Can ghosts be proven to exist or not?

[Ivan Seeking]

For a start, one has to disprove that ghosts do exist... not prove that ghosts do not exist as this is impossible. Silly really because disproving the existence of ghosts is also impossible.. for now anyway. Though I am totally looking for theorists to explain the paranormal, instead of the closed minded skeptics ranting on and on without a shred of usable evidence...

You have things a little backwards. Claims of the paranormal require evidence, not the other way around. Skeptics have nothing to prove.

 

[catawampous]

You have things a little backwards. Claims of the paranormal require evidence, not the other way around. Skeptics have nothing to prove.

yeah, claims do require evidence... but what I mean is that proof requires that a thing can not be disproven. Like, god can not be disproven, therefore there is still a chance God exists, the same as ghosts.

 

[CEL]

yeah, claims do require evidence... but what I mean is that proof requires that a thing can not be disproven. Like, god can not be disproven, therefore there is still a chance God exists, the same as ghosts.

You are right. You cannot prove a universal negative. So you cannot prove that ghosts, alien visitors, gods, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy don't exist.
The impossibility of proving their existence does not mean that they do exist and says nothing about the likelihood of their existence.
As Ivan said, believers in those things must present only one instance of those beings to prove their existence. While no instance is presented there is no proof one way or another.

 

[Ms Music]

I told myself I wasn’t coming back to this thread…… In fact, I shouldn’t be here now, as I don’t get a lunch break for the 2nd day in a row. But I decided I am tired of seeing myself quoted when I never finished what I was trying to get to. And it probably is only fair to you guys that I finish explaining. I rarely have time to spend on posting, so it can take several days to finally get enough said to make my point. And we seemed to disagree on a certain sticking point….. So it may take me all day to type this response, and hopefully I can finally get it all said. I wasn’t trying to prove that my friend did anything special, nor that I did anything special. I was just using an example to get to a point in a round about way.

So now, with my disclaimer handled, on to what I was trying to get at way back when.

But that was my point. Some people "apparently" CAN heal others, and it is something my friend is apparently gaining the ability to do. Okay, so maybe it involves touching the person to sense what is sick in the body. But once again, how is that different from zooby? Couldn't that be considered telecommunication with cells in another persons body?

The reason I said “apparently”, is that there are people that believe they can heal, and there are people that believe they have been healed by the healers. This should be testable (with fMRI). It is the same with telecommunication. What happened with Zooby is very testable. Did you ask her if she “heard” your comment? If so, you definitely have your own proof that there was telecommunication between the two of you. If you didn’t ask her, all you have is your own perception of what you want to believe happened. And what happened could be as simple as my assuming that when you had the thought “what a cute face”, that a tiny smile actually crossed your own face. She sees that tiny smile, and realizes that you are being patient and understanding while she deals with this difficult customer. So she looks at you and whispers “Thank you” [for your patience and understanding] while the difficult customer is looking away.

I just remembered that in Seeing Voices Sacks describes a similar hallucinating what you expect, or mental filling in of some sensory piece that is missing from a pre-established habit of concurrance of inputs from two separate stimuli.

Explains exactly what I was describing above. With my example of cranial sacral, there is no proof that there was anything wrong with me, there is no proof that she (or I) did anything to fix me. It is easy to “hallucinate what I/you expect” that she or I healed something. It is possible that something similar to an fMRI could be used to show what was going on in the brain, since FMRI can be used to show blood flow increasing when neurons are activated. Without some sort of physical proof of what occurs during cranial sacral, there is no proof that anything at all happened, especially if it can’t be duplicated. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t be proven in the future.

The same with ghosts. You can’t prove something was observed. But that doesn’t mean it won't be provable in the future. Which means you can’t disprove ghosts. People will believe what they want to believe, but it isn’t in any way proof neither for, nor against the existence of ghosts. It is possible it is merely a hallucination, but it is also possible that there really is something there. Non believers have just as much to prove as the believers do.

Same with string theory. It hasn’t been proven yet, but it definitely explains what we are observing.

