Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sriram on November 01, 2020, 02:04:16 PM
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Hi everyone
Many ghosts have been spotted by the British royal family at the Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and so on. Wonder if any of you have ever been inside these places and experienced any such things..... Britain is well known for its ghosts.
https://in.yahoo.com/news/queen-elizabeth-ii-allegedly-spotted-214200992.html
Cheers.
Sriram
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Hi everyone
Many ghosts have been spotted by the British royal family at the Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and so on. Wonder if any of you have ever been inside these places and experienced any such things..... Britain is well known for its ghosts.
https://in.yahoo.com/news/queen-elizabeth-ii-allegedly-spotted-214200992.html
Cheers.
Sriram
Nope.
I've been inside ancient stately homes and experienced creepiness but never anything that could be described as a ghost.
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Been to many stately homes. Near me, the city of York actually do ghost tours. Many years ago I went on one. Also, in the 70s, I and two others decided to investigate local ghost stories which appeared in the local press. One of these involved staying the night alone on Christman Eve in a working men's club which had once been a set of police cells in Victorian times.
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It's easy to tell if a place is haunted.
It isn't.
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They are folk who have perished while trying to fold fitted sheets.
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Been to lots of old places. No ghosts.
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
She's human, and as liable to misattributing any number of stimuli to supernatural causes as anyone; arguably, as someone with (reportedly) a strong personal faith she's already in a self-selecting group of people more likely to believe in supernatural causes for events that can't immediately be explained.
At the end of the day, though, the Queen is just an elderly lady in an unfortunate position of intense scrutiny - she's as liable to be wrong about things as anyone else.
O.
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
Why should I?
She's an hereditary figurehead who comes from a long line of people who have devoted considerable violence and cunning to maintain their position. I don't even trust her genes.
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
You aren't being serious are you?
Why on earth should I trust the word of another human being simply because they have the title of 'Queen'?
Should I have trusted the words of George III if I had lived at that time, when he said:
"A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me."
Just because he had the title 'King'? ;D
I think not.
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
Why would we?
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I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.
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I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.
What phenomena? The problem with even referring to ghosts is that it is begging the question. You may have a number of unexplained incidents but it is not clear to me to say that they are related, or indeed how you might show that they were.
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I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.
No one has any definitive idea of what ghosts are.
Sometimes they behave like live people...communicating, caring, passing on information etc. Sometimes they are harmful and frightening. Sometimes they just float around without any interaction. Sometimes they are just visions of objects like houses and trains.
Maybe each of these is a different phenomenon and has different causes. I have never so far encountered a ghost.
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No one has any definitive idea of what ghosts are.
Noone has any definitive idea IF ghosts are, let alone what.
Sometimes that behave like live people...communicating, caring, passing on information etc. Sometimes that are harmful and frightening. Sometimes they just float around without any interaction. Sometimes they are just visions of objects like houses and trains.
It's almost as though they are a vague phenomenon, if they exist at all, onto which people project something about themselves.
Maybe each of these is a different phenomenon and has different causes.
Or maybe they aren't there at all, and what people claim tells us more about them than anything else.
I have never so far encountered a ghost.
I suspect neither has anyone else.
O.
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From Wikipedia. Make of it what you will. ('Strange Meeting' is Wikipedia being uncharacteristically allusive; that is the title of WO's greatest poem.)
Strange meeting
During the First World War, Harold Owen was an officer on board the British cruiser, HMS Astraea. In the weeks following the armistice, whilst the ship was at anchor of the coast of Cameroons, Owen fell ill with malaria. It was during this time that Owen claims he had "an extraordinary and inexplicable experience":
I had gone down to my cabin thinking to write some letters. I drew aside the door curtain and stepped inside and to my amazement I saw Wilfred sitting in my chair. I felt shock run through me with appalling force and with it I could feel the blood draining away from my face. I did not rush towards him but walked jerkily into the cabin--all my limbs stiff and slow to respond. I did not sit down but looking at him I spoke quietly: "Wilfred, how did you get here?"
He did not rise and I saw that he was involuntarily immobile, but his eyes which had never left mine were alive with the familiar look of trying to make me understand; when I spoke his whole face broke into his sweetest and most endearing dark smile. I felt not fear--I had none when I first drew my door curtain and saw him there--only exquisite mental pleasure at thus beholding him. He was in uniform and I remember thinking how out of place the khaki looked amongst the cabin furnishings. With this thought I must have turned my eyes away from him; when I looked back my cabin chair was empty . . .
I wondered if I had been dreaming but looking down I saw that I was still standing. Suddenly I felt terribly tired and moving to my bunk I lay down; instantly I went into a deep oblivious sleep. When I woke up I knew with absolute certainty that Wilfred was dead.[4]
Harold learned only later that his brother had been killed a week before this experience occurred.
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Anybody listened to the recent abridged account of the curious case of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale recently on BBC 4? (you can still hear it on BBCI Player). It describes the investigation by Nandor Fodor(parapsychologist, psychoanalyst) into the case of the Croydon Poltergeist in the 1930s. The 1920s and 30s seemed to be a high point of spiritual/ghostly happenings and investigations. The whole series is quite entertaining.
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The 1920s and 30s seemed to be a high point of spiritual/ghostly happenings and investigations. The whole series is quite entertaining.
There was also an upsurge of interest in spiritualism then, largely because of the huge numbers of young men killed in WW1, which may also account for the increased interest in ghosts.
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Noone has any definitive idea IF ghosts are, let alone what.
It's almost as though they are a vague phenomenon, if they exist at all, onto which people project something about themselves.
Or maybe they aren't there at all, and what people claim tells us more about them than anything else.
I suspect neither has anyone else.
O.
All of you seem to be well trained in denial. ::)
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All of you seem to be well trained in denial. ::)
As well trained as you are in fantasy ::)
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All of you seem to be well trained in denial. ::)
What's to deny - even the story you paraphrase as 'members of the royal family have seen' is actually tltled "Queen Elizabeth II allegedly spotted...". You've gone from a Yahoo repost of a 'House Beautiful' allegation (who are 'House Beautiful'?) to 'therefore ghosts are real'... that doesn't need a denial, it needs a face-palm emoji but the board doesn't have one of those.
O.
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What's to deny - even the story you paraphrase as 'members of the royal family have seen' is actually tltled "Queen Elizabeth II allegedly spotted...". You've gone from a Yahoo repost of a 'House Beautiful' allegation (who are 'House Beautiful'?) to 'therefore ghosts are real'... that doesn't need a denial, it needs a face-palm emoji but the board doesn't have one of those.
O.
We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes. Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse. For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen. Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods.
But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged. It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.
It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.
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It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.
And you show a lack of intellectual honesty and a "wishful" thinking which is regressive.
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We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes. Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse. For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen. Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods.
But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged. It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.
It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.
The phenomena undoubtedly exist, but they may not be what they purport, or are assumed, to be.
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We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes.
We don't have absolute knowledge, certainly, but to depict everything as a blanket level of uncertainty is an oversimplification.
Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse.
For the same reasons as unicorns and leprechauns, or for the same reason as Higgs Bosons, or for the same reasons as magnetars?
For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen.
You're presuming here that they happen at all - it's not just that we don't have any proof, we also don't have any understandable mechanism by which they might occur, and if they were to happen they would massively contradict well established principles from other investigations into the world.
Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods.
So are goblins.
But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged.
People haven't observed these phenomena, necessarily. People have had experiences they can't explain, and they have put it down to this, but that's not been confirmed. Different cultures and social groups have vastly different experiences which have been loosely gathered together under a single umbrella, but when they're investigated there are so few common elements you'd presume they were different phenomena unless you were desperate for the validation of larger numbers. The possibility is acknowledged, but it's vanishingly remote.
It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.
It's tiresome to have superstition put on an equal footing with valid predictions purely on the basis that neither has been definitively proven or disproven, but this is the life we live in.
It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.
On the contrary, it shows an intellectual honesty; in the face of persistent pre-enlightenment myth being repurposed in an age of science to try to validate mysticism we continue to differentiate between the grades of uncertainty. Intellectual dishonesty is saying 'well it hasn't been disproven' and 'lots of people believe' and thinking that should merit all arguments being dropped.
O.
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Noone has any definitive idea IF ghosts are, let alone what.
I'm pretty sure they are products of the human imagination.
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The phenomena undoubtedly exist, but they may not be what they purport, or are assumed, to be.
Yes.....and only if its existence is acknowledged can it be examined. Blanket denial and relegating everything to imagination or fantasy, is not progressive.
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Yes.....and only if its existence is acknowledged can it be examined. Blanket denial and relegating everything to imagination or fantasy, is not progressive.
Give me some evidence that ghosts are anything other than imagination and I will acknowledge that.
The trouble is you have got nothing and blaming the disbelievers for the inadequacy of your own position is not progressive.
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Yes.....and only if its existence is acknowledged can it be examined. Blanket denial and relegating everything to imagination or fantasy, is not progressive.
No, the possibility needs to be acknowledged, but it needs to be also put in context - it's less likely than some things, more likely than others. There is no 'blanket denial' of the possibility, but at the same time some of us are requiring a higher burden of proof than you're currently offering to accept it as likely, let alone fact.
O.
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Hello Sriram, hope all is well with you in these strange 'virus times'.
My grandmother was someone that twice encountered something strange. She used to love to walk round a lake near her home. On two occasions she noticed a lady dressed in Edwardian clothes standing at the edge of the lake. The lady was known as 'the blue lady' as her dress was blue. After making enquiries she discovered that this lady had once lived in a local stately home and that other folk had seen her by the lake.
I have never questioned my grandma's story as she was a very down-to-earth person.
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Hello Sriram, hope all is well with you in these strange 'virus times'.
My grandmother was someone that twice encountered something strange. She used to love to walk round a lake near her home. On two occasions she noticed a lady dressed in Edwardian clothes standing at the edge of the lake. The lady was known as 'the blue lady' as her dress was blue. After making enquiries she discovered that this lady had once lived in a local stately home and that other folk had seen her by the lake.
I have never questioned my grandma's story as she was a very down-to-earth person.
Hi SweetPea,
Its been quite a while. :) I am fine out here and hope the virus is not troubling you or your loved ones.
Yes...I have heard of many instances where people have seen and encountered such ghosts. As I have said earlier, it is difficult to come to any simple conclusion as to what these experiences can be. It could be far more complex than what we imagine, involving many layers of the mind and consciousness.
As usual, our habitually skeptical friends are happy within their comfort zone. :D
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No, the possibility needs to be acknowledged, but it needs to be also put in context - it's less likely than some things, more likely than others. There is no 'blanket denial' of the possibility, but at the same time some of us are requiring a higher burden of proof than you're currently offering to accept it as likely, let alone fact.
O.
What 'context' can we put it in....given that we have no clue as to what it is? We should not descend into scientism and attempt to explain everything only in terms of what we know already.
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What 'context' can we put it in....given that we have no clue as to what it is? We should not descend into scientism and attempt to explain everything only in terms of what we know already.
We shouldn't presume 'scientism' from any sort of ideological standpoint, no, but until someone comes up with an equally reliable system of gathering knowledge then at a practical level that which can't be demonstrated empirically can be presumed not to exist.
O.
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Typical of you, Sriram. It seems whenever you encounter views and arguments at odds to your own, all you seem to be able to do is accuse others of having limited vision, not thinking outside the box or, as in this case, staying within their comfort zone and/or descending into scientism. I suppose all this bolsters your ego but it isn't exactly conducive to advancing your views. :)
In my case, for instance, I grew up in a spiritualist household, although no pressure was put on me to believe anything). I was used to the idea of spirit guides, ectoplasm, and seances linking to those who were supposedly deceased. Later, as I earlier made reference to, three of us investigated at least eight local ghost stories by examining the locations, interviewing the people concerned and spending time to see whether we could experience anything out of the ordinary. We did this with as open a mind as possible. In fact we would have been thrilled if we had been able to discover something that couldn't possibly be explained except by some sort of ghostly/supernatural happening. We even got a mention on the local radio, but, alas, we found zero evidence for any sort of ghostly activity. Comfort zone? You don't know what you are talking about.
In fact almost all investigated 'ghost' stories can be put down to things like deliberate hoaxes, natural events, brain activity and mistaken assumptions. All sorts of things can be challenged quite easily? For instance, if the ghost is some sort of disembodied person, how come they are usually wearing clothes? What is it about the clothes they wear which makes the clothes 'ghostly'?
I leave you to your ghostly deliberations. :D
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You people don't trust the word of your queen?!
Well Sriram, for one thing I don't consider her my Queen, it's just a part of a ridiculous anachronistic system we have to put up with somebody that by chance of birth alone has ended up as head of sate, aren't we lucky?
If the Queen, as you call her, believes in ghosts, so what? She also believes she has an invisible friend in the sky, ghosts and gods too, all without a single shred of evidence that she or anyone else has ever been able to substantiate.
ippy.
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What an unpleasant and unnecessary post ippy. Do you have to be so scathing?
I've never seen a ghost but have been aware of presence or atmosphere in certain situations sririam. I think where dramatic events have occurred some people will pick up on the shades of those departed, even if they didn't know about them.
It doesn't surprise me, considering the ancient buildings they occupy and the happenings there, that the royal family have encountered similar but I have never read that they have.
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What an unpleasant and unnecessary post ippy. Do you have to be so scathing?
I've never seen a ghost but have been aware of presence or atmosphere in certain situations sririam. I think where dramatic events have occurred some people will pick up on the shades of those departed, even if they didn't know about them.
It doesn't surprise me, considering the ancient buildings they occupy and the happenings there, that the royal family have encountered similar but I have never read that they have.
Sriram knows I'm OK with him and he also knows we only have differing ideas again like yourself I don't dislike you but again our ideas differ quite a bit.
I prefer people that call a spade a spade because I know where I stand with them, as a matter of fact I generally like most that regularly post on this forum, even that 'Robbie' person but that doesn't mean I always have to agree with her.
ippy.
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We shouldn't presume 'scientism' from any sort of ideological standpoint, no, but until someone comes up with an equally reliable system of gathering knowledge then at a practical level that which can't be demonstrated empirically can be presumed not to exist.
O.
Not necessarily. Multiverses have not been demonstrated empirically. As also Strings and Dark Matter. Do you therefore presume that they don't exist? You merely take them as hypotheses and then work along those lines integrating them within your theories.
