Ghost hunting shows: Why so many?

[2322]

As you say Phil, the problem is causality. Your concept of God clearly seems to be dependent on what God's believers claim God is when, in fact, it doesn't matter if they believe he's an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud or a Cuisinart. God will be God no matter what. That some of Queen Elizabeth's followers believe she's a shape-shifting reptile doesn't mean that she is one.

Yes our concept of divinity changes over time and well it should. It may be that was the intention of the divine. After all, peek-a-boo isn't all that entertaining for adults. As we grow and become more sophisticated, is it not natural that our concept of god does so as well? I'm truthfully, far less inclined to believe in a trickster god than that humans are exceptionally limited in our ability to perceive just what a truly omnipotent being is capable of. What god does is not a trick, but we may perceive it to be. As I see it, if a 10 year old with a pack of cards can appear to perform miracles, then what must a god be capable of when faced with mere machines and the human brains that interpret those machines? There is likely no need to even attempt to trick us.

There is a way to test if the mind of someone is in contact with the supernatural and that would be for the supernatural force to bestow exact foreknowledge of the future. Tell us when and where the next 9.0 earthquake will occur, tell us what the NASDAQ will close at three months from now on a specific day, tell us how many spots will be observable on the surface of the sun at 3:03pm GMT 10 weeks from now. Should someone actually be able to do these things I won't necessarily believe that they are caused by supernatural force, but whatever the cause, it will rock the scientific world. And please trust me, I would love someone to be able to do precisely that for precisely that reason.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

To say that I'm close to being crackpot and then, in the next paragraph, to admit what I said was true, makes me curious as to why you bother saying the former. There is a professional bias.

What is with the constant false characterizations of what I write? Are you doing it on purpose? or because you can't understand english?
Or is this the kind of unethical and dissembling nonsense that passed for debate where you went to school?

No- I did not say what you said was true. Not in any sense.


I said the notion of purposefully evasive god or ghosts is stupid, and nothing but a way of preserving a delusional beleif in the face of overwhelming evidence in refutation. Your suggestion of that explanation is less than silly.

And I said that a supernatural that Affects the material world MUST be detectable in its effect... so you are wrong in that suggestion as well.

And I said the the only plausible description of supernatural experiences is that they occur in consciousness only... so they do not affect the material world at all. That makes all purported ghost photography and recordings hoaxes or nonsense... and it makes poltergeists and other such things simply impossible.

But most importantly... say that a logically consistent supernatural, outside of the natural world, is possible... does not in any way imply that it is actually true... and more over, it does not imply that there is anything mystical nor magical about such a supernatural world.

But logical examination of the notion proves that, WERE it true, its manifestation in the mind would be indiscernible from delusions.

Making such claims equivalent to delusions.

Phenomena is widely reported from disparate peoples of cultures around the world since recorded history

Billions of people have lived and died thinking the sun went aorund the earth.
So what?
The popularity of a narrative has absolutely no bearing on its validity.

Every culture has a creation myth... almost none of them agree as to creation. There we have a universal belief.. that is also universal in disagreement.

How's that for you?

Most people thru history have believed in one or more of over 500 different Gods..... And each different group believes all the other groups beliefs to be false and/or delusional.

Logically, there is only one explanation... they are all correct about the other groups beliefs being delusional... and that renders their beliefs delusional, too.

 

[2322]

What is with the constant false characterizations of what I write? Are you doing it on purpose? or because you can't understand english?

Or is this the kind of unethical and dissembling nonsense that passed for debate where you went to school?

I was referring to JustAsking's comment:

Careful now, Jason, because with this last statement you are crossing over into the crackpot zone. I know you are serious about your comment, and it is not an outrageous thought. But the ultimate crackpot gambit is to invoke a conspiracy in some big institution to explain why something that one believes in fervently has not been validated scientifically.

Although there is an element of truth about scientific regard for fringe research and parapsychology, there is one thing that would instantly draw it back into the mainstream of scientific legitimacy.

