As an amateur astronomer, I have seen a fair share of objects and phenomena in the sky. But I have not seen anything where I needed to contact the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams at Harvard. To my surprise, however, when training in flight school, or in the Pan Am cafeteria at JFK as a fellow employee, or listening locally on VHF, or globally on shortwave between Shanwick and Gander, pilots often report a UFO when it’s just Venus they’re seeing shining bright in the sky. Radio control towers cannot concede to these reports, but only acknowledge them. They would be questioning someone, who by law [FAR 91.3] is the final authority and command of the aircraft. Those who claim the government is covering up knowledge of alien visitation probably have no conception of the vast expanse of the observable universe. Even with the analogy of a grain of sand buried on one beach amongst all beaches of Earth, which is more likely to be “found,” would not be moved from their beliefs of alien visitation and that we didn’t go to the Moon! Astronomically speaking, the speed of light is so incredibly slow, and the amount of energy and time required to….I can’t even go on here! 🙄 Let’s just say we are safely nestled in the cosmic woods. What we’re really visited by are others peoples’ really loud minds, rambling on and on, over and over again, whether on psychotropic substances, or not, that they have been certified to be genuine UFOs themselves. 🙄
Mike, I'm in complete agreement. I think it is fallacious to imagine that pilots are somehow experts in this area. They are excerpts at piloting planes, but apparently not at distinguishing Venus from a flying saucer...
Massimo, does Stoic logic have anything to say about the burden of proof as you present it here? I can see how the question overlaps logic and ethics as well.
Daniel, not that I know of. The study of burden of proof would fall under rhetoric and informal logic, which are certainly covered by the broad definition of "logic" in Stoicism, but I'm not aware of any specific treatment by the ancient Stoics. Then again, we are modern Stoics, bound to update our approaches with the latest in science and logic, and that's part of my reason to write the essay.
There's a problem with the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence approach (although, sure, that should be our approach - from Occam's razor's or from Bayes Theorem or what have you):
our background knowledge may just be so awful and our shared understanding so established that many true claims fail due to the high evidence bar. Think of the bat shit crazy things highly educated people thought not long ago and that were widely understood to be correct at the time (the earth at the centre of the universe, bloodletting and astrology some time ago; eugenics and policies linked to that, more recently)
Maurits, thanks for the kind words! Well, I'm a skeptic, so I don't believe human knowledge is ever definitive or complete. Yes, the extraordinariness of both claims and evidence is always understood against background conditions and currently accepted knowledge. And sometimes we just need to throw that away and start over.
I use the plant medicine of Tabasco in my eyes. It reliably produces revelatory visual phenomena and allows me to see beyond my culturally encrusted optical constructs. I and my Tobasconauts know how things really look. We can see auras. We see souls hovering around “inanimate” things. Yes there are some negative effects but with the proper set and setting the bad trips can be minimized. Remember, red eyes have seen reality.
Interesting...as a college undergrad in the late 60s, who in keeping with those times “experimented” ...heavily...prior to entering the service/medical corps-the admission of which ‘bought me ‘ regular drug testing, while “in”-I find most of the recent medical/“spiritual” claims pretty silly. And as a retired MD after 40+ years I see hallucinogens as having a very limited scope therapeutically...
I'm not a doctor, but I also sense that the current fad makes a lot of claims that eventually will turn out to be exaggerated. Which is not to say that hallucinogens do not have any therapeutic application, of course.
In addition to the good points you make here, I’ll add that when I’m faced with extraordinary claims, I often end up in the position of “OK, but if this is true, where do I go from here?”.
A good example is a report of a ghost. The story will go something like: this very reliable person was staying at this old house, and they saw some strange figure dressed thus doing some unusual act. Later it was discovered that there had been such a figure living in that house, and the unusual act is consistent with some traumatic event that occurred there (usually a violent death).
There are the usual obvious explanations (the person is lying, or they’ve innocently adapted the memory of what they thought they experienced to the subsequent discovery of information).
But putting those aside, sometimes I really cannot explain the phenomenon. As much as I don’t believe in ghosts, I can’t always supply a good explanation for what has supposedly happened.
But then I end up thinking (or saying) “Well, suppose there is some mysterious phenomenon that I cannot account for in our known science. Where do I go from here?”
Because if I can’t replicate or reproduce it, or in any way usefully investigate it, then there’s really not much I can do with it other than say “Oh, well that’s a weird story”.
In principle it’s possible that someone might develop a test that can make headway into the phenomenon. But I’ve never seen any good experiment that has produced anything other than a negative result.
I think it’s fine to respond to claims with “I can’t explain that” if you really can’t. It doesn’t mean that you accept the assertion of what the claim implies. It just means that you don’t have any useful direction in which you can (or wish to) pursue an investigation. And we all have limited resources. We can’t spend years of our lives digging deeper into things that we have no reason to think are real. We have to make choices.
