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How do we explain ghosts?

Darat said:
I'm sorry but something can't both exist and not exist! That's rather a profound contradiction.

I think what you are meaning to say is your imaginary curry doesnt have the same properties as a curry you have on your plate, but your imaginary curry does still exist.
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I never said that something did exist and not exist?

My point was that if your definition of 'truly exists' is correct, then I can imagine things, eg a madras curry that causes my body to react in a salivary way, therefore it exists.

But imaginary things do not exist just because you get a physical response to them, including ghosts.
Because of that contradiction, your 'truly exists' post is something I disagree with.
 
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Czarcasm said:
The very first sentence of this thread shows where the root of this problem lies.
Everyone, almost without exception, thinks that they are "rational minded".
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Indeed. All Christians I talked to actually had some logical explanation, why they believe. Logical only in their mind of course, but there clearly was an attempt to rationalize. In most cases I suspect there was wish to believe first, and looking for excuse to believe later, but that's rationalization as well.
Inside every Christian there is a hidden (bad) skeptic.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Indeed. All Christians I talked to actually had some logical explanation, why they believe. Logical only in their mind of course, but there clearly was an attempt to rationalize. In most cases I suspect there was wish to believe first, and looking for excuse to believe later, but that's rationalization as well.
Inside every Christian there is a hidden (bad) skeptic.
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Technically, they (most, anyway) were taught it was "fact" in childhood, and their whole intellectual framework about how everything else fits in with that was built up around the core fact of God's existence and the Bible's "truth" from there on out.

The idea that none of that stuff is true is an almost an unthinkable thought to them, because so many other beliefs are predicated upon the God belief. Their whole mental framework and intellectual edifice of understanding the nature of reality itself takes a serious hit when the foundational belief in God/Jesus is removed.
 
AmyW said:
I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?
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My aunt, an educated women, a rational woman, says she encountered a UFO, loading and unloading aliens. No one knew what to think. She continued to work as and educator for a few years after the statement.

Then, she became ill. She had a brain tumor, thankfully benign. After surgery, she was fine. I asked her again about the UFO sighting, and she still insisted it was a real event. But there was a reason.
 
Well, all Chinese know that ghosts can come through mirrors, especially at night. You can see the basis for this yourself if you have a bunch of mirrors about the bedroom on nights with little ambient light. Your own reflection comes back to you from the mirror and looks vaguely apparition-like. It's just the poor lighting and since the tradition dates back hundreds if not thousands of years it probably originated in darkened villages where the ambient light might be only moonlight. After your eyes have adjusted to the "dark" (which is really far from dark), you will make out nebulous figures in the mirrors.

Solution? Well, tell the family that it's obviously just your own reflection. Better, more woo-ish solution? Cover mirrors at night so you don't see those poor reflections the ghosts don't get out.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Few years back a video made the rounds, showing a supposed ghost at Disneyland. CCTV footage showed a blurry, shadowy figure walking a very deliberate path along a walkway, passing through a closed gate, and continuing off screen.

The solution was piss easy. In the old days when CCTVs used video cassette, the tapes were reused. The image was a ghost image (no pun) of a maintenance worker or janitor or some other after hours employee walking along the path and through the gate (which was open in their footage). He was recorded on the tape just walking along a path through an open gate, but that was recorded over with new footage where the gate was closed and there was no one on the path, leading to "the ghost."

And the this low quality SD CCTV footage was copied, filmed off a TV screen, digitized, converted a half dozen different video formats from the looks of it, and uploaded to Youtube.
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I will bet the Bletchly Park entrance video ghost is this. The paranormal shows played on the history of the location hard, but not on the state of the technology that recorded it. That was blissfully left out other than a mentioned of " state of the art " comment.

Speculation it was a wartime figure or somehow historical person made good drama but had no backing.

I used to do security rounds in a turn of the century paper mill complex. There were unused buildings in poor repair we had to check for kids or whatever.

For a while there was noises following me through one used as storage for bundles of recycle paper. It sounded just like I did passing through a minute before.
I heard two guys in the closest occupied building laughing about someone messing with new security guys by similar tricks so I changed my route a little bit and one day got behind him. I watched an old millrat looking carefully for someone try to sneak back to his area undetected. He knew of a door in the old building that wasn't on our key route. One day I locked it from the inside and the ghost stopped following us.
 
I think that there are ghosts. This is why;

"One dark, cold, wet evening a report came in from an elderly couple that they had heard a gunshot. They lived in a big old house in a small village in the countryside. There had been no reports of lamping for foxes in the area, but it was suspected someone was out legitimately, or it was not a gun shot. Few people really do know what a gun shot sounds like.

