To people who believe in ghosts..

[AnxiousAnniee]

I used to believe in ghosts when I was a child but as an adult I don’t. I find that there’s too many things that don’t make sense to me and just aren’t logical. When you actually start thinking about it and what it means to be a ghost, I think it just seems silly. I get that everyone has a different opinion though so I’m really genuinely interested to hear what people believe about the following questions…

• if ghosts exist and look like the person who has died, how do they walk around and move things without muscles or a brain? How do people hear ghosts giggle and speak if they Dont have a brain or a voice box? If they are just a see through sprit how can they really do this? You can’t move, think, or talk without a brain. And they don’t have a brain or muscles because they are spirits.
• similarly with moving things around or opening cupboards. First of all why would they do this? Why would a ghost turn a tap on??? For what reason? Secondly if they are so light and see through and can walk through things, how can they pick things up instead of just moving through them?
• if a ghost is a spirit and someone’s soul, then how come they are always wearing clothes when people claim to have seen them? Clothes don’t die and clothes don’t have souls, so clothes don’t have an afterlife and shouldn’t come back as clothes ghosts. They should all be naked.
• how come people only ever see ghosts of loved ones and scary Victorian children or soldiers and things? How come no one ever sees a caveman ghost or a chav ghost in trackies? (Again, they shouldn’t really be wearing anything anyway)
• if ghosts are souls then that means everyone will turn into a ghost when they die. Which means we are currently SWAMPED with ghosts. They’re everywhere. We’re constantly walking through them everywhere we go because that many people have died in the world, we are bombarded with them
• what about baby ghosts? Babies can’t walk so does that mean that there’s loads of ghost babies just lay on the floor all around us?

I’m not taking the piss here, these are genuine questions that I have asked myself when I believed. And the more I think about it the more I just don’t believe it. However, I’m aware that people still do, so I’d love to hear what you think the answers are to these questions and what you think ghosts actually are, and their purpose?

I once saw I can only describe as an electric blue line all round my son's body in the kitchen one day . Some one said it could be have been an aura .

Demonstrable, repeatable facts and tests to doubt the existence of ghosts - thousands.

Demonstrable, repeatable facts and tests to corroborate the existence of ghosts - zero.

That’s not an opinion. It’s cold fact.

You can’t hide behind the word ‘opinion’ to justify belief in ghosts and ghouls.

Do you get static on digital radios? Images are made differently so if everyone had old style camera photos in the numbers of smart phone photos I’d agree it was odd.
I definitely don’t believe people come back to haunt us. I think dead is dead.

But I do think life itself is more complicated than just existing between being alive and being dead.

@Watchkeys

If there is an afterlife I don't fancy twiddling my thumbs in the ether waiting to scare some poor sod for a bit laugh and carry on. And if any so called psychic comes disturbing my eternal rest they're going to get a volley of top notch swearing.

I’ve experienced a few things, that the sceptic in me could probably reason away, but years ago I was sat with 4 other friends in the living room of a remote stone cottage ( no electric, very basic accommodation )
We all heard loud footsteps from the staircase at the side of the living room. There was no other human for miles around and everyone heard it, so no individual psychosis, delusions and I can think for myself, so know what I heard. That made me think there is a lot of things that science can’t explain.

I’m with you OP. I don’t believe in any sort of ‘ghosts’ but you can’t completely rule out that something, somehow perseveres beyond death.

What seems very, very silly however is ghosts walking about in their ghostly clothes, often making the sound of footsteps on the floor and alike, despite being non-corporeal.

Cross post!

How would a ghost, without a physical body, make footstep sounds?

I’d assume something else made the noise (speaking from experience, a rat jumping up or down stairs can sound a lot like footsteps).

There is a great bbc sounds podcast called uncanny. It dissects a ghost encounter from a paranormal and a scientific perspective. Its addictive!

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying

Demonstrable, repeatable facts and tests to doubt the existence of ghosts

Those are demonstrated, repeated events, not facts. You're trying to say that Bob from Finance, who's never taken a day off sick in 20 years is factually proven to never have, or have had, the possibility of taking a day off sick.

You're not a scientist, are you!

I wonder what we all would do with our time? I think I might put on a white sheet and make people jump from time to time, just to keep the tradition alive.

@Bigcoatweather "Science does not know all the answers, it can only describe what it discovers."
Yes. I have said this repeatedly. It then waits for the next bit of evidence that either supports or refutes....

Mners on ‘woo’ threads demonstrate as general an ignorance of scientific principles as they do of Hamlet (the frequently misapplied and misinterpreted speech to Horatio about there being more things in heaven and earth etc).

@GrandParade

The Shakespeare quote was meant to mean 'We don't know everything and we're fools if we think we do'

How did I misapply it? My point still stands, but I'm curious to be enlightened about the quote. I'm not a Shakespeare buff!

Cross post!

How would a ghost, without a physical body, make footstep sounds?

