Ghosts - what the real deal here?

[wardenclyffe]

MummRa,

Hopefully, your early love for ghosts will serve you well in the future. All that time in the graveyard looking at headstones has probably made you a history buff and you didn't even realize it. Haunted places are usually full of interesting history and stories, just not ghosts. As cool as ghosts might be, you have an alternative history which is also fascinating and it happens to be real.

My interest in historical things was spurred by my early fascination with the Loch Ness monster and with Dracula. I ended up learning about Scotland and Romania and then the countries that bordered those countries and it spread like wildfire.

I'm no longer obsessed with the Loch Ness monster, but I'm sure glad I once was. I think the same could be true with you and ghosts.

Ward

 

[Irish Murdoch]

No ghosts, sorry. No real evidence for them.

There are a lot of wonderful things in this world, so that you don't need to go looking in the next world. Look for all that is amazing in the real world (and there's lots of it), not one that doesn't exist.

Well said. Even if there were ghosts and so on, if you waited until you'd exhausted the wonders of this world before getting on to them, you'd never get onto them!

 

[epepke]

Well, what is a ghost, anyway?

A disembodied spirit that manages to do things, despite not having a source of energy that doesn't break the laws of thermodynamics? Probably not.

An interesting psychological phenomenon having to do with memories, mirror neurons, and triggered by the trauma of someone else's death? Sure.

An artifact of retrofitting old buildings with electricity, with weird vibrations and current leakages that drive people batty? In some cases, certainly.

An interesting part of mythology? Definitely.

I don't see how not believing in the supernatural means that you can't still have fun with the idea of ghosts. In fact, because it frees you from the most banal explanation, I think you can have even more fun with it.

 

[Evolved Wookie]

They sound interesting. Could we read some of them?

They are few and in dire need of an edit, but if you can overlook that, sure! PM or email?

 

[Almo]

I still feel drawn to graveyards, but not because of anything paranormal. You'll refind your sense of interest in new things as your readjust.

 

[beetzart]

A friend at work was telling the story of how he saw 'something' in a 'haunted crypt once. Then the next day his brother saw 'something' in the same place/ They knew that the place was supposedly 'haunted' so could have been biased in there outlook. Normally it is something out of the corner of your eye. If it has happened elsewhere it would have been put down to 'just seeing things'.

 

[MummRa]

You're right, Ward. I am a history nut now, and it probably is in part due to my time in the graveyards. Good call.

And yeah, I still LOVE a great ghost story or spooky story. And I'm happy to not be afraid of the dark anymore, but I miss miss that tingling sense of the unexplained all around me.

Though, to take another's advice, Bryson's History is sitting on the my shelves waiting for summer, so maybe it will be my TAM companion book. I like Bryson's stuff, and I am ready to be wowed by the world.

Though a haunted plane ride to Vegas would kick ass. Or maybe just a haunted chicken sandwich.

 

[mike3]

Actually, the best that can be said is that there is no concrete evidence of their existence whatsoever, and that the phenomena which are usually attributed to being hauntings are explicable by various natural processes, both within the brain and without. In addition, the existence of ghosts would require a complete re-writing of the laws of physics, as there is no conceivable mechanism by which ghosts could exist. Furthermore, nobody has even ever suggested a plausible mechanism by which ghosts could exist.

How would it require all the laws of physics to be redone? Surely, for any non-ghost-involving phenomenon the models we have now would still work as good as they always have, no? Wouldn't it be more like that it'd require the development of a new set of laws in addition to the ones we have to make sense of the other level of reality their existence would imply?

No, just like no one really knows that gravity will continue to work tomorrow. What we do know, however, is that both the evidence and logic make the existence of ghosts as unlikely as gravity spontaneously switching itself off tomorrow at noon GMT.

Oh, because if ghosts really did exist, solid, undeniable evidence would have most likely been found by now, right? Thus, its refusal to appear renders their existence extremely unlikely.

 

[Explorer]

I'm the biggest skeptic in the world, but when my brother died last year, a vase of flowers which he had given our mother (who lives alone), shattered in the middle of the night, and the flowers were laid neatly side by side on the other side of the room! I'm still looking for an explanation...

Your mother had a sleepwalk that night and knocked over the vase accidently. He instinct for tidiness allowed her to pick up the flowers and arrange them neatly even though in state of dream-like consciousness.

 

[devnull]

Your mother had a sleepwalk that night and knocked over the vase accidently. He instinct for tidiness allowed her to pick up the flowers and arrange them neatly even though in state of dream-like consciousness.

Yup, people do weird stuff, especially when stressed.

After a massive bout of assembly coding I once woke up in my bedroom, upside down in bed, and had no recollection of rearranging my computer desk (C64 and colour TV!), arranging notes next to my computer and I even "wrote" some more notes (indecipherable scrawl) on my workpad.

 

[punshhh]

Actually, the best that can be said is that there is no concrete evidence of their existence whatsoever, and that the phenomena which are usually attributed to being hauntings are explicable by various natural processes, both within the brain and without. In addition, the existence of ghosts would require a complete re-writing of the laws of physics, as there is no conceivable mechanism by which ghosts could exist. Furthermore, nobody has even ever suggested a plausible mechanism by which ghosts could exist.



