Do you believe in Ghosts?

[ewaldrep]

no ghosts, just fallable human brains that have evolved to detect and respond to patterns even if there is nothing actually there. Think of a rustle in the bush, better to think it is a tiger and respond accordingly and be wrong (type 1 error) than it is to think it is nothing and not respond and get eaten by a tiger (type 2 error). Thank evolution and your liimbic system! But have as much fun with scaring yourself as you want. Cheers

[rlditmars]

I think it is interesting that there are people here that need everything to be simple and neat so they can sleep comfortably at night. They probable don't use the words astonishing, amazing , or unbelievable very often. To me that seems boring, but that is me.

The word Ghost is nothing more than a label that has been given to describe things such as apparitions, materializations, unexplained phenomenon. What a ghost is, is really wide open for debate. But to say that the experience is always internal is a stretch. To dismiss any experience as a limbiic response is perhaps oversimplifying the matter.

The same can be said of UFO's. A UFO is an unidentified flying object. What the object is, is a matter of debate. And if it is identified, then it is no longer a UFO. In fact if it where to be truely identified as a space craft from anothe race in another part of the galaxy far far away, it would still no longer be a UFO. But a flying object that cannot be indentified is a UFO and therefore UFO's do exist.

I saw something the other day. It was also seen by another person standing opposite of me. So our points of view, lighting and shadowing, perspectives, where all in stark contrast to one another. Dare I say they were 180 degrees or polar opposites. And yet our experience was common. Liimbic system trickery? Mmmm I'm thinking not so much. Ghost? It depends on what you believe the term to describe.

I wasn't scared either way and I am not so sure how much fun it was. It was however, astonishing and thought provoking.

[ewaldrep]

Not what exactly what I said but that's okay. UFOs are actaully a good example. There are UFOs and once they become identified they are not longer UFOs. What doesn't hold though is to say that because it is a UFO means that it was aliens from another planet that traveled for eons to probe someone and leave no evidence. Same thing applies to things that happend that we cannot explain, such as the house mentioned above built in 1901. There could be many explanations for the events but just because we don't know exactly what happened does not mean that it is a ghost/appirition/materialization (from what is completely separate) or whatever suits ones fancy. You have to ask yourself, what is more likely, that my demonstrably fallible brain made a mistake or the laws of physics have been suspended for this event to occur? I recommend reading Carl Sagan's Science as a Candle in the Dark.

What I did say is that it is possible that benign external stimuli has the potential to be interpreted by our brain that is very good at imposing patterns even when there is not pattern there. That point is not controversial, open any general psychology book and you can have lots of examples that anybody can replicate and draw conclusions from.

I would just like to encourage healthy skepticism.

- - - Updated - - -

Not what exactly what I said but that's okay. UFOs are actaully a good example. There are UFOs and once they become identified they are not longer UFOs. What doesn't hold though is to say that because it is a UFO means that it was aliens from another planet that traveled for eons to probe someone and leave no evidence. Same thing applies to things that happend that we cannot explain, such as the house mentioned above built in 1901. There could be many explanations for the events but just because we don't know exactly what happened does not mean that it is a ghost/appirition/materialization (from what is completely separate) or whatever suits ones fancy. You have to ask yourself, what is more likely, that my demonstrably fallible brain made a mistake or the laws of physics have been suspended for this event to occur? I recommend reading Carl Sagan's Science as a Candle in the Dark.

What I did say is that it is possible that benign external stimuli has the potential to be interpreted by our brain that is very good at imposing patterns even when there is not pattern there. That point is not controversial, open any general psychology book and you can have lots of examples that anybody can replicate and draw conclusions from.

I would just like to encourage healthy skepticism.

[rlditmars]

Not what exactly what I said but that's okay. UFOs are actaully a good example. There are UFOs and once they become identified they are not longer UFOs. What doesn't hold though is to say that because it is a UFO means that it was aliens from another planet that traveled for eons to probe someone and leave no evidence. Same thing applies to things that happend that we cannot explain, such as the house mentioned above built in 1901. There could be many explanations for the events but just because we don't know exactly what happened does not mean that it is a ghost/appirition/materialization (from what is completely separate) or whatever suits ones fancy. You have to ask yourself, what is more likely, that my demonstrably fallible brain made a mistake or the laws of physics have been suspended for this event to occur? I recommend reading Carl Sagan's Science as a Candle in the Dark.

