It’s reasonable to discuss what ghosts are in a thread about ghosts.
I’ll happily concede, for the sake of argument, that love, hate and fear exist*. They are emotional states and they naturally inhabit the mind. But they also manifest themselves externally in the warm care shown to a child by her mother, the snarled insults spat at a bitter rival, the flinching recoil from an unexpectedly large spider. Or if we wish to amble towards the reductionist, they manifest themselves in
elevated levels of oxytocin or dopamine or adrenaline or dilated pupils or increased heartrate.
I would go so far to say that if it weren’t for these external manifestations we wouldn’t even bother having words for these things (I would contend that they would, in fact, be meaningless lables signifying nothing).
Not so for the imaginings of ghosts, they no more exist as “ghosts” than the imaginings of yetis exist as “yetis” or those of invisible pink unicorns exist as “invisible pink unicorns”.
*democracy was very much an odd one out in your list
No argument at all. Ghosts exist only in our minds. This started with Chronos’ post, go look at that, it defines what ghosts actually our, something that comes from our imagination.
I got democracy trying to get away from emotional concepts, no idea why it came to mind, but it’s still a concept, not to mean in the sense of a country that we identify as a democracy.
It seems to me that you are indeed trying to torture the meaning of “exist” so that it becomes meaningless (as Czarcasm said above).
At best you are equivocating: the word “exists” does not equal “exists only in the mind”.
I don’t see anything wrong with saying ghosts exist in the mind. It explains what ghosts are, it’s not tortured language, people understand what that means. You concede that love ‘exists’, but I don’t think you mean it’s the result of a little winged guy wearing a diaper shooting you with an arrow. I don’t think I said ghosts exist in any way outside the mind, even in the recounting of my own supernatural experience.
Tri, perhaps we are talking at crossed purposes? What Chronos said is where I object: a phenomenon that exists only in the mind, exists only in the mind, there’s no sense to go further and say, but in-the-mind-existence is also a type of existence (because it isn’t).
You know why you’ve never seen a ghost? In fact, no one has ever seen a ghost? It’s because ghosts are afraid of zombies.
Oh. Just wording. I think it’s a type of existence definitely distinct from the material and observable things. And if it wasn’t so damned hot outside I wouldn’t be spending the time inside to argue this, though I have enjoyed the banter. So I don’t think we disagree about anything but the wording, and I don’t think Chronos meant anything different either.
I was living with my sister and her husband in Boston and my sister and I were playing cards while waiting for her husband to come home for dinner . We heard some footsteps on the stairs and thought he was home but it sounded like someone a lot heavier than my BIL . The footsteps were so loud I could hear them , we looked in the hallway and saw no one but our landlord was standing outside his door downstairs with a kitchen knife in his hand ! He heard the footsteps too and thought is was an intruder . It was weird that we all heard something yet saw no one in the hallway . My BIL had a friend who believed in ghosts and paranormal and had him come over . The Ghostbuster came over and when upstairs to the attic and said he felt a cold spot and that ghost was there. He told the ghost that it was OK to rest now and go to the other side . My sister did a little research and found out the house we were living once be long to a sea captain and he dies a violent death at sea and he had a family at home . So it was believed the sea captain couldn’t RIP b/c he was still looking for his family. Yeah I know this sound like a load of crap but it did happen. My sister and I were worried that it was one of our Black male friends dropping by to see us and we went in the hallway to made sure our landlord didn’t give him a hard time. Someone was walking upstairs 4 people heard it yet saw no one so I guess it had to be a ghost or a very heavy cockroach on the steps !
What happened was you heard some noises. The rest is speculation and heresay.