No, just like no one really knows that gravity will continue to work tomorrow. What we do know, however, is that both the evidence and logic make the existence of ghosts as unlikely as gravity spontaneously switching itself off tomorrow at noon GMT.

All that can be concluded from this is that there is as yet no scientific evidence of ghosts.
The rest is hand waving.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of their existence.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

And yeah, I still LOVE a great ghost story or spooky story. And I'm happy to not be afraid of the dark anymore, but I miss miss that tingling sense of the unexplained all around me.

Start learning about atoms and stuff. You'll get it back.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

How would it require all the laws of physics to be redone?

Because the existence of ghosts would completely contradict many of those laws.

Oh, because if ghosts really did exist, solid, undeniable evidence would have most likely been found by now, right? Thus, its refusal to appear renders their existence extremely unlikely.

That's one of the reasons, yes.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

All that can be concluded from this is that there is as yet no scientific evidence of ghosts.

That's not all, no.

The rest is hand waving.

No, what you are doing is hand-waving.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of their existence.

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of the existence of Thor, that The Secret works, that witch burnings are a good idea, that homeopathy works, that Springheel Jack exists, that the position of planets directly affects our daily lives, that Obama is a secret Muslim foreigner trying to bring down the USA, that clouds are actually spaceships, that the Queen is a reptilian alien, that the Earth is flat, and that Elvis is alive and well and working for the CIA.

Anecdotal evidence is worth precisely nothing when it comes to determining what is or is not true.

 

[idoubtit]

I'm confused by the mixing of atheist/ex-Christian ideas all together... Nevertheless, if you are learning to be skeptical of the paranormal it certainly doesn't mean your interest in ghosts has to wane. You'll just see it from a different (and what others have suggested) a more interesting POV. I know I did. Rewatch some of the ghost shows with a critical eye, find their logical fallacies, their assumptions and unsupported conclusions.

I've always had an interest in the paranormal. First, generally, as a believer. I think realizing that it is a flawed subject area means that you are giving up the "childish things". There are numerous ghostie theories you can study and expose as invalid. You'll learn a lot on the way.

Sharon

 

[sadhatter]

In reality no one can say if ghosts exist or not, except perhaps people who have experienced a very clear haunting.

You will hear many people on this site stating that things like ghosts don't exist, don't believe it. The best they can say is there is little concrete evidence of their existence.

No one really knows that things like ghosts don't exist.

And you don't know that i don't have an orc army in my backyard. But does that mean you should sharpen up your blades and call dwarves for reinforcement?

Ghosts are the claim, until solid evidence of the claim exists, shifting your position to them existing is silly.

It is up to people who claim something to provide real evidence, and when any evidence is either rhetoric like yours, or obvious hoaxs, no logical person can take the stance they exist.

If you think that because no one has proven they don't exist ( a premise that in and of itself is faulty.) , that one cannot come to the tentative conclusion that no evidence has been presented to date that proves their existence, you should really get on sharpening your longswords, because my orc army can march far and fast.

 

[wardenclyffe]

You're right, Ward. I am a history nut now, and it probably is in part due to my time in the graveyards. Good call.

And yeah, I still LOVE a great ghost story or spooky story. And I'm happy to not be afraid of the dark anymore, but I miss miss that tingling sense of the unexplained all around me.

Though, to take another's advice, Bryson's History is sitting on the my shelves waiting for summer, so maybe it will be my TAM companion book. I like Bryson's stuff, and I am ready to be wowed by the world.

Though a haunted plane ride to Vegas would kick ass. Or maybe just a haunted chicken sandwich.

Glad you are now into history. It's fun and it can give you the same excitement as ghost hunting used to. Keep reading about history, but I'd also advise that you start doing independent research on a subject that interests you---perhaps a local event or personality. Nothing matches the tingling that you get when you unearth (sometimes literally) a piece of evidence that sheds new light on history.

Congratulations,
Ward

 

[I Ratant]

We get exposed to ghost stories early, in church and religion classes.
It's no leap to go from supernatural whatcha haves to ghosties.
The first implies the second.
And they're explained by the same type of swifties/con men with the gift of glib gab.

 

[dlorde]

Because the existence of ghosts would completely contradict many of those laws.

Especially the Laws of Thermodynamics - which are quite important...

 

[randman]

I have loved ghosts and ghost stories my whole life, but I'm finding this love increasingly hard to maintain as my new atheist and evidence-bound training takes over. I used to watch 9-hour marathons of "Unsolved Mysteries" ghost stories, and "Ghost Hunters" (yes, go ahead and shoot me now). But now? I want to slap myself silly just thinking about it.

I love being an atheist instead of a self-hating Christian, but I do mourn the loss of my love of the paranormal. I used to spend all day as a kid wandering through graveyards, checking out old headstones and hoping for something to happen. I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.

I could swear on three separate occasions I have seen a ghost or something totally out of the ordinary. I've even had a premonition or two (though I know what they say: "You only remember the hits, and forget all the misses in between").

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there? Or is it all just....woo?

I agree with someone's comment that ghosts are unimportant or relatively so.

But whatever ghosts are, there are real ghosts. Not sure what's going on there, however.