I’d assume something else made the noise (speaking from experience, a rat jumping up or down stairs can sound a lot like footsteps).

I’ve got no idea what it was, but me and the other people I was with heard the same distinct sound and they were absolutely not a rats footsteps.

As it happens I do have a scientific training.

But, anyway, what are you talking about?

If we can see ghosts - so our eyes can detect them - why can’t cameras? If we can sense ghosts, why can’t much more accurate and reliable instruments detect them? If ghosts want to be seen why don’t they show themselves in front of large crowds or on tv? If poltergeists can move things around why don’t they do it in experiments? If some people have special powers to summon or attract ghosts why are these powers incapable of demonstration?

Not one ghost has ever been proven. Not one psychic power has ever been proven.

That’s not opinion. It’s a complete absence of any evidence. It can’t be a case of science turning a blind eye: why would a scientist not want to capture evidence of ghosts or the ‘paranormal’?

What’s so amazing about belief in ghosts is that on MN alone dozens and dozens of people claim to have had some encounter with a ghost or know of someone trustworthy who has. Yet, nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever been produced to back up these many encounters.

Don’t you think the conclusion is that the reason lies in people’s minds, not in material reality?

If you think the moon might be made of cheese, just say so.

You seem to think I'm arguing against a lot of stuff I'm not arguing against, @WhatsTheUseOfWorrying , so if you can't get the gist of the point I've been making, let's leave it there. Keep believing that no evidence = fact. I'll keep believing that no evidence = uncertainty.

I'm sure that nobody needs you to agree with me, or vice versa. Best of luck.

Oh, I see your ‘point’ perfectly well. It’s just wrong.

But, sure, let’s not bother any more.

I sometimes think of time as being layers and so everything that has ever happened is still happening and sometimes maybe we glimpse ‘ghosts’ but it’s really someone just doing their thing in their own point in time and we’ve seen that ‘layer’ for a second. I don’t think I’m articulating properly what I mean!

I feel like science and belief will one day reach a point where they meet and make sense and we will understand these things; time, ghosts, ‘god.’

It fries my brain thinking about it all but I find it fascinating.

"You're trying to say that Bob from Finance, who's never taken a day off sick in 20 years is factually proven to never have, or have had, the possibility of taking a day off sick."

Well, I can't speak for others. But what I am trying to say is that if Bob from Finance, who has never taken a day off sick in 20 years doesn't come to work one day, I will assume that he is off sick. I will not assume that he has been abducted by aliens, or has turned into a gigantic bug.

My mum said we come from a long line of psychic women.

Why was she telling you that, surely you'd have known already.

@CurlewKate

what I am trying to say is that if Bob from Finance, who has never taken a day off sick in 20 years doesn't come to work one day, I will assume that he is off sick

Exactly. And Bob may even have taken short notice annual leave once or twice too, when he felt he was coming down with something, and so he still has a clear sick-leave sheet, although he has, unbeknownst to us, had time off sick.

So, if we had no evidence of something ever happening before, it could still happen, and we could logically assume it had happened, although we might not currently have any means of proving it.

The Bob analogy wasn't actually meant to relate Bob's behaviour or daily life to paranormal activity. That's what an analogy is. It's not a simile.

So here’s my latest take on “ghosts”. I’m staying with DM and stepdad now and going home (nearby) today or tomorrow. Their house is a large Victorian house and they’ve had a few experiences there but nothing I could say is actually haunted/ghostlike.

Anyway I was upstairs last night, having a bath and brushing teeth, about 9-10pm. Parents tend to go to bed at 10pm. Their cat was upstairs asleep. So they’re doing their night time routine, taking medication, shutting and locking back door and so on when my DM said something like “is that door locked?” to my stepdad, he didn’t reply yet but both of them heard it repeated loudly next to them but it wasn’t either of them. I asked DM if it was either of their phones but stepdad had his turned off. They don’t have Alexa, ring doorbell etc (I do in my house!). I mean I don’t think there’s anything spooky and I stay there occasionally and especially when they’re away to cat watch/sit.

@Watchkeys The point I am obviously familiar king to make is that if something unexpected happens, like Bob missing work, it is sensible and reasonable to assume, unless there is evidence to the contrary, that he is off sick. Just as it is sensible and reasonable to assume there is a rational explanation for any unexplained event. Because up to now there always has been. Obviously tomorrow something that really has no rational explanation might happen. But until then....

*familiar king= failing.

I believe I've seen a ghost once, me and my mum were driving in the dark one night and my mum came to a zebra crossing and slammed her brakes on we both saw something cross the road and in a blink of an eye it was gone! We both saw what we thought was a man dragging something along the road and it just disappeared. I've never seen anything again that I think is a ghost but my late nana often saw things. She saw her mother in law the night she passed away, she said she saw a man who was my guardian angel quite often standing behind me, a few weeks before she got poorly and passed away she saw a figure dressed in black who was following her around.