Following my reading of yet another of your diatribes, this time filled with childish (and disappointingly unoriginal) ad hominem attacks, I have to say I'm greatly disappointed and saddened. Your screed demonstrates that you have a personal, emotional agenda to promulgate beyond any dispassionate intellectual interest and you allow it to color your arguments. You've also demonstrated a complete lack of respect for me personally.

I am just so very sorry for you.

 

[Calboner]

The moment science declares something supernatural all science stops, because by definition, no measurements can be made, no independent verification can be done, and therefore there is no ability to create a theory. So, this becomes a catch-22, because science is incapable of declaring anything supernatural. Any unexplained phenomenon is regarded by science as a "work order" to get cracking on an naturalistic explanation, not an indication of anything supernatural. Because if it were otherwise, we would have declared all kinds of things supernatural and not gone on to finally understand them. Supernatural is a science stopper.

I just quoted that because I think that it sums up an important point nicely. I have nothing to add to it.

However, JA, at the risk of boring everyone else reading this thread (but they can just skip this if they want), I have to make a further correction to what I said a while back about the various planetary systems. I was wrong in recollecting that the Ptolemaic system had the planets (understood to exclude the earth) orbiting the sun: no, it had all celestial bodies orbiting the earth, without exception. It was Tycho Brahe who introduced a conception of the universe with the earth at its center and the sun, orbiting the earth, at the center of the orbits of the planets.

By the way, I learned from Kuhn's book (The Copernican Revolution, pp. 170-171) that, in order to account for oddities that had been observed in the motions of celestial bodies even at that date, Copernicus posited that the center of the earth's orbit is a point that orbits a point that orbits the sun. There is a diagram in the book, but for want of a diagram, imagine a circle with the sun at its center, circle 1; pick a point on that circle and draw another, much smaller circle around it, circle 2; now pick a point on that circle and draw a much larger circle around it, circle 3; well, circle 3 represents the earth's orbit, the center of which moves through circle 2, the center of which moves through circle 1. As Kuhn says, "Copernicus' system is neither simpler nor more accurate than Ptolemy's" (p. 171). It is a wonder that it attracted any following in the first place!

 

[JustAsking]

I was referring to JustAsking's comment:



Following my reading of yet another of your diatribes, this time filled with childish (and disappointingly unoriginal) ad hominem attacks, I have to say I'm greatly disappointed and saddened. Your screed demonstrates that you have a personal, emotional agenda to promulgate beyond any dispassionate intellectual interest and you allow it to color your arguments. You've also demonstrated a complete lack of respect for me personally.

I am just so very sorry for you.

Not so fast, Jason. I always have respect for what you post. I was simply saying that over there in the crackpot zone you find all the conspiracy theories that are used to defend the reason why a particular crackpot notion has not been verified scientifically. The ones I am talking about are variations on the theme that somehow scientists are either suppressing the truth or that the scientific community is somehow discouraging individual scientists from researching the truth.

For example,
- Climatologists are suppressing the evidence against AGW because they are driven by a liberal agenda.
- Evolutionary biologists are not giving Intelligent Design a fair shake because the are all atheists

and yours would be someting like,
- Scientists are avoiding parapsychology research because they don't want to damage their career, and this explains why there is no scientific evidence in that area.


You momentarily ventured into that region, so I was cautioning you about it. But I was also acknowledging that there is an element of truth to the claim that not every scientist would dive into ghost hunting for fear of looking like a crackpot if they really had nothing but pure speculation to go on. But that is true of science in general. Scientists generally don't just do research on someting with only pure speculation.

I think my main point was that the moment there was a reproducible phenomenon, you would have the usual bandwagon effect and that reluctance would immediately disappear. Scientists would be all over the subject like a cheap suit in the rain.

But further, I posted that one blog link showing that there seem to be a goodly number of well connected scientists openly doing plenty of stuff in the area of parapsychology, so the conspiracy (or simple reluctance) claim is not a very strong one.

Or, in other words, that we lack evidence of ghosts cannot be completely attributed to the fact that all legitimate scientists would avoid any association with that kind of research.