Okay, now I hope I am a little closer to what I was trying to get at. If you want to believe I healed myself, you first need a leap of faith in the “chi”. If you want to believe that there are ghosts, you need a leap of faith that ghosts exist. If you DON’T want to believe that ghosts exist, then you must have a leap of faith that there is no such thing as a ghost. So far, it isn’t testable either way.

Oh, and I wanted to make a comment on the cell phone thing. It really isn’t anything special to know you are getting a phone call before the phone rings. I use a wired hands free when driving, because I don’t like Bluetooth. When my phone is about to ring, there is a very faint click that I hear in the ear bud one to two seconds before the phone actually rings. So if you know your phone is about to ring, you probably are just picking up on the signal going into your phone. It just takes a couple of seconds for your phone to “wake up” and ring.

Aren’t I just a party pooper?

And now I see that others have said similar things through out the day… <sigh>

 

[sganesh88]

I have examined many girls for a hour or so,like this! but not even a single girl responded or acknowledged!
not even single said "thank you"!

In that case, she would have to thank a dozen others too.

 

[zoobyshoe]

What happened with Zooby is very testable. Did you ask her if she “heard” your comment? If so, you definitely have your own proof that there was telecommunication between the two of you. If you didn’t ask her, all you have is your own perception of what you want to believe happened. And what happened could be as simple as my assuming that when you had the thought “what a cute face”, that a tiny smile actually crossed your own face. She sees that tiny smile, and realizes that you are being patient and understanding while she deals with this difficult customer. So she looks at you and whispers “Thank you” [for your patience and understanding] while the difficult customer is looking away.

Why you damn bastard skeptic! How DARE you suggest the PARANORMAL isn't REAL?!??

(Heheh Just kidding.)

I don't have any loyalty to my experience, and I'm not about to try and defend it. I am just reporting what seemed to have happened. You're quite right that she could have smiled and said "thank you" for some completely different reason than it seemed. Or, I could have hallucinated her reaction due to low blood sugar or something. I have noticed that I become extremely physically uncomfortable when standing in lines: my muscles start to tense and hurt, and my stress level rises, and my breathing becomes shallow, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a review of the security camera revealed that she did not once even look at me before she actually waited on me.

What's interesting to me is that because of this, and other incidents, I have a acquired a knee-jerk belief in telepathy. After, like, three solid instances like this, you get conditioned. I don't really see this as necessarily saying anything about telepathy. After I was rear ended three times in one year while at red lights and stop signs I went through a period of hawkishly watching the rearview and calculating the level of attention of the drivers pulling up behind me. Stuff happens: you form a mental filter about it.

 

[veattaivatsan]

Well,let me put forward my view on how we can convince ourselves that ghosts doesn't exist!
Instead of taking every living being as having soul,we can see them as conglomerate of cells.Cells with different functions and different secretions,yet interdependent on each other for living.
for example,the cells that make up the eyes are cells that live converting lights into electrical signals.And they receive their nutrition from blood supply and liquid filled in aqueous and vitreous chamber.We can observe that though the level of memory and logical thinking varies between animals,yet their eyesight is perfect except any aberrations created by external sources. SO,we can assume that cells that made up eye in multicellular organisms were once unicellular organism which lived on light and emitted ions when light rays fell on them.and when these cells form a colony and gets attached to nutrient rich cell group,it got its rich nutrition and so on it merged with the other cells that made up the first multicellular organism.similarly,the other cells of the respective organ merged and some went dormant while others remain active in due course of time. So there is nothing called "soul". we , living beings , are combination of cells which were not created for purpose but joined us for their purpose! so there is nothing which gives us life. the cells live,therefore we live. the cells feed and the cells are fed,so we live.
After a limit had reached,the congress of cells might have become over dependent on nourishing part of our body - blood! so the actions which stops provision of blood to specific areas of cells makes it inactive thereby resulting in death of the cells . If heart cells are not fed with blood or reduced the supply of blood,heart attack occurs.as heart is pumper of blood for whole body,most of cells in our body doesn't get their feed and dies. similarly stands for all kinds of death!
So,death denotes the death of cells of organ which serves as the sole bread-supplier of all the cells of human body! so the cells of eye,ear,tongue lose their nourishment and cease their work.so escape of soul is not death,but stopping of function of cell is death. that's why we can transplant organs after death(within sometime.before cells gets zero nourishment) to a body of cells which can nourish it.

as the role of a "soul" is ruled out,how can there be an escaped soul roaming out??
so "ghosts" do not exist!

