Quote:
Originally Posted by Daldolma
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Why is belief in a higher intelligence wishful thinking? Why do you feel the need to dismiss and trivialize that point of view while validating the converse? Is it also wishful thinking to believe there is no higher intelligence in the universe?
We have precious little evidence re: extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise. What we do know is that, given the extraordinarily high number of potentially habitable planets in the universe and the relative youth of life on Earth, unless Earth is highly, highly atypical, there should be intelligent life elsewhere. It's very possible that Earth is highly atypical, and that intelligent life is unique to our planet. It's also very possible that it's not. We are hundreds, if not thousands, of years away from really knowing.
Drawing any kind of conclusion based on the extraordinarily limited evidence we possess is absurd. Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. And even assuming that intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would adhere to some of the basic assumptions we've made (ie: that they would use similar technologies, that they would explore or colonize, that they would attempt to make contact), how reliable is the type of evidence you're talking about? How far back would you accept that type of testimony from? If I showed you a written account of a man from, say, the 1600s claiming to have seen a non-human in an unspecified craft arriving and leaving the planet, what would your response be? Would you say "Aha, they do exist"? Of course not. And that's still just 400 years ago. What if they visited half a billion years ago? What exactly do you expect? Neon advertisements across the Milky Way? Or perhaps a parked spaceship? Visits every 20 years? You're looking at a grain of sand for 15 seconds and saying "No signs of life -- this planet is entirely barren".
We've been around for a flicker of a tick on the universal scale. It's entirely possible intelligent, extraterrestrial life did visit Earth sometime in the last billion years. It's entirely possible intelligent, extraterrestrial life exists and simply isn't all that interested in us. It's entirely possible intelligent, extraterrestrial life and corresponding technologies would be so foreign to us that we wouldn't know them even if we saw them. And it's entirely possible that there is no intelligent life other than us -- that Earth is unique and we're either the only intelligent lifeforms in the universe, or at least the most advanced. But we just don't know. It's no more 'wishful' to believe one way than to believe the other.
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See your own discussion for why it's wishful thinking to believe in anything without evidence. The philosophic burden of proof is always on the advocate of theory to back it up. As I'm sure you already know, it's not possible to prove a negative. It certainly seems unlikely that we could scour the universe for intelligent life and definitely declare it to be found or not found within my lifetime. I am not taking the position that there is absolutely for sure no way can't be intelligent life out there. We have no evidence.
Here's a quote for you, Wikipedia boy:
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality, or reality.