project all you want. My great grandfather had a portwine stain birthmark that was distinctive on his face. Apparently my playmate had the exact same mark. If you had never ever seen a picture of said person, who was dead for 60 years and described seeing and playing with someone fitting the exact description of a dead unknown person, what would you think? Or in my shrinks case, a very small child describes a person with a very destinctive birthmark, and said person had been dead for 60 years, and no picture was available of said dead person [and in my family we dont tend to discuss dead relatives at all in casual conversation] comes to the conclusion that something very odd was going on. My brothers imaginary playmate was a kangaroo he once saw in a zoo … and very explainable. It kept his matchbox toys in her pouch - very handy IMHO. I had invisible tea parties and stories with my great grandfather.
Sorry, aruvqan, but your story doesn’t give us any reason to believe you actually conversed with your great grandfather’s ghost. I mean, even you don’t remember any of this directly; you just remember that your parents mentioned it to you later. All the details have been through several layers of anecdotal filtering. There are hundreds of thousands of cases where people will claim some implausible anecdote, insist upon certain corroborative details in their memory, insist that such-and-such a mundane explanation couldn’t have happened because of so-and-so, and yet when the matter is looked into rigorously, their memory turned out to be fallible, their account of the details turned out to be a little off, and so on. It happens. Perhaps you are one of the few people in human history to have experienced the extraordinary event of having communicated with the dead, but you haven’t presented (and, alas, may be unable to present) evidence to convince us that that’s more likely than the alternative explanations.
All you have as evidence for this is your father’s word. I doubt you were giving precise, articulate physical descriptions of imaginary friends at three years old. Most likely, you babbled something and your dad connected his own dots. Even having imagined someone with a birthmark doesn’t mean anything all by itself since you could have seen someone else with a facial birthmark and incorporated it into your imagination. You admit you don’t actually remember any of this yourself, but even at face value, you haven’t describe anything that precludes natural explanations.
Some of the comments made here about ghosts parallel responses to other forms of woo, such as homeopathy (testimonials from lots of people offered as “evidence”, statements about the impossibility of the phenomenon based on physical laws).
There are people who have a great need to believe in magic of some type, and who get cranky and upset when skeptical/evidence-based folks don’t buy into it.
Regardless, attempting to equate those who demand evidence for a type of woo with those who are believers or who say “It could happen!” doesn’t wash. You can chant “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!” all you want. If there’s no valid evidence, you’ve got nuthin’.
I don’t believe in no ghosts. But please do the voodoo, that you do, so well.
That’s fine, as long as you accept that not everyone has that definition of magic in mind. In fact, I would say that most people do not.
For example, if I found a cape that made me invisible, I may well refer to it as “my magic cape”.
But that doesn’t mean I assume it operates outside of the laws of the Universe.
Quite the opposite – I would take its existence as evidence of additional laws / phenomena.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them 
And that’s what I tried to ask, upthread.
What would you constitute as evidence?
What couldn’t you explain away with some rational answer?
Seems to me, nothing.
So even if someone ever did find valid evidence, there’d always be someone with an explanation as to why it’s not valid.
So what would count as valid evidence?
Remember, I’m asking these questions as a non-believer, for the most part, in ghosts.
You can always explain phenomena away with an alternative, but at some point, the alternative starts to become more preposterous than the original explanation.
I would take as strong evidence a test of the sort that the James Randi Foundation attempts when dealing with claims of supernatural ability. Basically, eliminate all conceivable logical explanations for something and observe that the phenomena is still observed far more often than chance would dictate.
For example, if someone claimed he could talk to spirits which could gather information, and we found that every single time he could tell us the number that some guy wrote down in a sealed, separate room, we’d have something there. Sure there’s an alternative that he’s just really lucky, but I don’t anyone would suggest that it isn’t valid evidence of something.
E: Looking back at my scenario, let’s keep in mind that ghosts are so unlikely, even the explanation of pure luck might still be more probable, depending on how many times we did this test.
The one thing that is apparent to me is that a phenomenon, which is commonly referred to as “a ghost” does exist.
However, the question in my mind is: “What exactly is this phenomenon”?
Is it mass delusion? Is it mass hallucination? Is it the returned spirit of the dead?
I don’t know; but neither does anyone else. Notice that I use the word “know”; as opposed to the word “believe”.
But given the prevalence of the phenomenon, it seems to me that that in itself would be sufficient reason to subject it to rigorous scientific study.
The fact that the evident characteristics of this phenomena do not fit within what we know of conventional “science”, only reinforces the need for close study.
I have had the misfortune to have had to read dozens of PhD theses during my career.
Given the garbage that forms the basis for many of them, and the fact that they ultimately were the basis for the degree, suggests the study of “ghosts” would not be too far a deviation from current practices. In fact, it would fit right in.
So, rather than have an exchange of uninformed opinion, why don’t we think about how we would go about studying ghosts? Suggestions?
No ghosts.
Start with a theory of what a ghost actually is and then test it. For instance, I remember watching a show where a scientist was speculating that the ghost phenomena had a lot to do with subsonic sounds that effected mood, especially in ‘spooky’ settings. So, he set up a double blind experiment to test his theory and then studied the results. Sure enough, using a sound generator and a suitably haunted looking old building he was able to demonstrate that people felt the presence of supposed ghosts when they could ‘hear’ the sounds being generated. He used multiple test subjects, and switched out the rooms, then looked at the data.
