UFO As Global Risk

[turchin]

From summer of 2009 I am thinking about UFOs and Vn probes and came to merely the same conclusions as you. I wrote them in my article "UFO as global risk" which I am now translating from Russian into English.

The main ideas is:

1. The best way to explore universe is Vp.
2. This probes should consist of nanobots
3. Ufo could be clouds of such nanobots - it explain many strange features.
4. The senders of Vp must be afreid that they will revolt
5. So they must limited their AI - to be sure that it can't self develop
6 The best way to limit AI is to create it in such a way that can''t be optimised. So it must use strange method of optimization, like genetic algoritms.
7 This mean that behaivor of UFO must be absurd and it is imposible to make contact this them. And we actually see that UFO are absurd in their behaivior.
8. Observer selection mean that we can only see such a world, where poloce Vp are not too much agressive. I.e. they don''t destroy early life and intelligence.
9. We are approaching the limit, where police probes will attack us. It may be creating of AI, or our own nanotechnology, or large space missle. It explain interest from UFOs to missles sites.
10. Extraterrestial nanobots could be present even in this room or in my body. We should search for dead nanobot or something like Kerala red rain.

[PetersCreek]

Welcome to BAUT, turchin.

I've moved your post to a thread of it's own in our Conspiracy Theories forum, since it was off topic for the thread and forum in which you originally posted. If you wish to continue the discussion however, you should know the Conspiracy Theories forum has special rules. If you haven't already done so, please read the Rules For Posting To This Board, especially rule #13 for the special rules of the CT forum.

[gzhpcu]

Welcome to BAUT.

A similar idea has been discussed here:

http://www.bautforum.com/life-space/...planation.html

[gzhpcu]

Apart from which, this is all pure speculation. If you are really pushing this idea, what evidence do you have?

[turchin]

I intended to dicuss von Neuman probes as nanobots in the thread http://www.bautforum.com/life-space/...planation.html

not an UFO conspiracys. But my post was moved from there.

I can edit my post in such way that UFO will not be mentioned in it. I am interested in opinions of the author of that thread because he has similar ideas.

[JayUtah]

...

It sounds like your ideas made their way here without your intent. So while you work out with the moderators where exactly you want to be, here is some food for thought.

1. The best way to explore universe is Vp.

I assume by Vp you mean virtual presence. "Best" comprises many variables. In terms of engineering by humans, it does optimize for resources, but it is not generally considered best in terms of the quality of information obtained. That depends on the nature of what's being studied. For certain applications such as collecting cosmic radiation data, automated probes are a clear win and result in no degradation of data obtained. For other applications such as planetary exploration, human presence is clearly superior in terms of the quality of study.

2. This probes should consist of nanobots

You seem to be proposing a coordinated collective of undifferentiated components. Component architectures are certainly a valid method of engineering in several regimes. However, engineering at the very large and very small scales incurs substantiate penalties in terms of cost and difficulty. This would tend to erase the advantage obtained by using automation over actual presence. Right-sized engineering instead provides that efficiency.

Further, when the desired behavior is the product of a collective, the interactions between components becomes important (and difficult to control), and the increasing reliance on distributed state leads to instability. Farther down you argue about the need for explicit limits on system behavior for safety purposes. Large-scale component architectures with distributed state and components that are difficult to engineer are a poor choice for that.

3. Ufo could be clouds of such nanobots - it explain many strange features.

This is the trap that many UFO researchers fall into. You seem to be trying to shoehorn a technical solution into a set of observed behaviors. That is, you are asking what would technology need to resemble in order to produce the observed behavior. But the technology hypothesis you propose in order to arrive at the observed behavior is not necessarily the best way to solve the problem. Hence it may be more parsimonious to conclude that the observed behavior is not the product of technology, but of some possibly misperceived aspect of the natural world. Technologists don't do stupid, inefficient, or dangerous things simply in order to fit some preconceived set of observations.

4. The senders of Vp must be afreid that they will revolt
5. So they must limited their AI - to be sure that it can't self develop

This is highly speculative. You suggest that sufficient heuristic or "intelligence" cannot be artificially created without risking maverick pseudo-moral behavior. If one must accept the proposition that intelligence cannot exist without morality, it is just as easy to speculate that the nanobot collectives will be pleased and proud of their role in the society that gave them existence and will not contemplate revolt.

6 The best way to limit AI is to create it in such a way that can''t be optimised. So it must use strange method of optimization, like genetic algoritms.

Think again. Genetic algorithms result in unstable, potentially non-deterministic solutions, and incur unplanned interactions. This is highly exacerbated by the massive scale of your proposed component architecture. The way to ensure deterministic behavior in a component architecture is through simplicity of design and consolidation of system state.

If one follows the hypothesis that nanobots for space exploration must be considered putatively hostile, then there are many more effective means of limiting the effect. For example, one does not need to lobotomize a human in order to render him impotent; one merely has to deny him access to weapons, or tie his hands behind his back.

7 This mean that behaivor of UFO must be absurd and it is imposible to make contact this them. And we actually see that UFO are absurd in their behaivior.

Again you seem to be postulating a line of engineering intended not to solve the problem, but rather to fit a set of existing observations with a hypothesis to which an alien-intelligence component has been tacked on. You're trying to shoehorn the extraterrestrial hypothesis into observations it does not necessarily fit.

A number of UFO reports attempt to dispel natural explanations by asserting that the observations resembled something "under intelligent control." This is largely established by asserting that random or natural behavior would fit some certain description, and that any behavior outside those boundaries must be assumed intelligent. Leaving aside the illogic of that proposition, you seem to be working toward a tautology where observed behavior that appears intelligent is the work of aliens, while observed behavior that does not appear intelligent or patterned is also the work of aliens. In order to have a valid scientific basis for your study, you need a set of rules for distinguishing random natural behavior from "absurd" alien behavior. Otherwise parsimony has done with your case right away.

8. Observer selection mean that we can only see such a world, where poloce Vp are not too much agressive. I.e. they don''t destroy early life and intelligence.

I don't understand what you mean here.

9. We are approaching the limit, where police probes will attack us. It may be creating of AI, or our own nanotechnology, or large space missle. It explain interest from UFOs to missles sites.

It has not been established that UFOs are especially interested in missile sites. For example, there has been no attempt to determine whether the alleged greater incidence of UFO reports around military installations is a natural consequence of the heightened vigilance in those areas against all threats. People are naturally going to see more behavior when they are motivated, in those areas, to pay closer attention.

10. Extraterrestial nanobots could be present even in this room or in my body. We should search for dead nanobot or something like Kerala red rain.

This sounds dangerously close to claiming that alien technology is undetectable. Again, parsimony is not your friend under those sorts of claims.

