Do you believe in psychics, extraterrestrial life, time travel, other universes?

[Powerogue]

You really think that? The multiverse theory has become "immensely" popular in recent years in the United States - especially in popular culture, of course, the concept of the branching off of alternate realities in parallel worlds, I think Amazon even made a TV show about something like that years ago.

What do you think about all those sightings of UFOs though, or supposed "experiences" with other beings as reported by lots of Americans? Are they all hoaxes or hallucinations?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...a0d_story.html
https://time.com/6071397/ufo-study/

Absolutely. People have claimed "experiences" with anything and everything, it's why testimony is one of the weakest forms of evidence. Scour the tabloids and you'll find plenty of people convinced their wife was impregnanted by Bigfoot on a hike, or any number of things. It's not exceptionally compelling. I was raised from birth trained to believe testimonies claiming hoards zombies roamed the earth, giants, satyrs, chimeras, angels, and demons, but until we get some independently verifiable evidence, claims remain just that, claims.

I saw a talking horse this morning. His name was Rob.

[Egomaniac]

I already travel through time, just in one direction

one second at a time.

[Shadowferal]

Why would you lump in bogus mumbo jumbo (psychics) with science (time travel, alternative universes)?

Why would you assume you know what is possible and impossible in the totality of all reality?

[MrLachyG]

psychics? nah. people have intuition sure but contacting people from beyond the grave and shit? yeah nah that's just a scam. Extra terrestrial life, absolutely. there is definitely life out in the universe somewhere. Time travel may be possible in the very distant future; who knows what crazy shit they will get up to then. Other universes (like a multiverse)? maybe - kind of hard to prove or disprove that one

[Paperfox]

In books, movies and other forms of fiction: Yes, some of these things have made really interesting and fun movies.

In real life: No.

[Biomega]

I believe in things we have good evidence for, and for as long as there's good evidence to keep believing in them.

You show me evidence of extraterrestrial life, I'll believe it exists. Until then, I probably think it not unlikely to exist, but I won't believe it DOES exist until I have evidence.

The more extraordinary the claim, the better the evidence has to be. I'll believe trivial cases without evidence if they are, in principle, backed by evidence (yet not in a particular case) and it would not be worldview-altering to find out it wasn't true. E.g., if you tell me you own a cat I'll believe you without evidence because I know cats exist, and I know people own cats; it's a trivial claim, and being proved wrong on it wouldn't change much (except perhaps my opinion of you). You tell me you own a tiger, I might be more suspicious, and perhaps demand more evidence than a say-so. But you tell me you own a catgirl, and I won't believe a word of it until I'm presented with good evidence (and, ideally, a way to get my own).

That's the only way to reasonably determine facts about reality to the best degree of certainty we can realistically obtain (epistemologically speaking). I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible.

HYPOTHETICAL possibilities like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, (backwards) time travel, and so on for which there exist certain plausible mathematical models within theoretical physics are just that - hypothetical, until proven to exist. The same, by the way, goes for string theory, which should really be called string hypothesis. Possibility needs to be demonstrated just like impossibility needs to be, but that's only step one; it's a big gap to believing something from there, and that gap needs to be filled with evidence first if it's to be crossed.

Most propositions traditionally situated within what one might call "the supernatural" are not even hypothetical possibilities. That includes things like psychic powers, afterlife concepts, or most religious beliefs. There is not only no evidence to back such claims, there usually isn't even a proposed possible mechanism by which they COULD be proven if evidence was to be found. They're less than hypotheses, and usually amount to just wild speculation and/or wishful thinking. In which case they're the province of fiction and narrative, not of truth-claims or rational argument; which is not to say they don't have their own role to play in societies and cultures, it's just one that doesn't aspire to make truth-claims about reality.

[Dch48]

Although nearly all "psychics" who do it for money and on demand are frauds, psychic ability is real. I know, I have done it myself. It just happens, usually in dreams, and can not be done on demand. In my case, it only applies to things in my own life and not world events or anything about anybody else. Therefore, I know for a fact that it does exist but the extent of it in others is unknown to me.
I believe extraterrestrial intelligent life is possible but not a certainty by any means. Basing it on statistics is silly in the extreme. I do not believe we have ever been visited. I do not believe in time travel or alternate universes at all.

