AMosely

I'm with the 2/3 majorty - no such thing as ghosts other than what Al said - it's all inside you.

sordavie

So do you believe there are ghosts or not? Because Al said he believed in them. Isn't it kind of contradictory to say there are no such things as ghosts other than those ghosts over there?

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ScratchMonkey

I lack belief in ghosts. (This is different from believing that there are no ghosts.)

AMosely

I really do have a knack for answering questions without actually answering them.

I don't believe in ghosts. I believe in memories. I think spirits only exist within our own minds. I believe that psychics have the ability to somehow read the memories of others, which is proof that memories are tangible, collectable and potentially alterable by artificial means. Total recall!

Beatnik

I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Ghost.

And unicorns. They're real, whether you choose to believe or not.

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Buck Fush

Let's leave His Spaghettiness out of this. There's no reason to bring blasphemy into this discussion.


And God.

Kerostasis

Before you can seriously consider the question of whether there is a reason to believe in ghosts or not, you have to define what you mean by a ghost. I would break down Ghosts into two possible definitions like thus (ignoring the prior suggestion of hallucinations based on memories, that doesnt count to me)--

1) The soul of a deceased human, returned to Earth

2) Any supernatural spirit that manifests without an obvious physical presence, but which can still influence the world somehow.

I strongly believe that "ghosts" of definition 2 exist, and I think there's a fair amount of evidence for them. Type 1 ghosts are much more iffy, and I really have only one piece of evidence in favor of them: the story of the Witch of Endor in 1-Samuel Ch 28. As far as I know that is the only time that type of Ghost is mentioned in the Bible, and other passages seem to suggest that ghosts cannot normally return to earth. So I am inclined to list type 1 ghosts as "possible, but extremely rare".

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CingularDuality

That's easy:

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Hambergler

Having a conviction for or against is simply ignorant unless one has had an encounter. For most of us the only acceptable answer is I don't know.

It takes some arrogance to dismiss another persons experience because one has not had the same.

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RGM-79N_GM_CUstom

I am in agreement.

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sordavie

Huh? That's absurd. What you say implies that anyone who is convinced that something doesn't exist must be ignorant. According to you, someone who denies Santa Claus' existence is ignorant, since of course nobody can have an encounter with Santa Claus. But, this makes no sense since by definition one cannot have an encounter with something that doesn't exist.

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ScratchMonkey

I have "encounters" with "Santa Claus" every year. I see him sitting at department stores getting pictures taken with kids, and of course there's "Yes, Virginia".

The devil is in the details. You have to clearly define what's being claimed or denied. (As you state in the voting thread, where clear grammar is deemed necessary to avoid ambiguity and confusion.)

This all falls under the category of "philosophy of science", a rather rich and complicated subject I dipped into briefly my freshman year at MIT 27 years ago. Objective truth, like quantum physics, tends to be a slippery thing to nail down once you look at it closely enough.

sordavie

Um, people dressed up pretending to be Santa Claus are not Santa Claus. That's exactly why you used scare quotes. This has nothing to do with philosophy of science. It's just common sense. One needn't have an encounter with some thing in order to assert that it exists or that it doesn't exist.

Also, writing clearly is quite different than clearly defining every thing you claim or deny. The former is fairly easy to do. The latter is very hard. (I challenge anyone to give me a perfectly clear definition of the word 'bachelor'.) Not doing the latter is generally okay though, since fluent speakers of English know what English words mean, even if they can't specify the exact rules governing its use. Doing the latter would be like asking someone to clarify all of the rules of grammar used in their sentences. No one thinks we need to do that, and probably nobody could anyway.

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BigGaayAl

Hey guys we almost forgot about ufo's! While I really enjoy speculating about alien life, in the way physicists like Hawking etc. do, I LOVE UFO believers and abductee stories.

I believe they are of the same nature as Ghosts; i.e. hallucinations aided by environmental factors (like darkness or weird physical phenomena like ball lightning).

The reason why I post this is mainly the abductee stories. You can go some way some way believing them, it all has some credibility, until, nearly INVARIABLY the aliens in the ship bring out some shiny dildo and force them to have an orgasm.

It is SO logical that an advanced civilisation is motivated solely by ****ty porn scenarios. It is clear what the future holds for us, and internet is showing right now how our whole civilisation will be taken to the next level by porn scenarios.

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