Do you believe in ghosts?

[elwood-914]

Yep too many things happened in my life to say "there is nothing out there"

[trekkor]

Demons try to fool people into believing you have life after death.

No ghosts. Demons.


KT

[jyl]

I knew a woman once who claimed to have seen a ghost in her former apartment.

He, or it, was supposedly the ghost of a small boy who had died in that apartment. The ghost would stand in her kitchen and watch her, sometimes it would sit on the counter and watch her. At first she was unbelieving, then she was frightened, then bothered, and after a few weeks she was quite irritated. Finally she yelled at the ghost, said this was her home now and he had to leave. It left and she never saw it again.

She seemed quite normal as she told me of this.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

I only believe in things that are reproducible and verifiable. Does that mean ghosts don't exist? No, it means there is no evidence that is reproducible or verifiable for their existence, so I do not have faith based belief.

Human senses and minds are notoriously poor at accuracy in observations (human eyewitnesses are proven to be the worst evidence you can present in court). Unless trained, the human mind is forever trying to slot all perceptions into a pre-existing slot. Most people never explore rational explanations when an emotionally comforting myth will suffice.

Ever notice that gods or spirits used to be seen by thousands and wonderful miracles occurred.

But now with the almost universally common cell phone camera, the only apparitions are on moldy bread or water stains on concrete. Miracles degraded from physically impossible to the laws of physics to people under the care of doctors improve or heal more than expected. What happened to all the UFO pictures? Where did the miracles, bigfoot, Loch Ness monsters go?

I do not mean to disparage those who believe. But to remind everyone that your "angel" is someone else's Elvis, bigfoot, Neisse, UFO, Ouija board, fortune cookie, astrology, reading of entrails, etc. A very slippery slope, indeed.

Sorry but your science is a very unreliable gauge of anything as it is so limitted in its scope of knowledge.

[adrian jaye]

familiar spirits

Originally Posted by trekkor

Demons try to fool people into believing you have life after death.

No ghosts. Demons.


KT

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by trekkor

Demons try to fool people into believing you have life after death.

No ghosts. Demons.


KT

No Demons. Fantasy.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by tabs

Sorry but your science is a very unreliable gauge of anything as it is so limitted in its scope of knowledge.

Really? Would you please post the evidence for that. Show us something that science has not been able to examine and produce predictions based on data that has been held as dogma.

Whereas emotion, religion and supersition has such a superb record of factual, verifiable and reproducable results, its a wonder why we ever left the Dark Ages!

[IROC]

Originally Posted by tabs

Sorry but your science is a very unreliable gauge of anything as it is so limitted in its scope of knowledge.

"Science is a very unreliable gauge of anything"?!??! Think about that the next time you're flying on an airplane. After all, according to you, we surely can't really know anything about building a heavier-than-air flying machine. What with our tool of limited scope and all...

[john70t]

RPKESQ, need a scientific explaination (or a bunch of bull)?
Here it goes:

1). Around every electrical current is a magnetic field. Around every magnetic field is a current.
Energy is constantly interchanging between electric, heat, magnetic, photons, radio, etc.... It has the ability to spontaneously collect locally: which is why the universe hasen't stabilized into a field of evenly distributed molecules.

2). There are still undiscovered forms of energy.

3). The temporary probability of a localized collection of atomic matter called "human beings" are a collection of energy. The cells are the battery, the brain is the coil/cpu, and the nerves are the wires.

4) As humans live and die, that energy is dispursed an absorbed around them in objects, other humans, etc.

Still with me?

5). That disbursed energy may have the ability to regroup to a precievable form.

[Jim Richards]

Energy...has the ability to spontaneously collect locally: which is why the universe hasen't stabilized into a field of evenly distributed molecules.

wtf?

[Jim Richards]

Actually, John, ~75% of your post sounds like a cross between science fiction and theology. I think you need to be a bit more rigorous than opening with Biot-Savart and closing with a projection of your ghost beliefs in this pseudo-scientific argument.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by john70t

RPKESQ, need a scientific explaination (or a bunch of bull)?
Here it goes:

1). Around every electrical current is a magnetic field. Around every magnetic field is a current.
Energy is constantly interchanging between electric, heat, magnetic, photons, radio, etc.... It has the ability to spontaneously collect locally: which is why the universe hasen't stabilized into a field of evenly distributed molecules.

2). There are still undiscovered forms of energy.

3). The temporary probability of a localized collection of atomic matter called "human beings" are a collection of energy. The cells are the battery, the brain is the coil/cpu, and the nerves are the wires.

4) As humans live and die, that energy is dispursed an absorbed around them in objects, other humans, etc.

Still with me?

5). That disbursed energy may have the ability to regroup to a precievable form.

