The Science of Ghosts

[Taylor Seraphim]

Because your taking it out of context if your finding fault.

So you are saying nothing can be debunked in context?

 

[Milton Platt]

Because your taking it out of context if your finding fault.

Can you show an example and give the context?

 

[Mindmaster]

Being there would have been interesting. I don't think she had thousand witnesses to her ghost, but in any case, eyewitnesses have been shown to be one of the worst kinds of evidence. Bias takes over, as well as peer pressure.

By this criteria, no information you can possible learn through experience is valid. This is a complete and utter logical fallacy. Also, eyewitness testimony is still evidence in every court in the world -- even with the biases that every single person on the earth has, there is some truth in their statements. Peer pressure is rarely a factor in ghost sightings because people generally feel shameful or embarrassed to even speak of the subject. It is more likely they don't speak at all when peer pressure is a consideration, mostly due to certain skeptical troglodytes and bridge dwellers assuming they've cracked up or are possessed by demons or some silliness. Considering the skeptics will have it out with them, and the mainstream religions will too -- no safe harbor.

You bullies really gotta give it up. Pseudo-intellectualism is not superiority, nor is blind faith or bigotry.

 

[Mindmaster]

Truth is, you don't know what you saw, outside of what you can visually describe.

I really can't tell if you are being serious or merely facetious. By this argument, I am unable to tell whether it actually was my neighbor walking down the street or not yesterday morning, but rather I think they did since I saw them -- but I am possibly mistaken! They could be a ghost too!

If you are looking for ghosts maybe you are liable to deluding yourself, but I was in my kitchen making a sandwich. And, again, a very skeptical person at the time. I didn't come up with ghost as the first idea in my head... I just had nothing else that could explain the scenario, so in this case it is like observing the stripes on a zebra are black and white. Similarly, it doesn't matter what you think of the situation if it happened. I also have enough integrity of mind to not lie to myself about it when it is what it is. We also know existence proofs are all complete bunk. You can't prove you exist, or anyone outside of you does. For all you know, you are a single-celled paramecium in a vat of goo plugged into the matrix. You don't even know if I am real or just a product of your own hallucinations. You conveniently probably decide to believe I am, but you don't know what you saw outside of what you can visually describe.

Skepticism is boring way to live, but moreover in many ways taken to the extreme reduces ones intelligence just like being an extreme right wing conservative.

 

[Milton Platt]

By this criteria, no information you can possible learn through experience is valid. This is a complete and utter logical fallacy. Also, eyewitness testimony is still evidence in every court in the world -- even with the biases that every single person on the earth has, there is some truth in their statements. Peer pressure is rarely a factor in ghost sightings because people generally feel shameful or embarrassed to even speak of the subject. It is more likely they don't speak at all when peer pressure is a consideration, mostly due to certain skeptical troglodytes and bridge dwellers assuming they've cracked up or are possessed by demons or some silliness. Considering the skeptics will have it out with them, and the mainstream religions will too -- no safe harbor.

You bullies really gotta give it up. Pseudo-intellectualism is not superiority, nor is blind faith or bigotry.

There aw reliable methods. Simply having someone interpret what they saw isn't one of them. How do you get from "I saw something" to "I saw a ghost" without any steps in between?

 

[Mindmaster]

There aw reliable methods. Simply having someone interpret what they saw isn't one of them. How do you get from "I saw something" to "I saw a ghost" without any steps in between?

I don't know what's worse....

1. That you presume all people that don't agree with you are dense.
2. That you presume all people that don't agree with you are lying.
3. That you assume I am less intelligent than you besides clearly having much better spelling and grammar.
4. That you assumed I had any judgement of it at the time it occurred. I mentioned that I was an atheist, and even skeptic at the time of incident. I really had no opinion for a few months after the incident. Not because I didn't know what I saw, but rather I couldn't accept the information personally.

Experience doesn't count? You can't interpret your own life? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, much?

You're trying to project the anti-Christian bias you need to argue with onto me despite nothing indicating I have any of those traits. I have no blind faith in my core at all, so please move along.

 

[Milton Platt]

I don't know what's worse....

1. That you presume all people that don't agree with you are dense.
2. That you presume all people that don't agree with you are lying.
3. That you assume I am less intelligent than you besides clearly having much better spelling and grammar.
4. That you assumed I had any judgement of it at the time it occurred. I mentioned that I was an atheist, and even skeptic at the time of incident. I really had no opinion for a few months after the incident. Not because I didn't know what I saw, but rather I couldn't accept the information personally.

Experience doesn't count? You can't interpret your own life? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, much?

You're trying to project the anti-Christian bias you need to argue with onto me despite nothing indicating I have any of those traits. I have no blind faith in my core at all, so please move along.

Your four assertions are patently false. And I was not addressing all personal experience in all situations, nor in yours. I did not say you did not see something. I implied you jumped to a conclusion with insufficient evidence.

If you were ever a true skeptic you would realize that all claims are not the same.
If you told me you saw a dog in your garage, I would take that at face value. If you told me you saw a purple fire breathing dragon in your garage, I would require a great deal of high quality evidence.