 

[2322]

Not so fast, Jason. I always have respect for what you post. I was simply saying that over there in the crackpot zone you find all the conspiracy theories that are used to defend the reason why a particular crackpot notion has not been verified scientifically. The ones I am talking about are variations on the theme that somehow scientists are either suppressing the truth or that the scientific community is somehow discouraging individual scientists from researching the truth.

For example,
- Climatologists are suppressing the evidence against AGW because they are driven by a liberal agenda.
- Evolutionary biologists are not giving Intelligent Design a fair shake because the are all atheists

and yours would be someting like,
- Scientists are avoiding parapsychology research because they don't want to damage their career, and this explains why there is no scientific evidence in that area.


You momentarily ventured into that region, so I was cautioning you about it. But I was also acknowledging that there is an element of truth to the claim that not every scientist would dive into ghost hunting for fear of looking like a crackpot if they really had nothing but pure speculation to go on. But that is true of science in general. Scientists generally don't just do research on someting with only pure speculation.

I think my main point was that the moment there was a reproducible phenomenon, you would have the usual bandwagon effect and that reluctance would immediately disappear. Scientists would be all over the subject like a cheap suit in the rain.

But further, I posted that one blog link showing that there seem to be a goodly number of well connected scientists openly doing plenty of stuff in the area of parapsychology, so the conspiracy (or simple reluctance) claim is not a very strong one.

Or, in other words, that we lack evidence of ghosts cannot be completely attributed to the fact that all legitimate scientists would avoid any association with that kind of research.

And I do appreciate that. I also hope you know that I try not to venture into that crackpot zone. What I know of ghost research indicates precisely what I said and you confirmed, that there is a sense of opprobrium among some scientists who might like to investigate (i.e. get funding) about investigating such things. I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or an outright prohibition, just that is discouraged.

I truly appreciate that link. I haven't had a chance to peruse it as I was busy blathering on about the origins of homosexuality and its role in human development over in the gaydar thread and I have a lot of family around this weekend.

Thank you very much JA. I truly hope I'm not wasting my time here.

 

[HamYai]

I think you guys are so far up yourselves.

But guess what?

I've seen ghosts.

Succinct enough?

Or do require "proof"?

The fact you can't prove a negative is enough.

Prove the Loch Ness Monster doesen't exist....or UFO's or ghosts - for that matter.

I know what I know. If you were me, or had been in my place, you would too.

Just my input, from just a normal guy (sorry it wasn't more wordy, for you guys).

 

[Calboner]

This passage is not about ghost hunting, but it seems to me pertinent, or at any rate worth quoting on its own merits:

After the ESP experiment, one woman followed me out of the room and said, "You're one of those skeptics, aren't you?"
"I am indeed," I replied.
"Well, then," she retorted, "how do you explain coincidences like when I go to the phone to call my friend and she calls me? Isn't that an example of psychic communication?"
"No, it is not," I told her. "It is an example of statistical coincidences. Let me ask you this: How many times did you go to the phone to call your friend and she did not call? Or how many times did your friend call you but you did not call her first?"
She said she would have to think about it and get back to me. Later, she found me and said she had figured it out: "I only remember the times that these events happen, and I forget about all those others you suggested."
"Bingo!" I exclaimed, thinking I had a convert. "You got it. It is just selective perception."
But I was too optimistic. "No," she concluded, "this just proves that psychic power works sometimes but not others."
As James Randi says, believers in the paranormal are like "unsinkable rubber ducks."
​

From Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, revised edition (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), pp. 71–72. (Amazon.com page)

 

[JustAsking]

I think you guys are so far up yourselves.

But guess what?

I've seen ghosts.

Succinct enough?

Or do require "proof"?

The fact you can't prove a negative is enough.

Prove the Loch Ness Monster doesen't exist....or UFO's or ghosts - for that matter.

I know what I know. If you were me, or had been in my place, you would too.

Just my input, from just a normal guy (sorry it wasn't more wordy, for you guys).

STD,
Actually, that was a very good post for so few words. But not quite right about proving a negative. I can prove, for example, that my land in Ohio does not have any coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. I think what you meant to say was that in absence of any evidence for or against, you can't prove that something doesn't exist. I totally agree with you, and you can defiinitely say that about ghosts.

