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I recently found myself in a conversation concerning ghosts. Now, I am not one to impose my opinion on those who feel differently – if asked I would express myself, but I have no desire to pull people over the fence to my side on a topic which has no direct effect on me. I do, however, have a lot to say on the matter. By default, I was part of this conversation suggesting the existence of spirits of the past whom maintain the ability to interact with the physical world. The conversation mostly consisted of people swapping their ghost stories. These people claimed to actually have interacted with ghosts; they have supposedly been touched by them, picked up their scents, or actually seen them.
My views on the subject are clear: ghosts are not real, and if they are it is impossible for them to interact with anything that physically exists. I say this because of the strict laws of physics. A mass can only be affected by another mass and a charge can only be affected by another charge. Two objects of different material existences cannot interact with one another. From this comes my understanding of the universe: to exist, you must be an entity of both space and time. There exists a philosophical argument of “what exactly is a soul?” which I will not get in to. My thoughts on the matter simply rely on your “soul” being another part of your brain. When your brain ceases to work and your body shuts down, your thoughts no longer exist. The information that makes the façade of your soul may technically still exist somewhere in the once living organ, but at no point does it mysteriously enter a new embodiment which can only be seen, felt, smelt, or heard in extremely specific scenarios. It is memory possibly contained within a now inanimate object.
I mean no negativity to those who believe ghosts exist, or think they know for a fact that ghosts do in fact exist, but these views to me seem arbitrary and fabricated explanations to explain something that you truly do not know the answer. It is similar to claiming “I lost due to balance,” you don not want to look in to why you actually lost because it was probably your fault, so you look for an escape and claim that you can see it, while realistically the topic is far too complex to actually understand at a high level unless you make a point of studying it, and at that point it may as well be a career. In the end, however, you are looking at something that may or may not exist, but at this time it is impossible to know and additionally impossible or at the very least extremely unlikely for it to have affected the events that transpired. And when I say extremely unlikely, I mean it is about as likely that you will open a bag of frozen green beans and find a winning lottery ticket inside.
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At the end of the day, the existence of ghosts makes no sense to the point it is meaningless if they exist or not.
If I were a ghost trapped in the world, would I stand gloomily in a building forever, waiting for some idiots with a camera, or would I try and contact family members? If I can't move or do anything, then what good is my exisitence as a ghost at all?
If ghosts could interact with things, surely they would write a note, or do something more obvious than knock a picture off a wall, or make noises a lot like any old building does.
Do ghosts exist? In a universe where they exist and do nothing, and are so irrelevant you can't even prove they exist. Or in a universe where ghosts don't exist. I prefer to follow the simpler belief that they do not exist since either way doesn't really impact anything at all.
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I had a roommate in my first year of University that was convinced, as were his sister and parents, that ghosts existed. He lived in a pretty old house and had apparently seen the same ghost on multiple occasions. Of course, if he wants to believe that, its fine, but I'm not going to let his experiences effect my own on something that seems to so impossible. As Enzyme said, if ghosts were in fact real, and able to interact with the world (ignoring theoretical constraints like 'unable to leave place of death' etc etc), I'm sure there would be a lot more believers through sheer proof alone rather than blind 'faith'.
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You've obviously never been EMP'd.
/obligatory Starcraft joke
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Ghosts are unlikely to exist (atleast the way we've defined them) but honestly I wouldn't rule them out completely.
I've been getting into theoretical physics and cosmology lately and the universe is far more strange than what we could have ever imagined. Stuff like dark energy, dark matter, anti matter etc is like all out of a fictional movie.
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schizophrenics and people with multiple personality disorder have ghosts that come inside of them and communicate with them, or with MDD take over.
when ur on drugs, it is like the same way. ghosts come rushing in and you lose your self for that time.
they can hang around in buildings or objects, but people tend to naturally avoid them. you can usually get a discount on things with ghosts in them. my current apartment had 7 ghosts living in my bedroom, and was one of the few units that they could not rent out. so i managed to get a 15% discount on the rent, and when i moved in i spent some time clearing them out, and now the bedroom is fine.
they dont have corpreal forms, they move about as energy. they are noticeable to everyone, but more aware people can pick up on their energy a lot easier.
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I don't know if you guys have a show like "most haunted" in the US, but in the UK it was a pretty popular show where they went old old buildings that were supposedly haunted, accompanied by a psychic and went ghost hunting..... it was one of the worst shows i've ever seen but I watched from time to time because a friend of mine worked on it.
Now, all I know is that the guy is a special effects designer by trade but that wasn't what he was credited for on the show (obviously) and the crew all had NDA's due to the nature of the show so I never asked much, but the odd comment here and there he would come out with such as "You'd be surprised how easy it is to make a door slam on its own" pretty much confirmed what I thought he was doing ;p
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On June 18 2011 09:11 emythrel wrote:
"You'd be surprised how easy it is to make a door slam on its own" pretty much confirmed what I thought he was doing ;p
I get irked when people try to tell me a place is haunted because a door slammed. Doors slam
all the time on their own. If a window on one or both sides of the door is open, then it is highly likely that a draft will bring the door shut. Whenever I try to explain this to people who avidly believe ghosts are among us, they usually just tell me I'm making it up and refuse to listen to any form of logic.
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On June 18 2011 08:39 LokitAK wrote:
And when I say extremely unlikely, I mean it is about as likely that you will open a bag of frozen green beans and find a winning lottery ticket inside.
So... still possible then...?
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United States24803 Posts
On June 18 2011 09:02 dazed wrote:
Ghosts are unlikely to exist (atleast the way we've defined them) but honestly I wouldn't rule them out completely.
I've been getting into theoretical physics and cosmology lately and the universe is far more strange than what we could have ever imagined. Stuff like dark energy, dark matter, anti matter etc is like all out of a fictional movie.
While we can't rule them out completely there really isn't any reason to believe in them either.
I'm not sure if I get your physics comparison though... the universe is indeed strange. However I don't equate the universe being more strange than we originally thought with ghosts being more likely... I think that is some kind of fallacy.
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On June 18 2011 09:49 raviy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2011 08:39 LokitAK wrote:
And when I say extremely unlikely, I mean it is about as likely that you will open a bag of frozen green beans and find a winning lottery ticket inside.
So... still possible then...?
All things considered, there are so many things we don't understand. One way or another, the possibility still exists. In fact, there is a theory that should the universe truly be infinite, then it is absolutely impossible at at some point in space and time, all things, far-fetched and not exist. On a smaller scale, though the given circumstances suggest that it is far more likely that they do not exist, it is not possible to rule any and all possibilities out completely.
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EPT