You seem to be proposing a set of impractical solutions and conditions merely for the sake of fitting an ETH into existing observations.

[turchin]

JayUtah, thank you for your long answer. Unfortunately, my post lost some context then it was moved from the tread there vp - von Neumann probes in Solar system was discussed.

In fact I do not belive in ETH, but my variant of ETH with small self replication robots - somethig like space grey goo, - seems to me more plausible then idea of large motherships this green man.

1 vp is von neuman probes i.e. self replicating star ships. It is the cheapest way to explore the Galaxi, because you should start this process only ones.
2 The sender of vp is high level civilization which of course know about nanotechnology as much as possible; the chepest way to senf probe is to send very small probe - 10 g, or 10 mgr. Even now we have projects of sending 10 g probe to Alfa Centaurus. If such probe could self replicate it could built needed infrastructure and send back a lot of information. http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/serv...cvips&gifs=Yes

This soesnot mean that such probes should be clouds of nanobots - but more likely somethig like multicellur live being wich has nanobots in its structure. But on some occasion this nanobots could devide, and in some situation - unite.

3 Thank you to show this trap in clear form. In fill version of my artcile Ufo as global risk I discused more natural and pllausible hypoteses like sleep paralisis, electric discharge between earth and ionosphera, and uncontionus behavior of supressed personalities of self as more plausible explanation of many phenomenon.
4. I am sure that if self replicating nanobots were deliberatly sent by someone in order to colonize the Galaxy, there should be some safety belts. namely, they should not evolve in enemy civilization. But they also should have some AI in order to colonize star system. So this AI must be limited somehow in order not to evolve like Vinge "forse"

6. Different AI has different ways of optimization. I.e human use words and blueprints for optimization, and evolution use eating of the prey as act of thought. Both could create flying machines. It could be unlimited number of ways of optimization. But my suggestion that this extraterrestial nanobots use different way of optimizattion in order to explain strange behavior of UFOs is speculative, I know it.

8 Observer selection mean that we could see only such type of world there we are not destroed by police probes (bersekers of some kind which has goal to kill any other intellihent live). it could mean that no berseker exist at all or lor particlar berserkers have very high level of allowed type of intelligence. Vp as berserkers was discusse already in the tread Dear Teeme Lu!I put some thoughts about Vn and nanobots, but they were moved here:http://www.bautforum.com/conspiracy-...bal-risk.htmlI am interested in your opinion.http://www.bautforum.com/life-space/...anation-4.html

9. http://www.ufohastings.com/ Here is claimed that Ufo has special interest to nukes, but you oppinion that it is only an "observation selection" is reasonable.

10 This nanobots may be well detectable, but nobody has searched them. There was claims that after cerala red rain were found particles that could replicate up to 300 C and has high proportion of silicon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala I am 99 per cent sure that it is mistake, but 1 per cent that this particles are nanobots.

[JayUtah]

...

vp is von neuman probes i.e. self replicating star ships.

Ah, thanks. I'm familiar with the concept of the von Neumann machine; I just didn't know that's what you meant by the abbreviation.

While that may be the cheapest way to explore the galaxy once it is initiated, it is no small feat to engineer a self-replicating infrastructure. It will not clearly be the avenue of choice for all intelligent races.

The sender of vp is high level civilization which of course know about nanotechnology as much as possible...

Well that's your assumption. If you're trying to explain actual events, you can't just assume that your candidate agents have the specific necessary expertise. That's essentially an appeal to magic.


This soesnot mean that such probes should be clouds of nanobots - but more likely somethig like multicellur live being wich has nanobots in its structure.

That doesn't get around the problems of distributed state and component architecture instability.

So this AI must be limited somehow in order not to evolve like Vinge "forse"

This still presumes that loyalty is inextricably convolved with other manifestations of intelligence. You postulate this convolution so that you can justify a limited intelligence, which in turn justifies inexplicable behavior, which ultimately attempts to explain chaotic behavior in UFO sightings. It's the tail wagging the dog.

Vp as berserkers was discusse already in the tread...

Well yes, you're delving into a popular science fiction meme. There's no reason to suppose it's real.

http://www.ufohastings.com/ Here is claimed that Ufo has special interest to nukes...

If you look at the obviously named thread here in this section you will discover that Robert Hastings himself came here trying to defend his findings and miserably failed. I don't accept Robert Hastings as a legitimate researcher, nor do I accept his findings as valid.

There was claims that after cerala red rain were found particles that could replicate up to 300 C...

Unsubstantiated claims. These researchers were looking for signs of biological life. It's a stretch to say they were looking for nanobots, or even that they found them.

[turchin]

It will not clearly be the avenue of choice for all intelligent races.

If we have million civilizations and only one of them starts wave of self replicating Vp, this probes will be everythere in the our Galactic (and far beyond - I estimate that they could go as far as 1 billion light years during the time of extinig of universe and cover millions of galactictis).

So one is enough, not all.

Some think that distribited nano architecture is possible - see works of Freitas, Drexler and others. Novels of S. Lem "Invincable" and Criton "Prey" also give interesting picture. I can''t prove it because of luck of knowledge in nanotechnology.
So I think that we should suggest that it is possible before we can''t prove that it is impossible because we here speak not about science, but about risk estimation.

I will check the tread about nukes later.

I don''t say that Cerala red rain were nanobots - I show that this is a kind of evidence we should be interested for if we search extraterestial nanobots in teresstial enviroment. But as I know nobody tried to search such nanobots.

I don''t thinhk that intilligence and loyality are connected. But safety and intelligence are connected. So if Vp have limited intelligence they are still safe even if they are not loyal. If the have unlimited intelligence then it come a question if possible to keep goal system intact in self evolving intelligence. See works of Yudkowsky about this vast topic or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendl...l_intelligence

What I want to say: If ETH hypoteses is true it is more likely that in the Solar system will be:

a) robot
b) small one''s
c) self replicating
d) with limited intelligence

This robots may manifest them self as UFO, or may not - and UFO could be completely different phenomena - or just illusion wihch is most likely.


The one solution of Fermi paradox is that universe is full of so called bersekers - i.e destroyers of young civilizations. The best way to make universe full of berserkers is use of Vp. If one "man" (not a civilization) started it once - they will expand without limits. So we must take this possibility seriosly, though it seemd unprobable.









.

