<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Alternative Theories]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:58:23 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA["Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21581.html Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:42:53 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21581.html
It all goes straight to epistemology. How can we really KNOW anything?

I guess if something extraordinary happens to other people, then by definition it ISN'T extraordinary evidence. But if it happens to you then it is? What more evidence does one need than the immediate presentation of their senses? It is the very foundation of empiricism itself.]]>
It all goes straight to epistemology. How can we really KNOW anything?

I guess if something extraordinary happens to other people, then by definition it ISN'T extraordinary evidence. But if it happens to you then it is? What more evidence does one need than the immediate presentation of their senses? It is the very foundation of empiricism itself.]]> <![CDATA[The Binding Problem in a nutshell..]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21572.html Tue, 13 Oct 2026 20:34:02 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21572.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1840436390735482

The bigger mystery? How did the conscious construction of the outer world, and the containing physical world itself, become so interchangeable---so seamlessly mistakeable--for each other? There was never any survival advantage to noticing their difference. It became a necessary illusion, like seeing ourselves in the mirror, and was programmed into our genes for millions of years. It required the evolution of certain kind of mind called a philosopher to expose their inherent differences.]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1840436390735482

The bigger mystery? How did the conscious construction of the outer world, and the containing physical world itself, become so interchangeable---so seamlessly mistakeable--for each other? There was never any survival advantage to noticing their difference. It became a necessary illusion, like seeing ourselves in the mirror, and was programmed into our genes for millions of years. It required the evolution of certain kind of mind called a philosopher to expose their inherent differences.]]> <![CDATA[Ways of seeing]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21557.html Sun, 11 Oct 2026 18:48:01 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21557.html
Seeing is a most miraculous experience. It entails the sudden instantiation of an apparition, an unmediated other, and a raw phenomenal presence to our otherwise empty and unlit minds. It is the ever on-the-fly and and spectral navigation thru the visible and the invisible---the manifest and the hidden.

We see when we look around ourselves. We see in our dreams. We see when we're reading. We see when we cease to think. We see thru, as in seeing thru the transparence of the air or the translucent mist. We see peripherally. We see shadows and silhouettes and blurs. We see stars thru telescopes that are no longer there. Animated film images on screens. We see patterns that are there and not there. We scan and pinpoint. We scrutinize and scry. We track and we aim. We gawk and we glare. We spy and we spectate. We see movement and stillness. We see the gradual and the instantaneous change. The contrast between shades and hues. We see colors and the colorless. We see ourselves thru our reflection. The form and the formless. The substantial and the insubstantial. Seeing is never just one thing. It is multi-modal, open-ended, and infinitely variable.

"In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical."--Plotinus]]>
Seeing is a most miraculous experience. It entails the sudden instantiation of an apparition, an unmediated other, and a raw phenomenal presence to our otherwise empty and unlit minds. It is the ever on-the-fly and and spectral navigation thru the visible and the invisible---the manifest and the hidden.

We see when we look around ourselves. We see in our dreams. We see when we're reading. We see when we cease to think. We see thru, as in seeing thru the transparence of the air or the translucent mist. We see peripherally. We see shadows and silhouettes and blurs. We see stars thru telescopes that are no longer there. Animated film images on screens. We see patterns that are there and not there. We scan and pinpoint. We scrutinize and scry. We track and we aim. We gawk and we glare. We spy and we spectate. We see movement and stillness. We see the gradual and the instantaneous change. The contrast between shades and hues. We see colors and the colorless. We see ourselves thru our reflection. The form and the formless. The substantial and the insubstantial. Seeing is never just one thing. It is multi-modal, open-ended, and infinitely variable.

"In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical."--Plotinus]]> <![CDATA[Benign Violation Theory (Robert McGraw)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21493.html Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:38:09 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21493.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1501226911871282]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1501226911871282]]> <![CDATA["The Death Of A Naturalist"]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21449.html Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:10:44 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21449.html Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragonflies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst, into nimble
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it."

