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?

But who created the ghosts?

Did they just appear at the same time homo-sapiens did?

Did Neanderthals have ghosts?

Do ghosts live in a normal universe and regard us as their ghost? Maybe some ghosts in their own universe doubt we exist?

Therefore , do we exist? Are we just an illusion?

Expect ghosts

Bigfoot, UFOs, the Lochness monster, angels all paranormal at some point. Most sightings of such things do have a logical explanation, though, once looked into. Maybe one day we will have a scientific explanation for ghosts. It would be a bit closed-minded to consider every experience over thousands of years of a "ghost" to be imaginary.

How do you know this? Do you know all the things that have happened to everybody, and have explanations for them all? Because if you don't, you're just making an assumption, aren't you? Unless you have access to a resource that proves that everything can be explained?

It's all looking a lot like your own guesswork stated as fact, so far, without much basis, and including the fact that you didn't actually know what 'paranormal' meant! I'm sensing that you're not an expert, and that we're operating on a 'strong belief' basis, here.

In order to prove that something exists, you need evidence, which we don't have, so nobody can claim that they do. We can't prove that something doesn't or can't exist, so nobody can claim that they don't.
We have to accept that we don't know if they exist or not, which means that there's a possibility that they do. You're strong beliefs, and mine, make no difference to that.

I personally think humans dismiss any paranormal experiences as trick of the light, my imagination etc etc because we are not at the stage in our evolution to understand them. Our scientific knowledge is basic. We still haven't fathomed out the brain or how digestion interfaces with immunity. There are another hundred examples.

We are still in the era of the combustion engine, not long out of the Victorian era but we think because we operate computers and have AI we are advanced. We are really not.

I'm now so bored of scientists now saying we haven't proved it so it doesn't exist and it's not worth investigating if there's no data. It's so blinkered and restrictive as a view. Toddle back to your laboratories.

@CurlewKate ok near death experience- explain that.

Another one with a total ignorance of the basic principles of science who thinks scientists are harsh ing her ‘woo’ mellow.

@GrandParade you make sweeping assumptions. I'm a senior lecturer in a scientific field. I still acknowledge the massive limitations of science trying to provide answers to this. What do you do?

I have actually seen 2 in my life. One (an adult male) in a street near to me in London that vanished before my eyes. The other was a young girl in a hotel room in Cockermouth. She also vanished after 10 or so seconds, it was long enough to study her face and clothes.

They were both in daylight. Neither was scary. One was outside and one inside.

I have no history of hallucinations and I don’t believe in ghosts as the spirits of the dead. Stone tape theory might explain it, but the second one was looking right at me and I got the impression ‘she’ was aware of me.

You're absolutely right, OP. What often strikes me about people's tales of ghost encounters is how utterly trivial the things are that it is claimed ghosts say and do. I can't help thinking that if I came back after death, I would want to see people I love, not spend my time making weird noises at strangers or whatever.

And harshing the comfort of wanting to believe in ‘real’ magic.

It’s tricky stuff this science and rationalism: takes a bit of effort to grasp probability, think through problems and face the realities of the world. So much easier just to believe in ghosts and psychic powers.

I can't help thinking that if I came back after death, I would want to see people I love, not spend my time making weird noises at strangers or whatever.

That's assuming ghosts have control over what they do, and who experiences them.

If ghosts are just repeats of what has already happened in the same place it happened they can't go travelling around to have out with people they lived with.

I've heard unexplainable footsteps, on more than one occasion. How could that nose have been created? There must be a logical explanation, and I do think one day we'll understand.

@CatsinCastles cue the posters ready to say 'you didn't' It's funny how for every other experience in life we would call it gaslighting but for this we don't have any problem dismissing someone's experience. Perhaps it's fear in them?

This really made me laugh. It'll make no difference that you're a professional. These people know better than you about science, because they KNOW the truth and it is A FACT. It would be interesting to hear what their fields of specialism are within science, but I don't think they're going to tell us...

