Ghosts

im sceptical, but i think maybe something like that is exist, i remember i was home alone, it was evening and there was black out, i started to hear noise from the kitchen like someone roaming in the trash bucket, finally i decided to take a look - when i entered the kitchen - noise of something roaming through the trash can stopped and changedwith sound of water dropping from the cellar, i trailed direction of the noise with my hand, but the surfacewas dry. I went even to take some nap, then after some time i heard something heavy dropped in the kitchen but i didnt bothered to take a look what it was. When black out was ceased, i went to the kitchen to observe what exactly was dropped here - i found nothing. Though maybe it was some coincidence - it was creepy
 
I'm open to the idea of the unknown and the supernatural existing, albeit in a form that is beyond human comprehension and observation, but I'm not very convinced by the more conventional accounts of spirits (both intelligent ones and merely residual). The human brain is a finicky object and far from perfect, especially when mixed with both natural evolutionary tendencies to be in fight or flight mode at even the most imaginary of threats, and how easily dispositioned we are to subconsciously "want" to believe and to expect that a particular location is haunted, after for example, someone has told you that it is. On top of that is the scientific consensus that sleep paralysis is a common cause of hallucinations and the sensation of being pinned down and throttled by an entity, as well as the potential effects of infrasound.

But like I said, we can't really know for sure. Perhaps these ghosts really are devilishly elusive buggers who effortlessly manage to both defy the laws of physics and evade conclusive detection by what even modern technology can achieve. Who knows. Perhaps I won't simply cease to exist upon death and I could well be chained to this world as a bored or bereaved disembodied entity. But until such time comes, I shall continue to remain an ardent sceptic and to believe that I'll merely become part of the soil and as conscious and aware as I was in the 18th century when my time comes.

Now, the thread title also asks if I believe in "some other form". Angels? Nope. Demons? Certainly not. No more real to me than Poseidon or ancient jungle deities. Paranormal accounts that involve priests coming in to bless properties, or full exorcisms I just immediately treat as fiction. It's hardly surprising, given that I am an atheist. If you're a very religious person to begin with, of course you would probably have that psychological comfort akin to a placebo effect if you believe that this blessing and exorcism has genuinely rid the house of one of Satan's followers.
 
Linnaete said:
I'm open to the idea of the unknown and the supernatural existing, albeit in a form that is beyond human comprehension and observation, but I'm not very convinced by the more conventional accounts of spirits (both intelligent ones and merely residual). The human brain is a finicky object and far from perfect, especially when mixed with both natural evolutionary tendencies to be in fight or flight mode at even the most imaginary of threats, and how easily dispositioned we are to subconsciously "want" to believe and to expect that a particular location is haunted, after for example, someone has told you that it is. On top of that is the scientific consensus that sleep paralysis is a common cause of hallucinations and the sensation of being pinned down and throttled by an entity, as well as the potential effects of infrasound.

But like I said, we can't really know for sure. Perhaps these ghosts really are devilishly elusive buggers who effortlessly manage to both defy the laws of physics and evade conclusive detection by what even modern technology can achieve. Who knows. Perhaps I won't simply cease to exist upon death and I could well be chained to this world as a bored or bereaved disembodied entity. But until such time comes, I shall continue to remain an ardent sceptic and to believe that I'll merely become part of the soil and as conscious and aware as I was in the 18th century when my time comes.

Now, the thread title also asks if I believe in "some other form". Angels? Nope. Demons? Certainly not. No more real to me than Poseidon or ancient jungle deities. Paranormal accounts that involve priests coming in to bless properties, or full exorcisms I just immediately treat as fiction. It's hardly surprising, given that I am an atheist. If you're a very religious person to begin with, of course you would probably have that psychological comfort akin to a placebo effect if you believe that this blessing and exorcism has genuinely rid the house of one of Satan's followers.
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Pretty much my thoughts. I've written about the effects of sleep paralysis and culturally relative interpretations of the hallucinated nightmare figure (such as the 'Old Hag', incubus / succubus, and alien abductions) in other posts on this forum. I thought I'd written about it in this thread, but apparently not.

