Are Ghosts Real? (a poll)

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

It wasn't "designed" at all - this isn't a scientific term.

And I think the line is far, far blurrier than you actually admit here.

The reality is, especially for some people, especially from certain older generations, memory can become a competition, not a collaboration. Either their memory is right, or its wrong and they are somehow shamed/dishonoured (and self-concerns about their own potential infirmity factor in too, even when it's something that could happen to anyone with even a couple of decades of memories). So people can be far more insistent and pushy about their memories being "correct" than is actually merited by the memories (and indeed, can be demonstrably wrong, usually due to fixed points in time as discussed earlier), for emotional reasons rather than what I would call "real" certainty. And is that strays pretty quickly into the territory of gaslighting, and often in fact presents in exactly the way you describe - as manipulative and dismissive. Complicating matters further is that some people want to shut down (accurate) memories of bad behaviour for various reasons.

Deceitfulness is something harder to track and rarely possible to be truly certain of outside of the fiction or very unusual admissions.

 

[Autumnal]

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.

Lots of other things are in this condition, too. If you’ve been in love more than once, the experiences probably had some very distinct differences in feeling, but is not feasible (at this point, at least) to render them into anything testable and confirmable. Qualia are really annoying that way. I don’t think that’s at all strong a priori argument against. Also, if they exist, it seems to me most likely that there are lots of different kinds of ghosts - “ghost” could be as broad a category as “chordates” or “mammals”. So claims that don’t all line up don’t suggest falsity to me, either.

I’m in the possibly odd position of being far more doubtful about souls than against things we call ghosts. I’m really skeptical about EVP for that reason, plus the inference from claimed messages that we get really boring and stupid after we die.

 

[Ryujin]

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.

No. Gaslighting is explicitly a conscious act to manipulate.

 

[Parmandur]

No. Gaslighting is explicitly a conscious act to manipulate.

Why would you say something like that, any casual observer would say clearly that's not the case.

 

[TiQuinn]

No. Gaslighting is explicitly a conscious act to manipulate.

This. It’s an irksome word because I’ve seen it used frequently to dismiss and villainize people who just disagree.

 

[wicked cool]

So majority of the polling so far says no ghosts .

Are we also saying those who communicate with the dead (mediums)are all frauds? Technically a spirit is a ghost. It’s basically fraud so shouldn’t they be sued?

 

[Umbran]

Are we also saying those who communicate with the dead (mediums)are all frauds? Technically a spirit is a ghost. It’s basically fraud so shouldn’t they be sued?

There's a whole lot of "for entertainment only" language in the background...

 

[MGibster]

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.

It's really not a very big, complex issue. What's the difference between a lie and incorrect information? Intent. A lie is told with the intent to deceive. If you ask me for directions to the nearest gas station and I tell you take a left on Broadway when in reality you should have taken a right, did I lie? Maybe. I could be a jerk who thinks giving you wrong directions is funny. Or perhaps when I told you left I meant to say right and my faulty directions was simply an honest mistake. Whether I lied or was mistaken, the results were the same, you were sent in the wrong direction to find the gas station. Do you understand why it's not necessarily appropriate to call someone a liar because the information given to you was incorrect?

Gaslighting is similar. A simple disagreement, even if one party insists they are correct and the other wrong, is not gaslighting. If you want to say someone is gaslighting then make sure you mean it because you're saying they're deliberately deceitful and manipulative. Which is why I'm not going to say anyone here is gaslighting me on what gaslighting is.

I'm going to go ahead and drop this hijack. Feel free to keep using gaslighting how you see fit and I will just accept that I can't be sure if you're talking about a simple disagreement or an actual attempt at gaslighting.

 

[MGibster]

Are we also saying those who communicate with the dead (mediums)are all frauds? Technically a spirit is a ghost. It’s basically fraud so shouldn’t they be sued?

As @Umbran writes, most of them use weasel language like "this is for entertainment purposes only" in small print. I find people like John Edward and Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium, to be odious, morally bankrupt individuals who exploit the grief of others for their own personal profit.

 

[Piperken]

Spooky stories (that could involve ghosts) also serve that cultural purpose in keeping community members who dwell in more rural areas informed of places that legitimately aren't safe e.g. wandering by yourself late at night in a jungle.

Should meaningfully add this isn't limited to ppls dwelling in rural or out-of-the-way places.

When I was visiting my grandparents overseas who lived in a small city, as a teenager I wanted to go to the swimming pool which was in walking distance because it was hot.

I was explicitly forbidden to go even though I was decent swimmer. The pool over several decades had many drowning accidents; there was a ghost or several there.

(It got terribly overcrowded during hot days, and didn't have enough lifeguards.)