The Wow! A rigorous statistical approach

[DT_]

On 8/11/2022 at 8:17 PM, Stargazer said:

Yes!  Here's a cool video about the issues

So, out of curiosity, what do you think of Kipping's statistical approach? 

[Stargazer]

On 8/12/2022 at 12:54 AM, rodheadlee said:

Avi Loeb says there was about a 9 % chance that Oumuamua was cigar shaped and tumbling. He says it could be a solar sail driven object. I don't know if he has any YouTube podcast on it. But he was the chair at the Harvard astronomy section.

I think he still believes this. But conclusions can change over time, after further research. And what one astronomer once believed or still believes may not be what the general consensus of astronomers believe now. Fred Hoyle, a brilliant astronomer of the past, was convinced until the day he died that the Big Bang was rubbish. He believed steadfastly in a Steady State universe, and could not be convinced otherwise. Maybe Hoyle was right and we just don't recognize it. But the evidence seems to be against him. 

Personally, I think Avi Loeb is somewhat deluded by his need to have Oumuamua be an extraterrestrial craft of some sort. It seems to have become somewhat of a hobby-horse for him. But wouldn't it be neat if he were right? Of course it would!

[Stargazer]

11 hours ago, DT_ said:

So, out of curiosity, what do you think of Kipping's statistical approach? 

It's interesting, and I wouldn't disagree with his conclusions. I'm quite unconvinced that the source of the Wow! signal was anything other than a random fluctuation. But it would be nice if it were from a communicating civilization -- although in that case I would wonder what it might be trying to communicate. Actual communication would seem to require repetition, even if the signal had only the purpose of communicating ambient conditions. As a Ham radio operator I am familiar with the use of beacons for communicating such ambient atmospheric conditions, especially a pertaining to solar weather, to check propagation on the amateur radio bands so that operators can assess whether a frequency band is useable at that moment to the part of the world where the beacon is situated. But in the case of the Wow! no such repetition has occurred, as you know. If it were truly a beacon, the lack of repetition could mean that conditions between us and its origin were just marginally favorable enough at that moment to allow us to hear it, but not since.

In June 2020 there was a paper in Phys.org discussing the problem of hearing extraterrestrial signals, in connection with the question of how many broadcasting civilizations there might exist in our galaxy. It came from some researchers at the University of Nottingham. They concluded:

“…we find that in the most limited case, which we describe as the Strong Copernican Astrobiological limit, that there should be a minimum of 36 communicating civilizations in the galaxy today, assuming the average lifespan of these civilizations is 100 years. The nearest of these would be at a maximum distance given by 17000 light-years, making communication or even detection of these systems nearly impossible with present technology.”  See Here.

In the other thread I quoted LDS scripture (from the Pearl of Great Price in the first chapter of Moses) which states clearly that God has been creating many worlds in other solar systems which do contain intelligent beings, and many are at the same stage we are at who might be radiating signals, and many others will at some point in the future rise to the stage we're at and begin radiating signals. And many have risen to that level, but have since "graduated" past that point.

If the U. of Nottingham paper above is correct, there are at least 36 civilizations in our galaxy who are currently radiating signals -- but many more who have not yet begun to do so. But we are so far away that we can't hear them.

Your other question, pertaining to the usefulness of statistics in "proving" the Book of Mormon, et al., is a highly subjective question. Like I've said elsewhere, astronomer Fred Hoyle remained unconvinced about the veracity of the Big Bang, despite all the evidence in its favor. If I had "proof" of the Book of Mormon, for instance genuine archaeological evidence in the form of a sign saying "Welcome the City of Zarahemla," there are many, including some here on this board, who would not or could not accept it.

The existence of God is only provable by actual communication with God. The same is true for things pertaining to Him, such as the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or the First Vision and the Prophethood of Joseph Smith.

 

[DT_]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

It's interesting, and I wouldn't disagree with his conclusions. I'm quite unconvinced that the source of the Wow! signal was anything other than a random fluctuation.

