One of my good friends grew up in a (claimed) haunted house. Strange stuff happened all of the time to his family that they couldn’t explain and we got plenty of pretty cool and eerie stories out of it. I was skeptical but pretty young and ignorant myself so I just went with it (besides, I “couldn’t explain it” either).
Anyway, years later we talked more about his experiences and I convinced him to read both Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World” and Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things”.
His house is no longer haunted
Now, I can’t say for certain that ghosts don’t exist but I can say that there is not really much evidence to suggest they do. Further, what we do know with a high degree of certainty is that our perceptions are fallible (ask any magician)
So, without further evidence on the matter, we must decide what is more likely (in a practical sense): Do we live our lives assuming ghosts do exist (and act accordingly) or carry on without them and leave ourselves to the (if you believe movies or fanatics) dire consequences…
Well, I have yet to see a headline: Ghost Implicated in Murder of local Doctor: pumpkin patches everywhere being combed for more evidence (Hmm, would it technically even be “murder”?)
Lastly, most explanations of ghosts (or poltergeists) try to have it both ways: On one hand it is claimed that “ghost energy" can move [physical] things (or makes [physical] noises) but on the other, it also moves through such [physical] things to get around. I’d like to see the evidence that convinces anyone to think this duality is possible.
I’m not sure whether to be disheartened or amazed that so many people seem to genuinely believe in manifestations of the afterlife. On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, no less.
Honestly there’s no attempt to threadshit here (although my feelings on this kind of stuff are pretty vehement) but I have to wonder - do you posters undergoing “paranormal” experiences literally believe that it’s the disembodied spirit of such-and-such? I know how persuasive personal experience can be, but, logically, can you really buy into it?
Every time I ask for rationale I get some kind of vague handwavey explanation about “essence” and “spirit” with very little justification. Seriously - it’s cool with me if you see ghosts provided you’re not making public policy, or something. I’m just curious as to the rationale.
Tubes, I don’t pretend to know what it is. All I know is that I’ve seen things that have no rational explanation, such as the Bible flipping off the shelf, or experienced strange things like whatever it was that attacked me in Andrea’s bunk bed. I have nightmares, and that thing was no nightmare. I was not asleep. And the Bible leaped off the shelf right in front of me and two roommates, and we were all wide awake and lucid at the time. I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in demons and ghouls and stuff. But I don’t know what caused those things. That it might be some weirdo kind of energy is the only half-way scientific explanation that I can come up with.
Seriously though … In my instance, I was just a normal teenage girl thinking about normal teenage girl things (probably cute boys or top 40 songs or something) while I was making my bed, and when I looked up, my grandmother was standing there. While she was old, she wasn’t ill and her death was not anticipated, and certainly not yet known when I saw her. I saw her in front of me just as clearly as I can see my keyboard or bottle of Stewart’s Diet Root Beer on my desk right now. She was just, well, there.
I don’t see it that way. Indeed, most of these stories are couched with a disclaimer akin to, “I don’t really believe in ghosts, but this was a strange experience that I have no other explanation for.” Yes, there are a few True Believers (including myself) and this basically comes down to experience – if you’ve experienced a paranormal event firsthand, it’s very hard to convince yourself that it’s just coincidence or imagination. If you’ve never experienced the paranormal, then it’s difficult to understand the perspective of someone who has. See what I’m saying?
Keep in mind that our understanding of Science has increased dramatically in just the last 200 years, and things which were never imagined before – everything from germs to lasers to splitting the atom – are considered routine and mundane today. It’s logical to assume that our knowledge of Science will continue to increase, and what is unexplainable today (vis-a-vis ghosts, foretelling the future, etc.) will become routine and mundane in the future.
