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Scientific explanation for ghosts


gangofmice

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I read this article recently ( link below). This is a well-written article by a highly educated person, a skeptic needless to say. I liked the comments at the end of it too. While it was well-written, I felt that there was something wrong somewhere. I racked my brains to find out what that something wrong was, but couldn't. So, how would you react to this article?

http://scientificinquiry.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_rational_look_at_ghosts

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good article, I liked it might even steal it as a source for whenever the next shadow man thread pops up.

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The problem is, there isn't just one type of 'ghost'. Of course, there must be rational explanations for many sightings and experiences. But by no means all. Also, science may be able to explain the mechanism of some hauntings, but not necessarily the trigger.

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To me it does not seem like a solid argument, but I do agree with bits and pieces of this article. I believe it's not a case of seeing or hearing "things that are simply not there," but our perception of what we see or hear. If we really do "see and hear things that are simply not there" then what triggered it? We see what we see and hear what we hear, but if we only see or hear part of a scene then we could make an interpretation considered to be either normal or paranormal. All of our senses will play a role in the accuracy of our interpretation. Certain media such as Hollywood films could also influence our interpretation, but it does not make us "sense things that aren't there." I believe there could be a "simpler and more rational explanation" for such phenomena, but simpler and more rational does not mean correct.

I am also interested in what others have to say about this article.

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The problem is, there isn't just one type of 'ghost'. Of course, there must be rational explanations for many sightings and experiences. But by no means all. Also, science may be able to explain the mechanism of some hauntings, but not necessarily the trigger.

yeah but it was a short and generalised article a full run down of every type of ghost or haunting with appropriate scientific theory and evidence to such would take ages and be many many pages. also what do you mean "trigger" do you mean science can explain how it happens but not why? could you giv an example

this theory is a good one for the "corner of eye" kind of ghost for example you walk past a doorway without looking in but in your peripheral you see a person standing in there, you go back and check there's nothing there sort, that sort of sighting can be explained by this theory

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Well, its a good article but many stated there are just the knowledge most of them around UM who deal with certain sections Knows...but its informative and well Written

Thanks

B???

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It is an in-a-nutshell discussion of the rational perspective except for the closing which states that science may never completely disprove ghosts. In science, empirical proof is not normally established rather things are assigned a probability of being true. Science explores in an attempt to establish the truth, it does not endeavor to disprove anything.

Edited by sinewave
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this just kind of explains, being paranoid and seeing things in the dark. the imagination.

dont necessarily think it relates to ghosts exactly.

Edited by Agent. Mulder
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The article doesn't explain how chairs can be thrown against the wall by an unseen force and other things like that, but who knows if those things ever even happen?

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The article doesn't explain how chairs can be thrown against the wall by an unseen force and other things like that, but who knows if those things ever even happen?

But it does suggest how people could believe that chairs are thrown by unseen forces.

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I read this article recently ( link below). This is a well-written article by a highly educated person, a skeptic needless to say. I liked the comments at the end of it too. While it was well-written, I felt that there was something wrong somewhere. I racked my brains to find out what that something wrong was, but couldn't. So, how would you react to this article?

http://scientificinquiry.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_rational_look_at_ghosts

so having read the artice,i came to this conclusion....when it happens to you,there will still be no explanation. There will never be any scientific proof,beyond how the situation is internalized by self...i dont understand how it can be discredited so easily,especially when people have never had an experience themselves....to be a skeptic,is natural and normal..but with the minds sole intent on dis-proving "ghosts"....you will see what you want to see...(OR NOT SEE)and that is,that it does not exist....i think the key is to keep an open mind,to all that is possible...and what seems impossible...always question,but don't dismiss just because you can not find reason....even the people that it happens to,find it hard to explain....and since when did spirits operate on a physical level....it seems by this artice,that there is expectation of spirits to operate within the normal 5 senses....so that we as humans living in a physical dimension,will be better equipped to understand.... well if you no longer have a body,and you are now energy....wouldnt you then operate on a different vibration....then how will there ever be difinitive proof...if they operate outside a realm that most can not understand....beyond the 5 senses...there is not an answer for everything....and there does not have to be....can u see oxygen...we need it to survive...you can see the physical effects of it....or physical effects in lack of....just because a scientist can not prove or disprove the experiences of the paranormal...does not mean it doesnt exist....science is based on fact...so we r taught....and factually,science only knows a fraction of what the brain is capable of....what about the rest that is not known..maybe it incorporates something beyond the 5 senses....that some people can utilize..and some can not...maybe its about that part of the brain that can sense beyond the normal 5....while most only use 5.....you have heard of people in tragic accidents...lightning strikes,head traumas...whatever....where they wake up,and have a new ability....a part of their brain may have shut down,while another started up..who knows.....there is so much we dont know....to see "ghosts"....may be a part of the brain that receives information or is able to interpret....who knows...i am only guessing....but i do believe that it exists...

