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Prof. Brian Cox On Ghosts

Mooka said:
Well, honestly, I’m shocked! I didn’t know Brian Cox (physicist) rubbed so many people up the wrong way! But we love Brian Cox the actor? - well I do anyway, he’s certainly brilliant in Succession. I actually really like Brian the physicist. I never got a feeling of him being condescending, I just felt he was trying to make science less confusing and more palatable, encourage enthusiasm even, in those who’d normally dismiss it as boring or just not their thing. However I don’t like the way he outright dismisses ghosts, and it does sound like he dismisses intelligent life on other planets?! Hmm ok, I’m not liking him quite as much, especially if he’s lecturing us about climate change and driving around in gas guzzling beasts...

Seriously now, I started this thread as I’ve been wavering in these last few years between being a believer in ghosts, the afterlife, God, something after death - whatever it may be, and worrying my head off that there’s just nothing. I’ve just been feeling very confused, where once I was so certain. Then to read Prof. Cox’s views on ghosts, well I think I just needed to hear alternative views and I know you guys know what you’re on with and give an intelligent argument! I genuinely appreciate all your replies, thank you
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I’ve nothing against Prof Brian Cox. He at least has a verifiable scientific background and seems comfortable in front of the camera. Far better than the vacuous luvvies, with no idea about the subject who are doing quiz shows on a Friday and fronting a science programme on a Tuesday.

The problem seems to lie with the production values, if the presenter wants to convey the sense of numinous that Sagan talked about when observing the cosmos (and which some describe on witnessing UFOs, Ghosts, Cryptids, etc.) the answer seems to be in special effects, these get combined with some ego stoking shots of them gazing for long periods at said effects and the result, IMO becomes ridiculous.

I’ve posted elsewhere that the effect on people of seeing Saturn and its rings through a telescope seems to have a far more visceral effect on people than some of the stunning imagery from NASA. The special effects are pretty but will never replace the real experience. As Sky at Night says - “Go outside and look up.”

The result of all this, apart from a fairly tedious TV programme, is that the presenter tends to get their opinions sought after and probably feels beholden to give them as part of their TV persona.

I’m sure there are nearly as many views on ghosts from scientists as there are scientists but most will never be asked or won’t be drawn because of their funding stream. (Wasn’t there a well known physicist who had a horseshoe on his wall and when asked whether he believed in it replied “No, but it can’t hurt to have it there.”

Once you’ve become a media expert it is probably difficult to have an opinion that isn’t picked up on or to not have an opinion, even if it’s on something you know nothing about. Consider:

“Prof X, what are your opinions on the plight of pig farmers in Norfolk?”

Will your TV producers be happy with “How should I know I’m a cosmologist?” Which may prompt a media response of “Not asking Prof X anything again, some expert, Tracey from facebook knows a lot about it.”

However if the answer is “I guess they need support.” There is a story “Prof X supports Norfolk pig farmers”. And a nice lot of publicity however the comment is received.

I think Prof Cox has just got sucked into the media machine that just goes on producing increasingly dumbed down content and promotes a cult of personality; and he isn’t the only one.

Getting rather off topic but I think that explains why his views on ghosts are getting disproportionate interest.

Brian Cox, actor was a convincing Hannibal Lector as well!
 
Tunn11 said:
... Wasn’t there a well known physicist who had a horseshoe on his wall and when asked whether he believed in it replied “No, but it can’t hurt to have it there.” ...
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The "physicist's horseshoe" anecdote can be traced back to the mid-1950s. The earliest documented versions were found in Sweden and Denmark, and the physicist named in those earliest known versions was Niels Bohr. It's not clear that Bohr was actually associated with the story, and some hypothesize the story could have come from some other source.

See:
I Understand It Brings You Luck, Whether You Believe in It or Not
Niels Bohr? Albert Einstein? Carl Alfred Meier? Apocryphal?
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/09/horseshoe-luck/
 
I long ago filed Cox into the same "self important diva" box as Dawkins.

