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I believe in ghosts and aliens because of statistics. What do you think? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 weeks ago by razorozx@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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When people ask whether or not they believe ghosts or aliens exist, they typically point to something that is somewhat tangible as proof such as "the government says it is real" or "this video explains it all". I think these responses are valid, but with low confidence in what they're trying to prove. A government can simply be making stuff up and a video explaining it could of simply been misinformed into some false truth.

On the contrary, I think they exist because of statistical improbability. I see that there are an uncountable amount of videos claiming to have recorded proof for ghosts and aliens. Assuming that 99% of them are hoaxes, clout chasers, or misidentified phenomena, that still leaves 1% of all those videos to be true. As long as the percentage is not 100%, it means that there is solid proof out there, weak in confidence or not, it's a lead to the truth.

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[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

everyone in here gleefully shitting on op (in a rather unfriendly fashion btw)

getting hung up on the 1:99 thing, when what they actually said was

As long as the percentage is not 100%

obviously i'm not saying op has presented firm evidence of the supernatural. but the irony of supposedly espousing the scientific method, while completely ignoring the critical part of op's argument.

who here is claiming to know 100.000000% of all supernatural evidence is absolutely disproven? that would be an unscientific claim to make, so why infer it?

is the remaining 10^-^^x^ % guaranteed "proof" of ghosts/aliens? imo no, but it isn't unreasonable to consider it may suggest something beyond our current reproducible measurement capacity (which has eg. historically been filed under "ghosts"). therefore the ridicule in this thread - rather than friendly/educational discussion - is quite disappointing.

it's not exactly reasonable to assume we're at the apex of human sensory capability, history is full of this kind of misplaced hubris.

until the invention of the microscope, germs were just "vibes" and "spirits"