I'm skeptical

Do you think aliens or ghosts exist in this world?
I don't think they are around us. However, I don't deny their existence just because I haven't seen them.

I think the possibility of creatures, for example bacteria, are not zero, they might be somewhere in huge space, but not ghosts. The reason is there is no evidence and I cannot convince myself logically or scientifically.

Honestly, I have a strange experience that if someone who believes in ghosts would say "There it is, you see?"

One day, my parents went to the hospital where my grandfather was hospitalized, and I was alone in the house where my grandfather used to live. It was ten minutes past ten at night, I heard someone knocking at the kitchen door. I was a bit scared, but I said, "Who is it?" Nobody answered. Then, I heard the knocking again. That was a scary moment! I dashed upstairs and crawled into bed.
The next morning, I woke up and my parents were in the kitchen. They told me that my grandfather passed away at ten minutes past ten last night.
I said that I don't believe in ghosts, but to be honest, I was chilled to hear that.
I told this story to my friends and relatives. Most of them said that my grandfather would have knocked at the door. I was surprised that people who weren't even there believe that was my dead grandfather. Why would they so easily come to that conclusion?

Here is another story.
A friend of mine had a brain tumor and had an operation about ten years ago. After the operation, she saw weird monstrous creatures several times. They were very realistic, and she saw them as if they were really there.
In advance, she was told by a doctor that she might see such a kind of hallucination, therefore she could cope correctly. She said to the monstrous creatures "I know you are not real. Leave me alone!" She said it to the monsters, but actually it was the same as saying it to her brain. The good news is that she doesn't see monsters any more.

From listening to her story, I again realised a brain is not perfect. For human beings, the rate of visual information is large. People tend to believe what they experience visually or aurally, and I think that causes misunderstanding. I know I make mistakes a lot. This is the reason that I'm skeptical even to myself.

I wouldn't say people who believe in ghosts are lying. People believe it because they think they saw it. Maybe they saw something that they cannot explain exactly what it was, that's all.

On the other hand, I knew there were people who insisted that they had supernatural power who performed so called supernatural phenomenon, but it's actually magic. I don't like their way of doing business.

So, I'm interested in what James Randi has done, also I pay attention to the activities of CSI (The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry).

In my case, I couldn't figure out what happened that night. There should be a reason. I thought I heard the knocking sound twice that night, but maybe I didn't. It could have been a burglar who was checking if anyone was inside the house. To me, encountering a burglar is scarier than seeing my dead grandfather.
Before I draw a conclusion, I must verify and examine it from various angles carefully.

Emotionally, I can understand the feeling of people who believe in ghosts or supernatural phenomenon and so on. If I could talk with my grandfather who has died, it would be wonderful. I have lots of things that I want to tell him, but the reality doesn't go the way I want it to. To think scientifically is sometimes hard.

I have a habit to think scientifically and it makes me sometimes lose heart. Unfortunately, there are differences between our ideal and real world. Therefore, I cannot deny everything. There is something needed to fill the gap between reality and an ideal world to keep me relaxed and amused.

For example, I believe in the existence of Santa Claus. I know he is in this world. I have seen him many times at the local shopping center during the Christmas season. There is a lot of evidence of his pictures with children too. These become evidence enough.
However, there is one question that remains. I haven't seen his sled and reindeer in the parking lot of the shopping center. I wonder how he came?

If Leonardo da Vinci was alive

Leonardo da Vinci is the man everybody admits is a genius. He invented, drew, and created lots of amazing things. There have been so many geniuses in the world and above all, I think he is a unique type of genius because he was active in lots of different fields; invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, mathematics and so on.

We know many geniuses but most of them displayed their talents in specific fields, Vincent Willem van Gogh was a remarkable painter, but he was not a genius of science, Albert Einstein was a genius of theoretical physics and he could play a violin well, but he wasn't a genius of music. Therefore, I think Leonardo da Vinci was a rare type of genius, and the word universal genius is for him.

Admitting his greatness, whereas I also take a different view of him.
In the modern world, everything is becoming subdivided. I haven't made sure of it, but I think that the times when Leonardo da Vinci was alive, things were not so complicated like now.

I wondered what he would be doing if he was alive now?
I think he is a man who is full of intellectual curiosity, so maybe he goes to university to study several different curriculums. In my extravagant imagination, he lives somewhere in San Francisco and works for an IT company, like Google and draws pictures on his off-days. It's fun just to imagine, isn't it? What I mean is, if he was alive now, I don't think he would be able to be a universal genius.