[unbound]

Psychics? No. They have been thoroughly debunked for many, many decades now. See The Amazing Randy's efforts.

Extraterrestrial Life? Most likely. Intelligent life like us? Hard to say. While single cell life is likely common in our galaxy, the steps to get to intelligent life could be anywhere from trivially easy to unbelievably difficult. It seems more likely to be difficult based on observations. It is entirely possible that intelligent life is fairly common throughout the universe, but uncommon to have more than 1 or 2 in a given galaxy...which is all that matters based on our understanding of physics. Any intelligent life outside our local cluster is unreachable to the best of our knowledge.

Time Travel? Forward - yes...you are doing that now, and the speed at which you travel through time relative to others can be varied. Backward in time? Nope. Certain key things, most notably thermodynamics, don't work backwards. Some of the smarter physicists realized that, so we have the multiverse theory to address the fact that you can't actually go backward in time...which leads us to...

Alternate Universes? Unlikely. Certain mathematical formulas tell us they could exist...but that's all they are are. Mathematics have various things that don't work in the real world (or only work in very, very specific situations) such as having a negative amount of apples (you either have no apples or some number of them). Outside of those mathematics, we have absolutely no evidence of the existence of other universes and, as I stated above, it really was something some people threw out there so they could continue to daydream about time traveling to the past (which would actually be to an alternate universe).

Are there things in our reality which we cannot explain? Sure. That doesn't mean magic exists. We probably have a very, very, very long ways to go to fully understand the universe in which we live. Don't let con men exploit you...keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain drops out.

[Poppincaps]

Psychics - No, but I do believe that humans have some form of psychic ability. I just don't think there are people who can actively tap into it. For instance, I occasionally have prophetic dreams, but they are basically screenshots of a scene I'll see in the future and are almost always very insignificant.

Aliens - Yes, but it's unlikely we'll ever meet any. They'd have to be extremely advanced or we'd have to be extremely advanced.

Time Travel - Forward, yes. Backwards, no.

Other universes - Like where there's a version of me living but is different in some way? Seems unlikely.

[molliewoof]

one second at a time.

Yep, traveling through time, same as I travel down a street one step at a time.

It's ok to be wrong or mistype.

[Lahis]

No, yes, no, no.

[Calfredd]

Although nearly all "psychics" who do it for money and on demand are frauds, psychic ability is real. I know, I have done it myself. It just happens, usually in dreams, and can not be done on demand. In my case, it only applies to things in my own life and not world events or anything about anybody else. Therefore, I know for a fact that it does exist but the extent of it in others is unknown to me.

Could have signed up for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge back before 2015 if that was the case.

[Egomaniac]

Yep, traveling through time, same as I travel down a street one step at a time.

It's ok to be wrong or mistype.

I was agreeing with you. We all travel forward through time at a rate of 1 second per second.

Thing is though, when most people speak of "time travel" they are talking about traveling through time in a manner that is inconsistent with the natural flow of time. That is to say they are speaking of traveling through time at a rate greater than 1 second per second and possibly even in the reverse direction.

That's the kind of "time travel" that doesn't have any scientific basis and that's the time travel that's being discussed. I do hope you're all caught up now.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Psychics- No.

Extraterrestrials- Statistically improbable for us to be all there is. Even as basic as microscopic organisms.

Time travel- Gravitational and velocity time dilation have already been proven, measured with atomic clocks in nanoseconds. Going backwards? No.

Other Universes- No evidence. Wouldn't be too shocked if true.

[Amarys]

Extraterrestrials- Statistically improbable for us to be all there is. Even as basic as microscopic organisms.