[turchin]

The idea of extraterrestial nanobots is only one of hypotheses in my article "Ufo as global risk". I put here short sinopsis of my article so you could see the place of the hypothesis in the full line of thoghts.
**
In my article “UFO as global risk” are discussed global risks – i.e. risks that could lead to the complete extinction of mankind, - associated with the problem of UFOs. Although I on 90 % is sure that the UFOs are some common phenomena, the remaining 10 percent are forced me to consider these risks seriously.
I think that in the next 20 years the technique of observation of UFOs will dramatically change because we will have ubiquitous surveillance systems all over the world, and we will have final answer about their nature.
This mean that we will somehow confront with the phenomena: explore it, or fight it, or use its space to travel. So if any global risks are associated this the phenomena, they will realize in the 21 century.
If we speak about safety we should assume that something is exist until it proven that it is not exist (like mines on the field). In the science we do the opposite.
The expected harm is multiplication of probability of the hypothesis, and the chances that if this hypothesis is true, the Ufo somehow could lead to extinction of humanity.
I.e in case natural explanation it is 90 % * 0 = 0.
In case of extraterrestrial hypothesis it is 1 % * 0.5 = 0.5%
Numbers are highly speculative, but the main idea is clear: even if some hypothesis is very unprobable but has high expected harm, it is worth considering. The same case is with hadron collider and mini black holes.
So the less probable hypothesis have higher expected harm.
There are 3 levels of hypotheses:
1) natural: hoaxes, optical illusions and so on. They are most probable but have no any global risk. I put their probability in 90%.
2) hypotheses that need something extraordinary, but not change our picture of the world. I put to all this hypothesis probability of 5%, and global risk in case if any of them is true – 1 % . So, total expected risk here is 0.05%. That are:
• Sleep paralysis
• A new optical phenomenon
• Physical processes that affect human minds - seismic lights, earth-ionospheric discharges.
• UFO as ball lightning. I discuss around 100 hypotesis of them.
• UFO as conscious global hoax. Goverments use myth of UFO to manipulate people.
• Secret government developments. Secret weapons.
• Mystification from the suppressed sub-personalitie. Something like somnambulism or automatic writing.

3) Extraordinary hypotheses completely changing our picture of the world. To all this hypothesis I put also 5% , but risk of each is unknown and so should be counted as 50%. So total risk here is 2.5%

• Extraterrestrial spacecraft or landing apparatus
• Extraterrestrial nanorobots
• Interdimesional ships from parallel world
• Travelers in time
• Electrical life form
• Variety of parapsihological events
• The hypothesis of the collective unconscious
• Random observations of another world
• Activities of the Earth's ancient civilization
• Manifestations of multidimensional world
• UFOs is manifestation of the properties of holographic universe
• UFO as manifestations of synchronism
• Other


I consider 4 factors of global risk that may be associated with UFO based on observational data:
• Intellect – but we don’t have any prove that they really have high IQ
• Energy. It seems that UFO has unknown source of energy.
• Specific form of toxicity. There are some information of specific influences of UFO on people – burns, time lost.
• Informational effect. UFO could start accidental nuclear war.

[JayUtah]

...

So I think that we should suggest that it is possible before we can't prove that it is impossible

No one is suggesting that nanotechnology is impossible. You are the one suggesting it is the "best" way to explore the universe. I don't necessarily agree it is the best way.

I don''t say that Cerala red rain were nanobots - I show that this is a kind of evidence we should be interested for if we search extraterestial nanobots in teresstial enviroment.

I don't understand. You say it's the kind of evidence we should be looking for in a search for nanobots, but the evidence in question has nothing to do with nanotechnology.

But as I know nobody tried to search such nanobots.

There would be a long list of hypotheses for which no search has been conducted in each case. In any of the forensic engineering investigations I've conducted we've not searched for nanobots. There was no reason to suppose nanobots were involved.

I don''t thinhk that intilligence and loyality are connected. But safety and intelligence are connected.

No, you said the robots might "revolt." That is, they may not accept their place in the society that gave them existence. That is a question of loyalty.

I have extremely intelligent people working for me. They accept my leadership and their subordination in our organization because their intelligence allows them to see the mutual benefit in a hierarchical organization. Dumb people wouldn't see this, and those are the ones i'd fear sneaking up behind me with a letter opener.

Safety is achieved by removing either the will to cause harm or the ability to do it, or both. Limiting the intelligence of an autonomous goal-seeking system hobbles the system. Why not simply make them physically vulnerable? None of our information-acquisition spacecraft is prepared to defend itself, nor is particularly difficult to destroy.

If the have unlimited intelligence then it come a question if possible to keep goal system intact...

False dilemma. No one is talking about unlimited intelligence. We are talking about a degree of intelligence sufficient to the mission at hand.

What I want to say: If ETH hypoteses is true it is more likely that in432 the Solar system will be:

a) robot
b) small one''s
c) self replicating
d) with limited intelligence

No, it seems that you're assigning these properties to alien spaceships so that you can fit them into existing UFO observations, not because this is how alien technology is mostly likely to arise. This is possibly because UFO research is mostly about promoting the idea that UFO sightings are evidence of an alien presence.

You postulate cooperatives of nanobots not because that's the best way to create technology for remote presence, but because you say you need it to explain certain UFO behavior, and the subsequent absence of evidence.

You limit their intelligence not because that's the best way to achieve safety in technology, but because you need to be able to explain seemingly chaotic behavior in UFO reports.

You suggest an architecture that is both component-based and self-replicating, and likely self-composing. This is a recipe for utter disaster.

First, a component architecture achieves high-level purposes through composition of relatively single-minded components. A modern American unmanned spacecraft is composed of electrical supply components, thermal control components, dynamic control components, mission-specific components, structural components, and so forth. Each of these is a relatively simple system with fairly well-defined behavior. However, when composed into a spacecraft the overall supersystem begins to display complex behavior that is more that just the some of its parts. Our mission is implemented as a collective of specialized (or even generalized, in some cases) systems, but the behavior of the whole grows unpredictable quickly.

In an autonomously self-composed structure, you have to allow that unplanned compositions will arise either by accident or by artifice. This means it is an inherently unsafe architecture. If mission-level intelligence is vested in a composition of nanobots, then that composition arises out of what overriding intelligence? If it just happens to arise by evolutionary "genetic" means, what is to prevent unplanned compositions with unplanned (and potentially dangerous) behaviors from arising?

Limiting the intelligence of each individual nanobot doesn't suffice, because the compositional (and composed) intelligence of the whole is represented as distributed state.

The other obvious risk from a von Neumann system architecture is the effect of unplanned replication rates. What is to prevent disaster from overreplication? A swarm of small dumb ants can overwhelm even a Harvard physicist if he stands in the wrong place.

The one solution of Fermi paradox is that universe is full of so called bersekers - i.e destroyers of young civilizations.

Fred Saberhagen's cash cow is not a very parsimonious answer to the Fermi paradox. You may forget that the premise of the classic Berserker stories was that these machines had killed their creators. It is likely that any civilization capable of creating a Berserker may have the intelligence to contemplate whether they should.

