You addressed nothing I said. You seem to be unable to think beyond "censorship bad".

The damage of fraudulent speech, as demonstrated through Common Law, is measured by its demonstrated result. The level of criminality that may be involved concerns the question of malicious intent — Paine

So you agree it's a reasonable infringement on free speech, because it can cause damage.

So far, I have made exactly one proposal: to require watermarking of deepfake videos, which are fraudulent by their nature. Do you agree this would be a reasonable step?

Why not just leave everyone alone instead of harming them and their work? It would be better for all of us. — NOS4A2

Such deepfakes are unequivocally a lie, and it doesn't infringe on anyone's free speech. Identifying them for what they are benefits those of us who seek facts. So who's harmed by such a requirement? In what ways would we be better off by having these unequivocal lies compete with actual truth?

Deepfake videos are becoming increasingly lifelike. 100% of them are unequivocal lies, so I suggest some level of governance over them is reasonable. For example: requiring a watermark identifying them as fakes. This wouldn't impede free speech, it would just require disclosure that the content isn't real.

People here don't seem to realize that censorship and free speech is a double-edge sword. — Harry Hindu

Free speech has never meant the freedom to say whatever you want wherever you want. Are laws against fraud and libel to be dispensed with because they infringe free speech?

Fox News lost a big lawsuit to Dominion Voting Systems for spreading lies that hurt their businss. Was that inappropriate?

Axios is a left-leaning source of information. It seems to me that both sides engage in misinformation equally and reject science when it is politically expedient. .. — Harry Hindu

The Axios article linked to a Pew survey that showed Republicans are more likely than Democrats to mistrust scientists.

...Many Democrats have rejected biological facts regarding sex

I've never seen anyone denying the biological facts regarding sex. Are you perhaps referring to the trend to treat gender as a social role that can sometimes be inconsistent with biological sex?

What really sucks is the level of politicization that has infiltrated society today. — Harry Hindu

Yes, that's unfortunate and it's exacerbated by the political parties. GOP leaders have to cater to their base by appealing to their anti-science trends and the embrace of conspiracy theories. In the process, they draw in more of the lunatic fringe - to which they will them endeavor to continue to court. The only remotely similar thing I see the Dems doing is to tiptoe around policies and attitudes toward transgenders.

Here's an idea: how about we take campaigning for a position of power out of the equation? Impose term limits on Congress. — Harry Hindu

Everyone gets one term? I'd support that, but it won't happen - it would take a constitutional amendment. I'd like to see critical thinking skills taught in schools- but I anticipate Christian groups would oppose it.

The right to question authority is a type of free speech — Harry Hindu

Of course, but there has been an unhealthy trend toward treating expert opinion as no more credible than the opinion of a blogger on the internet- especially among Republicans. See: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/28/misinformation-science

Questioning authority is healthy. Countering it with disinformation is not.

We agree on the necessary condition. We disagree that disinformation contributes to bad things occurring... — NOS4A2

It was bad that Edgar shot up the Pizzeria.
A necessary condition for this occuring was his hearing the disinformation.

So how can you say the disinformation didn't contribute to this bad thing occurring?

That’s misinformation. You last sentence in the post to which I disagreed was “ So are you open to considering ways to limit the spread of disinformation, if it doesn't infringe on free speech rights?” — NOS4A2

You're wrong. Here's the entirety of the post:

↪Relativist

My theory is only that the disinformation is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for these acts to occur. Do you disagree?

I do not. — NOS4A2

So you believe Edgar would have driven to the Pizza Parlor and shot it up even if he'd never heard the falsehood. That's irrational.

Nope. I believe it didn’t cause him to. — NOS4A2

You're being evasive. I agreed that under a strict definition of cause as that which is necessary and sufficient to resultvin the effect , the disinformation was not the cause. If you read carefully, you'd know that was not on dispute. And yet you repeated the assertion that the disformation didn't cause it.

