Queue on 17/6/2008 at 04:51
All right, who here believes in ghosts (and I don't mean the little buggers that peek around the corner and go, "Boo.")?
Now, I'm not a religious man, but--
*raising hand*
heretic on 17/6/2008 at 04:59
As I was walkin' up the stair
I saw a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh how I wish he'd go away
-Mearns
Given the right mood and circumstance, it's hard not to.
Scots Taffer on 17/6/2008 at 05:04
I was about to post this in Tocky's thread but it felt too thin for there, thankfully it belongs just fine here.
I don't believe in the traditional idea of ghosts, and by extension I'm going to include a few other supernaturalish concepts in this area: past lives, psychics and so on.
What I am fascinated by is the concept of energy, energy as life and energy as information, we all leave our mark on the earth physically and metaphysically, I wonder sometimes if many of the phenomena that we give names like ghosts or psychics is simply the ability of detect the remains or current threads of energy.
I don't really know much about this though, so I guess I'm sort of babbling and could be completely wrong.
heretic on 17/6/2008 at 05:08
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I wonder sometimes if many of the phenomena that we give names like ghosts or psychics is simply the ability of detect the remains or current threads of energy.
That's about how I see it, it's just seems rational enough to be closer to the truth rather than away from it. The big area of interest to me is if this energy is an echo or residue of sorts or can it have some sort of consciousness or free will? I don't see how it possibly could but for some of the stories and accounts I've heard or read about such things to be true it would certainly help.
That may be putting the cart before the horse, but these kinds of things work like that more often than not.
Queue on 17/6/2008 at 05:10
*snapping fingers for heretic*
Scots--
Ironically, you bring up the idea of energy. That's always been a point I've made is that man (sorry ladies, just men--oh, okay--you, too) is made up of energy. And, that energy cannot be destroyed.
So why would there not be ghosts?
Maybe, like an image, they are nothing more than memories of an energy past.
Scots Taffer on 17/6/2008 at 05:29
I don't think the residual energy has any free will or determinance, it's purely an imprint, echo or image of things past - trapped in some sort of dimension of energy that some dark part of our brain can see, interact with and decode, but ultimately just another stream of noisy information that is probably lost to most of us. For those that can pick it up, any sense of "will" is probably imparted by the interpretation.
Think about it, the world you walk around in is bombarded with all sorts of things, background radiation, radio waves, magnetic impulses and so on. How hard would it be to sort the wheat from the chaff in terms of residual energy?
nickie on 17/6/2008 at 06:52
I, and a few others who were with me, have heard a ghost. It was a horse. :)
I used to know someone very well who occasionally saw ghosts. I had no reason not to believe him. Particularly, the look on his face when he'd seen one. The 'worst' time was when he drove through a bunch of them one night at (
http://www.appledore.org/appledore_bloody_corner.htm) Bloody Corner.
But what he actually saw or experienced, I have no idea.
Tocky on 17/6/2008 at 12:08
When I was a teenager we were hanging out at a graveyard in the moonlight way out where the new roads missed and people have stopped coming because it's so old. The old gang just talking about all sorts of stuff when somebody said "wouldn't it be funny if the dead did rise just now". Almost on cue we hear a slow shuffling in the dry leaves of the woods around the graveyard.
At first it was just one or two and then it seemed like a whole army dragging thier feet as they shambled toward us. I don't think anyone was looking off or tying thier shoe just then. There was a lot of "what the hell is that?" Just when we could take it no longer some cows come ambling out. Looking for a handout likely.
I don't believe in spooks. I've seen strange things in the odd moment though. Once when I was out driving I saw in the very top of a large tree, all alone in a pasture with nobody anywhere around and no light lines or a cloud in the sky, a fire. My wife was with me and when I pointed it out she just goes "oh yeah that's funny". Funny? The tree is nearly denuded and there is a ball of fire in the top of it. She wasn't concerned. We kept driving.
Vivian on 17/6/2008 at 13:04
Queue, by that logic there would also be ghost footlong subs, ghost junk mail, ghost firewood, ghost cars, ghost newspapers and ghost bananas. Yes energy cannot be destroyed, but it doesn't have to stay in any particular complex state. When you die I imagine a lot of you gets turned into bacteria and ultimately to heat, so if you are looking for ghosts I guess thats as close as you get.
rachel on 17/6/2008 at 13:40
Quote Posted by Tocky
I don't believe in spooks. I've seen strange things in the odd moment though. Once when I was out driving I saw in the very top of a large tree, all alone in a pasture with nobody anywhere around and no light lines or a cloud in the sky, a fire. My wife was with me and when I pointed it out she just goes "oh yeah that's funny". Funny? The tree is nearly denuded and there is a ball of fire in the top of it. She wasn't concerned. We kept driving.
Possibly (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_Fire) St. Elmo's Fire?