So we must take this possibility seriosly, though it seemd unprobable.

No, in terms of risk analysis that's a contradiction. It would be foolish to expend resources in such a defense.

[JayUtah]

...

I put here short sinopsis of my article so you could see the place of the hypothesis in the full line of thoghts.

Thank you. But be advised I had no intention of reviewing your entire work as a consequence of addressing the claims you make here. But context helps.

Although I on 90 % is sure that the UFOs are some common phenomena, the remaining 10 percent are forced me to consider these risks seriously.

Only because you propose -- without any evidence -- that some portion of that 10% is the result of alien presence.

It is common, though incorrect, to believe that because 90% of some phenomena can be conclusively attributed to some known cause, that the remaining 10% for which no attribution is supported must necessarily be the result of some farfetched cause. There is no reason to suppose that any other causations are at work, simply because the evidence is too scarce to support any attribution. UFO fanatics simply use that natural level of uncertainty as a wedge to force their predetermined beliefs into the data.

I think that in the next 20 years the technique of observation of UFOs will dramatically change because we will have ubiquitous surveillance systems all over the world, and we will have final answer about their nature.

I disagree. We have had a steady increase in surveillance over the 60 years in which UFOs have been speculatively attributed to aliens, and none of the additional information has strengthened that hypothesis. Increased surveillance and a global information-sharing infrastructure have, however, enabled us to discover, for example, that parties in which candle-balloons are released coincide with "sightings." If anything, we are better able to find the prosaic causes that would have escaped a previous generation.

No investigator maintains that every occurrence of any kind can be conclusively explained. In my role as a forensic engineer I do not purport that I can discover the cause of some mishap, even though I believe that such a cause would have been from mundane circumstances. When happenstance occurrences leave little evidence, you cannot be sure of making a positive determination. That is not a license to reach for the absurd.

If we speak about safety we should assume that something is exist until it proven that it is not exist (like mines on the field).

False. To achieve safety we must create inconvenience, eschew risk, and expend resources. We cannot and should not do this without good cause.

UFOs in the sky are nothing like land mines in a field. Land mines are known abstractly to exist and be a credible, falsifiable threat. It is reasonable to expect them to be found in a field, especially if that field is in a war zone. With that knowledge firmly in place, safety indeed suggests that we treat a suspect field first as if it were mined.

Alien spacecraft are not known to exist. They are not therefore known to have any properties we can determine and against which we can achieve a rational falsification. They are not known to be belligerent. There is no justification for trying to identify and mitigate a threat that is simply not known to be a threat.

In case of extraterrestrial hypothesis it is 1 % * 0.5 = 0.5%

As you say, your numbers are purely speculative. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any number of UFO sightings are of alien spacecraft. There is no evidence that alien activity accounts for any otherwise unexplained phenomenon on Earth.

Without evidence, you have no more justification putting your estimate of risk at 2.5% than I do putting it at practically zero. You have no more evidence of aliens as a threat than you do of Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Intellect – but we don’t have any prove that they really have high IQ

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that you assume they are of low intelligence because of your safety argument above? Or are you saying we can just assume they are highly intelligent because they made it here?

Energy. It seems that UFO has unknown source of energy.

No. Unexplained sightings are assumed to be the result of alien technology. Then with that converted conditional assumed as a premise, it "follows" from the problematic remaining observations that any energy source involved would not fit our understanding. In the UFO mindset that confirms the ETH because the "object" has "displayed" extraterrestrial technological capability.

Specific form of toxicity. There are some information of specific influences of UFO on people – burns, time lost.

These must generally be examined individually because there is no basis to classify them similarly except in that UFO researchers speculate they're all caused by aliens.

The determination of causation is of primary importance in any investigation. However in almost all these kinds of cases, the causation is merely assumed.

Informational effect. UFO could start accidental nuclear war.

I'm far more worried about people starting an accidental nuclear war.

[GoneToPlaid]

I'm far more worried about people using a biological weapon which then escalates to nuclear war.

[KaiYeves]

Global Risk?

[Spoons]

turchin, if I understand you correctly you seem to be suggesting something akin to "swarms" of von Neumann nano-probes being more likely than larger, singular probes.

Why would one wish to create the additional complexity of inter-communication and group organization into the programming and computational needs of a probe (or set of probes)? The simplicity of singular probes would seem more reliable, and reliability would have to be a great consideration in any von Neumann probes designs, no?

[turchin]

You are the one suggesting it is the "best" way to explore the universe.

No, I am not the one. Several people wrote that beteer to send small robots to the star, which could built all needed infrastructure to send self replicating probes farther. It will be much cheaper then to send large habitable ships. And it could happened by accident - grey goo scenario.

Cerala rain.
I mean that we should search for strange small nanoparticles. Kerala rain is example of strange small nanoparticles. But as I know nobody tried to check if it were nanobots. And I don''t know how we could check it in our level of knowledge. But other hypoteses were discused - grains of sand, spores of algaes and extraterrestial bacteris.

I am taking exactly about unlimited inteligence. I think that after some level any intelligence could improve it self in run away process. This process is unstable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_AI
So Vp must be somehow limited in their ability to selfevolve in dangerous way. Of course there are possible different ways to limit their avility to evolve. In previous thread on the topic of VP it was discussed and they come to conclusion that it is impractical to put in VP "stop signal" because it could be stolen by rival civilization.
So I suggest new way how to control VP - i.e. to use in it such type of intelligence that can''t evolve or be reprogrammed. It is not genetic algoritms, because they can evolve and have created human intelligence.

You said that I came to conclusion about nanobots as "material" of UFOs becuse I tried to feet observation. It''s only partly true.

I have thoght about cosmic grey goo (nano VP) long before I have started to think about UFOs. But the idea of absurd grey goo came to me only then I tried to feet observation of strange UFO with several different hypotesis (see my post above with full list of hypotesis). If you need prove that I started to think about cosmic grey goo - you could check my book "Structure of global catastrophe" and my articles "Is SETI dangerous" and "Artificail fusion explosion of giant planets" (google) in which I wrote about self replicating nanobots as cheap mean of space exploration.

I don''t have needed technical expertise to prove reliability of distributed nanosystem. I remeber Internet as distributed but reliable net.


As was said in previuos thread, Vp-bersekers should not kill other civilizations. They just should monitor that they didn''t start their own rogue VP. So they work like large immune system against rogue replicator in galactic. The same is sugested for the Earth as NanoShield project. http://lifeboat.com/ex/nano.shield

I mean that we should think about it seriosly before we dismiss such idea, because the stakes are great.

[turchin]

Only because you propose -- without any evidence -- that some portion of that 10% is the result of alien presence.