"Seamus Heaney’s poem “Death of a Naturalist” evokes a change in the poet’s perspective on the natural world. We see the detached, naive viewpoint of the child “naturalist” replaced with a more sophisticated and poetic vision of a world saturated with meaning. While in the first stanza, the life cycle of the frog is a matter of detached observation, sanitized by his school teacher, the poet awakens in the second to the frogs’ “bass chorus”, the experience of “their slap and plop” as “obscene threats”, and finally to the chilling knowledge that “if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it”.

While the poet perhaps regrets the loss of innocence that this experience entailed, his readers may be more grateful. For Heaney’s poem shows that, for him, the death of naturalism was the birth of poetry. Heaney’s poem documents the metaphorical death of the callow student of natural history. But Jason Blakely’s book suggests that there’s an equally unsophisticated kind of naturalism whose demise should be considered, even celebrated. Blakely defines naturalism as a false and usually implicit philosophical view of the nature, scope and limitations of the natural sciences. It’s the reductionist assumption, based on a dichotomy between facts and values, that the natural sciences are properly concerned with objective, verifiable facts while the social sciences are too often distracted by subjective values, meanings and beliefs.

As Blakely argues, what makes naturalism reductionist is its confidence that these subjective, human dimensions of reality will one day be entirely explicable in terms of objective data, such as “brute facts about demography, surrounding environments, or neurobiology”. If naturalism is true, then the explanatory scope of such data could one day be fully extended into the subjective realms explored by the social sciences, and evaluative terms could eventually be eliminated from rational discourse..."--- https://www.the-tls.com/religion/religio...naturalism]]> Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragonflies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst, into nimble
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it."

"Seamus Heaney’s poem “Death of a Naturalist” evokes a change in the poet’s perspective on the natural world. We see the detached, naive viewpoint of the child “naturalist” replaced with a more sophisticated and poetic vision of a world saturated with meaning. While in the first stanza, the life cycle of the frog is a matter of detached observation, sanitized by his school teacher, the poet awakens in the second to the frogs’ “bass chorus”, the experience of “their slap and plop” as “obscene threats”, and finally to the chilling knowledge that “if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it”.

While the poet perhaps regrets the loss of innocence that this experience entailed, his readers may be more grateful. For Heaney’s poem shows that, for him, the death of naturalism was the birth of poetry. Heaney’s poem documents the metaphorical death of the callow student of natural history. But Jason Blakely’s book suggests that there’s an equally unsophisticated kind of naturalism whose demise should be considered, even celebrated. Blakely defines naturalism as a false and usually implicit philosophical view of the nature, scope and limitations of the natural sciences. It’s the reductionist assumption, based on a dichotomy between facts and values, that the natural sciences are properly concerned with objective, verifiable facts while the social sciences are too often distracted by subjective values, meanings and beliefs.

As Blakely argues, what makes naturalism reductionist is its confidence that these subjective, human dimensions of reality will one day be entirely explicable in terms of objective data, such as “brute facts about demography, surrounding environments, or neurobiology”. If naturalism is true, then the explanatory scope of such data could one day be fully extended into the subjective realms explored by the social sciences, and evaluative terms could eventually be eliminated from rational discourse..."--- https://www.the-tls.com/religion/religio...naturalism]]> <![CDATA[Penrose’s theory of consciousness supported by new quantum evidence]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21239.html Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:18:32 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21239.html Penrose’s theory of consciousness supported by new quantum evidence
https://iai.tv/articles/penroses-theory-..._auid=2020

