Ghosts, hauntings, etc. are not real. Official dakka critical thinking thread.

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**Azreal13**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
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.

Not I depth no, because I just needed an article to underline the point I was making, which is that science often barely understands what many would understand as fundamental concepts and assume were fully known.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iron_Captain wrote:

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.

Sorry, trying to argue "ghost" is paranormal but "UFO" is not to the layperson is just a non-starter whatever way you argue it, especially if you're going to make further unsubstantiated claims on what people do or don't know to support your point.

If you want to try and make the case that aliens existing is somehow less unlikely than the spirits of the dead, go for it, I doubt you'll find much resistance, but trying to somehow disassociate "UFO" with "aliens" while arguing "ghost" is inextricably linked with "dead people" simultaneously isn't very credible and consequently doesn't make much of a case for one being somehow less 'weird' than the other in colloquial use.

**Togusa**

I'm still going to invest in Gellar Fields just to be safe if that kickstarter ever pops up.

Is there crowdfunding in the 41st millennium?

**epronovost**

greatbigtree wrote:
Neurobiology, if I’m not mistaken, studies the functions of the brain, not the creation of the mind.

The two are the same things. The mind is the brain, the brain is the mind. If you alter the brain, you alter the mind. There is no mind without brain. Neurobiology tells you what your mind is made off and how it works. Of course neurobiology is interested in the mind learning how it works, that's its reason for existence.

**greatbigtree**

I assert you can not make that statement as a matter of fact, merely of belief.

You can not prove your assertion any more than I could prove the possibility that I have presented is factually accurate.

And that’s my point. We can’t prove what we can’t detect, we can’t understand what we don’t know. We can’t know everything. We can’t prove a negative. By extension, without knowledge of *everything* and the inability to prove a negative, there are always potentials and possibilities regardless of how remote that we can’t eliminate.

Logically speaking, we must accept uncertainty. In that exceptance, we understand our potential fallibility. In that exceptance, we must allow for the unexplained. While the realms of the unexplained may decrease, it is doubtful that without omniscience we can understand the universe *perfectly* and thus there will be unknowns and the possibilities they can lead to.

**Formosa**

Accepting that we do not know everything does not mean we must accept that which has been proven to be untrue or that which cannot be proven to be true, ghosts cannot be proven to be true as they do not exist, that means anyone that says they do must prove that they are real and we are under no obligation to believe them until they have done so.

**Iron_Captain**

epronovost wrote:
greatbigtree wrote:
Neurobiology, if I’m not mistaken, studies the functions of the brain, not the creation of the mind.

The two are the same things. The mind is the brain, the brain is the mind. If you alter the brain, you alter the mind. There is no mind without brain. Neurobiology tells you what your mind is made off and how it works. Of course neurobiology is interested in the mind learning how it works, that's its reason for existence.

No, the mind and the brain are not the same thing. The relation between the mind and the brain is one of the major issues and problems in cognitive neuroscience. Most scholars in that field operate on the hypothesis that the mind is a creation of our brain, but this hypothesis so far has been very difficult to proof and may in fact be impossible to proof. This is because cognitive neuroscientists can for example correlate certain states of the mind with certain patterns of brain activity, but they can not proof that the brain activity was the cause of the state of mind. And one of the most important scientific principles is that correlation does not imply causation.

**epronovost**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Most scholars in that field operate on the hypothesis that the mind is a creation of our brain, but this hypothesis so far has been very difficult to proof and may in fact be impossible to proof.

If the mind isn't the produce of the brain, thus part of the brain itself, then there must be a mind without a brain else why even suggest that it's not the case. There are no minds without a brain. That's called evidence of abscence and it's the only way to prove a negative. The debate you are referring too is the relationship between the structure of the brain and its product the mind. Is it a unilateral (from brain structure to mind) or a bilateral relationship?

**greatbigtree**

You can’t prove a negative. You can only prove inability to find.

I don’t care what someone else believes. I’ve never experienced a ghost and I doubt they exist. I live as though they do not.

