Lasereth

There is a hell of a lot of sidestepping of this question in this thread. Fuck what the semantics of the words "evidence, proof, exist," etc. mean. Give me a break. Everybody in this thread knows what I mean when I say evidence, proof, and existence. Either ghosts exist or they don't, and I find it extremely interesting that most people believe they do. That's what this thread is about.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

KnifeMissile

I think this is relevant an entertaining...

Lasereth

A most excellent video.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

vanblah

I thought this thread was built around the question: "Why can't anyone prove ghosts?"

There's really no need to discuss the point that some people believe and others don't; it's been done to death.

Why can't anyone prove ghosts? is a far more interesting question (although it's been asked before, too). I've given my thoughts on the subject and as Lasereth pointed out it only "proved" that ghosts don't exist; I say it doesn't prove anything, it's just a thought.

I've also given my opinion about ghosts; but again it proves nothing.

Iliftrocks

It does speak volumes about the probability of them existing though....

__________________
bill hicks - "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

filtherton

It only speaks volumes about the probability that there exists credible evidence of the existence of ghosts.

Cynosure

I don't believe in ghosts. And I say this, having myself had several personal experiences that would support a belief in ghosts. That is, I've seen on several occasions what appeared to be a ghost. One time, it appeared as a human-sized wavering in the air. Another time, it appeared as a human-shaped form of utter blackness. Yet another time, it was a hovering ball of phosphorescent energy, about the size of a softball.

There were audible signs, too. Mostly, it was a young woman's voice, sweet yet mischievous. Sometimes, it was a man's voice, gentle yet somehow seductive. Once, it was a child's voice, seemingly innocent. Mostly what they said to me was "Hello" or "Hi" or "Hey, there". One time, as I lay half-sleeping, I felt someone approach and hover over me, and it was the woman's voice that said, "Boo!", then giggled. (By this time I was getting annoyed with all this, so I lifted my head from the pillow and said aloud, "Ha-ha. Very funny.")

Yes, what all of my experiences had in common was, they occurred as I was waking up (mostly in the darkness of night, but sometimes in the light of early morning). According to my research, these were probably "sleep paralysis" dreams that I was experiencing. However, I wasn't paralyzed during my experiences. Like, the time I saw a human-shaped wavering in the air, four to six feet from the foot of my bed, I sat up and thought, "Is this real? Am I awake?" And then I realized that, yes, I was awake! So I threw my pillow at the apparition to see if it was real. (All this did was cause it to dissipate. So much for my scientific approach! LoL.)

These experiences began for me shortly after one night, when my wife and I were sitting in the living room, watching TV and chatting with each other. In the middle of our light conversation, my wife got quiet. I glanced at her and saw a weird look in her eyes. Then she sat up and said, "I just saw a spirit, walking down the stairway and into the living room." Feeling a chill, I looked to the stairway, but I saw nothing. "No," she said, "it's already gone." I thoroughly questioned my wife and analyzed what she saw (or what she thought she saw), but I couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

Days if not weeks before this, we were experiencing numerous instances of weird dimming and brightening of the lights in our house. (We haven't experienced that in the years since all this stuff happened, even though we did nothing to fix the wiring in our house, nor have we had any significant changes in our electricity usage.) It was kind of eerie, when the thing with the lights was happening, but I figured there was a simple, scientific explanation for it. But then the other stuff started happening.

Well, a few days after that, my wife awoke in the night to hear a woman's voice talking in a hushed voice to our daughter, who was 6-years-old at the time. Our daughter was asleep, at the time, but she was mumbling in reply to the ghostly woman's voice.

Me, I continued to be skeptical of all this, even though I believe in God and the afterlife. And then I started having my own experiences, as I've already described.

There's a lot more details about our experiences (mine, in particular) that I haven't gotten into, here, including some stuff that was weirdly sexual in nature... but I digress for now. The bottom line is, I still don't believe in ghosts, per se, and I still question our experiences with the seeming supernatural.