INTRO: Roger Penrose argued that human thought does things no computer can, so the mind must make use of non-computable quantum mechanics. The idea remains fringe. Most scientists think that in warm, wet environments like the brain, quantum states collapse into classical states far faster than neurons fire, and so cognition must be governed by classical physics. But neuroscientist Mike Wiest argues that new evidence challenges this assumption: stable quantum states are now being observed at far higher temperatures than previously thought possible. And consciousness, he suggests, has structural features that make quantum mechanics a natural place to look for an explanation, so critics should stop accusing Penrose of simply piling one mystery on top of another. The time has come to give this neglected proposal another look... (MORE - details)]]> Penrose’s theory of consciousness supported by new quantum evidence
https://iai.tv/articles/penroses-theory-..._auid=2020

INTRO: Roger Penrose argued that human thought does things no computer can, so the mind must make use of non-computable quantum mechanics. The idea remains fringe. Most scientists think that in warm, wet environments like the brain, quantum states collapse into classical states far faster than neurons fire, and so cognition must be governed by classical physics. But neuroscientist Mike Wiest argues that new evidence challenges this assumption: stable quantum states are now being observed at far higher temperatures than previously thought possible. And consciousness, he suggests, has structural features that make quantum mechanics a natural place to look for an explanation, so critics should stop accusing Penrose of simply piling one mystery on top of another. The time has come to give this neglected proposal another look... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[On being outside of language..]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21192.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 19:55:48 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21192.html
No, the only real way of getting outside of this continuously self-involving and labyrinthine solipsism of our evolved language-programmed brains is to ask who is the one who speaks or thinks? What is the nature of our being such that we have become so thoroughly emeshed inside of a realm of mere abstractions and representations. Humans as the speakers and users of language and the readers of its textual meanings. This is how we can get outside of language, not by being muted in a world that is everywhere speaking to us but by finding in our own words themselves a necessary incompleteness and open-endedness--that poetic and imaginative muse herself--who eternally lures us beyond our rigid narratives with promises of fresh new experiences and consciousness. Extra-linguistic being iow not enabled thru brute sensate physicality so much as by ideational creativity. We are only outside of what we are saying by being the one saying it, not by being just another thing said about. Our essence is agency not objectified thingness. Being is a verb not a noun.]]>
No, the only real way of getting outside of this continuously self-involving and labyrinthine solipsism of our evolved language-programmed brains is to ask who is the one who speaks or thinks? What is the nature of our being such that we have become so thoroughly emeshed inside of a realm of mere abstractions and representations. Humans as the speakers and users of language and the readers of its textual meanings. This is how we can get outside of language, not by being muted in a world that is everywhere speaking to us but by finding in our own words themselves a necessary incompleteness and open-endedness--that poetic and imaginative muse herself--who eternally lures us beyond our rigid narratives with promises of fresh new experiences and consciousness. Extra-linguistic being iow not enabled thru brute sensate physicality so much as by ideational creativity. We are only outside of what we are saying by being the one saying it, not by being just another thing said about. Our essence is agency not objectified thingness. Being is a verb not a noun.]]> <![CDATA[The materialist's case for brain-generated consciousness]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21142.html Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:18:28 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21142.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1653082876624917

"Materialist Outlook: The hope of materialism is that being is one—that if we follow the trail of physical processes far enough, we will find our qualia and our "selves" there too, finally understood in the language of physical reality."---- https://theoriesofconsciousness.com/mate...ciousness/]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1653082876624917

"Materialist Outlook: The hope of materialism is that being is one—that if we follow the trail of physical processes far enough, we will find our qualia and our "selves" there too, finally understood in the language of physical reality."---- https://theoriesofconsciousness.com/mate...ciousness/]]> <![CDATA[Is the scientific paper still a fraud?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21117.html Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:52:31 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21117.html https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar...io.3003912

ABSTRACT: How we write scientific papers does not reflect how we do science. Their formal structure infers a pre-ordained linear process rather than reflecting the messy creativity of research. This matters in the AI age because it masks the human in the process.

EXCERPT: In 1963, Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Peter Medawar presented a controversial idea on BBC radio, that the scientific paper was a fraud. But he did not mean it in the way you might think. Scientific fraud does happen (both then and now), but he meant something more fundamental about the format of the scientific paper. His argument was that the structure of papers tells a false story about how science is done.