But logically speaking, I can’t say they don’t exist. Only that I have no proof of their existence, so I doubt it.

I don’t know if a mind can exist without a brain. I can’t prove that it can’t, and neither can you. Our difference is that I accept this uncertainty and acknowledge the possibility, while you claim an unprovable certainly that it can’t. That is flawed logic.

**Iron_Captain**

epronovost wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:
Most scholars in that field operate on the hypothesis that the mind is a creation of our brain, but this hypothesis so far has been very difficult to proof and may in fact be impossible to proof.

If the mind isn't the produce of the brain, thus part of the brain itself, then there must be a mind without a brain else why even suggest that it's not the case.

Not necessarily. The mind could be part of the brain without being a product of it, or the mind could not be a part of the brain but still be a product of it (although that seems unlikely). An intermediate position is also possible, where the mind is partially a product of the brain and partially of other (physical) factors. It also might actually be possible for there to be a mind without a brain. But the mind, being a nebulous and immaterial concept, can in no known way be measured, and as such that hypothesis is not testable and therefore unscientific (or it would be better to say that it is hard, if not impossible to form a proper hypothesis in the first place) . But that does not automatically mean that it is false, just that is unknowable and therefore not useful to science. It is however a favourite topic for discussion in philosophy.
The mind being the product of the brain (monism) is the main paradigm that most (cognitive) neuroscientists operate under. But that hardly means it is the only possible explanation, and so far it has been found elusive to proof. And indeed you can find (a minority of) neuroscientists who hold dualist or externalist views. In fact, it has even been argued that most if not all neuroscientists actually operate under a lot of dualist assumptions, even though they will say they reject those. For example in this papers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008206000785 or this book: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781136682407/chapters/10.4324%2F9780203579206-10

Basically, virtually everyone agrees that the mind has a basis (or is heavily influenced by) the mind. But there is a big gap between claiming that mind and brain are related and claiming that mind and brain are the same thing.

**Peregrine**

Jjohnso11 wrote:
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.

I think you need to get a basic physics textbook and do some reading on what "energy" actually means, because you're blatantly misusing the term and producing word salad as a result.

**Pink Horror**

epronovost wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:
Most scholars in that field operate on the hypothesis that the mind is a creation of our brain, but this hypothesis so far has been very difficult to proof and may in fact be impossible to proof.

If the mind isn't the produce of the brain, thus part of the brain itself, then there must be a mind without a brain else why even suggest that it's not the case. There are no minds without a brain. That's called evidence of abscence and it's the only way to prove a negative. The debate you are referring too is the relationship between the structure of the brain and its product the mind. Is it a unilateral (from brain structure to mind) or a bilateral relationship?

Are there any brains without a mind? Is there any way to tell the difference between a brain with a mind and a brain without one? If we can't tell which brains have minds, could we tell whether rocks have minds? What about animals? Do bacteria have minds? Do our cells have minds? How much of a brain do you need? Do machines have minds?

**Peregrine**

Manchu wrote:
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.

I disagree, and I have an entire thread of stories to prove it. There are all kinds of stories of testable events like "a ghost pushed me down the stairs". That's a straightforward factual claim about an event that supposedly happened, one that could be measured in a controlled experiment. There's nothing ineffable or unexplainable about it, measurable force was supposedly applied to an object. It just so happens to be the case that all we have is isolated anecdotes of one-time events and none of these supposed ghosts feel like, say, using their kinetic abilities to push on a laboratory scale and provide conclusive proof of their existence. That is an example of a claim failing to meet the burden of proof because it is weak and lacking in evidence, not a subject that is inherently impossible for science to engage with.

**Formosa**

Given how long we have been looking for evidence of life after death and never found even one example of it, I’m happy to make the claim that there isn’t one.

But if something comes along in the future to prove otherwise great.

**Howard A Treesong**

Jjohnso11 wrote:
.

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'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.

