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Ghosts; Do YOU beleive? :p
Topic Started: 13th June 2007 - 07:34 PM (916 Views)
scrivener
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DjtHeutii
Jun 14 2007, 12:41 AM
scrivener
Jun 13 2007, 07:29 PM
The inability to prove something does not mean it doesn't exist.



It does not mean that it does either, though.

Of course, otherwise, my inability to prove that pigs can sprout wings and fly would mean that they can actually sprout wings and fly. :P That's why i said:
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Keeping an open mind is also not being locked onto an opinion as a fact until we have evidence that can prove it.
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Skaskrit Venomclaw
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scrivener
Jun 14 2007, 02:29 AM
The inability to prove something does not mean it doesn't exist. Science was once unable to comprehend that we are made of atoms, but they were still around. Likewise there may be something to ghosts and souls that our level of science is not advanced enough to comprehend.

That's only true if there's no way to measure or test something. There's this supposition. The supposition goes we're more than just our physically detectable body and mind and that despite all appearances a human does not die after he dies.

There's zero evidence for this phenomenon, other than people claiming to see weird stuff. People see plenty of stuff that isn't there and when these claims are tested nothing shows up.

There's zero technical explanation for this phenomenon, no reason to assume it should exist. We know pretty well how the human body works. There's plenty we don't know, but on the whole we have at least a good idea. We can account or at least make an educated guess for anything and everything that happens in a human body. So we can look in the body for something that is this soul or ghost. It isn't there. There's no way it can be there, the way we currently understand things. Our system makes a hell of a lot more sense if there's no such thing as spirits and souls.

The atom comparison doesn't count. In that case, there was a question that science could not answer. "What does matter consist of at its lowest level?" Back then, the theory that matter was made of atoms wasn't something to be dismissed. After all, we didn't know what matter was made up from and the atom explanation was as likely as any. That doesn't mean one should have believed it either. It was just untestable.

With the ghost thing, there is no problem in the first place. The question is "what happens after death" and we know a perfectly logical and satisfactor answer. Nor do the supposed ghost sightings warrant an explanation in that angle. There's any number of different explanations that make more sense. Then there's no evidence to support the thesis, nothing to show humans don't just cease to be when they die. Then the thesis, if accepted, would mean all kinds of things we HAVE tested and proved pretty likely to be true are in fact completely wrong.

So given all that, the existence of ghosts is not unknowable. It's just an idle supposition that should be given no credibility.
"I have a post-Armageddon vision. We and all other large animals are gone. Rodents emerge as the ultimate post-human scavengers. They gnaw their way through New York, London and Tokyo... within 5 million years, a whole range of new species replace the ones we know. Herds of giant grazing rats are stalked by sabre-toothed predatory rats. Given enough time, will a species of intelligent, cultivated rats emerge?"

Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale
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SneakyRodent
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It's converstaions like this which always lead me to thinking about death, which in turn gets very depressing (especially at around 2am in the morning, which for some reason is when I think about it the most.)

I'm of the opinion that the human psyche is not very good at accepting that death really is the end. You exist for one moment, then you're gone.

To compensate for this, we grab at the chance to believe that there must be something after we die - reincarnation, heaven,hell, the afterlife, another plane of existence......whatever. This gives us consolation and comfort when we consider our own mortality, and that of our loved ones.

My problem with ghosts is that if they truly existed we would have concrete proof by now. I don't mean the odd ambiguous photo or fuzziness on a film either. The world we live in has so many different ways of recording things; not just the visual, but radiation, changes in air pressure etc etc that if ghosts truly existed there would be concrete evidence to support their presence.

I will continue to keep an open mind on paranormal phenomena, but cannot at present believe in the supernatural until it smacks me across the face with ectoplasm.
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scrivener
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So given all that, the existence of ghosts is not unknowable. It's just an idle supposition that should be given no credibility.


IMO, what you've laid out is only a motivation to research into a given question. That only explains why some things are discovered and some things aren't: one may not have felt it necessary to ask "is there life on Mars?" any more than one would feel compelled to ask "Is there life after death?"