I have repeatedly asked you if you agreed the information was a necessary condition. You have not clearly answered that. Your "nope" seemed to imply that you do not believe Edgar would have shot up the Pizza Parlor.

You started this thread, so its odd that you seem to want to avoid serious discussion.

And as John Milton argued, the censors deny themselves (and others) the opportunity to see falsity collide with truth. By giving the authorities the right to determine truth and historical fact, they push for the stupidity of mankind. — NOS4A2

Censorship is not the only way to deal with disinformation.

Well, it should have been clear because I linked to the post I was replying to, as I always do. — NOS4A2

The last sentence in the quote was my question: "do you disagree?" You responded. "I do not".

I agree that it was a necessary condition to the event. So is air, water, guns, and pizza. I disagree that it contributed to the event you mentioned and therefor ought to be minimized. — NOS4A2

So you believe Edgar would have driven to the Pizza Parlor and shot it up even if he'd never heard the falsehood. That's irrational.

I haven't suggested any actions (yet). I was just pointing out that more free speech doesn't address the problem...and also that the problem is very real.

It seems pretty simple to me that the obvious solution to the existence of misinformation is more free speech, not less of it. — Harry Hindu

Why didn't free speech prevent a man from shooting his way into a Pizza Parlor to rescue nonexistent child victims of sex trafficking from a nonexistent basement?

You know as well as I do that I was disagreeing with this claim:

So you agree that disinformation contributes to bad things occurring. It therefore follows that it would be good to minimize it. — NOS4A2

No, that wasn't at all clear. I asked you a specific yes/no question - that you answered. Now you're blaming me for your answering it wrong.

You are trying to maximize rather than minimize misinformation. And still nothing bad has become of it. All of it reflects on your own behavior instead of threatening me and my safety.

I first need to clarify the distinction between misinformation and disinformation. Disinformation entails falsehoods being promulgated. Misinformation is broader, and includes people being misinformed for a variety of reasons.

In my first post, I listed a number of bad things that disinformation led to. You focused narrowly on the personal responsibilty of the individuals who acted. You correctly noted that the disinformation wasn't necessary and sufficient for the act to occur. I didn't dispute that, but I pointed it that it was a NECESSARY condition for those acts. Edgar, the Pizzagate shooter, never would have done it had the disinformation not existed.

That doesn't excuse Edgar from his crime. It doesn't mean his personal responsibility for his act is less important than the lie. But it's still the case that this bit of disinformation was a necessary condition for Edgar's act to occur. I don't see how you can rationally deny that.

I do not agree, and am not open to considering ways to limit the spread. — NOS4A2

I had previously asked:

My theory is only that the disinformation is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for these acts to occur. Do you disagree? — Relativist

You answered:

I do not. — NOS4A2

Did you misunderstand the first question?

If so, then explain why you deny that in the cases I cited, disinformation was a necessary condition.

Great! So you agree that disinformation contributes to bad things occurring. It therefore follows that it would be good to minimize it.

So are you open to considering ways to limit the spread of disinformation, if it doesn't infringe on free speech rights?

Just note that many people read it and did nothing of the sort. So you have one instance of someone reading it and then later committing the crime. Compare that to the many others who did read it and then did nothing.

If your theory is that those words cause people to commit harmful acts, you’ll likely need a greater sample of evidence to support it. — NOS4A2

My theory is only that the disinformation is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for these acts to occur. Do you disagree?

Sure, but harmed as a result of someone’s choices, not as a result of the information. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. — NOS4A2

Are you suggesting that Edgar Welch would have shot up Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria even if he had never read that Democrats were sex trafficking children? That's ludicrous.

I’m just saying the information never caused the harms you mentioned. The choices of those involved did. So why must I worry about the information? — NOS4A2

As I said: because people are harmed as a result. This is true EVEN IF there is nothing we can do about it.

