why we need ghosts

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by birch, Feb 27, 2016.

  1. birch Valued Senior Member

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    No its not because anyone considering context of 'unexplained' phenomena knows it cant be reported as hardcore news as we dont yet have the tools to prove. That still doesnt mean its all bs. That is just as much an assumption.

    This is why its told anecdotally or often kept to oneself as you or others would not have hardcore answers either for all cases.

    There are some experiences which cant be explained or easily dismissed. What it may imply is a window to speculate there may be more to what exists or is possible than we currently are aware of or have the ability to measure.
     
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    With all that knowledge (books and articles) of ghosts, has anyone ever put forth a mathematical model how and why it is possible for ghosts to exist? If there is ANY chance that a condition exists which allows for immaterial but sentient *entities*, it would seem strange that no serious science has been developed to investigate the possibility.

    If not, then be have just another unprovable *belief* system, just like the existence of angels and demons and an omnipotent God who *speaks* to certain people who are in the business of collecting money for Him because this omnipotent God apparently is unable to manage his financial cash flow.
    http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/scientific_investigation_vs._ghost_hunters
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2016
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all. As you yourself demonstrate, parapsychology has a reputation for being a pseudoscience that has no evidence to back it up. Scientists are well aware that any research or interest in this field would result in condemnation by their peers and public ridicule. Scientists are like well-trained dogs--they jump thru the hoops that best pay them well. But this doesn't mean there isn't a scientific approach going on to this phenomenon. At present there are around 3500 paranormal research societies in the U.S. alone that investigate hauntings on a regular basis for free: http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/ The equipment they use and methods involved establish abundant evidence for ghosts, whatever they might be. The fact that there is no mathematical model for it is as irrelevant as there being no mathematical model for consciousness or other phenomena of nature. Mysteries abound abundantly in the universe. We go by the evidence long before we have a theory to explain it.
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    What evidence that could lead to a serious investigation has ever been presented that can withstand scrutiny by Real scientists. Oh I forgot those real scientists are just dishonest players in the game of Science.

    If there are 3500 paranormal researchers busy at work with the most sophisticated equipment and still no evidence which will lend itself to propositions by "real* theoretical scientists, such as Joe Nickel, PhD.

    I'll take his sceptical viewpoint over every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a selfie showing a ghost in the background. But you are so ready to dismiss ( through the time tested use of ad hominem) my professional experience in photography, especially in B/W photography and development, in favor of a bunch of amateurs who have the same knowledge of physics than the people who invented gods and all the pomp and circumstance to prove a false notion.

    But if you need ghosts in your life, hey, I'll be the last to try and psycho-analyze your mind and emotional needs. Have at it all you want, perhaps there may be a Nobel prize in it.
    .
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2016
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I already posted photo evidence and directed you to websites with further evidence of ghosts. I told you about libraries that have books on it. I posted 3500 paranormal websites with accounts of paranormal phenomena. Its up to you to examine it for yourself. I couldn't care less if you do so or not. Sounds like you've already made up your mind anyway without looking at any of the evidence. How scientific of you.
     
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  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    No, I have no agenda whatever, other than learning what we do know and can prove its existence. I just don't think that Twitter is a reliable source, ok?

    I also posted photo evidence and asked you if they were ghosts or double ecposures. Apparently you cannot tell the difference, you still have not answered the question.
     
  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't post a thing from twitter. Lying doesn't suit you.

    You can post your double exposures all day long but as I pointed out that doesn't prove a thing about ghosts not existing. You'd have to prove the ghost photos are all faked, and that's not happening anytime soon. You'd have to prove all the thousands of eyewitness accounts are all made up, and that's not gonna happen. And you'd have to prove all the audio recordings of ghosts are fake, and that's not happening either. Why are you so scared of ghosts existing? Like I said, they really won't bother you either way. Life will go on for you, I promise.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2016
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Well thank you for that gratuitous reassurance that ghosts will not bother me. That means a lot to me, after all, you being the expert.

    btw. Holland just credentialed the Church of FSM as a religious organization. I'm sure that the FSM won't bother me anytime soon either, although a plate of spaghetti unexplainably fell off the table into my lap once.

    Must have been a ghost or perhaps the FSM took a personal interest in my disbelieef and ruined my dinner.

    p.s. I never claimed that ghost photos are faked. I merely told you that as an ex-photographer there is no way of proving they are real. The burden of proof lies with the claimant that they are pictures of real ghosts.

    But I have had enough fun with this and the subject is just getting boring. You just keep believing in ghosts, but beware, they are tricky and elusive creatures and that's probably why you have never seen a ghost either, so I'm sure they won't bother you either.
     
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  12. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Right...they're not fake but they're not real either. lol! Move along dearie. I think we're done here.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Just one last clarification; the photos are real photos, but not of real ghosts.
     
  14. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Ofcourse that's what you meant to say. Meh...
     
  15. birch Valued Senior Member

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    There is no assurance of that either. Its just chance but unlikely, like getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery.
     
  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    There's a mountain of 'evidence' for the truth of Christianity too. No end of miracles, religious experiences, all kinds of stuff.

    I'm not sure what intellectual criterion justifies accepting the one while rejecting the other.

    My own view is that all of these kind of things need to be approached with considerable skepticism.
     
  17. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    If people just say, "People often report weird and unusual experiences in (name a particular place), experiences that they find inexplicable.", Nickell's objection falls apart.

