucks to get to the end and realize it's over !

Bill - once again, you've written something a joy to read, even if I disagree with parts of it.

I'm a debunker who believes, if that makes any sense. A better way of phrasing it (or actually, paraphrasing it) comes from Spider Robinson, who wrote a book called Time Pressure. In it, the narrator character is explaining the difference between true science fiction fans and normal humans. It goes something like (and here's where the paraphrasing comes in *grin*):

A science fiction fan and a normal human will go through the same list of explanations when something weird happens, but for opposite reasons. The normal will think "I'm high; no, I don't do drugs. I'm drunk; no, I haven't had anything to drink. A blow to the head; that's it - I hit my head earlier; that's why I'm seeing this." A science fiction fan will go through the same list, hoping to disprove them.

A truly honest one will carefully explore all the possiblities. That's where I come in.

I have had three separate things happen in my life that I have absolutely no explanation for, and I'm not going to waste everyone's bandwidth describing them. (If you're interested, click my name - it shoud link to my e-mail.) I both do and don't want them explained - if they are, it means there's something new that I now know. I'll admit to sadness if they're explained, but I'm not so wedded to them as Weird Stuff (TM) that I'll attempt to explain away the laws of physics. (I actually have had people tell me that I didn't actually have the things I alluded to happen - that I hallucinated them for the sake of a story. I simply walked away.)

I really wish that I was as good at explaining myself as I see that you and Stephen Den Beste are. (And LabRat, and GreatHairySilverback, and...*grin*) I guess what I'm really asking (and if my brain was on enough to properly understand GHS, he was too) is that you keep an open mind. The universe is a strange and wondrous place, and we don't understand it all yet.

Gordon,

I believe your premise, "Infinity Is", is arbitrary and unfounded. Einstein's equation T = t`/sq.rt. of 1-(v^2/c^2) where (t`) is rest(local) time, and describes the Relativistic time dilation (T). It's why a body cannot be accellerated to a relative velocity (v) of light (c). This prevents matter from being "disconnected" from other matter since information can't travel at a greater speed. Infinities are incoherent and therefore un-physical. All particle experiments varify this.

As far as the Galaxy and Universe teeming with Life, that may be true depending on your definition of "teeming". Consider these facts:

The Earth is a fertile place for Life to thrive. If Life is to permeate the Galaxy then it sure as hell is gonna grow here. Over and over and over...
But, so far as we can tell (and we can tell pretty good), all Life on Earth is related. This means that on this oasis -- this 5 billion year old Life supporting paradise -- Life began once. ONCE!! ...about 2-3 billion years ago. So, while Life seems very resilient here in warm bosom of home, it may not be as common in the Galaxy or Universe at large as we'd like to believe.

For intelligent creatures to arise out of that Life that may exist on other planets, a complex and unstructured chain of events has to occur.
Of all the millions upon millions of species that have lived and gone extinct over billions of years, only Homo Sapiens (again, as far as we know) has been capable of building a spaceship.

We came from tree-dwelling primates; with hands good for grasping branches rather than the paws and hooves of ground-dwelling quadropeds.
We, and our Ape cousins, began spending more time on the ground, gaining in size.
Exanding deserts forced Us out of the jungles and onto the plains, where our hands became tool makers. An omnivorous diet fed complete proteins to our brain which helped us to solve the problem of survival by allowing us to adapt to swift changes in the environment. When drought came we walked away rather than thirst and starve like our less cerebral fellow critters. Eventually we were US.

But all this intelligence and problem-solving adaptability wouldn't be put to building a technological world of computers and spaceships unless we had heavy metals readily available.
Iron, copper, gold, etc there and ready for mining.
In order to have heavy metals close to the surface of a planet you need some serious erosion of the top soil to take place. You need tectonic plates moving and pushing against each other, building mountains and changing the course of rivers. We have all that in droves on Earth; not because it's warm and wet, but because of that Monster Rock in the sky.

It's been said that an Alien visitor might consider the Earth-Moon a Duel Planetary system. The relative hugeness of our satellite isn't remotely approached anywhere else in the Solar System.
But, perhaps it can also be said, that such visitors would not be surprised at that, since they would probably have a similar body at their homeworld.

Assuming all of the conditions are met on another planet somewhere out there, there's another problem. The Galaxy is billions upon billions of years old. Species -- perhaps even intelligent ones -- are extant and extinct in a cosmic blink of an eye. If another spacefaring species were to have evolved somewhere else, AND be visiting us now...the TIMING would have to be astonishingly coincidental.

In summary, Life on Earth once, Intelligent Life once, metals required, timing is everything.
I don't believe in UFOs because A) It's not very likely, and B) I've never seen any credible evidence of one.
Carl Sagan used to say that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Your claims of having seen UFOs are fantastic, and I'm not easily given to fantasy.

Gawd, these Comments are nearly as long as Bill's essays. Yeesh!

Interesting exchange, GreatHairy.., and LabRat. While I certainly have no objection to excessive thinking, I am a life-long desciple of Mr. Ockam, and the Theory Of Economy Of Movement. Was it not Heinlein who always declared that a lazy man invented the automatic pilot? I could be wrong.

Most humans encounter mysteries from an early age, and solve them, more or less, to their own satisfaction. The numbers drop sharply after High School, and by the third decade of life, we are generally left with those who are paid to ponder, and those who suffer the double-edged gift of an endlessly curious nature. Being blessed/cursed in such a fashion, while simultaniously cultivating a strong propensity toward economy/efficiency, I was forced to reconcile this potentally devastating combination.

While both of you peck around the edges, neither directly addresses the idea of odds making. Life is an endless series of figuring the odds, from waking in the morning, to turning in at night, for the duration of our lives. From slam-dunks, to hipshots, and everything in between, we make choices based on figuring the odds, using the information at our disposal. Allow me to submit my metaphor, and hopefully link it to your discussion.

I see the(my) brain as a transmission. A 3-speed manual transmission, to be exact. The number of gears is arbitrary, but I am middle aged, and have fond memories that color my choice.:)

3rd, or high gear is where we spend the majority of our time. Perception is going along swimmingly, and sensory input is being collated against memory by a bunch of bored collators watching the clock until quitting time. Our world is without any surprises, or mysteries. It's a productive day, and life is good. A tremendous number of people live their entire lives in third gear. Those in third gear are the ones who stand around gawking when a shot rings out, instead of hitting the floor. If, or when reality jamb-shifts them into second gear, many who didn't even know they had but one gear are confused, upset, and sometimes forever changed by the experience.

Second gear is not unlike any other second gear. It is pressed into service for climbing hills, turning corners, and any other occasion where additional torque may be necessary. Sensory information arrives that the collators don't have an exact slot for. Often, they can run a quick scan of the entire memory, and find a dusty old seldom used slot, and save the day. This results in only a momentary pause in our travels, and we hardly notice. Sometimes, however, brand new information arrives, a scan produces nothing, and the collators are at a loss. They immediately get on the horn to the bookie dept.

The bookies are the odds makers. They access the same memory scan, but are not in the collating business. When new information comes in, they run it against the memory. They know that there is no exact match, or collating wouldn't have called them. They find a close match, and figure the odds. Making their choice on that, they send the slot number back to collating, the info is inserted. If it sticks, collating updates the memory to include the new info, and things return to normal. If it doesn't, the process is repeated until it does, all with blazing speed, of course.

This is a rather beneign use of second gear, and it happens all the time. The first trip into a carnival funhouse full of warped mirrors is preceded by certain informational keys that dictate our concern. Those coming out the other end of the funhouse are laughing, and enjoying themselves, for example. Better yet, parents, or older siblings lead us along with reassurance. So we enter the house of mirrors not knowing what lies ahead, but armed with enough information to lay to rest any grave concern. Since we really don't have the exact information as to what happens in a house of mirrors, the bookies have been hard at work...second gear. All of the grotesque images we see, and the warped reflections that would otherwise drive the collators into a lather, have been pre-handled by the bookies, and all is well.