The problem is that you have no reason whatsoever to make that assertion. We know the conventional forms energy can be in, electrical, chemical, heat, etc. You are asking that there is an additional form of energy that you don’t define and have no evidence for, and that some of this energy is produced after death in addition to other conventional forms. Is there any evidence that the total energy in your body cannot be accounted for after death? If you’re going to assert or propose something, you need to have an observation that is otherwise unaccounted for, and have a plausible argument. You have neither, there is no reason to believe that there is energy lost from a body currently unaccounted for, and you can’t even describe what they currently unknown form of energy is, or any evidence for it.

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.

No I don’t. I don’t know what a taser has to do with anything, an electrical current earths through you. It’s not evaporating into something mysterious. I don’t believe there is any reason to believe energy leaves your body after death in a form as yet undiscovered and I observed. You’re just making up a story.

I don’t want to patronise you but your grasp of the concept of ‘energy’ is rather weak and most of what you say makes little sense scientifically making it rather difficult to have a sensible discussion. There’s no point in having a science based discussion if you’re just going to make things up without evidence or indeed an observation lacking explanation. I may as well claim I believe magic is real but the wizards are good at hiding.

**Elemental**

Peregrine wrote:
Since the hauntings thread has been declared to be a hugbox where the only acceptable response to a claim is to nod in agreement and affirm belief in the supernatural this is the skepticism thread.

That sounds like a literal and unbiased recounting of what happened there, and the exact reason you were told to get out.

**Prestor Jon**

Ghosts may not exist but the machine elves definitely do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine#Reported_encounters_with_external_entities

Reported encounters with external entities[edit]
Entities perceived during DMT inebriation have been represented in diverse forms of psychedelic art.[20] The term Machine Elf was coined by ethnobotanist Terence McKenna for the entities he encountered in DMT "hyperspace", also using terms like fractal elves, or self-transforming machine elves.[21][22] McKenna first encountered the "machine elves" after smoking DMT in Berkeley in 1965. His subsequent speculations regarding the hyperdimensional space in which they were encountered, has inspired a great many artists and musicians, and the meaning of DMT entities has been a subject of considerable debate among participants in a networked cultural underground, enthused by McKenna's effusive accounts of DMT hyperspace.[23] Cliff Pickover has also written about the "machine elf" experience, in the book Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves,[7] while Rick Strassman notes many similarities between self-reports of his DMT study participants' encounters with these "entities", and mythological descriptions of figures such as Chayot Ha Kodesh in Ancient religions, including both angels and demons.[24] Strassman also argues for a similarity in his study participants' descriptions of mechanized wheels, gears and machinery in these encounters, with those described in visions of encounters with the Living Creatures and Ophanim of the Hebrew Bible, noting they may stem from a common neuropsychopharmacological experience.[24]
Strassman argues that the more positive of the "external entities" encountered in DMT experiences should be understood as analogous to certain forms of angels:
“
The medieval Jewish philosophers whom I rely upon for understanding the Hebrew Bible text and its concept of prophecy portray angels as God's intermediaries. That is, they perform a certain function for God. Within the context of my DMT research, I believe that the beings that volunteers see could be conceived of as angelic - that is, previously invisible, incorporeal spiritual forces that are engarbed or enclothed in a particular form - determined by the psychological and spiritual development of the volunteers - bringing a particular message or experience to that volunteer.[25]
”
However, Strassman's experimental participants also note that some other entities can subjectively resemble creatures more like insects and aliens.[26] As a result, Strassman writes these experiences among his experimental participants "also left me feeling confused and concerned about where the spirit molecule was leading us. It was at this point that I began to wonder if I was getting in over my head with this research."[27]
Hallucinations of strange creatures had been reported by Szara in the Journal of Mental Science (now the British Journal of Psychiatry) (1958) "Dimethyltryptamine Experiments with Psychotics", Stephen Szara described how one of his subjects under the influence of DMT had experienced "strange creatures, dwarves or something" at the beginning of a DMT trip.[28][29]
Other researchers of the entities seemingly encountered by DMT users, describe them as "entities" or "beings" in humanoid as well as animal form, with descriptions of "little people" being common (non-human gnomes, elves, imps, etc.).[30] Strassman and others have speculated that this form of hallucination may be the cause of alien abduction and extraterrestrial encounter experiences, which may occur through endogenously-occurring DMT.[31][32]
Likening them to descriptions of rattling and chattering auditory phenomenon described in encounters with the mythical Hayyoth in the Book of Ezekiel, Rick Strassman notes that participants in his studies, when reporting encounters with the alleged entities, have also described loud auditory hallucinations, such as one subject reporting typically "the elves laughing or talking at high volume, chattering, twittering".[24]

