Haunted houses and spirits

[flyingsnail]

There has yet, after thousands of years of speculation, been any objective evidence of the existence of ghosts, spirits, or anything "supernatural" for that matter. Seems pretty clear that ghost, spirits exist.....but just in people's heads.

Whenever I watch those ghost hunter shows I'm always amused that they are always looking for ghosts in the dark, why would ghosts be more likely to show up at night than the day time?

 

[Blobbenstein]

Whenever I watch those ghost hunter shows I'm always amused that they are always looking for ghosts in the dark, why would ghosts be more likely to show up at night than the day time?

maybe sunlight causes them pain.....it depresses me quite often. Maybe I'm a ghost.

 

[flyingsnail]

maybe sunlight causes them pain.....it depresses me quite often. Maybe I'm a ghost.

Maybe.....but it seems like the conditions used for "ghost hunting" are precisely those that tend to produce sensory illusions. I also love the voice recordings, for some reason ghosts can never speak clearly and always sound like muddled noises.

 

[Blobbenstein]

There has yet, after thousands of years of speculation, been any objective evidence of the existence of ghosts, spirits, or anything "supernatural" for that matter. Seems pretty clear that ghost, spirits exist.....but just in people's heads.

what kind of objective evidence do you want? Video, pictures that sort of thing?
Maybe the supernatural doesn't want to be caught on film.
If you put up a video camera outside a house, with bright lights, and a sign saying you were filming, would you get video of a burglary? But that wouldn't mean that burglars didn't exist, would it.

 

[hungryraccoon]

It's all very well saying there is no evidence but once you have seen a ghost with your very own eyes, that's all you need. Personally I mean.

I know what I've seen & no one is going to convince me that it was all in my head. I've seen ghosts & that is that.

 

[Moll Flanders]

I have experienced a lot of strange things throughout my life but then I suffer from psychosis at times so I wouldn't like to say it was definite. I usually try to ignore it when I feel something like that or I tell them to go away if I feel scared.

I do often feel like I have someone looking out for me. The other night I was upset and saying that I hope that someone could take care of my cat that died recently and then I started to see black shadows moving around the room out of the corners of my eyes and I wondered if it was one of my dead relatives saying they would take care of him. I might have just been emotionally drained.

 

[flyingsnail]

what kind of objective evidence do you want? Video, pictures that sort of thing?
Maybe the supernatural doesn't want to be caught on film.

Any objective evidence would do, the problem with relying on subjective reports is that sensory illusions (at least mirror ones) are relatively common even in people that don't suffer from any psychological condition. For example sensory deprivation will produce sensory illusions.....and the typical ghost haunting conditions are incidentally those that tend to result in sensory deprivation (dark, silent, etc).

The lack of serious empirical data on supernatural beings and any objective evidence is, I think, a very strong indication that no such thing exists.....not to mention we have strong alternative explanations to supernatural stories.

If you put up a video camera outside a house, with bright lights, and a sign saying you were filming, would you get video of a burglary? But that wouldn't mean that burglars didn't exist, would it.

Probably not, but its not difficult to provide objective evidence of burglaries. Our senses aren't magical, if our senses can pick up on supernatural beings then so could a variety of instruments.

It's all very well saying there is no evidence but once you have seen a ghost with your very own eyes, that's all you need. Personally I mean.

That isn't all I would need, I would need objective evidence because I know I'm prone to sensory illusions just like everyone else.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Probably not, but its not difficult to provide objective evidence of burglaries. Our senses aren't magical, if our senses can pick up on supernatural beings then so could a variety of instruments.

it was an analogy.
The supernatural isn't like the empirical world. It doesn't just climb under a microscope, or perform in front of a camera.

 

[flyingsnail]

it was an analogy.
The supernatural isn't like the empirical world. It doesn't just climb under a microscope, or perform in front of a camera.

Why not? The empirical world doesn't just climb under a microscope either we have to often create rather complex devices to do empirical research, for example, that wildly expensive large hadrons collider. If the supernatural do manifest themselves in the physical, and if people's reports are to believed they must, then there is no reason why they couldn't be studied empirically. The fact that people report sensory experiences of supernatural entities but we've yet to confirm them objectively for thousands of years paints a strong picture, namely, that such things don't really exist and people are suffering from sensory illusions and the power of suggestion.

 

[Blobbenstein]

paints a strong picture

you mean 'is evidence for'?

You can't prove a negative, and therefore you can't have evidence for a negative. Well not in this case.
You can walk around the country and meet more and more people, and if each person isn't bigfoot, is that more and more evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist?

Do you expect ghosts to stand around waiting for you to video them?

Science is about the UNKNOWN..why can't people just get that? They expect everything to fall into their existing paradigms.

 

[Spang]

I don't think ghosts are real, but I am still haunted by them.

 

[flyingsnail]

You can't prove a negative, and therefore you can't have evidence for a negative.

I've never understood why this is such a common meme because its rather easy to prove a negative statement and science doesn't "prove" anything at all. Science is inductive and conclusions are made when the evidence consistently points to a particular conclusion. So, in this case, since after repeated efforts to confirm supernatural entities have ended in failure and we have a good explanation of why people think they experience such things....then we can conclude that there are no such things.

Do you expect ghosts to stand around waiting for you to video them?

No not really, yet when I watch those goofy ghost hunting shows they always seem to be trying to video tape them. You keep mentioning video but video is a pretty crude way to research supernatural phenomena. If the supernatural manifest themselves in the world then we should be able to confirm their existence using some empirical method or another....and if they aren't manifesting themselves than people aren't experiencing them.

Science is about the UNKNOWN..why can't people just get that? They expect everything to fall into their existing paradigms.

Science is a methodology and one can use it to study the supernatural....but so far it has come up empty handed and all we have are personal stories. If all the stories were true.....you'd think it would be pretty straightforward to confirm the existence of ghosts.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I've never understood why this is such a common meme

yes, that's why I added 'in this case'.
You can show that a tsunami didn't take place at such and such location, if you have video of the beach and sea at that time.

But you can't show some negatives, like you can't show that God doesn't exist, or that fairies don't exist.

How do you know that you can use science to study the supernatural? It just seems to be some people's assumption.

 

[Blobbenstein]

You keep mentioning video but video is a pretty crude way to research supernatural phenomena.

so how would you detect ghosts?

 

[Blobbenstein]

I don't think ghosts are real, but I am still haunted by them.

you see dead people.

 

[Second Summer]

MOD POST
Arguing against the paranormal and supernatural is off-topic in this thread. Please start your own thread if you want to have that discussion.