Why Ghosts are not Real

reply to post by Ironclad


'Ghost hunters' discredit themselves by claiming to be certain that they are searching for 'ghosts'. If they focused more on the phenomenon that they were capturing and less on the mystical side of the spirit world, I think people would take them more seriously.

A good scientist would go into this phenomenon with several hypothesis as to what it may or may not be that is causing a reading on one of there devices. Then they would use testing to determine what they may or may not be detecting. Most paranormal researchers have pigeonholed themselves before they even start. They are certain that they are detecting ghosts of the deceased, so all of there data must fall into that hypothesis. If you cannot prove that what you are detecting is a ghost then you go back to the drawing board with a new hypothesis. Maybe alter the testing method, try new measuring devices. Maybe this is a magnetic phenomenon that we are unaware of and it needs to be approached from a different angle. Can the experiences from people, and the readings on the measuring devices be replicated in the lab? If so, what is used to replicate them, could a variation on the device that is replicating them in the lab be the cause of the effect in the field.

There are a lot of ways to go with this and until people open their minds to the possiblity that these are not spirits from beyond the grave, we will continue to try to find evidence that fits the hypothesis as opposed to a hypothesis that fits the evidence.

One thing that science has shown us so far, is that the things that were once seen as mystical, usually have a scientific explaination. And are much less mystical than we once thought. I have used the example of the norhtern lights, lightning and thunder once had mystical beginnings, stars used to be angels and the sun used to be a god. Science may not be perfect but it has been one of the better reasoning tools that humans have come across. It has the ability to change and to be wrong but the ultimate goal is the truth.

reply to post by Sonya610


Hi fair play good points thanks for replying. Tho I wasnt concerned with whether he thought ghosts are ridiculous or not, I never thought that. I felt basically the same as you, minus the lots of emotion and tone interperating part. The rest of my post was just me thinking aloud about ghosts.

Anyway no biggy.

As for the atheist view part.. true mainly ..but now Im thinking of religion and our definitions of god. I shall find another thread and leave holy ghosts out of this one.

I think at this point it's just going to keep running in circles. The OP had some good points. But it has basically turned into a goose chase. Here's the low down. No one can say for sure whether ghosts exist or not. Dave420 wants to test it scientifically but surely if such things exist they cannot be tested with a constant. How can we if we don't even know how such things work? This is really beyond us. You can argue all you want with whether or not they exist but all the reports and new findings through quantum physics must rationally leave the possibility open.

Yes, this thread could go on for thousands of pages and neither side would be persuaded. The skeptics want concrete, scientific proof. The believers eschew this as unnecessary, relying instead on personal experience.

I don't fault others for their beliefs, but I also won't stand for the denial of scientific fact in favor of mystical thinking. You can believe in ghosts all you'd like, and I see no harm in it; however, do NOT try to encroach on the domain of science by claiming that their is physical evidence for the existence of ghosts. This is patently untrue, and I as well as the other skeptics in this forum will hold your feet to the fire for it.

One thing about the believers does bother me, though. You use cell phones, radios, televisions, antibiotics, cars, pacemakers, computers, and many other products of science in your daily lives. Yet you reject the scientific method in this particular case. How do you resolve that in your mind? That might be its own thread, actually...

Originally posted by Wetware
One thing about the believers does bother me, though. You use cell phones, radios, televisions, antibiotics, cars, pacemakers, computers, and many other products of science in your daily lives. Yet you reject the scientific method in this particular case. How do you resolve that in your mind? That might be its own thread, actually...

I'm not too sure why it would bother you - unless there is some perception that its a package deal, take one take it all.

Indeed it may seem hypocritical to have a bit of a 'piecemeal approach to what you do and don't accept as relevant. The issue as I see it is one of individuality - I suspect many of us on some level take a bit of a 'pick and choose' approach to whatever we hold as *true* for us (and I'm putting that word *true* in little stars because *truth* as I believe that truth can be rather subjective as well)

How do I personally resolve a 'pick and choose' type approach...simple...its what *feels* right for me.

I don't particularily like the pickles on my Big Mac either - so I tend to pick them out and enjoy the rest. Is that logical? Rational? Probably not but its honest.

So - if a 'believer' finds peace in their minds via their own processes then perhaps the question is not how they resolve it - rather its how others do...



Peace.

Can mods get a star ?That was an awesome post Mod.

Originally posted by Soulstone
Not realize they are dead? What the hell kind of argument is that. Of course you know when your dead.

I believe with this statement, the OP has contradicted his original claim.

I mean, if you "know" you are dead wouldn't you be a "ghost"?

regards....kk

Some things I have experienced with various other people, which increases my belief these things.

