Now that we’ve digested the poison (thanks for formalizing that concept, Mr. Childs) we can get to the meat of the discussion… you’ve raised some excellent points, Mr. Mountain!
Your flying saucer example is a hot topic, and for a good reason. The signal to noise ratio on flying saucer reports is off the scale. There are so many faulty, flawed, biased reports out there that it is difficult to make sense of any of them. Same goes for Bigfoot and Nessie sightings.
As another poster noted, all it takes for the “scientific community” to open their hearts and minds to the subject is one definitive, verifiable, reviewable (and thoroughly reviewed) occurrence. Just one.
This is one of the cornerstones of modern science: peer review. This allows us to have many perspectives on a particular experiment / observation. Unfortunately it seems most UFO events involve one half-drunken person with a history of mental instability. What gives?
Okay, here you’re poisoning the well again. There’s some deep thought in that statement, once the poison is extracted.
Let me try and rephrase that:
This seems like simple human psychology, though I’m no expert here. The human mind has to rationalize its experiences in order to incorporate them. How does one describe, for example, the taste of an orange? They need to experience other things that are sweet, bitter, juicy, pulpy, etc.
So… how would one describe a non-carbon lifeform? With nothing else to compare it to, yes, one would be in a quandary… so they’d have to build an explanation based on their experiences. An open-minded person would realize such an explanation would have its limitations, so only those who’ve experienced non-carbon lifeforms would have any real knowledge of such things.
Without getting into metaphysics, let’s just say one is limited by their senses and past experiences. At the same time, however, one can work around those limits by keeping an open mind… this is a hallmark of a true scientist.
When doing his ground-breaking work in particle physics, Niels Bohr first described the atom as a “plum pudding,” having nothing else to compare it to. With time, that model was refined by himself and other scientists, until we have what we know today.
At first, strange concepts are difficult to relate, but with open minds and hard work, they can be formalized to the point where most can understand them without having direct experience.
Man, Billy, I’m going to have to go in for dialysis if I keep digesting all your poison!