We pretty much agree on that there there is no evidence either way about the existence of ghosts. I think we also agree that there is no evidence either way about the existence of the Greek god Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Bertrand Russell's tiny undectable teapot that is orbiting Jupiter. Until there is some evidence, they all belong in the cabinet filed under "useless speculation".

As for your observing a ghost, I believe you you saw something that you think is a ghost and it might have been a real ghost. Scientifically a single anecdote that is not independently confirmable is not very useful.

But personally, I am quite envious because I would like just once to see something that I believe can not be explained by natural phenomena. Just once, I want to be rocked on my ass by something totally amazing and out of this world. I am not being sarcastic about your post. I am serious about this.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

I think you guys are so far up yourselves.

But guess what?

I've seen ghosts.

Succinct enough?

Or do require "proof"?

Yes. To say something you saw was real I DO require proof.

Sorry, buddy... that it the same standard of evidence that makes your CAR work, electric lights go on, and cures your STD.

The fact you can't prove a negative is enough.

Prove the Loch Ness Monster doesen't exist....or UFO's or ghosts - for that matter.

I know what I know. If you were me, or had been in my place, you would too.

Actually, no, If I were in your place I would tend to be more skeptical about what I thought I had seen.
I might actually investigate... do a little testing and try and figure out if it was a trick of the light...

Your personal delusions are not evidence. and neither would mine be.

Anything I thought I saw would be JUST as suspect.


And, check out the bigfoot thread if you want to get an example of just how moronic your argument of not being able to prove it really is.

You are right in this narrow regard...There is no way to prove that things that are not there, are not there.

There are only ways to prove that things that ARE there ARE there.

So- you are saying there are there.... PROVE IT.

Or go back on your meds and watch them disappear.

 

[B_bigbanana]

BLAH BLAH BLAH. You think too much, Phil Ayesho. Quit using your 'high knowledge' to cover up your faults. You're arrogant... and you've probably been told that before! Relax.
To answer this thread: "There is a sucker born every minute." -PT Barnum

 

[Phil Ayesho]

"Electricity" didn't exist in human knowledge until it was discovered.

THis is not true. Electricity ALWAYS existed, even if we were unaware of it.

Yet...
They have found evidence that people in the bronze age were using batteries to electroplate bronze with gold.
People in the 1700s were building static electricity generators, sending current down wires and even sending messages using electricity... and doing all this without the slightest idea what electricity really was.

Eventually, enough evidence was gathered, to formulate a theory about how electricity worked... that theory seems pretty accurate, even though it may not be even remotely accurate in describing the subatomic world.
In fact... even today... we don't have the slightest idea how electricity generates a magnetic field nor how a magnetic field can attract metal.

But we can PROVE that they do.


The key feature to note about this, is that EVIDENCE of electricity was everywhere.
That the people investigating electricity had no trouble at all demonstrating its behavior to rooms full of people. On demand.


Believers in ghosts demonstrate nothing at all. They have no evidence to explain.

Creepy feelings, odd sensations and imagined perceptions are not evidence because every night when you dream your brain proves to you that it is capable of creating an entire, immersive experience of a world that does not exist at all.
All by itself.

And if it can do that in its sleep... then misinterpreting... or imaginatively embellishing your waking experience is easy.

Every Cop knows that eyewitness testimony is the WEAKEST form of evidence. No two witnesses of any event give an entirely consistent report of that event.

And memory is malleable and subject to revision. Every time we recall an event, our brains re-encode that event all over... and every time this happens the brain has the opportunity to "re-write' that memory.

Its WHY "recovered memory " is dangerous nonsense.

There is no doubt in my mind that folks thru all human history have been telling tales of being abducted and "probed"... no doubt that people have reported leprechauns, mermaids unicorns and ghosts...

There is undoubtedly something about the nature of human consciousness that makes us prone to think we are seeing things that investigation, or reason, prove to be entirely imaginary.


Its not faith, nor belief, moving that mountain... its imagination.



Humans can imagine a bulldozer ... and imagine a way to make a bulldozer... and THEN MOVE a mountain...



That same imagination serves us ill when we imagines our imaginings to be real...
when we imagine a bulldozer... without ever building the bulldozer.