The question of souls is more than ghost sightings. Scientists have still not quite been able to find the element of the mind in the brain. What is the neurological/chemical component that regenerates concepts of God, religion, fantasy, imagination, morality, art, philosophy, and all other elements of humanity that has little function in terms of nature, and in some cases are counter-evolutionary? We understand the advanced cognitive functions, we understand the relation of certain parts of the brain with higher "human" functions, but we still don't know what it is that makes that ticking noise. We can crack open a cpu's hardware but we won't find the bit that makes excel spreadsheets do sums. And since we still don't know what it is in that electrified lump of fat that makes it want to sing speed-metal music while wearing a gimp mask or daydream about humanoid rats fighting dragons, maybe by approaching that question in terms of software, of souls, our system might make a lot more sense.
hannanibal
 
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"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
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Skaskrit Venomclaw
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IMO, what you've laid out is only a motivation to research into a given question. That only explains why some things are discovered and some things aren't: one may not have felt it necessary to ask "is there life on Mars?" any more than one would feel compelled to ask "Is there life after death?"

Yes, that's an interesting question. Answer's no. We've found nothing in the human body that can live on after death. If someone has a new method to continue the search, great! But the current model of a purely material body and mind makes sense to me, so I'll hold to that one unless someone finds new evidence.


Quote:
 
The question of souls is more than ghost sightings. Scientists have still not quite been able to find the element of the mind in the brain.


I would say that whilst a hell of a lot is still unknown about the brain, the things we HAVE found make it extremely likely the rest of it is to be found in the same place. We know how many character traits and human abilities are determined by certain parts of the brain... it sounds logical other, similar questions will have a similar answer rather than a completely contradictory one. (such as souls.)


Quote:
 
What is the neurological/chemical component that regenerates concepts of God, religion, fantasy, imagination, morality, art, philosophy, and all other elements of humanity that has little function in terms of nature, and in some cases are counter-evolutionary?


We don't understand the brain yet, not exactly. But we can see heriditary trends at work here. We can see the evolutionary value of many. We have found the genes that regulate some. We know genes that make people more inclined towards relgion. We know sectors of the brain that if cut away will change a person's morality!

I also dispute the counter-evolutionary part. Humans have no traits that aren't explicable as either an evolutionary advantage, or a side-effect of another evolutionary advantage, or irrellevant to evolution. (for example, diseases that only occur at old age after the human can't procreate anymore.)

Quote:
 
We understand the advanced cognitive functions, we understand the relation of certain parts of the brain with higher "human" functions, but we still don't know what it is that makes that ticking noise.


We still don't know exactly how it works, but if it changes fundamentally when we hit someone on the head or make a few precise cuts, it's fairly safe to say it's all caused by that blob of nerve endings and veins we call a brain. Supposing a transcendant soul in there... it contradicts the evidence.

We'll get there, in the end. To me, it's one of the most exiting things of our times. By the time we're in our sixties and seventies, much of this mystery may well be solved. We may well know exactly how the brain functions. (at least those of us who aren't old yet will see it. :P)

Quote:
 
We can crack open a cpu's hardware but we won't find the bit that makes excel spreadsheets do sums. And since we still don't know what it is in that electrified lump of fat that makes it want to sing speed-metal music while wearing a gimp mask or daydream about humanoid rats fighting dragons, maybe by approaching that question in terms of software, of souls, our system might make a lot more sense.


No. That is not a sensible assumption. Just because the answer to a question is "we don't know. (yet)" doesn't mean it suddenly makes sense to just assume something completely different and contradictory. The existence of a soul should be subject to the same criteria as the research in the functions of the brain. That is to say, it should be tested, and we should look for things that could only be explained by the existence of a soul.

There have been tests to some claims. (out of body experiences, near death experiences, etc.) They were negative. Despite unsubstantiated anecdotical claims, there's nothing to show there's anything to the human mind outside of the body. And the contrary thesis, materialism, explains the facts far more neatly.
"I have a post-Armageddon vision. We and all other large animals are gone. Rodents emerge as the ultimate post-human scavengers. They gnaw their way through New York, London and Tokyo... within 5 million years, a whole range of new species replace the ones we know. Herds of giant grazing rats are stalked by sabre-toothed predatory rats. Given enough time, will a species of intelligent, cultivated rats emerge?"

Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale
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Mebob
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There's no way it can be there, the way we currently understand things. Our system makes a hell of a lot more sense if there's no such thing as spirits and souls.

And so many cxenturies or so ago, wasnt it beleived that the Earth couldnt be orbiting the sun? As with everything, our views, evidence and theories change constantly.

There have been many odd happening which cannnot be explained, many people dismiss them, or jump to conclusions, for example, several eyars ago my freind was certain their was a ghost in his house, knowing i was facinated by the topic he told me, everything he told me i could think of an explanationf or it, for example, the door closed/opened without anyone doing it, the windows were closed, his exaplnation:ghosts
My explanation:there must of been a draft in his house

Now, people wh jump to conclusions like this discredit the whole idealogy with their make believe stories/conclusions

Also, people are saying "there is no evidence to prove them" is there any evidence that disprooves them?