As a pre-teen I had a beloved cat who died, a couple months later I rolled over during the night and saw an apparition of it, I tried to convince myself nothing was there so I waved my hand out towards it, it seemed to back up, I felt nothing. I rolled back over, then literally a few seconds later my mom announced from the next room that "the ghost kitty is back". She felt it jump up on her bed and heard it purr. I freaked out and begged for her to turn the lights on.

One night I was walking in the park with a boyfriend and I saw a man wearing a blue t-shirt on a bicycle ride nearby, then I glanced away for the tiniest moment and when I looked back, he was gone. The road was empty, he was not ahead, and not behind. He was gone. I asked my boyfriend if he'd seen the man in the blue t-shirt on the bike and he said yes. Naturally we were freaked out and left the park immediately.

Once I went to my mom's for a visit, in the basement (where I'd often felt something was there, though I could not see it) I heard something whisper the beginning of a word in my mouth as I was reaching to turn off the light. It said "wha-" just like that. I got scared and ran upstairs to ask my mom if she'd ever heard anything like that. She got tears in her eyes as she nodded yes, and then proceeded to tell me that she heard it two times recently. Those tears are what happen when you experience something you're afraid of and don't understand. When you want to tell yourself it's not real, but then someone comes and confirms it did indeed happen.

Currently, the same presence is still felt down there at times. I've felt it in various places around the house. And so have other people. My mom doesn't like to talk about this stuff, but her partner henry has also felt it in the basement. Just as I felt it, and two of my boyfriends had felt it. My partner chris felt it and it set off his fight/flight response, he jumped into strange pose, looking around him wildly and his hands ready to attack. Obviously something is going on.

Also one thing I remember when I was about 11 or 12. I slept over at my grandma's house and in this one room, I looked at the closet at night and this strange scene played out. There was this tiny dog yapping in the top shelf, and a young woman/teen standing there with her hands reaching up and talking. I told my mom about it and she got really confused, because she had experienced the same thing happen when she was younger, only she recognized the teenager as her older sister Norma (still living by the way). That's a strange thing indeed, the same scene replayed out many years apart. I think it was an imprint on the house.

Another similar thing, a friend of mine and her husband were watching TV at night when they saw their toddler boy run in front of them, naked and wearing only a diaper. Then moments later their toddler boy well and truly walked out of the bedroom, but wearing his jammies. How strange is that? Not all apparitions are dead people yet I know that some are. It must have been another imprint, or perhaps he was out of body? Who knows.

I have had many more experiences but for the sake of ruling out that I am delusional, I have chosen only to share those that have been experienced by more than one person. This is a strange world we live in and it's important to realize that just because you personally may not experience certain things (or even that there is no record of many more of these things out there) does not mean it hasn't happened. how many people call up the evening news every time they experience something strange? Not many. Most write it off or only tell their friends. Just because you don't see more stories doesn't mean there arent many more. I've seen plenty of animals too, shadows, ghosts, who knows what... they're around, especially cats.

Skipping the 14 pages and going back to the OP why aren't thousands of ghosts in NYC around Ground Zero???


easy answer.. there were hundreds if not thousands of prayers said on behalf of all those perished there. There were hundreds if not thousand of symbolic prayers and rituals for the dead at the site. The majority of those who died there passed on to where ever it is that souls go in the few months following the disaster.

Life and people is usually what forces many spirits to move on. Life and people inhabit there places, takeover their roles, they are forced to realize their deaths and move on. However in certain places, somehow spirits are able to take refuge or life and people never encroached on their space and they were able to maintain some sort of "existence".

that's my easy way of explaining it. And yes I believe in spirits and ghosts.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


Great recount of some interesting stories there.
I had a couple of odd things happen yesterday that perhaps someone can help me with. I did post this elsewhere ( in the wrong section ) So apologies if you've already read this.

I drive a duel fuel vehicle. It runs on petrol and gas. ( 2 different fuels here in Australia ) It has a switch to go from one to the other. The middle position of this toggle switch cuts all fuel to the motor. Yesterday while driving on a freeway I actually saw the switch move from gas to the middle position just a moment before my engine died. It is not a faulty switch or anything like that and I see no way for it to change itself. I pulled over, switched it back to gas and was able to continue my journey without further incident.
Then later, after I got home, I was sitting in my lounge room. It felt like something took hold of my finger and pulled on it sharply. When I looked down at my hand, my ring finger was dislocated at the knuckle. Me being me, I just pulled it and popped it back in.