I am suggesting that phenomena such as NDE's, ghosts and other such things that people commonly experience and which are fairly consistent across the world, should also be taken as hypotheses and integrated with our larger world view. Lateral thinking and an open mind could help sort out many of our present dilemmas and present a more meaningful picture of our universe and our lives.
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What an unpleasant and unnecessary post ippy. Do you have to be so scathing?
I've never seen a ghost but have been aware of presence or atmosphere in certain situations sririam. I think where dramatic events have occurred some people will pick up on the shades of those departed, even if they didn't know about them.
It doesn't surprise me, considering the ancient buildings they occupy and the happenings there, that the royal family have encountered similar but I have never read that they have.
Hi Robbie,
Yes. It probably requires a certain frame of mind to 'see' or interact with ghosts and other non physical forms of existence. Our mind is the biggest mystery we have and taking a simplistic view of it (as just chemical and electrical activity in the brain) is regressive.
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Typical of you, Sriram. It seems whenever you encounter views and arguments at odds to your own, all you seem to be able to do is accuse others of having limited vision, not thinking outside the box or, as in this case, staying within their comfort zone and/or descending into scientism. I suppose all this bolsters your ego but it isn't exactly conducive to advancing your views. :)
In my case, for instance, I grew up in a spiritualist household, although no pressure was put on me to believe anything). I was used to the idea of spirit guides, ectoplasm, and seances linking to those who were supposedly deceased. Later, as I earlier made reference to, three of us investigated at least eight local ghost stories by examining the locations, interviewing the people concerned and spending time to see whether we could experience anything out of the ordinary. We did this with as open a mind as possible. In fact we would have been thrilled if we had been able to discover something that couldn't possibly be explained except by some sort of ghostly/supernatural happening. We even got a mention on the local radio, but, alas, we found zero evidence for any sort of ghostly activity. Comfort zone? You don't know what you are talking about.
In fact almost all investigated 'ghost' stories can be put down to things like deliberate hoaxes, natural events, brain activity and mistaken assumptions. All sorts of things can be challenged quite easily? For instance, if the ghost is some sort of disembodied person, how come they are usually wearing clothes? What is it about the clothes they wear which makes the clothes 'ghostly'?
I leave you to your ghostly deliberations. :D
You don't attach any value to the experiences of thousands of peoples across the world....and you expect me to take you little failed 'experiment' as conclusive....??! ::)
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Yes.....and only if its existence is acknowledged can it be examined. Blanket denial and relegating everything to imagination or fantasy, is not progressive.
People experience things and interpret the experiences as ghosts, that isn't denied. I have never had such experiences and think there are other more likely explanations for the experiences than them having encountered dead people.
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Not necessarily. Multiverses have not been demonstrated empirically. As also Strings and Dark Matter.
You really should learn some science if you're going to keep wibbling on about it. There are many multiverse ideas that range from the extremes of conjecture to reasonable assumptions, given the current evidence. String theory (why on earth do you keep referring to it as capitalised "String"?) is a work in progress hypothesis, and there is empirical evidence for dark matter (we know it's there, we don't know what it is).
I am suggesting that phenomena such as NDE's, ghosts and other such things that people commonly experience and which are fairly consistent across the world, should also be taken as hypotheses and integrated with our larger world view.
They aren't hypotheses, they are (alleged) phenomena. A hypothesis would have to seek to explain them in some way that stood some chance of being tested. NDEs are being investigated and ghosts have been investigated for a long time without uncovering any solid evidence on which to even base a hypothesis.
Lateral thinking and an open mind could help sort out many of our present dilemmas and present a more meaningful picture of our universe and our lives.
But you're not doing any lateral thinking, you're just clinging to old superstitions that you happen to like.
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Not necessarily. Multiverses have not been demonstrated empirically.
And they aren't accepted as probably the case, but there are logical reasons for considering them possibilities and people are looking at ways of detecting if they are actually there. There are no logical reasons to think that ghosts exist, and it's therefore difficult to come up with any method for accurately determining if they really are there or not.
As also Strings and Dark Matter. Do you therefore presume that they don't exist?
Strings are a stronger possibility than ghosts or a multiverse, but they are still only an hypothesis awaiting confirmation. Dark matter, almost by definition, is presumed not to exist; it's a holding term for something where we have a currently incomplete explanation and 'Dark Matter' is the name for whatever the unexplained bit is. It's the exact opposite of ghosts, it's data without an explanation rather than an explanation looking for data to justify its existence.
You merely take them as hypotheses and then work along those lines integrating them within your theories.
Ghosts, though, don't fit in with any other hypotheses.
I am suggesting that phenomena such as NDE's, ghosts and other such things that people commonly experience and which are fairly consistent across the world, should also be taken as hypotheses and integrated with our larger world view.
But there are explanations for these that are more in keeping with the well-established theories of how the world works.
Lateral thinking and an open mind could help sort out many of our present dilemmas and present a more meaningful picture of our universe and our lives.
Lateral thinking is lovely if you're writing a story, but it's an unreliable basis for trying to determine what's actually happening in reality - that's why science is the most robust methodology we currently have.
O.
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I don't know if anybody else has tried using a Ouija Board situation. I tried it with 4 family members each lightly resting their fingers on a drinking glass surrounded by all the letters of the alphabet arranged in a disorderly fashion so that it was impossible to remember their position. Questions were asked and gradually the glass moved to spell out answers which suggested a deceased personality. One such 'personality' indicated that he had been in a German prison of war camp where he had died. The glass moved so fast that it seemed impossible that any of us were deliberately answering the questions. However, we thought that if that 'person' has spent so long in that prison he would be able to speak some German. My brother was the only one of us who could speak German and so he took his finger off the glass and asked a question in German. The reply came back in German.
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You don't attach any value to the experiences of thousands of peoples across the world....and you expect me to take you little failed 'experiment' as conclusive....??! ::)
No, I simply brought my upbringing and limited investigations to counter your rather silly point about being in some sort of 'comfort zone'. Incidentally how many 'ghost' stories have you personally investigated?
There have been plenty of investigations into a whole range of 'ghost' stories over many years, both by amateurs and professionals, and none have produced anything of substance. The evidence for ghosts is almost exactly the same as it was a century ago, a big fat zero.
As usual you remain hung up on the countless thousands of anecdotal accounts. Why not read about the 'Miracle of the Sun'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
it might just change your mind. ;)
Although on second thoughts I doubt that as you seem particularly embroiled in your own prejudices. :(
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Not necessarily. Multiverses have not been demonstrated empirically. As also Strings and Dark Matter. Do you therefore presume that they don't exist?
Multiverses and strings are just hypotheses. I acknowledge them only as possibilities within the framework of what we know about the Universe - but only possibilities. There's no evidence of either yet and if you say you don't believe in them, I can't argue against your point of view. What I will not do is call you blinkered or narrow minded for not believing in either.
Dark matter is different. We can't see dark matter but we can see its effect on stars in galaxies, so there is some evidence that dark matter exists. If you say you don't believe in dark matter, I can say you are wrong (probably) and point to the evidence. You are then free to point to an alternative explanation, but the only one I know of is that we have somehow got the law of gravity wrong. There is, however, a mountain of evidence that says we have got the law of gravity right so you have to balance "new form of matter" against "rewrite the laws of physics". Consensus at the moment favours the former, but, if it were the latter, scientists would be wetting themselves with excitement.
