Ghosts - what the real deal here?

[MummRa]

I have loved ghosts and ghost stories my whole life, but I'm finding this love increasingly hard to maintain as my new atheist and evidence-bound training takes over. I used to watch 9-hour marathons of "Unsolved Mysteries" ghost stories, and "Ghost Hunters" (yes, go ahead and shoot me now). But now? I want to slap myself silly just thinking about it.

I love being an atheist instead of a self-hating Christian, but I do mourn the loss of my love of the paranormal. I used to spend all day as a kid wandering through graveyards, checking out old headstones and hoping for something to happen. I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.

I could swear on three separate occasions I have seen a ghost or something totally out of the ordinary. I've even had a premonition or two (though I know what they say: "You only remember the hits, and forget all the misses in between").

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there? Or is it all just....woo?

 

[theprestige]

Ghosts probably don't exist.

What evidence there is in favor of ghosts strongly implies that even if ghosts did exist, they'd be entirely unimportant.

Take, as a single example for comparison, radiation: It's invisible, mysterious, etc. And yet it turns out to be totally observable, highly predictable, and ridiculously powerful.

That haunted toy store in California? Say, for the sake of argument, that it really did have a ghost in it. Has that ghost had any measurable effect on anybody's anything at all? Compare with, say, Marie Curie's desk drawer full of haunted radium.

Everything we know about ghosts says they don't exist, and that even if they did exist, they wouldn't matter.

 

[AdMan]

No ghosts, sorry. No real evidence for them.

There are a lot of wonderful things in this world, so that you don't need to go looking in the next world. Look for all that is amazing in the real world (and there's lots of it), not one that doesn't exist.

 

[Evolved Wookie]

Personally, I suspect it's all just woo.

However, I LOVE ghost stories. I've been known to sit through a few episodes of Ghost Hunters in my time too. Stories themselves aare fascinating and the way people react to things is fascinating. I'm about as sceptical and woo-less as you can get and I've been writing ghost stories for years!

I'm not sure HOW to do it, but you can maintain a love of the macabre without believing in it...and I hope you can manage. I would suggest trying less reality telly and going for the classics of ghost stories. The original Haunting is a great place to start. Read some M.R. James.

Just because something doesn't exist, doesn't mean you can't have fun with 'what if?'

 

[drewid]

I have an idea that all of these phenomena could be explained by time not being as simple as we perceive it. It's just a flight of fancy however, since there's no evidence for the pnemomena happening in the first place, and a reasonable amount of evidence for the arrow of time

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'm going to agree with an expand upon a couple of the previous answers. Firstly, just because ghosts aren't real doesn't mean to say that you can't enjoy a good yarn about ghosts. I love horror films of all stripes, and you can't beat a good haunted house flick (say, the original of The Haunting, the 70s The Changeling, or The Others). Or, similarly, I don't have the tiniest religious bone in my body, but I love films which treat the religious as real (like, say, Prophecy).

And the other thing is that just because there are no ghosts in it doesn't mean the universe isn't full of wonders. Get some popular science books. A good, easy place to start is with Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything. It's perfectly possible to be so gobsmacked with the real world that you don't have enough gob left to be smacked by anything imaginary.

 

[punshhh]

I have loved ghosts and ghost stories my whole life, but I'm finding this love increasingly hard to maintain as my new atheist and evidence-bound training takes over. I used to watch 9-hour marathons of "Unsolved Mysteries" ghost stories, and "Ghost Hunters" (yes, go ahead and shoot me now). But now? I want to slap myself silly just thinking about it.

I love being an atheist instead of a self-hating Christian, but I do mourn the loss of my love of the paranormal. I used to spend all day as a kid wandering through graveyards, checking out old headstones and hoping for something to happen. I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.

I could swear on three separate occasions I have seen a ghost or something totally out of the ordinary. I've even had a premonition or two (though I know what they say: "You only remember the hits, and forget all the misses in between").

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there? Or is it all just....woo?

In reality no one can say if ghosts exist or not, except perhaps people who have experienced a very clear haunting.

You will hear many people on this site stating that things like ghosts don't exist, don't believe it. The best they can say is there is little concrete evidence of their existence.

No one really knows that things like ghosts don't exist.

 

[Lothian]

I could swear on three separate occasions I have seen a ghost or something totally out of the ordinary. I've even had a premonition or two (though I know what they say: "You only remember the hits, and forget all the misses in between").

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there? Or is it all just....woo?

There is very real evidence that people see things that appear to be out of the ordinary. While attributing the cause to the supernatural may be woo that does not mean that there is not a real and interesting subject which can capture your imagiantion.

 

[Cayvmann]

In reality no one can say if ghosts exist or not, except perhaps people who have experienced a very clear haunting.

You will hear many people on this site stating that things like ghosts don't exist, don't believe it. The best they can say is there is little concrete evidence of their existence.

No one really knows that things like ghosts don't exist.

Aaaaaaand no one knows that they do.

 

[Resume]

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there?

No.

