The ETH Revalidated: Such Seems So!

"The ETH only needs to be 'validated' by those who
have not had the experience themselves of something so
incontrovertible it robs them of the luxury of doubt."  -- John Velez

The ETH Revalidated: Such Seems So!

by Alfred Lehmberg

The wholly extraterrestrial and so alien "other" (ET) is furtively regarded—and with all trepidation—early in the 21st Century.  ...Avoided assiduously. This avoidance encourages a manner facilitating an allowance for one to keep a certain "distance" from even the concept of same, as the mere concept seems the quintessential slippery slope to a, forget justified, philosophical chaos... ...unsettling even as it is inevitable.   Still, one does not catch a train by letting it run them down.

.

This avoidance is even as one is compelled by history or circumstance to make the admission that "such" must indeed be "so" without regard to slopes slippery or otherwise.  I know it's a game changer and huge sacrifices, likely, must be made... ...even where cosmic gains are as possible.  That doesn't give it a pass or remotely excuse it.   The perspicacious man doesn't search for answers, he faces them.

.

.

This writer's position is not lightly taken.  Seven massive categories of compelling evidence is a provocative encouragement that "such is so."  The corroborating involvement of vetted associates with abundant intelligence and research experience says "such is so."  Personal experience in an honest individual's felt presence of the moment  says "such is so."  Such would seem... and decidedly, so.  Consistency is as consistency does, good reader.  

.

There are reasons alluded to as regards our trepidation, such as they are, for the "facilitation of denial" also alluded to above.  These include (1) reflexive fear of the unknown, (2) reactionary knee-jerk rejections of even constructive change, (3) overly conservative concerns regarding the invalidation of previously held but now justifiably challenged faiths or mores, or (4), just not wanting to re-do work thought done.  On the whole: not the bravest of "reasons," eh?

.

Yeah... ET would change everything, but given the current state of affairs that might not be a bad thing.  Wouldn't it unite us at the least? 

.

Be that as it may, over the years this rejection of the ET infects even the study of an "admitted" ET, itself.  Resolved!  There is a dense plethora of explanatory alternatives to ET providing for that "distance," one can readily see. 

 .

Consider the Extra-dimensional Hypothesis (Occupied adjacent dimensions, but us, comfortingly).   Behold the Extra-chronological Hypothesis (Time Travelers, but us, comfortingly).  Review the Intra-terrestrial Hypothesis (Hollow Earth, but us, comfortingly).  Regard the Crypto-terrestrial Hypothesis (Of the Earth though perceived with extreme difficulty, but us, essentially).  There is even an Entheogenic Hypothesis: the "Alien" tuned in to receptive consciousness made receptive by psychedelic substances like LSD, DMT, or Ayahuasca.  That one may not be as crazy as it sounds, still it's something of a long-shot. There are more of these "alternatives"; that's what plethora means. 

.

What do they hold in common?  All move evidential goal posts decidedly further and further away from the existential or provable; indeed there becomes no "proof" enough!  ET becomes a shadow—a mere suggestion of itself and "plausibly deniable" for its aforementioned shadowiness.  Consider now, reader, that Humanity is no shadow and is entirely existential... this is demonstrated as a result of ones felt personal experience which is totally inured in the corporeal.  Here.  Now.  Real!  Follow?

.

 .

Stanton Friedman, who does not find my thesis entirely revolting, alludes to these alternative hypotheses as the "ABA" conjectures. "Anything But Aliens." The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) remains; however, so far up our ufological nose we do indeed feel alien boot heels scuffing collective chins!

.

How does that happen? How can such a high degree of "certitude" be justified?  Well, as a result of being able to use the unquestioned reality—the unquestioned existentiality—of ourselves as the extant proof of that contention, reader!  Here's how that might work.

.

First: Yes.  The ETH is correct. This is true whether or not any of the more unlikely hypotheses exist and are correct.  They can exist; nevertheless, the ETH is, at the last, the more likely to be the correct conjecture. One can arrive at this conclusion handily, themselves, if one remembers the old saw regarding (1) unending time, (2) abundant monkeys, and (3) plentiful typewriters. Shakespeare does indeed get tapped out—eventually—even if not in the best spelling, eh?

.

See, anything that can, and remotely, "happen"... ...happens, given time. When it does that, when something makes that "occurrence," into our corporeal existentiality, Alfred North Whitehead, for one, allowed as how it would seem to exceed some kind of " 'expression' formality" or " 'event' threshold." A subsequent occurrence, then, seems almost encouraged... almost like a proof of concept was all that was necessary for a reproduction to be possible...eh?  Then?  ...And not ending there... It happens, again.  How often?