Let me reiterate what I have said repeatedly – I use the term “poltergeist” for what happens in my homes (yes, that is homes, it has been every home in which I have lived) because it’s a concise way of saying “stuff moves seemingly of its own accord, there are strange, unexplained noises, electronics turn on and off without human intervention, and many other very strange things happen” – do I believe in ghosts or the afterlife or that this is the manifestation of some spirit or other supernatural thing? No. I think it is simply that there are things we do not yet understand and I happen to have a front-row seat far too often to them. My son thinks that there are multiple dimensions (so do many respected scientists) and that perhaps the things we have witnessed are things that are actually occurring in another dimension. I don’t really care what causes it – the OP asked about strange experiences, I shared.
Ignorance is a funny thing to fight. Some people believe that only their own ignorance is ok. Threadshitting or not, insisting that a whole group of people who have said “I don’t believe this was a ‘ghost’ but this is what happened to me” are actually saying “I believe in ghosts” is pretty lame.
No proof is not necessarily dis-proof. I don’t assume that someone who believes in ghosts is ignorant, I just accept that they believe in ghosts. I don’t find it anymore ignorant to believe in ghosts than in gods, angels, or true love.
Oh, totally. I have an unfortunate habit of coming across as condescending when I’m not trying to be - hopefully that isn’t the case here. My personal beliefs are of course completely contrary - and I find circumstances like this to be fascinating examples of psychology rather than metaphysics. Confirmation bias makes the entire situation sticky, though, both for believers and skeptics. Were somebody to approach me with a paranormal story I admit my knee-jerk reaction would be to immediately dismiss the story as benign delusion no matter how compelling the evidence was. I’m no less biased, I simply feel empirical evidence and Occam’s razor sides with me. This does come to mind though.
Nonetheless, I concur that eerie things can happen for which no readily available explanation exists; my contention merely is that there’s a natural cause that fits easily in our current paradigms. The day before my mother died she’d missed a regularly scheduled phone call - for the following day I was naggingly worried, and when I was told of her death it was very easy to think "Ahah! I knew something was wrong!" because no matter how small or unrealistic my worries were, having them confirmed gives them enormous weight.
Oh! So, you actually think that there’s a scientific basis behind these events, and that we just haven’t figured it out yet? If so - props. Hypothetical evidence is far superior than “because I just believe in it, man.”
I’ve got news for you (although how it can be news to you I really cannot fathom): science has been dealing with beliefs such as yours for a century or more and it *has *explained them. It’s just that the explanation is something you don’t want to hear.
Anyway, have you yet figured out what a ghost is, in the sense of how you recognise it and distinguish it from other things? I think you need to figure out what exactly it is that you are talking about before you say it exists.
Wait, so you think that weird stuff that hasn’t been explained actually fits into our current paradigms, and then you go on to mock someone who suggests that weird stuff that hasn’t been explained will more likely fit into future paradigms? :rolleyes:
No, you haven’t. At least, not on this message board.
I’ve had plenty of spooky experiences. Why? Because I’m a human being with an active imagination. We imagine stuff all the time. Our perception of the world is a synthesis of input from our sensory organs, cobbled together with our mental model of the world and tinged with a broad spectrum of emotion. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable even when describing events that everyone agrees actually happened, such as car wrecks or major crimes.
Litoris – you referred to “Bob” throwing things around. Have you ever actually seen something flying through the air in one of these cases? I understand if you don’t want to invest a lot of time and money, but how about keeping a daily log of Bob-related occurrences, say for a year, and then presenting it here? Maybe we could find some kind of consistent pattern.
I obviously can’t speak for Princhester, but if you believe that the brain actively constructs experience (as anyone who has used a hallucinogen will likely admit ) and doesn’t simply copy a pre-existent ‘picture’ of the world (i.e. direct realism), it isn’t difficult to believe that it is capable of producing images that will be experienced as real if not more real than usual which simply aren’t there. For instance, those suffering from macular degeneration occasionally develop Charles Bonnet syndrome which is marked by the appearance of fully realistic images without a related external stimulus. Although I doubt that everyone who claims to have seen a ghost is losing their eyesight, the mere existence of such a condition should give those who have had such experiences pause.