Two PCs were allocated the call and duly attended at the Victorian house with its gravel drive and huge wood panelled entrance hall. They listened as the elderly couple explained they were sure it was a gun shot as they knew what guns sound like. “So how many shots was it?” asked one of the PCs. “Just the one” the elderly man replied. “Do any of your neighbours have a gun?” asked the PC. “I don’t think so and anyway, the shot sounded like it came from inside the house” the lady of the house replied.

The two PCs perked up at this point as they realised this was a serious situation. “Who else is in the house?” one PC asked. “Just us” the lady of the house replied.

At that point the two PCs saw a young female, dressed in a nightgown walking down the central staircase towards them.

“So who is she?” one PC asked. “Who is who?” the elderly man replied.“That girl” said the PC. “What girl?” the elderly man and his wife replied. The young female walked past them all, out of the door, on to the gravel drive, turned and went out of sight. She did not make a sound.

The two PCs, now very spooked said that they would do a quick search, they were sure it was not a gun shot and they bolted back to the police office. I have it on good authority they were so freaked out that they were allowed to go home early. There were no more reports of gunshots."

That was told to me by what I would regard as a reliable source. I have some other ghost stories that are similar, where someone was not expecting to see a ghost and had no reason to think a ghost would appear.

There is definitely something out there, that we call ghosts.
 
Nessie said:
I think that there are ghosts. This is why;

"One dark, cold, wet evening a report came in from an elderly couple that they had heard a gunshot. They lived in a big old house in a small village in the countryside. There had been no reports of lamping for foxes in the area, but it was suspected someone was out legitimately, or it was not a gun shot. Few people really do know what a gun shot sounds like.

Two PCs were allocated the call and duly attended at the Victorian house with its gravel drive and huge wood panelled entrance hall. They listened as the elderly couple explained they were sure it was a gun shot as they knew what guns sound like. “So how many shots was it?” asked one of the PCs. “Just the one” the elderly man replied. “Do any of your neighbours have a gun?” asked the PC. “I don’t think so and anyway, the shot sounded like it came from inside the house” the lady of the house replied.

The two PCs perked up at this point as they realised this was a serious situation. “Who else is in the house?” one PC asked. “Just us” the lady of the house replied.

At that point the two PCs saw a young female, dressed in a nightgown walking down the central staircase towards them.

“So who is she?” one PC asked. “Who is who?” the elderly man replied.“That girl” said the PC. “What girl?” the elderly man and his wife replied. The young female walked past them all, out of the door, on to the gravel drive, turned and went out of sight. She did not make a sound.

The two PCs, now very spooked said that they would do a quick search, they were sure it was not a gun shot and they bolted back to the police office. I have it on good authority they were so freaked out that they were allowed to go home early. There were no more reports of gunshots."

That was told to me by what I would regard as a reliable source. I have some other ghost stories that are similar, where someone was not expecting to see a ghost and had no reason to think a ghost would appear.

There is definitely something out there, that we call ghosts.
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Finally, irrevocable truth and hard facts. I'm convinced!
 
bluesjnr said:
Finally, irrevocable truth and hard facts. I'm convinced!
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Proof of the existence of something can come from multiple, corroborating, credible witnesses.

I know some other ghost stories that involve credible people who have no reason to lie who say they interacted with a person who can be best described as a ghost.

There is, because of that, such a thing as a ghost, which is not just a figment of our imagination or some sort of projection from within ourselves.
 
Nessie said:
That was told to me by what I would regard as a reliable source.
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Did this happen directly to this supposedly reliable source, or was it heard by this supposedly reliable source? If it happened directly to this source, then please give us the details(who, where, when).
Without details, all I can say is "Thanks for the story".
 
Nessie said:
Proof of the existence of something can come from multiple, corroborating, credible witnesses.

I know some other ghost stories that involve credible people who have no reason to lie who say they interacted with a person who can be best described as a ghost.

There is, because of that, such a thing as a ghost, which is not just a figment of our imagination or some sort of projection from within ourselves.
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This does not follow. We know of many ways in which sane, rational people can be fooled into thinking they interacted with people who weren't actually there. Examples have been given in this thread.
 
AmyW said:
I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?
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She probably didn't. She was probably asleep the whole time and dreamed that she she woke up, a very common dream (and very often used for effect in movies!).
 
Czarcasm said:
Did this happen directly to this supposedly reliable source, or was it heard by this supposedly reliable source? If it happened directly to this source, then please give us the details(who, where, when).
Without details, all I can say is "Thanks for the story".
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The story is from "rogerthepoliceman," who says (on his "about" page)-
Just like police reports to the Procurator Fiscal, accuracy is not guaranteed.
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