The pragmatic test for bullshit: "assuming X is true, will this information change the way I behave?" If the answer is yes, then you ought to investigate further (move closer to truth). If the answer is no, then it doesn't really matter either way since you just go on doing what you're already doing. I wrote a little about pragmatic responses to bullshit here: https://thepowderhorn.substack.com/i/95964658/ii
Excellent point! It's unfortunate that (a) many skeptics are wary of saying "I don't know." And (b) that so many people take those words to imply the existence of the alleged phenomenon.
Thanks for the article, very well said! It seems to me that one reason for misunderstanding the requirements for the burden of proof lies in the way that the Greeks and Romans talked of "perception". Especially those who argued for the primacy or even exclusivity of sense perception in the determination of reality. Without further discussion, this allows people to focus on a relativistic description of "reality". Without a requirement for corroborating evidence (just feeling).
One very interesting book is by Jack Womack, entitled ¨UFO's Are Real!", which is basically an in depth study of the emergence of UFO siting and their subsequent exploitation by those whose livelihood depended on progpagation of the UFO myth. see https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Saucers-Real-Library-Womack/dp/1944860002
Thank you for a welcome dose of reality. I also appreciate learning the difference between abduction and deduction. Sometimes the easiest stance to take is that one cannot prove a negative and therefore the entire burden of proof is on the one who proposes the existence of a collective consciousness or some other nonsense. (Speaking of using blurry videos and props to make a case, the United States Government and it's media lackeys did exactly that in the lead up the Iraq War and they had no more proof than the extraterrestrial UFO proponents. But many more people died as a result of the former fraud.)
Great read! I’ll also add something I’ve thought about that comes up in philosophy of religion a lot. There’s a claim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, and that can be true! Maybe I come home and see that my mother is not in the kitchen or den. It would be irrational to therefore conclude that she is therefore not home at all because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
However, there’s an important qualification here. If I check every room in the house and she’s not in any, surely this is absence of evidence is in fact science of absence! So I think it’s better to say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence unless there is some reason to expect a given piece of evidence” (a bit of a word jumble there). To use a perhaps better example. Not seeing my mother in the den or kitchen normally wouldn’t indicate that she isn’t home, but if I were to know that she’s almost always in one of those rooms at such and such a time in the day, then her absence would count as evidence for the claim that she isn’t home!
Anyway, maybe that was a long-winded explanation for something very basic. Lol. To relate to your initial topics, I’d say something like “if aliens were visiting Earth I’d expect more evidence (more sightings, tech left behind, etc.) so the absence of that is evidence against the claim that aliens have visited Earth”. I think that would be in addition to your abductive reasoning with inference to the best explanation (taking into account the lack of aliens in the solar system, the difficulty of space travel, blurry images, etc.).
Matthew, yes, that's exactly right. I would add another one: "you can't prove a negative!" That depends. I can easily prove to you the negative that I do not have a million bucks in my pockets. I cannot prove the negative that there are no unicorns in the universe.
Reifying the unconscious mind as revealed in dream states, drug induced or not, is not experiencing an alternative reality. It’s projecting the subjective unconscious in to objective reality. Not only is this reckless, it’s walking away from the potential value of understanding myself better.
Towards the end of my drinking says, I had lucid dreams of a horrific nature. I am glad I didn’t confuse them with reality. Instead I meditated and reflected on them, and realized the allegorical nature of them. I learned from them truths about myself that my conscious mind suppressed. These subjective truths were valuable for me, but would have been worthless if projected upon others.
I agree Bob. I have used psychedelic drugs several decades ago and subsequently breathing techniques to enter 'non-ordinary' states of consciousness. In both cases I did so with the understanding that anything I experienced was a product of my consciousness, only without the filter that I had been socialised into accepting. The outcome for me was greater insight into my own conceptualisation of my reality. I do think that there is potential for using such drugs and techniques for psychotherapy as long as their use is followed with a guided cognitive appraisal of the experience and what can be learned from it.
Bob, Tim, exactly. The point is not that these drugs cannot have a beneficial use. It's that they reveal your subjective reality, they are not a window into an objective one.
LSD and circumstances has led me to the interests in the ancients, two years still processing the experience for which I am grateful.