Here’s some cites to the abstracts of scientific papers discussing aspects of belief in the paranormal:
This paperarrives at a theory that believers tend to be people who (in layman’s terms) are quick to jump to conclusions
This paper is similar and correlates belief in the paranormal with mental illnes and magical thinking (leaping to illogical conclusions)
This one is a broader overview, the conclusions of which are convoluted but you will note that it theorises on a correlation between fantasy proneness and belief in the paranormal.
Basically, the boat has sailed and you are not on it. Mainstream science has already concluded that the existence of the paranormal is not scientifically supported, and has moved on to studying why you and others believe in it regardless.
And given that (I am forced to conclude) you can’t even describe what a ghost is, sufficient to recognise one and distinguish one from other things, I wonder how you are even qualified to consider whether they exist.
It doesn’t surprise me that people with a rich fantasy world are more prone to paranormal experiences, or at least believing they are paranormal. Your links are interesting, I’ll have to read them in depth when I have more time.
Wait a minute…why the hostility??
Seriously, this is my biggest problem with you skeptics – you always act like any belief in the paranormal is a personal affront to your OWN beliefs. Why can’t you just accept that some people have different interpretations of reality and leave it at that? Or are you merely jealous?
Why the attempt to change the subject? Can you describe what a ghost is, sufficient to recognise one and distinguish one from other things, or can’t you?
So for the people who believe in ghosts and claim to have seen them, I have a question: do people take a manifestation of their clothing to the afterlife with them, or are they given their ghost clothes on the other side? I’m just asking since sightings of naked ghosts seem to be rare, at least that I know of.
Also, how do ghosts walk through walls but move solid objects?
Well, the the subject was what experiences have you had with the supernatural not whether or not someone can describe what they are. Some people believe in Angels, seeing a 900 feet Jesus, UFO’s, vreationism and leprechauns. I might not believe in all of those things but I wouldn’t insult someone who did.
How can I know whether I have had an experience with a ghost when, it seems, no one can even tell me what a ghost is, sufficient to recognise one and distinguish one from other things I might experience?
This is the reason I always ask for (and insist upon like a pigdog with your arm in it’s teeth) an answer to this question in this sort of thread.
Well, that’s obviously true, by definition. Paranormal is definedas “Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation” Any claim that IS scientifically supported cannot be paranormal. Any claim that is tested and found to be true is normal by definition. You probably know already about meteorites and continental drift. At one time they were claims that were not supported by conventional science. They fit the definition of paranormal at the time. Once they were proved to be real, they stopped being paranormal.
Maybe you shouldn’t be quite so negative. Left up to your kind of thinking, meteorites would still be dismissed as a superstition.
Hmmm. You’re right, I mis-spoke. What I should have said is:
“Mainstream science has already concluded that the existence of the type of alleged phenomena described in this thread (ghosts etc) is not scientifically supported, and has moved on to studying why you and others believe in it regardless.”
I’m not going to bother with a definitional argument about whether continential drift or meteorites were ever “paranormal” because such arguments are a waste of time. The substance of your point is that mainstream science can reject theories, then turn out to be wrong. Granted.
However:
1/ Science doesn’t say that the type of alleged phenomena described in this thread (ghosts etc) are proven not to occur
2/ mainstream science has (as I said) moved on from serious consideration of whether the type of alleged phenomena described in this thread (ghosts etc) do occur because controlled testing of such phenomena doesn’t seem to confirm their occurrence
3/ mainstream science certainly is capable of rejecting a theory which it turns out it shouldn’t have, but usually this doesn’t occur.
So my money is on science never concluding that ghosts etc exist. What you do with your money is up to you.
:rolleyes:
) and doesn’t simply copy a pre-existent ‘picture’ of the world (i.e. direct realism), it isn’t difficult to believe that it is capable of producing images that will be experienced as real if not more real than usual which simply aren’t there. For instance, those suffering from macular degeneration occasionally develop