Ghosts??? Or???

FreeDuck wrote:

I suggest that it's something we don't yet understand because the explanations we have been able to come up with, based on things that we do understand, don't cut it. I think that our realm of familiarity (or things we do understand) is relatively tiny and so the likelihood of it being something outside of that is fairly high.

To me, it's one thing to assume that there's more to reality than meets the eye, but quite another to say that things that go bump in the night are 'likely' to fall into that category.

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Why? I'm not saying that all things that go bump in the night are likely to fall into that category. I'm saying that in circumstances where the occurrence can not be explained away by likely causes, and where there is persistent evidence involved, the likelihood that it is not something that we understand is fairly high.

What do you suggest?

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Kind of like [Shocked] [Wink] [Smile] God?

Actually baddog I disagree vehemently, weve got more evidence from human history that weve made up the concept of "god" as we attained a certain level of evolution. However, we havent fully explained (satisfactorally) about "ghosts", and the difference between gods and ghosts, is that ghosts do have some evidence.

One of Einsteins buddies did a mathematical construct that proved interdimensional time travel was actually possibl. Like many equation sets, we can get numerous answers of the same problem, and some may be correct simultaneously.

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I agree that the cosmos consists of much more than I can even imagine, but that is no justification for the notion of supernaturalism. Ghosts, magic, miracles and the supernatural have nothing to do with things we do not understand; they have to do with a kind of false knowledge we claim to have, in order to fill the void of our inevitable ignorance.

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FreeDuck wrote:

Why? I'm not saying that all things that go bump in the night are likely to fall into that category. I'm saying that in circumstances where the occurrence can not be explained away by likely causes, and where there is persistent evidence involved, the likelihood that it is not something that we understand is fairly high.

What do you suggest?

I guess I'm saying that the conditions you suggest above don't ever (or very rarely) exist.

I'm probably just much harder to convince that all avenues of 'likely causes' have been eliminated, and what you call 'persistent evidence' may not be what I consider solid 'evidence'.

To go any further with this we will probably need specific examples not based on hearsay (since hearsay is not evidence). Do we have any to work with?

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One thing I have found, including a personal experience, is that demons love to "play games" with humans. We put a chest of drawers in our girls bedroom, after buying it from a garage sale. Every night until we got rid of that chest the demon associated with it, shook the girls beds. When we got rid of the chest the shaking stopped.

The demons have the power to influence, harm, and communicate with humans. (Luke 8:27-33) They have studied human nature for thousands of years. They know how to play on human weaknesses. The Bible reports cases where they possessed, or took full control of, men, women, and children. (Matthew 15:22; Mark 5:2) They can cause disease or physical impairments like blindness. (Job 2:6, 7; Matthew 9:32, 33; 12:22; 17:14-18) They can also blind people's minds. (2 Corinthians 4:4) The demons are continually active, as is their leader, Satan, who is like "a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone." (1 Peter 5:8) The Bible contains many accounts of the existence of demons.

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farmerman wrote:

the difference between gods and ghosts, is that ghosts do have some evidence.

Really? Like what?

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JLNobody wrote:

I agree that the cosmos consists of much more than I can even imagine, but that is no justification for the notion of supernaturalism. Ghosts, magic, miracles and the supernatural have nothing to do with things we do not understand; they have to do with a kind of false knowledge we claim to have, in order to fill the void of our inevitable ignorance.

Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that ghosts are a natural phenomenon but that our understanding of nature is incomplete. Electricity might have looked like magic at one point, before we understood how it works. Same with many other discoveries. But electricity is not supernatural, it is entirely natural.

And that's my point, rosborne. I'm not trying to prove anything, merely leaving the door open for future scientific discoveries.

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Freeduck, clever answer. I am much more open to the idea of ghosts as non-supernatural phenomena. But I would not like to consider them natural for the reason that "naturalism" does not exist either: it's merely the conceptual counterpoint of "supernaturalism."
Ghosts as simply phenomenona is much better, to MY mind.
Thanks for opening my mind a bit more.

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jl

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I agree that the cosmos consists of much more than I can even imagine, but that is no justification for the notion of supernaturalism. Ghosts, magic, miracles and the supernatural have nothing to do with things we do not understand;

.

Id love to be able to explain something by a few physical laws, I dont think I have to demonstrate my appreciation of evidence to anyone.However, jl, you are merely trying to expand the inclusion of phenom that are already fully explainable and (had been so ) from their inception. Magic is entertainment predicated on diversion.
I dont accept spiritualism, miracles, or that communication between living and dead is a possibility because the state of being "dead" is a biochemical one . However, perhaps post mortem, the energy transfers into a lower thermo plane and , as it dissipates these phenom can possibly occur. Im also still not unconvinced about interdimensional existence

The cosmos is not only weird, its perhaps weirder than we can ever imagine.