Second gear is not always so beneign. Sometimes we receive information that so strongly resists being processed, that we don't even know if we are in peril, or not. The collators are drumming pencils in a major snit. The bookies are in an intense huddle. This is where the bookies really shine. They take all the information available, scant as it may be, figure the odds as only they can, and then they make the call. To shoot, or not shoot at a firing range designed for such a test can generate amazing amounts of adrenalin, stress, and sweat, even when pre-handled, and known to not have any lethal repercussions. To shoot, or not shoot in a real-life situation, is a serious test of second gear, and we better have spent some time there, and be familiar with what is happening.

First gear is crunch time. The collators are passed out cold, the memory is all but shorted out, and the bookies have been doing some serious drinking. The information coming in is beyond collation. This gear runs on more emotion, and determination than reason, logic, or memory. First gear is the repository for things yet undiscovered, and things momentarily considered "unknowable". In it resides the Leap Of Faith that is essential for the practice of any religion. It is for musing about the night sky, or our beginnings, or ends. In my mis-spent youth, first gear served me well during periods of experimentation with hallucinogens. At times, it was the only gear left, by default. I knew I had a pulse, and that was about it. I did know enough to just hold it in first, and ride it out. Drunken bookies still figure odds, and it was something to hang my hat on, whatever a hat was. First gear is for combat. First gear is for desperation. first gear keeps us alive, and gets us through, until we are capable of grabbing second again, and back up through the gears to cruising speed.

I said at the beginning that this was a manual transmission. That is partly true. Quite often, I deliberately shift gears, and I almost always know what gear I'm in. After decades with this metaphor, however, a good number of the shifts are automatic. In all fields of endeavor, and thinking of, and discussing every possible topic, it has served me well enough to keep using it. I know what gear to use to know what to do if I am being shot at, how to enjoy a sunrise, or whether a pyramid under my bed will bring eternal happiness. There is no such thing as arrogant, offhand dismissal. That is neutral, and I have no use for it.

Hi Spork,

Working generally backwards through your comments, I don't need imperical evidence (presented by others) for things I've experienced, first hand, that were undeniably real and not something of this earth. Believe me, I tried to make birds of them, Planes, Meteorites, Balloons, anything but what I was seeing, up close. Your belief in UFO's is based on your non-experience, and, mine is a little more personal and varied (it's not just one I've seen).

I've studied a lot of things in my life, and, most of that 'determined digging' was a result of something I didn't understand, couldn't explain, and, nobody else believes in. I've also run afoul of a lot of really determined professional Skeptics, and, after digging up the proof they asked for, almost all used the standard 'James Randi' method of debunking, to wit, "I don't believe," usually followed by pointing to something that was debunked years ago. However, it's mete to consider the actual definition of "Debunk" (part of a course in "Debunking" I took on CSICOP's Website): (When faced with an event you absolutely cannot refute) Tell a lie and repeat it, til it's the last thing heard, and, the only thing remembered.

I'm a great Fan of Albert Einstein, though not much of a mathematician, and, within the last three months they've discovered that the "Speed of Light" is not fixed, in fact it's variable. Though the amount is infinitesimal, it still varies, and, this shakes a lot of trees. They've also postulated, within the last year, that it may not be the Barrier we think it is, simply because they can define ways around and through it, without touching it.

Now, who said that life must follow our precepts, be organic, or, even anything we would recognize as living? There are things right here on Earth that defy everything we thought we knew about life, and, within the last 5 years they've discovered that an unknown, 'recently discovered' Genus of life, Archaeia, outnumbers us Eucharyotes, and the Procaryotes, put together.

I worked on the commissioning of the Exxon/Mobil Platform Diana, and, while setting the Anchors for the Platform, they discovered huge beds of Methane Ice on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. To the amazement of Scientists, there is an entire food Chain of creatures living on and in the Ice, all based on (built upon) several different tiny creatures that eat Methane, and, all survive in a Methane saturated 'Atmosphere' of Water...without sunlight, without Oxygen, without, and in spite of, heat.

There are things living on this Planet that may outnumber every other living Genus, that require neither Sunlight, air/oxygen, free water, and, at both extremes of temperature, up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit (around and in "Black Smokers" at the deepest parts of the Oceans), and, far below freezing. In at least the one case, near the temperature of frozen Methane. There are things surviving in Antarctica which produce a chemical that keeps the water around them from freezing, and, others (small varieties of Fish) that have Anti-Freeze in their blood and live in an upside down world below the ice.

There are many things existing on 'this' Planet that survive in ecosystems more extreme than those found on the Planet Mars, and, at greater extremes (a little Shrimp-like creature that lives 'in' the "Black Smokers," yet, zips out into water far below freezing to feed and breed, and, zips back...the temperature differential alone should fry them).

The little Stardust Spacecraft, that they've now lost contact with, stuck a little 'sticky' Stop Sign out into the Interstellar Breeze, and, was plastered with a Tar-like Substance that was identified as a pre-cursor to RNA and DNA. It looks like the whole Universe may be related.

We do not yet know all the environments on Earth that have living creatures in them (except everywhere we've looked so far), so how can we pontifically tell the Universe where, when and what type of life it may evolve.

Gordon

You know, Bill, there is an basis underlying most of what I know, and some of what I believe. There is a little bubble of it floating around in my head all the time, and it's reinforced by some of my family's roots.

My family came from Europe at one time or another. My father's people came from England in the early 1800's, and they spent until the late 1800s in Maine and Vermont before moving to the mid-West, and the German side of his family came to the Dakota's in the late 1800's. My Mom's people were Scot and Irish and settled in Illinois and Missouri. So, in effect, I was handed a double dose of hard headedness, between Yankees, Scots, and Germans, plus a generous amount of blarney by the Irish kin.

What it all settles down to is my core beliefs are tempered by pragmatism.

Pragmatism, with a large dose of that famous Missouri sentiment, Show Me.

I strongly believe in the a variations of the hippies simple theme. "If it works right, don't fuck with it." As far as medicine or dentistry is concerned: "If it doesn't hurt, don't mess with it." "Not only is function infinitly more important than form, the form of the idea is driven by its function." All of these ideas are examples of simple pragmatism in action.

Another question I tend to ask is: Who benefits?

Take the Kyoto Treaty. It is for an ostensibly laudable idea, and an initial knee jerk thought would be, ok it sounds good. But then I take a look at who benefits. Does everyone in the world benefit? Most definitely not. The underdeveloped nations benefit tremendously. The first and second world nations suffer. Now what about the science? Is there near unanimity amongst the experts about the benefits or the costs? Small for the former and tremendous for the latter. So I say forget the Treaty.

I am not a citizen of the nations of Europe. If I were, I would be closely examining this idea of a European Union. Again, the initial premise is appealing: let's stand up to nasty old America. Together, we are a match for all the world. I believe that upon reflection we see the underlying value and basic merit of these statements: zero. It's all twaddle.

So far as I can see, there has been little examination of the cost of joining the EU. These costs have only recently been published in the document set up to guide the Union.

Let's see, you can't call another EU member any derogatory name. No more drunken Irishmen, no more suave French lovers, no more earthy Italian women, no more German barmaids in dirndls showing off their not minimal assets, and so on. Those statements are against the law. When a politician of whatever stripe does something abysmally stupid, as it seems politicians are wont to do, you can't call them on it.

You also cannot control who travels within your borders. All borders have the same level of security, supposedly. Rome International, do you hear that? You, who let the terrorists in who killed Navy diver Robert Steadman? Or France, that has often offered shelter to inimical threats to peace. What about Southern Bavaria in Germany, where many of the European terrorists laid low throughout the 80s?