Why though? We only have a sample of 1 and since were it, it tells us exactly nothing. If life only developed once and we weren't that life, we wouldn't be able to observe ourselves and state that were alive. The chance of life developing at all in the universe is as likely to be between 0 and 1 than greater than 1. Unless we find a second sample that doesn't originate from Earth we can't start with the statistics and math.

[munkeyinorbit]

You really think that? The multiverse theory has become "immensely" popular in recent years in the United States - especially in popular culture, of course, the concept of the branching off of alternate realities in parallel worlds, I think Amazon even made a TV show about something like that years ago.

What do you think about all those sightings of UFOs though, or supposed "experiences" with other beings as reported by lots of Americans? Are they all hoaxes or hallucinations?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...a0d_story.html
https://time.com/6071397/ufo-study/

One theory about abduction is that it is psychological. Descriptions of abduction from a bed matches night terrors and also demonic abduction stories. No. I don't believe in alien abduction.

Although. I think if it was a thing then it isn't aliens from our own universe, it is someone from an alternate universe. They know we are here because they are also from earth, just a different universe.

Psychics are not real. There are people with better sense than most and they can use them better than most to make educated guesses. But if they charge money for this service then they are fake and don't have any better senses than average.

[Shadowferal]

Psychics? No. They have been thoroughly debunked for many, many decades now. See The Amazing Randy's efforts.

The real deal wouldn't come near Randy for any reason resembling money or even worse, publicity.

[RoKPaNda]

You really think that? The multiverse theory has become "immensely" popular in recent years in the United States - especially in popular culture, of course, the concept of the branching off of alternate realities in parallel worlds, I think Amazon even made a TV show about something like that years ago.

What do you think about all those sightings of UFOs though, or supposed "experiences" with other beings as reported by lots of Americans? Are they all hoaxes or hallucinations?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...a0d_story.html
https://time.com/6071397/ufo-study/

Popular in pop culture != real.

Yes I think all those sightings of UFOs and "experiences" are hoaxes or hallucinations or just people who don't understand what they saw. Even the infamous tic tac video of UFOs have rational explanations. The problem with UFOs and abductions and such is that if you think about it rationally it all kind of falls apart. Assuming that some civilization exists that could get here and make contact they'd have to be unfathomably more advanced than we are to get from wherever they are to where we are. Space is huge and quite frankly the average person can't even comprehend the vastness of space. Then you have to ask yourself exactly what point did the UFO sightings become real? Present day? 60 years ago? 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? 2000 years ago? Earlier than that? For arguments sake lets say it was 100 years ago.

So you have these unfathomably advanced beings that have come here but at the same time their tech sucks so much donkey balls that primitive humans can see them with the naked eye, and their research tech sucks so much ass that they have to abduct random humans and probe them, and their ability to learn is somehow so impaired that they then spend over 100 years abducting random humans and studying them.

Even worse they've come all this great distance to ... probe buttholes and spin in circles above the ocean? Why? What purpose does any of that serve such an incredibly advanced civilization?

Is there life out there other than us? Probably. Is it here with us? No. It's even less likely than the existence of psychics and whatever else.

[Shadowferal]

Space is huge and quite frankly the average person can't even comprehend the vastness of space. .

I'm sure many can't grasp the size of our own galaxy. And that we estimate 2 trillion galaxies is...mind blowing. That some have the presumption...nay, arrogance to presume to know what is possible and what is impossible with such certainty is equally mind blowing.

[Nihilist74]

I believe it is possible life has evolved in other worlds. I believe it is possible there are other or alternate universes.
I believe you can travel forward in time relative to worlds. If you travel fast, time will go by faster for others than for you. Places with higher gravity make time go by slower. I believe that eternal return might be true. If it is, maybe you can travel forward in time to the point where the time of your existence begins again allowing you to travel back in time in a sense.
I believe in the possibility of psychic-like abilities like the way that pack hunting animals can anticipate things to coordinate with each other when hunting other animals. I think that is most likely not psychic ability though. It's just anticipation and instinct. Sometimes I feel like I am psychic but it is really just reading people, empathy, and psychologically reading people. Maybe with higher brain functions, that can become psychic or something more.