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 Azreal13 wrote:
I disagree with the basic premise of the thread.

It should be "ghosts, haunting etc are not a result of the spirits of the dead, what phenomena, known or unknown, do we think explains their existence?"

Indeed. Saying 'Ghosts are not real' is sort of like saying 'UFOs are not real'... UFOs may or may not be aliens, but as people have observed things in the sky that they were unable to identify, UFOs are most certainly 'real'.

Likewise ghosts, as an observed phenomena, are 'real'... it's just the actual nature of that phenomena (supernatural manifestation vs hallucination/perceptual glitch/weather balloon/all of the above/whatever) that is up for debate.

 Da Boss wrote:
From a scientific standpoint, I think all we can say is there is no reproduceable evidence of anything like a ghost.

There is also no theoretical framework existing in science into which a concept like a ghost can easily fit. There is plenty we do not understand about the brain and also about the fundamentals of physics, but nothing much suggests that these sorts of phenomena are likely. Our questions are more of the "how does quantum gravity work?" order than "can a remnant of a living thing exist after it's death?"

Which is not exactly the same thing as saying "There is no such thing as ghosts", but pretty much amounts to the same thing.

When we have no evidence and no real framework, we accept the simplest explanation that has some evidence - people imagined these things, experienced hallucinations, or are lying.

Maybe we have no proof, no evidence of their existence because, precisely, we haven't studied them ?
FYI, I don't believe in them, but I truly think that in our modern society, Scientists would gladly ignore / look away from things they don't want to see.
Like this story of when during an astonauts meeting a guy showed up in shock telling everyone that a flying saucer had landed nearby and not one of astonauts, who had dedicated their lives to the exploration of space, would even go outside to look what the hell was happening.
I don't believe in flying saucers probing cows neither.

epronovost wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Would it be fair to define a ghost as a sentient entity

In my opinion, you can just stop at that. As far as we know and can conceive the only thing that can grant a being sentience is a brain and the organs that feeds it sensory output (nose, eyes, hears, mouth, skin, nerves, etc.). We have yet to discover any other way for sentience to occur. In fact, we have observed that the only way to remove or alter sentience in a being doted of one is to affect its brain and/or sensory organs. The day we will damage someone brain and not affect is capacity to think and feel, then maybe the idea of a human mind surviving intact or mostly intact hte total destruction of the nervous system supporting it, then maybe ghosts will become a possibility.

Eeww, multi-quoting.

I can offer a proofless alternative. The mind exists separately to the body. In this case, the brain is the mechanism through which the mind interacts with the rest of reality. In this scenario, the Brain is a complex series of inputs and outputs. With damage, an input may be misinterpreted, and outputs may not create desired results. I have experienced both while under the influence. My mind was present, and I was aware that my mind was incorrectly interpreting inputs, and my vocal and physical outputs were not resulting in my desired actions.

It Is a fear of mine that my mind would survive my ability to meaningfully interact with reality. Alzheimer’s disease terrifies me not because it could destroy my mind, but because it is possible that it does not, and my mind would be trapped in a prison.

 Peregrine wrote:
Discuss how to handle supernatural claims and any evidence for them.

For the most part, I nod solemnly and I simply say something polite, such as "wow, that's an incredible experience."

I feel like I can rely on two truths:
1) there is no rigorous scientific evidence of anything supernatural
2) The number of people persuaded by point #1 is minuscule

Of course all or nearly all ghost sightings can be ascribed to natural causes, sensory defects, hallucinations, or just plain imagination. But obviously anybody that has experienced such a thing was moved enough by it to remember it and share it. Instead of arguing with them about it, I try to figure out why it's important to them.

So you could probably prove that ghosts don't exist if you were able to prove that the energy(life force, spirit, etc..) from humans went somewhere after their death.

Einsteiin's First Law of Thermodynamics: if energy cannot be created or destroyed but only change form, where does the energy go after death?

I guess that could be the material we would need to study would be our innate energy and how we could measure it? I guess a different debate would be on if we had a soul/life force. There is no debate on if we have energy or how else would we generate heat, breathe or move?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't believe in ghosts so I don't think they would be sentient.

 Jjohnso11 wrote:
So you could probably prove that ghosts don't exist if you were able to prove that the energy(life force, spirit, etc..) from humans went somewhere after their death.

What? First you'd have to have humans give off energy after death, which they provably do not. All forms of energy production (biochemical processes) stop.

So you disagree with Einstein that energy cannot be destroyed or created?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

What? First you'd have to have humans give off energy after death, which they provably do not. All forms of energy production (biochemical processes) stop.

What happens to the energy that was already produced?