**Jammer87**

Peregrine wrote:

I think you need to get a basic physics textbook and do some reading on what "energy" actually means, because you're blatantly misusing the term and producing word salad as a result.

So you think we magically move about without using energy?
Don't worry I got you

energy. [ĕn′ər-jē] The capacity or power to do work, such as the capacity to move an object (of a given mass) by the application of force. Energy can exist in a variety of forms, such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, or nuclear, and can be transformed from one form to another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good ad hominem counter argument by the way.

**epronovost**

Pink Horror wrote:
Are there any brains without a mind?

A dead brain has no mind, besides that all brains have minds of various types and complexities

Is there any way to tell the difference between a brain with a mind and a brain without one?

You can tell the difference by seeing if the brain is alive or really just a corpse.

If we can't tell which brains have minds, could we tell whether rocks have minds?

Since you can tell which brains have a mind and which don't (the dead ones), you can tell that rocks don't have minds because they don't have brains.

What about animals?

If those animals have a living brain then yes they have a mind, albeit not a human mind since they obviously don't have a human mind.

Do bacteria have minds? Do our cells have minds?

Nope, they don't have a mind per say.

How much of a brain do you need?

That's actually the tough question. We usually place the minimum at displaying a functional central nervous system (an area where all stimulus are treated) doted of a memory that can learn, explore, interact, react and puzzle on its environment all the while retaining consciousness of its individuality (the knowledge and perception that it's a distinct part of the environment upon which it can act). How "much" brain exactly do you need to possess and display those characteristics we don't know exactly, but it's definitely characteristics possessed and displayed by a lot if not all animals.

Do machines have minds?

Not quite, but getting there. They won't be human minds, but they will need hardware to work. There is no hypothetical machine mind without hardware.

A ghost being the perpetuation (potentially eternal) of the mind of a human being after his or her death is in the realm of complete fabulation. We can imagine it and wish it was a thing, but a fact remain. There are no human without brain that has a mind.

**Kilkrazy**

It is far from universally agreed that animals have minds, although they have brains. In fact it isn't 100% agreed what constitutes the mind in humans.

**epronovost**

Kilkrazy wrote:
It is far from universally agreed that animals have minds, although they have brains. In fact it isn't 100% agreed what constitutes the mind in humans.

At that point, the debate devolves in sementic. If you declare that a mind can only be like a human mind (by giving it requirements uniquely observed amongst humans), then of course no animal can't have a mind. If you declare the mind as a functional central nervous system (an area where all stimulus are treated) doted of a memory that can learn, explore, interact, react and puzzle on its environment all the while retaining consciousness of its individuality (the knowledge and perception that it's a distinct part of the environment upon which it can act), then yes pretty much all animals can possess and display such characteristics. In the same fashion, if your definition of "mind" is sufficently vague, you can start to doubt what constitue the mind in a human or if we even have one. It all depends on your usage of the word "mind" what's it supposed to refer to exactly.

**Howard A Treesong**

Jjohnso11 wrote:
Peregrine wrote:

I think you need to get a basic physics textbook and do some reading on what "energy" actually means, because you're blatantly misusing the term and producing word salad as a result.

So you think we magically move about without using energy?
Don't worry I got you

energy. [ĕn′ər-jē] The capacity or power to do work, such as the capacity to move an object (of a given mass) by the application of force. Energy can exist in a variety of forms, such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, or nuclear, and can be transformed from one form to another.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good ad hominem counter argument by the way.