False information cannot cause people to believe false information or act on false information. If you’d like to criminalize the cause of the harms you’d need to criminalize the act, for instance taking alternative medicine or refusing vaccines — NOS4A2

I answered your question: "Why should we worry about misinformation?"

Are you disagreeing with my answer? You seem to be jumping to a conclusion that I'm proposing to criminalize something. I actually didn't propose a solution.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory led to Edgar Welch driving from North Carolina to Washington DC and shooting his way into the restaurant. Perhaps you're suggesting the falsehood didn't "cause" him to do this. I'd agree that Welch is responsible for what he did, but this father of two would never have made the trip and committed the act if he had not seen the falsehood.

So please explain: do you agree, or disagree, with the answer I gave to your question. We need to get on the same page with that before we could possibly think of ways to address it.

Why should we worry about misinformation? — NOS4A2

Disinformation does harm.

Direct harm:
-many failed to get COVID vaccines and suffered as a result.
-Increasing numbers of parents aren't getting their kids vaccinated against the various childhood diseases.
-Jan 6 2021: 4 rioters were killed. They were present because of disinformation about the election.
-Families of Sandy Hook sufferred harassment because a conspiracy theory pushed by Alex Jones
-the "Pizza Gate" conspiracy theory nearly led to deaths when a man who believed it shot his way into the restaurant to rescue nonexistent children from a nonexistent basement.
- On a personal note, I know two women who contracted breast cancer who chose "alternative treatments" hyped on the internet ("I do my own research"). One is dead; the other soon will be.

Indirect harm:
1) candidates often get elected for telling people what they want to hear - and many want to hear confirmation of the falsehoods they embrace as true. If those candidates truly believe, then they obviously have poor judgement - implying they will be incompetent. Even those who cater to those who embrace the falsehoods will need to bend policy in that direction for they own political survival.
2) the disinformation can drown out the facts, making it harder for even rational people to make informed judgements.

My point is that I was discussing what exists, not what names we give things.

Of course not they’re different objects with their own separate existence but they’re both just lumps of mass. Language here serves to differentiate between different objects. — kindred

Aren't there actual differences between objects, that would exist even if no one was around to use language?

I’d say that mass is not just a property but a thing in itself. My radio is just a lump of mass and not just a property of the radio. The problem appears to be linguistic here. — kindred

Just a lump of mass? Suppose it has a mass of 500 grams. Is it the same as a 500 gram, lead fishing weight?

Yes photons are confusing because they’re both waves and particles as far as i understand the concept — kindred

All particles behave like waves under some circumstances. They're all quanta of quantum fields (according to quantum field theory).

But matter (mass) is an existent of itself is it not ? — kindred

By writing "matter(mass)" are you suggesting matter and mass are identical? They're not.

Mass is a property that most things have, although photons are things that have 0 mass.

The original question is a fundamental question in ontology: what exists? Personally, I lean toward physicalism, which entails the premise that only physical objects exist. I don't believe properties are objects. Rather, a property is a way the object is. If I'm wrong, and properties are objects- it would have to be explained how a property is somehow attached to an object, and also explain where properties reside when they aren't associated with an object.

Physicalism could be false. Perhaps there are immaterial objects like angels and demons. I see no reason to think so, but you need to consider whether you want an ontology that treats them as, at least possible objects. If so, this means you need broader definition of "object".

In this way, it does not need to be a material/physical thing, it only requires a phenomenology. For example some forms of energy are massless (not physical) eg a photon, but still acts - has the ability to do work. — Benj96

This is confused. Energy and mass aren't existents (per se), they are properties of things that exist, and they can be converted to each other (that's entailed by E=MC^2).

As far as I can tell, everything that exists has properties; properties (including energy and mass) don't exist independently of the things that have those properties.

