The Existence of Ghosts

[Kylie]

From a discussion in another thread with Purple Knight.

Do you believe in ghosts? Please feel free to add any more information as a post in this thread, such as a story where you encountered something you believe was a ghost, etc.

[AgnosticBoy]

The question anyone should really consider on these sorts of circumstances is:

“Does a natural but unlikely cause provide a better explanation than a supernatural cause?”

Especially something like footsteps: a moment’s thought would suggest that since sound is a pressure wave caused by something physical, those footsteps need a real foot to produce. So how could any ‘spirit’ or ghost affect the physical world in the same way a real person could?

I think we can raise questions about the footsteps from different angles. Sure, we can say that sounds of footsteps require a physical source OR we can ask how did I experience footstep sounds without anyone being there? The latter was the experience or observation, afterall. The latter involves questioning a known physical fact, but is that wrong? Should someone in that case just disregard their experience? If they did, then I don't know how we could ever prove something supernatural if we simply discard our experiences just because they conflict with the current state of science.

I'd examine the experience first. Test the whole situation. Perhaps the physical explanation doesn't hold up in all cases or perhaps it was an hallucination. Sound is not purely physical anyways. There is a subjective level to it.

Hearing is not a purely mechanical phenomenon of wave propagation, but is also a sensory and perceptual event; in other words, when a person hears something, that something arrives at the ear as a mechanical sound wave traveling through the air, but within the ear it is transformed into neural action potentials. The outer hair cells (OHC) of a mammalian cochlea give rise to an enhanced sensitivity and better frequency resolution of the mechanical response of the cochlear partition. These nerve pulses then travel to the brain where they are perceived. Hence, in many problems in acoustics, such as for audio processing, it is advantageous to take into account not just the mechanics of the environment, but also the fact that both the ear and the brain are involved in a person's listening experience.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

[Diagoras]

I think we can raise questions about the footsteps from different angles. Sure, we can say that sounds of footsteps require a physical source OR we can ask how did I experience footstep sounds without anyone being there?

Approaching any problem from different perspectives is a good way to test hypotheses, I agree. In this case, there are more than one that could be examined. Would echoes from elsewhere in the building reach this particular large room? Was there actually a person there, but who left suddenly and quietly? Perhaps realising they were trespassing. Or could tiredness or illness have created the conditions for an aural hallucination? Given the circumstances, it’s unlikely a satisfactory explanation can be proved, but none of these natural causes need be dismissed for being impossible.

Should someone in that case just disregard their experience? If they did, then I don't know how we could ever prove something supernatural if we simply discard our experiences just because they conflict with the current state of science.

I’m not proposing you discard the experience: it’s a fact that ‘footsteps were heard’. But to satisfactorily ‘prove’ something is supernatural, you would also have to prove that all natural causes were less plausible. Science looks for the ‘best’ explanation, and appealing to the supernatural has never been shown to be the best explanation for these types of experience.

I'd examine the experience first. Test the whole situation. Perhaps the physical explanation doesn't hold up in all cases or perhaps it was an hallucination. Sound is not purely physical anyways.

Indeed. I’m not arguing against such testing. Keeping an open mind is important. Thanks for the quote, as well.

My point about sound was more about its production, not necessarily its reception and interpretation by your ears and brain. You rightly point out that those systems aren’t themselves perfect.

The idea of a non-corporal ghost producing sound would require some form of pressure interaction between it and the floor. So formulating any hypothesis involving ghosts means introducing some new physics to account for the sound production - the kind of thing that isn’t required when hypothesising a simple echo, trespasser or aural hallucination.

Occam’s Razor applies.

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to Diagoras in post #13]

Thanks for the good reply.

I know from experience, simply weeding out all of the natural explanations would not be enough to please the skeptics. Some will just say that there could be another unknown natural explanation or that we haven't figured it out, yet. Then again, the weeding out process may be the best we have and we'd probably have to settle for it despite the fact that there's room to doubt. In the same way, historians have to settle with going by written testimony just to be practical. I'm sure if there were some empirically testable way to validate history, then they'd be all over it.

However, I think the best method (not sure how practical it is given the nature of the supernatural) is to provide an explanation (or a testable hypothesis) of how any given supernatural phenomenon works. Then test it. This would be in contrast to just going by a process of elimination of simply ruling out all natural explanations. I honestly believe that there are laws to the supernatural so it should be explainable, in theory. I suspect once we figure out the nature of subjectivity and consciousness then the nonphysical world will start to make more sense.

* Also, having the best explanation or the most probable one doesn't always mean that it's the correct explanation.

[Athetotheist]

Would echoes from elsewhere in the building reach this particular large room?

Not at the volume perceived.

Was there actually a person there, but who left suddenly and quietly? Perhaps realising they were trespassing.

It was an open public building, so no visitor would have been trespassing.

Or could tiredness or illness have created the conditions for an aural hallucination?

I was neither ill nor fatigued.

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #15]
Here's what I wished would happen. I wish scientists would actually start studying reports of supernatural. I believe scientists should be open to studying ANYTHING. To date, we know that they ignore such claims or leave it to one or a few lone researchers to debunk claims.

