What about the modern technology used by ghosthunters? Don’t temperature fluctuations or electromagnetic fluctuations count? What if a person in a supposedly haunted house takes pictures with a polaroid and when the film develops there is writing on the film (this has happened)?
There is a file called “Terry’s losing faith”. In it the supposed sister who died in a housefire of one of the ghosthunters says this phrase, and the ghosthunters recognize the voice as the dead sisters.
What would be interesting if voice recognition software was able to conclusively prove that the voice on the tape and old recordings of the dead sister were the same person the same way the CIA uses voice recognition software to prove if a speech by Bin Ladin is truly him. That would be damn conclusive. Especially if the voices were responding to questions made by the ghost hunters. Like if the hunter says ‘where did I put my watch in my house’ and the voice says something like ‘in the second drawer in your dresser’. Not only would that seem to prove consciousness (because alot of people think ghosts are echos and echos can’t respond to questions), but it would seem to prove that a specific person’s consciousness had survived.
It wouldn’t prove a thing. It wouldn’t prove the “sister” was actually dead or ever really existed, or that the old recordings were actually of the sister. It wouldn’t prove the tape wasn’t made when she was still alive.
If it was verified by unbiased outside sources it would count as pretty good proof. At the very least it would be a strong case for the existence of consciousness after death.
Just taking a website at face value wouldn’t count as proof (I assume/hope the webmasters there are not running a scam) but if it was verified it would count as something.
This reminds me of a conversation I once had with my friend Eddy, who was a dual-major in philosophy and linguistics. Bi-useless, I called him.
Eddy: “Thus far I’ve managed to prove that the universe exists and that I exist. But I can’t prove yet that anyone else exists.”
LPN: “Then why are you talking to me?”
Eddy: pause “…I’m willing to go with the assumption for the moment.”
LPN: “I’m flattered.”
Your friend has it backwards. He can prove the existence of anything but himself. In attempting to prove one’s own existence, it is impossible to avoid the logical fallacy of petitio principii.
Why is it that after 150+ years of photography, and 40+ years of cheap videotape recorders, we have yet to see a photo of a ghost?
Heck, England is full of haunted castles, houses, graveyards…damn it, JUST show me a picture!!
There are some of us who can accept personal experience and anecdotal evidence as evidence for the existance of ghosts, or as some sort of heretofore undescribed phenomenon functioning in a way people would tend to describe as ghosts. I do. Because of my personal experience, I know that something other than fraud & hallucinations is going on.
However, any physical evidence presented to scientifically prove the existance of ghosts has to meet the rigid requirements of scientific investigation. Too often these occurrances are spontaneous, unexpected and unrepeatable. This makes them difficult to submit them to scientific investigation. Doesn’t mean they aren’t real, but it’s hard to prove they’re real.
Aeschines has posted pictures on another similar thread, less than a month ago.
Don’t be so lazy!
BTW, I don’t vouch for the validity of any of these pictures, and these are just random selections, not even the best out there!
They’re out there, though. Google got 2,240,000 hits searching “ghost photo” – and many of these sites had hundreds of photos. But, on the first page there were also several dead-ends, but if you want a “good” ghost picture, you’ll find it.
What with bad photographers taking double exposures and good photographers creating double exposures, evidence like those last two are not next to worthless-they are worthless. When people ask for good evidence of the paranormal, they would like to see good evidence of the paranormal. The trouble is, you seem to think that hundreds(or even thousands) of pieces of bad evidence are somehow the equivalent of one piece of good evidence, and that just isn’t so. When scientific studies are show to be tainted or sloppy, pointing to another tainted or sloppy scientific study to somehow bolster your own doesn’t work. Five bad examples do not equal one good example. Fifty bad examples do not equal one good example. Five hundred bad examples do not equal one good example.
Another problem with photos like those is that people use other photos of other “ghosts” to bolster their claim. Now, if other (independent) photographers and taken photos of the same “ghost” at approximately the same time, those photos could be used as supporting evidence.
Right. Like I said in post # 148. Guess you missed it. In fact, I basically inferred that all photographic evidence is worthless, unless produced under controlled conditions.
I also said I didn’t support those linked photos.
**ralph124c ** said:
I just gave h some direction where to look and included some examples of what e was asking for. I’m not going to do h legwork for h.
Your claim:
Is manufactured, prejudiced and incitive. It’s also BS.
But, I’m told how hard you Moderators work. It’s difficult to always be accurate and aware. Maybe a break from the monitor and a cup of coffee would help.
