Ghosts

[Jethro]

Yeah, sorta a ripoff of the death thread, what do you think of the concept of the spirit of a dead person coming back after death? IMO, someone neurons firing powerfully enough to alter the electromagnetic fields of the earth to leave a general impression of their personality seems fairly far-fetched to me.

[General Greivous]

If we can believe in God then why not ghosts :D But in all seriousness, I don't know about ghosts but I believe there is a paranormal side to the world (and having a higher sense of it runs through my family). I myself have had some chilling experiences in my time. While I would normally post about them, I'm tired, and I just wanted to get a post in ;)

[blood imp]

I lied, I'm still on. Anyway, the closest thing to a ghost I can imagine is a strong concentration of living brain cells and skin cells creating a final impression of the once amazing organism. Highly unlikely, thought. As for souls in the religious meaning of the word, impossible.

[+Acyclitor+]

science will tell you that energy exists in mediums that cannot be seen by the human eye. thousands of years ago, the idea of radioactivity would have been relegated to superstition.

could it not be possible that some as-of-yet-undocumented energies generated from the human brain could manifest at death and continue after the body has died, even projecting themselves in a memory of the physical form from which it was spawned? or could it be that such energies become imprinted on the environment?

i dunno, just hypothesizing.

[Nomad]

science will tell you that energy exists in mediums that cannot be seen by the human eye. thousands of years ago, the idea of radioactivity would have been relegated to superstition.

Try about a hundred years ago, even. Before electricity was harnessed, there was no way to detect such things. Hell, it hasn't even been 100 years since the geiger counter was invented (Which was 1908).

I definitely understand what most of you are saying here: I could certainly believe that the energies released by the human brain could remain ambient in an area for a while, leaving a "thumb print" so to speak.

However, there is nothing to account for the apparent sentient behavior of ghosts. I can't move shit with my mind while I'm alive, with a whole metabolism process powering my mighty brain, so I do find it hard to believe that fading, disembodied "energy" without any kind of power source could "go bump in the night" so to speak. Energy cannot be created from nothing, so says the Laws of Thermodynamics.

However, I'll take a page out of Richard Dawkin's book and point that the human brain is extremely susceptible to the power of suggestion, and that it would have a lot to do with how our brains have evolved. It's not unreasonable to claim that hearing a scratch on your window at night and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it could be an intruder is a useful evolutionary trait. In a more feral age of humanity, it would be more useful to assume that a predator is making noises, than to assume that it could be merely a tree, or so forth.

As well, the brain can easily misinterpret aural or visual stimuli. For simple examples, a creaking floorboard can easily resemble a disembodied voice, or shadows on a bedroom wall could resemble a mysterious intruder. Furthermore, the brain can easily synthesize sounds or sights too--usually marked by drug use or mental disorder, but even healthy brains can cook up these things. I've been woken up by my own brain synthesizing voices in-dream so realistically that they appear as if someone was right next to me speaking to me.

That's not to say that I haven't experienced some freaky, apparently unexplainable shit that could perceivably be attributed to some unknown phantom source, but as far as logic goes, I can't fathom any reasonable excuse for real "ghosts".

[Heidi]

No paranormal rubbish survives a controlled experiment.

[Aliotroph?]

Most of the ghost signs that people describe to me these days are clearly things like banging furnace pipes or symptoms of sleep paralysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis). There are no ghosts.

[Heidi]

More recently there was a conclusive study on infrasounds, which explains why certain places make you feel uncomfortable for no apparent reason (I've experienced that twice in my life) *cool*

[Aliotroph?]

Wtf are you talking about? I seek linkage.

[+Acyclitor+]

one of my friends saw something bizarre in his girlfriend's apartment. he said there has always been a feeling of wrongness in the place, but claims one night he saw a bright light briefly illuminate the room. because it was a flash I thought that maybe there was some sort of electrical problem, but as of now nobody knows what the deal is. its easy to jump to "paranormal" explanations but we haven't ruled out mundane reasons. its just weird, is all.

[Heidi]

Wtf are you talking about? I seek linkage.

You may want to google for the subject, it's all over the internet, but here's one link just to get you started: http://www.the-bureau.org/Conclusions.htm