You over and over again said as if I am proponent of allien hypotesis of UFO. If UFO is something unknown it does not mean alien.

So from this 10 per cent I atribute only 1 percent to VP nanobots, and only 0.1 per cent to "large motherships". Other variant e.g. is glitches in Matrix which seems more probable for me.

I don''t say that in next 20 years we will somehow strenthen "alien hypothesis". I said that in next 20 yers we could quickly test any hypothesis, maybe in real time of event. And it most likely will disprove any claims about anything extraordinary.

About risk. If millitary see any unrecognazible object, they send fighter to chess it and collect information about it. they don''t think: "It is unrecognizable, so it must be allien spacecraft, but we don''t belive in alien spacecraft, so we will not check it".

It is interesting to mention that nobody as I know wrote specialy on UFO as global risk.
Even if there is no risk it must be proven - and the best prove is to dismiss all claims about spaceships etc.
So I decided to collect information on this topic.

Even if UFOs are ball lightning they still poses some risk - we could learn new source of energy behing BL and use it to create new powerfull bombs. So UFO risk is not nessesery connected with aliens.

Evidence - I have 1000s reports of strange things in the sky, but I have not any reports about Volan de Mort. Some people claims that this evidences are conclusive, some people - not.

Intelligence - I think that if UFO are any real being or aircraft, they are a little bit stupid, based on the thing that they do (if we will belive the reports) - crop circle, cattle mutilations, hovering over nuclear bases all it is not highly intelligent behaivor. This idea is based on my analys of reprts, not on idea of "safe nanobots", which came later.

Energy. I used article of Jaque Valle "Esimates of Optical Power Output in six cases of unexplained aerial objects with defined luminosity characteristic " (JSE, 1998) http://www.jacquesvallee.net/bookdocs/optics.pdf.
This article does not use allien hypotesis and Valle is strong opponent of it.

Burn and other are coincedent that some UFO observation and should be investiganed as one of risk factors.

Unrecognized meteor could start ABM system and lead to nuclear counter strick. Uncorrectly indentifid object

[JayUtah]

...

No, I am not the one.

You're the one suggesting it here. I realize that your thread has been placed here involuntarily, but if you advance a claim here in the Conspiracy Theory section you are responsible for substantiating it.

Besides, you conflate the concepts of self-replicating architectures with nanotechnology. You cannot assume that the rationales put forward by your authors (who don't necessarily discuss nanotechnology) remain valid when you add the complexity of nanobots. You propose nanobots because you need them to be undetectable and thus explain why none of this supposed alien technology has been discovered yet.

Several people wrote that beteer to send small robots to the star, which could built all needed infrastructure to send self replicating probes farther.

"Better" in what ways? Please provide an engineering rationale.

It will be much cheaper then to send large habitable ships.

That's debatable. Engineering a working, safe, reliable self-replicating infrastructure out of very small cooperative objects is not cheap. What about sending small, automated ships that are not composed of clouds of nanobots and are not self-replicating? You seem to consider only a very small number of the available engineering options. You're considering only nanobot collectives or manned spacecraft. You haven't convinced me that nanotechnology is superior among all unmanned options.

I mean that we should search for strange small nanoparticles. Kerala rain is example of strange small nanoparticles.

Not everything that is small is artificial nanotechnology. You must have a means of differentiating from among all small objects. But instead you say: And I don't know how we could check it in our level of knowledge.

Then you're back to the problem of attributing behavior to undetectable causes. That's unparsimonious and therefore rejected.

I am taking exactly about unlimited inteligence.

Ah, I think we have a language problem. In English "unlimited" means not only the literal "without limitation," but also tends to mean "arbitrarily large." When you said "unlimited intelligence" I took you to mean that the probes would potentially be provided with, or attain, arbitrarily large intelligence.

One can provide a high degree of machine intelligence that is still nevertheless limited. The problem is that you postulate a very low degree of intelligence because you're trying to explain why the behavior of UFOs (if they were interpreted as alien spacecraft) is so apparently undirected and stupid.

So Vp must be somehow limited in their ability to selfevolve in dangerous way.

Of course there are possible different ways to limit their avility to evolve.

You mentioned only genetic algorithms, which I pointed out would have the opposite effect: they would create complex systems with unknown interactions and evolutionary artifacts.

Please explain what others you're thinking of.

...it is impractical to put in VP "stop signal" because it could be stolen by rival civilization.

Yet humans have managed to implement fail-safes that cannot be compromised by rivals.

I have thoght about cosmic grey goo (nano VP) long before I have started to think about UFOs.

Be that as it may, your scenario here is clearly being driven by the desire to fit the effects to a particularly chosen set of observations: UFO reports. You then postulate causes for those effects, and assert that the causes are reasonable. But when questioned, they don't appear reasonable at all; they don't appear to be a smart way to engineer a galactic space travel infrastructure.

I remeber Internet as distributed but reliable net.

The Internet is loosely coupled and hence exhibits little macroscale behavior. You propose a collective with intended macroscale behavior, hence a tighter degree of coupling is required. With tighter coupling comes a greater propensity for unplanned interactions to become salient, and in fact to dominate.

As was said in previuos thread, Vp-bersekers should not kill other civilizations.

But as long as you're speculating, why not speculate that they do anyway? You're just inventing a fictional universe in which all the variables magically work out in your favor.

I mean that we should think about it seriosly before we dismiss such idea, because the stakes are great.

If evil Harry Potter wizards were real, the stakes would also be great. I can think of a number of fictional ways in which the world might end. What makes your fictional proposal so much more worthy of serious attention?

[Teemu L]

It looks like you guys are already in the middle of quite fast-paced debate. I'm kind of short on time so I think I will now comment this first one only.

The main ideas is:

1. The best way to explore universe is Vp.

I agree - although no one on Earth has yet built von Neumann probe. But I don't see why it would be impossible for a very advanced civilization. Time will tell.

2. This probes should consist of nanobots

I think we should advance more on nanotechnology and self-replicating machines before we can really say which kind of approach would be most effective.

3. Ufo could be clouds of such nanobots - it explain many strange features.

Hmm... maybe... interesting idea. Do you have any specific alleged UFO sighting on your mind?

4. The senders of Vp must be afreid that they will revolt
5. So they must limited their AI - to be sure that it can't self develop

I completely agree with that. No evolution allowed, it could lead to a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions.

6 The best way to limit AI is to create it in such a way that can''t be optimised. So it must use strange method of optimization, like genetic algoritms.

But isn't this kind of evolution?

7 This mean that behaivor of UFO must be absurd and it is imposible to make contact this them. And we actually see that UFO are absurd in their behaivior.

I think I have to disagree with that. I believe it would be essential that von Neumann probe is capable of communicating with probes sent by other civilizations. And wouldn't absurd behavior mean the probes are useless and dangerous?