Papers state the problem to be investigated, the way it was investigated, and the investigations performed, and arrive at the conclusion(s) drawn. Medawar argued that this structure implies scientific research is purely inductive (drawing general conclusions from specific data), leaving almost no role for the scientist except as a neutral note taker. The scientific paper is a very sanitized version of how research works, but it remains the main method by which we communicate science. In the age of artificial intelligence (AI) are Medawar’s arguments about papers still valid, and what can we learn about how we (humans) do science?

We seldom talk about the craft of science, choosing to focus on the data rather than the journey by which it arose. [...] scientific papers tell a story about the order in which the research was allegedly undertaken. And again, the reported progression from data to narrative is not always true. Often, the data presented in the first figure was the last experiment to be performed. Sometimes, data comes from independent studies undertaken by different people at different times. [...] Papers, as usually written, remove the agency of the authors. Writing in a uniform “scientific” voice often requires masking any and all personal viewpoints. The formal voice also flattens the prose, removing any of the excitement the researcher feels about the research...

[...] So was Medawar right and is he still right? In many ways, yes, he was. The paper incorrectly reflects scientific research. As identified by Howitt and Wilson in a previous response to Medawar, the structure can give students a false picture of the research process. It also affects the whole endeavor of science. In an age where we risk being overwhelmed by AI slop, we need to think about the process as much as the product... (MORE - details)

Peter Medawar: Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn, because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed, because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare. . . . . If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned? --Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought]]> https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar...io.3003912

ABSTRACT: How we write scientific papers does not reflect how we do science. Their formal structure infers a pre-ordained linear process rather than reflecting the messy creativity of research. This matters in the AI age because it masks the human in the process.

EXCERPT: In 1963, Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Peter Medawar presented a controversial idea on BBC radio, that the scientific paper was a fraud. But he did not mean it in the way you might think. Scientific fraud does happen (both then and now), but he meant something more fundamental about the format of the scientific paper. His argument was that the structure of papers tells a false story about how science is done.

Papers state the problem to be investigated, the way it was investigated, and the investigations performed, and arrive at the conclusion(s) drawn. Medawar argued that this structure implies scientific research is purely inductive (drawing general conclusions from specific data), leaving almost no role for the scientist except as a neutral note taker. The scientific paper is a very sanitized version of how research works, but it remains the main method by which we communicate science. In the age of artificial intelligence (AI) are Medawar’s arguments about papers still valid, and what can we learn about how we (humans) do science?

We seldom talk about the craft of science, choosing to focus on the data rather than the journey by which it arose. [...] scientific papers tell a story about the order in which the research was allegedly undertaken. And again, the reported progression from data to narrative is not always true. Often, the data presented in the first figure was the last experiment to be performed. Sometimes, data comes from independent studies undertaken by different people at different times. [...] Papers, as usually written, remove the agency of the authors. Writing in a uniform “scientific” voice often requires masking any and all personal viewpoints. The formal voice also flattens the prose, removing any of the excitement the researcher feels about the research...

[...] So was Medawar right and is he still right? In many ways, yes, he was. The paper incorrectly reflects scientific research. As identified by Howitt and Wilson in a previous response to Medawar, the structure can give students a false picture of the research process. It also affects the whole endeavor of science. In an age where we risk being overwhelmed by AI slop, we need to think about the process as much as the product... (MORE - details)

Peter Medawar: Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn, because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed, because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare. . . . . If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned? --Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought]]> <![CDATA[On the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21069.html Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:15:51 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21069.html
'But what turns out to be true is that the more we investigate, the more laws we find, and the deeper we penetrate nature, the more this disease persists. Every one of our laws is a purely mathematical statement in rather complex and abstruse mathematics... It gets more and more abstruse and more and more difficult as we go on. Why? I have not the slightest idea...'

What does this imply about the nature of reality? And what can we say about this increasing complexity as we penetrate deeper?"

