Jayson_Virissimo comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 March 2010 03:38:08AM 17 points [-]

I don't believe in UFOs.

To my own great embarrassment, I have experienced a "UFO sighting". It was in the late 1990s in Phoenix, Arizona. What I saw was 7 or 8 bright orbs in the shape of a triangle traveling very slowly over the Phoenix/Scottsdale area (which is why I thought it was a blimp at first). After about a minute and comparing it to a nearby mountain I decided that it couldn't possibly be a blimp. The length and width were way too large. Next, I thought that perhaps it was flares, but after watching it for about 10 more minutes was sure they they had either floated higher into the sky or stayed the same altitude and were still in the same configuration with respect to each other (an isosceles triangle).

Before my personal experience, I had assumed that the people on those ridiculous documentary shows on the Discovery Channel were simply fools or people suffering from a psychological illness. I wasn't the kind of person who believed in that stuff. The next day I started questioning if I even saw it (after all, I would probably has ridiculed someone who told me they saw such a thing the previous day). It must have been a mistake. A few months later, I rationalized it by telling myself that it had been a dream. This worked until my mother (who also saw it) reminded me about something that happened on that same day.

Comment author: TimFreeman 08 May 2011 08:29:19PM 4 points [-]

Don't discount the possibility of a joke. Wouldn't it be fun to make an assembly of PVC pipe, lights, a motor, batteries, and a large balloon, launch it, and watch people make up excuses about what it is?

Actually, I remember where I first heard the idea, and if I recall correctly it was a triangle over Arizona somewhere. I don't recall whether the joke hypothesis was based on seeing the thing fly or seeing the thing be assembled or hearing reports from the people who assembled it. I'll forward a pointer to your article to the person I heard it from and see if he wants to share what he knows.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 09 May 2011 12:11:47AM 0 points [-]

Thanks.

Comment author: Eneasz 18 March 2010 07:37:45PM 6 points [-]

I had a very similar UFO sighting, just a couple months ago. Fortunately I've been consuming rationalist media for a long time, and I was able to say "There is a non-magic answer to this question, just because I don't know the answer doesn't mean UFOs exist. My map is incomplete, but the territory isn't magic."

It doesn't make the creepy shiver-up-your-spine and cold-knot-in-your-stomach feelings go away, those are biological reactions. But it does let you accept them and ride them out, like the cramp you know will go away in a while that isn't ACTUALLY a knife in your leg, no matter how much it feels like it.

Comment author: Strange7 27 June 2011 08:56:02AM 0 points [-]

If it's an object, it's suspended in the air ("flying"), and you haven't identified it's nature or origin in any meaningful way, then in the most ham-fistedly literal sense, it's an Unidentified Flying Object. What am I missing, here?

Comment author: Eneasz 28 June 2011 03:49:07PM 5 points [-]

While it may literally mean "unidentified flying object", in the USA it is synonymous for "Extra-Terrestrial Craft"

Comment author: turchin 16 March 2010 01:38:40PM 1 point [-]

May be my confestion will spoil again my low reputation, but I should tell that I wrote an article about UFOs. And I think it was rational.

Because even slightest probability that we have unknown phenomena in our sky should be taken in account when we speak about existential risks. Also I use Baiesian path of weighting different hypothesis and calculating expected negative utility associated with each.

"UFO as Global Risk" Alexei Turchin, expert on global catastrophes of Russian Transhumanist Movement

Version 0.910, 5 Jan 2010.

Abstract In this article are discussed global risks – i.e. risks that could lead to the complete extinction of mankind, – associated with the problem of UFOs. Although the author is on 90 per cent sure that the UFOs are some common phenomena, the remaining 10 percent are forced him to consider these risks seriously. In the paper is suggested almost complete list of possible hypotheses explaining the nature of UFOs, including a number of new hypotheses (crown discharge around human body, ships from other dimensions covered by the shell of liquid metal, alien nanorobots, conspiracy of suppressed unconscious parts of self, parasites-symbionts from unknown forms of matter, bugs and viruses in the Matrix, etc.) and assessed the reliability of each of the hypotheses and the risk that relates to it. I consider several factors of global risk that may be associated with UFO (intelligence, energy, specific form of toxicity, informational effect, global power), based on observational data. The work is intended for a wide range of readers, as well as for anyone interested in existential risks. This work does not reflect the official position of the Russian Transhumanist Movement, or of any other organization and is only my personal research.

Permalink: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18221425/UFO-as-Global-Risk

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 March 2010 09:56:17AM *  11 points [-]

My father was once involved in an UFO sighting - he built the UFO, and did the sound effects too, when the other kids got close. Summer camp was involved.

Hope no one ever told those kids it was a flock of birds...

Comment author: Kevin 16 March 2010 10:38:52AM *  1 point [-]

This report [http://lesswrong.com/lw/1s4/open_thread_february_2010_part_2/1n29] makes it seem like UFO sightings of the kind Jayson experienced are relatively common.