 Jjohnso11 wrote:
Einsteiin's First Law of Thermodynamics: if energy cannot be created or destroyed but only change form, where does the energy go after death?

Indeed, while your death might spell the end of you as whole entity the atoms constituting your body will be recycled. Unfortunately, the electro-chemical signals that constitute your mind can only be maintained thanks to the absorbtion of food and the maintenance of the structure supporting it. That's also what happens to your knees. Your knees don't survive your death; they transform into dirt and their bending ability is lost forever. The same thing goes for your brain. It will turn into dust and its ability to produce your mind will be lost forever as dust doesn't have this characteristic.

The human consciousness is comprised of electro-chemical signals in the cortex or brainstem? Is there proof that energy reconstitutes somewhere else? Would the energy need to be maintained in the body or could it leave the body as the body broke down?

 Manchu wrote:
“Ghosts exist” is not such a claim.

It absolutely is. Unlike opinions of poetry, which have no truth value, "ghosts exist" is a statement about the objective facts of the world. It is a claim that some entity is left behind after death, and that entity is capable of interacting with the world. It is a weak argument because it is poorly supported (and probably false), not because proving it is inherently impossible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jjohnso11 wrote:
The human consciousness is comprised of electro-chemical signals in the cortex or brainstem? Is there proof that energy reconstitutes somewhere else? Would the energy need to be maintained in the body or could it leave the body as the body broke down?

The energy remains, at least until the various chemical reactions run out. But the energy is not what matters, the organization is. Chemical energy existing until it is broken down by decay is not the same as ghosts, nor is the energy leaving in any organized or meaningful way.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
“Ghosts exist” is not such a claim.

It absolutely is. Unlike opinions of poetry, which have no truth value, "ghosts exist" is a statement about the objective facts of the world. It is a claim that some entity is left behind after death, and that entity is capable of interacting with the world. It is a weak argument because it is poorly supported (and probably false), not because proving it is inherently impossible.

That only holds true if you believe ghosts are the spirit of dead things living on in another form.

Saying "ghosts exist" but being open minded about what may cause them is no different to staying "sub atomic particles exist" and look how much time, effort and money to prove that theory was true.

To the contrary, “ghost” is a purely literary concept. Its only dimension is metaphorical. The mistake you, and many others, make is a trick of language, like a paradox; something that can exist only as a matter of syntax, and has no corresponding material reality. This quality is exactly what keeps “ghosts” relevant in the literalistic, materialist “modern” world, while so much else of the former, magical world has faded away.

Err, what? People talking about experiences with "ghosts" absolutely are interpreting it as a real thing that exists, not some literary construct.

 Manchu wrote:
To the contrary, “ghost” is a purely literary concept. Its only dimension is metaphorical. The mistake you, and many others, make is a trick of language, like a paradox; something that can exist only as a matter of syntax, and has no corresponding material reality. This quality is exactly what keeps “ghosts” relevant in the literalistic, materialist “modern” world, while so much else of the former, magical world has faded away.

Unless you simply accept that "ghosts" could be an actual, material occurrence without being a manifestation of a dead person.

Trying to argue that there's a thing that isn't a ghost because what we call ghosts are, and can only be, an idea that a spirit of a dead person can sometimes appear in this reality seems somewhat redundant as words only mean what we agree they mean in the first place.

The nature of what constitutes a ghost hasn't moved on simply because those who believe they've witnessed one don't have a credible real world concept they can point to and say "this is what I experienced, how odd that people used to think these were dead people."

Anyone can say they don't exist, but for someone who sincerely believes they've experienced something with no agenda, you're going to have to offer a credible alternative. Also, by credible alternative, I don't mean stacking unlikely event upon unlikely event on top of one another until the odds of it being an actual manifestation of a dead person seem the greater.

Sure, but I am talking about the subject as between those of us who don’t accept the existence of a complex phenomenon, and all the unspoken assumptions it entails, on the authority of vague eyewitness accounts.

What I think a “believer” owes us skeptics is a testable hypothesis. It’s no use us asking for evidence before there is even a definition capable of being supported by evidence. But I really doubt we will ever get such a hypothesis out of them because a “ghost” is not the sort of thing that can actually be measured, inherently. Ghosts are the personification of the ineffible, unexplaianable, and inscrutable corners of our experience of nature.

Even a testable hypothesis is useless if it requires enormous material investment to prove as there isn't the appetite to prove it.

There needs to be a Wow! signal moment and maybe things may change.

What kind of moment did you have in mind?

