But not for this thread and forum.
First time anyone called me “'Cat,” Snake. Usually they call me “Music’”. 
If I’d been married to said embryo for 40+ years, I think dropping them a hint of my continued existence would be at the very least polite. The idea that no ghost (assuming they exist) wants to prove its existence suggests that upon death, some hugely radical shift in the human psyche occurs and all bets are off as to what results, much like presuming in heaven one wil live in perfect bliss, and to get to that state all the “negative” emotions will be shed. After such a dramatic paring, I’d wager the ghost/angel has little if any resemblance to a human, so ascribing any motivations to it (including the idea that they want people to jump through windows) is futile.
Scientific evidence of existence should be demonstrable whether or not the object being studied cooperates, though, and if ghosts are as commonplace as ghost-boosters (who you gonna call?) claim, it should be fairly easy to record them. If the ghosts are deliberately hiding then they should be ignored, like the obnoxious jerks they are.
My grandmother never shut up for five minutes in the 88 years she was alive. If it were at all possible for her to nag, advise and generally harrangue us from the Beyond, believe me, she’d be doing it!
Wow! In 7 pages of thread, that’s the best and most scientific proof I’ve seen for the non-existance of ghosts. I’m convinced beyond all possible doubt. Case closed.
Thanks, Eve! 
I like cats more than I like music. If you prefer, I’ll call you music, but I’d like to call you cat.
No problem, Dude! I’ve been known to answer to “Hey, You!?”
You can call me “music,” you can call me “cat,” just don’t call me late for supper!
Yeah, and as good scientists we should ignore those giant squids that are always hiding, too.
I don’t know what the so-called ‘other side’ is like, and what is involved in either staying in touch with living humans or moving on to bliss, or dissolution or whatever, or how hard it is or if it’s even a choice we get to make.
T make a point relative to you comments: Seems to me that a lot of phenomenon that may be *mutually exclusive * get thrown into the same bucket. “Ghosts.”
I don’t know if the apparent consciousnesses that seemingly had an intent to make me (and perhaps others) jump out a second-story window were formerly living beings. I know I was conscious and aware, and not hallucinating.
I don’t know if humans survive death as souls or spirits or if somehow things occur that only make it appear that way. Maybe our bio-electrical energy makes imprints on places or things in rare occurrances, and these things just play back like old recordings on a loop tape – if you have the right equipment to hear them.
That ‘light’ the NDEer’s report that’s “oh so beautiful” - is it heaven? or is at an interdimensional monster affecting them with 1970’s style bliss rays so it can consume their essense? Or is it the blood draining out of their retina?
I don’t know why I stopped short in 1968 and dug up an anti-tank mine that four mine detectors and 19 other combat engineers went right over and missed. I don’t think I have any internal density detector. That spot didn’t look any different than the surrounding road to me or to 19 others that walked over it. I just got a “feeling.” I don’t know what caused it, I just know it happened.
I don’t know why I wrote down a few dreams and they happened in my physical life three days later (in each instance) and that the details, although highly unlikely, matched what I had written down 100%.
Maybe there’s more to the structure of this Universe than that which we have decoded so far. In fact, I’m sure of that. Our science is very advanced, but we are in our infancy compared to where we will be going. Only our arrogance claims otherwise.
I’d like to know what’s behind all of this, and I think science is the way to find out. I’m not going to learn anything from cruising the psychic web pages; I’ve been there and I’m not into blind acceptance of outrageous claims.
I’m not making outrageous claims, but somehow people feel so threatened by me that they have to call me names and ridicule me. It’s a perfect mirror for the psychic web pages, except that there are a minority (a large minority, thankfully) of reasonable people here on the SDMB. People that will debate, discuss, and open their minds enough that their brains can breathe.
I had experiences. More than most people I assume, but even then not many. I’m not sure why I had them and others didn’t. I make no claim of psychic powers. These experiences failed all the ‘usual’ explanations that are used to write them off. Don’t think I didn’t try to explain them away.
So because I am curious, and rigerous, I get labeled. Sounds like bigotry to me.
It’s our choice, each of us. We can close our minds to anything that doesn’t fit our rigid world view, or we can continue to explore, continue to try to explane the nuances of this immensely varied universe we live in.
Some people explore black holes and dark matter, both of which sound pretty wierd to me. Some people posit microscopic particles of matter, or vibrational nine-dimensional strings. Wierder still.
I have experiences. I use conventional terms to describe them and get trashed and labeled. Too bad. I’m not giving up.
Well, it’s one thing to stick by one’s principals, but it’s a downright eye-rollingly contemptable thing to claim that one is beset on all sides because of those principals but, dammit, if I have to be a martyr then just let me start draggin’ that cross, that’ll show you.
If you want to believe in ghosts and similar phenomena, be my guest, but if you want to discuss ghosts and science in the same thread, then you’re well-deserving of a reasoned drubbing. Nothing personal.
bump, and a major hijack (because I love this thread, but I was never expecting the way it turned out):
[major hijack]
OK. Back to the OP. (“There was an OP?” ;))
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I do have a ghost in my room throwing my lamp across the floor. Setting aside the debate whether they exist or not for the moment, let’s just pretend I do.
Now, I want to get a bunch of scientists to confirm that there is a ghost in my room. What criteria would they use to document their findings? What kinds of observations would they consider legitimate?
This is closer, I think, to what I wanted to ask in my OP; not “Are there ghosts?” but “If there are ghosts, can we scientifically prove them?”
The semantics are tricky, and I don’t blame anyone for being confused–I’m confused myself But I hope what I wanted to say gets across.
[/major hijack]
A great start would be to reliably record all of the reliably recordable information at hand. Time, date, audio, multiple sorts of electromagnetic spectrum video, as well as additional witnesses.
