Wether ghosts are seen as a projection of the psyche, or as real phenomenon, is one debating point; it is more important, I feel, that one should not ignore such apparitions.

Both types of explanations will consider ignoring ghosts, or apprehending them, (for various reasons); so the way to approach this is still similar, regardless of wether one thinks they are real or mere projections of the psyche.

I'll just consider the sceptic view for now. If one is plagued by ghosts (as mere projection of the psyche); one should still consider what one's subconscious is trying to tell one. It seems to me that as projections of the inner self, one's imperitive to address the issue is actually stronger than if one considers them real. Because; they represent unaddressed psychological issues of the self.

Many believers consider ghosts to be no better than beggars on the street corner, to be ignored for what they are.

i do tend to take the skeptic position that with ghosts, there is some explanation most the time... but there are experiences that ive had myself that couldnt of been cause it looked haunted, or was told it was haunted...

i would have to tell my stories some other time... im in a hurry and still have other subscribed threads i wanna look at... but its my philosophy that most of the ghost stuff is psychological thrill... the place looks haunted so it feels haunted... and i believe in some cases there is magnetism that makes you tingly and seem like theres a presence...

ouji boards are a whole nother topic for another time...

but one theory i tend to stick with, is that all beings radiate an amount of energy... and i think if anything at all... its most likely that a person doesnt see a soul of a deceased person... i dont think ghosts are a sort of glitch in time or something as ive heard before too.... its more like... i think if something VERY bad happens or even VERY good... then alot of energy could escape the people and resonate in that place... but this theory is very flawed and not at the top of my list of things to study and think about... but its fun to contemplate lightly sometimes...

Yea so, it's 3:00am and I'm bored (back injuries = can't sleep).

I see this thread's died down, but when it Sara first brought it up, it recalled to mind a very-recent experience I can't explain. My orientation towards ghosts, spectres and the supernatural is that it's all a creation of the human mind. That being said, I'd like to share this (for no particular reason than y'all's edification and/or entertainment)[INDENT] My wife and I live alone in a rural house (about 110 years old) with two cats. We keep them out of our room, purposefully - who wants to sleep in cat hair? Anyway, about two weeks ago I awoke to a sound; a loud crash in the room of something falling. I got up and went across the room to my dresser. Sure enough, my valet (small wooden box, about 12" x 4" with a drawer full of jewelry, old photos, etc with a wallet holder on the top) had fallen down. It didn't just fall, from its resting place on the back of the dresser (against the wall) it had apparently somehow came across the front of the dresser and fell, landing almost 4-5 feet away.
[/INDENT][INDENT] I thought it was the cats... damn them. It wasn't, there wasn't any cats in the room. My wife confirmed they were vamping about downstairs. The door was shut, no tremor or earthquake had happened and both of us were awaken in our bed to the sound (thus, not a product of sleep walking). In short, there's no explanation; something physical had happened that I couldn't explain - despite any B.S. I could come up with (and I'm very good at that).
[/INDENT]Now, as I said, I'm very much the materialist. I believe the soul is in our brains, time can't be traveled and 'vampire' is just a word. But even with all this arrogant grounded-ness, I felt my mind penetrated with the thought: What if?!~

I still haven't figured out how that thing flew off like it did. So, taking a concept-clue from my dad, I put it on my mind's "Faith Shelf" - a place where things that can't be explained or understood fully sit, gathering dust in the back of my head, hoping for an explanation one day.

When the mind is confronted with things like this, and no rational explanation can be found. I believe our consciousness desperately searches for a resolution. And if a rational one can't be found, it'll - without input from the conscious - find one on it's own.

Comments are welcome. Thanks

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Hallucinations.


No.


No.


They are not because of the same reason.


Because Hollywood says so.


Sometimes people see what they want to see. Like Jesus in a cup cake.

My own experiences are pretty limited and nothing so major that I couldn't rule out something perfectly ordinary, so I won't share them. I *do* however have a few thoughts on the subject...


Because my own empirical experience is so limited, I dont' subscribe to one theory, but there are some that seem more plausible to me than others. *IF* there are unexplained sensory inputs (which there often are) *AND* all other "ordinary" explanations have been pursued and ruled out, then I would entertain the following (generalized) ideas:

-Many "ghosts" do the same thing everytime and do not interract with humans. For these, I would suggest that maybe it is possible for events to be "recorded" in time somehow and that because other scientific events that we don't yet understand come together just right, repeatedly, we see something we normally could not.
- This theory would suggest (because many of these recurrent ghosts do very mundane things) that many, if not all, "events" are recorded this way...the other elements just don't come together.

-"Prognosticative" ghosts (that is, the ones that show up just as Aunt Maud is dying, etc) could be a part of our psyche that we are not aware of yet. Given how little we know about how the brain works (hell, we can't even explain consciousness yet!), it seems at least worth considering that perhaps we are able to have a fairly tangible connection to other people and that if all the stars align right Aunt Maud may be able to say bye, sort of. There is a much more devloped theory out there involving this thought process that delves into quantum physics and other things that are way out of my league.

