Timeline for If we encounter what appears to be an advanced extraterrestrial technological device, would the claim that it was designed be falsifiable?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
30 events
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| Jun 7, 2023 at 19:17 | comment | added | Dave | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Jun 7, 2023 at 19:13 | comment | added | Dave |
@Mark because vague statements in general aren't easily falsified. That's why my first comment is "was designed" is underspecified. You literally put etc. in your list of potential agents making it unbounded. So there is now way to rule that out since you can always slip another agent into the list. This is to say nothing of putting the ultimate wildcard "God" in there, at this stage saying it appeared there "through magic" would sit comfortably in your list of agents.
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| Jun 7, 2023 at 18:53 | comment | added | user66156 | @Dave Why should I pick one specific category? What's the problem with the wider, more abstract category of "intelligent agent"? Besides, for any category one chooses, someone else can always object that the category is not specific enough. Even if I say "the agent must be an alien", you could say, "an alien from what planetary system? be more specific". If say, "the agent must be human", you could say "a human from which country? be more specific", etc. | |
| Jun 7, 2023 at 18:33 | comment | added | Dave | @Mark pick one, make a specific hypothesis about who/why/where/how and then you'll see that it can be shown to be false. | |
| Jun 7, 2023 at 18:26 | comment | added | user66156 | @Dave 1) Designed by some intelligent agent, e.g., AI, aliens, humans(?), God(?), etc. 2) Do you mean if we could show that Paris is not French? In principle, if you produce evidence that Paris belongs to a different country, then sure. I'm not well-versed in international law and diplomacy, but for sure there must be some kind of official documentation capable of certifying that certain place belongs to certain country. If you could produce a document that certifies that Paris belongs to e.g. Germany, and if this were a well-known fact among Germans, that would falsify that Paris is French. | |
| Jun 7, 2023 at 18:15 | comment | added | Dave | Designed by what? "was designed" seems intrinsically underspecified | |
| Jun 7, 2023 at 16:59 | answer | added | J D | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 20:11 | comment | added | user66156 | @BobaFit Well, we could falsify that we are in THAT Paris if we were able to produce evidence that we are not in that Paris, for example, if we had satellite evidence that we are somewhere else. | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 20:05 | comment | added | Boba Fit | google.com/maps/place/Paris,+France/@48.8588255,2.2646348,12z/… THAT Paris, France. | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 19:56 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Jun 6, 2023 at 19:37 | comment | added | user66156 | @BobaFit Are you referring to whether we find such a city on Mars or on Earth? Do we have access to satellite information about the location of the city in your thought experiment? | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 19:16 | comment | added | Boba Fit | If we encounter what appears to be Paris, France, would the claim that it was French be falsifiable? In other words, I can answer your question if you can answer the equivalent question for something routinely available. | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 14:54 | answer | added | Barmar | timeline score: 12 | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 13:05 | answer | added | Professor Sushing | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 6:10 | answer | added | tkruse | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 5:53 | comment | added | Jeremy Friesner | Is "aliens hiding monoliths on Mars for fun" not itself a natural process? | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 2:47 | answer | added | Davislor | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 6, 2023 at 0:50 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 5, 2023 at 23:19 | answer | added | Roger | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 20:25 | comment | added | Ludwig V | I'm wondering what an advanced extraterrestrial device would look like. | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 20:03 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | I'm wondering if this Question was designed for something. | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 19:11 | comment | added | Conifold | Sure. After scientists study processes on Mars that shape natural formations and create a model that shows how the "device" emerged from them, see geofacts. | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 18:56 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 16, 2023 at 3:09 | |||||
| Jun 5, 2023 at 18:56 | answer | added | Pertti Ruismäki | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 18:44 | comment | added | sdenham | I doubt relocating Paley's watchmaker analogy to Mars will lead to anything that has not already been said. | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 18:38 | history | edited | user66156 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 5, 2023 at 17:21 | answer | added | causative♦ | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 5, 2023 at 17:15 | history | edited | user66156 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 5, 2023 at 16:52 | history | edited | user66156 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 5, 2023 at 16:45 | history | asked | user66156 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |