At what age did you stop believing in ghosts?

[Derek]

I experienced some remarkable 'poltergeist' activity in an old cottage in Anglesey a few years ago. Objects moving of their own accord, obscure muttered voices in the depths of the night etc.

Strangely enough, it affected my worldview hardly at all. Like Ligotti I see it as merely 'another worldly event', unexplained certainly, but not evidence of anything transcendental. The thing that strikes me most about ghosts is the apparent mindless quality to their behaviour, retarded almost, like a fading echo of a life. Pretty poor evidence for a survival of personality after death.

If you really have returned as a discarnate spirit why bother with clothes? Those prudish spectres seldom appear in the nude!

[Robin Davies]

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash

There is a misconception on your side. There are basically two ways to store information (to memorize it, if you want). The old way, CDs, tapes, or a new modern variant, USBs. The theory is on the internet for you to read it. Data is stored as a whole. The second way is neural networks, where information is stored within neurons. Even if you grab a link between two neurons, it cannot tell you the whole information, which is distributed among all of them. Neurons die, but information still is kept by the other ones, none of them has all the data but fragments that integrated through certain algorithms make a whole. You will find that memories are not stored in a certain area but "distributed" in the brain. If we add that according to certain experiments vibration also is part of how neurons may store memory, then it looks impossible to reproduce a whole network of neurons, to duplicate it. How? Not only one has to duplicate electromagnetic impulses, but also mechanical, and chemical processes. How could we duplicate such complex process? Finally, if you think about how we memorize songs, how scientists see this, there is always sampling involved, and how this sampling process came to be by natural selection is not easy to understand. The only way to store songs seems to be to sample what we hear and store each sample individually by the same process that we memorize pictures. Too complex for an accidental process that appears by blind evolution.

Thanks for the extra info. Your statement makes more sense now!
I must admit I don't know enough about neuroscience to argue one way or the other. However, I'm suspicious about things which are said to be "too complex for an accidental process that appears by blind evolution". This is what Richard Dawkins calls the "argument from personal incredulity". Many hugely complex things have come about by evolution and the evidence is in the fossil record and our genes. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that some crude form of memory should have evolved in primitive animals and developed into much more complex systems given the advantage conferred to the animal.

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Other people believe that certain cells distributed in our entire body keep memories, of course no proof of it.

Memories can be affected by damage to the brain but not (as far as I know) by damage to other parts of the body.

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By the way, the problem is not that neurons die (since the rest can keep the information more or less intact), but that neurons change and still keep the same information among them. How do they do that? How do they keep values when their internal composition varies with time?

Aren't dead cells of other kinds (skin, blood etc) replaced by new ones of similar type? Perhaps a neuron passes a message on to its neighbour just before it dies.

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Regarding what Mr. D asks, Robin, we don't even know how gravitational energy is stored. Does anyone know where it is stored? In a field, yes? where is it?

But we can all measure and feel gravity. We can predict how it acts. This doesn't apply to the hypothetical "energy" of ghosts.

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The same concept of energy is beyond human comprehension. Many people, honest, decent, educated, intelligent citizens, have reported having seen ghosts, in certain houses. Do we reject the idea because no proof was found (yet?), or since we spent 12 billion chasing a hypothetical Higgs boson that seems not to exist, we can afford 1/100 of the same amount to investigate these strange phenomena? By the way, no extra dimension, no black holes, no dark matter, no new stuff. Do we keep believing on theses things although no proof was found? Isn't that a religion? Science requires proof. Ultimate proof is always impossible but if you accept as I now do that consciousness is a property of being, like dimension, or time, the Universe as a whole makes more sense. I may be wrong but my "belief" doesn't amount to 12 billion in taxes to find nothing.

The science of the LHC is built on a huge body of knowledge that has provided us with a good working model of the world. It explains and predicts many things. Where is the study of ghosts? In the same place it was 100 years ago. All we have are witness accounts and dubious recordings. Witness reports can be interesting but before we accept something as radical as an afterlife or some unknown means of recording past events we need much stronger evidence. You imply that scientists should be studying ghosts but those that have (like Richard Wiseman) find rational explanations for them that require no afterlife or mysterious "energies". For their pains these scientists are dismissed as arrogant and ignored by those who would prefer to believe a more aesthetically pleasing explanation (though I have some sympathy for their position - it was always a disappointment when the ghost in Scooby Doo turned out to the the caretaker! Still, in real life the truth has value even if we don't like it). Believers also dismiss scientific investigations on the grounds that ghosts are affected by sceptical "vibratations" or are not amenable to standard scientific tests. If this is the case why should scientists bother investigating?