First off, there is no factual evidence that the mind is created by the physical brain. In much the same way that we can’t define a ghost, how do we define the mind? One party asserts that it is the sum total of biological processes. Another asserts that is an entity that exists separately to the material universe, and that the brain is instead a conduit between the mind and the physical universe. Damage to the conduit does not destroy the mind, merely the means by which the mind interacts with the universe. Perhaps reincarnation is the disembodied mind reconnecting with a functioning (yet empty) brain.

It all depends on the premise. The assumptions. The most pertinent of which is the assumption of omniscience. Of being able to know all elements to the truth of the universe. Seriously, we can’t know that our perceived reality is real and not a simulation, much less that we know all things about the universe to be able to say with all certainty that something is infallibly correct or not.

Which is part of the reason we can’t prove a negative. We can prove we can’t find something, but not that is isn’t there. The doubter does not need to disprove existence because they can’t, and a believer doesn’t need indisputable proof because they believe in the probability of existence.

And if someone has experienced what they believe is a supernatural experience, their own senses have confirmed existence and to doubt one’s senses, while rational, is seldom productive and can be quite maddening.

 Manchu wrote:
What kind of moment did you have in mind?

Like I said, a Wow Signal moment.

If you're unfamiliar,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

In short, an item of evidence that's beyond reasonable dismissal that can be used to spring board genuine serious scientific study.

 greatbigtree wrote:

The question of “why” falls outside the purview of scientific explaination. Why does gravity attract matter? Why do like magnetic poles repel while dissimilar poles attract? We can observe that it does. We can determine relative forces and predict the outcomes of placing two magnetic objects near each other.

For some that’s enough, but for others they want to determine a purpose for it. An overarching structure to which all things “belong”.

The question as to ‘why’ magnetic field attract and ‘why’ masses attract is addressed by science, it’s not “outside the purview” of science, of course explanations exist beyond mere observation and prediction. I won’t pretend to fully understand, but you’re asking about fundamental forces in nature, for which explanations exist that are accounted for in other observations and testable phenomena, largely to do with the nature of the fabric of space and quantum mechanics.

If you’re asking ‘why’ hoping for some explanation that gives meaning suggestive of a ‘plan’ or ‘intelligence’ behind things, that makes huge assumptions and is fulfilling a personal need for things to not be the result of observable nature but some sort of controlling intelligence or intent.

But the answer of ‘why’ masses attract, observed as gravity, is addressed by science.

 greatbigtree wrote:
First off, there is no factual evidence that the mind is created by the physical brain.

Simply all of neurobiology. There is no mind without a brain. By altering the brain we alter the mind. The mind and an active brain are the same thing.

But the answer of ‘why’ masses attract, observed as gravity, is addressed by science.

Actually..

https://curiosity.com/topics/believe-it-or-not-science-still-cant-explain-gravity-curiosity/

If ghosts exist, I'm jealous. Why won't they show themselves to me? What am I doing wrong? And why should I bother asking a person to prove ghosts' existence to me when the ghosts could do it much more convincingly themselves?

Though, hypothetically, if I did meet a ghost, I have no idea how I'd convince anyone else, especially online, of its existence. I wouldn't even know how to approach the topic with someone who, for example, thinks thermodynamics have anything to do with it.

 insaniak wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I disagree with the basic premise of the thread.

It should be "ghosts, haunting etc are not a result of the spirits of the dead, what phenomena, known or unknown, do we think explains their existence?"

Indeed. Saying 'Ghosts are not real' is sort of like saying 'UFOs are not real'... UFOs may or may not be aliens, but as people have observed things in the sky that they were unable to identify, UFOs are most certainly 'real'.

Likewise ghosts, as an observed phenomena, are 'real'... it's just the actual nature of that phenomena (supernatural manifestation vs hallucination/perceptual glitch/weather balloon/all of the above/whatever) that is up for debate.

I'd disagree with that. Because calling the unidentified phenomenon a "ghost" immediately assigns a supernatural explanation to it. Calling an unidentified flying object an unidentified flying object does not. Unidentified phenomena are definitely real and there is proof for that. For ghosts not so much, despite plenty of attention and research. Therefore, as far as we can currently discern, ghosts aren't real.

 Jjohnso11 wrote:


Einsteiin's First Law of Thermodynamics: if energy cannot be created or destroyed but only change form, where does the energy go after death?

I guess that could be the material we would need to study would be our innate energy and how we could measure it? I guess a different debate would be on if we had a soul/life force. There is no debate on if we have energy or how else would we generate heat, breathe or move.

What is this ‘innate’ energy exactly?

You start off from a flawed premise, that somehow the moment you die, there in an unaccountable loss in total energy in the system. There’s no reason to think this.

Do you believe animals have souls? All other organisms? Do they have this supposed energy deficit when they die?