I have heard a former electrician say that he could repair most electric appliances by himself long ago, but he cannot do it now. It's not just because he has got old, every product has evolved. When he was young, he knew how an electric fan works. However, nowadays, televisions, alarm clocks, toasters, ovens, almost every product has microprocessors and it's beyond the range that he can understand.

Things are subdivided, and there are experts in every field.
It's a clear fact that Leonardo da Vinci is a genius, but if he lived in the current world, I think he wouldn't be able to be that famous, Leonardo da Vinci who lived in the Renaissance period.

There is a huge amount of talented people in the world and I believe there are some of them who have a talent like Leonardo da Vinci. Actually, there are people who are making remarkable activity in plural fields. I mean it's not many different categories, as Leonardo da Vinci got involved, just two or three. (The world is huge, it might be only I who doesn't know their presence.)

This is a bit of an old example, but John von Neumann was a multi-task genius. He showed talents in mathematics, physics, mathematical economics, and meteorology. These people are similar to Leonardo da Vinci.

The difference is these people don't display their talents in many different fields, but if they had lived in the Renaissance period, I wonder what they would have done? Thinking of the current world that has subdivided fields, it's remarkable to have talents even if it is in two or three categories.

You may encounter a modern version Leonardo da Vinci some day or it might be you?

Do scientists invite total strangers to their home?

Long ago, I read one of the books of Carl Sagan. I remember that I was reading it intently, and after that, I saw a movie that was made based on Carl Sagan's book "Contact" on TV. In that movie, my favorite actress Jodie Foster plays the main character and I recorded it and saw it again and again. Since then, I came to like seeing science fiction movies often. My favorite movies are "Interstellar", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Contact", "The Martian", "Moon", "Inception" and so on. These movies gave me lots of simulations of science and I started to pay attention to the real world's science more than before.

I heard the Voyager was loaded with the Golden Record and was launched in 1977. The Golden Record contains greetings in 55 languages, music and more than 100 images.

Firstly, I thought that was amazing. It made me feel that the world I had seen in the science fiction movies had arrived. I simply thought it was a good idea to send messages into space, but gradually my opinion has changed. The reason I have changed my idea was I have seen one image, a solar location map. The question I have got in my mind was very simple.

Do you tell a stranger your home address?

In the movie "Contact", an extraterrestrial who has a gentle mind and who is thoughtful of human beings appeared. On the other hand, in "Star Wars" there is a war the same as the title and a massacre is taking place. The extraterrestrials in these two movies are different types and I think, in the real world, these two types of extraterrestrials can exist.
Yes, I believe that there is intelligent life in the universe somewhere.

I have seen pictures of so-called UFOs, but that isn't the reason I believe in the existence of intelligent life. The universe is huge, far beyond our imaginations and I think the possibility of existing intelligent life is high, but they are not close, I don't think they are our neighbors, somewhere far far away.

History proves that human nature may not be better even if we become intellectual. In the old days, there were uneducated people who had a warm heart and were kind everywhere in the world. On the other hand, there are more educated people in our society now, but there are still people who are brutal and selfish. As you can see in the news, there are still wars and massacres occurring in the world. I think creatures like extraterrestrials might be the same as us. I hope that they have sense and a thoughtful heart, plus the same feelings of value and morality. This is very important. I don't think that it will come true, but for example, if extraterrestrials came to the earth and found that there are many natural resource that they wanted to get on the earth, they can get it by force. To speak of extremes, if they thought that human beings seemed delicious to eat, what could we do? The only thing we can say is we don't know what extraterrestrials think of.

Sending messages to unknown creatures that might have been higher civilizations and dropping a bottle into the ocean containing a letter, can expect very different results. Sending messages and the location map into somewhere in the universe seems to be risky. We don't know what kind of creatures they are. If my memory is correct, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa once displayed a doll of the creature "Dinosauroid" that the reptiles evolved. They might be like that doll. The doll didn't look well-disposed.

In the time period that current people are alive, I don't think it will happen, but if extraterrestrials visit the earth in the future, there are lots of things that we have to consider. How about quarantine? They might have an extraterrestrial virus. This reminds me that many Aboriginal people died because the Europeans brought viruses long ago. The same things might happen too. Am I too pessimistic?

If it's possible I would like to take Voyager's solar location map back. Where is it now? Oh, no, it may be outside of the solar system already! The feeling I have got now is similar to when I sent an email to the wrong person. It's too late!

I know that the scientists who prepared the Voyager Golden Record had certain reasons and they thought it's good for humanity's future. I think they are very smart people, and I know I'm just a pessimistic ordinary person who doesn't have any special knowledge of space science but let me ask them a question.

Do you send an invitation card to total strangers to your home party?