On the subject of the weight of a soul does a radio get heavier when its tuned into a station, or a tv put on the pounds when you are binging a boxset? If , as I personally believe, consciousness is external to the physical brain and merely uses our thinking porridge as a reciever why should it weigh anything?
 
Mikefule said:
As the thread started with a reference to Prof. Brian Cox's pronouncement that ghosts don't exist, relying on his physics background to reach this conclusion...

Many people, from many cultures, over thousands of years, have believed in ghosts of one sort or another. In many cases, the belief has been so strong that it has led to societal behaviour that most of us would consider extreme or bizarre, designed to ward off or propitiate the ghosts.

For comparison (Spoiler): Santa Claus does not exist in a literal sense. However, the idea of Santa directly affects the behaviour of children, so Santa Claus is a real phenomenon.


In the modern western world, our concept of the ghost has been influenced by the common tropes of fiction. Just as the vampire or werewolf now seem to fit a standard formula, the ghost is typically portrayed as haunting a place where they suffered or died, and often seeking either revenge or some other form of release.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was in many ways different from the vampires of folklore and legend, and was equally different from the suave and handsome Count of many later adaptations. The werewolf of folklore and legend was not governed by the full moon or only vulnerable to the silver bullet as it is always portrayed now. Zombies in every zombie apocalypse film share many characteristics that were not associated with the zombie of Haitian voodoo. And similarly, the ghosts of folklore were very different from the ghosts of modern fiction.


So if you want to decide whether you believe in ghosts, your first question perhaps should be, "What do I mean by a ghost?"

Is "a ghost" one phenomenon, or are there several phenomena, all given the same general name?

For example, just three of the many common concepts of the ghosts (I hesitate to dignify them with the name of "theories") are:
  • The soul of a dead person, remaining on Earth, and somehow still able to act purposefully.
  • The so-called "stone tape theory": the idea that stones, or stone buildings, can somehow record and replay the images or sounds of events in a manner that is analogous to old-style magnetic tape.
  • Some form of repeated shared hallucination, in which some physical aspect of a location (e.g. background ultrasound) triggers similar reactions in different people on different occasions.

Plan A: You could consider which concept of the ghost requires you to make the smallest number of "assumptions" that are not yet supported by scientific orthodoxy, and which one you consider to be most plausible or least implausible. That would give you a subjective reason to believe or not believe.

Plan B: Alternatively, you could consider the various possible explanations from the point of view of what sort of evidence would support or disprove them, and consider what experiments could be done to test and refine the hypothesis. (A logical positivist would argue that if no such experiment could be conceived, even in principle, then the question would be meaningless.)

Of course, in real life, most of us do not have the expertise or the facilities to set up such experiments, and we know that funding for formal scientific research into the subject will never be available in respectable academia. This is why most people resort to Plan A.


Personally, I do not believe in ghosts — there are too many logical inconsistencies in every explanation I have heard — but I acknowledge that many sincere people have reported unexplained experiences that they have interpreted as ghosts.
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Precisely what I had just opened this thread to post, but you've put the case very well and saved me the trouble.

He has presupposed the nature of the phenomena before studying it, presupposed the experiments that would be required to prove or disprove phenomena of that nature, and then presupposed the results of those experiments.

Even if one takes the 'conjectures and refutations' model of the scientific process, he didn't get as far as the second step.

All doughnuts have jam inside and sugar on top, therefore that ring-shaped thing you're munching on cannot be a doughnut.
 
TangletwigsDeux said:
I long ago filed Cox into the same "self important diva" box as Dawkins.

On the subject of the weight of a soul does a radio get heavier when its tuned into a station, or a tv put on the pounds when you are binging a boxset? If , as I personally believe, consciousness is external to the physical brain and merely uses our thinking porridge as a reciever why should it weigh anything?
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Oddly enough, I absolutely swear that my mobile phone is lighter when it is low on charge, and I can tell when it needs recharging just by picking it up and feeling the weight of it...

(Go ahead, laugh....)
 
catseye said:
Oddly enough, I absolutely swear that my mobile phone is lighter when it is low on charge, and I can tell when it needs recharging just by picking it up and feeling the weight of it...