I am suggesting that phenomena such as NDE's, ghosts and other such things that people commonly experience and which are fairly consistent across the world, should also be taken as hypotheses and integrated with our larger world view. Lateral thinking and an open mind could help sort out many of our present dilemmas and present a more meaningful picture of our universe and our lives.
The trouble with ghosts is that people see them. That means they interact with photons. That would mean something completely unknown to science having an influence over particles whose behaviour we completely understand. Either there is some quite powerful force completely undetected by us or ghosts are products of the human imagination. We know humans hallucinate things that aren't really there and they are capable of fooling themselves pretty convincingly. Why do we need to go any further?
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Hi Robbie,
Yes. It probably requires a certain frame of mind to 'see' or interact with ghosts and other non physical forms of existence. Our mind is the biggest mystery we have and taking a simplistic view of it (as just chemical and electrical activity in the brain) is regressive.
Why do you think viewing the mind as an emergent property of the brain and chemistry and electricity is simplistic?
If the mind is a mystery (and I agree with you to an extent), how can you confidently say ghosts are not products of its imagination?
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Hi Robbie,
Yes. It probably requires a certain frame of mind to 'see' or interact with ghosts and other non physical forms of existence. Our mind is the biggest mystery we have and taking a simplistic view of it (as just chemical and electrical activity in the brain) is regressive.
In your unsupported opinion Sriram, any chance of something that's realistic and at the same time supports this gods and ghosts idea of yours.
Yes as you say the brain is an electro-chemical devise, what does that say or mean in relation to gods and ghosts? Very little, I would say.
ippy
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The reason I am citing phenomena such as multiverses etc....is that these are just possibilities that are acknowledged by science. That is all that is required for NDE's and ghosts etc. also.
They cannot be regarded as imagination because they happen regularly across the world, across different groups and have many consistent details. Dismissing them as imagination is foolish.
As to what they may be...we don't know. So what if we don't know what they are or are unable to provide evidence of them or are unable to investigate them? They are real phenomena that real, honest and intelligent people experience, that is all.
Denying them or calling them hoaxes doesn't help. Lumping them together with religious beliefs and mythology is also a mistake. Accepting NDE's and ghosts as real is not the same as accepting the six day creation or Adam & Eve or stories of different gods.
Secular but exotic phenomena exist and they have to be accepted as real regardless of our ignorance of them. Atheism should not be habitual denial of anything that is not yet a part of mainstream science.
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The reason I am citing phenomena such as multiverses etc....is that these are just possibilities that are acknowledged by science. That is all that is required for NDE's and ghosts etc. also.
They cannot be regarded as imagination because they happen regularly across the world, across different groups and have many consistent details. Dismissing them as imagination is foolish.
As to what they may be...we don't know. So what if we don't know what they are or are unable to provide evidence of them or are unable to investigate them? They are real phenomena that real, honest and intelligent people experience, that is all.
Denying them or calling them hoaxes doesn't help. Lumping them together with religious beliefs and mythology is also a mistake. Accepting NDE's and ghosts as real is not the same as accepting the six day creation or Adam & Eve or stories of different gods.
Secular but exotic phenomena exist and they have to be accepted as real regardless of our ignorance of them. Atheism should not be habitual denial of anything that is not yet a part of mainstream science.
Again Sriram, all in your opinion and without any supportable evidence that would make your ideas viable.
ippy
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The reason I am citing phenomena such as multiverses etc....is that these are just possibilities that are acknowledged by science. That is all that is required for NDE's and ghosts etc. also.
That's not 'all that's required' - multiverses are considered viable because there are models that predict the existence, and now we're looking for evidence. With ghosts we have claims of existence but not the reliable evidence to support it.
They cannot be regarded as imagination because they happen regularly across the world, across different groups and have many consistent details. Dismissing them as imagination is foolish.
Nobody is blanket dismissing them as imagination, in at least some of these instances there are very real experiences; what's being doubted is whether the claims of the source of the experience are valid. They experienced 'something', but it seems unlikely that it was a disembodied spirit.
As to what they may be...we don't know.
There we go, that wasn't so hard, was it.
So what if we don't know what they are or are unable to provide evidence of them or are unable to investigate them?
So we keep investigating, we don't just go 'let's assume they're ghosts'.
They are real phenomena that real, honest and intelligent people experience, that is all.
That's not all, that's the start - phenomena are the start of the journey, now you have to try to come up with an explanation, consider what the implications of that explanation might be and then test those implications to validate the idea.
Denying them or calling them hoaxes doesn't help.
We're questioning your explanation, not the reality of people's experience.
Lumping them together with religious beliefs and mythology is also a mistake.
Why? You have claims without sufficient evidence, and the reinforcement of prior presumption is used to justify the claim, sounds like it shares at least some traits with mythology to me.
Accepting NDE's and ghosts as real is not the same as accepting the six day creation or Adam & Eve or stories of different gods.
Six day creation and Adam and Eve no, I'll grant, but belief in different gods... how is the claim 'god did it' differentiatable from 'a ghost did it'? Or, to put it differently, if I have an experience and two different people give me those two explanations, how do I test between the two?
Secular but exotic phenomena exist and they have to be accepted as real regardless of our ignorance of them
Exotic is not the same as supernatural, though.
Atheism should not be habitual denial of anything that is not yet a part of mainstream science.
This isn't about atheism or theism - there will be people of faith who do believe in ghosts and people of faith who don't, and the same for non-believers. That I'm an atheist doesn't inform this opinion, rather my atheism and my 'a-ghostism' come from a similar place: we have phenomena, but there isn't sufficient rigorous evidence derived from or about those phenomena to support the claims being made.
O.
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The reason I am citing phenomena such as multiverses etc....is that these are just possibilities that are acknowledged by science.
Scientific conjectures and hypotheses are acknowledged because there are arguments that have been made for them based on, or extrapolated from, current theories.
That is all that is required for NDE's and ghosts etc. also.
Near death experiences are acknowledged by science, it's just your explanation for them that is being questioned because we have no evidence for it and good reasons to think it's false. Ghosts are also experiences that people report having and we have no solid evidence for them existing as an objective reality and nor is there any current science that we can base a hypothesis or conjecture on.
You really do need to understand the difference between what people experience and your preferred explanations - they simply aren't the same thing at all.
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These so called N D Es are exactly similar to altitude sickness, lack of oxygen going to the brain, why not start taking dreams more seriously, why confine the investigation of various brain activities to N D Es alone?
ippy.
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I don't know if anybody else has tried using a Ouija Board situation. I tried it with 4 family members each lightly resting their fingers on a drinking glass surrounded by all the letters of the alphabet arranged in a disorderly fashion so that it was impossible to remember their position. Questions were asked and gradually the glass moved to spell out answers which suggested a deceased personality. One such 'personality' indicated that he had been in a German prison of war camp where he had died. The glass moved so fast that it seemed impossible that any of us were deliberately answering the questions. However, we thought that if that 'person' has spent so long in that prison he would be able to speak some German. My brother was the only one of us who could speak German and so he took his finger off the glass and asked a question in German. The reply came back in German.
Nobody has addressed ekim's above comment.
So, can the Ouija Board experience be explained away by science?