And a memo reveals how former prime minister Winston Churchill expressed curiosity in "flying saucers" and requested a briefing from his ministers.

He was told in reply that following an intelligence study conducted in 1951, the "flying saucers" could be explained by "one or other" of four causes.

These were known astronomical or meteorological phenomena, mistaken identification of conventional aircraft, optical illusions and psychological delusions, or deliberate hoaxes.

The reports on objects previously known as UFOs would probably be more interesting.

Comment author: nazgulnarsil 15 March 2010 07:46:33PM 25 points [-]

it is a grave mistake to believe that ultra-rationality means immediate dismissal of sensory experiences that (currently) have no good explanation.

Comment author: Tom_Talbot 15 March 2010 12:59:16PM 0 points [-]

Was the sun setting? It could have been illuminating the underbellies of a flock of geese.

Comment author: Tom_Talbot 15 March 2010 01:04:52PM 0 points [-]

On second thoughts the sun would provide too much light, street lights maybe?

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 16 March 2010 05:40:31AM 2 points [-]

I can't tell if you are honestly trying to help or making fun of me. Although it is possible that it was the things that you mentioned, it feels like it would if I thought I saw an eagle in my backyard and you asked "are you sure it wasn't a pigeon?"

Comment author: Tom_Talbot 16 March 2010 09:21:50AM 3 points [-]

I was genuinely trying to be helpful. I apologise for lack of context/social skills. The fact that you said it was orange made me think of street lighting, and the v-shape of migrating birds.

Anyway, I googled and this explains what I meant:

"Birds

Individually and in flocks, birds can catch out the unwary. Many fuzzy, elliptical UFOs captured by chance on photographs have been attributed to birds flying unnoticed through the field of view just as the shutter was pressed.

Migrating flocks of birds can create UFO ‘formations’, particularly if lit up by streetlights at night.

As a boy, I was fooled by an orange UFO that zig-zagged over the roof of my parents’ house one night. Not until many years later did I realize that it must have been an owl lit up by sodium lighting, which was newly installed in our area at that time."

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/astroufo1.htm

Comment author: JamesAndrix 15 March 2010 05:11:05AM 31 points [-]

Well, not believing in "UFOs" is just silly to start. They are definitely up there. The disagreement is usually over what they are.

You should certainly not be embarrassed. What you describe doesn't even rank as a sign of foolishness or psychological illness. Probably at worst it means you're not used to looking at aerial phenomena, so you couldn't identify it. On a bad day, it's taken me a little while to identify the Moon.

If you would have discounted as crazy someone who made a report like you just did, that was a rationalist error. Strangely moving lights in the sky are often reported by multiple witnesses and captured on videotape.

Comment author: simplicio 15 March 2010 04:28:42AM 2 points [-]

Brilliant!

Did you ever figure out what it was (not that one has to)?

Reminds me very much of Trisha's experience in HHGTTG.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 March 2010 07:08:06PM 6 points [-]

It turns out I wasn't the only one who saw it! Wikipedia has a page with a description that sounds almost exactly like what I experienced. Looks like if I am crazy, so was our Arizona Governor (because he saw the same thing).

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 March 2010 04:55:50AM *  0 points [-]

The only other thing I ever heard about it was on a local news channel. It didn't really help one way or the other because they said it was military flares, but they claimed they were shot off after I saw the lights and the video they showed of the flares didn't resemble what I saw (they were much too small and moved too fast). I honestly wish I never saw the damn thing.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2010 07:09:54AM 20 points [-]

I honestly wish I never saw the damn thing.

This sounds like you're a bit too scared that it has an "unnatural" explanation. If it did happen, there's a normal explanation for it. Curious, yes, scared, no.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 March 2010 07:02:35PM 0 points [-]

This is exactly why I wish it didn't happen. I can't think of anything else I would tell someone about that would cause them to say "if it did happen...". Either I could provide enough evidence for my claim or my reputation as a truth-teller would be sufficient. Not so, in this case.

Comment author: thomblake 17 March 2010 07:12:42PM *  2 points [-]

I think you're misreading a logical statement as a statement of uncertainty.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 March 2010 07:17:27PM 0 points [-]

I see your point. After rereading it, I see that I didn't really have any reason for interpreting it as being particularly uncertain, as opposed to a conditional statement. Perhaps it would be less ambiguous if it was spoken instead of written.

Comment author: simplicio 15 March 2010 05:06:19AM *  14 points [-]

I honestly wish I never saw the damn thing.

I totally empathize with the psychology, but there's no good reason to regret seeing it. You saw something you didn't understand. You still don't understand it. Such things will happen. I think it's admirable that you hope for a rational explanation even when one isn't forthcoming - moreover, in the teeth of our human need for some explanation, even if it's a bad one.