Color me suspicious, but are you sure that all of the photographs that appear on the website are from real people? I know that the photos have captions that say “I swear this is real and I didn’t fake this picture in any way. Signed, the Person Who Took The Picture” or words to that effect. But are you sure?
I’m not suggesting that all the photos on the Internet are faked, no. But since I turned up that link by googling how to fake a ghost photo and it popped up second in the list… well, let’s just say it wasn’t hard to find. Anybody who was seriously interested in making a fake could find tips, hints, and even a place to submit their work.
Given that humankind has already created 40 Shrouds of Turin and 2 Cardiff Giants and one Piltdown Man, I’m not sure how much longer I can give this mass of evidence the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, I understand.
You are linking to these photographs, and refering to thousands of others for…for…waitaminute, if you’re not providing these examples as evidence, why exactly are you providing them? If they shouldn’t be used as evidence(as you claim to be claiming), are you saying that they are totally worthless?
Spooky photographs don’t really mean anything unless you can articulate precisely what phenomenon you think they prove, and you can do it in such a way which makes falsifiable predictions.
Even if just for sake of argument or to alleviate the boredom we were to grant a lack of fraud in the photographs, we are still left with an infinite number of hypothetical explanations which are just as plausible as undefined “ghosts.”
How do you know it’s not aliens, or psychic interference, or demons, or psychic, alien demons? How do you know it’s not God, or Thor or Yoda?
You really have to be specific about what you’re alleging. Right now there is nothing to debate. There is no data and there is no clearly articulated hypothesis.
I’m sorry to keep bogging down on the definition thing but without it there is nothing to analyze.
Ok, yes you can fake ghost info. You can fake an audio recording, a picture, a medium can just be a good guesser or a cheat. But how do you explain the magnetometer fluctuations or temperature fluctuations that are supposedly seen when people think ghosts are present? I assume its possible that geological disturbances could affect the human mind as well as affect radiation readings, temperature readings, Electromagnetic readings, digital and magnetic readings, temperature readings & radiation readings but still where do you draw the line? Is every piece of info that makes ghosts seem more realistic or faked or a coincidence or due to something else? if there were 12 different things that predisposed the idea that a ghost exists would they all just be coincidental or due to the same phenomena?
here is a list of ghost detecting equpitment
EMF Detectors
Electrostatic Charge Meters
Motion Detectors
Geiger Counters
Infrared Thermal Scanner
What if all 5 are giving abnormal readings, audio and video show something, and a psychic can come up with info that it would be very improbable for anyone to come up with just by good guessing?
I can’t offhand point to an example where all 8 of these things happened at once but it wouldn’t suprise me if there have been instances where all 8 did occur.
I’d like to point out something else about that How To Make A Fake Ghost Photo that really bothered me. It is a glaring, seven-league logical leap, and it is tbe flip side of the coin from the post by Diogenes.
That website purports to show how to make a “fake” ghost photo. That is, how to make a photo that replicates the effect of a real ghost photo.
Who decides what a real ghost photo is, for purposes of comparison? The website author seems to know what real ghosts look like on film. From this page:
How does he know that? It seems to me, call me silly, that he has established the standard for “realness” himself. I don’t recall any ghost story where ghosts manifested as gloobilly flobs of frogs eggs wafting across the landscape. I’m curious as to precisely how has he decided that some orbs, yes, those are ghosts, but these orbs are just spots of water.
I take it that you just sort of take it on… trust?
Your speed-reading class should give you a refund.
Once again (this is the second or third time), ralph, said
So I went on Google, googled “Ghost photo” and told Ralph about it. Notice, I also said I didn’t attest to their authenticity.
I was nice enough to give ralph what he wanted.
No good deed goes unpunished.
If you still don’t get it, I’m going to have to start questioning your motives, or your rationality.
[ol]
[li]Ralph says "how come there’s no pictures of ghosts?[/li][li]SnakeSpirit says, “Have you tried google? I did and look what I found. I don’t attest to their authenticity, however.”[/li][/ol]
So who decided that ghosts are proven to manifest in the EM spectrum, as “spot cold,” radiation, and all that? From the site:
The credentials of the equipment you list has been established. Next, it says:
Exactly who is it that decided that you can detect ghosts this way, that “real” ghosts cause fluctuations in these readings? I understand that in order to find ghosts, we have to find ways to detect them, but… why these things in particular? How is it that they have become the standard? To make some of those devices fluctuate, it doesn’t take a geologic disturbance; for some of them I’ll bet a cellphone would work just fine.