(Go ahead, laugh....)
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I actually briefly fooled a boss of mine (who was always on about "is your 'phone charged) by just weighing it in my hand and saying yes. When she queried that I told her "It's Einstein, E =Mc2 Innit?" Worked for about 30 seconds.
 
Kondoru said:
Its not designed to detect pachyderms. Im certain of that.
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Dr. Cox's argument is that that 'the LHC hasn't detected ghosts, so ghosts don't exist'. By his logic the LHC hasn't detected elephants, so elephants don't exist. It ignores that the LHC wasn't designed to detect ghosts or elephants, and isn't looking for them. Ghosts and elephants existence or non-existence has nothing to do with the LHC. It's a poor argument and Dr. Cox should know better.
 
kamalktk said:
Dr. Cox's argument is that that 'the LHC hasn't detected ghosts, so ghosts don't exist'. By his logic the LHC hasn't detected elephants, so elephants don't exist. It ignores that the LHC wasn't designed to detect ghosts or elephants, and isn't looking for them. Ghosts and elephants existence or non-existence has nothing to do with the LHC. It's a poor argument and Dr. Cox should know better.
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Exactly. I am pretty sure that the LHC hasn't found ME yet (I'm hiding behind the sofa), but pretty sure I exist.
 
kesavaross said:
How can the LHC detect something like a ghost that is not of the physical realm as we know it? It also can't detect love, hate, compassion, empathy, etc, yet we know they exist.
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The LHC can detect love - also strange, charm, truth, beauty and hawkwind. Except of course all the quarks/leptons have been renamed as up, down, front-bottom etc
 
Bad Bungle said:
The LHC can detect love - also strange, charm, truth, beauty and hawkwind. Except of course all the quarks/leptons have been renamed as up, down, front-bottom etc
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You sound like Johnathan Woss interview with Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson in the early 90's
 
Mikefule said:
Personally, I do not believe in ghosts — there are too many logical inconsistencies in every explanation I have heard — but I acknowledge that many sincere people have reported unexplained experiences that they have interpreted as ghosts.
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Out of interest, considering the many hundreds of cases where lots of different people, often over years, decades and even centuries, have reportedly seen the same figure(s) walking up stairs, through rooms, cellars, sat on chairs, in gardens/churches/fields/ on roads etc that have then vanished into thin air (quite a few reports of this on here alone) - what are your theories on this? Mass hallucinations of some kind?
 
I think it's a time thing, you are seeing something you may interpret as a ghost
UFO what ever that happened in the past or will in the future, I am sure cleverer
people than me will poo poo this and be able to knock holes in it but it's my
theory for what it's worth.

:dunno::sstorm:
 
I sometimes wonder about the haunted house I lived in for a year. Unknown to me, it had been the scene of an unspeakable tragedy some years before we lived there (a mother killed her three young children then committed suicide). Due to the nature of my experiences, it seems clear to me that the mother was the one who was haunting, and one time I heard her crying, quite clearly. That, combined with the intense feelings of being watched, makes me think it is not just a time thing.

Sorry, drifting well off topic.
 
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SimonBurchell said:
I sometimes wonder about the haunted house I lived in for a year. Unknown to me, it had been the scene of an unspeakable tragedy some years before we lived there (a mother killed her three young children then committed suicide). Due to the nature of my experiences, it seems clear to me that the mother was the one who was haunting, and one time I heard her crying, quite clearly. That, combined with the intense feelings of being watched, makes me think it is not just a time thing.

Sorry, drifting well off topic.
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Did other people living in the house experience similar things?
 
And I imagine you wonder if people moving in after you had/have problems too. Very spooky, and with the history being so very tragic, upsetting too, especially hearing the crying.
 
Mooka said:
And I imagine you wonder if people moving in after you had/have problems too. Very spooky, and with the history being so very tragic, upsetting too, especially hearing the crying.
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Like life out in space the whole afterlife and ghosts thing is so frustrating to people like us...going have sit back as been wanting answers for the past 40 years.
 