What does Christianity or any other religion have to do with this?

I don't give a rat's behind about your grammar and spelling, but thanks for tossing in the ad hominem.

 

[fantome profane]

I just had nothing else that could explain the scenario

You keep repeating this, and it is just not true. But you have glommed onto this particular explanation and you continue to hold onto it like a vice. The truth is that there are other explanations, but you refuse to consider them because that might shake your sense of certainty. And that would be uncomfortable.

 

[Mindmaster]

You keep repeating this, and it is just not true. But you have glommed onto this particular explanation and you continue to hold onto it like a vice. The truth is that there are other explanations, but you refuse to consider them because that might shake your sense of certainty. And that would be uncomfortable.

There are other explanations, but none of them are going to likely come from someone who had this experience. Experience trumps all, including you and anything you've ever read. You have talk, ideas, and crap you've read from other people and presume just because I think a certain way I am overly attached to a notion. Something is always wrong with me, because of course you are just never wrong? That's good... It's easier for me to be wrong than you since I've actually brought information to the thread... You haven't even the slightest idea what an experience like this is, or what it is about. It's all data until you are there, and it is real. Keep reading.... and guessing at what these experiences can be... But, that is all you will do... Guess!

Of course, your skepticism just is never going to play with me in this way. You aren't going to change my mind because you have nothing to change it with other than a bunch of half-baked notions.

 

[fantome profane]

Something is always wrong with me, because of course because you are just never wrong?

I just want to clarify this. I am certainly not saying I am never wrong. I am in fact saying the exact opposite. I am saying that my senses cannot be trusted. I am saying that my perceptions can be fooled. I can be deceived very easily. This is because I am human and the neurological structure I have evolved is very undependable.

 

[Mindmaster]

I just want to clarify this. I am certainly not saying I am never wrong. I am in fact saying the exact opposite. I am saying that my senses cannot be trusted. I am saying that my perceptions can be fooled. I can be deceived very easily. This is because I am human and the neurological structure I have evolved is very undependable.

That might be the case, but the argument is... Isn't it is all we got?

Another argument... Doesn't it work fine most of the time?

Is it logical to have such doubts barring there is no evidence of trickery or malfunction?

Have 2 million years of existence proven they are failing us?

I don't know why skeptics the lean on this so much. I try to understand it, but never had this problem personally. I find it objectively useless to have a presumption that your senses are always lying to you. Let's call it what it is... A thought prison...

A thought prison is where you are only allowed to believe what you have received from reputable sources, and your own perceptions are denounced. You are then subject to only the information that the status quo deems suitable, because now you are unable to render your own opinion. In my life, I am the investigator, judge, and jury because I have the right to be. Your perceptions are probably just as good as mine, so let's use them eh? While you can sort of deal with it as a glass half-empty / full problem either way is right, and your own senses have no vested financial interest or otherwise to deceive you.

I really just don't get these self-defeating notions I suppose. I didn't realize what I was arguing with here I guess... There is simply no way for me to make a point to someone of such a mindset. I use every resource I can find including my own observations.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

By this argument, I am unable to tell whether it actually was my neighbor walking down the street or not yesterday morning,

Exactly. You're unable to tell. You have insufficient information. Why do you want a conclusion so badly? You don't know what you saw. Leave it at that.

They could be a ghost too!

Saying it could be a ghost is a bit more logical and fair. Saying it is a ghost is making an unfounded assumption.

If you are looking for ghosts maybe you are liable to deluding yourself, but I was in my kitchen making a sandwich.

You don't need to be looking for ghosts, you just need to have the idea and notion of one in your head.

Folklore and horror movies give you the idea that ghosts are capable of walking into a dead-end alley then disappearing. You don't get that idea from anywhere else, and had you been brought up with no concept of a ghost in mind, you wouldn't have assumed what you saw was a ghost.

And, again, a very skeptical person at the time. I didn't come up with ghost as the first idea in my head... I just had nothing else that could explain the scenario

You had nothing at all to explain the scenario. There should be no "else" in your sentence. You have nothing to explain it. Leave it at that.

I also have enough integrity of mind to not lie to myself about it when it is what it is.

No one is saying you're lying to yourself. You're just not being perfectly logical or rational about it.

You can't prove you exist, or anyone outside of you does. For all you know, you are a single-celled paramecium in a vat of goo plugged into the matrix. You don't even know if I am real or just a product of your own hallucinations. You conveniently probably decide to believe I am, but you don't know what you saw outside of what you can visually describe.

True. We can't prove each other's existence with certainty, but at the very least, there's a mountain of information to go off on to reasonably conclude both you and I exist.

In the world of physical science, there's no absolute certainty. Instead, you have to weigh things on an abstract scale of probability ranging from "most probable" to "least probable". In the case of you and I existing, that's "more probable" than either one of us being plugged into the Matrix.