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/que...e-universe

It seems to me that mathematics only works in physics to the degree that it formulates law-like predictable events in the universe based on its description of abstract quantitatively-interrelated patterns. But that's it. It doesn't apply to any sorts of events or aspects of reality that doesn't conform to some generalizable pattern of happening. It's like a map, which only represents the territory in terms of roads and cities and states and the distances between them but doesn't represent the territory in terms of its varying terrain or any of its geological or botanical or topographical features. For that we have travel brochures. Trying to understand reality based solely on mathematics is thus like trying to figure out who a person was based only on their skeleton:

"Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing."— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations]]>
'But what turns out to be true is that the more we investigate, the more laws we find, and the deeper we penetrate nature, the more this disease persists. Every one of our laws is a purely mathematical statement in rather complex and abstruse mathematics... It gets more and more abstruse and more and more difficult as we go on. Why? I have not the slightest idea...'

What does this imply about the nature of reality? And what can we say about this increasing complexity as we penetrate deeper?"

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/que...e-universe

It seems to me that mathematics only works in physics to the degree that it formulates law-like predictable events in the universe based on its description of abstract quantitatively-interrelated patterns. But that's it. It doesn't apply to any sorts of events or aspects of reality that doesn't conform to some generalizable pattern of happening. It's like a map, which only represents the territory in terms of roads and cities and states and the distances between them but doesn't represent the territory in terms of its varying terrain or any of its geological or botanical or topographical features. For that we have travel brochures. Trying to understand reality based solely on mathematics is thus like trying to figure out who a person was based only on their skeleton:

"Remember that we sometimes demand explanations for the sake not of their content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the explanation a kind of sham corbel that supports nothing."— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations]]> <![CDATA[Consciousness vs intuition]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21003.html Sat, 01 Aug 2026 17:34:51 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21003.html <![CDATA[Our imaginal Reality]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20959.html Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:19:09 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20959.html
And yet images that surround us that we can touch and grasp and push against. Like the image of the ground on which the image of your feet pushes against. Images that make sounds and speech and music and provoke feelings and thoughts themselves. Images that can be tasted and smelt. Images we dream about while we sleep or as nightmares that startle us awake. Images we summon to remember our past as and images we conjure to anticipate our possibilities as.

We are saturated in a realm of pure phenomenally self-presenting imagery. Reality is inherently imaginal down to its core, and is only as real..and only as ephemeral...as its own spontaneous appearance/disappearance as such. Look nowhere else, for there is nothing else.

“A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”---- Albert Camus]]>
And yet images that surround us that we can touch and grasp and push against. Like the image of the ground on which the image of your feet pushes against. Images that make sounds and speech and music and provoke feelings and thoughts themselves. Images that can be tasted and smelt. Images we dream about while we sleep or as nightmares that startle us awake. Images we summon to remember our past as and images we conjure to anticipate our possibilities as.

We are saturated in a realm of pure phenomenally self-presenting imagery. Reality is inherently imaginal down to its core, and is only as real..and only as ephemeral...as its own spontaneous appearance/disappearance as such. Look nowhere else, for there is nothing else.

“A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”---- Albert Camus]]> <![CDATA[The Myth of Pure Evil]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20938.html Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:17:04 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20938.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/25404228045941449]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/25404228045941449]]> <![CDATA[Avi Loeb and the new UAP Science Advisory Council]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20902.html Mon, 20 Jul 2026 22:25:47 +0000 Yazata]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20902.html
https://nypost.com/2026/07/19/opinion/wh...-security/

Quote:A month ago, I was visited by a representative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He raised a simple question.

“Would you be willing to establish and lead a new advisory council for the US Government on the science of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena?” In other words, would I head a council on UFOs. I responded: “You had me at ‘hello.’”...