Floyd1 said:
Out of interest, considering the many hundreds of cases where lots of different people, often over years, decades and even centuries, have reportedly seen the same figure(s) walking up stairs, through rooms, cellars, sat on chairs, in gardens/churches/fields/ on roads etc that have then vanished into thin air (quite a few reports of this on here alone) - what are your theories on this? Mass hallucinations of some kind?
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I don't have a single comprehensive theory, but I would gently point out that the key word in what you wrote is "reportedly".

I think one important aspect of ghost stories is that people want to believe. Therefore, many fiction, legend, and plain fantasy become widely assumed to be fact.

I made a similar mistake in a different context, sincerely believing that Sweeney Todd was a real serial killer. It was only when I looked him up that I discovered he was entirely fictional. I also made a similar mistake having only lazily read a few items on the JFK assassination, and getting it into my head that the official story was that he was shot from a grassy knoll. Both of these were laziness and ignorance on my part.

However, I have no "one size fits all" theory about ghosts. I just find the idea of revenant spirits appealing but unlikely to be true.
 
Mikefule said:
I don't have a single comprehensive theory, but I would gently point out that the key word in what you wrote is "reportedly".

I think one important aspect of ghost stories is that people want to believe. Therefore, many fiction, legend, and plain fantasy become widely assumed to be fact.

I made a similar mistake in a different context, sincerely believing that Sweeney Todd was a real serial killer. It was only when I looked him up that I discovered he was entirely fictional. I also made a similar mistake having only lazily read a few items on the JFK assassination, and getting it into my head that the official story was that he was shot from a grassy knoll. Both of these were laziness and ignorance on my part.

However, I have no "one size fits all" theory about ghosts. I just find the idea of revenant spirits appealing but unlikely to be true.
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This forum's Ruth Roper-Wylde states she was very aware of this when researching stories of ghost and hauntings around the UK for her series of books:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruth-Roper-Wylde/e/B07MTR4LH3?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1672585204&sr=8-1

She purposefully avoided cold tales about such-and-such ghost always appearing on the 31st December or Spring equinox or whatever precisely because these tales had been passed down the generations and elaborated upon until they bore scant resemblance to what was actually witnessed all those years ago.

But there are many, many ghost and poltergeist cases from the last decades of the 20th Century and this Century that have been reported by the primary witness/es
 
Mikefule said:
I don't have a single comprehensive theory, but I would gently point out that the key word in what you wrote is "reportedly".

I think one important aspect of ghost stories is that people want to believe. Therefore, many fiction, legend, and plain fantasy become widely assumed to be fact.

I made a similar mistake in a different context, sincerely believing that Sweeney Todd was a real serial killer. It was only when I looked him up that I discovered he was entirely fictional. I also made a similar mistake having only lazily read a few items on the JFK assassination, and getting it into my head that the official story was that he was shot from a grassy knoll. Both of these were laziness and ignorance on my part.

However, I have no "one size fits all" theory about ghosts. I just find the idea of revenant spirits appealing but unlikely to be true.
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Yes, 'reportedly' by many people over many years, lots of whom weren't even aware that a particular building or place was (allegedly) haunted (and many who were previously sceptics) and yet they saw and/or experienced the same events.

As for JFK- I've solved that one, so no worries there.
 
maximus otter said:
My knowledge of what the Large Hadron Collider does could be written on a postage stamp using a banana dipped in tar, but surely saying that “Ghosts don’t exist, because the LHC hadn’t found them” is a bit like saying “UFOs don’t exist, because the James Webb Space Telescope hasn’t found them.”?

maximus otter
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Well quite. Also, as no-one knows what ghosts actually are or what they're composed of, it's poor logic to say that if the LHC hasn't seen them they don't exist.
 
I think Cox may have fallen prey to something we might call the 'Ghostbusters Fallacy'. In that (comedy) fantasy movie, ghosts could be captured by using advanced quantum physics and nuclear-powered containment facilities. There is no reason to suspect that ghosts have any effect on the quantum realm, or that they can be affected by physical technology in any way.

If (as I suspect) ghosts are an entirely psychological phenomenon, we may be able to detect them using some kind of brain/computer interface, but they may be too subtle for that. In any case the LHC would be no use at that level of investigation.
 
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