Many important metaphysical questions have implications for the physical world. Metaphysics tries to figure things out with conceptual analysis (which can include math and logic) and intuition. In this case, it appears the process can't reach a definitive conclusion. — Relativist
What about the conclusion that spacetime is discrete? — MoK

I haven't seen a conceptual analysis that concludes it is discrete, but my impression is that it's typically assumed to be continuous.

But I wonder: is it really hopeless for physics? You said that treating spacetime as discrete would lead to errors if it's actually continuous. Couldn't this be tested? — Relativist

Yes, weather forecast for example. Any chaotic system in general. Even nonchaotic systems show the error in the long term. — MoK

Is it your opinion, as a physicist, that chaotic systems are not (in principle) reducible to deterministic laws of physics? My impression is that the math related to chaotic systems is pertains to identifying functional patterns to make predictions. That, at least, seems to be the nature of weather forecasts - it's not that the movement of air molecules is fundamentally indeterminstic, rather it's that it's that the quantity of data that would be needed to identify the locations and trajectory of each molecule is orders of magnitude too large to be practical to compute.

Isn't the set of steps the set of physical steps? If yes why do you use a one-to-one map? — MoK

Step (the verb) = the act of setting ones foot onto the next step (the noun; a thing).

The set of actions maps to the set of things.
The stairway consists of the set of steps, which we're stipulating as being infinite. Unlike the staircase, the acts of stepping don't exist (they are actions).

Many important metaphysical questions have implications for the physical world. Metaphysics tries to figure things out with conceptual analysis (which can include math and logic) and intuition. In this case, it appears the process can't reach a definitive conclusion.

But I wonder: is it really hopeless for physics? You said that treating spacetime as discrete would lead to errors if it's actually continuous. Couldn't this be tested?

I wasn't claiming it disproved the existence of infinitely many stairs, but it proves that an infinite number of steps cannot be completely traversed in a sequence of of steps of finite temporal duration.

This is in spite of the fact that the set of steps (the activity) maps 1:1 to the set of physical steps that comprise the stairway. The more important conclusion is that there's a logical disconnect between this logical mapping and the analogous temporal process; IOW, the mapping doesn't fully describe the temporal process; something is missing - and it would be worthwhile to develop a mathematics that accounted for this.

Zeno paradox is a metaphysical problem rather than a physical one. It tells us something about reality without a need for any measurements. — MoK

If the question can't be answered via measurement, or any other physical means, then it's unknowable. Quantum mechanics demonstrates that intuition isn't a reliable means of deciding physical* truths, so it shouldn't be too surprising.

*Although it's a metaphysical question, it pertains to the physical world.

That is not a solution but the point of Zeno. If the final step is logically impossible then you cannot complete an infinite series of finite steps therefore you cannot finish the task. — MoK

How is that not a solution? It can be framed as reductio ad absurdum:


1. Arriving at the bottom entails taking a final step
2. The defined infinite process of descent has no end
3. Therefore the infinite process of descent has no final step
4. (1)&(3) are contradictory

Stopping light - one of several:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Nj2uTZc10 — tim wood

The speed of light (C) is a physical constant that corresponds to the light's velocity in a vacuum. The scenario in the video does not entail exceeding C, it entails slowing down light to a level that can be exceeded by non-light.

Faster than light, Cerenkov radiation - one of several:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjx0BSXa0Ks&t=169s — tim wood

Same thing. It's described here::

"Cherenkov radiation ... is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium (such as distilled water) at a speed greater than the phase velocity (speed of propagation of a wavefront in a medium) of light in that medium[

And quantum entanglement, which appears to be not only faster the light, but instantaneous. — tim wood

Entanglement is instantaneous, but irrelevant to travel and communication. (see this).

On intelligence, your comment was that

Only one species developed our level of intelligence on earth, — Relativist

.
I noted there were at least eight kinds of humans. And you replied:

Hardly. None of them had a human level of intelligence. — Relativist

. The most charitable thing to say here is that it appears you're confusing knowledge, certain kinds of knowledge, with intelligence, and that's just plain a mistake. — tim wood

You got me: I was using an incorrect statistic, but my point stands that there's no basis to assume intelligence is probable. You ignored my more relevant point: the probability that the specific series of random genetic mutations from its abiogenetic ancestor on down to the first genus homo suggests intelligence is low probability.

