Are Ghosts Real? (a poll)

[Ryujin]

When I got to hang out with the ghost hunting group at my museum, we went room-to-room where we'd all sit down and someone would ask questions to any spirits that might be listening while using a recording device. Later on, we all listened to these recordings and in the background hisses and static some of them insisted their heard something. That's when I learned about electronic voice phenomenon, where folks interpret noises in recordings as voices from beyond the other dominion. A few of them insisted they heard something whereas I heard nothing but background noise.

EVP is one of many things that "paranormal investigators" will truck out, with absolutely no factual basis to support it. When you get to the point of amplifying background noise to that extent, you're almost certainly going to pick up stray signals from other sources. Radios are just tuned amplifiers. Recording devices have amplifiers. The loudest electronic "noise" that you'll find is terrestrial broadcast signals. I'm guessing that no paranormal investigator has ever built a crystal radio or, if they have, they're conveniently forgetting the principles involved when they "receive" EVP.

EDIT - Then there are the "magnetic field detectors", when there's nothing even anecdotal to suggest that ghosts have an effect on magnetic fields. It's a "They MUST!" sort of assumption.

Another Edit - Regarding the creating of accidental crystal radios, pretty much everyone has heard the story of someone who could receive radio transmissions via their fillings. Lucille Ball helped root out a Japanese spy, during WWII, by hearing a secret radio broadcast via her fillings.

Crazy story with Lucille Ball discovering a Japanese spy communications morse code in her mouth

Crazy story in 1974 interview with Lucille Ball talks about discovering a Japanese spy communications out side of L.A in her case morse code, was can be pick...

www.youtube.com

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation. i.e. It's deliberate and most often done for nefarious purposes. Someone who genuinely remembers something differently is not gaslighting anyone. Memory can be a really funny thing. I remember having conversations with some friends of mine about some funny scenes from UHF. But my memories do not align with reality as I remember these conversations with my friends from Colorado when I was actually living in Texas when it was released in 1989. There's no way I had these conversations two years before the movie was released, but I still remember having them. Odds are good my memories just got mixed up and we were talking about Weird Al songs instead of the movie.

I think it graduates from "remembering differently" to "gaslighting" when someone insists that their memories are correct and other ones are wrong, especially if they don't have a very good basis for doing so, or their basis is merely "agreement" amongst themselves. Chronologically impossible stuff is bit different, but even then sometimes people make errors, or assume something they looked up without reading carefully is factual/accurate.

 

[MGibster]

I think it graduates from "remembering differently" to "gaslighting" when someone insists that their memories are correct and other ones are wrong, especially if they don't have a very good basis for doing so, or their basis is merely "agreement" amongst themselves. Chronologically impossible stuff is bit different, but even then sometimes people make errors, or assume something they looked up without reading carefully is factual/accurate.

The good basis for insisting they're correct is their memory, faulty as it might be. Gaslighting is done deliberately for the purpose of manipulation by behaving in a deceitful, dismissive fashion, so when you say someone is gaslighting another person you're saying they're the bad guy. Disagreement with someone does not a gaslighter make. But I guess this is just a good example of how a term originating in a specific context has been introduced to the wider world and subsequently applied to situations it wasn't designed to be applied to.

 

[Clint_L]

Ghosts aren’t even a testable hypothesis. Folks can and will believe what they want, but no one can even offer a scientifically coherent definition of what a ghost is (the OP certainly does not) so arguing about their existence is as meaningful as arguing about the existence of unicorns and angels.

Not worth the time, in other words.

But my younger sister still swears by a ouji board even though I’ve demonstrated exactly how they work, so…

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Another Edit - Regarding the creating of accidental crystal radios, pretty much everyone has heard the story of someone who could receive radio transmissions via their fillings.

Not fillings, but when I was at school we wedged a jack from an electric guitar amplifier into an old night storage radiator and picked up radio broadcasts.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ghosts aren’t even a testable hypothesis.

This is the thing. Unless you can make a falsifiable prediction you cannot reach any kind of conclusion. Which renders the question meaningless.

Believe whatever you want.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation. i.e. It's deliberate and most often done for nefarious purposes.

You are getting into fine line definitions there. People often remember things differently then influence others. Since they believe what they are saying, the intent is not nefarious, but the effect is the same. Is it not gaslighting if someone doesn't know they are doing it? A very big and complex issue.

 

[Clint_L]

Further, ghosts and aliens are very different concepts.

Aliens/UFOs are testable phenomena in principle, so assuming that the particular claim is framed coherently (rare), then this becomes a burden of proof issue, and Sagan's "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" applies. Sadly, we've come up with zero evidence in support of any claims thus far, but it is imaginable that SETI, for example, could report an amazing discovery tomorrow that would have to be looked at very seriously (and with proper skepticism).

With ghosts, there's no phenomenon to test. The claim that "ghosts are real" isn't even wrong. It's gibberish, scientifically speaking.

 

[Nikosandros]

Further, ghosts and aliens are very different concepts.

Aliens/UFOs are testable phenomenon in principle, so assuming that the particular claim is framed coherently (rare), then this becomes a burden of proof issue, and Sagan's "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" applies. Sadly, we've come up with zero evidence in support of any claims thus far, but it is imaginable that SETI, for example, could report an amazing discovery tomorrow that would have to be looked at very seriousl (and with proper skepticism).

With ghosts, there's no phenomenon to test. The claim that "ghosts are real" isn't even wrong. It's gibberish, scientifically speaking.

Yes, exactly. SETI is a far, far shot, but still, it is conceivable that it might detect something. Ghost hunting? Nope.

 

[ColinChapman]

I am not a believer in anything supernatural. One of my favourite additional points is this:

There are, quite literally, around a dozen or so groups offering massive financial awards (and a dozen or so existed before those too) to anyone who can provide actual evidence of the paranormal. Some go back decades. No one has. There has not been a single shred of evidence.