IF there are extraterrestial probes visiting Earth and IF their behavior seems to be absurd I think there are other reasons for that. For example, insufficient computing power because of limitations set by self-replication techniques. Or some broken or weary part of a probe. Or maybe we don't just understand what they are doing. For example, seemingly random erratic maneuvers by a probe could be because it is making three dimensional map of area (which would probably require measurements from different positions and angles).

8. Observer selection mean that we can only see such a world, where poloce Vp are not too much agressive. I.e. they don''t destroy early life and intelligence.

That is right - although berserkers could be still on their way here.

9. We are approaching the limit, where police probes will attack us. It may be creating of AI, or our own nanotechnology, or large space missle. It explain interest from UFOs to missles sites.

I don't believe they are going to attack us. If there are extraterrestial probes in our solar system they could have destroyed us instantly after it became apparent we are capable of building complex machines. It would have required a ruthless civilization to do that but who says there couldn't be one, although it would have been difficult as I suspect VNPs sent by other civilizations would try to wipe away such an antisocial VNP family.

But of course one could say: maybe they just wanted to observe us for a while and destroy us only when it is necessary.

But as JayUtah wrote, in order to make someone harmless "one merely has to deny him access to weapons, or tie his hands behind his back". VNPs don't have to attack us in order to thwart us as a threat to some other civilization. All they have to do is stop everything we try to send out from this solar system. And as they have incalculable amount of resources on their hands, they certainly can do it. So they could continue to observe our progress in safe and sound.

10. Extraterrestial nanobots could be present even in this room or in my body. We should search for dead nanobot or something like Kerala red rain.

Possibly. It would be interesting experiment to look in my apartment if there are any nanobots - if someone would be willing to pay the costs. But if I was starting an scientific experiments to determine whether or not there are extraterrestial probes around I probably wouldn't start by looking for dead nanobots. This is because I don't know whether possible probes are nanobots or not. And if they are nanobots, do they leave their dead comrades lying around.

But please read what I have wrote earlier about "experimental ufology" - I believe it is something where a great caution is needed.

[JayUtah]

...

You over and over again said as if I am proponent of allien hypotesis of UFO. If UFO is something unknown it does not mean alien.

You're proposing that some percentage of unattributed sightings are the result of alien presence, in the form of nanobot collectives. I don't understand how you think I'm misrepresenting you.

So from this 10 per cent I atribute only 1 percent to VP nanobots

How did you compute that?

If millitary see any unrecognazible object, they send fighter to chess it and collect information about it.

The military acts on scenarios that have historically developed into threats. They don't attack every flock of geese that flies overhead. An abundance of caution is indicated, but this doesn't extend even to absurd possibilities.

The difference is that you look at a phenomenon, postulate a cause for it, and then propose action based on additional properties of the postulated cause.

Evidence - I have 1000s reports of strange things in the sky, but I have not any reports about Volan de Mort.

Apples and oranges. You have thousands of cases of observations that cannot yet be explained conclusively. That isn't evidence of any particular cause; that's evidence of observations looking for a cause. When you postulate that some number of the unexplained observations must be the result of alien presence, I have to ask for evidence that supports that attribution. And in fact you have no more evidence for explaining them as space aliens than I do for explaining them as an evil wizard.

This idea is based on my analys of reprts, not on idea of "safe nanobots", which came later.

Your idea is based on the premise of assuming they are alien spacecraft. In the real world, chaotic behavior in the observation would suggest a natural or happenstance phenomenon. Instead, you merely change the hypothetical properties of the space aliens to accommodate the observation. That's very unscientific.

This article does not use allien hypotesis and Valle is strong opponent of it.

Then why are you citing it in defense of your claim that UFOs have "unknown" energy sources? If they are unidentified, then the composition and proper nature of them remain unknown. There is nothing amiss here.

[Lone Wolf]

Published today, in The Telegraph (Not exactly known for good reporting :P )

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...sightings.html

Of the 10, only one remains "unsolved" or without a plausible theory...

[turchin]

Ok, I will change a little my position: I claim that Nanosizaed VNP is one of possible ways in which alliens could present in our solar system and this could probably explain some UFO sightnins.

Other ways of allien presence in solar system are:
SETI -signals
Larger mother ships with biological crue.
Large not replicating robots
Large von neuman probes
Small non replicating bots.
Panspermia

Some people try to search SETI signals, but they have not any prove that such signals exist and what such signal could be. I think that the same should be done about nanosized extraterrestial replicators.

Why nanoVPN is good?

1) It is easy to have near light spead to small objects because a) each object is cheaper b) it takes less energy c) it is possible to use external sourse of energy - laser propulsion or accelerator.
The main problem here is that small spaceships asa nanostarships will suffer from radiational damage in much greater scale.
Also it is not clear how to stiop them
2) Small starship could use nanobots for constant selfrepair during the travel.
3) You could lunch trillions of nanostarships like in panspermia hoping that at least one reach another star system and survive.
4) In order to do anything usefull in other star system nanostarship should build needed infrastructure. Moleclar nanotechnologies could do it.
5) Self replicating probes must be much more abundunt in the Universe. because it is enogh to start such wave of replicators only once in the sphere with radius near billion light years and it they will pour it all.
6) Two situation are possible: or one VN probe prevent others from appearing, or universe are full of different VNP which fight for resourses. In last case Earth will be "eaten" long before human appear on it. So, or VPN not exist at all, or VPN in our solar system is preventing others VNP from appearing.
7) Nano VPN has much bigger opportunities for mimicria then large VNP. Mimicria is important ir the goal of VP - to fight with something.
8) After sending its offsprings from star system such controlling VP must controll all surfases of all solid celestial bodys in the star system in order to prevent other nano VPN from arriving and self replicating. It is 0.1 trillion sq. km. in our solar system. So it must cover all syrfases of all celestail bodies. And must be active billion of years. The main problem here is energy. Se work of Freitas "Some limits to global ecofagy" about the question of energy. So conntoling objects should be rather small and eat very small ammount of energy. It is favor nanobots.
9) any nano VP could became large VP, but the opposite is not true, so nano VP is more universal. I.e. it could create arbitrary large macrocsopic instalation (and they still could mimicr srones), like multicellur life could create elephant.
10) nano VP could be combined with SETI attack - i.e using seti chanells to sending rogue AI which will enslave naive civilizations and use them for replication. Maybe later I wil start a topic about it.

So nano VP have many advantages and must be much more abaundunt in the universe then other space ships.

How to search them? We should search for dead nanobots, or strange phenomena like strange clouds, moving stones, weak electric fields which they use to communicate.

