Bringing Physics Into Metaphysics
 

I have a question that has been bothering me for awhile. If ghosts are truly "spirits" and they have no mass, then how do they reflect light? I.e. how do we see them?

If they do have mass, then are they bounded by the physics of our world? If so, how do they move, especially through walls?

Hey! That's a good question. I've never thought about that.

I never thought about it either, mainly because I don't give in to the temptations of believing ghost actually exist. That's actually a very good question, I'll be sure to use it on my friend when he bring up ghost stories up again.

One possibility is that ghosts could be our four-dimensional selves, unfettered by a three-dimensional body trapped in this world. Any thoughts?

People often talk about ghosts glowing. Perhaps they are mostly energy and they just emit light, rather than reflecting. Maybe they are some phase of matter that we just don't know about yet.

The description of ghosts seems to defy any physics we know. Therefore, our physics is inadequate or ghosts really don't exist.

However, if we are to keep within physics as we know it, ghosts cannot be composed of energy because, as Einstein put it, energy IS mass. And the issue of ghosts having mass is the whole reason I'm confused.

Also think about this: if ghosts come from humans and have mass, where were they when the person was alive? A dead person must lose weight upon death.

maybe when someone sees that shadowy figure they say was a ghost, it was not the ghost itself they saw, but light being distorted or reflected off of teh atmosphere or something else displaced in our atmosphere. like.. ionized air or somthing. Light would reflect off of that mass and not the ghost itself... But then to have an effect the air, I suppose the ghost again is intereacting with our physics and whould have some sort of mass? or maybe it could be electromagnetically affecting it? I don't knwo enough about how ionization or similar things are done without reading up on it to really complete this thoguht at this time. Just wanted to get the basic thought out to let otheres ponder it further.

Not wanting to turn this into the philosophy board, but Einstein actually said that mass is made of energy. Different thing entirely. Houses are made of bricks, but you cant live in a brick. Remember that he also showed that there are quanta of energy (later to be known as photons) which act as if they have zero mass.

Einstein made some very important adjustments to our model of the universe, but others have been made since. The guys at CERN have recently detected what is probably a Higgs Boson, the particle that gives mass to other particles.

So when I was talking about a phase of matter that we didn't understand, I was thinking of something like matter with all the Higgs Bosons stripped out.

This is all pseudoscience, of course, but we are in paranoia.

The link below might interest you (if only for the writing style.) Make of it what you will.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

I feel I should add what I can to this board, and to address the Higgs Boson issue, it's my understanding that we are immersed in a Higgs Boson field, so for ghosts to exist without interaction of Higgs particles, they would have to ensure that no Higgs bosons appear in their patch of the universe.

It would be an interesting issue for quantum physicists, to say the least (since particles only have a probability of being anywhere).

Listen, pal, I took a fourth year physics course in Quantum Mechanics and I'll have you know I got 34%, so don't take any notice of the crap I spew about it. :)

Maybe they've got some other particle that repels Higgs-Bosons. Or maybe they bypass our sensory perception and interact directly with our visual cortex to give us a sense of seeing them.

I'm not reallly sure I believe in ghosts, by the way, I'm just hypothesising aimlessly here.

No, I like where you're going with this. What I was saying was that Higgs particles have a probability of being anywhere just like any other particle, and it is not impossible for an area in space to temporarily not have any there. In this case, anything with mass would not exhibit that mass. And something without mass would not be affected by the rules of even classical physics--gravity included.

I also like the idea of an anti-Higgs boson. Is this possible? If so, an entity consisting of anti-Higgs particles would not only not need to exhibit mass, but would erase the Higgs field around it and create energy at the same time, right? Like when an electron and positron come into contact with each other.

I should state that I don't believe in a God that manipulates the universe, which is why I am trying to explain these anomalies of science.

Also, for the record, I haven't taken a physics course beyond high school, but am interested in it enough to teach myself, so some of my knowledge could be wrong.

Actually in my opinion your using actual physics, reflection of light, to bring the metaphysical into a understandable view.

If it truly is metaphysical. Then reflection of light means nothing to them :)

Very good thinking pattern though!