Nobody thinks anything of the sort, nobody has even suggested that bodies don’t have energy in them. The issue is that you’re claiming there are additional unknown forms of energy that also get released from dying organisms. And there’s no reason to propose that, or evidence to support the explanation you’ve cooked up anyway.

You may be able to copy and paste a definition of energy, but that doesn’t mean you understand it.

**Polonius**

epronovost wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
It is far from universally agreed that animals have minds, although they have brains. In fact it isn't 100% agreed what constitutes the mind in humans.

At that point, the debate devolves in sementic. If you declare that a mind can only be like a human mind (by giving it requirements uniquely observed amongst humans), then of course no animal can have a mind. If you declare the mind as a functional central nervous system (an area where all stimulus are treated) doted of a memory that can learn, explore, interact, react and puzzle on its environment all the while retaining consciousness of its individuality (the knowledge and perception that it's a distinct part of the environment upon which it can act), then yes pretty much all animals can possess and display such characteristics. In the same fashion, if your definition of "mind" is sufficently vague, you can start to doubt what constitue the mind in a human or if we even have one. It all depends on your usage of the word "mind" what's it supposed to refer to exactly.

It's not really semantics. The question "what is mind?" is probably the most important question for philosophers today. There are plenty of aspects that people use (self awareness, problem solving, language, etc), but no really coherent idea of what it means to have a mind.

For many definitions of mind (or consciousness), there are animals that also exhibit those traits. Primates, crows, dolphins, and elephants all exhibit various traits that you would generally only associate with human consciousness.

**epronovost**

Polonius wrote:

It's not really semantics. The question "what is mind?" is probably the most important question for philosophers today.

Yes, and great philosophical debates are almost all about semantic. Semantic doesn't mean unimportant, but it's boring, obscure and feels stupid to most people (and to pragmatic philosophers).

**Asherian Command**

I mean its really hard to prove the existence of 'ghosts' because well they don't exist. Observations of the supernatural as some have said are just rare occurrences of natural events.

While we would like to ascribe and think there is magic in the world there isn't if it did exist it would be widely reported and not just be a myth.

While I have entertained the thought of ghosts when i was a kid, after i've grown up i've learned that most of those were just wierd happenstance, someone whispering to me in the bathroom was just a wierdo hiding in an airvent. My breathe getting cold or me feeling tingling turned out to be the air condition slowly turning on or just natural goosebumps (not the cold breathe).

**Strg Alt**

Ghosts and demons are as real as elves and dragons. Anybody in this day and age who think otherwise need their head examined.

**Jammer87**

Howard A Treesong wrote:

The problem is that you have no reason whatsoever to make that assertion. We know the conventional forms energy can be in, electrical, chemical, heat, etc. You are asking that there is an additional form of energy that you don’t define and have no evidence for, and that some of this energy is produced after death in addition to other conventional forms. Is there any evidence that the total energy in your body cannot be accounted for after death? If you’re going to assert or propose something, you need to have an observation that is otherwise unaccounted for, and have a plausible argument. You have neither, there is no reason to believe that there is energy lost from a body currently unaccounted for, and you can’t even describe what they currently unknown form of energy is, or any evidence for it.

No I don’t. I don’t know what a taser has to do with anything, an electrical current earths through you. It’s not evaporating into something mysterious. I don’t believe there is any reason to believe energy leaves your body after death in a form as yet undiscovered and I observed. You’re just making up a story.

I don’t want to patronise you but your grasp of the concept of ‘energy’ is rather weak and most of what you say makes little sense scientifically making it rather difficult to have a sensible discussion. There’s no point in having a science based discussion if you’re just going to make things up without evidence or indeed an observation lacking explanation. I may as well claim I believe magic is real but the wizards are good at hiding.