KnifeMissile

...which, in turns, speaks about the likelihood that it exists at all. That you would try to isolate phenomena from their evidence as if there were no relationship is rather... dare I say disingenuous? I'm beginning to wonder what it is with you and people who try to understand the world in which we live. It's almost as if you're offended at the notion that the Universe can be understood. This is just a guess and you're free to clarify...

It's perfectly reasonable to discard theories for which there can be no evidence. In other words, untestable theories are worthless. If there can be no evidence for ghosts then how do their existence affect us at all? ...and if they can never affect us then how is it useful to think they exist in the first place? It's about as useful as holding on to the luminiferous ether. Are you going to get angry at this link too?

---------- Post added at 02:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 AM ----------

Actually, I've thought about my last response a little bit and I think I can better articulate what's bothering me about filtherton's last post.

It seems to me that he's not even trying to argue the points reasonably anymore. He's just trying to say anything that sounds convincing in the hopes that no one will be able to pinpoint exactly how he's not making any sense in order to create the appearance of winning a debate. This is what I pin with the label of "disingenuous;" a word I've been using far too much in this thread but I'm failing to find a suitable synonym...

This angers me because I'm here to discuss issues honestly in an attempt to reach a mutual understanding and I see this as an attempt to subvert that...

filtherton

Like I said before, it would be disingenuous if I didn't believe what I was saying.

I would be happy to guess, provided you go back and clarify this last paragraph. Right now it seems like you're trying to discount everyone who tries to understand the world in which we live.

Here's where you get caught up in silliness. Has anyone here offered up any sort of "theory of ghosts"? No. Did you know that a theory about the existence of ghosts isn't the same thing as believing in ghosts? Unless you mean "theory" in some sort of general sense, in which case, you're even wronger.

No, they actually aren't. The world would cease to function if people only relied on testable "theories" in during their day to day activities.

You're confused about what constitutes evidence, both scientific and nonscientific. This is evident in your seeming overreliance on wikipedia.

I don't care if I win anything. What would I win?

That's why I didn't respond to your last post. I don't care if you think I'm wrong. We've had this discussion an unbearable number of time and you've never demonstrated the ability to understand what I'm saying. Normally, this would probably mean that what I'm saying doesn't make any sense, but the fact that other people understand what I'm saying, and that some of them even agree with me seems to suggest something different.

The only reason I'm responding to this post is that you pretty much called me a liar, and I wanted to point out that the implication that your inability to grok my perspective make me a liar is silly. It's unbecoming of someone who seems to be so in love with evidence-based belief.

Right. Speaking of disingenuous...

KnifeMissile

I don't think you believe what you were saying in the sense that there wasn't really anything to believe in. I'll expand on this later...

My reaction at that time was that you seem offended at attempts to understand the world and would rather have people settle for an "anything can be true so lets just believe anything" sort of attitude. This is such a fantastic position that I don't actually believe that you hold it so I was hoping you'd clarify what your position really is...

I don't know what you mean by "theory of ghosts." People here have theorized that ghosts do, in fact, exist. While people may present theories that they don't personally believe in, the theories themselves assert claims and I may disagree with these. This has been the case in this thread...

I otherwise have no idea what you're talking about in this paragraph...

This is untrue in several ways.

While it's true that people couldn't live their everyday lives testing every hypothesis that comes their way, they do run their lives almost entirely on theories that are testable. They don't bother to test them 'cause not only do they not have the time but, as it so happens, the vast majority of what we tell each other just happens to be true so things run as smoothly as they do.

Furthermore, while we can spend a great deal of time and energy discussing and even doing things motivated by untestable theories, the theories themselves don't describe anything that has anything to do with reality and, in that sense, are worthless. In other words, untestable theories may motivate us to do things and, in that sense, are worth something but the actual details of the theories don't convey any information that relates to the world we live in, in effect saying nothing at all.