As an amateur astronomer, I have seen a fair share of objects and phenomena in the sky. But I have not seen anything where I needed to contact the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams at Harvard. To my surprise, however, when training in flight school, or in the Pan Am cafeteria at JFK as a fellow employee, or listening locally on VHF, or globally on shortwave between Shanwick and Gander, pilots often report a UFO when it’s just Venus they’re seeing shining bright in the sky. Radio control towers cannot concede to these reports, but only acknowledge them. They would be questioning someone, who by law [FAR 91.3] is the final authority and command of the aircraft. Those who claim the government is covering up knowledge of alien visitation probably have no conception of the vast expanse of the observable universe. Even with the analogy of a grain of sand buried on one beach amongst all beaches of Earth, which is more likely to be “found,” would not be moved from their beliefs of alien visitation and that we didn’t go to the Moon! Astronomically speaking, the speed of light is so incredibly slow, and the amount of energy and time required to….I can’t even go on here! 🙄 Let’s just say we are safely nestled in the cosmic woods. What we’re really visited by are others peoples’ really loud minds, rambling on and on, over and over again, whether on psychotropic substances, or not, that they have been certified to be genuine UFOs themselves. 🙄
Mike, I'm in complete agreement. I think it is fallacious to imagine that pilots are somehow experts in this area. They are excerpts at piloting planes, but apparently not at distinguishing Venus from a flying saucer...
Massimo, does Stoic logic have anything to say about the burden of proof as you present it here? I can see how the question overlaps logic and ethics as well.
Daniel, not that I know of. The study of burden of proof would fall under rhetoric and informal logic, which are certainly covered by the broad definition of "logic" in Stoicism, but I'm not aware of any specific treatment by the ancient Stoics. Then again, we are modern Stoics, bound to update our approaches with the latest in science and logic, and that's part of my reason to write the essay.
Nice article, Massimo!
There's a problem with the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence approach (although, sure, that should be our approach - from Occam's razor's or from Bayes Theorem or what have you):
our background knowledge may just be so awful and our shared understanding so established that many true claims fail due to the high evidence bar. Think of the bat shit crazy things highly educated people thought not long ago and that were widely understood to be correct at the time (the earth at the centre of the universe, bloodletting and astrology some time ago; eugenics and policies linked to that, more recently)
Maurits, thanks for the kind words! Well, I'm a skeptic, so I don't believe human knowledge is ever definitive or complete. Yes, the extraordinariness of both claims and evidence is always understood against background conditions and currently accepted knowledge. And sometimes we just need to throw that away and start over.
Paradigm change, Kuhn called that. But that term has been a bit overused in the last 25 years or so :)
Slightly... 😆
I use the plant medicine of Tabasco in my eyes. It reliably produces revelatory visual phenomena and allows me to see beyond my culturally encrusted optical constructs. I and my Tobasconauts know how things really look. We can see auras. We see souls hovering around “inanimate” things. Yes there are some negative effects but with the proper set and setting the bad trips can be minimized. Remember, red eyes have seen reality.
😆
I think of science as an 'ethic' rather than a method.
The ethic is "Thow shall not believe shit w/o evidence"
It's a narrow ethic and something more is needed for the rest of life.
I often get posts challenging me to 'prove the Bible wrong
My response is that it is you trying to convince me of something implausible,
The burden of proof is not on you; it rests with the believers in fairy tales..or the Fairy.
"Thou shall not believe shit w/o evidence." Sounds like a good approach...
Interesting...as a college undergrad in the late 60s, who in keeping with those times “experimented” ...heavily...prior to entering the service/medical corps-the admission of which ‘bought me ‘ regular drug testing, while “in”-I find most of the recent medical/“spiritual” claims pretty silly. And as a retired MD after 40+ years I see hallucinogens as having a very limited scope therapeutically...
I'm not a doctor, but I also sense that the current fad makes a lot of claims that eventually will turn out to be exaggerated. Which is not to say that hallucinogens do not have any therapeutic application, of course.
In addition to the good points you make here, I’ll add that when I’m faced with extraordinary claims, I often end up in the position of “OK, but if this is true, where do I go from here?”.
A good example is a report of a ghost. The story will go something like: this very reliable person was staying at this old house, and they saw some strange figure dressed thus doing some unusual act. Later it was discovered that there had been such a figure living in that house, and the unusual act is consistent with some traumatic event that occurred there (usually a violent death).
There are the usual obvious explanations (the person is lying, or they’ve innocently adapted the memory of what they thought they experienced to the subsequent discovery of information).
But putting those aside, sometimes I really cannot explain the phenomenon. As much as I don’t believe in ghosts, I can’t always supply a good explanation for what has supposedly happened.
But then I end up thinking (or saying) “Well, suppose there is some mysterious phenomenon that I cannot account for in our known science. Where do I go from here?”
Because if I can’t replicate or reproduce it, or in any way usefully investigate it, then there’s really not much I can do with it other than say “Oh, well that’s a weird story”.
In principle it’s possible that someone might develop a test that can make headway into the phenomenon. But I’ve never seen any good experiment that has produced anything other than a negative result.