The idea that their intelligence was deliberately damaged is interesting but I will not insist that it is true.

More plausible is that during billion generations nanoVP have evolved in Darvin style, mutate, lost contact with mother civilization and became something like space animals.

Absurd UFO sighting could be wedding rituals between different VPN-animals.

Clouds of nanobots could explain the ability of Ufos to change shape and to change speed with high acceleration, and the ability to move underwater not disturbing it.

[turchin]

About 10 sightning... I have good sceptical explanation of Shag Harbour crash: a large object crashed into Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia.

It could be a recogniscion air ballon of Russians od US with the system of self liquidation. This system could give fire even underwater and completely destroy all apparatus. It was suggetsen by Gershtein that "UFO crash" in Dalnegorsk 611 height was the the same selfliquidation of millitary air ballon.
**
Where did you wrote about "experimental ufology"?
**
You're proposing that some percentage of unattributed sightings are the result of alien presence, in the form of nanobot collectives.

No. I proposing that one of possible hypotesis is to explain some unattributed sightings to nanbots collectives. I think that some other hypotasis have at least the same level of creadaility: i.e. glithches in the Matrix and traveller from parralel world.

What I am trying to do is to create field of several hypotheses and then attribute to them different probabilities in style of Bayesian logic.

So from this 10 per cent I atribute only 1 percent to VP nanobots

How did you compute that?

I sugest that all alternative hypoteses are equal. We have around 10 alternative hypoteses. So I divided 10 per cent on 10 and got 1 per cent.

The difference is that you look at a phenomenon, postulate a cause for it, and then propose action based on additional properties of the postulated cause.

Ok. It is like hadron collider and miniblack holes. Nobody see them yet, and many think that they are absurd. But some thinhk that they very dangerous. I share the view expressed in the article "Probing the Improbable: Methodological Challenges for Risks with Low Probabilities and High Stakes" http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5515

That isn't evidence of any particular cause; that's evidence of observations looking for a cause. When you postulate that some number of the unexplained observations must be the result of alien presence,

When I have evidence that could be explained by several hypotheses I attribute equal probabilities to each hypotheses. Nothing impossible is in the isea of nanoVPN - no new phisical laws, superlight travel etc.

Instead, you merely change the hypothetical properties of the space aliens to accommodate the observation.

I search for all hypotheses that could explain known evidences. When youi investigate air crach do you do the same?

If they are unidentified, then the composition and proper nature of them remain unknown.

But their energy output could be estimated. The same is with ball lightning - we don''t know their nature, but we could estimate their energy by their light output, and when use this estimation to check different hypotneses.

[JayUtah]

...

What I am trying to do is to create field of several hypotheses and then attribute to them different probabilities in style of Bayesian logic.

But you fail from the beginning because none of your proposed hypothesis for the unexplained sightings has a priori plausibility.

I sugest that all alternative hypoteses are equal.

If you consider all alternative hypotheses for which there is no a priori plausibility then that number is practically infinite (limited only by the imagination) and would have to include such things as evil wizards and invisible elves.

We have around 10 alternative hypoteses.

No, you only thought of ten. Since you're only speculating, the number of such speculative hypotheses is infinite.

Ok. It is like hadron collider and miniblack holes.

No it isn't. While there is some uncertainty in the expected behavior of high-energy physics, objects like the LHC are based on known principles of physics that exhibit largely known behavior dealing with known causes and their effects.

I'm trying to point out why your justification for risk analysis is in error. Real risk analysis deals with the properties of the effects (i.e., it doesn't matter how a fire starts; fire is bad) or known potential causes with testable properties (electrical short circuits cause fires, so let's test the circuits for shorts).

Instead your approach is purely speculative. Say a building burns down and you can't yet determine why. You say that it's not impossible for space aliens to have an energy beam that would cause a building fire. You point to all kinds of speculative research that supports the possibility of this occurring. Then you invent a motive why the aliens would want to do it, and on that combined basis you argue for increased vigilance against space aliens and their heat rays. Do you see how that materially differs from real risk analysis?

When I have evidence that could be explained by several hypotheses I attribute equal probabilities to each hypotheses.

No, you're confusing occurrence with probability. If you have 100 sightings and 90 of them can be satisfactorily attributed to prosaic causes, you have 10 sightings for which no suitable explanation yet presents itself. To hypothesize, say, 5 potential causes across the board and then to apply them to those 10 sightings with equal probability is essentially to ignore the facts of the sightings. You're not talking about abstract numbers but actual occurrences.

I search for all hypotheses that could explain known evidences. When youi investigate air crach do you do the same?

No. We employ only hypotheses for which there is tested a priori plausibility. Instead you are simply inventing hypotheses out of your imagination, and you are not testing any of them. Yes, it is foremost important that any hypothesis must explain the observations toward which it is directed. But there is a vast difference between selecting from among hypotheses of known and tested plausibility, and simply making stuff up. You're basically just noting what a piece of technology would need to look like in order to achieve the desired observation, then assuming that's what actually was done. That's an improper fitting of speculative hypothesis to fact.

Further, to explain happenstance occurrences we often must establish otherwise improbable chains and confluences of events. The Apollo 13 accident, for example, was a chain of individual occurrences not likely to recur. In your case, you're postulating technology that is intended to operate a certain way. That is, you're trying to discover the intended design, which does not allow you to delve into low-probability events. An air crash is an improbable event. The ordinary operation of some bit of technology is not.

But their energy output could be estimated.

Correct. However, if you want to assert that a sighting is remarkable because of its estimated energy output, you cannot do that until you have identified the object and can thus reason whether the observed energy output is proper to the object. Although your author has not done this, others attempt to amplify the apparently mysterious nature of some unknown sightings by claiming no terrestrial "craft" would be able to produce that energy.

[turchin]

As I understand you assume that our picture of the world is complete and we should put a priori zero probabiliti to any black swan hypothesis that will change it. But several times in hystory of sciense it seemed that the picture of the world is complete, but later it changed. So I think we should not be sure that there is no black swan in the future.

Also, in your logic, we should not search for anything that we don''t know before. But we search for life on Mars or radiosignals from ET, though we have not any prove that such signals exist.

Existing of nano VPN is not more implausible then existing of extraterrestial seti-transmissions.

But the connection of nano VPN with UFO is more implausible. If VPN exist they most likely will not manifest itself like UFOs.

So checking of UFO sightins for the question they are nanoVPN is only one of many possible ways to search for nano VPN. As search on hydrogen line is only one of many ways of SETI.

[DALeffler]

...

As I understand you assume that our picture of the world is complete and we should put a priori zero probabiliti to any black swan hypothesis that will change it.

Jay is not assuming that.

Jay is trying to tell you it's useless to scientifically try to talk about black swans when there is no evidence that swans - aliens - even exist.