Please detail this. What does my use of wikipedia links say about my opinions on evidence? How does my use of links to it even constitute any sort of "reliance?"

Only in the most narrow sense can my comments be construed as an accusation of lying. My last post to you isn't even a result of my inability to understand you. In fact, it's quite the opposite of that. It's important to note that all I can understand about you is what you write. What you wrote was:
If evidence of ghosts or lack thereof only speaks about the evidence of ghosts and not of ghosts themselves then what does say anything about ghosts? To say that the evidence for ghosts only speaks about the evidence of ghosts is a tautology. What do you think this link indicates now?! You didn't actually convey any meaning in this post but you posted it anyway, as if it did. What's up with that? My response was an expression of how I feel about this and my attempts to understand how this happens. You were free to clarify and I had hoped you would. All you did was frantically defend some vague accusation of lying and call me unreasonable. Well, I've been using nothing but reasoning. Come join me!

Explain the disingenuity. I welcome opportunities to see people's opinion of me...

filtherton

I wasn't saying that there "wasn't really anything to believe in." I'm not sure where you've gotten this idea. Perhaps if you go and reread the things I've wrote without this little nugget of misinformation clouding your thoughts you might get a better grasp of what I've been talking about.

To be more clear about myself-- I'm a math guy who went engineering, but probably should have stayed math. I unconsciously attempt to fit the ideas I come across into the framework of mathematical proofs. I very loosely believe in everything, but I only act on beliefs when I think the evidence is sufficient to support those beliefs.

See above, you've misread me. It's not something that really offends me anymore-- Jesus pushers used to offend me too-- I've gotten a thicker skin about things.

I do think that it's silly when folks confuse the inability to prove something for evidence that that something doesn't exist. I think that it is even sillier that many of these same people, people who seem to think that they are the sole arbiters of what constitutes "sufficient evidence," would frequently be so inept at using evidence to support their positions.

No. No one has theorized in a scientific sense. That's what we're talking about, right? Science? For someone who presents himself as such a student of the scientific method, you could stand to nail the terminology a bit better. Perhaps folks have assumed ghosts as a possible explanation, but even then, they haven't hypothesized in a scientific sense. With respect to science, a hypothesis is testable-- has anyone in here proposed a testing scheme for paranormal activity? My apologies if someone has.

The fact that a particular presumption appears testable means that it's okay to just assume that it's true? Well shit. That makes everything so much simpler. How about this: I believe that ghosts exist, and that if they do exists, that their existence will manifest itself clearly to all of humanity within the next ten years. Boom. That "hypothesis" is testable-- we'll just wait ten years.

What you seem to be saying is something along the lines of "Unverifiable statements aren't useful to someone who is primarily concerned with verifiable statements." This is a tautology. Thanks for the wikipedia link.

I'm just saying, you wouldn't want to do that in your peer reviewed paper on the species of dinosaur you just discovered. See below for and examples of the possible pitfalls of wikipedia use.

I'm not going to link to the definition of "disingenuous," since I know you know how to use the internet. Don't worry, you haven't hurt my feelings.

I know it was a tautology. That was the point: that sometimes there is no deeper meaning; it is important to not draw false conclusions.

Here's the problem with linking to wikipedia: You read what I wrote, thought to yourself "A-hah!! He used a tautology!! I'm going to look that up on wikipedia and see what sort of ammo I can find." Then you went to wikipedia and saw that it said that tautologies add no meaning and thought "A-ha!! I'll show that filtherton. His tautology clearly added no meaning." But you were wrong.

That tautology doesn't exist in a vacuum. It was brought into existence as a response to a fallacious implication made by someone else. This gives the tautology meaning. See this example:

Person A: "The average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures. This means that global climate change is not occuring."
Person B: "Actually, it isn't necessarily that simple. The best that we can say is that the fact that the average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures just means that the fact that the average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures."
Person A: "Oh, you're right. Sometimes I allow my personal beliefs to get in the way of my ability to infer proper conclusions from data."

