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Aliens

2021-05-28 · letter vlog · Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

Hank, who thinks life elsewhere is inevitable and intelligent life extraordinarily likely, argues that with unexplained aerial phenomena in the news 'aliens' is a bad explanation because it could explain any mystery; the right move is to say we don't know, investigate and gather data.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank loves aliens; life elsewhere is inevitable, intelligent life extraordinarily likely; the mediocrity principle

  • ★ Hank loves aliens, especially in fiction (adventure, danger, the unknown, self-reflection, mystery, revelation), but here he means real aliens, a very different thing. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank thinks life elsewhere in the universe is a physical inevitability: even apart from the galaxy's huge size, life is a chemical system obeying kinetics and thermodynamics; amazing, but not magical. — 00:00:13
  • ★★ Intelligent life does not seem inevitable in the same way, but it seems extraordinarily likely to Hank. — 00:00:30
  • ★★ Hank explains the mediocrity principle: from a sample of one, chances are it comes from the most common set; we have pulled one solar system from the hat, and it has intelligent life, several species of it. — 00:00:35

00:00:45 — Why scientists don't jump to aliens; the unexplained aerial phenomena; mysteries as the first step to discovery

  • ★★ There are some reasons to think our present version of intelligent life is not super common, but zero reasons to think it is unique. — 00:00:50
  • ★★ There are unclassified videos of unexplained objects and a congressional report about them is coming out; we do not know what they are. — 00:01:08
  • ★★★ Things we really don't understand have happened often in human history and are often the first step to discovery: we guess and test, which is how we got COVID vaccines, smartphones and in-depth knowledge of the Big Bang. — 00:01:17 · vaccine

00:01:44 — Big unexplained mysteries; aliens and simulation as explanations of anything; the first problem with them

  • ★★ Big mysteries remain totally unexplained: what dark matter is, though it is most of the stuff; why anything exists, why there is matter in the universe; how life started on Earth; why we sleep and why we yawn. — 00:01:44
  • ★★★ Almost every mystery could be answered with the word 'aliens', which makes it a certain kind of bad explanation: one that could explain everything. — 00:02:02
  • ★★ A fairly new explanation of the same kind is that our universe is a simulation and whatever doesn't make sense is a glitch. — 00:02:13
  • ★★★ First problem with explanations of anything: no mystery has ever been solved by something that explains everything; big ones like natural selection and quantum mechanics explain a lot but not everything, not even each other. — 00:02:22

00:02:42 — Saying we don't know; facts about the phenomena; follow the interesting; don't prefer conclusions; sign-off

  • ★★★ Second and most important: we must be able to say we don't know what something is without immediately explaining it; instant explanations from our heads come from biases, confusion and defaulting to something that explains anything, not from data. — 00:02:42
  • ★★ Things to know about these unidentified aerial phenomena: they move against the wind, are detected by multiple sensors including human eyes, and move in ways known aircraft do not. — 00:03:05
  • ★★ Hank does not know whether they are aircraft: they might be, they might not be. (unsure) — 00:03:16
  • ★★★ Dismissing the phenomena as a joke because everyone says aliens is wrong: in science and in life you have to follow the interesting, and this is really interesting. — 00:03:20
  • ★★ Hank is a little worried that the legitimate interestingness gets overwhelmed by conspiracy theories and wild guessing about sexy things that could explain lots of other things. — 00:03:29
  • ★★★ Most important, preferring a conclusion is exactly what scientists are taught to avoid: investigate explanations and gather data, but explanations that could explain anything have so far not helped explain anything. — 00:03:40

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says it is probably not aliens: we don't know almost everything, and we are extremely biased toward thinking our current knowledge is complete. (hedged) — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: extraterrestrial life · unidentified flying object

Also: Concepts: abiogenesis · baryon asymmetry · Big Bang · conspiracy theory · dark matter · life · mediocrity principle · natural selection · Quantum mechanics · simulation hypothesis · sleep · smartphone · vaccine · yawn

Places: Solar System

Also centred on extraterrestrial life: Where are the Space Aliens?! · We just had our first interstellar visitor...and it's weird. · They Say it Gets Colder · Is it Good or Bad that we Haven't Met Aliens? · Fine, I'll Talk About the Drones… · This Might Actually be Happening

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