To extend on Eliezer's point here, it's trivially easy to be a skeptic when the believer's epistemic position is foreign to you. Much harder when you're the experiencer-of-experiences, and the object of scrutiny.

We're nearly all of us materialists here; how many of us would still be if we had a powerful religious experience? And yet we (rightly) reject the truth claims of people who have had such experiences.

Comment author: Matt_Duing 20 March 2010 04:53:54AM 13 points [-]

There was a time that I prayed intensely and experienced the presence of God on a nearly daily basis. Reading identical reports from people of other religions and learning about the many frailties of the brain helped me greatly to discount these experiences.

Comment author: simplicio 20 March 2010 05:10:15AM *  8 points [-]

I hope I don't sound too effusive if I say that's borderline heroic.

But yeah, I suppose if you read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" or some other such book, you realize pretty fast that an experience like that is not really evidence.

I'm nonetheless surprised at your ability to do that calculus, as opposed to just closing the book. It impresses me almost as much as, say, the family of a murder victim speaking up in the defendant's cause. You were surely working through the Venus-of-Willendorf of all biases (I would imagine).

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 March 2010 02:56:14AM 6 points [-]

I'm not worried about sounding effusive and I'll omit the "borderline" part.

Comment author: Matt_Duing 20 March 2010 06:10:21AM 4 points [-]

Thank you. Another factor that helped me was that I was encouraged to read the Bible. I actually did read all of it and was disturbed by some of the things I found. Something that particularly sticks out in my mind is the story of Jephthah from Judges chapter 11. Here God basically demands that a man sacrifice his young daughter (i.e. stab her to death and burn her body) as repayment for answering a prayer. God also claims responsibility for creating evil somewhere in the book of Isaiah, though the exact reference escapes me. It took me several years after these initial disturbances to ultimately own up to my mistake, but I gradually realized that the truths I were protecting were structurally quite different from the truths that were protecting themselves.

Comment author: wedrifid 22 March 2010 03:06:31AM 2 points [-]

My experience was similar. If you (are similar to me and) want to lose the Christian faith - go to church and read the Bible. Two recipes for apostasy.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 22 March 2010 03:49:42AM 5 points [-]

For another similar account see Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God-- she was contently Catholic, went to Bible classes, and gradually became an atheist.

Comment author: orthonormal 20 March 2010 05:29:21AM *  2 points [-]

That calculus isn't as uncommon as you'd imagine; most people who take a religion very seriously end up having experiences they identify as "the presence of God", and anyone who leaves a religion they'd taken seriously must confront that bit of evidence. I'm another such case, although I have to cede the most impressive of these stories to the acquaintance of Eliezer (sorry, can't find the link to this anecdote) who had frequent, detailed, coherent visions and eventually decided that the most likely explanation was hallucination rather than contact with a deity or superintelligence.

Comment author: arundelo 20 March 2010 03:05:24PM *  4 points [-]

I have to cede the most impressive of these stories to the acquaintance of Eliezer (sorry, can't find the link to this anecdote)

It's here (starting at "I know a transhumanist who has strong religious visions").

Comment author: Morendil 15 March 2010 10:34:44AM 12 points [-]

We're nearly all of us materialists here; how many of us would still be if we had a powerful religious experience?

I once experienced "Hag syndrome", I must have been around eleven. I woke up during the night, unable to move and convinced I had a witch sitting on me.

The next day when I could think about it in bright daylight I thought it was kinda cool that my brain could make me believe something so clearly supernatural, but it seemed just as obvious it had only been the same kind of thing as a nightmare, only more powerful. I didn't mention it to my parents or anything, just filed it as "one of those things". (It was downright scary at the time though; I don't recommend the experience, which as you can see still, um, haunts me.)

Comment author: Matt_Duing 20 March 2010 04:43:40AM 0 points [-]

I've had about one episode of sleep paralysis per year starting around the same age. I haven't had any visual hallucinations, though there have been occasions where I've heard ambient sounds that very likely weren't real. It was terrifying the first time I experienced it, but they no loger bother me at all.

Comment author: Shae 16 March 2010 01:55:42PM 4 points [-]

I had very strong religious experiences in my past, and became an atheist/materialist later, if that counts. So I'm guessing a later one could be similarly worked around.

Comment author: simplicio 16 March 2010 11:31:42PM 2 points [-]

I had very strong religious experiences in my past, and became an atheist/materialist later, if that counts. So I'm guessing a later one could be similarly worked around.

Thanks for coming forward. May I press you for details? What was it like? What were the circumstances? Do you think it showed you anything psychologically, if not factually, worthwhile? What is your general take on the thing now?

Comment author: Peter_de_Blanc 15 March 2010 01:00:55PM 1 point [-]

I've also had sleep paralysis (multiple times). No hallucinations, though. I just couldn't move.