I'm skeptical when it comes to ghosts because most ghost stories take the form of humans reporting the ghosts of other humans. In rare cases we have the ghosts of dogs, cats, horses, etc, but these become ghosts because of their associated relationships with humans (in the same way that we also have ghost vehicles such as cars, trains, and ships). We don't come across many ghost stories about wild animals, or dinosaurs, pterosaurs, or any of the billions upon billions of lives of animals which have perished in all of Earth's history.

Ghosts, to us, tend to be humans. Maybe this could be explained by suggesting that ghosts get the energy necessary to take form from emotions. Since ghost stories tend to focus on the soul being in a state of eternal unrest due to some unfinished business, there is a lot of emotion involved. Maybe the ghost wants revenge for his/her murder, or perhaps a lover left without a word and heartbreak was the cause of death. Appeasing the ghost somehow might cure the state of unrest and neutralise the haunting. Personally, to me, it seems more likely that we get these stories because these are the stories that people prefer to tell. These types of stories have been the framework for ghost stories since antiquity.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of ghosts. I've met many people who claim to have experienced ghosts, and these people are otherwise rational, intelligent people who I respect a lot. I therefore do feel that the topic shouldn't simply be dismissed, but I'm more interested in investigating other potential causes of the apparitions. Our senses can be fooled, and many hauntings can be explained by science. Some can't, yet, but that doesn't mean that they can't ever be.

There are many things that we don't understand about our universe. While most ghosts are likely stories which people have made up because our culture permits it and we sometimes crave an interesting ghost story, there may be truth to some of them, and if so it'll be good to know what causes them. It'll also be interesting to know (if there are apparitions which turn out to be genuine) if ghosts are conscious and sentient, or if they are merely recorded images of deceased organisms (a sort of fossil of the soul, but made out of energy).

Who knows? I'm neither scientist nor paranormal theorist.

I don't know about other people, but I'd find it temporarily awesome to witness the ghost of a Tyrannosaurus rex. It'll be awesome because it's a freaking Trex! It'll be temporary because I'd probably find myself in an ectoplasmic stomach before I could even take my first and last selfie.


EDIT - Fixed an incomplete sentence which the forum decided to eat.
 
Yes, I certainly find the concept of spirits, supernatural entities and whatnot conceivable. Some accounts of hauntings and ghost stories do sound a bit incredulous to me but bogus accounts don't rule out the possibility of supernatural phenomena. And then there are the accounts that are not so easy to set aside as mere fiction.

I think that there's a lot that humans either can't or won't understand about this honeycomb world we live in, so I myself wouldn't be quick to dismiss the existence of ghosts or spirits; nor angels, demons or ancient Gods for that matter! Who can say for sure?
 
Nope. There are plenty of fairy tales out there and these are just some of them. People get scared in the dark some night and hear something they can't explain. They then decide it's ghosts to give themselves an explanation.

As for other forms, still a no. Our brain switches off when we die (or sometime thereafter; I'm no scientist) and we stop existing. We don't magic up any sort of spirit all of sudden, nor do we have the ability to go anywhere afterwards. People can believe what they like but it doesn't make it real.
 
I don't believe in ghost or spirits like the ones that haunt or interact with you (like in horror movies) I do believe in the possibility of spirits or something like that, but nothing that interacts with the living in anyway shape or form.

I personally believe in possibilities of maybe something out there that happens to you after you die, but I don't know really what that would be.
 
Cabbage said:
People can believe what they like but it doesn't make it real.
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I'd say this applies equally to those who believe in a certain thing as well as those who don't :)

As for ghosts and such, I think the vast majority of ghost stories are just that--stories--but as someone who finds entertainment in overthinking things I have wondered if perhaps living things leave a sort of 'residue' on the world around them which other living things might be keen enough to sense from time to time until the 'residue' of other things 'overwrites' it. That's the simple version, at least. Scientifically, time operates similarly to frames in a movie, each moment a 'snapshot' of the world's state relative to the observer. That relativity is the interesting part. This is how we actually gain a few millionths of a second when we go on a plane ride, or conversely lose a few millionths of a second on the ground as compared to someone else on the plane. Could it be that if a person left a significant or significant quantity of 'snapshots' behind in a place their presence would be strong enough to feel even years later? Maybe even feel strongly enough for our minds to respond to the stimuli with audio and visual cues? Pseudo-science, to be sure, but it is a fun possibility to think about.
 
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