The idea of a European Union is simply to be the inital form of the post modernist's desire for a World Government, IMVHO. We will impose Socialism, for we elite are much better educated, more capable, and much close to the godhead then you plebians. We will disarm everyone, so no group can dispute our orders.

Personally, I want no part of that. America has the idea, and the ideal, that the people run the nation. Certainly, we have certain vainglorious people who wish to seem in charge. Among them are those who like having the greater part of their state's public features named after them. Hey, it's only money, it doesn't cause anyone any pain, so let the old guy do it.

But when push comes to shove, we the people get the point across. Take a look at very recent history. The political landscape was sharply divided in two. A popular president was impeached, but not removed from office by a razor thin margin. This can only happen when there is great rancor among the populace. We went through the most divisive election in our history. People to this day say that someone stole the election. They disregard little facts like the Electoral College to make their points to the less well informed.

Then some men, not a nation, declare war by killing over 3000 civilians. We start fighting said men. The nation pulls together. The politically minded idiots we put in office still caterwaul about elections, aircraft landings, and other events, but the people remain focused on eliminating the threat.

You see, the people trying to destroy us are a problem. A practical problem, which requires a hard headed solution. One we can show the people. There, that organization is mostly destroyed. This bad man is out of power; no longer shall two hundred children be killed and buried holding their dolls.

What it all comes down to is that we Americans, as individuals, band together to form a group with the belief that the sum is greater than the parts. But the value of the individual is greater than the value of the group. We look at what works, we adopt it, and we make it our own. Hopefully without ever losing sight of the freedoms we cherish.

But we make the decisions as individuals, based upon what is best for the nation.

Pragmatically.

Sapper Mike

Gordon,

Fascinating. And I know of the worm-like critters that inhabit the cold ocean bottom near magma vents that don't depend on the Sun for anything. The other creatures you mentioned are news to me...and I'd like to learn more about them!

Life is certainly resilient and persistent. Also, perhaps the distinct Phyla could be the result of several different times that Life has begun on Earth. But even that would support the idea that Life would evolve pretty much according to the bio-chemical processes we've witnessed here.

As for what other different forms that Life might take, I think they certainly would be corporeal, material things, and evolve according to the laws of chemistry. (Perhaps not "organic". Silicon is as active as carbon, but not so plentiful. A planet where silicon-based Life would be created would probably mean that silicon is so much more plentiful than carbon, which isn't likely.)

Life that is not, by our experience, anything we would recognize as "alive" -- bodiless? un-"real"? -- is an interesting thought, but, since I have no way of recognizing it as alive, and know of no physical process that would produce an intelligent non-corporeal being, I can't say that I have any expectation that such a creature could exist.

You're right that my non-belief (not DIS-believe) comes from my non-experience of UFOs. I make no claim that you're UFO sightings never happened, nor that the unlikely coincidences that would put them here now haven't happened, but only that I have no evidence that they did. And so I do not BELIEVE in them. Though, if they're there, I'd really love to meet those travelers!

James Randi is one of my heroes. Not because he disbelieves in extraordinary claims, but because he applies science and reason to debunk the charletans and their hoaxes, as well as delusion and general superstition.
I'm a cynic, I know. Only because I want to know what's real and what isn't rather than suspect that I might be comforted by the beauty of some helpless wonderment.

Actually, I had an interesting experience with telepathy -- truely bizarre -- when I was 15. The last person I told about it (other than discussing it with the person who shared the experience) was an Air Force doctor. Needless to say I learned not to discuss such things openly with authority figures with any say in my future!!

Sapper, amen.

HEY! A short post!!

Bill, look above this post..see why it's good to keep comments open, if they're not troll-infested?!
more facts and ideas than my feeble brain can consume in 1 sitting..!
( maybe a companion book of the greatest comments is in order?!)

Hi. Actually, the relationship between Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucaryota was the main thrust of a research project of mine about a year ago. No, it was hardly groundbreaking- it was just looking at a certain biochemical pathway the three share and how it had wandered. Either way it required me to become familiar with archaea.

Some minor points: technically, Archaea and Bacteria are both prokaryotes. (Even more technically, "prokaryote" is now an outdated concept.) Also, they don't outnumber bacteria. And the highest proposed level of taxonomic organization, which encompasses these three groups, is the domain. (Proposed by Carl Woese, and not yet universally accepted.) Taxonomy goes like this: (Domain) Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Archaea is a domain; Methanococcus is a genus.

A less minor point: archaea are weird compared to what we're familiar with, which for most people is mostly vertebrates, but they're not THAT weird. Chemically they make perfect sense, especially in a pre-oxygen atmosphere. They fit quite neatly and satisfyingly into the tree of life, from a biologist's perspective. So they don't really turn my world upside down.

Speaking strictly for myself, I believe in the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, given its size, and the possibility that some of it may be intelligent. I regard the possibility that it has visited and is visiting Earth with skepticism. I regard the possibility that it has crashed near here (I live in New Mexico) with great skepticism. And I flat-out do not accept that it would have any overwhelming interest in the soft tissue of livestock or the anuses of rednecks.

Meanwhile, I'm familiar with everything Gordon mentioned except the "Stardust Spacecraft". Explain?

I read a Whittle essay and then I read the comments-suddenly I feel very uneducated. Damn those public schools!

I merely wanted to thank you Bill Whittle for revising your Magic essay. As someone pointed out earlier, I read it, I absorb it and I, apparently, miss a lot that the critics do not.

I hope that you will always keep your comments open because I learn just that much more from reading them after one of your essays.

Second-(suck up moment)-When your book comes out, how do we get ourselves an autographed copy?

Ciao

Amen to serenity above. This is much better than anything I ever got through formal education (although I can't deny my own role in the dilution of that education).

More! More!

Hi,

I tend to read and absorb what Bill has to say, but not comment. However, these comments have touched on some areas that I know a lot about.

First, there is lots of weird stuff in the world. I'm not sure how anybody could pay attention and doubt that. HOWEVER, as someone (LabRat?) pointed out above what annoys me is not that people recognize weird stuff, but that they build a world-view based on the weird stuff and not on the (relatively) ordinary. This is where the pseudo-science comes from. I think this is the general point of Bill's discussion of Chomsky and the bucket of black sand.

Maybe another point that needs to be clarified is that it seems to me that "science" is being used ambiguously here. On one side, we have a body of beliefs-physics, chemistry, biology, etc. On the other side we have a bunch of heuristics, attitudes and even moral "rules" that are at least in large part responsible for generating that body of knowledge. This ambiguity matters, as follows. Suppose I claim that I don't believe in some phenomena because it's not scientific. I can mean two things by it. First, I might be denying it because it either doesn't appear within, or is otherwise incompatible, with that established body of beliefs. But, this is just weak and lazy, as GreatHairySilverBack points out. But, I might mean that I have a applied that collection of heuristics, etc., which I trust because of its success in generating the bodies of belief. And, when I do that the phenomenon simply seems to vanish. To be some kind of sensory or cognitive artefact. However, this is certainly neither a weak argument nor a lazy one.

Unfortunately, really employing that toolbox takes time, money and energy. So, I am, and everybody else is, forced to pick and choose when and to what we can apply it. In the other cases we are forced to rely on two reasonably simple and reliable heuristics. First, that if something is radically incompatible with previously established beliefs then it is unlikely to be sufficiently interesting to bring the whole toolbox out to take a look at it. Second, that I can rely on people who have previously shown themselves to be pretty skilled users of the toolbox, to get it right this time.

This brings me to what I actually started out wanting to post about-Einstein, FTL and aliens. In Special Relativity, Einstein pretty clearly gets away with violating the first heuristic above. But, only because of the second one. Non-specialists seem to forget that in the same year that he published the SR paper, he published two other equally important papers solving the problems of Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect using pretty perfectly established methods and science, although the photoelectric paper is more adventurous than the Brownian motion one. (And, is what won him his Nobel prize.) Without this work it seems extremely doubtful that anybody of any consequence would have taken SR seriously. Finally, then General Relativity is the theory of gravity compatible with SR to replace Newton's which isn't, because it requires absolute simultaneity.

