Scientific proof of the feeling of a ghostly presence is all in the mind

a reply to: Dr X

Feelings are individual and guided by a myriad of impulses based on one's experience, educaton, perceptions, enviroment etc, etc. And from one person to the next...all are valid and unique to that person and cannot be taken away from that persons interpretation: ie my feelings, your feelings, their feelings, those feelings.

Therefore, there cannot be any "proof" except that all people have "feelings" uncontrovertable and unique unto them. You cant tell them they are wrong, they dont feel them, its not what they think, or that it isnt real, nor are they valid.

Therefore...there cannot be any "scientific proof" that those feelings...under a million different reasonings, peoples, attitudes, education, interpretations, nationalities, languages and historical influences...are not real.

So this premise is flawed to begin with.

1. Not scientifically proven by a long shot....just the opposite: cannot be scientfcally proven to someone that they have no "feelings that are valid".
2. Ghosts are not proven to exist anyway, therfore the point is moot.

What I think IS true about your thread here...is you are attempting to exert YOUR interpretation, that ghostly impressions, sightings...feelings what-have-you...are not and cannot be real for YOU. And that science wil back that up.

Im pretty sure of my ..."feeling"...that that does not stand up.

a reply to: Dr X

yes the mind is the first point of contact and is necessary for manifestation but does not bind that being manifested.

What am I missing? I read the link in the OP. I didn't quite understand it so I read about the same experiment on a few other sights and I'm still confused. The robot was touching their backs, right? And the robot arm was behind them? And they felt like there was something behind them? What am I missing?

Funny that most of the time I thought I'd encountered "ghosts" it was due to noises and sights, rather than a feeling of a presence... though that feeling did ...present itself at times.

Other than that... some cool info... and as the article mentions ,no, it won't keep believers and experience-ers from their cockamamie cogitations regarding the existence of spirits, but it will fuel the belief of those that... don't.

The scientists should set up this equipment in a so called haunted house,then wire up someone who does not know the house is supposedly haunted,then question them about what kind of presence they feel.

If the house is haunted by say,a 5 year old girl,and that presence is felt by the subject-then they may have stumbled upon a way to reveal the supernatural world.

I would sign up to try it-but as I have said before,I have stayed at so called haunted houses and no ghosts have ever revealed themselves to me.
Friends have tried to freak me out by saying that I scare the ghosts too much for them to show themselves...

This is an amazingly wonderful bit of research that is going to help a lot of people when technology is created using this science as the basis. Many will welcome a treatment that is able to suppress these often times frightening feelings.

This doesn't prove anything as it doesn't cover all the phenomena related to ghosts.

It doesn't explain multiple people experiencing the same thing.

It doesn't explain the manipulation of physical objects.

I'm sure there's more it doesn't explain but these two reasons alone are enough to discredit the conclusions of these scientists.

a reply to: Dr X

From the article you posted.

It was invisible, but there. Stories like this have been reported countless times by mountaineers, explorers, and survivors, as well as by people who have been widowed, but also by patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric disorders. They commonly describe a presence that is felt but unseen, akin to a guardian angel or a demon. Inexplicable, illusory, and persistent.

They aren't talking about the average human, they are talking about certain types of people. Mountaineers, explorers, survivors, people who have been widowed, patients suffering from neurological & psychiatric disorders.

They showed that the "feeling of a presence" actually results from an alteration of sensorimotor brain signals, which are involved in generating self-awareness by integrating information from our movements and our body's position in space.

With that in mind, yes it makes sense for there to be false ghost sensations but that doesn't mean it disproves completely the existence of ghosts.

a reply to: Baddogma

There is a difference in thinking you hear sounds and actually having objects disappear from one location only to reappear in a different location, especially when there are things in front of the object that were untouched in the process of the object moving.

There are some things that are unexplainable other than paranormal.

