I despair sometimes

Lysander said:
To be honest, there's more reason to say that ghosts and spirits exist than to say they don't.

No-one has ever been able to disprove their existence and though science may refute them, scientific opinion is always being revised. Spirits have been seen, felt, heard, summoned and experienced in other ways for centuries, and appear in countless folklore tales, religious texts and historical accounts all over the world since the beginning of man. Any video or photo gets "fake" screamed at it and there will never be an official word on it for fear of terrifying the masses.
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Castiel said:
Given that the most common and largely universal definition of the Soul is the incorporeal, immortal essence of an individual, I would say you have significant issues with your logical assumptions there Dirtychinchilla, let alone it being a validated proof that Ghost do not exist in the definitive. .

You cannot determine the existence or non existence of the Human Soul ergo you cannot determine whether the incorporeal Soul is able to survive the death of the corporeal body ergo you cannot prove nor disprove the existence of Ghosts...if we make the assumption that Ghosts are the extant manifestation of human souls.
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We can determine, however, that the human brain ceases to operate upon death. Once again, we're into the realms of there being absolutely no proof that something exists, and just because some people assert that something does exist, the possibility then becomes a possible reality. It's arrogant, in my opinion, to believe that humans, among the whole universe, are the only things with souls, and that we would live on after death. Come on, it's utterly ludicrous.

Having said that, I do understand your point. If we agree that souls do not exist, then ghosts cannot possibly exist.

Furthermore, what are ghosts made of? They seem to be both corporeal and incorporeal at the same time, and to be able to make judgments on when to be in such a state.

And how is it that only the gullible see them?! I know that's somewhat of a generalisation, but most people who I've spoken to who say they've seen one ghost say they've seen some others, are unwilling to discuss it seriously.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
It's arrogant, in my opinion, to believe that humans, among the whole universe, are the only things with souls, and that we would live on after death. Come on, it's utterly ludicrous.
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My GF's neice & her BF claim to keep seeing a cat on the stairs in their house, that aint human.

(I have not seen anything :) )
 
dirtychinchilla said:
We can determine, however, that the human brain ceases to operate upon death.
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Which means nothing if we consider the definition given to the Soul.

dirtychinchilla said:
Once again, we're into the realms of there being absolutely no proof that something exists, and just because some people assert that something does exist, the possibility then becomes a possible reality. It's arrogant, in my opinion, to believe that humans, among the whole universe, are the only things with souls, and that we would live on after death. Come on, it's utterly ludicrous.
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Many cultures do not believe that only Humans have souls...that is generally a position of the Abrahamic Faiths...many people believe that all animals have souls..in fact some even believe that all objects have a soul.

Its only ludicrous if you see it that way...I simply do not know one way or the other..while I can think some ideas are unlikely in the extreme, I would not go so far as to say they do not exist or even that the possibility is ludicrous... I would simply see them as strange and inexplicable..and for the most part quite interesting, even if I cannot explain them.

dirtychinchilla said:
Having said that, I do understand your point. If we agree that souls do not exist, then ghosts cannot possibly exist.
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I do not agree that Souls do not exist, nor do I agree that they do...the same for Ghosts. I simply do not know.

dirtychinchilla said:
Furthermore, what are ghosts made of? They seem to be both corporeal and incorporeal at the same time, and to be able to make judgments on when to be in such a state.
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Again, I cannot answer that question...there are some who would talk about ectoplasm and so on..I have no experience of that. I have experience of things I cannot explain with any objective knowledge, that pose more questions than answers..however I do not ascribe a specific definition to those experiences..they are simply inexplicable to me at this time.

dirtychinchilla said:
And how is it that only the gullible see them?! I know that's somewhat of a generalisation, but most people who I've spoken to who say they've seen one ghost say they've seen some others, are unwilling to discuss it seriously.
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Again you are assuming that these people are all connected through some shared predilection toward gullibility...many are, or a least were as sceptical as you, and to a lesser extent I.
 
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Lysander said:
To be honest, there's more reason to say that ghosts and spirits exist than to say they don't.

No-one has ever been able to disprove their existence and though science may refute them, scientific opinion is always being revised. Spirits have been seen, felt, heard, summoned and experienced in other ways for centuries, and appear in countless folklore tales, religious texts and historical accounts all over the world since the beginning of man. Any video or photo gets "fake" screamed at it and there will never be an official word on it for fear of terrifying the masses.
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It seems you don't understand the difference between fear and danger.

Fear is an emotion, danger is physical. Pretend you're walking in a haunted house, there's cobwebs, spiders and other scary stuff, it does not mean you're in any imminent danger at all.

This can be applied to "feeling, hearing, experiencing" things which do not exist. Your mind is merely conditioned into thinking, for example, that the pop from a piece of furniture cooling down is a ghost knocking on it.

Intertwining fear with danger can be very useful in many situations as long as you apply logic, but it can be equally detrimental if you don't remain rational.
 
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@ Elmarko:

If any of these supernatural concepts did have value & weight - then there is no reason why they of all things would not stand up to basic experimentation setup to remove bias & error - even if we couldn't understand it, we could see it work - but for the supernatural we don't have this.
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Yes and no. Its hard to see how claims regarding behaviour patterns associated with ghosts lend themselves to the standards of repetition required for the lab? This is why we only have a sociology or a philosophy of human behaviour, not a science. Indeed, many of the things we ascribe to living beings are not testable let alone discarnate ones. In fairness to your comment, work has been done on the acoustic rapping's associated with poltergeist activity which has revealed some very interesting results though:

an article by scientist Dr Barrie Colvin B.Sc., Ph.D., showing instrumental evidence for an inexplicable and objective banging sound detected in recordings made during alleged poltergeist activity.