Ouch, this taking me a long time to get to the point I started out wanting to make. We know as nearly absolute experimental fact that we cannot accelerate past light speed from below (or above, but that's not really relevant). How do we know this? From particle accelerators. We know that the relativistic mass, which tells us how much energy we have to provide to accelerate a particle a given amount, increases with relative speed. It does so pretty precisely according to the expected calculations from SR, but this is a confirmation for SR not a product of it. It's this fact that forces us to build bigger and more powerful accelerators.

But, there might be shortcuts. Let me just mention two--wormholes and de-compactification. There are solutions to the Einstein Field Equations of GR which allow for connections between two space-like separated events, a wormhole. Unfortunately, this requires large amounts of exotic matter. This matter would have negative gravitational energy-kind of like a negative gravitational charge. We have no idea how to make this stuff, or even whether it's possible.

Alternatively, if e.g. string theorists are correct then spacetime actually consists of more than 4-dimensions, which of course takes us beyond GR. All but four of those dimensions would be compactified. Roughly, rolled up. Now some places which are far apart in 4-D spacetime might actually be pretty close to each other measured across another dimension. An example might help. Take a sheet of paper and roll it up tightly. The more tightly you roll it, the more the two-dimensional sheet of paper looks like a one-dimensional line. And, points on the paper that are a long ways apart when it's flat are now just next to each other. Maybe, we will discover that we can "unfold" spacetime, refold it, "step across" and then unfold it again leaving us at our destination.

Now, the point of all this. These, and I'm willing to bet anything else that anybody can come up with, both require and release truly vast amounts of energy. And somehow I don't think we are really going to miss bursts of radiation as intense as the Sun going off right here in the Solar System.

Just to respond to an obvious objection, I think that anything else we, or anybody else who happens to be out there, come up with will have similar effects because given the light-speed limit the only hope of FTL is the direct manipulation of the structure of spacetime. We know as surely as we know anything that this takes a massive amount of energy. The only place that we know it actually happens is in Black Holes.

And, the variability of the speed of light over the course of the history of the universe doesn't give us any help. First, we're still at the "crackpot or genius?" stage with these ideas. Second, it's still got to be frame-invariant, and as long as that's the case then the shape of the light-cones might change but we're still stuck inside.

Ouch, well this ended being almost Whittlesque itself. But, the upshot is that there are really good scientific reasons for refusing to believe that we are (currently) being visited by aliens. This, of course, is all in addition to the question of why they would travel parsecs to screw around with people and livestock and crash into hills in New Mexico.

Hi Lab, Spork, et al,

Remember the comment I made about "determined digging?" Well, not knowing what something is, where it came from, why it's here, and, why it's intruding on my space, is the totality fueling that. I jump from one thing to another, generally trying to relate everything to everything, and, in the process generally skim the top of everything. I usually stick to one or two pertinent categories when trying to stick all this together, like Phylum (when the name was lost in clutter at the time), and, Eucaryotes (Multi-Cell) and Procaryotes (Single-Cell) fills most of my needs, then, someone throws Archaea at me, and, I gotta start over again, tryin' to remember my math (Now, where'd I quit countin' last time?).

Right now, I'm trying to get up to speed on a project Image of Mars that the Anomaly Hunters are working on (Wil Fausts, "Parratopia"), and, trying to figure out where they've been so I'll have an idea where we're going (got the image up in another Window), so I'm not really here, ya know? I'm also trying to follow the latest Gun Rights diddling, and, keep my letter writing moving to stop as much tyrannous fiddling as possible...and, gettin' ready for a local gathering of us Gun Nuts.

Stardust! OK, it's a little Spacecraft that was supposed to do a close encounter with a Comet (sometime this year), made two passes around the sun and Earth, getting gravity boosts to sling it out there, each time, and, suddenly it wasn't there. But, it did manage to carry out a couple of successful scientific experiments, and, the one where it gathered Cosmic (Star) Dust for analysis was one of these. It was capable of a certain amount of onboard analysis, and, the data it returned added to our knowledge of the building blocks of life, by adding this tar-like substance to the tier...a precursor to RNA or DNA, and, possibly both. But, its loss (the Spacecrafts) ended that line of investigation into the nature of the substance, and, how much of it rains down on earth, everyday, along with tons and tons of other Universal debris. The raw material for starting over, after the next Cataclysm.

GHS...Public School? Did I attend one of those? Hmmmmm? Ah...yes, got kicked out of Physics class for blowing up at a teacher who was pushing the Solar System theory of Atomic Construction (a War Hero with a Steel Plate in his head...nuthin' got by that). I was doin' Schroedinger and Heisenberg at the time.

Gordon

Jim,

Great...now, to set you off on another tangent, go to Space Daily.com, and, do a search on, "A Matter of Inertia."

It just gets better and better...thanks, Bill.

Gordon

I am printing this all out to read later, when I am smarter.

(Bill, In this current post you have a typo "the the" just search for the, you'll find it.)

I am currently listening to cut 7 of the Titanic soundtrack album as I read your latest magic.2, it is a similar experience to watching the Wizard of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (which I have never done, but I understand it's interesting to do.)

I also wanted to mention something about A.C. Doyle and his interest in his later years in Mediums and Faeries.... the same person who invented that paragon of logic Sherlock Holmes. And all I mean by that is, if you are looking for Leprechauns, you are likely to find them.... the human mind is a very interesting phenomenon.

Dear Bill:

I have read and enjoyed three of your essays, so far....This rewrite of "MAGIC" is polished and perfected, an engaging read. I agree that decisions affecting our lives and our country MUST be based on fact, not fiction, which could open up a whole debate on the justification of the war we just waged in Iraq.

I have no background in physics or astronomy, or much of any science for that matter, thus a lot of what I have read here (especially the comments) is way over my head. Sadly, my thoughts are pretty much eneducated opinion, but here goes....

To Hairofthedawg: Reflect that it is not "religion" that seeks power, but MAN who seeks power in the name of religion. Prove to me that any religious writings came from the hand of God and not the hand of man...Did God create man, or did man create God? I don't know, but I do believe that man created religion and that is why there are so many in our world.
And it is man's thirst for power that pits the various religions against one another.

To Spork: All scientific evidence aside, how can you look to the heavens at night, see all those stars and star systems (infinite in number) and NOT BELIEVE in the probability that life exists somewhere out there? That it could be intelligent or that currently it might be as land-locked in it's own unique solar system as we are here on Earth? We have experienced two space shuttle disasters that have halted our manned space exploration temporarily. I've never seen a UFO, but I do believe they could exist. What if some distant civilization put all its hopes in the spacecraft that crashed in New Mexico (if in fact that's what happened). Surely that would have derailed their "manned" space exploration for a while....

While the possibilities here on Earth are becoming more finite, space and beyond still offer an infinite number of possibilities. Use your imagination and open yourself to what could be. I'm sure Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and all the other great inventors based their inventions on the scientific data of their day, but it was their imagination that led to their brilliant inventions.

Which brings me back to Bill: What can you do with "Imagination"? This country was founded by dreamers who imagined a better life for all.....

Geem,

True, I agree that the problem I have with religion is men seeking power through it and should have phrased it better. Thanks for pointing that out.

As far as fact and fiction and Iraq go, I doubt we'll ever know exactly what was going on there, but there, to my mind, was enough justification, even if found after the fact, to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

I don't feel that the discussion here has been about limiting things, but more about choosing what goals to pursue. Why waste time and effort on attempts in vain? I'm all for the exploration of space and discovering the infinite possibilities of the universe but we should be realistic about it. We could spend our time searching for extraterrestrials or become them ourselves, the latter of which I would prefer.