Simply, the bulk of energy in your body is chemical, converted to heat. In fact all energy ultimately turns to heat because it’s the form that is of the least use of doing work in the universe and most easy lost from systems to their surroundings where it is not useful, it is where entropy is highest. Eventually a time will come when all stores of energy in the entire universe have been converted to heat and spread evenly, entropy is maximum,, and at that point no useful energy is available to do ‘work’. Aka, heat death of the universe.

Your brain is operating by electrical impulses generated from the energy released by chemical processes. When you cease to breath and circulate blood, you cells cease to respire and the basic functions requiring energy covered from chemical forms slow and stop. The only energy ‘lost’ is the remaining heat energy from your body to surroundings, which you constantly radiate all the time anyway but now none is being generated. The remaining energy in your body will largely be chemical stores and that within the atoms. This can be converted by bacteria breaking you down, or released as heat if you are cremated or somesuch.

But there’s no reason to believe any energy is unaccounted for, that the total energy in your body a moment prior to death is different to that after, or that some energy forms active in your body at the moment of death is lost to the surroundings in a manner no accounted for by conventional science.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I disagree with the basic premise of the thread.

It should be "ghosts, haunting etc are not a result of the spirits of the dead, what phenomena, known or unknown, do we think explains their existence?"

Indeed. Saying 'Ghosts are not real' is sort of like saying 'UFOs are not real'... UFOs may or may not be aliens, but as people have observed things in the sky that they were unable to identify, UFOs are most certainly 'real'.

Likewise ghosts, as an observed phenomena, are 'real'... it's just the actual nature of that phenomena (supernatural manifestation vs hallucination/perceptual glitch/weather balloon/all of the above/whatever) that is up for debate.

I'd disagree with that. Because calling the unidentified phenomenon a "ghost" immediately assigns a supernatural explanation to it. Calling an unidentified flying object an unidentified flying object does not..

Rot. Say UFO to anyone and I'll bet big money that the overwhelming majority will connect it to aliens in some form or another.

 Azreal13 wrote:

But the answer of ‘why’ masses attract, observed as gravity, is addressed by science.

Actually..

https://curiosity.com/topics/believe-it-or-not-science-still-cant-explain-gravity-curiosity/

Have you read it? Even as a pop science article, beyond the title it describes ways in which science attempts to address ‘why’ gravity actually exists. That an explanation for ‘why’ gravity exists is a something ‘outside the purview’ of science is total nonsense.

epronovost wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
First off, there is no factual evidence that the mind is created by the physical brain.

Simply all of neurobiology. There is no mind without a brain. By altering the brain we alter the mind. The mind and an active brain are the same thing.

Neurobiology, if I’m not mistaken, studies the functions of the brain, not the creation of the mind. If you damage or remove part of the brain, we can observe that behaviours change. The results of the mind’s attempted outputs change. For example, if we damage the impulse control centre of the brain, people will act with less restraint. This is repeatable and observable.

But why? Is it because the mind (created by the biological construct) has changed, or is it because the filter on the input / output device is malfunctioning, and the mind (as a entity that exists regardless of biology) is either overwhelmed by the input or unrestrained in output? The former is a presumption as is the later. The *why* is unknown. The only entity capable of knowing the truth is incapable of expressing it meaningfully to external entities.

In my anecdotal experience, even while intoxicated my mind continues. My perception of reality can change, which could cause me to act erratically to others despite my perception that I’m reacting reasonably to the inputs I receive. Also, my actions in reality do not necessarily fulfill the desires of my mind. When I sleep, my mind continues without the typical inputs that my brain receives while waking.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
“Ghosts exist” is not such a claim.

It absolutely is. Unlike opinions of poetry, which have no truth value, "ghosts exist" is a statement about the objective facts of the world. It is a claim that some entity is left behind after death, and that entity is capable of interacting with the world. It is a weak argument because it is poorly supported (and probably false), not because proving it is inherently impossible.

That only holds true if you believe ghosts are the spirit of dead things living on in another form.

Saying "ghosts exist" but being open minded about what may cause them is no different to staying "sub atomic particles exist" and look how much time, effort and money to prove that theory was true.

That is literally what ghosts are. If it is not the spirit (or the traces of a spirit) of a dead person or animal then it is not a ghost but something else.
And the difference between believing in sub-atomic particles (before their existence was proven) and ghosts, is that the first belief was based on a scientifically sound and testable hypothesis while the second is not.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
“Ghosts exist” is not such a claim.

It absolutely is. Unlike opinions of poetry, which have no truth value, "ghosts exist" is a statement about the objective facts of the world. It is a claim that some entity is left behind after death, and that entity is capable of interacting with the world. It is a weak argument because it is poorly supported (and probably false), not because proving it is inherently impossible.

