Ghosts?

[Faramir]

You can prove God exists, and I'm not going into a religious debate, but you can.

[Sween]

Originally posted by Faramir
You can prove God exists, and I'm not going into a religious debate, but you can. And I know I didn't put smilies in that post, but most of it was a joke, so try not to take it to seriosly.

Errrrrrrrmmmmmmm how? But the truth prevails just because something is not there doesnt mean it doesnt exist. We cannot prove anything. I was once told the only thing that is impossiable is impossiablity itself.

[Faramir]

I told you I'm not going into a religious debate Sween.

[mirrille]

I think that if you can have souls or spirits or anything that means the non-corporeal "essence" of a being that doesn't have to be housed in anything we define as physical, then you can have ghosts, cuz that's more or less what they are supposed to be.
I've never met any, or if I have, they never identified themselves to me as such.
Since my religious beliefs are not completely firm and I haven't quite decided what I think about the whole "souls and afterlife" business, I'm a bit undecided about ghosts. But I wouldn't scoff at anyone who claims to have seen one. Just as others have suggested, I've never seen a positron up close. Doesn't mean we can't have them. I've never seen a soul up close either, come to think of it.

[Willow Oran]

Personally, I say that everything exists to an extent if it is believed in by enough people. Following that line of thought you could conclude that because of the extensive use as literary and movie plot devices that ghosts have had they do exist because people have made it so that they do. Furthermore, because ghosts are by definition things of spirit they do not and cannot exist on this plane of reality meaning that we cannot prove or disprove their existence because they are in a state of both existing and not existing at the same time.

[StrawberryIcecream]

The Truth is Out There.

i want to belive in ghosts if only to reassure myself that im not just going to end.

Im really not sure on the subject, but i think i do. The only thing thats stopping me is my scientific mind (not that im good at science or anything, im just scientific in mind).

And Faramir, I would be very interested in how you can prove god exists. PM with it will you? Im not mocking you, i am actually interested.

[Sween]

yeah PM it to me as well

[BeardofPants]

I don't like to write things off completely, but sometimes there are more reasonable explanations than the ones conjectured. I simply don't believe in ghosts and spirits. To do so, for me, involves a belief in two things: an afterlife, and the concept of The Soul. These things, for me, have been pretty much negated. To be perfectly honest, I think ghosts are either a figment of someone's overwrought imagination, OR that something went wrong in the time-space continuum (in the sense that particles can exist in more than one time/space stream at the same time, and that we humans are too big, as organisms, to observe this phenomena), and that the "ghost" is actually the ghosting over of 2 existences. I actually find that a much more plausible explanation (as weird as it sounds) because at least I can back it up with the multi-verse theory (a theory that has it's roots in Quantum Mechanics.) Personally, I'm going with the delusional bit. The brain is a powerful, little understood, tool. Only now are tests being undertaken, to prove how powerful, and delusionary it can be. (See Persinger.)

Last night, I watched a doco on discovery. It was about near death experiences. One particular experiment involved out of body experiences. (I have had one, but I know it to be a powerful delusion, caused by extreme stress.) In this ongoing experiment, a scientist set up a board, which flashed random words at the top of the room. After a year, only a handful of out of body experiences occured. (These people were put into a near-death coma.) And NONE of them - conveniently - were able to reach high enough to read the board. Furthermore, when the body reaches it's utmost peak in stress levels, the very first regions of the brain to be effected are the temporal, and frontal lobes, within which are housed the MEMORY/EMOTION and PERCEPTION areas. These can both contribute to the feelings (or perception) of going through tunnels, or feeling your "soul" leave the body, as well as motivating feelings of euphoria, and jogging the memory section of your brain. This is why many near-death experiences entail bumping into dead relatives. The neurons are firing in that particular part of the brain. The same with an out of body experience. The brain is firing all the memories of that area within which the person is having the out of body experience. What does this suggest? That this is the body's way of dealing with a stressful occurance such as death. To make it a pleasant experience, rather than a painful one. And at such times of great stress to the body, the brain does just that: releases endorphins, and shuts down those particular lobes that I mentioned before.