That's what we're arguing against here. A lack of understanding about the limitations of science, and a blind faith in the power of humans to know everything. The human ego's inability to accept 'We don't know', on the basis of nothing at all, and unwittingly, is mind blowing. I wonder if the same people thing that nothing at all existed, until science started to find proof for things? Did dinosaurs exist before we had proof, for example? Did oxygen only start to exist once we had scientific proof, and, if so, how the hell did we create proof without being able to breathe?

@Watchkeys try and relax love you are getting all fired up!

I personally think philosophy holds the key for more answers than science. Isn't it great we all have opinions and are free to express them?

@decionsdecisions62

I'm not fired up, I'm laughing! I agree about philosophy :)

@decionsdecisions62 "@CurlewKate ok near death experience- explain that."

Lack of oxygen to the brain.

@Watchkeys "The human ego's inability to accept 'We don't know', on the basis of nothing at all, and unwittingly, is mind blowing."

I am perfectly happy to accept "we don't know." What I don't accept is "we don't know so so we need to make up something that defies the laws of science to explain whatever it is." rather than just waiting for more data. Cf "orbs", spontaneous human combustion, yetis, the Bermuda Triangle....

It’s this type of question that makes me realise how utterly pointless it is for us to try to understand every experience. If there were ‘ghosts’ or other dimensions or whatever- do you imagine them just as the BBC ‘Ghosts’ characters?! Just invisible humans living it up in after-life? Why would you be able to rationalise their appearance or apparent behaviour? They would, almost by definition, be beyond our human understanding!

@CurlewKate ok well that explains how patients are able to then recount what doctors discussed in different rooms post event. So once again not explained by science. Try again!

@CurlewKate

I am perfectly happy to accept "we don't know." What I don't accept is "we don't know so so we need to make up something that defies the laws of science to explain whatever it is." rather than just waiting for more data. Cf "orbs", spontaneous human combustion, yetis, the Bermuda Triangle....

I think the reason some people are having trouble with your point of view is that, on the surface, you’re willing to reserve judgment and go with ‘we don’t know’ but on the other hand, you’re saying there must be a logical explanation for every single ‘weird’ occurrence- and that the explanation must come from a range of sources that you already know and approve of.

What if the explanation, should we ever uncover it, blows all your existing assumptions out of the water? What then?

You sneer at people ‘making stuff up’ but people are only using terms like ‘ghostly’ and ‘apparition’ as shorthand for things they can’t explain; no one has proposed a detailed hypothesis about the Rules of Ghosthood. They’re just saying ‘this happened.’

You’re happy to say ‘you hallucinated’ because that’s a real, documented phenomenon- but that’s not to say there isn’t another explanation that hasn’t yet been proven and documented.

In short, it seems as if you’re happy for things not to be understood yet, but with a caveat that when/if they are understood, they correlate with already existing ideas. Now, I’m not a scientist, but isn’t this not how science works? Aren’t there already discoveries at quantum level that fly in the face of conventional physics?

@CurlewKate

What I don't accept is "we don't know so so we need to make up something that defies the laws of science to explain whatever it is." rather than just waiting for more data

So, has anything you couldn't explain ever happened in your life? And, what 'laws of science' would ghosts defy? Surely if they actually, factually disproved the laws of science, that would be scientific proof that they don't exist, wouldn't it?

@GreenAppleCrumble "What if the explanation, should we ever uncover it, blows all your existing assumptions out of the water? What then?"

That would be incredibly exciting.

@Watchkeys
"So, has anything you couldn't explain ever happened in your life? And, what 'laws of science' would ghosts defy?"

Yes- several things. They have all turned out to be entirely explicable.

According to Brian Cox, the 2nd law of
Thermodynamics. I've got an article he wrote about it saved somewhere. I'll find it for you later.

And I am pretty sure I haven't sneered at anyone.

Oh, ok. Because you were giving the impression that only the existing scientific laws were acceptable.

Perhaps you haven’t sneered - sorry. That might have been someone else.