It bugs me how people who never had it happen to them say that those who have had it happen are either liars or crazy. It's like being a virgin and saying that anyone who finds pleasure in sex is either a liar or crazy. You can't judge because you haven't experienced it.

ultimately, everything we can experience is 'all in the mind' in that our mind interprets, translates, collates and possibly creates everything we can know, concieve, see, hear, etc.

reality itself might be just a figment of an over-active collective unconscious...

Please debate the topic.
That means personal attacks are not acceptable.

You are responsible for your own posts.
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a reply to: ignorant_ape

There is a difference between planting the idea in people's heads vs people who actually have an ability to sense the paranormal.

Why they have that ability, I don't know. The experiences that have happened to my family have no other explanation than paranormal activity. Maybe it's because my family has incurable health issues or maybe we vibrate on a different frequency than those who don't have experiences.

You can read about my families experiences on here: My Paranormal experiences

So everyone who report ghostly presences (often in houses with a history of hauntings that they were unaware about) all suffer from certain neurological disorders? Pfft! Tell me another debunking fib! These researchers need to learn some logic. Just because some people with such disorders reported the same sensations does not mean everyone had to have such a problem. The proposition: if A, then B does not logically imply that, if B, then A. The researchers fail to explain why the disorder should suddenly become active often in houses with a history of hauntings even though this was not known to the person with the imagined neurological disorder. As usual, this pathetic piece of debunking of the paranormal fails to withstand scrutiny.

a reply to: Sabiduria

I worded my post in an unclear manner... I sure as heck encountered something most call ghosts, and it wasn't any subjective, maybe hallucination or ephemeral feeling... it was apparitions, movement of objects, but mostly noises and fleeting sights ...along with animal reactions completely out of the norm for the animal... so I really disagree with the article's conclusions and agree with you and everyone else who isn't crazy or ignorant and encountered something commonly called a "ghost."

Sorry, sometimes I post ...er, badly.

a reply to: Dr X

This is good and valuable research but your commentary casts a mild insinuation that something has been debunked in some way. Surely all feelings are all going to be inside the brain? It would be surprising if such feelings came from your feet but I don't think anyone was imagining that would be the case. I guess perhaps a ghostly presence being seen in the "3rd eye" region of the brain maybe would be what a "paranormal believer" might expect but its not as if seeing the activity in another place is a particularly big deal.

What would be interesting is to know what else this region of the brain that "detects ghostly presence" is responsible for.

a reply to: Baddogma

It's hard to tell the context online so when someone words something incorrectly, it can be taken even more out of context.

I do want to clarify though that when I said

It bugs me how people who never had it happen to them say that those who have had it happen are either liars or crazy. It's like being a virgin and saying that anyone who finds pleasure in sex is either a liar or crazy. You can't judge because you haven't experienced it.

I was generalizing and not signaling you out.

originally posted by: ckhk3
Well the article is based on research conducted on persons with psychological or neurological disorders. Not the average healthy person who experiences a paranormal presence, but good find!

what the healthy person experiences is a small aspect of what, incorrectly diagnosed...people with disorders get.

All the research is saying is they can reproduce a ghost feeling; the feeling there's a presence near you which actually is not there. This doesn't mean there're no real ghosts in the world. It just means a potential slice of ghost reports are linked to this research. This is kind of like alien abduction and sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis probably explains many of the alien abduction claims, but who can say for sure there're no genuine alien abductions? Of course, the short supply of good reliable evidence for ET's visting Earth reduces the odds, but you also can't prove a negative. We can't prove there's no Santa Claus, for example. We can, however, prove there's a Santa Claus if Santa Claus shows up for us to examine.

Here is my thing and why I think this study is BS. There was this girl I really liked I connected to her on a level I've never connected with anybody else. I did try and date her but that didn't work out but every time she would enter class I got a little shot of electricity going through me and within atleast 15 seconds she was there.

I didn't know where she worked but would always get the feeling she was around if I went into Kohl's, Come to find out a year or so later she worked there. I didnt see her when I went but I got the feeling she was around. My experience wasn't with a ghost but a real person but I do think the study is wrong.