The identification of UAP is crucial to the protection of national security. As a US citizen, I feel obligated to help the ODNI and the Pentagon in this mission. Moreover, if one in a million UAP happens to have a non-human origin, this will constitute the biggest cosmic discovery ever made by humanity.

The request from ODNI was unusual for several reasons. First, how often do government employees admit they cannot fulfill their duties and ask scientists for help? Second, implicit in the request was the admission that the US military’s best sensors are currently unable to identify adequately flying objects. The most plausible explanation for these mysteries is that they are manufactured by adversarial nations. That makes them a security threat. Why can’t we identify them?...

The government is constantly monitoring the entire sky. It struggles to interpret all the signals picked up by its many advanced sensors. But history tells us that these sensors contain invaluable information. That’s where scientists come in...

I chose the size and makeup of the council carefully. It is not so small as to lack sufficient expertise nor too big as to trigger regression to the mean. I selected brilliant scientists with expertise in physics, oceanography, data analysis, statistics, and psychology. All are open-minded enough to go wherever the evidence guides us. I also included a skeptic of alien technologies to ensure there are no biases in the analysis and to make sure our conclusions are beyond doubt.

The council is not starting with any conclusion in mind. The “Unknown” part of UAP does not necessarily mean extraterrestrial. But we cannot discount the possibility that it might, and we should not explain away such possibilities without evidence.

The nature of UAP is a detective story. We will solve it by collecting new clues and reexamining old ones in new ways...

The UAP Science Advisory Council website:

https://uapsac.com/]]>
https://nypost.com/2026/07/19/opinion/wh...-security/

Quote:A month ago, I was visited by a representative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He raised a simple question.

“Would you be willing to establish and lead a new advisory council for the US Government on the science of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena?” In other words, would I head a council on UFOs. I responded: “You had me at ‘hello.’”...

The identification of UAP is crucial to the protection of national security. As a US citizen, I feel obligated to help the ODNI and the Pentagon in this mission. Moreover, if one in a million UAP happens to have a non-human origin, this will constitute the biggest cosmic discovery ever made by humanity.

The request from ODNI was unusual for several reasons. First, how often do government employees admit they cannot fulfill their duties and ask scientists for help? Second, implicit in the request was the admission that the US military’s best sensors are currently unable to identify adequately flying objects. The most plausible explanation for these mysteries is that they are manufactured by adversarial nations. That makes them a security threat. Why can’t we identify them?...

The government is constantly monitoring the entire sky. It struggles to interpret all the signals picked up by its many advanced sensors. But history tells us that these sensors contain invaluable information. That’s where scientists come in...

I chose the size and makeup of the council carefully. It is not so small as to lack sufficient expertise nor too big as to trigger regression to the mean. I selected brilliant scientists with expertise in physics, oceanography, data analysis, statistics, and psychology. All are open-minded enough to go wherever the evidence guides us. I also included a skeptic of alien technologies to ensure there are no biases in the analysis and to make sure our conclusions are beyond doubt.

The council is not starting with any conclusion in mind. The “Unknown” part of UAP does not necessarily mean extraterrestrial. But we cannot discount the possibility that it might, and we should not explain away such possibilities without evidence.

The nature of UAP is a detective story. We will solve it by collecting new clues and reexamining old ones in new ways...

The UAP Science Advisory Council website:

https://uapsac.com/]]> <![CDATA[You probably misunderstand the double-slit experiment]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20901.html Mon, 20 Jul 2026 22:14:32 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20901.html https://youtu.be/npc6Mn2CZV8

INTRO: In today's video I talk about some commonly misunderstood points in the double slit experiment.

You probably misunderstand the double-slit experiment ... https://youtu.be/npc6Mn2CZV8

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/npc6Mn2CZV8]]> https://youtu.be/npc6Mn2CZV8

INTRO: In today's video I talk about some commonly misunderstood points in the double slit experiment.

You probably misunderstand the double-slit experiment ... https://youtu.be/npc6Mn2CZV8

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/npc6Mn2CZV8]]>