At some point... you have to stop talking about what you can imagine to be true... and prove that it can be true.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

BLAH BLAH BLAH. You think too much, Phil Ayesho. Quit using your 'high knowledge' to cover up your faults. You're arrogant... and you've probably been told that before! Relax.
To answer this thread: "There is a sucker born every minute." -PT Barnum

Arrogance... that actually means to have an exaggerated sense of one's abilities or importance.

So in what way have I exhibited an exaggerated sense of MY abilities or importance?
I do not think the dead are paying me personal visits... I'm not important enough.
I do not claim that I can see the invisible and have contact with the supernatural... I don't have those abilities.

Saying what is demonstrably true about science and the nature of proof... which any one of you can find if you do a cursory search of scientific method, or philosophy of epistemology... hardly has anything to do with me or any exaggerated sense of my abilities...
I can read... but that's not an extraordinary ability.


The ones claiming an exageratted sense of themselves are the ones claiming that ghosts are real... that they have SEEN ghosts ( yet can offer no evidence) and that the same logic and science that they rely on to survive day to day... somehow doesn't apply to them or their notions.


That is true arrogance... to claim that one's beliefs, without a shred of evidence, are nevertheless true.
To claim that one's assumptions, despite being entirely unsupported, have even remotely the same validity of contrary notions that HAVE been proven thru testing.


Religion and preachers are arrogant. Tarot readers and "psychics" are arrogant. Folks who claim UFO's and BigFoot and the lock ness monster are real are arrogant.


Me... I'm just a blowhard... but a truthful one.

My faults are many... Thinking I have superior abilities, or am important enough for, say, God , to give a damn about...is not one of them.



Funny... call for reason... and you're arrogant.

Believe in your extra special relationship with an infinite deity, and your magical ability to see invisible ghosts... and you're a regular joe....

If being reasonable means being arrogant... then call me what you will.

 

[18_alone_in_bed]

i don't believe in ghosts. if it was true then there wouldn't be so many doubters.. and more scientific evidence.

also, if ghosts exist, why is it that they appear dressed in clothing of their era -clothing after all is non-organic and never lived so how can it also appear with a ghost? ;p

i do believe in karma, destiny and heaven though.. coz it makes me feel better
as for the shows- i also believe in big gullible audiences!

 

[2322]

Clothing is inorganic? It can be, but the great majority of clothing is organic.

 

[18_alone_in_bed]

true, for ghosts of older origin their clothing would be organic, bcoz it was woven from plant matter.... :smile:
most ghost believers seem to think the reason why ghosts are clothed is that the ghosts appear as they see themselves, and they see themselves with clothing.

 

[2322]

true, for ghosts of older origin their clothing would be organic, bcoz it was woven from plant matter.... :smile:
most ghost believers seem to think the reason why ghosts are clothed is that the ghosts appear as they see themselves, and they see themselves with clothing.

The majority of clothing is still made with organic compnents. Other organic clothing components still in wide use are wool, silk, leather, rayon, camel, wood, rubber, grass, coir, hemp, and linen. Synthetic fibers are in very wide use of course.

 

[18_alone_in_bed]

i guess ghosts must be real then

 

[2322]

i guess ghosts must be real then

Yes, ghosts are real, but not because of what clothing they wore in life. What ghosts are is something else entirely.:biggrin1:

Welcome to LPSG!

 

[OCMuscleJock]

I think the people that do not believe have never had any experience with ghosts or spirits. People argue that when a spirit is seen/felt/heard that they wanted to see it and it manifested in their mind. Well what about when it happens to people in random places where they have no connection to what they experienced? Yah, It's happened to me a few times...and to say that It's something that I was looking for or even wanted to see is totally incorrect.

Most of us are taught growing up that these things do not exist and usually only because our parents cannot explain things that happen and they'd like to sleep nights without someone being scared constantly. Children are more open to experiences like this because they aren't jaded into believing differently. Many believe also that when a child has an "imaginary" friend...that it really is a spirit. Anyway, my point to all this back and forth is...If you do not experience something for yourself, you cannot say it didn't happen.