Short version: if you're going to use wikipedia, don't just do the mental equivalent of ye olde cut and paste.


I disagree with all of your characterizations here.

I just have a hard time believing that you're here "to discuss issues honestly in an attempt to reach a mutual understanding."

Strange Famous

This is a big thread and I wish Id noticed it before as its a subject Im very interested in.

All I will say for now is to question - what do we call proof?

Millions of people have reported and honestly believed that they have experienced what we call "ghosts"

I would guess - without looking it up - that less than 100 people have reported that they have walked on the moon.

And yet the moon landing are scientific fact, and ghosts are superstition - or at least so says "science"

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

tisonlyi

"science" fires lasers at mirrors delicately set up by "astronauts" who "landed on the moon" and measure the rate at which the moon is moving away from the earth, etc.

People who see "ghosts" are deluded.

Our brains are hard-wired to see human-like features (pareidolia and the like) in allsorts of phenomena...

As an aside, don't you find it funny that people all around the world have 'spiritual experiences' that are very broadly in-keeping with the culturel they experience?

West: Christian iconography, idols, spirits, etc... UFO's (post popular sci-fi)
East: Hindu manifestations, etc, etc

__________________
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

Baraka_Guru

Proving the non-physical is an exercise in futility.

We cannot prove the existence of numbers, but we use them in mathematics.

We cannot prove the existence of space, but we measure it.

We cannot prove the existence of time, but we keep track of it.

We cannot prove the existence of ghosts, but perhaps some of us make that bridge between non-physical entities and sensory perception.

There are countless connections between the physical and non-physical. It is all around us. We all experience it every day.

Perfection does not exist; it is a concept, but that doesn't stop some of us from perceiving it.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Xerxys

This might be the wrong thread but could you please explain a bit more on what you mean by this? I'm baffled.

I mean, numbers are not nouns but verbs. I use a number to describe you. Like you are a person. I am a person. You and I make two people.

I just read this, I am a dimwit ...

vanblah

Numbers, space and time are all concepts. Specifically, they are units of measure. They don't "exist" in the physical world in the same way that a desk or a chair exist in the physical world.

Xerxys

You probably explained it best, vanblah but forget I asked ... I won't understand and a breakdown will make it worse.....

KnifeMissile

I wasn't saying that you were saying that there "wasn't really anything to believe in." I was saying that you couldn't have believed in your own post because there wasn't anything in your post to believe in. The reason I thought that is because your post is a tautology and thus had no meaning for you to believe. That accusation of disingenuity was regarding that one particular post...

I'm very similar to you. I studied math and then went into computer programming. I've had to learn to be more colloquial with my terms and my framework in order to effectively speak to people on web forums...

Even my approach to belief is similar to yours except that I disbelieve everything and only act on belief when I think the evidence supports the action. My notion of support depends on many things and isn't all that strict. For instance, I'm willing to believe you had cereal for breakfast 'cause there's no consequence to believing that. However, I'm not going to hate an entire category of people because some church tells me I should until they can give me some seriously compelling reason...

I think you're unfairly harsh on people you think "are sole arbiters of what constitutes 'sufficient evidence.'" I don't think having a strong opinion and wanting to convince other people of your point of view is well characterized as being a sole arbiter of evidence. If you have a position and you think you can support it then do so! That's why we're on web forums and on this forum in particular...

I think I understand your sentiment about proof. Is the idea analogous to not believing in black holes because we can't prove they exist?

I think it's silly when people think that a lack of evidence for something doesn't say anything that it's lack of existence. It clearly does and we rely on this all the time. It's a harder argument to make than existence but it can and has been made and to good effect!

Actually, I was using "theory" in the colloquial sense, hence the use of the verb form "theorize," since I'm pretty sure this has no specific scientific meaning (although, frankly, the scientific meaning of "theory" isn't all that different from the colloquial one).

Also, when I spoke about "people here," I meant the people here in this thread. I wasn't speaking about people in general...