Whereas raps and knocking sounds produced by ordinary means exhibit a normal acoustic pattern, those recorded in alleged poltergeist cases show quite a different sound signature.

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Normal Double Rap

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Unexplained Rap

Dr Colvin has analysed recordings of alleged poltergeist knocking obtained from around the world over a 40-year period. The earliest was a recording made by a local physician at Sauchie (Scotland) in 1960 and the most recent was obtained from a poltergeist case at Euston Square, London in 2000.

Whilst the two types of rap sound rather similar, they are actually acoustically different, although the effect is only made apparent when the recordings of raps are submitted to detailed analysis.

The sample involved 10 separate recordings recorded on different recording apparatus.

In each of the recordings, when subjected to acoustic analysis, a particular sound pattern is detected which so far remains unexplained. Attempts to replicate this pattern in ordinary ways have so far been unsuccessful.

The essential difference between these raps and those produced by normal means lies in the details of their sound envelope.

In the case of a normal rap, the sound (which often only lasts a few milliseconds) starts loudly and decays over a period of time. The loudest part of the sound is right at the beginning. In the case of a poltergeist rap, the loudest part is near the beginning of the sound - but not at the very beginning. The rapping sound starts relatively quietly and works up to a maximum before it then starts to decay. This effect has been seen in all ten of the poltergeist cases studied.

The question arises as to how such a sound is generated. There is evidence which points to the sound arising from within the structure of a material rather than from the surface of it, as would be the case with a normally-produced rapping sound. This phenomenon will be examined further in future investigations of poltergeist activity.

Dr Colvin states: "Ever since my personal involvement in the investigation of a rapping poltergeist at Andover, Hampshire, in which it was absolutely clear that no normal explanation could account for the observed phenomena, I wondered whether the recorded raps were in any way different to those produced by normal methods. It is now clear that they are indeed different".

Among the samples submitted for analysis were recordings made in the famous Enfield poltergeist case in north London during 1977-79.

Dr Colvin’s research is published in his article ‘The Acoustic Properties of Unexplained Rapping Sounds’ in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research [2010] Vol 73.2 Number 899 pp 65-93.
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Castiel, I can't say that I agree with your position of, "I don't know" for everything that can't be proven or disproved. It's the typical story of the chocolate teapot orbiting the sun.

I am very confident that every single "ghostly" incident can be explained scientifically, and will happily attempt to answer anyone who has an anecdote that they think is impossible. By the same means, I'm sure that I can disprove any psychic readings that people think are actually psychic, the same way that Derren Brown does.

The point is that everything can be explained in a matter which scientific methods could confirm. Whether we have discovered the method or not, I suppose is another matter.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Castiel, I can't say that I agree with your position of, "I don't know" for everything that can't be proven or disproved. It's the typical story of the chocolate teapot orbiting the sun.
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You can only ascribe a probability value to something if you have objective data to consider in that evaluation...for example if we consider all the parameters with the postulation that a chocolate teapot orbits the sun, we could safely assume that the proposition is a construct to illustrate the principle of falsification in the Scientific method...something that doesn't compare to other propositions as they are contextually different in their presentation.

dirtychinchilla said:
I am very confident that every single "ghostly" incident can be explained scientifically, and will happily attempt to answer anyone who has an anecdote that they think is impossible. By the same means, I'm sure that I can disprove any psychic readings that people think are actually psychic, the same way that Derren Brown does.
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Perhaps they can, however while you may be confident in your ability to prove or disprove questions and events that thus far have no answers, I do not share your confidence that we currently have enough objective data in which to formulate such an explanation...you are in danger of falling into the realms of Pseudo-Science..for example Noetic Science (not to be confused with Noetics in philosophy) where people try to ascribe scientific methodology to concepts that are not compatible with that methodology.

dirtychinchilla said:
The point is that everything can be explained in a matter which scientific methods could confirm. Whether we have discovered the method or not, I suppose is another matter.
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And you have evidence that proves the definitive position that Science is able to answer everything? Clearly you have not, as your last sentence implies. Therefore the truth is, you simply do not know. There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know"...I would point out, that simply because something unexplained later become explained, doesn't imply that it did not exist in the first place.
 
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gillywibble said:
There are those that hypothesize that consciousness is external.
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That's what tin foil hats are for, they're not there to keep anything out, but to keep the soul in making you immortal.

You'll find that very few deaths if any occur to people wearing foil hats, and even then it's probably due to a faulty hat.

The evidence is undeniable.
 
Castiel said:
You can only ascribe a probability value to something if you have objective data to consider in that evaluation...for example if we consider all the parameters with the postulation that a chocolate teapot orbits the sun, we could safely assume that the proposition is a construct to illustrate the principle of falsification in the Scientific method...something that doesn't compare to other propositions as they are contextually different in their presentation.
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I don't exactly disagree, but I decided not too long ago that all this amounts to is fence-sitting. Just like a well written essay, I'm more interested when someone takes a debatable subject and takes a view on it. Not beefing at you specifically, obviously! I'm reminded of that short chapter from a life of pi, which really struck me.

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: 'White, white! L-L-Love! My God!'-and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, 'Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,' and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."
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gillywibble said:
There are those that hypothesize that consciousness is external.
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To some extent I agree that we are more than the sum of our parts.

But our physical aspect is completely interwoven with our consciousness, or soul, or whatever.

Start killing braincells and everything about us can be changed. From personality, to memory, physical ability...
 
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