I know I shouldn't get into these arguments because they never achieve anything, but for the sake of balance I feel obliged to weigh in occasionally because I get so bored of seeing the same old straw man labelled "materialism" being set up for another ritual pummelling.

[qcrisp]

Whether or not scientists should study ghosts is an interesting question, for many reasons. I suppose I don't see why they should. If ghosts are ghosts in the way they are depicted, for instance, in an M.R. James story, then there would be no point in studying because their existence would imply that there are parts of the universe (perhaps even its greater part) that are not susceptible to human investigation (though that doesn't necessarily exclude them from human experience). So, for aesthetic reasons, I feel like ghosts should be allowed to haunt the shadows undisturbed.

The question of life after death is slightly different, as there is the area of near death experience in this case. This is another of those things where no one seems able to agree (or rather, there are two broads groups each of which cannot persuade the other, or, decisively, any swing-voters). I don't have any firsthand experience, or even secondhand (only thirdhand reports), but I would be interested in having such experience just in order to see the process by which the information, if reported, is then examined and classified and how that examination and classification tallies or not with my actual experience.

On the one hand the argument against can always be that the person didn't really die, and the experience was an hallucination that took place in the dying brain. If evidence is presented of the person being aware of things that they shouldn't have been aware of, this can always be automatically dismissed under the usual headings of 'coincidence', 'anecdote', 'unreliable report' and so on.

On the other, well, there stands what appears to be a huge body of evidence that people have the same or similar experiences, even when they have not heard of such an experience, which at least (given the fact that this is such an essential question for humans) suggests a possibility that you'd think scientists are interested in.

Are they, in fact, interested? I don't know. I've never read anything to suggest that they are. What I have read is, "Just the hallucination of a dying brain" etc. trotted out automatically as if there is no interest in the question at all. I could be completely wrong, because I haven't been following closely, but this is all that I've observed.

To be honest, I'm not sure I want to know. But the question is at least something that interests me. I mean, that's an understatement. Presumably it would make a huge difference to human beings to live without the crushing uncertainty they have endured for millenia. I suppose I'm assuming that any discovery would be the discovery that there is life after death, simply because I don't know how you could discover that there isn't. If there isn't, then you surely can't 'go there' to find out and report back.

Then again, if we assume an afterlife, can science be relevant to it? It is conceivable that scientific investigation simply doesn't mean anything in this case, and, if scientists are not interested in the question of life after death (as I said, I don't know) then perhaps this is because they have already conceived such a thing and don't want to go anywhere where rational theories melt away like butter and their systems evaporate.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp

Whether or not scientists should study ghosts is an interesting question, for many reasons. I suppose I don't see why they should.

Allow to change a word of what you just wrote.

Whether or not scientists should study "gravitons" is an interesting question, for many reasons. I suppose I don't see why they should.

Newton believed that gravity was a force. But how could a force explain the precession of Mercury's orbit . After decades of experiments we know that gravity is not a force but a property of the fabric of the space-time, whatever this fabric may be, or may be composed of. Then, why are scientists looking for a particle called graviton? Does it have any logic? Furthermore, do gravitons explain Mercury's orbit? No. Then? I don't understand why they would be after gravitons when we know that they don't exist.



Scientists have already stated that consciousness is an emergent property of a system of neurons. Then, why should they bother investigating something that they already believe is wrong, the idea that consciousness is something independent of the brain? Knowing that, any report of afterlife phenomenon is called either false, or hallucination, or lie, since we cannot frame it within our own understanding of how consciousness operate. However, going this way, presuming that modern neuroscience is right, did we get better understanding of who we are, do we explain why I am who I am and Quentin S. Crisp is who he is. No.

