Jennie&Tim on 17/6/2008 at 14:28
Nope, sorry, not me; though I do like fantasy novels and MR James (you do have to make allowances for his anti-catholic prejudices).
Ghosts, goblins, gods... none of 'em are real. I think they are products of our remarkable ability to see patterns and understand others' minds.
io organic industrialism on 17/6/2008 at 15:06
No
Matthew on 17/6/2008 at 15:06
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.
Did you take off your shoes and veil your face?
BEAR on 17/6/2008 at 15:39
Quote Posted by Queue
*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.
As Vivian noted, energy cannot be destroyed, but it does change forms. We are all made up of the basic stuff of the universe in one way or another, the things that made up our planet became part of plants and animals, we eat them and they become part of us and our children. Eventually, we die and it starts all over again, we're converted into base materials by bacteria and fungi and move on in the chain. This sounds spiritual and I kind of see it that way sometimes but its also practical. I think most likely, in times of stress or anxiety, our minds play tricks on us. Its well known that our minds use previous images constantly in processing of visual information, in the dark when looking for something, your mind is constantly pattern-matching to assist what you can see, and its no surprised that we sometimes "see" things that are not there.
I'm a fairly open-minded type, but I also try to be rational about things. On the one hand, I'm quite sure that ghosts as our perception of them when we're at home all alone incorrect. However, the quantum world is a spooky one, and there is no telling what can really happen. What, in the end, is the real difference between now and then, here and there? Questions of what time really is rage on to this day (NS had a good article about that the other day but you can only read it if you are a subscriber). As such I can't entirely discount that weird things might happen, echo's of a time and place. That said here is also no real evidence of it, mostly anecdotal so that doesn't mean it happens. I don't think that if something supernatural happens it isn't actually supernatural, but possibly a part of nature we don't quite understand. (but not likely, most likely its totally explainable we just jump to conclusions)
BEAR on 17/6/2008 at 16:24
Thats pretty cool. Sounds like a good weapon to me.
jimjack on 17/6/2008 at 16:43
I'm a skeptic of the worst kind because I even doubt my own skepticism and sometimes my own existence.
But I have one or two times experienced things I couldn't explain even when I try very hard to find an explanation. Example: the one time I was in the forest and just about wet my pants feeling all oppressed and like someone was watching me when I doubt very much there was as the dog would have been on to that. I wouldn't put it past myself that there are likely some discarded corpses in that area.
I would like to be open to that fact that the sensation I get when you feel that you just aren't alone in a room, or ..forest..then that would be them. Sharing space with you. Or maybe its just a natural phenomenon of some irregularity in time playing back past events that are overlapping with the present.
SubJeff on 17/6/2008 at 17:11
Why would you be able to sense them in some way and yet not be able to use the senses you do everyday to detect them? That's what I want to know.
I'm really undecided on all this. I'd like there to be supernatural stuff, but at the same time I think there is some element of pigeonholing going on - sensations/perceptions we don't understand/interpret in the normal way being classed as "supernatural".
jimjack on 17/6/2008 at 17:42
When the hairs on the back of your neck start to stand up.
If they do exist, most of us (except psychics) don't have the capacity to see them or understand what it is. I would actually like to believe that when we die our energy is recycled back into the universe and used for something else..I would hate to think that when I die I will hanging out at my house in some closet or under the stairs for all of eternity.