 

[Cainkane1]

I have loved ghosts and ghost stories my whole life, but I'm finding this love increasingly hard to maintain as my new atheist and evidence-bound training takes over. I used to watch 9-hour marathons of "Unsolved Mysteries" ghost stories, and "Ghost Hunters" (yes, go ahead and shoot me now). But now? I want to slap myself silly just thinking about it.

I love being an atheist instead of a self-hating Christian, but I do mourn the loss of my love of the paranormal. I used to spend all day as a kid wandering through graveyards, checking out old headstones and hoping for something to happen. I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.

I could swear on three separate occasions I have seen a ghost or something totally out of the ordinary. I've even had a premonition or two (though I know what they say: "You only remember the hits, and forget all the misses in between").

So, is there any hope for my diminishing paranormal side? Is there any real evidence that ghosts or something "otherworldly" exists out there? Or is it all just....woo?

You're not alone. I was into ghosts and the paranormal myself. I still enjoy a good scary movie.

 

[Cainkane1]

There is very real evidence that people see things that appear to be out of the ordinary. While attributing the cause to the supernatural may be woo that does not mean that there is not a real and interesting subject which can capture your imagiantion.

And when you learn this it sure takes the wind out of what used to be a very pleasant pastime. Turning loose of ghosts was the hardest part of dropping the woo woo spooks and things that go bump in the night.

It was fun while it lasted.

 

[Evolved Wookie]

There is very real evidence that people see things that appear to be out of the ordinary. While attributing the cause to the supernatural may be woo that does not mean that there is not a real and interesting subject which can capture your imagiantion.

This.

The study of just WHY ghost myths and associated wooery are so universal is fascinating.

 

[Bikewer]

I agree with Wookie; ghosts or no, the psychology of the phenomenon is interesting. We (humans generally) are strongly acculturated to believe in some sort of survival of death; a soul, a disembodied spirit... This is part and parcel of human lore for about as long as we've been human.
There are psychological events that would tend to reinforce these notions. We know that perfectly normal people experience a variety of hallucinations occasionally. Auditory hallucinations (my wife used to hear her departed mother call her name occasionally), visual ones, feelings of a "presence" in close proximity, that sort of thing.
These things are increasingly well-explained, but that would not have been the case with our ancestors, who would have taken them for real manifestations of the spirit world.
In addition, our active and imaginative minds manufacture things all the time to account for odd sounds, odors, and whatever. When we're asleep, the brain manufactures dreams from such inputs. When awake.... Maybe that creaking floor was ghostly footsteps....
As well, when locations acquire a reputation of being haunted, visitors have a high expectation of experiencing something....

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You will hear many people on this site stating that things like ghosts don't exist, don't believe it. The best they can say is there is little concrete evidence of their existence.

Actually, the best that can be said is that there is no concrete evidence of their existence whatsoever, and that the phenomena which are usually attributed to being hauntings are explicable by various natural processes, both within the brain and without. In addition, the existence of ghosts would require a complete re-writing of the laws of physics, as there is no conceivable mechanism by which ghosts could exist. Furthermore, nobody has even ever suggested a plausible mechanism by which ghosts could exist.

No one really knows that things like ghosts don't exist.

No, just like no one really knows that gravity will continue to work tomorrow. What we do know, however, is that both the evidence and logic make the existence of ghosts as unlikely as gravity spontaneously switching itself off tomorrow at noon GMT.

 

[Evolved Wookie]

In fact, I find ghost stories all the more fascinating when approached from a sceptical point of view. I've written a few now designed specifically to cater to a critical and sceptical audience. They're not great works of literature, as I am not professional, but I flatter myself that they are proof of concept. That something can be creepy/scary without having to overlook the credulity of the characters is rather fun!

It's equivalent to sci-fi. Good, hard sci-fi is fundamentally about what would happen if some particular piece of technology happened to exist; about the people and the society around it. You don't have to believe in semi-derelict races of benevolent alien cuboids to thoroughly get a kick from Arthur C. Clarke and to appreciate the robustness of his reasoning and storytelling skills. Similarly, you don't have to believe in ghosts to find the little boy with the bag on his head in The Orphanage thoroughly unsettling!

...I suspect I've said the same things several times now, so I'll stop rambling and go back to pretending that I work for a living.

 

[Cainkane1]

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=htt...427/ap_on_en_tv/us_people_nina_dobrev&h=92e34

Heres a good example of how quick people are to say a place is haunted. The concept of ghosts is facinating albeit they don't exist.

 

[Fozzie]

I'm the biggest skeptic in the world, but when my brother died last year, a vase of flowers which he had given our mother (who lives alone), shattered in the middle of the night, and the flowers were laid neatly side by side on the other side of the room! I'm still looking for an explanation...

 

[TX50]

In fact, I find ghost stories all the more fascinating when approached from a sceptical point of view. I've written a few now designed specifically to cater to a critical and sceptical audience. They're not great works of literature, as I am not professional, but I flatter myself that they are proof of concept. That something can be creepy/scary without having to overlook the credulity of the characters is rather fun!

They sound interesting. Could we read some of them?

 

[Loss Leader]

I was scared of all those secret things hidden in the dark, which have now evaporated and been replaced by a dark, empty and boring old house.

The only power ghosts have is the ability to make you regret things.