Good. Kipping says it was not a random statistical fluctuation, he explains that at the beginning of the video between the 3rd and 4th minute.

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Actual communication would seem to require repetition, even if the signal had only the purpose of communicating ambient conditions.

Kipping estimates a 1 in 50 chance that Wow is a repeating signal. He recommends more observations.

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

 As a Ham radio operator I am familiar with the use of beacons for communicating such ambient atmospheric conditions, especially a pertaining to solar weather, to check propagation on the amateur radio bands so that operators can assess whether a frequency band is useable at that moment to the part of the world where the beacon is situated.

Interesting. 

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The existence of God is only provable by actual communication with God.

How would you know a revelation is not a Wow? 

Edited August 13, 2022 by DT_

[Stargazer]

6 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Good. Kipping says it was not a random statistical fluctuation, he explains that at the beginning of the video between the 3rd and 4th minute.

I have my opinion and he has his. He may have more basis for his, of course. 

6 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Kipping estimates a 1 in 50 chance that Wow is a repeating signal. He recommends more observations.

I'm game if you are!

6 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Interesting. 

How would you know a revelation is not a Wow? 

The ones I received were Wows.

[DT_]

17 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I have my opinion and he has his. He may have more basis for his, of course.

He says the probability is 1 in 10^196.

17 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The ones I received were Wows.

I see. Makes sense. It could be. How do you know the Wows are not the result of some cognitive bias?

I'm not saying your Wows aren't real, I'm just wondering how you know.  I'm asking out of curiosity.

Edited August 13, 2022 by DT_

[Stargazer]

14 minutes ago, DT_ said:

He says the probability is 1 in 10^196.

That's not a lot of certainty. Understand that I'd love to see a real, genuine message from an extraterrestrial civilization! I just don't expect that it's going to happen.

14 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I see. Makes sense. It could be. How do you know the Wows are not the result of some cognitive bias?

I know what cognitive biases are, and there are so many! Are any of these Wows involved with a cognitive bias? That's a good question. One might go down the list of cognitive biases and compare them with various experiences (not just religious ones) in order to see if any of them hit home.

Some time ago I was reading a book by Elder Dallin Oaks, a member of the LDS Quorum of 12 Apostles, and something he wrote gave me the idea of writing down the accounts of all those spiritual experiences that I had had in my life, especially the ones that seemed to strongly anchor my faith in God and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This would not be something for publication, though it might be shared with someone who was near and dear. And so that is what I did. As you may imagine from the wordage I seem to be able to put out here, this ended up being quite long, over 14,000 words. It's not necessarily that I have had so many experiences, but those experiences that I have had mean so much to me, that I had something to say about each of them.

On a few of these experiences I can, if I squint hard enough, come up with reasons why there might be some natural and non-spiritual thing behind some of them. And I would be willing to bet you real money that if you tried you could undoubtedly "explain away" every single one of them. For you it would be an intellectual exercise -- but for me, I was there and I experienced them.

The very first spiritual experience I ever had, and not written in my little book because I am not sure if it was a "real" spiritual experience, was one night when I was a kid of maybe 10 years old. I was standing outside my house late at night looking up into the sky where all those stars and constellations were. I cannot adequately explain it, but the enormity of the heavens above filled me to the brim with awe and wonder, and it seemed that in all of it, I could see God, not literally of course, but I could see Him in all of it. What does one do with this? Is it confirmation bias? I wasn't a churchgoing person at the time; I kind of believed in God, if in a kind of formless way. But from that moment it seemed to me that there was "something" going on about all this. From that moment a kind of reverence came into my life and has never left.

14 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I'm not saying your Wows aren't real, I'm just wondering how you know.  I'm asking out of curiosity.

Curiosity is frequently an inadequate reason for wanting to know something, especially an important thing. A better reason is a desire to know that exceeds mere curiosity. Well, whatever. Let me see what I can say.