This is my own idea! may be or may not be right! but I believe in this theory(of mine)!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

First of all, you are assuming that alleged ghosts are the souls of dead people. Who says that they are?

Secondly, simply explaining a biological process does not rule out that souls could still exist.

 

[sganesh88]

First of all, you are assuming that alleged ghosts are the souls of dead people. Who says that they are?

Wordweb defines ghost as "The visible disembodied soul of a dead*person"
merriam-webster.com says "A disembodied soul ,especially the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness"
Dictionary.com declares "The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons."

If ghosts aren't defined as disembodied souls, they simply cease to cause a lasting fear or curiosity. 'Ah just another species perhaps' would be a passing comment.

Secondly, simply explaining a biological process does not rule out that souls could still exist.

True.. There is either an external hand like soul or a beauty not-yet-unraveled in the so called 'biological processes'. I'd personally prefer the latter.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Haha, well you've got me on the popular definition! I never realized that it was so limiting. Suffice it to say that is only one interpretation of what is reported. In many cases, people claim to experience hauntings [attributed generally to "ghosts"] without ever claiming to observe an apparition of a person. What they are really reporting is unexplained phenomena. In fact there are people who believe that reported ghostly apparitions of dead people are not actually the souls of the dead, but they still call them ghosts.

 

[ibcnunabit]

Not really. In principle the person making the claim is merely providing a report. If I report a robbery, am I liable to explain who did it, or how? My wife and I had some unsual experiences, but that doesn't mean that I know what it was or how to explain it. There is a difference between reporting an observation and claiming to have an explanation for it. Likewise, a claim of an observation or experience only counts as anecdotal evidence for whatever is claimed.

No, you could report a description of what you saw, but labeling the phenomenon a ghost is drawing a conclusion about it, which goes to interpretation, not reporting.

 

[ibcnunabit]

as the role of a "soul" is ruled out,how can there be an escaped soul roaming out??
so "ghosts" do not exist!

This is my own idea! may be or may not be right! but I believe in this theory(of mine)!

Well, as stated it might not meet the criteria for being a formal theory, but I do think the general gist of what your saying is absolutely correct! Probably any non-religious scientist would consider it absolutely non-controversial, except for the particular way you described the evolution happening. But in this context that's just details.

 

[ibcnunabit]

P.S. What you say doesn't RULE OUT a soul, but it does provide a more realistic description of life/death as opposed to the soul leaving the body. What it does do, however, is point to the concept of soul and ask for that to be demonstrated. Until it can be determined that a "soul" exists, the question of ghosts being escaped souls is moot. The onus is on those who claim that it exists to provide evidence, not for those who don't to provide evidence that it doesn't.

 

[ibcnunabit]

First of all, you are assuming that alleged ghosts are the souls of dead people. Who says that they are?

Secondly, simply explaining a biological process does not rule out that souls could still exist.

True, but nothing rules out the existence of fairies, unicorns, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. But most of us accept these as fantasy until evidence is provided that they do exist.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

True, but nothing rules out the existence of fairies, unicorns, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. But most of us accept these as fantasy until evidence is provided that they do exist.

I am not aware of many fairy, unicorn, or flying spaghetti monster reports. In order to understand a phenomenon, or even a class of claims, first one has to make a little effort to keep things in perspective. There are at least millions of people alive today who claim to have experienced unusual and seemingly inexplicable phenomena. One cannot take examples for which there is little to no anecdotal evidence, and put that on the same level as something claimed to be true - through personal experience - by millions of people.

Also, not only is it true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is also true that transient phenomena are often difficult to document.