Is it economically feasible? Doubtful, unless you look at it with a really long term view. Should it be done? Yes, if only to provide us with an out-clause. I'm not an environmentalist gloom and doomer, but we need to anticipate a day when we'll need somplace to go. Why not start now?

cheers,

Dick

howdy Geem,

I didn't mean to leave an impression that I believe that it's impossible that we could be, or have been, visited by aliens. I just haven't seen the evidence that we have. And, for the reasons I blathered on about earlier, I do think it's unlikely (though any credible evidence could change that).

I fully accept that the possibilities of what is and can be that are out there among the stars -- and here at home -- may be "infinite", and I/we (humans) may not be able to comprehend those possibilties any more than my cats can understand a bran muffin recipe. But I can't BELIEVE (i.e. take it on faith, or on suspect evidence) the PROBABILITY that intelligent spacefarers have been here.

Bell, Edison, Franklin et al made amazing discoveries due in large to their imagination. (and, of course, someone who's decided that cancer can't be cured wont be the one to find the cure for cancer.) But imagination alone only gets you to see a possibility; critical thinking and scientific method are what will make it Real.

I gather we agree on these things, though...and are each merely stressing the yin and yang of it (tastes great! less filling!).

Hi Geem, Spork,

Someone mentioned earlier, the different ways we might step out among the Stars, assuming that Faster Than Light Speed is the only answer. However, a couple of things happened in the middle to late '50's, that shook me to my core, and, convinced me there's another way. I'm not the one who thought of it, it has been a theme of Science Fiction writers since the earliest attempts at the genre, it's Generational Spaceships.

One fine spring day, in 1956, I was setting in Mrs Kocyons 5th grade class, bothering the girls on either side, and, suddenly went blind. There was total silence in the room, then a collective gasp, girls screaming, boys yelling, and, Mrs Kocyon (who had been standing by the door) diving for the light switch. She (being our Science teacher) started trying to calm everyone down, explaining that it was nothing but an unexpected eclipse. Then charged out of the room, to call the Planetarium in Houston and find out what th' hell was goin' on, as we drifted toward the Windows for a look.

But, my mind was racing, Eclipses don't happen like that, instant total darkness, and, I knew that something else was happening. My first thought was that it was an Asteroid, and, we were directly under it. Scary, but, for some reason, I accepted the fact that we were gonna die, and, kept my mouth shut to keep from causing panic, or, suddenly flipping out. If I didn't acknowledge the fear, or talk about it, it might go away.

Just as I reached the windows and looked out, the Street Lights came on across the street, as some fast thinking City Employee found the Switches, and, turned 'em on (there were no Electric Eyes, then). There was a slight murmur of appreciation for this mundane event, then everyone shut-up and, stared at a totally black sky at about 9 AM, in total silence. I guess I wasn't the only one that didn't wanta talk about it.

Mrs Kocyon came back about 10 minutes later, and, I could tell when she entered the room, she was panicked. She tried to reassure us that it was probably an Eclipse, but, as yet, her friend at the Planetarium didn't know any more than we did.

She then told us to be calm and wait, she had some more sources to check, she'd be back as soon as she knew anything. She wasn't gone long, apparently someone she knew at the Police Station was receiving information from Louisiana, and, he gave her the best description I've heard, which agreed with the Papers, the next day.

It was the shadow of something beyond the orbit of the Moon, and, it was travelling approximately 1,000 MPH. It had originally appeared in the Gulf of Mexico, crossed the shoreline around Pascagoula, MS, was racing almost due West, and, appeared to be about 300 miles wide. At almost exactly 10 AM, the Sun returned with a Bang, which, while we were relieved, set my mind to calculating. Any way I looked at it, this thing was over a thousand miles long.

The shadow continued across New Mexico, Arizona, and, almost to California...then, Bang, it was gone. It never reached California. With my background in Science Fiction reading, at that time, I instantly decided it had jumped into "Hyperspace," and, found myself at odds with nearly everyone in Pasadena, Texas. Mostly on religious grounds, that there is no life anywhere in the Universe, except on Earth...God said so.

There was a flurry of speculation in the Papers (Houston Chronicle, Press, etc.) the next day, then it died a sudden and silent death.

Along about this same time, the world of Astronomy suddenly shut down as every Astronomer in the world ripped his Telescope around and pointed it at the Sun, to watch an event like none other, before or since. There was a swarm of thousands of geometric shapes, of every kind...Sphere, Square, Rectangle, Pentagon, Hexagon, and, Triangle crossing the face of the sun, in every known formation, grouped apparently by shape.

They continued to sweep majestically across the disc for three days, then one final object swept across the disc as if trying to catch up, and, vanished into the Cosmos.

Astronomers world wide breathed a sigh, and, heaved a collective, "Well, I'm glad that's over," swung their Telescopes back to whatever they were doing before the event, and, forgot about it, but, I didn't. Mrs Kocyon had been following the event, through her friend at the Burke-Baker Planetarium, and, I was chasing every lead I could follow, calling everyone I knew, and, the blackout hit...it never happened.

For an exercise in education, take a look at the Moons of this Solar System...as I have, every picture I could find, and, every fact I could attach to every Moon, including ours. The majority of the larger ones bear the earmarks of Generational Spaceships, parked in Orbits around the Planets, especially those in Trojan Orbits around the outer Planets (more than one Moon in a single Orbit). A book was written about the Moon by the man in charge of the NASA team that analyzed the Seismic readings from the Moon...they all had one opinion, it's hollow, and, rings like a Bell.

Who came here? When? Why?

Who are we? How did we get here?

Lots of things in this world, this Solar System, this Universe...we don't know.

Gordon

Dick and Turning Spork:

Wow, you guys are fast on the draw! It took me a while to get my initial thoughts down in writing....and another while to reflect on your replies.

What I meant to say, I think I said, but then you both expanded on my comments and made me think that my interpretation of your posts was just wishful thinking...I fully accept the principles of scientific research and basing conclusion on scientific fact, but, I leave a door open to the possibility that something exists beyond the sciences that we know. In example: when my daughter was a newborn she ended up in the hospital with a life threatening pneumonia. Logic tells me that hospitalization and competent medical care is what got her well. However, her life hung in the balance for several days until a congregation of strangers, collectively prayed for her recovery one Sunday morning. That evening, she made a "miraculous" turn around and quickly regained good health. Did medical science prevail, or did it get a boost from some as yet unidentified power through the positive thinking of strangers? The human brain is a great frontier for which much research is currently taking place. Perhaps there's more to the phrase "think positive" than we know. I will always be grateful for the doctors who treated my child....and for the prayers.

Yes. I think Iraq was worthwhile, too. (I THINK, because it is not finished yet.) But, I really hope WMD's are found there...and soon...otherwise I question the emphasis on the presence of WMD's in our government's sales pitch for the justification of waging the war. Yes, Saddam needed to go; he should have been dealt with back in '91 (hindsight). He was a menace to the stability of the middle east and, therefore, to us. But, the selling point for going to war was WMD's as a direct threat to the U.S.A. and I think we need to find them to save face, otherwise we are perceived as a trigger happy threat to the rest of the world.

Was the threat to us fact or fiction? Were the intelligence agencies still reeling from the trauma of 9/11? Did FICTION become FACT in order to justify a war and did we buy into the tale? Was it a deliberate attempt to deceive or a kneejerk reaction to the perceived theat of terrorism knocking at our door once again? Was it a case in point of Bill's "MAGIC" in action? As you say, we may never know---but, I'd like to have the answers.....

I'd like to believe that when we die everything becomes crystal clear, but, alas I have the feeling that its dust to dust like all the other critters on this planet and that life everlasting is achieved by raising intelligent, caring children who in turn become nurturing parents who raise intelligent,caring children, etc. Thus a little bit of us goes on..as long as mankind doesn't destroy itself in the name of politics or religion or some other earthly cause du jour.