The biases I find is that you appear to think of life as that which comports with your ideas of life, rather than restraining yourself so that your ideas of life might comport both with what life is and may be; and, that in mentioning survival advantages there seems more than a hint of teleology. Individuals may want to survive; to say that life wants to survive requires some elaboration to make sense - and teleology is just a sometines useful convenient fiction. — tim wood

My idea of life is pretty basic: molecules that self-replicate with some degree of accuracy. Do you have a less restrictive definition?

I don't get why you bring up teleology. I earlier noted that if teleology is true, then life is more probable. However, I don't think it's true, and I've implicitly treated that as a premise in everything I've said.
Useful fictions are useful in helping to understand something, but are red herrings in a discussion where I've already indicated ~teleology is a premise.

Astute of you, or did the "maybe" give it away. — tim wood

You're verging on being rude. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were trying to be funny, but try a little harder to avoid saying things that could sound demeaning.

I understand a "logical possibility" as one not ruled out by, say, the law of non-contradiction. If you want to consider all of those, go for it. I think there are better uses for time and thinking. — tim wood

Sounds like you agree with me that something more is needed than mere logical possibility to make it worth considering.

As to simple possibility and probability, consider: in our limited experience approximately at least one planet in ten evolves myriad advanced life forms, with at least one we consider pretty intelligent. If there are at least one trillion galaxies, each with about 150 billion stars, and the number of planets at least twice the number of stars and probably many more, then you do the math on the number of advanced life forms, and the number of those we would count as pretty intelligent or even very intelligent.

This is consistent with what I told you earlier:

Absolutely it's probable there's other intelligent life somewhere in this vast, old universe. The issue is whether or not it exists close enough to us (in both time and distance) to even be detectable. For the reasons stated above, I think that's highly improbable. If you think I'm wrong, give me some basis to think it's probable. — Relativist

As you choose to mention my PM to you, it would have been nice also to include my point to you, that your arguments through lack of care and some rigor, become borderline nonsensical. — tim wood

I chose to ignore the insult, but instead responded to the sense of what you said: "I'm perfectly fine with you exposing an error in my thinking."

The only error you've exposed was in my incorrect statistic about the number of "intelligent" species, and I acknowledged that. I could nitpick your claim about "1 in 10 planets have life", because we've examined some exoplanets as well. I saw no need to do that, because I think I understood the gist of your point.

Was it perhaps also the "speed of light" thing - that I didn't explicitly refer to the constant C (because I assumed it would be understood, given the context of FTL travel - flying faster than C). You could easily have said, "oh, you must mean the constant "C", because it's well known that light travels slower in a medium". So your making an issue of it seems disingenous.

But somewhere above you observe that distances are such it's unlikely we're going to encounter any aliens any time soon - and that I agree with. — tim wood

Then what is it that you disagree with me about? Is it just that I exercised "too little care" when I said only one species developed human-level intelligence, and/or that I didn't make it clear that by "FTL travel", I was referring to traveling faster than C?

If spacetime is continuous then we are dealing with an error in treating space and time as discrete. ...

I think if spacetime is discrete and our capacity to measure spacetime interval is much higher than Planck length and time then we can treat spacetime continuously, hence we can use the continuous physical models that describe reality well. We however still have to deal with Zeno's and infinite staircases paradoxes. — MoK

OK, so we risk introducing error if we treat spacetime as discrete, but if it IS discrete, we introduce no errors by treating it (mathematically) as continuous. So treat it as continuous and use the math. Problem solved, right?

Why do we have to deal with Zeno's paradox? Is there some problem in physics where it makes a difference, or are you like the rest of us navel-gazers around here - and just curious the logical implications?