I was merely describing what it is that people do. I made no judgment as to whether it was "okay" or not, whatever that means in this context...

You may believe anything you like but there's no fun in stating your belief on a web forum (particularly this one!) without a good argument to back it up!

While your brief summary is a tautology, my post said a great deal more than that which made it not tautological. I was clarifying my use of the term "useful" and "worthy."

Again, this summary is disingenuous and is what causes me to guess at ulterior motives for you. Why do you keep doing this? What's so hard about being honest in your arguments?

Good thing I'm not writing a "peer reviewed paper," in the manner that you meant it...

It was a metaphor for the statement you were trying to make?

You could have just said that but you didn't. It looked like you were saying that evidence of things don't relate to things. In relation to your interpretation above, it looked like you were saying there can be no deeper meaning...

You deeply mischaracterize my use of wikipedia (which is really my use of links, it just so happens that wikipedia is often the most useful thing to link to).

You know that I can't possibly be using wikipedia as a source of argument or "ammo" as you've described it. What ammo did I use from the page on luminiferous ether? That's clearly not what I'm doing with these links.

Do you care to tell me what actually offends you about my use of links?

Also, setting aside that person B in your example didn't say anything grammatically coherent, he didn't really say anything. I mean, person A was pretty easily won over. Person B might as well have said "Actually, it isn't necessarily that simple." and person A could've have responded the same way. The tautology didn't help beyond filling empty space with noise...

I agree that sentences don't exist in a vacuum but that's a poor example...

C'mon, you can do better than that. All you did was say "just" and then repeated your assertion...

---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------

No, actually, it's an exercise in semantics.

For example, numbers used to be an adjective, in that you can have two horses or three cows. Amazingly enough, we actually found patterns in these descriptions. In certain ways, having three cows was similar to having three pigs. We also found relationships between variations of these descriptions, like being able to break five cows into two groups of five or five groups of two. Eventually, we abstracted out the notion of having a number of objects into simply having numbers; turning these adjectives into nouns. My example may have been a bit overkill but I thought it was really interesting and wanted to share it.

My actual point is that numbers are definitional. They're an idea and ideas exist despite not being physical. Really, physicality as a requirement for existence is stupid. We might as well be debating whether energy exists or not...

The idea of ghosts exist. Phenomena that people call ghosts surely exist in that I'm not willing to believe that all these people are lying. Do ghosts, themselves, as we conceptualize them exist? I don't think so...

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:18 PM ----------

Are you sure? Aren't you the guy who thought fiction is real?

Ah, this is actually a good question. Of course the notion of proof is subjective. What's enough to convince one person isn't necessarily enough to convince another. However, you wanted to know what makes one scientific and another superstition...

I'm not sure where to start so I guess I'll start with the moon landings. Now, the moon landings are historical events so I wouldn't call them scientific claims anymore than I would describe the shooting of JFK as scientific but I think I know what you mean so I'll run with it...

Barring the idea that the moon landings have been faked (which is obviously possible but I find highly unlikely), it's a shared experience witnessed by many people. There is lingering physical and detailed evidence that it happened. Finally, there's nothing impossible about it. It conforms with everything else we know.

Ghosts, on the other hand, are not shared experiences. They're very personal and subjective. They're ambiguous and vary greatly; so much so that you can't even say that people are experiencing the same thing, never mind whether they're seeing ghosts. There's never any lingering evidence. Finally, the idea doesn't even make any sense. As far as we know, such things can't exist. They don't conform to what we know about reality and I don't even think (someone who knows more may correct me) they conform to any orthodox theology...

There's a stark difference between the two!

YamiYasha

I think my definition of proof and proving something does not exist is best: Proof = belief, Prove it to me = Convince me.
Since the OP has confirmation bias, this is impossible. That is why you cannot prove to him that ghosts exist.