Let's take the issue of UFOs as an example. Skepticism and taboo has inhibited research into UFOs. There's no real scientific body devoted to studying UFOs. It wasn't until recent sightings by the US military, that just so happened to be leaked, that now the issue is being taken seriously. Last month, the Pentagon acknowledged the existence of Unidentified aerial phenomena, and admitted to not knowing what they were. So now UFOs are in a state of being accepted by the experts while also not being explainable. Now there's talk of a demand for multi-disciplinary field of scientists needed to study the phenomenon. I think study into the supernatural should follow the same track.

[Aetixintro]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #12]

It may be that telepathy plays a greater role in nature than hitherto admitted by most scientists. Thus, hearing voices out there (telepathy, not schizophrenia) is a mark of reality just like a haunted house wants to tell us about some special footsteps in our inner ears (inside the head, of course).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy, Telepathy, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_ear, Inner Ear, Wikipedia

Note also on Fantastic Nature and Freak Nature as Accounts of Nature, adding all the "supernatural" phenomena to the body of description, i.e., science.

(BTW, one should know the difference between telepathy and schizophrenia: in schizophrenia, the voices are generated by the brain itself and these voices appear (actually) hostile to the schizophrenic. In telepathy, voices (from the outside, unlike own thoughts, are just part of the natural world and can't be "cured". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia, Wikipedia.)

[Diagoras]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #15]

To be clear, I’m in no way suggesting that any of these hypotheses had to be the correct explanation for what you heard. What do I know anyway? I wasn’t there.

[Diagoras]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #15]
Here's what I wished would happen. I wish scientists would actually start studying reports of supernatural. I believe scientists should be open to studying ANYTHING. To date, we know that they ignore such claims or leave it to one or a few lone researchers to debunk claims.

Two quick points:

1) Many such reports can’t be easily studied, being ‘after the fact’. For science to provide a meaningful answer, there has to be some experiment and result to compare against a hypothesis. Reports of past ‘sightings’ can’t be replicated.

2) For other, testable supernatural phenomena, scientists have studied plenty, and have been open to persuasion by those who claim the power of telepathy, telekinesis, etc. The fact that such powers reliably fail to materialise when examined under laboratory conditions should suggest that they’re more the product of imagination than anything else.

[Tcg]

It wasn't until recent sightings by the US military, that just so happened to be leaked, that now the issue is being taken seriously.

This isn't true:

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program

The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)[1] was an unclassified but unpublicized investigatory effort funded by the United States Government to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP).[2] The program was first made public on December 16, 2017. The program began in 2007, with funding of $22 million over the five years until the available appropriations were ended in 2012.[3][4][5] The program began in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_ ... on_Program

I think study into the supernatural should follow the same track.

And just how would you suggest we "study" the supernatural? What specific tools do you suggest could be used in such an endeavor?


Tcg

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #15]
Here's what I wished would happen. I wish scientists would actually start studying reports of supernatural. I believe scientists should be open to studying ANYTHING. To date, we know that they ignore such claims or leave it to one or a few lone researchers to debunk claims.

Two quick points:

1) Many such reports can’t be easily studied, being ‘after the fact’. For science to provide a meaningful answer, there has to be some experiment and result to compare against a hypothesis. Reports of past ‘sightings’ can’t be replicated.

Perhaps this is where scientists need to start looking at how to adjust their standards based on a given phenomenon. For instance, if advanced alien technology or something supernatural is beyond to our ability to explain and control (by definition), then we're going to have to look at not requiring for scientists to explain this class of phenomenon as they would other worldly phenomenon. This is only practical. Otherwise, we risk stunting our knowledge. Imagine if people expected for historians to have empirical evidence before they could accept something as fact. Sure it's a luxury to have empirical evidence, but to expect it in every case, would severely reduce our historical knowledge.

While you say that scientists can not deal with sightings that occur after the fact, I would rather say they can't deal with it as they do other phenomenon. Otherwise, it would go a long ways for scientists to at least document that these things exist and all that's required is 'observation'. Just like UFOs, we can't explain what they are but we have the evidence to say with certainty that they exist. Keep in mind that observation can go a long way. While some skeptics like brunumb try to reduce observation of UFOs as being nothing, I'd say that we can draw a lot of inferences from just observation. We can rule out some things. If we observe UFOs evading other aircrafts, flying in an organized formation, flying around military sites, etc, then although we can't explain it, but we can describe what we see, we can infer there's intelligence to it, etc. What is the alternative towards something we can't control but yet we have very strong evidence for its existence? Ignore it? Again, not practical.

2) For other, testable supernatural phenomena, scientists have studied plenty, and have been open to persuasion by those who claim the power of telepathy, telekinesis, etc. The fact that such powers reliably fail to materialise when examined under laboratory conditions should suggest that they’re more the product of imagination than anything else.

I don't completely agree with your characterization of telepathy. I've read about studies showing results being higher than chance. What we may be seeing in these studies is that telepathy is a weak effect, but that doesn't preclude the fact that it can be strengthened.