I'd appreciate anyones view on what can cause this other than a spirit trying to make sure it gets noticed, however painfully that may be! No I did not subconsciously turn my own fuel off... I did see the switch move however. No I did not dislocate my own finger, but believe me... I sure felt it.
Ok everyone... opions welcomed as I have no real idea as to what happened.

So....people that investigate paranormal claims trying to debunk the claims with a lot of equipment and are only willing to say there is a possibility of paranormal activity when they can't prove it isn't are not doing anything to prove or disprove the existence of something?

Some of these paranormal investigators are doing things like this but I'm sure there is a plethora of reasons is this is also lacking in validity.

I work at yellowstone lake lodge and have seen and heard ghosts playing poker almost at least bi-weekly. why a couple of spirits whould be stuck playing poker eternily, I have no idea, but that is what they do.

Originally posted by worldwatcher


Life and people is usually what forces many spirits to move on. Life and people inhabit there places, takeover their roles, they are forced to realize their deaths and move on. However in certain places, somehow spirits are able to take refuge or life and people never encroached on their space and they were able to maintain some sort of "existence".

that's my easy way of explaining it. And yes I believe in spirits and ghosts.

I respect your opinion but how do you know any of this is true? Are you dead?

Originally posted by dave420


I just require proof. That is rational. Believing without proof is irrational. I am willing to accept anything. I just need proof before I believe.

Okay Mr Dave, here is your chance to prove to everyone you yourself are not being irrational. This is as good as evidence comes when it comes to ghosts.

Incase I'm not setting this up right and it's not looking so hot from looking at preview post even though according to information here on how to post videos, I am doing it right... www.youtube.com...

Now, is the camera here just being irrational? Or flawed? Again, this is as good as evidence gets. If you accept this for what it is, then good for you. If you flat out dismiss this evidence, I strongly question your willingness to believe. I don't believe this evidence is the end all be all of evidence that will convince a person hook line and sinker. I do believe it packs enough punch to make the most hardcore skeptic think twice and perhaps thrice about the paranormal. You can call whatever you see with your eyes when you watch it whatever you want. Call it the jolly green giant for all I care, whatever helps you sleep better at night. But my definition of a ghost is what you will see in this video.

According to your logic, what you will see cannot be possible, because ghosts do not exist. It is just our apparent flawed bodies playing tricks on us, even through a video camera. I ask if not a ghost, what is it? "I don't know" aka escape goat answers are not acceptable mind you, especially if you absolutely refuse to consider it to be something you don't believe in. It would be a very irrational answer in regard to this video. It'd be every bit as irrational as say people who believe there is no god yet they "just don't know" how the universe created itself, which it obviously did because "there is no god", which completely contradicts the very science that idea is based on because essentially people are believing that the universe created itself out of nothing, and all by itself. That is illogical. That isn't science. That's faith.

Yeah, 'irrational-isms' work both ways.

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by Soulstone

 

Because people want ghosts to be real, because it adds a sense of mystery to the world, and possibly because it gives them hope in life after death. No-one who believes in ghosts does so rationally, because there is as much evidence for ghosts as there is for Santa Claus - yet we scoff at adults who believe in Santa.

Just wait - people will chime in with half-assed hypotheses based on absolutely nothing to explain away this awfully damning logical analysis, to allow themselves to continue to believe in something as unfounded as the Tooth Fairy.

If you want to consider the possibility seriously, wait for actual evidence conducted in a controlled environment. Photos, no matter how awesomely realistic they look, do not constitute evidence. They are enough to pique one's interest, and even the interest of actual scientists, but they are not actual evidence. We demand evidence of the effectiveness of drugs before we use them, but some folks simply accept ghosts to exist, without so much as a hair of evidence.

Good work Soulstone!

And you don't want ghosts to be real, because it will "prove" that people have souls which might in itself prove that a creator exists. I think you might have seen ghosts but because it goes against your beliefs you have convinced yourself it was a trick of the light or you were tired, drunk or whatever. It could also be that ghosts have not shown themselves to you for whatever reason.

I have seen ghosts and so have many close friends of mine. Strangely enough we all happen to believe in a creator in one way or another. Most of them are Christians while I am not.

As for the OP, just because there weren't reports of mass ghost appearances after 9/11 and other disasters does not mean there weren't any ghosts. See my reason above.

reply to post by Lannock


Oooh! Can anyone have a go at this "put words in people's mouths" game? It looks FUN!

I'm open to evidence. If there is evidence for ghosts, I'll be its biggest proponent. If there is evidence for God, I'll be his biggest proponent. I don't believe in ghosts because there is no evidence for them. Just like I don't believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or anything else completely unsubstantiated.