Again I ask, what specific evidence for ghosts would you find acceptable? Aside from Casper appearing in a lab and sticking around, I'm not sure what could constitute proof of these sorts of claims - those associated with ghostly encounters.

 

[ibcnunabit]

I am not aware of many fairy, unicorn, or flying spaghetti monster reports. In order to understand a phenomenon, or even a class of claims, first one has to make a little effort to keep things in perspective.

If only it weren't so; here are some websites dedicated to the belief that fairies really exist:

http://www.suite101.com/blog/nepenthette/fairy_sightings

http://www.fairygardens.com/sightings/

http://www.ilovefairies.com/fairy_sightings.html

And there used to be one called: http://www.faeriebelievers.com, but it seems to be down.

 

[sganesh88]

^^
No references for Unicorns and FSM?
Jokes apart; you just can't substantiate your claim simply by quoting a few websites. Hosting sites and loading them with **** isn't that difficult. Even wikipedia is not a completely trustworthy source.

 

[sganesh88]

Oh! PF automatically asterisks the so-called foul words? :O

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh! PF automatically asterisks the so-called foul words? :O

Yes, for those who are unable to censor themselves...

 

[sganesh88]

i first thought it was the work of ghosts residing in the PF server. Lol.

 

[mikelepore]

Would people here think that I'm saying this right? You cannot prove the nonexistence of undetectable things. If things are detectable, and the region for searching is finite, you may be able to prove that something doesn't exist. For example, are there any elephants in my living room? Certainly not. But if something is undetectable, its nonexistence cannot be proven. Are there are any invisible, inaudible, and otherwise undetectable elephants in the room? As a matter of principle I cannot prove that the answer is no, and not only for all space, but also for the ordinarily-easier problem of a finite space in which to search.

(I think the popular phrase "you can't prove a negative" is incorrect, so I tried to fix it.)

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

 

[CEL]

^^
No references for Unicorns and FSM?
Jokes apart; you just can't substantiate your claim simply by quoting a few websites. Hosting sites and loading them with **** isn't that difficult. Even wikipedia is not a completely trustworthy source.

If you want a trustworthy source, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed that the Cotingley Fairies were real.

 

[sganesh88]

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

How could you say for sure some x is undetectable? Truth always reveals itself to the intent seeker.

 

[CEL]

Would people here think that I'm saying this right? You cannot prove the nonexistence of undetectable things. If things are detectable, and the region for searching is finite, you may be able to prove that something doesn't exist. For example, are there any elephants in my living room? Certainly not. But if something is undetectable, its nonexistence cannot be proven. Are there are any invisible, inaudible, and otherwise undetectable elephants in the room? As a matter of principle I cannot prove that the answer is no, and not only for all space, but also for the ordinarily-easier problem of a finite space in which to search.

(I think the popular phrase "you can't prove a negative" is incorrect, so I tried to fix it.)

In reality, the phrase is "You cannot prove a universal negative."
You can prove that there are no elephants in your living room, but you cannot prove that elephants don't exist.

This is the problem with the ghost question. They're not _always_ visible fluffy white blobs, therefore I think it's necessary to apply my above generalization about all undetectable things.

That is the difference between science and pseudo-science. Science tries to explain detectable phenomena. Pseudo-science tries to detect unexplainable phenomena.

 

[DaveC426913]

How could you say for sure some x is undetectable?

If it's fictional...

 

[StandardsGuy]

If someone reports seeing "something", that's fine. If someone reports seeing "a ghost", then they are responsible for proving that claim.

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

 

[AUMathTutor]

Very few things can actually be proved in this world. I don't think the existence of non-existence of ghosts is one of those things.

 

[DaveC426913]

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

Which is just fine since that same 'anybody' wouldn't want someone to burst their bubble by making a dispassionate judgement on their pet ghost story anyway. "If you don't want it shot at, don't stick it out there." the key element there being 'don't want it shot at'.

Only those hoping for some truth are going to make reports.