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I don't know if anybody else has tried using a Ouija Board situation. I tried it with 4 family members each lightly resting their fingers on a drinking glass surrounded by all the letters of the alphabet arranged in a disorderly fashion so that it was impossible to remember their position. Questions were asked and gradually the glass moved to spell out answers which suggested a deceased personality. One such 'personality' indicated that he had been in a German prison of war camp where he had died. The glass moved so fast that it seemed impossible that any of us were deliberately answering the questions. However, we thought that if that 'person' has spent so long in that prison he would be able to speak some German. My brother was the only one of us who could speak German and so he took his finger off the glass and asked a question in German. The reply came back in German.
The thing about anecdotes is that fantastic things can be claimed and the person making the claim seems so sincere.
But it is almost certain what you think happened did not actually happen.
Do you think that if this was tried under scientific scrutiny the effect would still be there.
Of course not, these things only happen in sincere anecdotes and always fail when tested.
Memory is a funny thing, it is not like playing a video in your head of the events.
I had this brought home to me recently when something I had a clear memory of, was shown to be wrong when we found some old super 8 film of the event. I would have sworn my memory of the event was accurate when it was not.
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OK...since the experiences themselves are not being questioned (NDE's and ghosts, for starters)....who is to say what the correct interpretations of these phenomena are?! Only atheist explanations are valid?!!
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That's not 'all that's required' - multiverses are considered viable because there are models that predict the existence, and now we're looking for evidence. With ghosts we have claims of existence but not the reliable evidence to support it.
Nobody is blanket dismissing them as imagination, in at least some of these instances there are very real experiences; what's being doubted is whether the claims of the source of the experience are valid. They experienced 'something', but it seems unlikely that it was a disembodied spirit.
There we go, that wasn't so hard, was it.
So we keep investigating, we don't just go 'let's assume they're ghosts'.
That's not all, that's the start - phenomena are the start of the journey, now you have to try to come up with an explanation, consider what the implications of that explanation might be and then test those implications to validate the idea.
We're questioning your explanation, not the reality of people's experience.
Why? You have claims without sufficient evidence, and the reinforcement of prior presumption is used to justify the claim, sounds like it shares at least some traits with mythology to me.
Six day creation and Adam and Eve no, I'll grant, but belief in different gods... how is the claim 'god did it' differentiatable from 'a ghost did it'? Or, to put it differently, if I have an experience and two different people give me those two explanations, how do I test between the two?
Exotic is not the same as supernatural, though.
This isn't about atheism or theism - there will be people of faith who do believe in ghosts and people of faith who don't, and the same for non-believers. That I'm an atheist doesn't inform this opinion, rather my atheism and my 'a-ghostism' come from a similar place: we have phenomena, but there isn't sufficient rigorous evidence derived from or about those phenomena to support the claims being made.
O.
Ok...if you and your wife together see a dead relative standing in front of you and smiling at you. What is the 'scientific' explanation you would offer?
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OK...since the experiences themselves are not being questioned (NDE's and ghosts, for starters)....who is to say what the correct interpretations of these phenomena are?! Only atheist explanations are valid?!!
NDEs are being investigated. As for ghosts, there isn't really anything to study because they seem come over all shy when people try to get proper scientific evidence, so all we have is a bunch an anecdotes.
The starting point is always what we already know (as the article you posted on the other thread pointed out). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and, so far, the extraordinary claims about NDEs and ghosts lack evidence entirely.
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They experienced 'something', but it seems unlikely that it was a disembodied spirit.
I don't think anyone's claimed that they are disembodied spirits, just that they are, as you put it, "something" rather than nothing. I certainly don't think they are disembodied spirits, but I do think there is some kind of reality behind the many reports, a lot of which are hard to dismiss as fraud or delusion (though of course there's also a lot of both).
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So, can the Ouija Board experience be explained away by science?
As well as what BeRational said the way the glass moves is well understood, it's called the ideomotor effect.
How the ouija board really moves (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130729-what-makes-the-ouija-board-move)
Ouija - Scientific investigation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija#Scientific_investigation)
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Nobody has addressed ekim's above comment.
So, can the Ouija Board experience be explained away by science?
I've no idea if ekim is serious: after all stories like seances and ouija boards can be entertaining fiction. He may well be serious, but if so what we have here is an anecdote that involves a fantastic claim of communication with a dead person that involves replies in both English and German, and of course there were others involved whose testimony isn't provided.
Aside from the obvious point about reproducing this under controlled conditions, one aspect that intrigues me is the use of German. I'm presuming that the letters used to form the ouija board, and so determine the words in the 'message' were the standard English alphabet, and though I don't speak German myself I do know that the German alphabet routinely involves the use of 4 additional letters - so I'm wondering what these German words were, and to what extent they were spelled correctly as written German if these 4 additional letters didn't feature in the layout being used.
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Nobody has addressed ekim's above comment.
So, can the Ouija Board experience be explained away by science?
In the past I've used a ouija board several times, and on occasions I have deliberately 'controlled' the pointer without anyone in the group noticing. This was a relatively easy thing to do, and I was able to direct the board to give all sorts of 'information'. I stress again that nobody in the groups suspected a thing. Indeed I was able to take my hand away at selected times and the auto suggestion of the next letter needed(E.G. in someone's name) would appear as if by being spirit controlled, and I would therefore demonstrate that I was above suspicion. I have also taken part in sessions where someone else was guiding the pointer without anyone else's knowledge and I found it extremely difficult to figure out if it was being controlled or not.
I cannot comment on Ekim's experience. However I would be very interested in seeing the results he suggested under controlled conditions(I.E. all participants blindfolded, letters arranged in mixed order unknown to the participants etc.). This, of course, has been done and the results, predictably, have been shown to be nonsense.
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Yes, my anecdote did actually happen and I appreciate that anecdotes are not acceptable as scientific evidence. Up to the time of that event I assumed that somebody subtly manipulating the 'replies' even though it was difficult to do so because the glass was so designed that if you pushed it, it fell over. The speed of its movement would make it very difficult to pre select the letters as they were arranged in a haphazard manner. I understand the ideomotor effect and possibly there is a collective ideomotor effect but I am not sure what could have motivated the literal responses. I am not making any claims for ghosts nor telepathy from my brother to influence the remote ideomotor effects nor that the stories which arise from the session have a factual base. I tried on one occasion to see if there was any truth of 'a man who died falling from a tree in a certain place at a certain time' but with no result. I would like to add that there was no ouija board as such, just an ordinary table and a circle of lexicon cards and an unstable wine glass.
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The reason I am citing phenomena such as multiverses etc....is that these are just possibilities that are acknowledged by science.
Science acknowledges multiverses because they are consistent with the laws of nature as we understand them. Science is silent on whether they exist or not because there's no evidence either way.
That is all that is required for NDE's and ghosts etc. also.
Nobody disputes that humans have experiences that have been variously described as NDEs or ghosts etc. What is in dispute is what the nature of those experiences is. There's nothing to stop you proposing that these things are something other than human psychological phenomena, but you need to propose an alternative hypothesis and a way of verifying or falsifying it. That is the bar you need to clear and you are currently a long way below it.
They cannot be regarded as imagination because they happen regularly across the world, across different groups and have many consistent details. Dismissing them as imagination is foolish.
Except human brains are all very similar and likely to experience similar psychological phenomena.
They are real phenomena that real, honest and intelligent people experience, that is all.
Prove it.