MSD

There is evidence of the moon landings; they left reflectors that we bounce lasers off of. There was a rival superpower who would have gained immensely by proving it a fake. There are photos from the lunar surface and videos of landing and subsequent takeoff. It should satisfy all but the most skeptical verificationist.

boink

ghosts don't want their existence proven

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

Lindy

As a person who grew up in a county with more cattle (that's cows to you Easterners) than people, I would love to see how this could be accomplished. Alchemy, perhaps?
Actually, I'm surprised that this thread is still going, and has passed the hundred mark.
It is a frustrating exercise to try to prove the non-existence of anything. I prefer to accept that ghosts do NOT exist, until someone proves otherwise, anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. I don't know who is qualified to give evidence of ghostly experiences, but I do know that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence proving the existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. You just have to ask the right people.

Lindy

As an aside, I'm curious how many who believe in ghosts would also consider themselves atheists?

boink

nope, chainsaw.


but as far as ghosts go....assuming they exist, and are 'super'natural they have the power to avoid definition documentation.

I mean, if you can believe they exist, you may as well believe they have the power to avoid being documented.

of course if you don't believe in them then all the semi documenting of them is bunk.

so far I haven't seen any way to nail it down any further than that.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

ring

This is a real ghost;
her name is Boo Ridley

Mantus

Hey Lasereth!

The Dunning-Kruger effect might give you some great insight into why so many people believe in ghosts without there ever being any proof to support their beliefs.

Human beings in general have inadequate knowledge about how their minds, memories and senses work making us much more likely to misinterpret experience.

One of my favorite illustrations of this the spinning dancer:


At first glance she is spinning in one direction but with some focus you can make her spin the other way.

It should also be noted that people who claim to believe in ghosts generally don’t have a theory outlining the subject. Their beliefs are constructed from emotion. They believe that they’ll identify a paranormal experience based on feeling rather than having a pre-defined set of parameters. Not exactly a consistent method of gathering information here.

Compounding all this is not understanding scientific principles. People who believe in ghost often think that we must find a non-scientific way to explain supernatural phenomenon – whatever that may be.

Science deals with gathering data and drawing conclusions about that data based on a hypothesis.

The most obvious sign of someone who doesn’t understand science is the statement: “well, science never disproved ghosts!”

So we are left with people who lack a hypothesis on what ghosts might be and have no consistent way of obtaining facts about the subject because they don’t even know where, how, or even why to start looking.

Fascinatingly this doesn’t stop people from seeing ghosts. Rather than labeling experiences they cannot explain as experiences they cannot explain people draw baseless conclusions. Not our fault. The spookiest thing of all is the un-explained. The brain is wired to label experiences. We have trouble leaving things as blanks.

filtherton

The Dunning-Kruger effect might also be a reasonable explanation for why people try to use science to support their lack of belief in ghosts.

For instance, it seems like the overconfidence you have in your grasp of the scientific method has led you to draw an erroneous conclusion about the general nature of all supernatural experiences. The dancing lady can be made to turn different ways because she lacks definition. Sure, it speaks to the possibility that things can be misinterpreted. But everything can be misinterpreted. This doesn't mean that you can just assume that you can chalk every instance of implausibility up to human error. Arguably, the Dunning-Kruger effect is responsible for the assumption that a lack of scientific corroboration is proof that certain phenomena can't occur.

I have a fundamental, firsthand grasp of scientific principles. I don't know if ghosts exist, but I'm pretty sure that, in light of the basic limitations of the scientific method, the notion that science right now has anything to say about the fact of whether ghosts exist or not betrays a lack of understanding of science.

Regardless of what science says (or doesn't say), if my dead great grandmother appeared in front of me and told me to quit fucking around and marry my girlfriend, I might be inclined to believe in ghosts.

Lasereth

But would you believe in ghosts if that happened in the middle of the night, say at 2 AM when you're not entirely sure you were awake or not? Or would you just automatically believe it because it resulted in a strong emotional reaction?

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

filtherton

If I wasn't sure I was awake, then I would probably assume that I was dreaming.

