Showing posts with label gonzo approach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gonzo approach. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Skylaire Alfvegren: A Bittersweet Find

 Going through old files and notebooks today and I found this sweet letter from Skylaire Alfvegren, who very suddenly passed not long ago. Still cannot believe she is gone.


I am very sad that we never met in person. We talked on the phone, emailed -- even got together with a friend of hers who moved up here awhile back -- but never met Skylaire in person. She was an inspiration to me and I will always be in gratitude for her friendship.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Vallee: "Data is not knowledge"



I came across a quote from Jacques Vallee: "Data is not knowledge." I think I know what he meant in the big scheme of things, but, at the same time, I respectfully disagree with his comment. (Of course, I'm taking this out of context, but I was inspired by the remark to wonder…)  Data is a sort of knowledge; the more data we have, the better. I realize many a UFO researcher has lamented that collecting witness accounts is simply tiresome and non-productive. And it is a huge task of course; collecting stories. Narratives. Accounts. All for what?

Well, that's the thing. All for what. Once we have a big pile of stuff, what do we do with it? Depends on the collector. On the one doing the interpreting. You and I might have the same exact set of stories of spinning UFOs and glowing eyed Sasquatch emerging from landed craft, but our interpretations of those events might differ. And what about the witness? What's her take on it all? So now we have three different ideas on the same case.

Come to think of it, in that context, data isn't knowledge, since no theory of everything (let alone definitive answer) has been determined. All we have are arguments, debates, interpretations, beliefs, even.

Still, I argue that data is important, and analyses of data from many different perspectives is a necessary process in order to arrive at some kind of agreed upon theory, as tenuous as it might be. It's a start.

We don't have to give up or throw the baby out with the bath water. Or believe that, by following one path we've rejected others. There are many paths, and there is no rule, no law, that mandates we rigidly follow just one.

And to be clear: I have the highest respect and regard for Jacques Vallee and his work and am in no way taking him to task in any way. So chew on that before commenting, thank you.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The 'Goalpost' Paradigm


 “Which way you ought to go depends on where you want to get to...” ~ Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Skeptics, debunkers, and believers alike accuse each other of "moving the goalposts." In the context of how the term is used -- pieces in a game -- it's true. (Skeptibunkies do "move the goal posts" all the time when it comes to anomalous subjects. They assume much: why and how Bigfoot, psychics, UFOs, and so on should behave, without doing any of the research. And if they've done the research, they'd realize one can't assume a thing.)

But let's forget that. Why use a sports or game analogy at all? By using a verbal marker like "goalpost" we're keeping alive the idea that there are rules. Rules that must be followed - goalposts -- and, along with that the idea that, since a game is being played, there are winners and losers. It's a battle, a contest. A competition. It's a preconceived framework, with rules, boundaries, winners, losers. Anything outside of the game is rejected because, of course, it doesn't fit in with this particular game. You don't insert the rules of chess into Monopoly.

As long as we accept this idea of a game, with posts to be moved, or not, we stay stuck. It's not a game! Or, maybe, like Alice, it is a game in the very loosest of meanings.

The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday-but never jam today

It must come sometime to jam today, Alice objected


No it can't said the Queen It's jam every other day. Today isn't any other day, you know” 
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Why do we continue to force the unexplained into an established framework (the "game") when clearly, "it" meaning, the paranormal/Fortean/supernatural,  is playing by its own rules? If "it" is playing a game, it's one we don't know how to play. Insisting "it" play by our rules obviously isn't working.

Forget the "goalposts." Forget the game. At least, our game. I think if we stand back and watch for awhile as well as experiment, that would be both refreshing and revealing.

Just in Case, Rule Forty-Two

“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. ~ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I'll end with this little synchronicity. Earlier this afternoon I finished Minette Walter's The Scold's Bridle. One of the characters, a policeman, references Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Specifically, the idea of the question, the answer and of course, how 42 plays into that. While working on this post, I looked up quotes from Alice in Wonderland, and came across this:


“Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.” ~ Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll




Friday, June 27, 2008

Quote of the Day

The Regan Lees, Frank Warrens, Don Ledgers, Moulton Howes, Steven Greers, Chris Rutkowskis, et al. are the UFO proletariat; they don’t count or matter. ~ UFO Provocateur(s)


Heh. Hey, I made it first on the list! Hooray for me.

Proletariat: pro·le·tar·i·at (prl-târ-t)
n.
1.
a. The class of industrial wage earners who, possessing neither capital nor production means, must earn their living by selling their labor.
b. The poorest class of working people.
2. The propertyless class of ancient Rome, constituting the lowest class of citizens.


All their other nonsense aside, they sure are a snooty bunch, aren't they?