Do ghosts really exist?

[amrith92]

Oh no!... can this be deleted? I don't know what happened... I was typing in a new thread, and it got posted! I'm extremely sorry...

[amrith92]

Oh no!... can this be deleted? I don't know what happened... I was typing in a new thread, and it got posted! I'm extremely sorry...

Okay, I can't change the title of this post, and am truly sorry for the mis-post, but here is what I was writing before this happened:

The following discussion may give some (maybe most) people the impression that I'm a nutter (I can accept that):

The other day, I just got to thinking - "Do ghosts really exist?" - and here are my collected thoughts on this matter. If you are wondering as to the reason why I was thinking about this, its because I saw a show on the Discovery Channel called "Dead Tenants", and I was intrigued...

Now, on this show, they explore and re-enact hauntings of family homes, based on the descriptions given by the family claiming that their house is haunted. (For more information on the show, see this )

After watching it, my mind was practically reeling... Could ghosts really exist? If they do, then how is it possible to be "Dead", but can still walk, talk and haunt? The assumption is that Ghosts are immaterial beings(in the sense that they do not exist as matter), but in some claimed hauntings, ghosts can interact with matter (like objects); if this is so, then how?

I looked up the web, and saw that a lot of the evidence supporting the existence of ghosts are rather circumstantial. Some believe that the presence of a ghost in a sample space, generates electro-magnetic anomalies in the sample space. But then again, EMF's (Electro-Magnetic Fields) are associated with matter(physical field), and there is no indication that ghosts exist(if they exist) as matter. This assumption that ghosts are immaterial can be circumstantially derived from various haunting claims, which indicate that ghosts can move through solid objects.

And then, if they are made up of matter, then why can't we see ghosts? A quantum physicist might say - Matter can be rendered invisible to our(human) eyes, iff that matter is a point-object, smaller than the wavelength of visible light(below 400 nm) - but then there isn't any evidence that what we claim to be ghosts are tiny specks of mass loitering about, trying to scare us...

And there's another theory - they(humans and ghosts) exist in the same space, but in two discrete universes (referred to as a parallel universe). They say that certain points on this planet are "hotspots" for ghost-related activities, and that this universe (the universe we are in) and the "universe of the dead" intermingle at these "hotspots". The theory of parallel universes is not new, and eminent scientists have debated on the viability of there being such anomalies, albeit strong mathematical proof. And then, how, possibly, can there be a land of the dead? I got to thinking about this, and came up with this: Maybe there isn't a universe for the dead, but it may be a universe whose time-space continuum relates with ours at those hotspots, i.e the parallel universe may be exactly like ours, with the same people, living the same lives, but the parallel universe may be at a different time to ours, and when they interact at these "hotspots", the actions of both us and the people in the parallel universe are felt across this non-discernible barrier between the two universes, and that this may constitute "a haunting".

And at this point, reality hit me like a hard rock to the forehead (no, really, I banged my head against the desk, I was nearly asleep :) ), and I thought - "Hey! this will make for an interesting discussion" - and here I am, posting this...

So, does anyone have any views on this topic?

[vegaseat]

Ghosts exist only in a person's mind. Pretty harmless thing most of the time. Odd stuff happens and one has to explain it somehow.

[Ancient Dragon]

We have a lot of ghosts here in St Louis -- they even vote every election year :)

[vmanes]

We have a lot of ghosts here in St Louis -- they even vote every election year :)

I thought that was mostly a Chicago thing.

I think the ghosts of my cats that have passed on come back to annoy the cats that are still here. Every now and then one just jumps like it's been attacked, and no one else is near. ;)

[Doctor Inferno]

Ghosts? I don't think so...

[jephthah]

there's a lot of evidence supporting "near death experiences"... that sort of parallels the concept of ghosts.

i dont believe in anything supernatural, personally, but i also don't presume to have definitive answers for things that can't be demonstrated or explained. some people truly believe they have had experiences that i can't account for.

basically it comes down to this: you can talk about your personal experiences and beliefs, but people who go around making declarative statements about the existence or non-existence of things that cant be demonstrated one way or another are full of shit.

in my humble opinion. :)

.

[Ene Uran]

I wouldn't walk through a cemetery in the middle of the night!
Hollywood loves to scare people with ghost stories/movies.

[NicAx64]

in 1908 a lady named sally rusa was in the woods looking for a dog until a ghost came and killed her so if ur reading this u will find a bloody body in your closet hanging there haunting you and will kill you and ur family and if u want to stop this just sends this to 6 friends email  in 30 minitues.

ha ha !