Although i mentioned an easily explanable thing above, i myself, and my family ahve witnessed events, which we ahve not been able to explain.

For example, one morning, my mum woke up,, told us about the strangest dream she ahd, it was my grandad telling her he's going now, that he wants my mum to look after nan, and basically said goodbye, now as my mum was telling us this, we recieved a phonecall, grandad was dead.

Also, i have lived in my house for most my life (14 years) and since then, me, my sister and my mum (everyone but my dad) have claimed to see things like someone walking past, reflections in computer screens, someone lean over our shoulder, heard people calling us when noone has, its alot creepier, when you think you see seomthing in the corner of your eye, but you look and theres nothing there, but my dog (scamper) is starring in that direction and doesnt m ove for a while jsut staring there.

Now as said before by someone (cant remeber who) that we are jsut made from lots of chemical reactiosn etc now what if that creates an imprint on our surruondings or something? Or say your watching tv/listening to the radio and you get static, interference with the signal, what if ghosts are jsut like static?
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Underlord Burrows
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I do not believe in them and well we do not even know if it is actually dead people for a start. It could be such a lot of things. Just some kind of latent energy perhaps given a form by human mind but then thats going into the kind of ideas Terry Pratchett suggested sometimes about mental blind spots and being able to not make yourself seen out sheer force of will except in reverse.

Well anyways unless I personally have an experience where some of the clutter I have in my room starts floating about and throwing itself at my face I am not inclined to believe.


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Skaven Lord Vinshqueek
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I believe in the power of the sandwich... Nja-ha! ^_^

No, in all honesty, it's a bit hard to determine wether ghosts are real or not. I mean, how would you truely define 'a ghost'. Would it be a temporal manifestation of someone who's dead for a long while now, or simply some weird form of ectoplasma (yeah, been watching too much ghost busters when I was young) that comes haunting you for your soul.

Personally, I'd have trouble believing something exists when I can't witness/ experience it. Nothing bad meant towards mebob in any way, but if I haven't had the pleasure of having a ghost hovering near me, then it's hard for me to believe that they really exist... Off course, I don't have any proof that they don't and I most certainly believe that the soul of a person doesn't just 'die' in the same way as your body does, but actually having a ghost around. No, I can't really have a rational explanation of how that could be happening.

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scrivener
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Skaskrit Venomclaw
Jun 14 2007, 09:50 AM
No. That is not a sensible assumption. Just because the answer to a question is "we don't know. (yet)" doesn't mean it suddenly makes sense to just assume something completely different and contradictory. The existence of a soul should be subject to the same criteria as the research in the functions of the brain. That is to say, it should be tested, and we should look for things that could only be explained by the existence of a soul.

There have been tests to some claims. (out of body experiences, near death experiences, etc.) They were negative. Despite unsubstantiated anecdotical claims, there's nothing to show there's anything to the human mind outside of the body. And the contrary thesis, materialism, explains the facts far more neatly.

Those ideas are still within the bounds of our current levels of research, based on current ways of thinking. It's only looking at the advances within this one sphere of thought 50 or so years into the future. I'm thinking more of 100, 200 years into the future, where, following the same rate of progress and paradigm shifts we've made in our understanding of things, we might be looking at the concept of the mind in a completely different way. After all, it was only relatively recently that we began viewing psychology, mental health, and genetics with our current angle. We just can't atm comprehend a possible better angle we might take in the future, because if we could we would be using it already.

The problem with the idea of souls is that we're still very much following the current idea of the incorporeal spirit that wears the body like a skin, or an intangible counterpart to the body. That idea is probably thousands of years old, so naturally it doesn't fit into the current paradigm, any more than the idea that organs held our emotions.

IMO being able to trace certain elements to certain effects can identify causes, but that's merely observing symptoms, in a way. It's like, materialism explains that when a person greets another, they wave hands, but it doesn't explain why they're waving their hands. Yes, they are doing it to greet each other, but why are they waving their hands? It tells us that there is a gene that creates an inclination to religion, but with its current system it doesn't, or cannot, explain why there's a gene to make one inclined to something that we invented for no natural purpose, and which at times makes us do things like practise celibacy, not eat meat, fast, endure privation, and expose ourselves to matyrdom, all of which do run counter to the factors that are supposed to encourage evolution and survival of the species.
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*Angry mob assembles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
"QUITE SOON PLEASE AS MY LAST POT IS RUNNING OUT!"
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scrivener
Jun 15 2007, 02:58 AM
It tells us that there is a gene that creates an inclination to religion, but with its current system it doesn't, or cannot, explain why there's a gene to make one inclined to something that we invented for no natural purpose, and which at times makes us do things like practise celibacy, not eat meat, fast, endure privation, and expose ourselves to matyrdom, all of which do run counter to the factors that are supposed to encourage evolution and survival of the species.