There is no evidence, certainly. Only anecdotes told by illiterate people to another illiterate people. An experiment in Princeton done in two hours concluded that there is no telepathy. Or isn't it better to say that in those two hours no telepathy effect was found, but before or after we don't know? Dark matter seems to play a role on the far edge of galaxies, and maybe in one or two more distant phenomena that can barely be studied by a few. Although, in those same two hours in Princeton, they also didn't find any evidence of dark matter, the experimenters did not conclude that dark matter does not exist. Scientists believe in dark matter, ergo it exists (for now). They don't believe in ghosts, since they don't accept consciousness as something that exists independent of brain activity, ergo ghosts don't exist, they don't even bother to study the phenomena. Perhaps very few experiments would verify its existence, and we didn't find them yet. Same as dark matter. What's the difference then?

As you said, it is a matter of belief. After the failure of the Higgs boson, I'm more open minded to new exotic and cheaper theories.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

This is what Richard Dawkins calls the "argument from personal incredulity". Many hugely complex things have come about by evolution and the evidence is in the fossil record and our genes. I

It looks like the only way neurons may store dynamic memories, like songs, is by sampling, and storing each sample similarly to what we do with CDs. That complex process, mathematical process, cannot have appeared by blind evolution. Many great minds have studied this process of sampling and nature already knew it by a chain of accidents? Dawkins doesn't want me to believe that, right? It's more acceptable to find another method by which neurons may memorize songs. How? We don't know after many decades investigating it.

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

Aren't dead cells of other kinds (skin, blood etc) replaced by new ones of similar type? Perhaps a neuron passes a message on to its neighbour just before it dies.

Yes, they are. According to modern science, when a neuron dies, the other neurons still keep more or less the same information and are able to reproduce more or less the same information, when more neurons die, it becomes impossible to get anything coherent from unlinked neurons, and we have what we call Alzheimer. When a neuron doesn't die but changes along with time, it still maintains something unique that allows the same memories to be stored in our brain. If this something is an electromagnetic or just electric impulse, how do neurons keep the same value over time when their internal structures change (not die)? I get the big picture though but I'm asking for proof.

What I'm saying is that another way to see this is by saying that consciousness exists independently of us, and neural systems just interact with it, and by interacting with it, we become what we are. Memories may be stored in the fabric of space-time, funny as it sounds, and we just download them through neurons, then neurons do not store memories but just download or upload memories from space-time, or whatever it is. Could it be? The only way to prove or refute something is by reproducing it in lab. When we can store a song by neural networks then this discussion would be over.

[qcrisp]

Hello Russell.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a scientist... That was going to lead to something, but my mind's gone blank. Anyway, basically, I was simply stating an aesthetic preference on the question of ghosts. I also suspect that there are some things that can't be studied. If ghosts can be studied that actually makes them less interesting to me.

But I'm not sure if you're saying they can and should be studied or not.

I might not have commented on this thread, but I think I did so partially because I recently read the opening of Stephen Hawking's new book. On the first page he states "philosophy is dead". This lays the ground for him to say how science is our new master, etc. etc. Now, I actually think that there's something a bit worrying about such a revered and world-famous scientist declaring that philosophy is dead. To me, the barely veiled implication, the subliminal command, if you like, is "Don't think for yourself. Wait for scientists to tell you what to think." Needless to say, this is not something I agree with.

The question I find difficult, however, is, do I want scientists to study philosophy, or do I want them to keep their monopolising reductionist hands off?

[Robin Davies]

Russell, I don't know enough science to answer all the questions you've thrown out but I suspect you don't either. A quick Google will reveal some answers to your graviton question for example.

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash

There is no evidence, certainly. Only anecdotes told by illiterate people to another illiterate people. An experiment in Princeton done in two hours concluded that there is no telepathy. Or isn't it better to say that in those two hours no telepathy effect was found, but before or after we don't know? No firm reproducible evidence of telepathy has ever been produced as far as I know. Until it does there's no point in believing in it. Dark matter seems to play a role on the far edge of galaxies, and maybe in one or two more distant phenomena that can barely be studied by a few. Although, in those same two hours in Princeton, they also didn't find any evidence of dark matter, the experimenters did not conclude that dark matter does not exist. Scientists believe in dark matter, ergo it exists (for now).

Many scientists are not happy with the idea of dark matter but it's the best explanation for certain phenomena that we have at the moment. Last I heard the LHC is casting doubt on the whole idea of supersymmetry. If that is confirmed by further results then scientists will have to change their minds. That's what science is all about. The pro-paranormal lobby don't do that. They reject sceptical explanations, or if they are forced to accept them they point to another case and say "explain this one then". Your description of "illiterate" investigators is a bit harsh. Just because we don't understand everything doesn't mean that we can't understand many things.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

If that is confirmed by further results then scientists will have to change their minds. That's what science is all about. The pro-paranormal lobby don't do that. They reject sceptical explanations, or if they are forced to accept them they point to another case and say "explain this one then".