May have, is the operative phrase to note. Where is the evidence? Why would it not be repeatable under controlled conditions? Why would such a bunch of disbursed energy have the ability to regroup? Where else is this type of regrouping found in the universe?

Still with me?

Wanting to believe without evidence is called "faith" and having repeatable, verifiable, reproducible evidence is called science. Please post examples of things that you have no evidence for, but that you believe in. And I will show you faith.

Faith is not rational, it is all based on emotional delusions. Sorry, I don't do delusions, as they do not have a track record to be proud of.

Come out of the Dark Ages, toward the light!

[john70t]

Ok, ok, Jim. So the opening might apply more to telepathy/esp/etc.
Electric eels can create fatal magnetic fields around themselves, and research has shown that birds actually visually "see" the magetic flux lines of magnetic north: two extremes of bio/energy synergy.
Apply those to humans, along with the concept of communication.
-Theorem #1: Energy can communicate.

Existing theory is the permanency of energy, so a "life force" has to go somewhere, or be absorbed by something.
Who's to say that localized energy doesn't have an identity, a uniqueness much like genes. We just don't know at this time.
-Theorem #2: Energy is permanent.

Without getting too religeous or too conceptual, who's to say that the collection of similar molecules coming together to form amino acid chains isn't conceivably by design?
Certainly, random interactions won't account for that. The universe is too large. If "nature abhors a vacuum" why hasn't the entire Universe stabilized over the billions and billions and billions of individual reactions(is that you Carl)?
-Theorem #3: Energy has unique purpose.

Hey I'm trying .

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by john70t

Ok, ok, Jim. So the opening might apply more to telepathy/esp/etc.
Electric eels can create fatal magnetic fields around themselves, and research has shown that birds actually visually "see" the magetic flux lines of magnetic north: two extremes of bio/energy synergy.
Apply those to humans, along with the concept of communication.
-Theorem #1: Energy can communicate. Energy cannot communicate on it's own.

Existing theory is the permanency of energy, so a "life force" has to go somewhere, or be absorbed by something. Heat radiated from the body dissapates over time after death.
Who's to say that localized energy doesn't have an identity, a uniqueness much like genes. We just don't know at this time.You're projecting what you want to believe here. You'll need to prove this assertion.
-Theorem #2: Energy is permanent. No, it is not.

Without getting too religeous or too conceptual, who's to say that the collection of similar molecules coming together to form amino acid chains isn't conceivably by design? I'm confused as to what you're saying here.
Certainly, random interactions won't account for that. The universe is too large. If "nature abhors a vacuum" why hasn't the entire Universe stabilized over the billions and billions and billions of individual reactions(is that you Carl)? Give it time. The universe may expand without limit. TBD
-Theorem #3: Energy has unique purpose. No, it does not.

Hey I'm trying .

I know. Good luck.

[gtc]

It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in my belief of Alan Keyes.

[billwagnon]

I tend to test everything -

so when my clock radio nature sounds started coming on for no reason except that I came into the room, I was careful to test it. I kept track of what was happening and when.

The only explanation was "ghost". At first it was cool but then it got annoying so I told it to go away to the light.

And it stopped from that point forward. But I don't expect anyone to believe it, heck I almost don't believe it myself. People are excellent at finding patterns in random events so maybe that's what I was doing.

[billwagnon]

It's my theory that whatever they are can't exist (or present) without your belief or mental energy, unless they are really strong. Then they can overcome your disbelief.

Which is why spooky things happen more often at night when you are more likely to believe, because the night time is spooky.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by billwagnon

I tend to test everything -

so when my clock radio nature sounds started coming on for no reason except that I came into the room, I was careful to test it. I kept track of what was happening and when.

The only explanation was "ghost". At first it was cool but then it got annoying so I told it to go away to the light.

And it stopped from that point forward. But I don't expect anyone to believe it, heck I almost don't believe it myself. People are excellent at finding patterns in random events so maybe that's what I was doing.

Really? You tend to test everything?

Did you:

1) try to determine if the sounds happened only when you were in the room. Such as a simple recording device to monitor this 24/7 with temperature, vibration frequency and amplitude, etc.

2) make sure no vibrations caused by you entering the room set the sounds off (poor switch connection, loose or cracked electrical component, etc.)

3) try to determine what changed to stop the erratic sounds (switch cycled, higher or lower heat in room or by device, etc.

If you did not do all of these things in precise detail, then how in all rationality could you come to the logical conclusion that it was a ghost??????

[Jim Richards]

I always conduct scientific tests with my Ouija board and magic 8-ball

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

I always conduct scientific tests with my Ouija board and magic 8-ball

Apparently you are not the only one.