My youthful theory on the existence of ghoststs

[Cainkane1]

Looking at a diagram of the human brain and nervous system I thought that there was a possibility that the glow that would occur between the brain and nerves would somehow be preserved when a person died. This would account for the appearance of ghosts as glowing entities.

Sadly I was wrong and ghosts do not exist.

 

[Loss Leader]

It's as valid as anything else you could think of, I guess.

I've always believed that ghosts live entirely in the mind and that their only power is to make you regret things. If I let myself, I can conjure ghosts that paralyze me with shame.

 

[gerdbonk]

As a kid, I always wondered why ghosts wore clothes. Did the clothes die, too?

 

[Mackenberg]

As a kid, I always wondered why ghosts wore clothes. Did the clothes die, too?

I'm currently reading Jacob Middleton's "Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-heeled Jack, and Victorian Society", which points out that "ghosts" in European tradition have a very tangled folklore. Today we tend to think of ghosts as immaterial spirits, but a few hundred years ago the difference between a ghost, a vampire and a revenant (essentially a zombie) kind of depended on where you were and who you talked to.

 

[Steve]

I'm currently reading Jacob Middleton's "Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-heeled Jack, and Victorian Society", which points out that "ghosts" in European tradition have a very tangled folklore. Today we tend to think of ghosts as immaterial spirits, but a few hundred years ago the difference between a ghost, a vampire and a revenant (essentially a zombie) kind of depended on where you were and who you talked to.

Even as a kidIi thought of them as that. So then I wondered, what is there to fear. They are immaterial. They cannot actually do anything.

 

[Loss Leader]

I'm currently reading Jacob Middleton's "Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-heeled Jack, and Victorian Society", which points out that "ghosts" in European tradition have a very tangled folklore. Today we tend to think of ghosts as immaterial spirits, but a few hundred years ago the difference between a ghost, a vampire and a revenant (essentially a zombie) kind of depended on where you were and who you talked to.

From Laura Bohannan's excellent essay where she attempts to relate Hamlet to African tribespeople:

My audience looked as confused as I sounded. “It was Hamlet’s dead father. It was a thing we call a ‘ghost.’” I had to use the English word, for unlike many of the neighboring tribes, these people didn’t believe in the survival after death of any individuating part of the personality.

“What is a ‘ghost?’ An omen?”

“No, a ‘ghost’ is someone who is dead but who walks around and can talk, and people can hear him and see him but not touch him.”

They objected. “One can touch zombis.”

“No, no! It was not a dead body the witches had animated to sacrifice and eat. No one else made Hamlet’s dead father walk. He did it himself.”

“Dead men can’t walk,” protested my audience as one man.

I was quite willing to compromise.

“A ‘ghost’ is the dead man’s shadow.”

But again they objected. “Dead men cast no shadows.”

“They do in my country,” I snapped.

Read the entire essay: Shakespeare in the Bush

 

[JesseCuster]

"the glow that would occur between the brain and nerves"

 

[fuelair]

Looking at a diagram of the human brain and nervous system I thought that there was a possibility that the glow that would occur between the brain and nerves would somehow be preserved when a person died. This would account for the appearance of ghosts as glowing entities.

Sadly I was wrong and ghosts do not exist.

You have clearly read too many posts from certain unnamable posters here. Unfortunately I cannot name them.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

I love spirits, mainly brandy or whiskey, but gin ain't that bad, either.

On the subject of ghosts, I once saw a woman outside Nando's, dressed in rags, bellowing and screaming into the night. I feared she may be the dreaded Banshee of Irish folklore, and then I remembered I was in Manchester city centre and it was a Saturday night.

 

[Myriad]

Looking at a diagram of the human brain and nervous system I thought that there was a possibility that the glow that would occur between the brain and nerves would somehow be preserved when a person died. This would account for the appearance of ghosts as glowing entities.

Sadly I was wrong and ghosts do not exist.

That's probably not too far off from how the idea of anthropomorphic ghosts, translucent spectral forms in the shape of (or close to the shape of) human beings, originally came about. Little or nothing was known about brains or nervous systems, but there had to be some explanation for how merely willing ones limbs to move could cause them to move.