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so having read the artice,i came to this conclusion....when it happens to you,there will still be no explanation. There will never be any scientific proof,beyond how the situation is internalized by self...i dont understand how it can be discredited so easily,especially when people have never had an experience themselves....to be a skeptic,is natural and normal..but with the minds sole intent on dis-proving "ghosts"....you will see what you want to see...(OR NOT SEE)and that is,that it does not exist....i think the key is to keep an open mind,to all that is possible...and what seems impossible...always question,but don't dismiss just because you can not find reason....even the people that it happens to,find it hard to explain....and since when did spirits operate on a physical level....it seems by this artice,that there is expectation of spirits to operate within the normal 5 senses....so that we as humans living in a physical dimension,will be better equipped to understand.... well if you no longer have a body,and you are now energy....wouldnt you then operate on a different vibration....then how will there ever be difinitive proof...if they operate outside a realm that most can not understand....beyond the 5 senses...there is not an answer for everything....and there does not have to be....can u see oxygen...we need it to survive...you can see the physical effects of it....or physical effects in lack of....just because a scientist can not prove or disprove the experiences of the paranormal...does not mean it doesnt exist....science is based on fact...so we r taught....and factually,science only knows a fraction of what the brain is capable of....what about the rest that is not known..maybe it incorporates something beyond the 5 senses....that some people can utilize..and some can not...maybe its about that part of the brain that can sense beyond the normal 5....while most only use 5.....you have heard of people in tragic accidents...lightning strikes,head traumas...whatever....where they wake up,and have a new ability....a part of their brain may have shut down,while another started up..who knows.....there is so much we dont know....to see "ghosts"....may be a part of the brain that receives information or is able to interpret....who knows...i am only guessing....but i do believe that it exists...

There is a difference between discrediting and not accepting.

You are touching on what is missing from the equation. It must first be established that we are more than our physical bodies which no one has successfully demonstrated. Energy does not freely exist. Energy dissipates into space and for it to be continually present there has to be a source, a point where some conversion is taking place either matter to energy or energy to energy. The only demonstrable working model in this regard is metabolic energy. When metabolism stops so does life thus no ghosts. It is probably really that simple. The Universe is a closed system. The amount of mass and energy are constant. Ghost theories run aground there. If we survive death as some energy based entity then it would follow that the amount of energy in the Universe increases slightly for each person born. As science, that just does not fly.

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  • 1 year later...
 

I wont argue with the science behind this but it simply does not explain the nature and behaviour of many ghosts. Heres just one example. In the 1970s we had neighbours who bought and restored a brass bed. he was a secondary science teacher and she was a primary teacher. To cut a long story short the bed proved to be quite severely haunted, and they sold it to a locl antiques dealer, without saying anything about that.

Cut to nearly 30 years later and i read an article in the adelaide advertiserabout ghosts in south australia. A couple had bought an old four poster brass bed, and found it to be haunted. But they actually were intrigued rather than scared. As the haunting progressed through the same stages and manifestaion experienced by my neighbours 30 years before, they traced back the history of this bed.

Turns out a young woman had been brutally stabbed to death on the end of the bed, bleeding out all over it. That was back in the 1800s The new owners were able to trace and interview 6 to 8 owners of this bed which had travelled a few hundred kilometers across the sate since the 1970s

Heres the thing. Every owner experienced the same progression of hauntings and every owner sold it on, without saying a word, to get some of the value back. These beds increased in value from just under a thousand dollars in the 1970s to up to 5000 dollars today . No one wants to sell at a loss.

Anyway, the new owners were told they should exorcise the ghost; instead they put the bed in a spare room and tried to make her feel at home.

I havent read anything on this in the last decade But heres the thing. Half a dozen diffent owners involving more than a dozen people expereinced the haunting of this one bed across nearly a century and over hundreds of miles.