Don't think I'm closed-minded because I don't believe what you do. I am 100% open-minded. I just need evidence before I'll believe in anything, as I am not gullible. And I won't trust my own senses, as I know how faillible they are. I'm not that arrogant to think my eyes and brain are perfect.

But nice try.

reply to post by Lannock


Again, this is not a question of whether or not people see/hear/feel weird things that they cannot explain. It is a question of whether or not what they are seeing is a ghost. People make the assumption that when something weird happens, that it is the spirit of a dead human/animal. What leads anyone to think this? I don’t think that people who see things are lying but they are making some fantastic jumps to assume that what they have seen is the soul of a dead human/animal.

Why are these 'orbs' considered to be ghosts? They don’t look like people, or animals. They give no indication that they are spirits from beyond the grave. Maybe its some quantum energy we are unaware of, maybe its dust, maybe there is some other explanation. Why is an unexplained noise, considered a ghost?

I cannot explain what people see/hear/feel that is unexplained but to make the assumption that it is a 'ghost', puts concrete limits on trying to understand what something may or may not be.

The human brain is great at filling in the blanks. You see a weird light or haze or smokey apparition and the brain tries to comprehend what it is, so we add human or other characteristics to something that just may be an unexplained phenomenon, it could be a spirit, but there is no evidence to say that it is, spirit is just one hypothesis.

There is example after example of people seeing faces in everything, because our brains are programmed to pick these things out. We see faces and human form in nature all the time (bark of a tree, clouds, even a water stain that looks like jesus). It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a cloud that looks like a person, but if we don’t look at the cloud and notice that it looks like a person, then it’s just a cloud. Nothing mystical. We don’t know what 'orbs' are, but we make the assumption they are ghosts. We don’t make this same assumption when we see a cloud that looks like a face or a human form because we do know what clouds are. In ancient times, many natural phenomenons were given human or other characteristics in an attempt to explain them.

I don’t want to offend anyone who has seen something unexplained, I believe you that you have seen something strange. I will not argue that, but I will argue what evidence you have to prove that it is definitely a ghost.

How can we be sure it’s not just a quantum phenomenon that our brains have misinterpreted? How do we know it’s not an alien playing a trick on us? How do we know it’s not a glimpse of another dimension? How do we know its not magnetic interference, disrupting normal brain function? How do we know it’s not a govt device? I have just provided 5 hypotheses for what some of these strange phenomenons could be and I have no more evidence than someone calling it a ghost.

Would you question me if I said with certainty that it WAS definitely an alien playing a trick on us? You should. Because I do not currently have enough evidence to be certain that it is an alien playing trick. The issue here is people claiming with absolute certainty that what they are seeing is a ghost; there is no evidence to say that it is a ghost. Many act as though they have a more open mind and some mystical connection that makes them special and privy to all the secrets of the universe. It’s ok to not know what something is. Taking a scientific approach in order to figure out what they may be is the best option we have. If we want to explain these phenomenon without using the methods in science that have helped explain all other phenomenon in this world, we will forever be making up stories and conjecture, never getting any closer to the actual truth of the matter. Its as though people who believe that these phenomenon are ghosts are afraid that science will prove them wrong and it may, but it might also prove them right, so we have to be open minded and test things in a scientific way.

People are free to believe what they want to believe, but belief does NOT get us closer to the truth.

[edit on 1-9-2008 by iamcamouflage]

[edit on 1-9-2008 by iamcamouflage]

Originally posted by botiemaster
Again, this is as good as evidence gets. If you accept this for what it is, then good for you.

Uhhh...aren't there several threads about this show being proven a hoax?

And of course anything on film can be faked. That is why I judge info based on the source.

Originally posted by dave420
And I won't trust my own senses, as I know how faillible they are. I'm not that arrogant to think my eyes and brain are perfect.

If you don't trust what you yourself may see or hear or feel, why on earth would you trust any evidence that someone else provides? That makes no sense to me.

[edit on 1-9-2008 by Sonya610]

reply to post by Sonya610


Exactly - one shouldn't trust what other people see and feel any more than they trust their own senses, which is precisely what all this ghost 'evidence' we hear on this thread is - first hand accounts based solely upon flawed sensory perception.

Real evidence, the type the scientific method delivers, isn't provided by what people see and feel, but by instruments, and provided by performing an experiment multiple times, to ensure the evidence gathered is consistent across multiple experiments. Scientists don't sit in the lab and say "yup - that looks hotter", or "yup - that looks bigger", they use instruments - in those cases, thermometers and measures.

So I agree entirely - accepting flawed readings from possibly-flawed senses is completely 100% irrational. Accepting readings from consistently accurate instruments is 100% rational. And that's what I'm calling for.