That only holds true if you believe ghosts are the spirit of dead things living on in another form.

Saying "ghosts exist" but being open minded about what may cause them is no different to staying "sub atomic particles exist" and look how much time, effort and money to prove that theory was true.

That is literally what ghosts are. If it is not the spirit (or the traces of a spirit) of a dead person or animal then it is not a ghost but something else.
And the difference between believing in sub-atomic particles (before their existence was proven) and ghosts, is that the first belief was based on a scientifically sound and testable hypothesis while the second is not.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I disagree with the basic premise of the thread.

It should be "ghosts, haunting etc are not a result of the spirits of the dead, what phenomena, known or unknown, do we think explains their existence?"

Indeed. Saying 'Ghosts are not real' is sort of like saying 'UFOs are not real'... UFOs may or may not be aliens, but as people have observed things in the sky that they were unable to identify, UFOs are most certainly 'real'.

Likewise ghosts, as an observed phenomena, are 'real'... it's just the actual nature of that phenomena (supernatural manifestation vs hallucination/perceptual glitch/weather balloon/all of the above/whatever) that is up for debate.

I'd disagree with that. Because calling the unidentified phenomenon a "ghost" immediately assigns a supernatural explanation to it. Calling an unidentified flying object an unidentified flying object does not..

Rot. Say UFO to anyone and I'll bet big money that the overwhelming majority will connect it to aliens in some form or another.

Aye, but show people a picture of a whale and the overwhelming majority will think it is a fish. Just because people think UFO = Aliens doesn't make it true. UFO doesn't mean anything beyond something that flies and is unidentified, and it is commonly used in this way as well. On the other hand, if you call something a ghost, not only will the overwhelming majority of people think it is the spirits of the dead come back to haunt us, but they'd also be actually correct in their belief since that is what that term means.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:


What is this ‘innate’ energy exactly?

You start off from a flawed premise, that somehow the moment you die, there in an unaccountable loss in total energy in the system. There’s no reason to think this.

Do you believe animals have souls? All other organisms? Do they have this supposed energy deficit when they die?

Simply, the bulk of energy in your body is chemical, converted to heat. In fact all energy ultimately turns to heat because it’s the form that is of the least use of doing work in the universe and most easy lost from systems to their surroundings where it is not useful, it is where entropy is highest. Eventually a time will come when all stores of energy in the entire universe have been converted to heat and spread evenly, entropy is maximum,, and at that point no useful energy is available to do ‘work’. Aka, heat death of the universe.

Your brain is operating by electrical impulses generated from the energy released by chemical processes. When you cease to breath and circulate blood, you cells cease to respire and the basic functions requiring energy covered from chemical forms slow and stop. The only energy ‘lost’ is the remaining heat energy from your body to surroundings, which you constantly radiate all the time anyway but now none is being generated. The remaining energy in your body will largely be chemical stores and that within the atoms. This can be converted by bacteria breaking you down, or released as heat if you are cremated or somesuch.

But there’s no reason to believe any energy is unaccounted for, that the total energy in your body a moment prior to death is different to that after, or that some energy forms active in your body at the moment of death is lost to the surroundings in a manner no accounted for by conventional science.

The innate energy exists in you at the cellular level(glucose is converted into energy via the process known as cellular respiration) which feeds you the energy required to move, breathe, etc... I would also venture that the energy you start with probably came from your mother/father when the sperm made contact with the egg(hopefully I don't have to explain this). You continue to burn energy through movement and generate energy by consuming sources of energy.

I do not make the claim that all energy is totally lost in the system. I'm sure that bugs/animals/worms/plants consume the majority of that energy, am I certain that all of it is consumed? Nope.

I believe that animals have energy in them as well. How can they move or do anything without energy? I'm not going to make the assertion that animals have souls, I definitely can't prove that. I'm not even making the assertion that humans have souls. I'm making the assertion that we have energy that is unaccounted for when we die. Does unexplained phenomena supposedly happen at locations where lots of people were killed or died? Why wouldn't large pools of energy effect our environment in those locations?

Has it been proven that all energy is broken down by bacteria? I agree that if you're cremated its definitely destroyed or converted in the fire at that event. Have you ever been shocked with a taser or accidentally? You don't believe that energy could leave your body after death and turn into something else? Not accounted for by conventional science that we are currently studying.

You can make the absolute claim that not a single bit of energy goes uncounted for when someone dies?

I am loving this argument by the way. Its a long stretch to get from where we started to here. Probably my fault and reaching for stuff that likely isn't actually true, but hasn't been proven.