How do you/we know that Earth wasn't someone else's "out clause" in the past?

So, YES to scientific exploration and YES to creative imagination. They will take us to the stars one day and more answers will be found....more questions, too!

Gordon:

I just read your recent post. Did that really happen? Where is it documented? Why have I never heard of the event before?

Mah esteemed cahleeg, the Gennilmun from Fladah, Great Hahry Siylvahbacka, is tryin' -- I say, TRYIN' ta get a rise out a' me. While I still hold tha flowah (Held the flowah! Hell, son, couldn't git up offa it!), I will attimpt -- I say, ATTIMPT -- to give him an ansah worthy of his great weight in this August foahum.

Bonus points, again, to LabRat -- predictions are one thing, but QUANTIFIABLE predictions separate the Albert Einstein's from the Daryl Hothingwaites. Math rules.

We revere Einstein not because he goofed off at work dreaming up some wacked-out shit. We revere Einstein because he goofed off at work dreaming up some wacked-out shit THAT COULD BE TESTED AND VERIFIED. How many hundreds of millions of people have come up with ideas far less odd or uninuitive than Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, but we don't talk about them because their theories were A BUNCH A' CRRRRAP!

I never said that there is nothing left to be discovered. I am saying that pretty much ALL of the things on the fringe that you have heard about are GARBAGE. Why can I make this statement with such confidence? Aside, obviously, from the fact that I pay for this site and can issue decrees like Misha I?

Well, to those who claim that there may be merit to some of the pseudosciences out there, I remain VERY sceptical, because you make a terrific mis-assumption about scientists and the way they are wired.

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that people like me would rather believe in than the idea that UFO's are faster than light, anti-gravity spacecraft filled with super-intelligent beings from other worlds. Imagine all that we could learn from them! Scientists LIVE for these things.

But no serious scientist gives them a second thought. Why? Because the evidence for ALL of these things is just so damnably poor that is fails to rise about the background noise.

A FINGERNAIL clipping from a bona-fide alien could, say, provide a DNA analog, or even better, exotic proteins constructed by right-handed amino acids. That would be very compelling proof, indeed.

Sagan has a very pithy line about this: A woman claims to have had her reproductive tract altered by aliens. Her gynecologist, she asserts, "is completely baffled."

Sagan replies, "apparently not so baffled as to write an article, with accompanying X-rays, MRI's, and biopsy photos, to the New England Journal of Medicine."

I DO emphatically believe that there are entire hosts, lesser fleas ad infinitum, yet to be discovered. But IF concentrating on a swinging crystal REALLY CAN heal wounds, we will learn about it in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and not on UNSOLVED MYSTERIES. Because if there is any merit to these claims -- ANY AT ALL -- someone will jump on it and make a name for themselves.

All major scientific theories: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Continental Drift, The Big Bang, Evolution, etc., have been met with impassioned opposition. I never claimed that new theories will not supplant old ones, or that unimaginable forces may not exist. I DO SAY, however, that the pseudo-scientific babble that people try to defend in this fashion do not show a scintilla of evidence. Outrageous though it was, there was EVIDENCE for Relativity, EVIDENCE for QUANTUM, EVIDENCE for the Big Bang, Evolution, Continental Drift, etc. There was, indeed, enoough evidence to eventually win over the hard-headed sceptics and THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS (or died off).The essential defining difference between my belief in antibiotics versus blowing smoke on a sick person with a feather is that there is a long, credible list of EVIDENCE about which one has the better effect on a plague victim.

The second part of Sagan's Dragon in the Garage analogy was also enlightening: suppose you go into the garage, and are told that there is an invisible dragon inside. But you begin to see huge, three-toed footprints in the flour you scatter. You spray-paint the air and a series of ridges and horns appear. You notice specific, isolated scorch marks appearing on the side of the garage wall.

You would have to admit, that there is in fact some evidence to support your claim that you have an invisble dragon in your garage.

To uncover something anomalous and unexpected is why people become scientists in the first place. When something REAL happens that leave these weird little clues, someone will figure out an explanation that will not only explain, but PREDICT such anomalies. Then a 10 or 20 year battle begins, and if the data is solid, reproduceable, and increases in accuracy as we find more ingenious ways to test for it, and the new theory predicts things that have not yet been observed, but then ARE observed, and IN THE CORRECT QUANTITIES, then we have a revolution.

Gray-Haiyahed Stinkinback has not, and ah dayah say CAN NOT, prahvide a shreyd -- Ah say, a SHREYD of evadunce ta suppot any a his theahries or annomlees.

And now ahm off ta bed, ah say, TA BED, aftah of cahwse, a Mint Julip ta calm, ah say, TA CALM mah jangly Nerves.

Excellent, I preferred the shorter version, perhaps because I thought that the heuristic part was one in many methods used for obtaining evidence. I enjoyed the addition of the sand analogy.

Gordon de Spain, if you are so sure of debunking James Randi, why not submit one of your theories, mystics, etc. to a test?
Me don't think so, perhaps it is to do with the 'bad' money. A tribal indian warrior once cast a spell on the million dollars, any to obtain the money shall suffer from richness...

Whether there is intelligent life forms out there or not... hmmm Up till this point, no PROOF exists, so let's assume that the answer is NO.

Anyhouse, me thinks me shall join Mr Whittle in de barn, wif de cows.

I printed all this out and read it, you people are fun... no one in my real life talks about Einstein at all.

Since it is 2003 and the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brother's first powered flight (Dec. 17th this year) I thought I'd mention that the brothers had to throw out the "scientific" documentation on wing shapes and other sorts of information that they had been using in their experiments that had been leading them to failure. They had to start over and do wind tunnel tests and begin building their own database of information from scratch. It is very difficult to do that.... it takes a certain personality to overcome that stumbling block, of ignoring the establishment of the time and starting fresh.

I often wonder if Nazi Germany had not persecuted Jews, but rather some other group.... and let's say all the German Scientists stayed there, could they have come up with the Atomic weapon (yes, I know about Heisenberg) or was it something about America that made it possible to happen here?

I know we used a lot of money and the right people to "go do it." And then we did the same thing with the space program. Why did we stop doing it? What other impossible things have we accomplished "not because they are easy, but because they are hard" ? I guess the answer is the computer industry.... but all that came out of that is fast video cards so people can play shoot 'em ups in more colors.

Can some of you smart people (in your spare time) come up with the nuclear fusion thing, so we can have safe nuclear power and also that thing where we run our cars on a teaspoon of water. Thanks.

Three words for you, EB: Human Genome Project. Nobody appreciates biologists. Think we'll go eat worms.

By the way, Silverback, it occured to me yesterday afternoon one way your dog might have been able to tell when you were having a moment. If you had been working on the computer until pausing to fight off anger, and you stopped to do that, she might have been able to tell something was wrong not from any noise you were making but by the noises you *stopped* making. Dogs have much better directional hearing than humans, and it's not at all unlikely first that she would have been able to hear the keyboard from where she was, that she would have been far more interested in her packmates than in the TV, and that she would have learned that the sudden quiet from your direction meant something was wrong.

Just an idea. :-)

Wow! With long essays come long comments.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that if I ever see you write an essay again that doesn't immediately make my ADD rattled brain scream in protest, then I know you've sold out. Keep writing them as long as you want. Maybe for the next one we should call Guinness.

If you think you have something worth saying, say it. If you don't, then keep quiet. Pay no attention to us out here in cyberspace when we ask for more or fewer words.

In other words, don't write for readers, write for you. Anything else and it stops becoming fun and starts becoming toil, and quality tends to droop. (I think that just dawned on Mr. Den Beste a few days ago, as this seems to imply. I may be wrong, but this isn't the cornerstone of my argument so I don't care much.)