The only true fact about Science is that tomorrow we will know more. If a hypothesis is wrong, scientists change it for another one. The problem is that in the 20th century science has adopted hypotheses as if they were proven facts. In the last 80 years no one has seen dark matter, however we persist in saying that it exists. We will find it tomorrow, but all the experiments prove it doesn't exist. Certain experiments give results that not many agree with. Those results could be simply random deviations. So, for now, no dark matter. Similarly with ghosts. With the only difference that our in age of reason we think that whatever we are, we are created by brain activity, and cannot exist without it. This is taken for granted but no proof is given. Science says that eventually we will find proof. But who knows...? The other option is that we are NOT generated by brain tissue, neurons, etc, and this neural network by interacting with consciousness, becomes conscious. Of course, there is no proof, but so many other scientific concepts have no proof as you just mentioned. The Universe may be immersed in consciousness and we, with our brains, by interacting with it at quantum level (somehow) become aware of who we are. When we die, this connection is broken, but the self still exists, maybe in a dreaming state but still exists. When someone interacts with this consciousness (of someone dead) is when we perceive a ghost. Sounds impossible, but why don't we keep this hypothesis until we prove it to be wrong, if we ever do? I think scientific community rejects the idea because they truly believe brain generates consciousness. That memory is stored in neurons (somehow). I think that they may be right, but there is still no proof. The proof may show up soon, or never. What I also think is that if we could prove that consciousness exists independently of the brain, then so many other things would be also different. I don't believe in so many charlatans that affirm this or that: Sai Baba, Blavatsky, etc. No offense but they don't sound logical. The phenomena, however, may exist. You know the famous case of Canadian singer Pam Reynolds who had conscious experinece with virtually no blood in her veins or brain activity. Although, there is no agreement, and scientists tend to deny Reynolds' version of the events, she may be right after all. She even heard noises with her ears plugged. She was what we would call a ghost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds_%28singer%29

[Karnos]

You need to consider that the days of private scientific research, with the scientist locked in his lab and working with makeshift machinery in whatever mystery he was interested in at the time, are long gone. Scientific research these days is boosted, many times, by government funding who, in all sincerity, are only looking for a new gizmo or even worse, in the case of DARPA, for a new weapon.


A good example of scientific research done in “unorthodox” areas of inquiry is the CIA’s Stargate program into psychic activity. The head honchos were really interested in the potential applications of psychic activity in Cold War era warfare, and millions were invested in state of the art facilities and research that in the end, returned nothing. The only people who keep japing about it are the same ones who believe in the Philadelphia experiment and the alien anal rape that goes on in Montauk.

I understand that people question the validity of expensive experiments like the LHC, but we must remember that much of the technology we take for granted these days has its precedent in experiments that at the time were the equivalent of the LHC. Science might take long to develop a gizmo and be materialistic and whatnot, but, to use a crude form of speech, “it gets #### done”.


There’s plenty of weird stuff to go around for millennia, but if scientists these days dismiss ghosts sightings as hallucinations (collective or otherwise) or the physical effects of a particular place’s physical properties (it’s proximity to areas of high electromagnetic activity, etc) it’s because they have found these simpler, more logical models, to explain what’s going on over the romantic, sometimes hysteric, explanations from before.

Unless some government agency, -or some wealthy private investor-, is interested in the potential use of ghostly activity, no scientist worth his degree will risk ridicule researching on that. These guys need to pay bills too, and like almost every other profession, they won't risk being marginized (is that even a verb?) of their source of income.
That said, I am very interested in “fringe” research.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by Karnos

That said, I am very interested in “fringe” research.

One of the most famous "fringe" researches is here Global Consciousness Project -- consciousness, group consciousness, mind
What they try to do is to find deviation in random data. As I understood it, computers all over the world are continuously running random numbers, that in average, taking all of them into account, should be more or less zero. They found that when something happens, like Egyptian revolt, these random numbers give an average value other than zero. True or False? Would it be a good example of mind interacting with matter in an unorthodox way?