As for strong emotional reactions, I would assume that a strong emotional reaction would accompany any event where a ghost was perceived, regardless of whether the ghost actually existed or not. So the presence of strong emotions doesn't seem all that interesting to me as a way of determining the whether a perceived ghost was real or not.

Mantus

I think we’re on the same page here. You are especially right to point out that the D-K effect influences people on both ends of the debate - myself certainly not excluded.


A collection of quotes from this thread:
I'm addressing the validity of above statements. Please correct me if I’m wrong…

Science and paranormal are very compatible. Our problem isn’t lack of instruments…we have our minds and that’s a start. The issue is that people claiming the existence of ghosts lack a hypothesis; fail to come up with conclusions based on that hypothesis and flail to come up with data which supports those conclusions.

“Science” is not an instrument with flashing lights; it’s a process for obtaining truth. Science embraces the paranormal. Every scientific discovery was once an unknown. Evolution, quantum mechanics and astrology are all huge leaps for the human mind which involved much poking in the dark before instruments for adequate exploration existed. To say that something which cannot be explained by current scientific theories is incompatible with the scientific process is absurd.

There are several poor arguments that always come up in these discussions:

"We cannot detect ghost by any current means. "

Firsthand observation of ghosts by individuals will do just fine as a source of data. Many social and psychological concepts were investigated using the same source. We have a means of detecting ghosts and collecting data about them which can be perfectly scientific when combined with proper techniques: the mind.

"Ghosts are simply beyond our comprehension."

Everything, at some point, was beyond our comprehension. This never stopped us from exploring the unknown. Experiences of ghosts are no exception. We can collect the data and begin to derive ideas on the nature of these entities. From there we can begin to draw conclusions and make predictions about where ghosts might appear, who can see them and under what circumstances.

"Scientific minds are incompatible with paranormal experience. Therefore they will never see ghosts and never be able to prove their existence."

Think of all the great minds (Galileo, Copernicus, Hawking, Newton, Einstein, Darwin) who had to not only think outside the box but challenge preconceived notions of reality in order to take make their ideas work. Pigeonholing data into neat formulas is the end process of scientific pursuit - the final spellcheck – not to be confused with the whole process which involves creativity and an open mind above all else.

Science and logical thinking are perfectly compatible with exploration of paranormal events; which leaves us with the very interesting question of why can't anyone prove ghosts?

I stand with twistedmosaic’s point of view on this. This isn't about denying possibilities but seeing the absurdity in chasing ducks with trunks.

roachboy

the thread came undone pretty early because none of the central terms were defined. for example, if the question is about "proving" something, the operative term is the verb, not the noun.

what does proof mean in this context?
turns out that it doesn't actually mean anything: some vague handwaving in the direction of Imaginary Boys in the Lab carrying out Important Investigations near flasks bubbling away over bunsen burners with cool tubes connecting them--you know, Science, that stuff carried out by the Boys in the Lab.

from there followed a series of more or less arbitrary professions of faith in the Magical Powers of the Scientific Method.

the relation between whatever that meme refers to and the question of proof never got posed, and then a streak of snippiness developed over "semantic" problems. in a philosophy thread, semantic questions are a problem? what the hell else is there but such problems? surely no-one in their right mind imagines that language is transparent enough so that you can brush aside such and move to directly manipulating the Things Themselves.

but no matter.

so we're in an environment that asks a question about proof without any coherent idea of what proof means.

ghosts: what they are is a function of the way the category works. ghost is a noun, so is made over as an object and so is made over into a phenomenon that has the basic characteristics of a noun---you know, a determinable x, a sequence of predicates---spread out in time, this would mean repeatability at the level of features or actions.

it may be that "proving" ghosts amounts to "proving" that a ghost is not an object at all.

but that supposes we know what "proving" means here.
and we don't.
and we never will, unless someone decides ok...this is what it is...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mantus

You are absolutely right Roachboy.

proof
–noun
1. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
2. anything serving as such evidence: What proof do you have?
3. the act of testing or making trial of anything; test; trial: to put a thing to the proof.
4. the establishment of the truth of anything; demonstration.
5. Law. (in judicial proceedings) evidence having probative weight.
6. the effect of evidence in convincing the mind.