Because science doesn't find new forms of energy? Are you saying that science has completely defined all forms of energy that we will ever find? Can you counter argue to discuss that someone has done the research to say that there is evidence pointing to collecting all of the energy after death? I'm not providing the answers because the science isn't there yet. I'm asking questions to support my theory on why we can't automatically assume that ghosts don't exist because we haven't seen them. To do that kind of credible research would require funding, a hypothesis on why its important, and the technology to do the research. I strongly doubt that will ever happen. I'm just asking questions and providing examples of why I won't rule out the possibility. You are counter arguing by telling me the questions I'm asking haven't been answered... which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. The unknown is what is feeding my argument that we can't rule out something is possible when we don't have all the answers. You can't counter by saying that because we don't have all the answers we can prove something.

It was an example of the human capability to transfer energy in the event that someone thought that all of your energy has to stay with you when you die and it can't possibly transfer out. Supporting the argument not making the argument if you don't understand a point or clarification that I'm making there is no point in calling it out.

Didn't doctors say that your humors govern your health and bleeding the disease out of you was the best course of action for being sick. Just because the science and technology aren't there doesn't mean that your absolute that ghosts don't exist is correct.

**Asherian Command**

All it takes is a couple of variables shifts and us discovering and containing dark matter for all physics to be completely rewritten and our modern science to shift entirely.

**Howard A Treesong**

Are you saying that science has completely defined all forms of energy that we will ever find?

Am I saying that? Go back and read what I’ve written again.

Can you counter argue to discuss that someone has done the research to say that there is evidence pointing to collecting all of the energy after death?

Don’t ask me to argue something I’ve not claimed because you can’t address what I have actually said. So no, I won’t counter argue that for you.

I will reiterate, there is nothing to suggest that energy is released from bodies in a form as yet not recognised. You are creating a pseudoscientific explanation for an obervation that has never been made.

**Alphabet**

epronovost wrote:
Polonius wrote:

It's not really semantics. The question "what is mind?" is probably the most important question for philosophers today.

Yes, and great philosophical debates are almost all about semantic. Semantic doesn't mean unimportant, but it's boring, obscure and feels stupid to most people (and to pragmatic philosophers).

I think the question of 'What is consciousness?' (Which I feel is essentially the same question) Is far from boring or obscure. Do you personally not care whether we answer the question? It would address some of Humanities longest and greatest thoughts. However, I would agree that the conversation can not be answered sufficiently currently, but this does not mean it is a stupid or boring question.

**Da Boss**

godardc wrote:
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.

Scientists are not a homogenous group, and they disagree with each other ALL the time. Any scientist who can prove something surprising or contra to the understood models would become famous and achieve the dream of many scientists. I just do not find your idea of a conspiracy of scientists willing to ignore obvious truths particularly credible. Someone will always come along and expose it, and at a faster rate now in our "modern society" than at any other time in history, when old dogmas could last a lot longer.

I saw a lot of people talking about energy in the thread. It is one of my pet peeves when people use words like energy incorrectly, so please, if you are going to use something like that to make an argument, at least make sure you have your terms properly defined.

Also, Einstein has nothing to do with the First Law of Thermodynamics, if anything his work upended this idea in some respects.

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Asherian Command wrote:
All it takes is a couple of variables shifts and us discovering and containing dark matter for all physics to be completely rewritten and our modern science to shift entirely.

What do you think Dark Matter is, Asherian? It is the current explanation for the observed anomolies in galactic rotation curves, ie. that they are unexplainable without the presence of a large amount of extra matter, specifically in the outer "halo" of the galaxies. This matter is called "dark" because it does not seem to interact with light. The two most popular candidate particles are amusingly called MACHOs (MAssive Compact Halo Objects) and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Dark matter is definitely a mystery, and may imply that something is wrong with relativity (though relativity is a very robust theory which has had it's predictions confirmed by experiment many many times) or perhaps with our understanding of matter (one solution was an idea of "positive" gravity existing in the same way that positive and negative charge exists.)
Dark Matter may prove to be the thread that pulls apart physics, but it seems somewhat unlikely that ALL of our current theories will be thrown out. We have some pretty damn robust theories for a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the rotation of galaxies.

(Also, Dark Energy is not the same as Dark Matter and the two are not related except by the unimaginative naming schemes of physicists).