Do you believe in ghosts? (POLL)

[Geosurface]

I'm curious to hear what peoples' take on this is.

Personally, I don't believe in any sort of supernatural element to our reality, whatsoever.

However, I love ghost stories and have several ghost story compendium books, when I was about 13 some of my favorite books were "More Scary Stories" for instance, the ones I have now are more adult-targeted, whatever I can find at the used bookstore.

I don't much care for those Ghost Hunter type shows because I think they're pretty stupid, I don't find it particularly scary or interesting to watch con artists pretend they hear and see things on audio that they don't hear or see.

So yea, weigh in with your own take on this silly issue. If you have a personal ghost story of your own, please share it. That's always fun.

Btw if you enjoy freaky video games there's one coming out this year called Outlast that looks very interesting, where you're in an abandoned asylum with freaky mutants or something and only your camcorder to illuminate the darkness. Found out about it yesterday in the new Game Informer magazine.

http://www.gamespot.com/outlast-2013/

 

[KeithTalent]

No; pure nonsense.

KT

 

[Mixolydian]

Nope.

 

[clamum]

I'm not sayin it was ghosts, but it was ghosts.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

fiction

 

[lxskllr]

Voted not sure. I'm fairly skeptical of ghosts, but leave open the possibility that it's "something". Ghosts being returned dead people are lowest on the possibility list. If it's anything, my vote would go to some kind of dimensional breach that allows viewing of other dimensions.

 

[Printer Bandit]

taking DMT allows you to access other dimensions and beings (ghosts)

 

[exdeath]

Voted not sure. I'm fairly skeptical of ghosts, but leave open the possibility that it's "something". Ghosts being returned dead people are lowest on the possibility list. If it's anything, my vote would go to some kind of dimensional breach that allows viewing of other dimensions.

Twilight Princess, Link to the Past, Metroid Prime 2

But that would be in the realm of physics, not the classical definition of spirit or ghost.

 

[Geosurface]

Voted not sure. I'm fairly skeptical of ghosts, but leave open the possibility that it's "something". Ghosts being returned dead people are lowest on the possibility list. If it's anything, my vote would go to some kind of dimensional breach that allows viewing of other dimensions.

Just to reiterate, I personally don't believe in ghosts... at all. However, you bring up an interesting point.

What about the notion that there could be some sort of currently not understood mechanism by which events can be "recorded" in an environment? I remember one particular ghost show I saw years ago where they said this one pub had something in the walls similar to what is used in audio tape, and that this might have effectively recorded voices and be playing them back...

sounds like a load of bullshit, honestly.

But is there any possibility to that sort of thing, at all?

I thought the (fantastic) game System Shock 2 had an interesting take on this, it had you playing as a cybernetically enhanced person whose implants picked up on psychic emanations which then appeared to you as "ghosts" - obviously a pseudo-science layer of BS coated on something to justify being in the game to make it scarier...

Generally a very sciencey game made by MIT nerds, I believe, only game I've ever played where I had to use elements from the periodic table to research stuff.... in between shooting aliens.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

No; pure nonsense.

this. and the shows are intolerable.

 

[Nemesis13]

Not a fucking chance.

 

[Jeff7]

Nope.

The human brain is quite capable of hallucinating things. Nearly everyone on the planet experiences hallucinations every single night, though not everyone can remember all of them. And just as people will try to assign meaning to random collections of water droplets in the sky, or to the digits in a random number, they'll try to assign meaning to these hallucinations.

These can also be experienced while awake, though with much less frequency.
Ghosts are included in this category.


In order of probability, ghosts are:
- Products of an active or frightened imagination.
- Photoshop, or clever (or accidental) photography tricks.
- Aliens having some fun at our expense.
- Dead primate leftovers.



As an aside, one of my usual questions: Why aren't ghosts naked and bald? Photographs or illustrations almost invariably show them dressed in something, either robes, or else the clothing (and even jewelry) they died in. So when you die, does your alleged soul leave in such a rush that it drags along an hologram of everything near to your body, including nonliving and entirely inorganic materials?

 

[Geosurface]

K somebody voted "i've seen a ghost"

I demand the story.

Or was it just trolling?

Btw I don't want anyone who does believe or has seen something to feel like they are going to be mocked in this thread (okay well maybe you will be, but it won't be by me) I would like to hear anyone's experiences. Or even if someone close to you claimed to see something, you could share that.

I had a bit of a dilemma years ago when someone very closely related to me told me they'd seen a UFO decades ago hovering just over their car (only about 20 feet above it) someone I have every reason to respect and trust completely... because now all of a sudden I had to wonder what was up with that claim... of course, there isn't anything fundamentally impossible about aliens... in fact I'm sure they do exist.

However I approach the whole UFO thing with extreme skepticism.

 

[lxskllr]

Just to reiterate, I personally don't believe in ghosts... at all. However, you bring up an interesting point.

What about the notion that there could be some sort of currently not understood mechanism by which events can be "recorded" in an environment? I remember one particular ghost show I saw years ago where they said this one pub had something in the walls similar to what is used in audio tape, and that this might have effectively recorded voices and be playing them back...

sounds like a load of bullshit, honestly.