Denying them or calling them hoaxes doesn't help.
Some undoubtedly are hoaxes.
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I cannot comment on Ekim's experience. However I would be very interested in seeing the results he suggested under controlled conditions(I.E. all participants blindfolded, letters arranged in mixed order unknown to the participants etc.). This, of course, has been done and the results, predictably, have been shown to be nonsense.
Yes, blindfold them, gag them, block their ears and tie their hands behind them, that should sort them out. Nothing to see here. Move along please. :)
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Yes, blindfold them, gag them, block their ears and tie their hands behind them, that should sort them out. Nothing to see here. Move along please. :)
Clear scientism.
What some people need to understand is that certain phenomena are spontaneous and cannot be restricted by laboratory conditions and strict methodologies. Nor is it necessary.
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Yes, blindfold them, gag them, block their ears and tie their hands behind them, that should sort them out. Nothing to see here. Move along please. :)
Yes, heaven forbid that we try to investigate the phenomenon by removing variables like whether the participants need to be able to see the letters or otherwise know where they are. ::)
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What some people need to understand is that certain phenomena are spontaneous and cannot be restricted by laboratory conditions and strict methodologies. Nor is it necessary.
To the extent that you don't have a methodology, you don't have any means to distinguish what is probably true from just making shit up. The problem is that you obviously do have a methodology: "if it conforms to Sriram's preconceived ideas it must be true, if not it must be false."
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Clear scientism.
What some people need to understand is that certain phenomena are spontaneous and cannot be restricted by laboratory conditions and strict methodologies. Nor is it necessary.
"Laboratory conditions" and "strict methodologies" just mean "not fooling yourself with subconscious or conscious bias". If the effect disappears under laboratory conditions: it doesn't exist. Simple as that.
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Yes, heaven forbid that we try to investigate the phenomenon by removing variables like whether the participants need to be able to see the letters or otherwise know where they are. ::)
Yes, I think most people can see that but the conclusion was "the results, predictably, have been shown to be nonsense." rather than human eyesight is necessary for the process to work, as is fingers touching the glass and a collection of letters etc.
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Yes, blindfold them, gag them, block their ears and tie their hands behind them, that should sort them out. Nothing to see here. Move along please. :)
I seem to have hit a nerve here. ;)
Well, I can't see the point of gagging them or blocking their ears, and definitely tying their hands behind them would be counterproductive, but blindfolding them would tend to eliminate any human driven impulses and would reduce the risk of simply having an entertaining parlour game with no other particular merit. It isn't my fault that the evidence seems to suggest that blindfolding them would spoil the fun, if that's what you're interested in.
And rather than 'move along' I think that it would be far more interesting to explore the reasons why people find such activities so fascinating. :)
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Clear scientism.
What some people need to understand is that certain phenomena are spontaneous and cannot be restricted by laboratory conditions and strict methodologies. Nor is it necessary.
That's your take on it. I would actually be interested in finding out if there was any evidence that ouija boards can connect to something unexplained. I suggested one way is to test the participants, i.e. by blindfolding them. Why not? That seems very reasonable to me. I haven't the slightest interest in scientism I'm only interestied in using any method which could give an insight into the actual working of this activity. If you can suggest other methods, fine, suggest away. ;D
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OK...since the experiences themselves are not being questioned (NDE's and ghosts, for starters)....who is to say what the correct interpretations of these phenomena are?! Only atheist explanations are valid?!!
I'll go with you Sriram on this one.
ippy.
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OK...since the experiences themselves are not being questioned (NDE's and ghosts, for starters)....who is to say what the correct interpretations of these phenomena are?! Only atheist explanations are valid?!!
I think you will find scepticism is not limited to atheists. I know many Christians who do not believe in ghosts in the sense that you are discussing them currently. The Holy Ghost (or Holy Goat if you are a fan of Rowan Atkinson) is another matter.
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We cannot objectivize everything and expect concrete external analysis of everything. Our mind is not independent of observed phenomena. QM tells us that. Certain mental states could open up our observation of certain phenomena that would otherwise be unknown.
Even though the classical world behaves in predictable and measurable ways...we could also be governed by non classical factors that fall outside our normal perceptions. These non classical factors could be exotic and may not be what we expect normally. These could be what you people like to dub as 'supernatural'...though there is nothing 'super' about them.
One problem many of you seem to have is clubbing such non classical phenomena together with religious beliefs and mythology That is a mistake.
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We cannot objectivize everything and expect concrete external analysis of everything. Our mind is not independent of observed phenomena. QM tells us that.
No, it doesn't. That's just one interpretation (amongst many) of QM.
Certain mental states could open up our observation of certain phenomena that would otherwise be unknown.
Even though the classical world behaves in predictable and measurable ways...we could also be governed by non classical factors that fall outside our normal perceptions. These non classical factors could be exotic and may not be what we expect normally. These could be what you people like to dub as 'supernatural'...though there is nothing 'super' about them.
Hand-waving guesswork (at best). Why should we take it seriously? What does it even mean? How would we test it?
One problem many of you seem to have is clubbing such non classical phenomena together with religious beliefs and mythology That is a mistake.
Firstly, you haven't defined these "non classical phenomena", and the term itself has a perfectly good scientific meaning that has nothing to do with your hand-waving guesswork so trying to co-opt it is confusing at best and frankly seems somewhat less than honest.
Secondly, your views are quite obviously based on your religious beliefs.
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I seem to have hit a nerve here. ;)
Well, I can't see the point of gagging them or blocking their ears, and definitely tying their hands behind them would be counterproductive, but blindfolding them would tend to eliminate any human driven impulses and would reduce the risk of simply having an entertaining parlour game with no other particular merit. It isn't my fault that the evidence seems to suggest that blindfolding them would spoil the fun, if that's what you're interested in.
And rather than 'move along' I think that it would be far more interesting to explore the reasons why people find such activities so fascinating. :)
No, no raw nerves here. Move along, please. I was just being facetious. :)
It seemed from your previous comment that you had predicted the outcome and proved that prediction by blindfolding the participants i.e. cutting off the faculty necessary to view the cards in connection with motor responses. On most of the occasions I took part, I can't say I got any fun from it. In fact I found it quite boring until the event I described when the glass seemed to move at a speed that did not give time to pre select the letters and also the German incident. Rather than exploring the reasons why people find the activities fascinating, which I would guess could be excitement, support for preconceived ideas and, as you have claimed for yourself, resolution of the unexplained, I would have been more interested in the latter, particularly in connection with the collective psychology of the participants. As regards 'ghosts', we are up against definitions again. If they exist and their bodies have long since disappeared, I doubt whether they would have eyes to view playing cards with but might need the eyes of the living to do so.
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No, no raw nerves here. Move along, please. I was just being facetious. :)
It seemed from your previous comment that you had predicted the outcome and proved that prediction by blindfolding the participants i.e. cutting off the faculty necessary to view the cards in connection with motor responses. On most of the occasions I took part, I can't say I got any fun from it. In fact I found it quite boring until the event I described when the glass seemed to move at a speed that did not give time to pre select the letters and also the German incident. Rather than exploring the reasons why people find the activities fascinating, which I would guess could be excitement, support for preconceived ideas and, as you have claimed for yourself, resolution of the unexplained, I would have been more interested in the latter, particularly in connection with the collective psychology of the participants. As regards 'ghosts', we are up against definitions again. If they exist and their bodies have long since disappeared, I doubt whether they would have eyes to view playing cards with but might need the eyes of the living to do so.