 

[sganesh88]

In this hypothetical discussion of a hypothetical report of seeing a ghost, you have made it abundantly clear that you would not believe it. Why then would anybody make such a report knowing they would be severely criticized and told they would have to prove it?

Just because i would be criticized and asked to prove what i claim, i can't and wouldn't refrain from claiming something which i believe wholeheartedly, level-headedly to be true. Think about SR and the non-absolute nature of length and time that it proposed. Ghosts if proved would have a milder effect, i suppose.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That is the difference between science and pseudo-science. Science tries to explain detectable phenomena. Pseudo-science tries to detect unexplainable phenomena.

That is absolutely false.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is in the method, not the subject. One can make a scientific study of something like earthquakes, but one can study the same by using pseudoscience, meaning that the methods for collecting or evaluating evidence are fallacious or unfounded. What's more, one cannot say what is or is not explainable unless one already has proof of existence.

The problem is that many seemingly inexplicable claims are investigated using pseudoscience, so the subjects tend to become asssociated with the methods of evaluating those claims. The claims are also associated with interpretations of personal experiences, rather than the essential [alleged] facts related to a claim.

"Ghosts" are not pseudoscience, however, claimed events that are interpreted to be encounters with ghosts are often investigated by using pseudoscientific methodology. In the most extreme cases where people literally claim a direct encounter with the soul or the "life force" of a dead person - as in "my dead brother Bob sat and talked with me" - we have a claim, not science or pseudoscience; with the caveat that it is really a claim of an encounter with something. Even if the claim were essentially true, we don't know it was Bob.

 

[CEL]

That is absolutely false.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is in the method, not the subject. One can make a scientific study of something like earthquakes, but one can study the same by using pseudoscience, meaning that the methods for collecting or evaluating evidence are fallacious or unfounded. What's more, one cannot say what is or is not explainable unless one already has proof of existence.

The problem is that many seemingly inexplicable claims are investigated using pseudoscience, so the subjects tend to become asssociated with the methods of evaluating those claims. The claims are also associated with interpretations of personal experiences, rather than the essential [alleged] facts related to a claim.

"Ghosts" are not pseudoscience, however, claimed events that are interpreted to be encounters with ghosts are often investigated by using pseudoscientific methodology. In the most extreme cases where people literally claim a direct encounter with the soul or the "life force" of a dead person - as in "my dead brother Bob sat and talked with me" - we have a claim, not science or pseudoscience; with the caveat that it is really a claim of an encounter with something. Even if the claim were essentially true, we don't know it was Bob.

The subject is neither science nor pseudoscience. In this we agree.
Neither ghosts, nor fairies or the flying spaghetti monster are pseudoscience. They are entities that have scant or null evidence of existence.
I have never heard of a reputable scientist investigating those entities. So their study, if existent fall in the domain of pseudoscience.

 

[Anticitizen]

The subject is neither science nor pseudoscience. In this we agree.
Neither ghosts, nor fairies or the flying spaghetti monster are pseudoscience. They are entities that have scant or null evidence of existence.
I have never heard of a reputable scientist investigating those entities. So their study, if existent fall in the domain of pseudoscience.

What do you mean by 'investigating those entities'? If you're talking about investigating their existence, there's the James Randi foundation, which does apply legitimate scientific study to claims of paranormal phenomena.

 

[CEL]

What do you mean by 'investigating those entities'? If you're talking about investigating their existence, there's the James Randi foundation, which does apply legitimate scientific study to claims of paranormal phenomena.

No, the James Randi foundation does not study those phenomena. They offer a million dollar prize to anyone that can demonstrate, under controlled conditions, the existence of such phenomena.

 

[Anticitizen]

Sure, but they put effort into evaluating and debunking the claims, which is a key part of the 'rigors of science'.

 

[LawrenceM]

Unfortunately, it's impossible to prove that ghosts do not exist without providing evidence that demonstrates how their existence is not possible. Lacking that evidence, we can only prove that phenomenon used as evidence of the existence of specific paranormal activity can be reattributed to something natural. In other words, the lack of evidence that proves Ghosts can exist, in general, makes it impossible to prove the contrary.