What I did say is that it is possible that benign external stimuli has the potential to be interpreted by our brain that is very good at imposing patterns even when there is not pattern there. That point is not controversial, open any general psychology book and you can have lots of examples that anybody can replicate and draw conclusions from.

I would just like to encourage healthy skepticism.

.

I'm all for healthy skepticism. But with skepticism there has to be the willingness to open the mind to the possibility that our interpretation of a situation is incorrect, otherwise we are not capable of change. I am very familiar with Sagan, keeping in mind that scientists by their very nature, need to be able to prove it, if it is to be real.

Don't even get me started on Psychology. It is the study of behavior that likely developed either by someone's need to understand their treatment from another person, or their own behaviors towards others, in order to justify them. Sometimes you find exactly what you're looking for and nothing else. These studies have been conducted by persons carrying the same fallible brain you describe in your previous posts. And while our existance has been around for a long while, psychology has only been around a short period time. Only time will tell if Freud was a genius or a madman. Remember the world was flat just a few hundred years ago, and we know now that that is incorrect. But even when someone sailed around the world we couldn't be certain it was round until we were able to view it from a distance, space. Then we had irrefutable evidence. Man cannot distance himself from mans psyche and therefore the interpretations are subject to the flaws of its own thinking and limitations. But for now, we believe Freud to be right.

I'll leave you with one more thing to ponder. What color is red? Do you believe Red to exist? When you spread red paint, are you pleased by how it looks or do you simply tell yourself that the paint isn't red at all, but just a substance reflecting the parts of the light spectrum that the human eye with it 's rods and cones, interprets as red, and that being only the color that others have described to be and labeled as red. How would you prove it to be red to someone who is color blind?

[3skulls]

It's strange if my brain made a mistake that my animals and a number of other people's brain made that same mistake.

I'm very much a non-believer in most things. I'm more of the I have to see it to believe it.

I have lived here for 15 years or so and have grown used to it all. When I'm sitting on the couch and my lights start going off and on, it's not my brain playing tricks or thinking of tigers.
Could it be the lights? Yes. After 15 years have i tried different plugs and test to see if its a short or something else going on? Yes.

When we are laying in bed trying to go to sleep and it sounds like a ball bouncing in the hall, is that a my mind? How about when my girlfriend hears it too? What about when I yell and tell it to stop and it does?

I have had things move if I put them in the same spot. One time I had this "prop" that I made. Lets just say it was hanging from a large hook. When I would come home, it would always be a few feet away on the floor. The hook would still be hanging. Think large meathook. With the tip pointing straight up. The weight of the object in the curve hanging straight down.

So how it would lift off and fall? I got smart and glued it to the hook. Around the entrance of the hook and the exit. The next day it was laying on the floor.

There are a million things out there that humans will never understand. Most of the time I blow it off until my dogs "see" it too. It's it "ghost" or a "sprit" I don't know and I don't really care what you label it. It's something there and to blow it off as its nothing is foolish.
It's an energy, well that's my label for it.

Hell 60-70 years before man landed on the moon, people never thought they could even fly.

[ewaldrep]

[Freud = modern psychology] = ignorance - its like saying that chemistry is hogwash because it was started by people wanting to turn lead into gold (alchemy).

So far, there is no evidence that has ever been produces in a reliable or systematic manner that supports ghosts or whatever you want to call them. Scientists do not need to prove things, that is a misconception, but there does have to be enough evidece to support a hypothesis which has been generated by an overarching scientific theory (in most cases at least).

As with many others with a skeptical outlook, I would be more than willing to change my mind if I was provided sufficient evidence to rule out alternative, plausible explanations for a given event. I consider that an open mind as opposed to a gullible mind.

Thanks for the discussion.

[Rob]

I can't believe this is a thread.

[Mike41793]

I can't believe this is a thread.

Rob, ghosts are cool and stuff but the real question is....

Dooooo youuuuu believe in life after love?
http://youtu.be/5Uu3kCEEc98

[Rob]

Rob, ghosts are cool and stuff but the real question is....

Dooooo youuuuu believe in life after love?
http://youtu.be/5Uu3kCEEc98

Obviously this is the better of the two questions. My answer, maybe.

[MasonC2K]

rob, ghosts are cool and stuff but the real question is....

Dooooo youuuuu believe in life after love?
http://youtu.be/5uu3kceec98

lol!