How can immaterial thought affect material bones and muscles? And how could external material influences like touch or sound turn into conscious awareness of them? By what magic can material flesh move and feel and heal itself? It seemed there had to be a spirit, an interface between the mental and the material. To be involved in moving and feeling and healing, that spirit had to be in all the same places as the body was. So while living, at least, the spirit took the shape of the body. All stories and depictions of anthropomorphic ghosts are based on the idea that those spirits would perhaps still keep their original human shape (and be visible at least spectrally) after death.

Or at least, close to their original human shape. Traditional ghosts are usually depicted as either fully clothed (how else could you tell that the ghost that haunts the old fort was a Civil War soldier, if he wasn't in uniform?) or blobby. Anatomically detailed naked ghosts would raise eyebrows, of course.

In a large collection of classic ghost stories anthologized chronologically that I read through many years ago, the very earliest stories ended with the narrator simply seeing a ghost. No follow-up; no elaborate back-stories about tasks not completed in life. Just seeing a ghost and realizing what it was, was enough of a story at the time.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Even as a kidIi thought of them as that. So then I wondered, what is there to fear. They are immaterial. They cannot actually do anything.

I've always said this.
When's the last time you heard someone say "Man, that ghost really beat the hell out of me" ? Or, "Holy crap, that ghost killed my whole family, what a bastard!"

No, instead they always just turn on random lights, or knock papers off the desk or other boring stuff that never bothers anyone besides the minor inconvenience of cleaning up small messes they allegedly leave behind. Big deal.

 

[TripleScorp]

I always assumed that the experiences attributed to "ghosts" were just residual patterns of energy as opposed to wandering souls or anything like that. I've never experienced anything of the sort but let's say some cabinet doors were opening of their own accords or someone heard a strange voice when no one else was home; to me it just seems like residual energy as opposed to a sentient being.

 

[Mackenberg]

I always assumed that the experiences attributed to "ghosts" were just residual patterns of energy as opposed to wandering souls or anything like that. I've never experienced anything of the sort but let's say some cabinet doors were opening of their own accords or someone heard a strange voice when no one else was home; to me it just seems like residual energy as opposed to a sentient being.

I'm afraid that "residual patterns of energy" make just as little scientific sense as "wandering souls".

 

[TripleScorp]

Yeah, it's a nonsense explanation.

 

[Scorpion]

I'm afraid that "residual patterns of energy" make just as little scientific sense as "wandering souls".

What makes scientific sense is hardly the be all and end all of everything.
The universe is apparently largely composed of dark matter, and we don't even know what it is.

 

[Armitage72]

Today we tend to think of ghosts as immaterial spirits, but a few hundred years ago the difference between a ghost, a vampire and a revenant (essentially a zombie) kind of depended on where you were and who you talked to.

Werewolves could make an appearance in that Venn diagram too. In addition to the belief that a dead werewolf could return from the grave as a vampire, similar terms could be used interchangeably depending on location.
My favorite band recently released a new album, with a song called "Varcolac". Looking it up, I discovered that it's a Romanian term for a werewolf and it shares roots with the vrykolakas, a Greek vampire-like undead.

 

[Darat]

What makes scientific sense is hardly the be all and end all of everything.

But it's the only system that we've come across that actually does what it says on the tin.

The universe is apparently largely composed of dark matter, and we don't even know what it is.

And?

 

[Scorpion]

But it's the only system that we've come across that actually does what it says on the tin:

As someone that has spent much time in spiritualist churches since the 1960's I have another view of life. I discovered the occult does what it says on the tin too, and I learned how to channel energy through my chakras.

And?.

My experience tells me there is much science does not know and there is psychic energy as well as physical energy. The nervous system is the only instrument sensitive enough to experience this subtle energy.

 

[JesseCuster]

My experience tells me there is much science does not know

I was watching Dara O'Briain doing standup online recently and there's a bit where he addresses this strawman and he says (I'm paraphrasing, can't remember the exact quote):

"Of course science doesn't know everything. Otherwise it would stop."

This sentiment - "science doesn't know everything" - comes up a lot, especially amongst people with fringe ideas, and I have to wonder who it's being addressed to, as no-one seems to be claiming that science does know everything, especially those who are remotely scientifically literate, who fully understand that there are many gaps in our understanding of life, the universe and everything.

 

[Pixel42]

Science doesn't know everything, but that's not an excuse to ignore what it does know. And that's what believing in things like "psychic energy" requires you to do.