Ghosts - what the real deal here?

MummRa said:
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 I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.
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The house can still be interesting, maybe you just have to do a bit of re-calibration to what what it is you find interesting? Do I find Loch Ness less interesting now that I no longer believe a monster lives in it? Yes, but that's my problem, not the Loch's.

And if it's any consolation, you're still allowed to enjoy Ghostbusters;)
 
MummRa said:
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?
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It can either be an entity or concept. You may have to find out it from whatever a person leave pre & post his life & at the time of his death.
 
MummRa said:
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?
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Reality can sometimes be rather mundane. That's one of the reasons 'woo' persists. Sorry, but somebody should have warned you...:o
 
MummRa said:
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 I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.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?
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A number of good writers (and, like every other topic, even more bad one's) have written a number of good ghost stories (and vampire, withcraft, werewolfe, elder gods) stories. I enjoy them along with many other types. I just do not believe they can really happen, doesn't make them (for me) the slightest bit less fun to read!!!
 
Check this out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hag_Syndrome

It has nothing to do with anything paranormal but it's scary, creepy and is about as close as you can get to meeting any 'real' ghosts. I personally have had several episodes and I've seen the 'Old Hag' twice. It's really quite an experience...
 
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AdMan said:
What?
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Good & bad works done during life time & remembered by people. Emitted & reflected EM spectrums, heat, radiation, magnetic fields--pre & post death. Shedded skin particles, hair, Remains of body, stem cells. Soul, Photos, children etc. What else you can think?
 
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Only an idea: project a 2-dimensional object, its shadow is one-dimensional. Project a 3D-Object: it has a 2D-shadow. Give me an idea why a 4D-object shouldn't have a 3D-shadow which is perceived as "ghost" or "paranormal sighting" by ourselves.
 
MaxMurx said:
Only an idea: project a 2-dimensional object, its shadow is one-dimensional. Project a 3D-Object: it has a 2D-shadow. Give me an idea why a 4D-object shouldn't have a 3D-shadow which is perceived as "ghost" or "paranormal sighting" by ourselves.
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Sounds like the definition of a TesseractWP or Hypercube.

Ghosts "could be" any number of things but the only explanation I've ever seen any compelling evidence for is that "ghosts" are the result of misinterpretation of natural phenomena by people who are desperate to find some evidence of life after death.
 
MaxMurx said:
Only an idea: project a 2-dimensional object, its shadow is one-dimensional. Project a 3D-Object: it has a 2D-shadow. Give me an idea why a 4D-object shouldn't have a 3D-shadow which is perceived as "ghost" or "paranormal sighting" by ourselves.
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Show me your 4-D object and we'll check it out!!!:)
 
Kumar said:
Good & bad works done during life time & remembered by people. Emitted & reflected EM spectrums, heat, radiation, magnetic fields--pre & post death. Shedded skin particles, hair, Remains of body, stem cells. Soul, Photos, children etc. What else you can think?
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There is no actual evidence for any of this as "ghosts," sorry.
 
AdMan said:
There is no actual evidence for any of this as "ghosts," sorry.
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Other can be due to guilty consiciousness, if anyone had done anything very bad to dead person. Illusions,hallucination,fears, dreams etc. can be possible. Ghost aspect esp. deviate people from doing bads.
 
Kumar said:
Other can be due to guilty consiciousness, if anyone had done anything very bad to dead person. Illusions,hallucination,fears, dreams etc. can be possible. Ghost aspect esp. deviate people from doing bads.
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You'd better check on your consiciousness. I think it's murdered a language.
 
MummRa said:
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.
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No need to give any of that stuff up. I love ghost stories too, M R James, Sheridan Le Fanu etc.

I also love those "paranormal" tv shows. I like the ones where they bring a collection of electronic equipment into a supposedly haunted house without explaining exactly what it is supposed to detect.

After a long time of nothing happening, dramatised by strange noises on the sound track and odd camera angles, suddenly everybody leaps up and starts running around shouting things like "the frequency counter is going crazy!".

I could never quite work out what those frequency counters were supposed to be counting.

Spooks per second maybe.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I will still sometimes catch myself re-watching old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries or Ghost Hunters with a "what was I THINKING?" mode of critical examination. But, as Robin pointed out, mostly it's just running around in the dark, followed by analyzing tiny sounds and extrapolating what they mean (with helpful "ghost translations" to boot). I think South Park's Ghost Hunters episode speaks to that perfectly. :)

As for independent research, I still haven't learned how to dedicate fewer hours to teaching, so my students still get 80% of my daily non-sleep hours. Maybe one day....though I am learning a lot about astrophysics because of them. I love the fact that I can say, "Because of the questions that 9 year olds have asked me over the past 13 months, I have now become an atheist and an amateur astrophysicist." Hooray for my kids shouting out any damn question that pops into their heads. :)

I am so psyched to get to TAM, listen to all of the speakers, meet many of you, and really take my first steps into the skeptical pool. It'll be pretty damned awesome.

Though I could never give up Ghostbusters. Winston Zedmore is too awesome, Venkman kicks too much ass, and I love the 80s cartoon too much.
 
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