Sounds like natural selection to me - remove them from the gene pool ;)
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Jun 13 2007, 10:44 PM
Sometimes its very hard to go to sleep.

yeah i wonder why :unsure:
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no need to worry for soul, instead starts worshipping STS and slaughtering unbelievers in his holy name.
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symbiont
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Warwolt the disturbed assassin
Jun 13 2007, 03:22 PM
I really don't think theres ghosts nor afterlife. Afterlife is just an idea Man have come up with because they can't accept you might just well... Die.

I completely agree.
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shade the exiled one
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*wishes he hadn't put in such a hardline stance about ghosts*

Actually this interesting story occurred to me (it's true)

My uncle is a carpenter and about 9 years he was renovating this house, now a person ahd died in the house and the body was not discovered for a long time. NOw my uncle's dog Zoe ( a very levelheaded and smart dog) was terrified of hte house and would NEVER go into the house she wouldn't even go on the doorstep
the question is why

And anyway i always imagined ghosts as (if they exist) as a remnant of someone who we are not ready to let leave this world,. Like when my cousin Lauren died at age 10 of a tumour and we scattered her ashes, I feel drawn to that place. I hike out there at night. I sill feel that place has a power of us even after all these years.
When I showed the place to my girlfriend she said felt like something was still there, like a sort of emotion hung over it... The scary part is I hadn't told her about the area's significance unit after she said that


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scrivener
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It's an interesting story there, and does link back to the theory I posted earlier of the energy from emotions leaking into an environment. It's like how some places which are scenes of tragedies have bad vibes. There's a place, a cliff, which my sis once went to, and she noted how it had this oppressive atmosphere to it, like a cloud of depression that pressed on her while she was there. This was before she noticed the row of wreaths and crosses along one side of the fence, marking the place where suicide victinms had jumped off. Maybe it's not ghosts of the white shroud variety, just some sort of imprint a person can leave on a place as they're dying.

There's another anecdote told to me by an old nurse, and verified independently by my other sis, who's a doctor. When they're at a patient's deathbed, just before the patient flatlines (still breathing at this point, but about to stop), they will always feel a sensation of a presence just behind them and slightly above. You know that feeling you get when you know that someone's looking at you across the room, or that there is someone standing behind you? The sensation will linger for a few seconds, then dissipates once the patient flatlines. Maybe the thing that animates us is not so much as a conventional soul, but something like an electrical charge that carries data of the person's sentience like the stuff that travels telephone lines or brings info via the internet to your pc, and which dissipates once the body shuts down, but can sometimes leak out of the body into the environment in certain situations, like in a violent death. On a different issue, the study of epigenetics is that genetic code can carry information to one's descendants based on life experiences. The theory revises the conventional understanding of genes, in that now the implications is that genes might be able to process information from one's life using a system that's not fully explored as yet, and "learn" from these life experiences by carrying on useful information to future generations. This is an idea that gives genetic code almost an awareness, and it might be possible that the old view of the human body as a complex machine encased in itself might be soon outdated.
hannanibal
 
*Angry mob assembles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
"QUITE SOON PLEASE AS MY LAST POT IS RUNNING OUT!"
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Mallekha the Overwhelmer
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interesting topic!

i don't REALLY believe in ghosts, but i can't help it but i do think there must be something else besides this material world...i don't know why and it completely opposes my logical mind, but its just a feeling. You can get far with your head, but ive learned that your feelings tell you an aweful lot too.

I have an anecdote myself. My grandmother lives in the house of her deceased (second) husband (so not my grandfather). The brother of that guy commited suicide in that house by hanging himself in the attic.
I swear to you that up until last year i dreaded and dind't dare going up into that attic. The stairs are dodgy and could break any minute, the lights are bad, just a really creepy place. last year i went up there with some cousins, because we were curious to see what actually was there in that attic. We went in a room, hit the lights, and it went on for a while, and then suddenly it went out again. Scariest moment EVER in my life... we switched it back on, and it was normal again. When we were upstairs, we all couldn't help but feel a strange presence up there, like someone was watching us and didn't want us there.

I ain't going up there ever again, really :P
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