None knew its history . Each experienced a similar progression in the haunting if they kept it long enough. At firs pets displayed nervousness (our neighbours cat wouldnt go near the bed despite being used ot sleep on their previous bed NAd he hackles went up when sh e was in the same room)

Second, the end of the bed became mysteriously damp. Third, the temp dropped, sometimes affecting the whole room At that point some people sold it. Those who kept it narrated a glow which developed at the end of the bed and increased slowly in intensity. Eventually one or two, including the last owner, saw a glowing figure sitting on the end of the bed and heard sounds ranging from screams to sobbing.

Now. Explain how this wonderful theory and rationalisation about humans and ghosts can account for this set of circumstances. And there are many many documented examples of such hauntings .

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Mr Harrand sounds like a guesser who has never witnessed ghost-like activity. A "scientific" explanation ? Where is the science ? Humans have evolved to see stuff that isn't there ? That does not seem to confer any adaptive benefit IMO. The people who see stuff that ain't there are as likely at risk of peril.

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It's got to be something energy based. Human bio-electric energy spike release upon traumatic death followed by the Earth's electromagnetic absorption of said energy, which would theoretically function as a recording, or snapshot. That would explain why ghosts always exhibit the same behavior, repeating actions over and over again. Maybe some people are more sensitive to energy fluctuations, hence sightings, who knows. I definitely do not think its paranormal. Einstein's brain was more in tune with mathematics and advanced concepts, other humans are probably advanced in other areas as well. Eventually we will scientifically figure out what it is, and how to put an end to it.

Edited by Spid3rCyd3
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so having read the artice,i came to this conclusion....when it happens to you,there will still be no explanation. There will never be any scientific proof,beyond how the situation is internalized by self...i dont understand how it can be discredited so easily,especially when people have never had an experience themselves....to be a skeptic,is natural and normal..but with the minds sole intent on dis-proving "ghosts"....you will see what you want to see...(OR NOT SEE)and that is,that it does not exist....i think the key is to keep an open mind,to all that is possible...and what seems impossible...always question,but don't dismiss just because you can not find reason....even the people that it happens to,find it hard to explain....and since when did spirits operate on a physical level....it seems by this artice,that there is expectation of spirits to operate within the normal 5 senses....so that we as humans living in a physical dimension,will be better equipped to understand.... well if you no longer have a body,and you are now energy....wouldnt you then operate on a different vibration....then how will there ever be difinitive proof...if they operate outside a realm that most can not understand....beyond the 5 senses...there is not an answer for everything....and there does not have to be....can u see oxygen...we need it to survive...you can see the physical effects of it....or physical effects in lack of....just because a scientist can not prove or disprove the experiences of the paranormal...does not mean it doesnt exist....science is based on fact...so we r taught....and factually,science only knows a fraction of what the brain is capable of....what about the rest that is not known..maybe it incorporates something beyond the 5 senses....that some people can utilize..and some can not...maybe its about that part of the brain that can sense beyond the normal 5....while most only use 5.....you have heard of people in tragic accidents...lightning strikes,head traumas...whatever....where they wake up,and have a new ability....a part of their brain may have shut down,while another started up..who knows.....there is so much we dont know....to see "ghosts"....may be a part of the brain that receives information or is able to interpret....who knows...i am only guessing....but i do believe that it exists...

Thank You...I do believe the paranormal exists too. At the age of 12, I was in a terrible car wreck and died. I remember looking in a mirror and thinking I didn't look so bad, there was no blood, no injuries, no pain. When I turned around, I saw the doctor and started to walk toward him. I woke up 10 days later from a coma and informed the Doctor that I saw him when I died and what I had heard.

The head trauma I have suffered over the years is terrible. I have a long split above my left ear that is approximately 4 inches long, a "v" shape at the top of my forehead by my hair line that is approximately an inch long on both sides of the "v", and a split on my right side that travels up by my right ear and goes to the top of my head then starts to make a path back down. It is approximately 5 inches up, goes across the top of my head about an 1 1/2 and travels 2 inches back down. When I touch these cracks in my skull, it is very uncomfortable.

I have experienced so many things in my life that can't be explained, everything from a ghost grabbing me, to being able to see the past and future and to know when some people are in danger. I have seen dark shadows, and I believe I may suffer from some sort of Sleep Behavior Disorder in which there are less than 200 cases in the world of this affecting women or children.