I think it’s fine to respond to claims with “I can’t explain that” if you really can’t. It doesn’t mean that you accept the assertion of what the claim implies. It just means that you don’t have any useful direction in which you can (or wish to) pursue an investigation. And we all have limited resources. We can’t spend years of our lives digging deeper into things that we have no reason to think are real. We have to make choices.
The pragmatic test for bullshit: "assuming X is true, will this information change the way I behave?" If the answer is yes, then you ought to investigate further (move closer to truth). If the answer is no, then it doesn't really matter either way since you just go on doing what you're already doing. I wrote a little about pragmatic responses to bullshit here: https://thepowderhorn.substack.com/i/95964658/ii
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” - Feynman
Excellent point! It's unfortunate that (a) many skeptics are wary of saying "I don't know." And (b) that so many people take those words to imply the existence of the alleged phenomenon.
I've found myself saying "I don't know", more the older I've gotten...
That's because you're getting wiser...
better late than never...tho it is pretty late :)
Thanks for the article, very well said! It seems to me that one reason for misunderstanding the requirements for the burden of proof lies in the way that the Greeks and Romans talked of "perception". Especially those who argued for the primacy or even exclusivity of sense perception in the determination of reality. Without further discussion, this allows people to focus on a relativistic description of "reality". Without a requirement for corroborating evidence (just feeling).
One very interesting book is by Jack Womack, entitled ¨UFO's Are Real!", which is basically an in depth study of the emergence of UFO siting and their subsequent exploitation by those whose livelihood depended on progpagation of the UFO myth. see https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Saucers-Real-Library-Womack/dp/1944860002
Thanks for the book suggestion, Glenn!
Thanks for clear and needed explanation.
Any time, my friend!
Thank you for a welcome dose of reality. I also appreciate learning the difference between abduction and deduction. Sometimes the easiest stance to take is that one cannot prove a negative and therefore the entire burden of proof is on the one who proposes the existence of a collective consciousness or some other nonsense. (Speaking of using blurry videos and props to make a case, the United States Government and it's media lackeys did exactly that in the lead up the Iraq War and they had no more proof than the extraterrestrial UFO proponents. But many more people died as a result of the former fraud.)
As a vet, x14 years, imo, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney should all have been tried for treason; or at the least gross negligence/incompetence...
Yup, fuzzy videos about WMD are far more deadly than fuzzy videos about flying saucers...
Great read! I’ll also add something I’ve thought about that comes up in philosophy of religion a lot. There’s a claim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, and that can be true! Maybe I come home and see that my mother is not in the kitchen or den. It would be irrational to therefore conclude that she is therefore not home at all because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
However, there’s an important qualification here. If I check every room in the house and she’s not in any, surely this is absence of evidence is in fact science of absence! So I think it’s better to say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence unless there is some reason to expect a given piece of evidence” (a bit of a word jumble there). To use a perhaps better example. Not seeing my mother in the den or kitchen normally wouldn’t indicate that she isn’t home, but if I were to know that she’s almost always in one of those rooms at such and such a time in the day, then her absence would count as evidence for the claim that she isn’t home!
Anyway, maybe that was a long-winded explanation for something very basic. Lol. To relate to your initial topics, I’d say something like “if aliens were visiting Earth I’d expect more evidence (more sightings, tech left behind, etc.) so the absence of that is evidence against the claim that aliens have visited Earth”. I think that would be in addition to your abductive reasoning with inference to the best explanation (taking into account the lack of aliens in the solar system, the difficulty of space travel, blurry images, etc.).
Matthew, yes, that's exactly right. I would add another one: "you can't prove a negative!" That depends. I can easily prove to you the negative that I do not have a million bucks in my pockets. I cannot prove the negative that there are no unicorns in the universe.
Reifying the unconscious mind as revealed in dream states, drug induced or not, is not experiencing an alternative reality. It’s projecting the subjective unconscious in to objective reality. Not only is this reckless, it’s walking away from the potential value of understanding myself better.
Towards the end of my drinking says, I had lucid dreams of a horrific nature. I am glad I didn’t confuse them with reality. Instead I meditated and reflected on them, and realized the allegorical nature of them. I learned from them truths about myself that my conscious mind suppressed. These subjective truths were valuable for me, but would have been worthless if projected upon others.
I agree Bob. I have used psychedelic drugs several decades ago and subsequently breathing techniques to enter 'non-ordinary' states of consciousness. In both cases I did so with the understanding that anything I experienced was a product of my consciousness, only without the filter that I had been socialised into accepting. The outcome for me was greater insight into my own conceptualisation of my reality. I do think that there is potential for using such drugs and techniques for psychotherapy as long as their use is followed with a guided cognitive appraisal of the experience and what can be learned from it.
Bob, Tim, exactly. The point is not that these drugs cannot have a beneficial use. It's that they reveal your subjective reality, they are not a window into an objective one.