The kinds of things that I am talking about come from outside of you, not from inside. There are "inside" things of spirituality that can occur as one listens to a wonderful piece of music, or as one views a film whose ending lifts one up. There is excitement and enjoyment from other similar things, like having finally bowled a perfect game, or having managed to play 18 holes of golf and get par for the course for the first time. There's another kind of thrill from riding a particularly exciting roller-coaster. All of these come from inside one. The reason I wrote of that heaven-sensing experience I had as a child as maybe not "real" is because I am not sure if it came from inside me or from God. I suspect the latter, but I'm not sure.

But if in a moment when one is not expecting it, one receives advance knowledge about an event that is about to take place, something that one could not know, something that could not have come from inside one, that is when one knows that a Wow is real, and that it is a revelation from God. I'm speaking of a particular revelatory experience I had. Why did I get it? It wasn't strictly speaking necessary from a practical viewpoint, because I was going to learn about what was about to happen anyway, and if I hadn't known about it in advance it wouldn't have made a difference. What I took from the experience was the knowledge that what was about to happen was being done by the will of God, and that I could truthfully testify, if necessary, that it was His will. Because He told me in advance, in confidence. Why did I need the experience? Maybe it was so I could tell you about it.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

assuming the average lifespan of these civilizations is 100 years.

That is a depressing thought…what leads them to assume just 100 years before the civilization disappears?  Or does it just lose interest in communicating or find better technology that we wouldn’t detect with our current tech?

[DT_]

47 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's not a lot of certainty. Understand that I'd love to see a real, genuine message from an extraterrestrial civilization! I just don't expect that it's going to happen.

The probability of Wow being a random fluctuation is 1 in 10^196, and the probability of Wow being an alien signal is 1 in 50. The 1 in 50 odds are not that great, but there's still a chance.

47 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

On a few of these experiences I can, if I squint hard enough, come up with reasons why there might be some natural and non-spiritual thing behind some of them. And I would be willing to bet you real money that if you tried you could undoubtedly "explain away" every single one of them. For you it would be an intellectual exercise -- but for me, I was there and I experienced them.

I appreciate your honesty.

48 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Why did I need the experience? Maybe it was so I could tell you about it.

It's an interesting possibility.

27 minutes ago, Calm said:

That is a depressing thought…what leads them to assume just 100 years before the civilization disappears? 

I don't think that's a good assumption.

[Stargazer]

44 minutes ago, Calm said:

That is a depressing thought…what leads them to assume just 100 years before the civilization disappears?  Or does it just lose interest in communicating or find better technology that we wouldn’t detect with our current tech?

The bolded. What they mean is a civilization that has been communicating via broadcast of electromagnetic radiation signals that are strong enough that they can be detected from some distance away. It isn't any more ominous than that. As a "communicating civilization" we have lasted just about 100 years since the first very weak radio signals. Radio signals from earth have gone out at sufficiently large strength for about 100 years. I remember when the big broadcasting stations in the US were putting out a million watts of power so they could be heard over thousands of miles away. Eventually, we go from wasteful broadcast to much more efficient cable TV and now internet. Who listens to radio any longer? 

Our equipment has gotten much better at picking up signals, too. I remember when broadcast TV was all analog and required a lot of power to broadcast. Here in the UK they switched over to digital some years back, and digital requires much less power to broadcast. The planet is going to go "radio quiet" eventually, even if the Millennium doesn't intervene.

The Voyager probes are transmitting back to earth with all the power of a refrigerator light. And yet we can still hear them. We are much better at using low power than we used to be.

ON THE OTHER HAND, there's the Fermi Paradox. And one of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that eventually these civilizations kill themselves in one way or another. My personal solution to the Fermi Paradox is that every civilization comes to its own Millenium, and at the end of it each planet becomes celestialized and who needs radio after that?  See my little essay, HERE.

[Stargazer]

31 minutes ago, DT_ said:

The probability of Wow being a random fluctuation is 1 in 10^196, and the probability of Wow being an alien signal is 1 in 50. The 1 in 50 odds are not that great, but there's still a chance.

Whoops, I got that backwards, didn't I?