What would be best, of course, would be if you could get the ghost to ‘perform’ on request so that you could set up and prep all of your fancy gadgets first. It’d be best if you could get the ghost to travel with you around the world to different settings where its activities could be monitored by many different people.
Right, I hear you. 
But what kind of criteria would the scientists work with? There are several different myths about ghosts. What kind of things would they observe?
Drops in temperature? Unexplained movements of objects?
Well, yes. Anything that can be clearly observed, and the the various “myths” shouldn’t enter into it at all. You’d also have to throw in a professional debunker who would be trained and experienced at spotting various attempts at fraud or simple coincidences (i.e. the flickering of a light when loud movies are shown on the television might be due to a loose electrical connection which vibrates slightly when the sound system’s subwoofer rumbles, and not because the ghost objects to Hollywood violence).
It’s only when something measurable happens that can’t be explained by known phenomena that you’re moving into unknown territory.
Of course “rational” skeptics used to say the same thing about the deluded idiots that believed in meteorites.
Well, that’s a tired old chestnut of an argument, but I’m glad you put “rational” in quotes since by modern standards, they weren’t. Similarly, “trained” doctors of the 19th century often didn’t know about or understand the spread of infection, often arrogantly assuming such things were impossible. This doesn’t prove, however, that medicine (or astronomy) has historically been a big waste of time.
Deluded idiocy, though, still exists. A rational skeptic will take a less dogmatic approach and might conclude that a given person believes in ghosts because of:
[ul][li]Mental illness, including hallucinations[/li][li]Deliberate fraud by another person[/li][li]Natural or accidental phenomena (the creaking noises are made by mice, or the lights flicker becuase of bad wiring, or the lamp fell over because it was precariously balanced, etc.)[/ul][/li]
It’s only when you eliminate all of these (and some others I no doubt have forgotten) that you can start a genuninely scientific inquiry into the existance of ghosts.
Hardly a tired old chestnut, it’s a point the pseudo-skeptics have no answer to. It happens from time to time that an absurd claim turns out to be true after all. Sometimes the science books have to be rewritten. Once in a while the “paranormal” becomes normal. From time to time “quack” cures become legitimate medicine. Occasionally, “fringe” science becomes mainstream science.
I don’t believe in ghosts. I am open minded, though, and see the slight possibility that they might be validated by science. I’m willing to look at any evidence for ghosts, but I’ll believe it when I see it. To totally reject any possibility is irrational.
** I’m glad you put “rational” in quotes since by modern standards, they weren’t. **
In the first place, Lavoissier was one of the greatest scientists in history.
Secondly, you claim it’s not “rational” by modern standards. Well, that’s pretty much the point I’m making. Total closed-minded rejection isn’t rational, but it’s what pseudo-skeptics do.
Yes, but for every absurd claim that turns out to be true, there may be a thousand or more that remain simply absurd. If someone could come up with good evidence of ghosts, science would simply absorb these new facts and expand its frontier.
I don’t consider myself a pseudo-skeptic (whatever that is), and that’s my answer to the chestnut: that science evolves toward an increasing level of accuracy while pesudoscience does not.
Very occasionally, and don’t forget the failures that hugely outnumber the successes.
And you’re right about totally rejecting any possibility. However when faced with something unexplained, it is good science to start with the more likely explanations first. Mental illness, fraud, and known phenomena (like noisy mice or poorly-wired lights) are well-established; far more so than any notions about residual electromagnetic “soul” energy or such.
As for believing it when you see it, that’s a rather poor standard by which to evaluate scientific evidence. You could easily be fooled by tricks of light, or your own fatigue/intoxication, or any number of things.
I don’t know what “psuedo-skeptics” do, but Lavoisier’s training was in geology and chemistry, not astronomy, which in 1790 (got a more recent example?) was a still-maturing science, and eleven years before Piazzi discovered the first known asteroid, Ceres (surely the discovery of orbiting rocks would’ve helped the pro-meteor scientists).
That scientists make mistakes proves nothing more than… scientists can make mistakes.
For information on pseudo-skeptic see here. There’s another good article on the same theme here
And while I agree that in theory science should strive to increasing levels of accuracy, all to ofen it fails to live up to such ideals. Frequently scientists refuse to accept data that contradicts their own theories. After all, scientists are only human and have the same flaws as the rest of us.
I never claimed otherwise. Maybe it’s one in a hundred, maybe its one in a million.
Ah, but it was chemical analysis that validated meteorites. See here.
That scientists make mistakes proves nothing more than… scientists can make mistakes.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but some people don’t recognise the fact that science makes mistakes. to some people, science is infallible. They say if any “paranormal” phenoma exist, science would validate it already.
Yet another “Morris Misquote”. He didn’t say that science makes mistakes, he said that scientists make mistakes. I expect that most of the people participating in this thread know the difference.
Or show up on the 50 yard line just before the kickoff at the Super Bowl.
Ref: “Could you please leave the field so that the game may commence?”
Ghost: “Make me.”
First of all they would probably scan the room for known physical elements that may have caused the occurrance, like strong magnetic fields, electrical surges, etc., then they would probably set up monitoring equipment (visual, auditory and radiological) and wait till it happened again.
If it didn;'t happen again, they’d shrug, offer a few possible explanations, smile at your naieve assumption that it was a ghost and go home. If it happened while they were monitoring, they would check all their equipmant to try to determine the cause. If they were able to prove that it did occur and that there was no known explanation they might continue researching for awhile, but likely they will toss the explanation into the category of “unknown phenomenon.”
They aren’t going to posit that it was a ghost until they can get some data that would indicate that it is nothing else but, and I’m not going to even venture a guess as to what would satisfy that criteria.