As for what you saw being a ghost, it's not the most probable. Hallucination, or you simply mistaking what you saw, is the most probable. And even eliminating those possibilities, ghost still isn't the most probable. As already implied in this thread, it isn't any less likely to be a time traveler, or a shapeshifting alien, or a kid with X-Men-like powers. The only reason you think it's a ghost is because you've been fed information through mythology and fiction of what a ghost is suppose to be like.

Skepticism is boring way to live, but moreover in many ways taken to the extreme reduces ones intelligence just like being an extreme right wing conservative.

Skepticism being boring (which is an opinion) doesn't make what you saw more possible. It doesn't help your conclusion one bit. If you think skepticism is boring, it only really means that you think not having an answer is boring especially when you really want one. You're not always gonna have the answer to something in life. You should learn to get use to that.

 

[fantome profane]

Two points

Another argument... Doesn't it work fine most of the time?

It fails us much more often than most people realize

Is it logical to have such doubts barring there is no evidence of trickery or malfunction?

Yes, absolutely. Knowing how often our senses malfunction it is logical to have doubts. Certainty is not logical.

 

[outhouse]

I am human and the neurological structure I have evolved is very undependable.

Those are words of wisdom right there.


The human mind is much weaker then most imagine.

 

[outhouse]

Experience doesn't count?

Not at all.

You can't interpret your own life?

Sure.

But that does not make it credible or even correct.



Many experiences are only in ones head. They do not exist outside ones own conscious thoughts.


2 people in the same room or groups of people will not see the same thing if anything at all, if they did there would be no question to such events.


With age comes wisdom, and you realize how much horse pucky surrounds many claims made.


That does not mean we have closed minds, it means we want credibility.

 

[Papoon]

Ad hominem attacks are the domain of those who have no evidence to support their beliefs.

And I've had quite a few of those from logic-heads who attack me for posting about experiences which I have reported and about which I have come to no conclusions nor suggested any belief.

Both 'believers' and cookie cutter atheist trolls use circular logic.

The believers say it must be true because the book they chose to believe says it is true.

The cookie cutter atheist logicians say nothing exists outside the phenomena described in the science which they regard as being as final as the word of 'the final prophet of God'. More specifically, nothing exists which does not match the assumptions they treat as fact, which are merely their extrapolations based on their interpretation of science which no intelligent scientist would ever regard as complete.

Neither have a clue about the nature of mind and awareness. It surprises me to see the lack of imagination of the cultists of scientism - when the relationship of mind and matter is unknown. Of course when pressed on this point they will assert that it is known, clearly revealing the faith-based nature of their world view.

 

[outhouse]

being as final as the word of 'the final prophet of God'.

There is no such thing as a credible final prophet.

Neither have a clue about the nature of mind and awareness.

Sure we do

It surprises me to see the lack of imagination of the cultists of scientism

Then you need to study more. Truth is stranger then fiction and your mythology.

when the relationship of mind and matter is unknown

We know much.


Can you provide more fallacies??????

 

[Milton Platt]

By this criteria, no information you can possible learn through experience is valid. This is a complete and utter logical fallacy. Also, eyewitness testimony is still evidence in every court in the world -- even with the biases that every single person on the earth has, there is some truth in their statements. Peer pressure is rarely a factor in ghost sightings because people generally feel shameful or embarrassed to even speak of the subject. It is more likely they don't speak at all when peer pressure is a consideration, mostly due to certain skeptical troglodytes and bridge dwellers assuming they've cracked up or are possessed by demons or some silliness. Considering the skeptics will have it out with them, and the mainstream religions will too -- no safe harbor.

You bullies really gotta give it up. Pseudo-intellectualism is not superiority, nor is blind faith or bigotry.

The fact that eyewitness accounts of some things in some cases is unreliable does not mean it is unreliable at all times and in all circumstances. When it is backed up by other empirical evidence it can be accepted. I am fully aware of eyewitness testimony still being used in courts. It has been proven to be either inaccurate or completely false on a regular basis in the courts. People have spent a good deal of their life behind bars based on falacious eyewitness accounts. How is it a logical fallacy???

Peer pressure can be a factor, whether commonplace or rare we could certainly debate. i have no statistics.

Most people hang with like minded people, so the pressure to conform is always there.

Calling people troglodytes and bridge dwellers because the ask for credible evidence for your claims is simply juvenile.

I know of no skeptics who accept the existence of demons. Of course there could be a few.

The bottom line is that you are wanting others to accept the fact that you saw a ghost based on your own say so without good evidence and now you are getting huffy when they point out that you have not provided the evidence.

You can carry that belief to the grave and nobody will ever care. But if you want to assert it is true and others should believe it, then you are carrying the burden of proof.

 

[outhouse]

The fact that eyewitness accounts of some things in some cases is unreliable does not mean it is unreliable at all times and in all circumstances

What is funny is how often these appearances DO NOT happen in front of multiple witnesses with any credibility.

 

[Milton Platt]

What is funny is how often these appearances DO NOT happen in front of multiple witnesses with any credibility.

Personally, I wish that would happen. It would make the world a little more interesting and mysterious. I'm not holding my breath.....