But several times in hystory of sciense it seemed that the picture of the world is complete, but later it changed. So I think we should not be sure that there is no black swan in the future.

Science doesn't preclude what it cannot test. Science doesn't say, "There are no black swans" (given that swans, indeed, exist) because scientists cannot look at every swan to be sure there are no black swans.

Science would almost always say instead, "All swans are white". Then it only takes a single example of a non-white swan to refute the original theory and any new theory has to take into account any swan that is not white.

IMHO, science advances far more by what we know can't be, and not nearly as much by what we think could be.

Doug.

[turchin]

Jay is trying to tell you it's useless to scientifically try to talk about black swans when there is no evidence that swans - aliens - even exist.

It is true about science, but is it true about risk assessments? I think that in the risk assessment we should take evidence even if it if not proven enough to have scientific value.

For example, astronauts when they returned from Moon was quaranteened even there is no scintific evidence of live on the Moon.

The second thing is that in order to get really good evidence we should test it. And in order to test it we chould have hypothesis about possible swan before we test.
We can''t find black swan if stoped checking color of swans.

[JayUtah]

...

As I understand you assume that our picture of the world is complete...

No. I do not hold that position at all, neither by assumption nor by proof. However, when extending our picture of the world we do not simply imagine some scenario and then assume it to be true or plausible. We test it.

Often in an investigation we must imagine some new causal chain because it may explain some previously inexplicable observations. But before asserting that a stuck PCU will mispipe hydraulic fluid and cause an uncommanded rudder hardover, we have to test to see whether such a thing can happen, and identify the circumstances under which it cannot happen. This allows us to establish a priori plausibility and set up a framework for falsifying the hypothesis.

Then and only then does the hypothesis have explanatory power in the face of happenstance occurrences. You want pure speculation to rise to the same explanatory power; but it cannot unless you do more than suggest it's not impossible.

...and we should put a priori zero probabiliti to any black swan hypothesis...

No. The problem with your approach is that you cherry-pick a few purely speculative farfetched possibilities and arbitrarily declare them to be remarkably plausible. You shouldn't necessarily assign a zero probability to any of them; but you should assign the same probability as all the other speculative alternatives that others can think of, and for which there is no evidence. People who advocate explanations involving space aliens generally sidestep that there is no a priori evidence to establish them. They're blind to the true evidentiary nature of that hypothesis because they favor aliens.

The "black swan" analogy is terrible because a black swan is not an egregious departure from a white swan. It differs from a known fact in only one of many available properties. Space aliens, the way UFO enthusiasts formulate them, are not merely black swans. They're invisible elves.

But several times in hystory of sciense it seemed that the picture of the world is complete, but later it changed.

It changed because new information came to light.

If science had seen only white swans, it would be justified in saying, "Our theory holds that all swans are white." And according to the scientific method, that would be a defensible and predictive theory according to the available data. But as soon as the first black swan shows up, science would happily say, "Our theory is now revised to say that while most swans are white, there will occur the occasional non-white swan." And the scientist who first observed and published those findings rigorously would be hailed as a hero, not shunned.

Your hypotheses make little sense. They are not just a swan of a different color, or swans at all. They're some unholy kind of animal conjured into probability only because that's the kind of "animal" that would have to account for the observations. You won't concede that the cause may not be a swan at all.

There is a persistent myth that scientists dumbly reject anything that doesn't fit their preconceived notions. That's generally put forward only by people trying to discredit scientists. Scientists don't change theories on a whim, but they do change them when necessary. There are tests to apply to the new data to make sure it really is a challenge to the theory. That degree of rigor is what we call the scientific method. And it's how science makes progress while still remaining reliable. Most people who reject scientists want them to sidestep that rigor in favor of their pet theory. They want science to break its rules in their favor.

Also, in your logic, we should not search for anything that we don''t know before.

I make no such claim. I'm claiming that it is useless to attempt a scientifically defensible line of reasoning without a priori plausibility and a clear method of falsification. And I don't appreciate being called closed-minded just because I don't accept your speculation for more than it is.

But we search for life on Mars or radiosignals from ET, though we have not any prove that such signals exist.

SETI is based on reasonably falsifiable hypotheses: we are reasonably sure what random radio noise looks like. Your approach is not falsifiable. You simply define the aliens to have whatever properties you need in order to fit your desired observation, and call it good. If it seems that a UFO's behavior is not appropriate to an artificial spacecraft, you just say that they're intentionally made uselessly stupid, even though there's no justification for assigning that property to aliens other than to make it fit your belief.

So checking of UFO sightins for the question they are nanoVPN is only one of many possible ways to search for nano VPN.

Only because you arbitrarily connect alien nanotechnology with unexplained sightings. Then you tell the world that we wouldn't necessarily recognize nanotechnology if we saw it, so that you can continue to hold your hypothesis even though it would be putatively falsified. Patently unscientific.

[JayUtah]

...

I think that in the risk assessment we should take evidence even if it if not proven enough to have scientific value.

No, that's paranoia.

For example, astronauts when they returned from Moon was quaranteened even there is no scintific evidence of live on the Moon.

True, and there was no threat. That was done solely to appease the paranoid public.

However that's a fairly low-cost precaution. When you're talking about a global threat, you're proposing a global defense. That's expensive and inconvenient, and should be undertaken only for effects that are known to be threats.

The second thing is that in order to get really good evidence we should test it.

Exactly. So when you test your alien hypothesis, let us know. You can't test it by applying it to sightings if you then want to use that hypothesis to explain the sightings; that's circular reasoning.

[turchin]

When you're talking about a global threat, you're proposing a global defense. That's expensive and inconvenient, and should be undertaken only for effects that are known to be threats.

No. R.Reagen as some say tried to do it. Itis said that he saw UFO twice in his live, he spoke several times about alien threat and some think that SDI with all its laser beams was against alliens, not against USSR.

But it was stupid! Because the easiest way to provoke alliens on attack is try to shout them down or built the defence.

So I think that we will be safer if we will not buit any defence.

What I am sugesting - is not spend vast resourses, but to start to think about possible consequenses.

But before asserting that a stuck PCU will mispipe hydraulic fluid and cause an uncommanded rudder hardover, we have to test to see whether such a thing can happen, and identify the circumstances under which it cannot happen.

This exacly I am speaking about. Before test to see if such thing could happen, we must at least have the idea that it may be possible.

And this is I am tring to do - I want to discuss idea before its testing, or even before the decision should it be tested at all or not.

For exmple, it is better not to test the idea that hadron collider could produce miniblack holes.

And may be we should not test the idea about the nature of UFO, because if the forces behind them realize, that they are discovered, they may decide to exterminate us.