Couple that with peoples natural fear of dark places and their imaginations, and really I’m at a loss to understand why supernatural explanations are necessary. But, ok, first you’d have to come up with a theory about what a ghost is. Is it some sort of trapped psychic energy from an event? Fair enough…test for energy. But what is ‘psychic energy’? How do you measure it? If the answer is ‘you can’t’, then you are back to square one, and your ‘theory’ will simply be another magic one. Are ghosts supposed to be departed souls? fair enough…test for some sort of energy fluctuation. Again though, how do you measure a ‘soul’? What is it exactly? If the answer is ‘you can’t measure that’, then you are again back to square one, and a magical explanation.
In order to use science, you need to put forth a theory of what a ghost is that has a rational, scientific basis…or you need to toss out science and stick with magic. If we are sticking to science, then tests for ‘ghosts’ HAS been done…many times. Thus far no non-mundane evidence that I’m aware of has ever emerged. However, on the mundane side, plenty of explanations abound…they just aren’t as sexy as the ghost/magical ones. They are probably closer to the truth, however, especially when coupled together with humans natural tendency to exaggerate and to toss rationality out the window when fear and high emotions rip through us.
-XT
Xtisme, your approach is really a set up for failure and it presupposes an outcome for the experiment before it has even started.
To paraphrase you: you ask the question “how do we measure this”? Then you provide the answer: “We can’t”. Then you close the subject with: “Therefore we shouldn’t try”.
How about looking at the problem in this manner:
Ghosts are reported to have characteristic “A”. We will assume that that characteristic is real, so how do we measure it? If we can’t measure it with conventional instruments, what instruments do we need to invent to do the job?
Given that some of the apparent characteristics of ghosts lie outside our current knowledge, this may lead to the opening of entirely new areas of knowledge. Or may ultimately prove that ghosts do not exist.
Remember, in Cosmology nobody could explain the accelerating expansion of the universe; this led to the theorizing of “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy”.
The fact that we can’t see, touch or measure Dark Matter hasn’t dissuaded scientists from incorporating it into mainstream science, and studying it.
So, apply the same principle to the study of ghosts. Whatever they may, or may not, be.
Good post, I agree with most of what you wrote, but this is where I pause.
Science has been very successful at reducing phenomena to more fundamental principles…but I’m not sure it’s an explicit requirement of a hypothesis.
Just from observing a phenomenon we might make a number of useful, testable predictions. These may help us on the way to a complete theory, but are useful in their own right too.
This is where I stand on the subject, without parameters or definitions or explanations.
Best post in the thread so far. I couldn’t have said any of it any better.
It’s not a set up for failure at all. As to presupposing the outcome of an experiment, that’s what putting forth a theory is all about. You put forth a theory that presupposes a certain outcome, then you run the tests and SEE what the outcome is. Then you run it again. And again. And you have some others run it too, and see what outcome they get. And so on.
And then you see where your theory stands wrt the actual data. If the data doesn’t support your theory then either you junk the theory, modify it, or you come up with a new series of tests. Rinse and repeat.
Not at all. For instance, there are theories that there is something called ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ in the cosmos. Currently it can’t be measured directly, just indirectly (based on the fact that we actually have galaxies, instead of rapidly dispersing clouds of gas). Does that mean that ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ don’t exist? Do we just give up because we can’t measure it? Nope. It means that people simply attempt to come up with new experiments and theories that need to be tested.
The ghost folks could do this (and, in fact, it has been tried), but generally they fall back on the tried and true…anecdotes and personal accounts, fuzzy pictures and psudo-scientific BS. Watch one of the ghost hunter type shows for a good look at the state of the art in this methodology.
Ok. Assume that characteristics like being able to move through a wall and yet be visible is one of the aspects. How would this even be possible, given what we know about physics today? Or ghostly noises…how would such a being generate sound waves, yet retain the other characteristics? How would it generate cold or heat, again as anecdotal evidence indicates they supposedly do?
Certainly you can test for cold or heat, you can test for electromagnetic energy as well. In fact, many of the ghost hunter type shows and ‘scientists’ types DO test for those things. Unfortunately, they do so without putting forth their theories first, and without rigor…and so, their results are only spectacular to those who already believe. Most actual scientists either yawn or laugh.
Exactly. Observation of actual events (that can be observed by many, results reproduced by anyone with the right instruments) have let to an anomaly, which in turn leads to a theory about ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter’. So, folks are testing for these things because the observational data indicates that SOMETHING is causing the effect.
Ghosts, however, don’t have an observational effect that can be reproduced by anyone with the right instruments, and there is no real anomaly to test, beyond the human psychological and physiological effects.
Nope, it’s in fact spurred on the scientific community, since they know something is happening, yet they can’t see or find what it is. The difference is they know SOMETHING is happening, since they can repeat the experiments and observations showing that something is happening outside of their original predictions.
You would have to start with a repeatable observation that is an anomaly, and then start creating theories and tests to try and determine what that anomaly actually is. The trouble is there IS no anomaly that can be observed by any group at any time. There is simply a lot of anecdotal assertions, but nothing that can be tested reliably…or even unreliably.
-XT
Has the Civil Rights Movement done nothing?
So, what if somebody explained to you that it works via metamaterials having a negative refractive index that bend the light around you in such a way that the interference pattern behind you exactly reproduces the influx of light from before you – would you still consider it magic?
Would you consider the example of electricity in the dark matter universe to be magic? If so, why wouldn’t it be magic in our universe, too – just because it’s simply more readily manifest here?
Do you consider your computer to be magic?
I don’t believe in ghosts to the same degree I don’t believe in elves, vampires, or dragons. I don’t think they exist based on the fact that there’s no credible evidence of their existence. But as somebody who tries to base his beliefs on reason and not faith, I can’t say that “ghosts don’t exist, at all, period, with 100 percent surety” because that level of certainty would, to me, require an act of faith.