Bill,
regarding your last post in a southern drawl:
I assumed it sounded like Foghorn Leghorn, but found it much easier to read as if spoken by Forrest Gump.
( I was gonna post something involving multivariable calculus to sound smarter but I'm lucky if I even spelled it right..)

Geem,

Like you, I don't know that we weren't some other place's "out clause" and there are numerous magical theories suggesting just that. The problem I have with them is the, at least to my limited knowledge, consistent progression of evolutionary DNA through the primates. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but when exactly would we have arrived if from elsewhere as an out clause. Genetic engineering is possible, but if they were that advanced, they probably should have done a better job.

EB,

I still feel America has the potential to "do"! Where I place the fault for the lack of doing is with bureaucracy, both in government and excess management in most corporations. It seems the only way to get rid of dead wood is for a corporate takever to occur and one group of managers is replaced by another, or in some cases not. More redundant management. There aren't enough doers anymore and a lot, way too much, of funding for projects is eaten up by redundant middle and upper level managers. Get the money to the engineers and the experimenters!

cheers,

Dick

I would like to get away from the discussion of scientific vs. unscientific thought as regards "magical phenomena", and discuss Bill's closing argument, and, I believe, central tenet of the essay: non-magical thought as applied to politics.

In discussing the layers on layers of scientific knowledge producing new information/knowledge, Bill adds this kicker:

"It is also a way of thinking that we Americans formerly tried to apply to politics with pride. Show me. I'm listening. We abandon it at our mortal peril."

In the main body of the essay Bill takes Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to task--Moore moreso than Chomsky. I guess what I am looking for is this: Show me. I'm listening. with regard to political debate.

On the economy:
Show me why the Bush tax cut plan is good/bad.
Show me why I should be for/against eliminating dividend tax cuts.
Show me the Republican plan to restimulate the economy that contains more than soundbites.

On Homeland Security:
Show me that Tom Ridge is doing anything/nothing.
Show me that our foray into Palestinian/Israeli morass is/isn't worthwhile.

On foreign affairs...
On personal choice, human rights, welfare, judicial appointments, proper freedom of speech, ..."

Show me. I am a conservative American, and I want ammunition. For me it is not enough to call Michael Moore an idiot--I already know that. But my liberal/leftist friends think he is a genius--they say "who cares if Columbine was staged--that doesn't mean Moore was wrong!"

In order to carry the day in politics you have to deal with that level of dicussion. The problem with political discussion is that it is based on heuristics, and not facts. At the detail level of political discussion, very little can be "proven" beyond capacity for disbelief. Yes, there are clear absolutes that only morons disagree with (the Iraq War is justifiable, regardless of whether we ever find WMD, for example). But beyond such things the debate gets murky.

Each side trots out its own "experts" who swear that their "data" and analysis are the only true "data" and analyses. People choose to believe/disbelieve whichever set of experts fits/doesn't fit their personal heuristics.

In Bill's previous essays he has tackled--expertly, in my opinion--the foolishness of the anti-American, pro-Saddam, "Peace in our time", please-give-me-more-mass-graves-of-children crowd. That was brilliant, moving, and fun.

But let's bring it down from the 35,000 foot level "America as a place to be revered, supported and loved vs. the alternative" and deal with the realities facing our leaders and politicians.

I want to teach citizenship to my kids. I also want to teach governing to my leaders. I need ammunition.

Any takers?

On Palestine/Israel, at least we're doing something. I can't profess to know if it's right, but I feel that we're trying to give both sides fair alternatives to the violence. I also feel the concept of fairness has so long been gone from that region, and specifically that conflict, that it probably won't work. One possible hope is that, if it was true, the reward money from Saddam will no longer be providing incentive to the Palestinians, and if those attacks cease, I feel the Israelis will play ball. The hard part will be getting, more so the Palestinian and Israeli hard liners than the general population, to see past the hatred and look a little further into the future, much what like's going on in Iraq. It's tough there too, but with hope and a little patience, they'll get on the right track.

cheers,

Dick

Russ Fletcher,

The problem, I think, with discussing "magical thinking" as it pertains to political issues is that heuristics guide -- even control -- our basic values and worldview even more solidly than lazy "magical" thinking.

F'rinstance, you can say "SHOW ME why I should support/oppose a tax cut." One Economist will say you should oppose it because a tax cut will deepen the budget's deficit thus raising interest rates thus stifling economic growth. Another qualified Economist will tell you that you should support a tax cut because that would put more money in the pockets of people who'll spend it and/or invest it thus creating economic growth.

You can say "SHOW ME why I should support/oppose abortion." One person will tell you that a human Life begins at conception, that it then grows throughout it's life through embryonic, fetal, infantile, adolescent, meno-pausal stages; and that there is no scientific or philisophical reason to claim that a person's life begins at any moment AFTER conception. Another will tell you that zygotes and embryoes are not persons because they have no defined individuality or independant existence, and that though they have DNA that is different from either parent it's no different from the DNA of a twin's fingernail, and that a decision of that solemnity needs to be reserved for the mother rather not the Government.

You can't prove or disprove any of these positions. Economics is an inexact science -- mainly guesswork -- because the economy is such a fluid thing, and it's success depends on the tiny influences of each and every decision made by each and every merchant and consumer.
A person's stand on abortion depends on their very personal views of government, religeon, self-interest, biology, philosophy etc.
Foreign Affairs is pretty tricky because it relies on an understanding of Human Nature, plus intelligence information about what's REALLY going on behind the scenes.

In short, Russ, I guess what I'm really saying is Yer On Yer Own! heheh....

Actually this reminds me of something I wanted to say about the Essay... about Bill's "debate" about Iraq (we should let inspections continue, have they solved anything yet, yadda yadda [I can't recall the exact text]...and concludes "MAGIC!").

Bill, you could just as easily have written:

We need to invade NOW(!) because Saddam's WMD are a direct and imminent threat to US.
Now? Does he have bio and chemical weapons?
We know that he USED to.
Have we seen them?
No, but he provided documentation a decade ago that he had them.
Do we know that he hasn't destroyed them?
Well, he hasn't shown documentation that he has.
Do we know that he is close to completing a nuclear development?
We think he is, based on reports from escaped scientists.
So, we've never seen his bio and chem stores, we've never seen his nuclear facilities, but we SUSPECT that he has them, yet we KNOW that we have to halt the inspections and invade NOW(!) because he is about to launch an attack on the U.S.A?? MAGIC!

There's a response we give this, of course. But there'll also be an equal and opposite response to THAT. I guess my point is that that little section of the essay left me a little unsatisfied.
Other justifications for Operation Iraqi Freedom aside; there is a worldview that would support an invasion of Iraq based on our Understanding of the direct threat of Saddam and his WMD. Some would call it defensive, far-sighted, even Visionary. Others would simply call it Paranoia.

Heuristics -- the filter, the method, through/by which we accept or reject entire ways of looking at evidence -- are not a sign of intellectual sloth. They are neccessary for getting on in the world moment by moment, even though they are also the "crutch" that perpetuates the "magical" thinking.

Just an aside: A scientist might say "Seeing Is Believing", and Delusion might be described as "Believing is Seeing."
Back in the mid-'80's (the Cold War days) before I ever heard of the word "heuristics", I gave the unconscious function of "Believing Is Seeing" (what Daniel Dennett in his awesome book 'Consciousness Explained' called "The Great Discriminator") a name; "Checkpoint Charlie Of The Mind". I was into politics more than philosophy at the time...and had to make up my own nomenclature!

sorry for blathering on and on again.