I don't think spirits/souls/ghosts need physical eyes to see things. We have seen in cases of NDE's that they can see and hear everything very well.
If you are sitting inside a robot and seeing things through its cameras, it does not mean that when you are outside the robot you cannot see. You can see better and more vividly.
As regards interactions...yes... for that, one might need a body. Just as a person might need the robot to pick up something from the ocean floor, for example. You cannot do it directly.
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As regards interactions...yes... for that, one might need a body. Just as a person might need the robot to pick up something from the ocean floor, for example. You cannot do it directly.
Don't see why ... what about "ghosts" that throw things around, levitate tables, start storms, draw things on walls... or poltergeists?
How can you answer questions without any reliable, fact based, underlying structure to your "theory"?
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Scientists have been studying electrons for decades, spending billions of dollars, and you still don't know if it is a particle or a wave or a field....or why it behaves like a particle when observed and like a wave when not observed.
Yet, you want a complete theory with everything tied up neat and clean....for ghosts!! ::)
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Scientists have been studying electrons for decades, spending billions of dollars, and you still don't know if it is a particle or a wave or a field....or why it behaves like a particle when observed and like a wave when not observed.
An electron is an excitation of a quantum field, as are electron waves. The quantum field doesn't behave like a wave when it's not observed, it does so if you observe a wavelike property such as wavelength. Quantum field theory (at least the quantum electrodynamics part) is one of the most precise and best tested theories in the history of science.
Yet, you want a complete theory with everything tied up neat and clean....for ghosts!! ::)
No. The point is that if all you've got is baseless, vague and untestable hand-waving, it's indistinguishable from making stuff up - blind guessing at best.
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We have fairly consistent experiences of thousands of people across the world. That is good enough to formulate a hypothesis....leaving out scientism.
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We have fairly consistent experiences of thousands of people across the world.
True of NDEs but ghosts is another matter and can refer to all sorts of different experiences.
That is good enough to formulate a hypothesis....leaving out scientism.
Do feel free, but vague and untestable hand-waving is not a hypothesis.
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Scientists have been studying electrons for decades, spending billions of dollars, and you still don't know if it is a particle or a wave or a field....or why it behaves like a particle when observed and like a wave when not observed.
It doesn't matter at all what an electron is or is not, or is not real - the point is that we have models good enough at predicting events that we can power our various inventions and devices and communicate across the world.
Yet, you want a complete theory with everything tied up neat and clean....for ghosts!! ::)
Not at all. One reliable outcome would be enough.
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We have fairly consistent experiences of thousands of people across the world. That is good enough to formulate a hypothesis....leaving out scientism.
They are not consistent. If they were, you would be able to give us something other than wild guesses.
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No, no raw nerves here. Move along, please. I was just being facetious. :)
It seemed from your previous comment that you had predicted the outcome and proved that prediction by blindfolding the participants i.e. cutting off the faculty necessary to view the cards in connection with motor responses. On most of the occasions I took part, I can't say I got any fun from it. In fact I found it quite boring until the event I described when the glass seemed to move at a speed that did not give time to pre select the letters and also the German incident. Rather than exploring the reasons why people find the activities fascinating, which I would guess could be excitement, support for preconceived ideas and, as you have claimed for yourself, resolution of the unexplained, I would have been more interested in the latter, particularly in connection with the collective psychology of the participants. As regards 'ghosts', we are up against definitions again. If they exist and their bodies have long since disappeared, I doubt whether they would have eyes to view playing cards with but might need the eyes of the living to do so.
Ekim,
You do realise that I was responding to Sweet Pea's question about whether "the Ouija Board experience be explained away by science" don't you? :) Consequentially I see no reason at all not to be interested in what might be the result under controlled conditions, such as blindfolding the participants. I make no apology at all for that.
At no time did I suggest that, by using the word 'predictably' I had 'proved' anything, so I find that accusation unwarranted. I used 'predictably' quite reasonably because the evidence shows that when such conditions have been adhered to in various experiments, the results have been meaningless. Hence this is what I would predict in any similar experiment, including yours. That doesn't mean to say that my prediction must be true, of course. That would be foolish.
Tell me, if you bound their hands behind them, would they have to use their feet or their noses to move the planchette or glass! :P
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Scientists have been studying electrons for decades, spending billions of dollars, and you still don't know if it is a particle or a wave or a field....or why it behaves like a particle when observed and like a wave when not observed.
Actually quantum electrodynamics is ne of the best tested theories we have got. It precisely predicts the behaviour of electrons with a great degree of accuracy.
Yet, you want a complete theory with everything tied up neat and clean....for ghosts!! ::)
No, we just want evidence.
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We have fairly consistent experiences of thousands of people across the world. That is good enough to formulate a hypothesis....leaving out scientism.
Good. What is your hypothesis and how can we test it to find out if it is right?
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Ok...this could go on forever. So, let me just summarize quickly....
1. Ghosts (as also the related phenomenon of NDE's) are real experiences. They are not imagined.
2. What ghosts are, is not clear.
3. There are a variety of 'ghosts' which could include loving, smiling, scary ones or just images floating around. Could even be animals, buildings and trains. There are even interactive ones that can move objects.
4. All of the above need not be the same phenomenon or have the same cause.
5. They all are exotic or non-classical phenomena. Normal classical explanation of these is not possible.
6. Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals. Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone.
7. Our mental states could determine why and how we perceive and interact with such phenomena.
8. Clear and concrete explanations of such things is not possible. They need to be investigated further at various levels and not dismissed away.
9. All these are secular phenomena which anyone around the world can experience. They are not connected to religious mythology or specific cultures.
Cheers.
Sriram
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Ok...this could go on forever. So, let me just summarize quickly....
1. Ghosts (as also the related phenomenon of NDE's) are real experiences. They are not imagined.
2. What ghosts are, is not clear.
3. There are a variety of 'ghosts' which could include loving, smiling, scary ones or just images floating around. Could even be animals, buildings and trains. There are even interactive ones that can move objects.
4. All of the above need not be the same phenomenon or have the same cause.
5. They all are exotic or non-classical phenomena. Normal classical explanation of these is not possible.
6. Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals. Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone.
7. Our mental states could determine why and how we perceive and interact with such phenomena.
8. Clear and concrete explanations of such things is not possible. They need to be investigated further at various levels and not dismissed away.
9. All these are secular phenomena which anyone around the world can experience. They are not connected to religious mythology or specific cultures.
Cheers.
Sriram
They might not be connected directly to religions, but belief in ghosts likely share common roots with them in terms of widespread underlying psychological biases, superstitions, wishful thinking, the power of suggestion etc. It's the common signature of beliefs that owe to our underlying predispositions that there is no hard evidence for them.
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Ok...this could go on forever. So, let me just summarize quickly....
1. Ghosts (as also the related phenomenon of NDE's) are real experiences. They are not imagined.
2. What ghosts are, is not clear.
3. There are a variety of 'ghosts' which could include loving, smiling, scary ones or just images floating around. Could even be animals, buildings and trains. There are even interactive ones that can move objects.
4. All of the above need not be the same phenomenon or have the same cause.
5. They all are exotic or non-classical phenomena. Normal classical explanation of these is not possible.
6. Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals. Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone.
