Private Speech posted:

_{I don't even know how that meme came about.}

Scientastic posted:

This is a bad example, because the existence of thunder fits with everything else we know about science. The existence of ghosts would mean vast swathes of physics and biology were not only wrong, but so wrong as to mean our models for how everything else works were wrong too.

Mega Comrade posted:

You have a creaky house dude. I've got one too. Knocking sounds when the heating comes on in the morning, it's the wood expanding.
My sister was adamant we had a ghost at my old nans house! Until my dad fixed a tiny hole in the roof that the wind was coming into, then the ghost left by pure coincidence.

Aphex- posted:

People want to make themselves more interesting than they are so they say they've seen a ghost.

kemikalkadet posted:

(Cool story snipped)
I didn't, and still don't, believe in ghosts but that was the most hosed up terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. I don't really have any idea what a rational explanation for it would be.

Kin posted:

You'll never hear of a "ghost" of some loving viking or French soldier or whoever the gently caress from less popular or unknown points in history because people are ignorant of that information and don't subsequently personify the odd mix of physics they've just seen to those things.

OwlFancier posted:

If you have the concept of ghosts in your head, your mind then has "ghost" as an explanation available to it to explain physical events in the world, or experiences which are in your head, and our minds are very good at coming up with frequently untrue but compelling explanations for things we experience based on our pre-existing conceptions of the world, whether we actively subscribe to them or not.

Given that the mind is even capable of generating things entirely based off of pre-existing concepts available to it, I think the idea of ghosts is the reason people see them, not the other way around.

fuctifino posted:

keep punching joe posted:

That ghost looks like he's going taps aff.

smellmycheese posted:

quote:

LABOUR WILL STOP THE HAUNTINGS

Puntification posted:

Turns out the building back better they planned to do was making immigrant concentration camps.

Camrath posted:

For me, when a set of phenomena occurs which matches a pre-existing model and there appears to be no way to explain what happened outside of said model, then denying its existence due to not matching your worldview is a short sighted approach. Yes, the mechanisms of hauntings are not understood scientifically- my entire point is that they will eventually be.

Camrath posted:

This is a valid point to a degree- you interpret what you see/experience through the model that your mind operates under. So for example let’s take the same occurrence and look at it in different ways- we’ll use Kemikalkadet’s story for ease of reference.

From what’s described in their text it sounds like an absolutely standard auditory haunting to me; were I investigating or present there at the time I’d attempt to eliminate the presence of other people, check the surrounding area for things that might make noises as described, observe at different times to see if the noises (in particular the voices) were noise pollution from elsewhere etc and then once those were eliminated class it as above- an auditory haunting apparition. Effectively a naturally occurring recording. That’s the model I operate under. Someone else might decide it’s the walking spirits or souls of the dead. Someone else might decide it’s God. Or Angels. Or Satan. Or a fold in the space time continuum/a time slip. Or carbon monoxide induced hallucinations.

Basically what you have is a reported unexplainable experience and assuming good faith on the part of the reporter then one needs to eliminate other possible explanations before deciding ‘yes, this is real’. By their own report they could not find any plausible cause for what they experienced, which also terrified them. But because they are operating under the model that ‘ghosts cannot exist’ then they refuse to accept that as an option- but then are left without any possible way to explain what they objectively experienced.

For me, when a set of phenomena occurs which matches a pre-existing model and there appears to be no way to explain what happened outside of said model, then denying its existence due to not matching your worldview is a short sighted approach. Yes, the mechanisms of hauntings are not understood scientifically- my entire point is that they will eventually be. When an effect is observed then there is a cause to it whether we understand it or not. Just as someone from before the development of atomic theory would be mystified as to why a piece of uranium was warm to the touch, or ancient people declared that thunder was Thor’s anvil, or gods shouting at each other or whatever- they may have been ignorant or incorrect but that doesn’t remove the reality of the observed phenomena or the presence of a cause for it.

Isomermaid posted:

They are very well understood, though. We know that human cognition is very good at some tasks and terrible at others, to the point that we developed a bunch of standards and equipment to do repeatable, controlled measurement for us at levels beyond our capabilities to observe and analyze and we have not been able to find evidence for those phenomena.

This isn't pejorative, but trusting the one set of observations we know to be faulty over all the others is just not sensible if we are looking for answers. "why can't all these good calibrated microscopes see what my hosed camera clearly shows" isn't useful enquiry to anybody. "Why and how does the brain do what it does under so many conditions" now that is somewhere where we have a bunch of uncharted land to cover.

And I know it sounds a bit science brain so let me finish by saying that I know, we are way more than just biological machines for capturing data. The fact that we're so fallible isn't a bad thing it's what make us what we are and it's beautiful. The fact that we care about loss, that millions of people across cultures have found ways of talking about what we're honestly experiencing and relating it back to people we've loved, people other people should've loved, means something. Acknowledging our imperfections is a great way to start being kinder to each other and working to mutual benefit.

Camrath posted:

Come to think of it there’s probably a good horror story to be written about some mad parapsychologist attempting to create ghosts under lab conditions.

Camrath posted:

there’s no holistic work that has produced solid disproof for all reported types of phenomena.

OwlFancier posted:

I assume it's some sort of weird herd behaviour such as what makes birds take off in giant flocks at the slightest provocation.

kemikalkadet posted:

When I was around 17 we used to go to a huge abandoned building on the edge of town to smoke weed.

kemikalkadet posted:

Our first thought was that police were raiding the place and we were both bricking it.

Guavanaut posted:

What's interesting to me is what happens when this goes badly wrong. Because that can easily cause badness well beyond the paranormal.

Like with

then being hypervigilant about

is an understandable fear. Not a fear that people should have to have just for smoking some weed, but one that could easily in the current environment lead to spectral police.

Historically it has gone in far worse directions, like when everyone assumed that Jews were just 'up to something', or the time in much of Europe when the judiciary seemed to take leave of their senses for a century and start believing in witchcraft (while apparently many were privately skeptical in their own notes). Or the time shortly afterwards when the judges stopped and the public stepped in to replace it with mob violence. That's like a centuries long murmuration on a similar theme that escalated beyond individual reason rapidly.

Or on that note like lynchings in the American South or Barrow-in-Furness inventing an entire grooming gang to smash up some Asians.

That's not the fault of any given individual seeing any given legless sausage dogs (those things are common enough that there's a movement to end schizophrenia as a diagnosis because it's stigmatizing and not useful, people pattern match stuff all the time), but it is a human herd phenomenon that apparently sometimes just can't stop itself from becoming terrible.

Failed Imagineer posted:

Having a bookshelf of books about ghosts probably predisposes you to being credulous about spooky things. Though obviously it works in both directions

OwlFancier posted:

Perhaps ghosts are simply attracted to books about ghosts.

Pablo Bluth posted:

As a child I once read a book about 'real cases of ghosts' in a Scottish B&B and it hosed up my sleep for weeks.

Failed Imagineer posted:

A ghost bookshelf would still be much less spooky than someone owning a single copy of One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up: A Memoir of Growing Up and Getting On by Wes Streeting

keep punching joe posted:

Rational me: Ghosts aren't real

Also me: Oh a 60 minute youtube compilation with spooky encounters during urban exploration sure I'll click that.

The Wicked ZOGA posted:

I will gently caress a ghost

The Wicked ZOGA posted:

I will gently caress a ghost