It is impossible for me to have sleep paralysis when my paralysis nerve does not shut off and I act out my dreams and I have had many bruises over the years to prove that I do have a problem when I am asleep. I am also able to turn away from the dark figures that are standing over my bed upon waking and found that they will go away. This is something people with Sleep Paralysis are not able to do.

Ironically enough, my birth date reveals that I have psychic ablilities and am an interceder for either humans or spirits, that I have an old soul, and that I am able to walk away from dangerous situations alive.

I am not able to wear a watch, as they will normally stop within 10 minutes after putting one on, be it wind up or battery.

I quite school as a teenage and returned to get my GED. Of 750 questions, I missed 7 which put me into the "Almost Genius" range and scholorships were thrown at me. I received the Richard Tunks Award and there are a very low number of those given out each year. For years, I questioned why I had missed so few questions as I didn't consider myself any smarter that others I associated with. One day it occured to me, my brain didn't really know the answers, and I now believe it was a process of simply knowing what the correct answer would be, and that it had something to do with the head injuries or OBE.

Many people that have had near death experiences, out of body, or tramatic head injuries have also claimed they have experienced things that they cannot explain and it is not uncommon for some police agencies to use psychics to locate lost or missing children or murder victums. There is a list on the internet that reveal the top 10 psychics in history. Once of those psychics was a local woman that had been hit by lightening and started being able to see and know things that she wasn't able to know before the life threatening experience.

I did not have any unusual issues as a small child. Everything I have been questioning for years started after the car wreck and have progressively gotten worse as the years go by. Now, I am able to walk up to a stranger and wish them a Happy Birthday, as I don't know them, it is something I should know nothing about.

So no, I do not believe what the author of the article has written. I have no scientifice proof to back myself up as to the things I see or know, however, neither does he and since I have found myself questioning the things that have happeded to me over the years, I would believe my own experiences over that of a non believer.

Until something bizarre happens to them, non believers will continue to attempt to find logical explanations as to what is happening to others.

Edited by iamdee1
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  • 2 weeks later...

The reason it's flawed is because the person writting it has never experienced a real paranormal incident. Also, the persons understanding of human evolution and behaviour is basic at best. The theory just doesn't explain ghosts/entities/demons. The idea that people could mistake possession and drops in temperature (detected by thermometers) and objects flying towards them as immagination is quite frankly ridiculous.

Also, I'm annoyed by the idea that ghosts are somehow "irrational" , it doesn't make any sense; how could making a theory based on real evidence (possession, objects flying) be considered "irrational"?!!

I fully believe ghosts can be explained scientifically, but trying to discredit evidence or claiming it's "irrational" is totally unscientific and illogical. The REAL irrational people are the skeptics not the believers, which is kind of ironical if you think about it.

Quite simply, the article is irrational.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

This article fails to take into consideration how other cultures view ghosts. Certain Southern African tribes, for example, view ghosts and spirits as witches and omens, and do not fear them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I found the article full of scientific cliche's and generalisations that have been floating about for some time now and it doesn't cover all paranormal activities.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If you use science as a determining factor, take a good look at the law of conservation of energy:

"Energy in a system may take on various forms (e.g. kinetic, potential, heat, light). The law of conservation of energy states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore the sum of all the energies in the system is a constant."

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I read this article recently ( link below). This is a well-written article by a highly educated person, a skeptic needless to say. I liked the comments at the end of it too. While it was well-written, I felt that there was something wrong somewhere. I racked my brains to find out what that something wrong was, but couldn't. So, how would you react to this article?

http://scientificinquiry.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_rational_look_at_ghosts

i'm not inclined to agree with the idea that it's a leftover reaction from the way we lived in primitive times. it seems more plausible to me that we have evolved to be more in tune with other dimensions or vibrations then we were then, if anything.

the part about sleep paralysis sounds about right. that has been scientifically documented though.

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I don't know about the theory of it being a byproduct of past human tendencies but the rest is pretty obvious.

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This isn't science. This is guesswork.

Science would be testing this theory of evolution to see if it's true. Instead, he simply states something and declares it fact without any actual evidence of such. This is a theory with no backing, and thus I cannot such a person seriously.

The concept is interesting, and if the evolutionary theory is proven it could easily be a way to explain certain events in every day life. But most people tend to explain certain events as simply being paranoid and only a select few begin to loudly proclaim "ghost! I saw a ghost!" all over the Internet.

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