This is interesting, because I can see how it could be applied to the sightings of the so-called ghosts as well. If the body is undergoing extreme stress (and fear) then perhaps the body is creating a powerful delusion to better able that individual to cope?

[Sween]

Ohh this has got far too complex for my brain to cope with im gonna sit in the corner and drink some beer if thats ok

[BeardofPants]

Which reminds me, alcohol can bring on a pretty similar delusionary state. Emotions such as fear, paranoia, and perception are all greatly magnified and warped. Which then causes stress levels to rise, which can then trigger delusionary episodes.

Regarding seeing the future; I too, have successfully predicted things. Not in a long while though. But you know: a lot of it can be attributed to the sub-conscious picking up on information that the conscious is too dense to perceive. Thus, the two things that I predicted COULD both be accounted for by the sheer fact that I wasn't being observative enough in the first place, but my sub-conscious WAS.

[Sween]

well when i used to see into the futre when i was younger (does my age have something to do with it?) i would just see little thing but i acctually rembred things and knew what would happen next its more than a simple delision i saw it happen and it did.

[BeardofPants]

Perhaps age does have a lot to do with it. It could well be that when we are children (this is when I predicted stuff, btw, I haven't managed it as an adult), that we have problems reconciling the conscious and the subconscious. All this means, is that perhaps as adults, we are more observant, and thus, less likely to be tripped over by the sub-conscious observations within which our conscious failed to pick up on? I don't know. I haven't really looked into this field of study. All I can say is that the precognizant episodes that I had as a kid, could be accounted for. One instance was predicting that some guy had a crush on me. I dreamed this was so, and the very next day, I found out that he did. I don't think that this was me geniunely predicting the future, but rather, my sub-conscious picking up on the indicators (body language, etc) and then impinging it within my dreams, from which point my conscious could better translate the filters.

[afro-elf]

You can prove God exists, and I'm not going into a religious debate, but you can.

Paging Dr. Anduril

told you I'm not going into a religious debate Sween. I won't post here because everyone will make fun of my Catholic statements, but you can PM me.

PM Anduril also.

[Faramir]

Originally posted by Sween
yeah PM it to me as well

Why, so you can mock me?

[BeardofPants]

Faramir:
I told you I'm not going into a religious debate Sween. I won't post here because everyone will make fun of my Catholic statements, but you can PM me.

Sween:
Originally posted by Sween
yeah PM it to me as well.

Faramir:
Why, so you can mock me?

Ah Faramir, a man of contradictions.

[Sween]

Originally posted by Faramir


Why, so you can mock me?

well ill see if you have managed to come up with some hard proof there is a god (apart from myself and possiable BoP she could make angel status) something scollars have been trying to do for years and if you have a good reason for the existance of god i wont mock i promise.

But most likly ur another one of these crazy christain kids then i will allow myself a good chuckle at your expense mawwwhahaha

[Faramir]

Originally posted by BeardofPants






Ah Faramir, a man of contradictions.

I know Sween 'll just insult me. And I'm not a "crazy christian kid", so shut up Sween.

[Khamûl]

Everyone play nice.

In other words, don't flame.

[Tessar]

I know that there is at least one ghost.

The holy spirit/ghost. And I say it every Sunday! (Ok sing it)

The part of the song goes,

"And I believe in the holy ghost,
The somethingorother and giver of life."

So for me to say that I don't believe in ghosts would be a lie

And guys, what Kam said. Chill. In the long run, DOES IT REALLY MATTER?!?!?!

I must admit though that right now I have a "creepy feeling" down my spine. Dono why I guess it's just all this creepy talk. Gah I keep looking around to make sure no one is behind me! Thanks allot guys!

[cassiopeia]

BoP, sometimes it's scary how many times I agree with you (except about the LOTR movie!).

Regarding prediciting the future; I suspect that people also remember the times when they did predict something and forget the times their predictions were wrong.