But is there any possibility to that sort of thing, at all?

I thought the (fantastic) game System Shock 2 had an interesting take on this, it had you playing as a cybernetically enhanced person whose implants picked up on psychic emanations which then appeared to you as "ghosts" - obviously a pseudo-science layer of BS coated on something to justify being in the game to make it scarier...

Generally a very sciencey game made by MIT nerds, I believe, only game I've ever played where I had to use elements from the periodic table to research stuff.... in between shooting aliens.

I don't watch ghost shows. I'm extremely interested in them, but it's mostly a load of shit from what I've seen. In general, I take the position that legends are based in reality. IOW, people have been seeing "stuff" for a long time. Maybe they're liars or confused, or maybe they're experiencing something. I've had very credible people tell me they've experienced ghosts. I never have, but I'd love to.

Modern physics is pretty fantastical, and if some of it turns out to work, it would go a long way towards explaining ghosts. I just observe, marvel, and keep an open mind. In the end, what I think means fuck all, but I'd love to time travel a few thousand years into the future to see what humans have managed to figure out. Right now we're nothing, and just starting to poke around the edges of what's out there. Everything we've cumulatively learned is nothing compared to what's left.

 

[mnewsham]

events we can't explain currently with science? Sure. Actual super natural mystic type creatures? no.

 

[Drako]

Ghosts - No.

Hallucinations and active imaginations - Yes.

 

[darkxshade]

Where's the irony option? "I believe in ghosts but I don't believe in god"

 

[Krazy4Real]

nope.

 

[ahenkel]

Pure malarky

 

[Pardus]

 

[Pheran]

Voted not sure. I'm fairly skeptical of ghosts, but leave open the possibility that it's "something". Ghosts being returned dead people are lowest on the possibility list. If it's anything, my vote would go to some kind of dimensional breach that allows viewing of other dimensions.

If you read science fiction, you might like Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, because that's what this statement made me think of.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Something I've always wondered in regards to the ghost-hunter shows:

If they are in these remote, foreign locations looking for these supposed spirits, why in the hell would they try speaking to these them in English? You're in Spain...even if the spirit were there, it would not understand you.

 

[keird]

Despite working in hospitals for 20 years, putting corpses in freezers, and deploying to 5 combat zones with atrocities aplenty, I still haven't experienced a ghost.

...but I have to listen politely to someone's drivel of how they saw 'something' in a house once. They're offending me, can't I offend them back with my point of view?

 

[diesbudt]

Since I have voted I have seen a ghost, It is only right to share my stories.

1) (not exactly a ghost, more like orbs) While on a family trip to the Dakotas to visit Mount Rushmore we were staying in this really nice hotel. Well once night as My 2 brothers shared a bed and I laying on the floor I was looking up on the ceiling when all teh sudden through a wall, was about a 2in diameter sphereical ball of light. It floated there for a moment and then moved about the room in an odd fasion. Much like a Bee flying around, where its no straight path and zig zagging a bit. I even saw it drop altitude a bit and then finall yraise back up and leave out through the ceiling.

2) [Ghost 1] I was 13 years old, in my bed at night. As I laid there I had to quickly go restroom. (parents were still not in bed) Went restroom, came back to bed and laid down. After a few moments I looked up at my open closest door and there was a white-shadowy overset women (similar size of my mother) looking in my closet as if searching for something. I thought it was my mom so I called out "hey" "hey. mom." "Mom what are you doing" getting louder and louder. Finally I grabbed my Pillow and tossed it at her, in which as it went through her she dissappeared. A minute later my mom came running up asking "what's wrong?" --- A week later I did some research and turned out a years before we purchased it a heavyset women about 40yrs old passed away in that condo we lived in.

3) [Ghost 2] I worked at an amusement park (and it shall not be named), on the train that passengers rode. One night as I was on the back of the train riding at night ensuring passangers behaved themselves, I turned around and on the track about 50yards away, something was chasing teh train. It looked like a little 5-6yr old girl wearing a poka dot dress. She seemed smokey like. After chasing teh train for about 15-20s, she darted off and through a wooden door into a pumphouse that supplies pumped water for the water ride nearby.


I was also told as a baby, my parents would hear me try to talk in my crib standing off just starring off in a general direction for minutes, and it was hard to break my concentration. Even sometimes reaching my hand out trying to point or reach towards something not there.

(Fyi I do believe in ghosts, but not ghosts being that of dead people. I believe "information" of events can be stored in an area if the emotions are there much like electrons can hold onto information while in a molecule. I also can say it would be somewhat likely if it was a small weakening between another really close dimension (obviously very similar to reality is closer than a dimension in which many things are different) in which we have the chance to "see it slightly".

And for the record I have predicted the future 8-10 times in my life approximately 4-5 minutes before something happened, exactly in detail, when i get this odd chill feeling in the back of my spine. If you want to add more mystery to me. (Though when i get these feelings are unpredictable)

 

[TallBill]

Negatron