If I may rephrase your statement: - and correct me if it alters your intended message - we have nothing to prove.

Before we can prove something we must establish parameters. In most cases the term "Ghost" has no value at all. It is a linguistic placeholder for the unexplained. So instead of saying "something I can't explain happened to me" people claim "I saw a ghost!"

Proving something we can't explan is an oxymoron. Which gives us a major piece of the puzzle in answering the question: "why can't anyone prove ghosts?"

n0nsensical

I just realized ghosts can be explained pretty easily by conjecture. Ok, all living things are made out of matter.. That's patently obvious at this point. Matter and energy are equivalent (conveniently expressed by E=mc^2). Now think about a tape recorder. What a tape recorder does is take patterns of energy from the present time and represent them in a way such that they can be reproduced exactly at a later time. Ghosts are basically the same idea as the soundwave that gets recorded on tape.. The pattern of energy that represents a living consciousness can be "recorded" by some phenomenon of nature and replayed at a later time, which patterns of energy existing at that time (such as living animals) perceive as ghosts. The only difference is in the number of dimensions and type of energy being represented. SO ghosts most certainly exist, at least for certain definitions of ghosts.

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Ourcrazymodern?

Being requires no proof.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Lasereth

I should have known this thread would turn into a debate on "what is proof" with all of the side stepping and bullshit flown around the philosophy section. When proving a magical being exists can't be done, then the best thing to do is attack the question, right?

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Ourcrazymodern?

Idiot that I am, I thought I was validating your question. Avoid the ditches, darlin'.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Lasereth

I wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, just commenting on the epic derail that this thread has gone through.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

roachboy

so wait.

you post a question about proof (why can't they prove ghosts)
you do not define the term, which is the verb in your own sentence fragment.
then you're pissy that folk talk about this obvious problem with your post.

what do you imagine philosophy to be?
do you imagine it as what you call those stoner Deep Thoughts that one remembers long enough to write down?

seems to me that if you had the first idea of how philosophy works, even in its barnes & noble bookshelf variant (which is mostly what this forum is) you'd not only not be surprised by the thread, but might even think of it as a success.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Lasereth

Maybe this thread belongs in the Tilted Paranoia section.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

third_eye_open

Ok I know religion is yet another highly contested subject but I believe it is relevant. How many people around the world believe in a higher being who's existence is impossible to prove?

Referring to the dream argument, it was argued that dreams cannot be proven but are significant because everyone has them. So it's safe to say you are arguing for majority rule? If that's your argument then wouldn't that also apply to religion? If billions of people believe in a higher being can that be counted as "irrefutable proof?"

I believe that if ghosts exist, the reason most of us can't see them is based on the filters we construct for ourselves. We have (as proven by this discussion) the need to apply logic and reason to the world and we tend to fear anything that we don't understand or can't explain. In the case of ghosts they are associated with death which is a primal fear therefore I believe that the fear is strong enough we develop to ability to block them out.

Personally I am on the fence about ghosts. There are a lot of things in this world we have yet to discover so I have my eyes and mind open to possibilities.

---------- Post added at 11:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 AM ----------

Oh and as far as science and empirical evidence, there is no such thing as "proof" in science. There are only accepted theories. Many of those theories were thought to just as ridiculous as the theory of the existence of ghosts (like flight).

MSD

No. Its status as a belief substitutes faith for proof, therefore it's nonfalsifiable and not a matter for science to decide. If individuals want to attribute observable and quantifiable values to a higher being, then they are fair game to be objectively and scientifically tested.

I would love for something, anything paranormal to be proven, but until there's evidence, all you have is a belief that I don't share.