I can express my solution in everyday language.

The scenario entails reaching the bottom of a staircase through a process consisting of stepping, from one step to the next. Reaching that bottom entails taking a final step.

The infinite series entails an unending series of steps. So a final step is logically impossible.

Suppose spacetime is continuous. We still can't distinguish spatial measurements that differ less than a planck length, nor time measurements less than a planck time.

This suggests to me that we will make no errors by treating space and time as discrete, even if it is continuous. What's your thoughts?

Ok, but I seem to remember reading about a time when gravity was an absolute law and then man found a way to overcome it and even use it to their benefit. — Sir2u

You're conflating folk wisdom with a theory developed through the methodologies of science. Folk wisdom is a product of inductive inference (seeing no exceptions to observation) and assumed true without testing and with no attempt to establish a scientific basis for the assumption.

Scientific theories are developed through abduction: proposing hypothesis that explains something that lacks explanation, testing that theory against known facts, and making predictions that are beyond current empirical evidence - and then experimentally verifying those predictions. Relativity made a number of predictions that no one previously anticipated: the deflection of light by large gravitational fields,gravitational lensing, gravitational waves, black holes, red shift; time dilation, the big bang.

Could it be in some way possible that humans are capable of overcoming or even utilizing other laws of the universe to their own benefit? And again we still do not know all of the laws. — Sir2u

Once again, you're conflating logical possibility with plausibility. I also sense a bit of wishful thinking in there. Are you a theist?

I also seem to remember that Quantum physics is not entirely compatible with GR and that there are several theories being proposed to unite them. String theory proposes several dimension, which leaves quite a lot of possibilities for future discoveries. — Sir2u

Right - general relativity breaks down in the conditions of the very early universe, when the diameter of the current visible universe was around 1.5 meters (see this). But we're dealing with the universe in its current state - where no exceptions to relativity have have been discovered and many predictions have been confirmed.

That paradox is nothing more than Zeno's paradox. — MoK

More or less. Both demonstrate the fact that limits don't correspond to the completion of an infinite series of finite steps. I agree with Sime, and I also gave a solution in that thread that is similar to his.

Sweet Jesus! They were all human - just not like you! Unique common ancestor? Life began "under exactly one environment"? I think you need to be a little more precise in what you write. I'll buy the proposition that so far, existing life appears to share a common ancestor, although deep sea thermal vent life may disprove that. But that is silent on life that may have existed before and disappeared. And it leaves open the question of what "exactly one environment" is.

And you seem to be limiting life to earth-like life - and that's absurd on its face. — tim wood

Most of the species that were listed had brain sizes closer to chimpanzees than to humans. But OK, let's step back in the taxonomy. All are genus homo. So only one genus out of 300,000 genera. And the common ancestor of genus homo came to exist because of the environment in which some accidental, random genetic mutations happened to have a survival advantage. Same with its ancestry: a survival advantage at each stage in its evolutionary history.

So 1 out of 300K genera, but that doesn't really identify the probability that the specific series of random genetic mutations from its abiogenetic ancestor on down to the first genus homo, made the genus probable.

"Maybe life developed in multiple environments and then interacted. "
Speculation. The fact is, we haven't figured out how abiogenesis occurred, despite decades of work, so the set of conditions that can produce life is narrow enough to have escaped all our research.

Maybe life developed in multiple environments and then interacted. The problem is that you have guesses and an apparent bias, all of which you think is knowledge. And it isn't. Maybe they're good and educated guesses, but not knowledge.

OK, straighten me out to correct the bias you perceive.

Do you consistently treat propositions that are merely logically possible as worth giving serious consideration?

Or perhaps you can identify some epistemic warrant I'm overlooking that establishes the possibilities that you bring up as something more than a bare logical possibility?