.

.

Consider, for example: fact, the nascent universe foments bigger suns than Sol to form. Fact, Fusion physics dictates that iron is the last element able to be made in that fusion process in any of them.  Fact, fusion just doesn't have the juice to go any further.  From where, then, must come the remaining elements beyond Iron on the periodic table and observable in our universe?   

.

Observe: in the cosmic cosmos relatively fresh from its big bang, and in the furious bowels of the monstrous stars aforementioned, paired silicon atoms are "produced" then they try, fail, and then try, try again... to combine into humble iron. Eventually, with so many silicon atoms trying... and, with so much time available? Heat?  Pressure?  Energy?  An iron atom (*ping*) occurs... is fused from the two silicon atoms.

.

The occurrence of that iron atom doesn't happen just once, mind. Formality achieved? It's recurrence traces an asymptotic and accelerating curve of manufacture so fast and extreme that the newly created and quickly amassed iron—an element able to suck up huge amounts of excess heat as a feature of its new design as an inviolate element—abruptly puts the star's fire, instantly, out!

.
...Huge masses of boiling matter once held suspended in a heretofore hellish conflagration of fusion fire now crash in a cosmic crush to a center mass! The resultant rebounding explosion, or super nova, has all the power to manufacture the elements passed IRON that fusion could not and then scatters them to the starry stellar reaches on its fiery cosmic winds.
.
Those additional elements are on the way to the self-aware intelligence we are speaking of, recall, occurring in a manner analogous to the iron above. Nothing happens once is the point. If it happened? It is happening!  It's happening now!  It will happen!

.

Be aware a self-aware and consequence understanding intelligence "happened," in this universe.  It was ourselves.

...But not just once, I remind a patient reader, no.  ...Many, many times, right here on this planet. Many different species of bipedal tool using hominid had religion and considered an afterlife.  Don't kid yourself that your species was the miracle jewel in creation's crown, eh?

.

Meet the folks, indeed...

.

...And not just hominids. Cetacean expressions in whales and dolphins... Then through Avian expressions in parrots and crows, even to mollusca: squid and octopus... vast expressions of self-aware intelligence right on this planet!  Intelligence abounds right here!  The suggestion that it has occurred elsewhere is emboldened of needs!

.

Truly, when a cornucopia of thousands of galaxies of unknown stars can be masked with a grain of sand held at arm's length at any point in the sky one would care to hold it... ...what does that say regarding the time and opportunity for adjacent self-aware intelligences, beyond ourselves, to have sprung into existence everywhere else?  Wither, yon!

.

See, we know they're "there" precisely because we're "here." This is without regard to foolish and pretty cowardly notions that it doesn't matter, anyway, allowing they can't get here because we can't get there... eh?  What pompous and unjustified hubris!

.

No, a wide smear of craft, competence and capability in that expressed universal self-awareness dictates that they can get here... and remembering 7 categories of evidence pertaining to just that? Have! You didn't think we'd be anywhere near the top in a list of these occurrences, did you?  Don't.  I offer you're better served sans any hubris, at all.

.

...Very politically incorrect. Then, real Science and Philosophy often are.

.

.

It's a rabbit hole... sure.  But then everything is, eh?  We don't even understand ourselves, it is clear, awash in Whitehead's fallacy of "mis-placed concreteness..." everything you "know" is wrong...    Still... if we see a rabbit we can look around and expect to find another kind of rabbit... bird ...even a person if you consider something like Australopithecus' nascent person above... I would go on to logically presume another self-aware intelligence capable of abstract thought somewhere else in a vast, vast universe.  Seems abundantly reasonable to me...

 .

Consequently, I find I have to wonder at the reluctance of most people to even consider the potentiality, or sneer at same.  Perhaps it's like the difference between UAP (Unexplained aerial Phenomena) and UFO.  The former is wholly unexplained, a nebulous phenomena, and does not even have to BE there, eh?  Folks can keep it at a distance...

 .

The latter, on the other hand, is identified as "there" at the start and presumes an association with intelligence—"them"... The "other."  ...Up your nose as I pointed out earlier... I happily eschew the UAP for the UFO!

 .

...Just recently, reader, a heretofore unfound tribe of forest people, AND UNBELIEVABLY, too, were discovered deep in the uncharted tracts of the Amazon Rain Forest... and this in the 21st Century?  Making no judgment on the quality of either I point out that to them... We're the other!   The ET, simply, is as we are.  We're better served and serve each other better embracing that... none dare call it, "fact."

 .