7. Our mental states could determine why and how we perceive and interact with such phenomena.
8. Clear and concrete explanations of such things is not possible. They need to be investigated further at various levels and not dismissed away.
9. All these are secular phenomena which anyone around the world can experience. They are not connected to religious mythology or specific cultures.
Cheers.
Sriram
You're still begging the question throughout most of this list, and you've not included the option that those claiming encounters with 'ghosts' are wrong by being mistaken, or by being misled (by themselves or others), or are lying: these being risks that would need to be excluded before coming to the view that anecdotal accounts involving 'ghosts' were worthy of systematic investigation.
Therefore you'd need some kind of hypothesis that included proposed definitions of characteristics of 'ghosts' and a related method to determine that something meeting these characteristics has been detected: in your point 6 you say "Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals. Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone. " - so how would you investigate these specific possibilities?
I can't see any basis to conclude that 'ghost' claims are any more than just superstitious beliefs that attract the credulous, hence the long history of fraud associated with exploiting the gullible.
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1. Ghosts (as also the related phenomenon of NDE's) are real experiences. They are not imagined.
If you mean that they are caused by objectively real external to the mind phenomena, then this is just an assertion. If I were a betting man, I'd be tempted to put a fair sized amount on a lot of the reported ghosts being entirely imaginary or some sort of illusion (it's quite easy to trick the mind into 'seeing' things that aren't there).
5. They all are exotic or non-classical phenomena. Normal classical explanation of these is not possible.
You appear again to be using the word 'classical' in a non-standard way (it is generally understood to mean pre quantum mechanics and relativity). Assuming you mean something like 'current science', then this is yet another assertion.
6. Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals.
Why do you think that and how would we test it?
Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone.
Nothing is energy, so this doesn't even make sense.
8. Clear and concrete explanations of such things is not possible.
Yet another assertion.
They need to be investigated further...
NDEs are being investigated and ghosts have been investigated for a long time with no concrete evidence. What else do you propose?
9. All these are secular phenomena which anyone around the world can experience. They are not connected to religious mythology or specific cultures.
Your bias towards what sort of explanation you want to be the case, on the other hand, clearly is.
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Ok...this could go on forever. So, let me just summarize quickly....
1. Ghosts (as also the related phenomenon of NDE's) are real experiences.
Of what?
They are not imagined.
Imagination is the only credible explanation we have got so far. The inability of anybody to come up with some alternative is telling.
2. What ghosts are, is not clear.
It's clear to me.
3. ... There are even interactive ones that can move objects.
Any evidence for ghosts that can move objects? That ought to be pretty easy to demonstrate.
6. Some of them could be disembodied spirits since they relate directly to specific individuals. Others could be energies of some kind that are retained even after the objects are gone.
So you've got no idea what ghosts are or even that they are all the same thing. Furthermore, you admit that the human mind is mysterious but you still insist that ghosts are not the product of human imagination.
8. Clear and concrete explanations of such things is not possible. They need to be investigated further at various levels and not dismissed away.
They have been investigated over decades and decades and still there is no evidence that they have any objective existence. How long do we have to keep searching the room before you will be convinced that there is no elephant in it?
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Just now, I was sitting here reading the utter bollocks some of you post, when I saw, through the front window, an elderly, white-haired man wearing a black coat come down my garden path. I waited for a knock on the door, but none came, so I got up and went to the side window and looked through it, No elderly man was in sight, and he hadn't returned down the path. Explain that, cynics!
(N.B. - this really happened, but I'm not seriously claiming it as a ghostly encounter. This explanation is necessary, because some posters on here apparently lack a sense of humour.)
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Tell me, if you bound their hands behind them, would they have to use their feet or their noses to move the planchette or glass! :P
No, the solution is simple. They just have to summon up a Poltergeist who will do it for them and hope it doesn't just throw the glass around the room. ;)
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For an authoritative examination of ghosts see https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m00049t9/ghosts
Sharp observers might note that ghosts exhibit the peculiar characteristic of being supported by horizontal surfaces whilst retaining the ability to pass through vertical ones unimpeded.
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For an authoritative examination of ghosts see https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m00049t9/ghosts
Sharp observers might note that ghosts exhibit the peculiar characteristic of being supported by horizontal surfaces whilst retaining the ability to pass through vertical ones unimpeded.
Haunting ghosts appear to exist in the world as it was when they were alive. At least one ghost always appeared cut off at the ankles. It was later discovered that the floor had been raised. When they pass through walls, they are presumably going through a door that has since been blocked up. It would seem that what we are seeing with a haunting ghost is a re-run of the person when they were alive - something like a video. That would also explain why they ignore watchers. They also fade over time, and eventually disappear. One frequently-seen female ghost was reported in the early 18th century as wearing a red dress. By the late 18th Century it was a pink dress, and by the 19th Century a white dress. By the early 20th Century she had disappeared from sight, but was sometimes heard.
NB - I am claiming nothing one way or the other about the reality of ghosts.
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Haunting ghosts appear to exist in the world as it was when they were alive. At least one ghost always appeared cut off at the ankles. It was later discovered that the floor had been raised. When they pass through walls, they are presumably going through a door that has since been blocked up. It would seem that what we are seeing with a haunting ghost is a re-run of the person when they were alive - something like a video. That would also explain why they ignore watchers. They also fade over time, and eventually disappear. One frequently-seen female ghost was reported in the early 18th century as wearing a red dress. By the late 18th Century it was a pink dress, and by the 19th Century a white dress. By the early 20th Century she had disappeared from sight, but was sometimes heard.
NB - I am claiming nothing one way or the other about the reality of ghosts.
I wonder how many people would see ghosts if they hadn't been brought up in a culture that 'did' ghosts. Don't we tend to see the things we expect to see? Well established local ghosts would almost certainly invite further sightings from people predisposed to interpret suitable tricks of the light accordingly.
I know someone who sees 'dead people' all the time, just wandering around. He always has done, and these ghosts are simply a normal part of his life. Perhaps it's not surprising really. If the brain can conjure up a VR world and dream things that exist only within its sleeping imagination, why shouldn't it be able to conjure up ghosts, gods or even leprechauns? How much more likely are we to populate our world with such entities if we have been brought up to think of them as possibilities?
Some years ago, in the building where my wife works, a smell like rotting cauliflower was suddenly noticed. People would detect it in different locations in the building, as if it was moving around. Then one of the other tenants, inclined to such interpretations, confided in my wife that he thought the smell was some kind of ghost. When the smell seemed to linger in the corridor outside my wife's room she tried asking it politely to move on and it duly obliged, though it didn't leave the building. Eventually, the spook-friendly tenant brought in an exorcist and after some kind of ritual banishment the smell did disappear - only to turn up next door in the Leeds Building Society. They brought in Environmental Health, who did a thorough inspection of the drains but to no avail, so the exorcist was further employed (covertly) to expel it from its new home, whereupon it returned to my wife's building. There it remained until, in desperation, some heavyweight 'ghostbusters' were recruited to do an all-night exorcism, since when it's not been smelt again.
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Ok...if you and your wife together see a dead relative standing in front of you and smiling at you. What is the 'scientific' explanation you would offer?
First instinct would be that reports of their death had been exaggerated, possibly followed by holography.
O.