[NicAx64]

if you live oky , doesn't harm anyone then , GHOST can't do anything .
But if you bad then GHOST can definitely make an affect to you.

[NicAx64]

We have a lot of ghosts here in St Louis -- they even vote every election year :)

Ya true ! In here too !

[amrith92]

> (To jephthah): you can talk about your personal experiences and beliefs, but people who go around making declarative statements about the existence or non-existence of things that cant be demonstrated one way or another are full of shit.

I tend to agree with this, too :) ... But then, something that cannot be proved to exist, doesn't need to mean that it does not exist: It could still be a very real thing, only we haven't found any way to explain its existence (Even the domain of conventional Science, this is a fact), and like you say - "people who go around making declarative statements about the existence or non-existence of things that cant be demonstrated one way or another" - are indeed full of shit :) :D

> (To Ene Uran): I wouldn't as well :) Such places give me the creeps, 'specially at night :S

[ithelp]

Yes they exists , like we are made of mass , they are made of energy , if inanimate mass can evolve to a complex species like human being in few billions years, Why cannot eneregy evolve to form a complex ghost .

Now you need to find out ways to communicate with them.

[amrith92]

Yes they exists , like we are made of mass , they are made of energy , if inanimate mass can evolve to a complex species like human being in few billions years, Why cannot eneregy evolve to form a complex ghost .

Now you need to find out ways to communicate with them.

> if inanimate mass can evolve to a complex species like human being in few billions years

My view: Mass can never be inanimate, as atoms make up any mass, and atoms are certainly not inanimate (atoms posses some amount of motion)... Maybe you meant inanimate as "inorganic", "non-living", or something along those lines. We are all basically made up of "non-living" atoms, even after all those years of evolution. We are just lucky that this soup of "non-living" matter came together under the right conditions, at the right time, all those aeons ago, to make up the basis of all life: amino acids and then proteins and the related.

> Why cannot energy evolve to form a complex ghost?

Energy is something that is always associated with a physical Force. Force, in turn, always relates with mass, '[TEX]m[/TEX]', travelling with an acceleration, '[TEX]a[/TEX]', as [TEX]F = m.a[/TEX], at least in Newtonian Mechanics. It is not unknown that Energy is always associated with mass even in quantum physics, and is made apparent by Einstein's famous equation, [TEX]E = mc^2[/TEX], where '[TEX]m[/TEX]' is mass. Energy cannot evolve, as such, into something self-contained and free from physical association (be it gravitational force, or something more obscure). Energy is not capable of becoming something else (transforming) until an external trigger acts on it, and always remains a form of energy that is again associated with mass. See this for more information. Similarly, Energy cannot manifest itself into a physical force, because it always depends on force to exist.

[A1 data nz]

I like the simpletons way of looking at it.

Hard drive comes out of the factory, it weighs Xx.xx amount, it's basicly void.

Tech puts it into a machine, user loads up 500gb of information to it, now it has substance in it, motion, pictures and complex programs etc..

but the funny thing is that- it still weighs Xx.xx amount, and before anyone gets all smarty on my simpletons theory- I'll preempt your logic in this: Yes there is something added to it, it's called information (chew on that one!)

So as for ghost's- well maybe they are information without a hard drive! WOOOOOOOOOO! OOOoooooooo!:scared:

[amrith92]

> So as for ghost's- well maybe they are information without a hard drive! WOOOOOOOOOO! OOOoooooooo!:scared:

Oh My! I haven't laughed myself silly like I have just now in a long time :D ... Good point though :) ... but then, how does this information persist in the environment?? :-/

[iThaos]

Here's a simple test. Go into a cemetery on the night of Halloween. Stay there for one hour. If you don't see something moving there, that means ghosts don't exists. If you do, chase after it. :)

[A1 data nz]

> ... but then, how does this information persist in the environment?? :-/

Hey now! No fair,

I said it was the simpletons theory! But if you must persist, then be prepared to be doubley frightened! Because the answer is no less scary than it is simple:

The information persists in the environment in the same why it did before it was placed on the hard drive only collectively due to it's conception on the hard drive!

Double WOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!

[The Dude]

I truly believe that "Ghosts" (Spirits) exist....

They are all round us :icon_smile:

[Ene Uran]

Spirits are not ghosts!
Spirits are part of the spiritual world that is part of each being.