    The problem Nickell refers to only occurs when people start drawing conclusions about what causes those experiences:

    "The subjective feelings of uncanniness or strange lights or a sense of coldness are caused by ghosts. Ghosts are the disembodied spirits of dead human beings."

    That interpretive step is where ghost-hunting kind of steps over the line into being an expression of popular mythology.

    Initially describing "the phenomenon in question" is necessarily going to involve some interpretation. People say that such and such a place is "haunted". But 'haunted' is obviously a loaded term. The word itself kind of pre-assumes an interpretation of what's happening.

    We see the same thing happening in conventional science. Theoretical physicists propose the existence of something called a "Higgs boson". What the hell does that mean? But any attempt at explaining what a 'Higgs boson' supposedly is will inevitably have to reference a huge body of physical theory that the proposal simply assumes. Any experimental attempt to verify its existence will do the same.

    I guess that the difference is that people like Nickell and CSICOP are all on board with the presuppositions built into Higgs bosons, but reject the world-view in which beliefs in ghosts arise.

    I would suggest that in the case of ghosts, it might be useful to try to 'bracket out' the controversial interpretive stuff and to try to describe the 'haunting' phenomenon in more neutral terms. Are any of the manifestations of hauntings visible to the senses? If so, then it should be possible to detect them and to record them. That can be done without prejudging the nature of whatever is causing what's being observed and without introducing a whole body of interpretive theory that would likely be inconsistent with CSICOP's preexisting worldview.

    I think that last is very true. Explanations work by reducing the unknown to the known.

    But it is very important to note that this is an epistemological principle, not a metaphysical one. It isn't telling us what can and can't exist. It isn't suggesting that things can't be happening around us that are inexplicable in terms of our current knowledge. I think that the reality of such phenomena is almost a certainty. It's just telling us that "explaining" a small mystery in terms of a bigger mystery doesn't advance our understanding and just leaves us with more questions than we had before.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2016
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  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Ecactly, in the case of ghosts, we provide an answer, but it is wholly unsupported by testable facts. A broken vase on the floor can be from numerous causes, but we begin with assuming it is a ghost, before trying to analyze other conditions which might have caused the vase to slide off the table. I cited my spaghetti meal sliding off the table in a busy restaurant. Today I still don't know how this happened, but one thing have definitely ruled out is "a ghost did it*

    The Higgs boson *was mathematically predicted* to exist and has *actually* been demonstrated (Cern) to exist as a real property of spacetime.
    I agree, but is still comes down to the question, if ghost are even theoretically possible. So far no scientist has formulated any such scenario, which can be tested and falsified.

    Keeping in mind that it takes only one single "verifiable" occurrence of a ghost to prove they can and do exist, but there is not a single reliable account or evidence that it is physically possible, and evn more speculative is the assunption of "restless spirits", which leads to theology.
     
  19. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Ofcourse it is possible, much as we have evidence of other transient phenomena such a ball lightning, rogue waves, and earthquake lights. Ghosts make vocal sounds, they move objects, they make banging sounds in empty buildings, they flash out light, they set off vibration and motion detectors, they affect electrical equipment, and they emit EMF fields and infrared signatures on cameras. The phenomena is better documented and witnessed than ball lightning, and yet science will not even look into it for fear it will lose its funding and credibility. All it will take is enough courageous people with the proper equipment and observational skills to spend time at mulitple haunted locations at night. And wadda ya know, that's exactly what paranormal teams by the thousands are doing.

     
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  20. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    The thing about CSICOP is that this is an organization of a bunch of pretentious blowhards who make a living trying to debunk every mysterious phenomenon or event known to man.They've made quite a reputation and career out of being the naysayers on everything from ghosts to ufos to esp. I used to subscribe to their magazine back in the 80's. They are what I call dogmatic skeptics, always pushing a positivist agenda of reason and science over ignorant superstition. It is your basic scientistic crusade fueling so many online science blogs and forums now. But such skeptical fanaticism is neither scientific or objective, first making the assumption that the phenomenon isn't real and then spending all their time trying to prove that. Nobody could know that a given account of a poltergeist or an alien encounter or a bigfoot is automatically false without looking into it first. But then, when your career and ongoing subscriptions to your online magazine totally relies on this premise, you'd better make darn sure you can debunk everything that comes along. I wonder how well these guys sleep at night? lol!
     
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  21. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Last edited: Mar 8, 2016
  22. birch Valued Senior Member

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    This is also anecdotal but i know of a haunted location where if i put anyone of you in there locked for 24 hours, you would most definitely come out at least wondering something is going on or what exists in there.

    Part of why is in this case, it would put one so close with almost 100 percent chance of it interacting is for one, the room is small, the entity is somehow attached or cant leave that room (dont know why of that either) and its not averse to interacting with whoever is in there and it eventually will. Is it some famous location? Nope, just some unremarkable townhouse in a regular neighborhood. And this particular haunting is not even what you see but what you will actually feel as in a form with density and mass.

    I know this but i cant prove it but i know with absolute certainty it would at least open up your ideas of whats possible or will definitely leaving with some questions even if kept to oneself. And i mean everybody including the most diehard skeptics.
     
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  23. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    At our downtown library here in Portland it is well known that on certain nights after closing all the books from a particular shelf--the one dealing with ghosts and witchcraft and psychic phenomena--are knocked to the floor. Security personel never find anyone responsible. A most peculiar state affairs. We also have a hotel downtown with a well-known haunted room that guests experience all sorts of phenomena with. Anecdotal? Yes..and powerfully so!
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2016

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