-"ghosts" that move things and interractive "ghosts" that we don't know personally...? No idea.

-I do not personally believe that anything paranormal happens. That is, it is not that I do not believe that weird stuff doesn't happen - I contend that it does and more often than we notice - just that there is a perfectly scientific explanation for it, whether we as a race are advanced enough to detect the reason or not.

Any experiences to share?
Some stuff moving across tables to fall to the floor, odd sounds, but nothing I couldn't at least calm myself by finding a simple explanation for.

Are there such things as real ghosts?
Here we get into a definitional question...what exactly is a real ghost? Are we talking in the classic "dead person haunting sense"? If so, then as you said, it depends on whether there is something outside of "us" that could survive. I'm prone to saying no because while there are "categories" of ghosts, there does not seem to be any consistency between them. That is, some "ghosts" move things, some just stare out windows and then vanish. It'd be nice to see an apparition move something material, but we don't have many (none that I'm aware of) accounts of this that are at all credible.

Now it could be that one "type" of ghost is "real" while the others just happen to mimic or otherwise resemble "real ghosts", in the same way that a cat and a dog are the same animal because they both have fur and walk on four legs (if that makes any sense).

What are they/why are they?
I think I've answered my thoughts on this one above already.

and why is it little girls are the spookiest ones?
Hee hee...ah, a psychology question. I theorize that it's because little girls are supposed to be, by societal standards, the sweetest, kindest and most innocent of human creatures. For something thought of as innocent and harmless to turn out to be harmful or potentially so throws off our sense of determining what it is we should be concerned about. We as humans make judgements about each other all day long and within those judgements is a determination of whether other people are dangerous to us.

It's the same reason clowns are scary. We're supposed ot be able to trust them.

my 2cp

Well put. The mind is infinite in that it contains IMO all we have ever experienced, and why we must not attempt to delve into it's past. It is like a genie in a bottle in that it can grant your wishes so be careful for what you wish for or to be more blunt what you put "it" through. It can create the most unbelieveable joy or your worst nightmare. Be careful how you use it and what you require of it.
William

Ghost are arcane to be acquainted with,no precise picture had ever taken valiantly of them,no ghost would ever exist and hurt humanity,albeit there are ghost stories and movies.

We have this bridge nearby where I live, and people are always commiting suicide off of it. One person who was talked out of it said that he just had an incredible urge to do it, like some force was coaxing him. Its like the mental residue of some people had been imprinted on the area, and then reinforced by others.

As I greatly admire the thinking of Descartes, I take the strong distinction between mind and body for what it is: evidence that the mind is not just an aspect of the body.

Our brains stop producing new brain cells at the age of sixteen, and yet, our thoughts get more sophisticated with age. Therefore the brain is not the mind. They are quite altogether different things. The nature of mind is far more mysterious than a mere mechanism. That it survives the body, I only doubt, from time to time, for the sake of Cartesian formality.

And yes, it probably is possible to be able to pinpoint this scientifically. My cat died a few weeks ago, and that night, before I went to sleep, I thought to myself that I might dream of her. And in my minds eye, I suddenly saw an apparition of her. It was just too vivid and unexpected to be mere imagination. It was not at all the same of just thinking about her.

It was like I could see her.
Purring.

Thanks for sharing.

You know, I've heard so many people relate similar stories about having seen pets, loved ones, even complete strangers just before some major catastrophe happens. Coincidence or perception of something beyond the coporeal?

As I stand now, I'll stand tall and pronounce all such things a product of coincidence or some trick of the mind's perception. But it's so profuse, so plausible given the lack of understanding we have of how the mind functions in subtle ways that I can't deny the distinct possibility. If this be the case, I only wish that someone would get off their butt and get to quantifying this phenomena.

Side Note: OMG I'm so glad this board has the spell-check feature.

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Not all phenomenon are quantifiable.
If the universe had no mystical element,
then
we would understand everything as a consequence immediately.

...Except that this assumes we see all consequences and that all consequences happen immediately...both of which are falls premises.

Actually, I find quite a bit wrong with your set up there, but to attack the underlying assumptions sounds like an all right place to start.

But then, I'm of the opinion that while not everything is at present quantifiable that that does not mean it is not *in some way which we haven't yet found* quantifiable.

Well,
igonarance is not quantifiable. How is it that a simple device like a hot air balloon was only discovered about 200 years ago?

If our minds had perfect logic, we would instantly arrive at all conclusions.

If everything were quantifiable, then why is it that we cannot at present quantify it?

The only answer is that our minds are not perfectly logical,
but if they are not perfectly logical, then some aspect of them is not quantifiable.

:nonooo: