# Ghosts and Logic (story too) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 20, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821 "2017-04-20T02:17:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/21 "2017-04-22T05:02:24Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > On to the point. Would it be a logical theory to surmise that if there is a such thing as ghosts/supernatural, then it thus proves religion to be true, hence heaven/hell/afterlife? Don’t get me wrong; I am religious and do believe in the possibility of ghosts but -------- No. We are after all a sort of electrical energy; our conscious minds operate as electrical connections and forms. Is it not possible that some of that energy remains after death in a perfectly natural form we don’t understand? ---
**Author:** ![anomalous1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/22 "2017-04-22T05:25:15Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > Thank you! That’s pretty weird. I wasn’t sure if it was a case of things just rolling off the counter or exhibiting some extreme behavior. I’m always skeptical, but remain very interested in hearing about these types of events. (For example, there’s a lot of difference between somebody “seeing a UFO” that is a moving light and somebody reporting a saucer-shaped vehicle with LGM piloting it.) Skeptical as well myself, even though I have seen that kind of stuff, not to mention the whole apparition thing, I will still remain skeptical. Kind of a running joke with my sister that all of us kids had a poltergeist follow us, given our constant misfortunes (we’re not idiots either). I assume that maybe it is some form of as of yet unmeasurable form of residual energy or something, because that is as close to a scientific explanation as it’s going to get. I have no answers otherwise. Just to clarify, this has not happened for years, this was at an old house, but it still bothers the hell out of me not being able to explain it. My place these days is quiet, and given my tendency toward OCD behavior, I’m quite glad things stay in their place. I do like the train of logic that suggests that one does not necessarily mean the other, as in, there can be an afterlife, supernatural etc. But that does not necessarily mean there is a God, vice versa. I guess I have always lumped all of this stuff together. But I still believe in UFO’s, though. But that just seems common sense to me, that right there is a suggestion that just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. That’s a different topic/different time though. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/23 "2017-04-22T12:23:18Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > **ZonexandScout** > > microwave that would randomly enter numbers on its own, usually 9’s. (many, many times) Well, there you have it–you are being haunted by John Lennon. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/24 "2017-04-22T12:33:23Z")
> [@kopek](#): > > No. We are after all a sort of electrical energy; our conscious minds operate as electrical connections and forms. Is it not possible that some of that energy remains after death in a perfectly natural form we don’t understand? Our conscious minds act as “electrical connections and forms” based on the physical structure and chemical environment of the brain. So no, it isn’t possible that “some of that energy remains after death in a perfectly natural form”, any more than an iPod that has been put in a blender continues to play music in some higher plane. (There is a very, very common tendency for people to use “energy” in a very vague, woo-like way. But energy is a very specific thing, and the “energy” in the human body consists of chemical energy being released by biochemical processes in cells and moving between those cells. When all of those cells die, the chemical energy stops being produced, it doesn’t “go somewhere else.”) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/25 "2017-04-22T15:20:18Z")
Where does the flame go when a candle is snuffed out? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/26 "2017-04-22T15:46:51Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Our conscious minds act as “electrical connections and forms” based on the physical structure and chemical environment of the brain. So no, it isn’t possible that “some of that energy remains after death in a perfectly natural form”, any more than an iPod that has been put in a blender continues to play music in some higher plane. > > (There is a very, very common tendency for people to use “energy” in a very vague, woo-like way. But energy is a very specific thing, and the “energy” in the human body consists of chemical energy being released by biochemical processes in cells and moving between those cells. When all of those cells die, the chemical energy stops being produced, it doesn’t “go somewhere else.”) > **[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2011-08-28](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-08-28)** > > Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2011-08-28 tl;dr - go to the last panel ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/27 "2017-04-22T17:09:18Z")
The existence of ghosts would lend some credibility to religions that believe in ghosts. Sorry to argue the hypothetical, but what is a ghost? If you see one what did the photons bounce off of? Or do they emit light themselves? If they make a sound what is disturbing the air? What are they made of that makes them perceptible and why does this stuff resemble a once living person? Why are they wearing clothes? Are they the clothes they were buried in? Do clothes have an afterlife? There’s a lot more to explain about why anybody thinks they saw a ghost in order for there to be evidence of the existence of ghosts. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821/28 "2017-04-24T17:59:29Z")
Thank you for your post anomalous1. I always find these topics fascinating. As an agnostic/atheist I always defer to scientific method and causality for judging the “trueness” of things. I haven’t experienced anything like “ghosts” but I have had rather odd things happen that would fit the description of “premonitions”. Of course all the empiricist will tell you it was all in your head, but I would submit that such things could simple be an ultra rare confluence of events that seem like supernatural or in the rarest of instances, natural events that follow science, but are as yet undiscovered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-and-logic-story-too/784821.md?page=1)