I ask, because my "bias" is to give no consideration to propositions that are merely logically possible. I need something more, and that seems the most reasonable approach. That's why I don't take conspiracy theories seriously: someone jumps to a biased conclusion and then applies confirmation bias in seeking facts to support the theory.

It is logically possible there's an elephant in your backyard, but I doubt you would treat this possibility as worthy of consideration. Now imagine a person who's obsessed with elephants, who would be delighted to encounter one. He might give it more consideration.

And you seem to be limiting life to earth-like life - and that's absurd on its face. — tim wood

Sure, it's logically possible there are many ways life could arise. How do you factor this additional bare logical possibility into the analysis? It's also logically possible Yahweh directly created life on earth, and that this is the only way life can begin. Explain whether that possibility is worth equal consideration.

From your PM:

We haven't observed FTL travel
— Relativist
Sure we have. Demonstrations available in Youtube videos. — tim wood

Point me at such a video. I could only find videos and articles that support what I said. (Examples: https://youtu.be/BhG_QZl8WVY?si=U7OH2jr-APmkv8E3, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light)

I hope you aren't confusing the universe's expansion with travel within the universe.

The problem as I see it is not that you're wrong, but that in speaking/writing informally - which we all do - you also fall into thinking and arguing with that same informality, which at that point becomes error. — tim wood

I'm perfectly fine with you exposing an error in my thinking. That's how we learn. In this case, it seems that we disagree regarding how much consideration we give to bare logical possibility, OR there's some factor I'm overlooking that shows these possibilities are more than merely logically possible.

And you are conflating unknown possibility with improbable probabilities. I think you missed the point.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke — Sir2u

Maybe you don't realize what I was talking about. I was referring to faster than light travel and traveling through hyperspace. The former is physically impossible if General Relativity is true. GR is one of the best established, and most verified, theories in physics establishing it as a law of nature, describing something fundamental about the universe.

Regarding hyperspace- that's pure speculation that it both exists and is traversible. Again, it's logically possible, but there's no basis to consider bare possibilities like these as plausible.

Clarke's claim doesn't apply. He was referring to unexplained things we observe. We haven't observed FTL travel or hyperdrive. It's not an excuse to treat the implausible as plausible.

Earths scientists still do not know a lot about earth itself, no one can say what might be possible in other parts of the universe. Even if the laws of the universe are standard, we still do not know all of them. — Sir2u

We are able observe galaxies at the edge of the visible universe, and have encountered no evidence inconsistent with GR. If there are island universes beyond ours (another speculation) it's moot to the discussion because they are clearly out of reach.

But even low probabilities are not the same as impossibilities. — Sir2u

Of course, but l'm talking probabilities.

There is a broader epistemological issue regarding how we treat possibilities. If you're going to take one bare possibility seriously, then shouldn't you take all of them seriously?

Events that are unexplainable by current science is usually indistinguishable from magic. Or do you think our scientists know all about the universe already? — Sir2u

You're conflating "unexplainable events" with fanciful possibilities.

If we count only one hundredth of one percent of the stars in the Milky Way as possibly having a planet in the Goldilocks zone, that is still a million planets that might contain the elements of life. If we count only one hundredth of one percent of those as possibly containing life, that still leaves us with a hundred possibilities. — Sir2u

We could only possibly look for such planets within a relatively short distance from us: a sphere centered from earth out to a fraction of the volume of the Milky Way. I would not be much surprised if we DID find life eventually, but intelligent life seems many orders of magnitude less probable.

Obviously the one percent possibility of there being intelligent life on any of those planets could explain us being here. And all of those without looking outside of our galaxy.

Detecting life outside the galaxy seems extremely far fetched. 1% probability of intelligence developing seems grossly optimistic. On earth, only 1 out of 8.7 Million species have a human level of intelligence.

More pertinent: I see intelligence as just one (complex) trait that life can possibly develop out of an uncountably large number of possible traits. This implies an extremely low probability.