Hi Geem,

Yes, they really happened, and, were reported by all three newspapers in Houston, Texas, the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Press, and, the Houston Post, not to mention all three Network Stations, Channels 2, 11, and, 13, and, every local Radio Station. However, two of those papers no longer exist, the Chronicle claims that its archives don't go back that far, and, the Television Stations claim their broadcasts in that era were live and not recorded, plus, how many Radio Stations have archives, even now.

I've seen them mentioned in several books, but, that was years and many books ago, and, I haven't even thought about pursuing the issue in years, not even when I was a Section Leader on the old Encounters Forum of Compuserve ('93? '94?). There was one other event in that time period, and, I haven't thought about it for years, either, a rebroadcast of "Howdy Doody," and, "Kukla Fran and Ollie," that were live shows, and, some of the characters were dead, when they came back from nowhere, and, knocked down and overrode every TV Station in America. I watched that, in total amazement, and, all of the Media mentioned above reported that the signal, that knocked everyone off the air, originated in the Asteroid Belt. This is another thing that I've never been able to document, even though I watched every minute of it, and, tried to follow up.

I was also watching when two Astronauts climbed down from the Lunar Rover (Apollo 17?), one began setting up an experiment, and, the other turned to survey the large Crater directly in front of the Camera. Almost instantly a light came on, on the other side of the Crater, and, in quick succession like someone running from room to room, 5 more came on. The Astronaut said, quietly, "Capcom...We are not alone." Capcom came back, "Say again, we did not read you." He replied, as I slammed into the Console TV on my knees, "I say again, Capcom, we are not alone. They're lined up on the other Rim of the Crater, watching us..." BANG - a startled Walter Cronkite, caught with his mouth open, sputtered, "And, now a word from our Sponsor. It seems we've lost the feed from the Moon."

James Oberg was the NASA spokesman, at the time, and he led the charge to debunk any idea that they had experienced a strange event on the Moon. Incidentally, this was one of the events that caused NASA to install the 7 second delay.

To Leron,

I never corresponded directly with James Randi, except in a backhanded way, through his running buddy, Leon (Polish last name that I never can remember), who was an Aviation Editor for Time Magazine. Leon is the one who created CSICOP's little "Learn to be a Debunker" curriculum, and, made me the offer you suggest. I declined, because I already knew the ground rules for the test...the 'Last Word' belonged to Randi, and, all he had to do, to keep the two million dollars (the interest of which, he was living on), is, say, "I don't believe," and walk away.

James Oberg and I ran head to head on the CNN UFO Forum (though I'd corresponded with him in other places) after NASA terminated his contract (for cause) and he went to work for CNN in the same capacity. I posted links to his Website, quoted things from it, and, he slowly vanished into the night. The biggest strike against him seemed to be that he 'bragged', on the first page of his Website, that he could debunk anything if the price was right. Apparently, CNN didn't think they got their money's worth (we buried him in Links).

Ya see, I don't sell anything, especially my memories of really strange events, and, I've told none of them here. What I've told, thus far, affected a lot more people than just me, and, I'm sure there's documentation out there somewhere, but, I've not found any, still existing, unless James Obergs drivel is plastered across it.

Need I say it? I have no respect for a man who'll sell his soul for 'less' than 30 pieces of Silver. James Randi and Phil Klass I consider two of a kind, even though, along with Carl Sagan, Leon and Dr Donald...? (ach, wrote two books debunking UFO's that were nothing but Ad Hominem Attacks, and, wishful thinking..."...believe me, I know what I'm talking about," as he would say at the end of every chapter), the founding fathers of CSICOP.

Carl Sagan? Yeah, I liked him, read every one of his books, and, especially liked "Brokas Brain," but, really didn't care for "Contact." Superficial, and, hokey 'back-to-square-one' ending...which is actually true to life, as I know it, always beginning over, investigating and fighting the latest debunker.

But, don't get me wrong, I'm probably a more determined skeptic than many of you, because, I've known a few of the hoaxers, and, I know what is, and, isn't.

Leon? Well, the E-Mail correspondence was cordial, interesting, informative, and, fun...in private. But, this was in direct contrast to the online blistering, raging battle. In E-Mail, he goodnaturedly accused me of cheating to pass his course in Debunking...nope, simple self-defense: know your enemy better than he knows himself.

Gordon

No offense, Gordon, but back in 1956 and in the fifth grade, you must have been ten or eleven with a fantastic imagination (well-versed in Sci Fi, too)....Certainly any event of such magnitude would still be on the tips of the tongues of EVERYONE who experienced it......When Mr. Whittle was nine he saw a leprechaun.....

Hey LabRat!

What if there actually is some "factor" found only in the anuses of rednecks that is after all fabulously valuable to some incomprehensible alien civilization?????

David March
animator & fiddler

LabRat,
Your theory about the dog is in a Sherlock Holmes story! I think it's from Silver Blaze.

Hi Fiddler,

Well, hmmmmmm? Is that the best comeback you have? I'm proud to be a redneck. I was raised a Cowboy by a King-bred Bruni Paint Horse, a classic Tobiana from the first crop of the famous Bruni Paint Horse line. The last title I bore (of several) was the defacto title, "King of the Punching Bag at Gilley's." Been everywhere, several Continents, lots of Countries, and, not a few Islands, and, done and seen everything in between, though sometimes I made it back leaving blood in every Knee and Handprint, while digging for knowledge every inch.

Where have you been?

Gordon

Hi Geem,

No, it doesn't seem to work that way. Even with the scientific discoveries being made today, we (us plebians) hear very little about it, unless we're directly involved in Science or digging hard all we hear is the "long-held-beliefs," and, pablum from inside the beltway. It seems they think we're too dumb to comprehend all th' big words, I guess (seems my English Minor is not worth much, judged by todays standards. We had to work for our grades...today, showing up for class is worth a 'B').

Gordon

Ach, something just clicked, I'm gettin' old. Can't count back anymore. I was in Mrs Kocyon's classes of '51-'52, and, '52-'53, fifth and sixth grades. So the events I described happened four years earlier, and, the remainder were scattered throughout the latter '50's.

One of the largest problems with searching for data on these events, is, there were no Computers small enough for home use, no Internet to store them on, and, no-one interested enough, today, to search the Paper trail and scan them online.

Gordon

EB: ""Before deciding that question I had grasped the significance of the silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others. The Simpson incident had shown me that a dog was kept in the stables, and yet, though someone had been in and had fetched out a horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well." - "Silver Blaze"

The detective was theorizing about a silent dog, wheras I was theorizing about a dog reacting to silence. Elementary.

Gordon, oh Gordon,

Not to be confrontational or anything; but I've concluded that you are either A) telling what you believe to be is the Truth, and are mistaken B) helplessly Delusional C) Self-Delusional for the sake of an Identity D) Lying to propogate a hoax or E) an Andy Kauffman-style put-on artist.
I'm leaning toward C).

It's interesting that 99.9999% of people don't encounter UFOs or any other paranormal experience, yet you claim to have encountered several.
It's also interesting that your detailed description of extra-terrestrial phenomenon was experienced by hundreds of thousands (and possibly millions), yet we have no record of it because of "The Blackout".

I, as a friend whom you've never met, suggest that you either get Real or get some Therapy.

Okay, there I said it.

I've had a few bizarre experiences (okay, 2) in my time. But claiming something that Big and then dismissing the lack of evidence as a result of a "blackout" makes my antennae twirl. I think I'd have gotten past it by now.

Some advances in “scientific” understanding of reality seem far more revolutionary than others.

The hierarchy of embedded crystalline spheres that had been steadily embellished to account for increasingly detailed observations of the motions of the planets and sun in Ptolemaic Earth-centered hypothesis of the universe was fiendishly complex, but a remarkably accurate tool for predicting those movements. It was superseded by a “model” that was more elegant in its simplicity, but hold on a second... That seeming elegance is actually the consummation of many decades of analysis, observation, fiddling, guesswork, sweat, and determined puzzling by folks who themselves were the inherito