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Free Duck stole my thunder but shes right. RAdiation was considered a supernatural manifestation because it could take pictures of items between a film plate and some "spirit rock".
Eachlevel of our development has first adapted to various phenomena as "supernatura" . I know you remember when youd sit around a campfire in wonder about this "hot spirit" in the wood. Smile

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FreeDuck wrote:

Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that ghosts are a natural phenomenon but that our understanding of nature is incomplete.

Fair enough. That is certainly possible, but is it reasonable?

I will grant that anything is possible, even the supernatural. But is it reasonable to put unknown natural phenomena higher on the probability list than known natural phenomena which simply haven't been identified yet.

Without physical evidence, the number one natural possibility on the top of the list is human error and perceptual distortion. Most people may not want to accept this, but it's easily a higher probability than unknown natural phenomena.

Also, I would note that simply observing that there may be other unknown natural phenomena in the world which *might* explain the unexplained, doesn't really help at all with answering the questions. It's as much of a non-answer as "God did it".

It just seems unreasonable to me to eliminate all known natural phenomena as possible explanations just because nobody has suggested one you like.

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The only people mentioning God are you , JL, and baddog.
Do you consider audio and video evidence ? just because its not understood now, doesnt mean that it wont be at some time. Will the laws of physics be ab,le to explain these some day?.
t you are trying to
1deny that such manifestations occur

2That such manifestations are either supernatural, or quASI RELIGIOUS, ND THEREFORE BULLSHIT BY DEFINITION

What if they fall somewhere else? WHEN WE DO DIMENSIONAL ANALYSES IN one area of inquiry, we often set up and solve equations in entirely different fields(eg-DArcy flow -hydraulics is based upon the theory of sound propogation on drumheads--crystal structures are set up and solved as multiple musical chords etc etc)

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Gee!

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Funny, there's disagreement between a number of us, but noone seems--to me at least--to be unreasonable.

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farmerman wrote:

The only people mentioning God are you , JL, and baddog.

Are you talking to me?

I was talking about the supernatural in general. Most people consider ghosts to be a supernatural phenomena. I understand that you and Freeduck are proposing something different. I tried to address that in my previous post.

farmerman wrote:

Do you consider audio and video evidence ?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So it had better be one hell of a convincing audio/video collection. Right?

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And, surely, FM you did not read me advocating God. Much more likely that a ghost should join this thread.

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I was recently spending time at a house in Amsterdam. As I was downstairs fooling on the computer I heard footsteps and rustling upstairs. It was then that I realized I was alone in the house! I went upstairs and no one was there. Later the owner of the house came back and revealed the house is haunted. Keep in mind, I hadn't even been to a coffee shops yet.

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rosborne979 wrote:

FreeDuck wrote:
Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that ghosts are a natural phenomenon but that our understanding of nature is incomplete.

Fair enough. That is certainly possible, but is it reasonable?

I certainly don't think it's unreasonable.

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I will grant that anything is possible, even the supernatural. But is it reasonable to put unknown natural phenomena higher on the probability list than known natural phenomena which simply haven't been identified yet.

Known but unidentified is equivalent to unknown in my opinion.

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Without physical evidence, the number one natural possibility on the top of the list is human error and perceptual distortion. Most people may not want to accept this, but it's easily a higher probability than unknown natural phenomena.

Really? How do you measure such a probability? How do you know that one is more probable than the other?

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Also, I would note that simply observing that there may be other unknown natural phenomena in the world which *might* explain the unexplained, doesn't really help at all with answering the questions. It's as much of a non-answer as "God did it".

I think it's just as helpful as "it's in your head" or "there's a known explanation that we just don't know about yet". You and I are not ghost hunters and we don't spend our time investigating reports of hauntings so it's not really our job to answer these questions. Since it's not my job to get to the bottom of hauntings, I feel free to speculate that they might be caused by unknown natural phenomena. And you feel free to speculate on the likelihood that I'm right. But neither of us is in any position to find out.

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It just seems unreasonable to me to eliminate all known natural phenomena as possible explanations just because nobody has suggested one you like.

It's not whether or not I like the explanation, it's whether or not the explanation adequately explains the phenomenon. There are many many cases where there isn't an adequate explanation. If more than one person experiences the same thing, lets say several people, how likely is it that they are all suffering from the same perceptual distortion?

I think this is something you'd have to take on a case by case basis. Certainly sometimes a "ghost" might actually be a creaky floor on a windy night. But in cases where there are audible directional footsteps? Where people have seen ghostly images?

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It's not whether or not I like the explanation, it's whether or not the explanation adequately explains the phenomenon. There are many many cases where there isn't an adequate explanation. If more than one person experiences the same thing, lets say several people, how likely is it that they are all suffering from the same perceptual distortion?

Like - errrr - God? Shocked

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Ghosts??? Or???

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