The Meaning Of Ghosts

Steven

Steven

'There's no such thing as rags'
Joined
Nov 5, 2023
Messages
2,485
Location
UK
If we disregard the human element (hallucination, poor eyesight, sincere mistakes, mental aberration, the fact of consciousness etc etc) and also arguably possible factors like environmental causes and so on, then what is left to explain the (apparent) existence of ghosts? A return from death is scientifically impossible, as far as I know; alternative dimensions of time unproven; so what remains? And why - frustratingly - if we leave aside the possible elements and causes mentioned previously, does there seem to be no single explanation?
 
Good question, I personally believe that most ghost sightings are incomplete timeslips, how else can you explain cases such as the guy seeing a woman in old fashioned clothes' washing up dishes, there are 1000's of cases where the shade appears to be going about it's normal business, if I am correct the reasoning is beyond us mere mortals it's a very strange world we live in
 
Steven said:
If we disregard the human element (hallucination, poor eyesight, sincere mistakes, mental aberration, the fact of consciousness etc etc) and also arguably possible factors like environmental causes and so on, then what is left to explain the (apparent) existence of ghosts? A return from death is scientifically impossible, as far as I know; alternative dimensions of time unproven; so what remains? And why - frustratingly - if we leave aside the possible elements and causes mentioned previously, does there seem to be no single explanation?
Click to expand...
Why must we talk about scientifically possible? Science is a tool for modelling the physical universe. If ghosts represent something distinct from the physical universe, science is not the tool to apply to it. As one example, I literally had a screw physically disappear from my closed fist once. No misperception, no mistake. One moment I could feel it in my fist, the next moment I could feel nothing there and was thinking "It's gone, how is that possible?". Science would tell us this is impossible. Yet it happened to me. I don't necessarily expect anyone to believe me (and have told no-one IRL about the incident). That was a "physical" event. So in the case of ghosts, which are rather more insubstantial, why should we limit ourselves to scientific possibilities?
 
Science should be about finding explanations but as scientists are people all sorts of issues get in the way. For years science said thast stones can't fall from the sky, but ..... meteorites.

Of course sometimes when science says something can't happen it is right or it can provide an explanation people don't like.
 
No doubt there are a ton of sightings when the following doesn't matter but: I can't help thinking that a conscious creature needs to witness/sense a ghost sighting for it to happen (or its presence to be 'felt' in some fashion). In my butterfly-minded way, I'm thinking along the lines of the observer effect ~

'Anthropocentric interpretation
The prominence of seemingly subjective or anthropocentric ideas like "observer" in the early development of the theory has been a continuing source of disquiet and philosophical dispute. A number of new-age religious or philosophical views give the observer a more special role, or place constraints on who or what can be an observer. There is no credible peer-reviewed research that backs such claims. As an example of such claims, Fritjof Capra declared, "The crucial feature of atomic physics is that the human observer is not only necessary to observe the properties of an object, but is necessary even to define these properties."'
 
catseye said:
And also - why some ghosts and not others? Either it's possible or it isn't, so why is it such a rare phenomenon?
Click to expand...
I've often wondered (Well about twice actually) whether there is an earthly personality type that is more likely to become a ghost. Rather as there are people who retire or leave school and never want anything to do with the place again and those who keep coming back and staying in touch.
 
Tunn11 said:
I've often wondered (Well about twice actually) whether there is an earthly personality type that is more likely to become a ghost. Rather as there are people who retire or leave school and never want anything to do with the place again and those who keep coming back and staying in touch.
Click to expand...
I suppose it could be down to personality types. Perhaps ghosts happen when the person who dies is one of those people who always hangs around at the end of a party and doesn't want to go home, no matter how many unsubtle hints you give them.
 
CharmerKamelion said:
I suppose it could be down to personality types. Perhaps ghosts happen when the person who dies is one of those people who always hangs around at the end of a party and doesn't want to go home, no matter how many unsubtle hints you give them.
Click to expand...
Or, if some of the legends are true are fired by a desire for revenge or justice.
 
Alternatively, we might then be guilty of 'humanising' a phenomena that is possibly apart from humankind (or even oblivious of us); after all, it seems likely that cats, dogs and other creatures also sense or see ghosts.
 
I suspect "all of the above". Some ghosts may be clinging to a place they were attached to, some may be clinging to unfinished business, some may never have been human.

Some may not realise they are dead, if the death was sudden and unexpected. This may explain some ghosts doing what they did in life, being seen doing chores etc. I wonder if the titanic submarine accident victims are stuck down in the dark depths, since they died in a microsecond as the sub collapsed unexpectedly. For such ghosts, they might exist in a dreamlike state (or nightmarish one), forever unable to awaken.
 
Last edited:
It's childish of me to think it annoying/frustrating that there appears to be no 'one size fits all' explanation. Though I guess that childish reaction is just the desire to know what it all (might) mean. Then again, the mystery is the whole point of its charm and wonder: without this, the 'old haunted manor' or barn is only a vaguely interesting ruin, stripped of the fascination - and the glimpse backwards into history and other lives - that the legends told about these places allow us. Perhaps the beauty of ghost stories and sightings is that so much can be read into them, and so many interesting interpretations be mused upon; real or not, they are a springboard for our imaginations.
 
Great discussion.

I was back in Exeter last week and there are the remains of the old medieval Exe bridge thankfully preserved amidst the new roads and bridges:

exe.jpg


https://www.exploringexeter.co.uk/history-exeters-medieval-bridge-by-jamie-ransom/

How it would have looked:

exeb.jpg


https://www.exploringgb.co.uk/blog/oldexebridgeexeter

The houses were in fact merchants selling their wares to arrivals into the city. When you think of the history and the lives of the people who crossed and even worked and lived on the bridge and yet there do not seem to be any ghosts sightings/encounters attached to this location, why not? They remains look most atmospheric when floodlight at night and there are plenty of potential witnesses including my own walks past there at all times of the day and night but nothing paranormal.

But there is/was a poltergeist in the M&S building, the obligatory Roman soldier haunting the Cathedral Green, a huge winged creature seen in a cemetery in the Southgate area, a haunted railway tunnel and much more, in fact a whole book has been written on the ghosts of Exeter.

Anyway, my personal theory is that anyone can see, hear and feel poltergeist activity but only certain people are attuned to seeing ghostly manifestations/stone tape memories etc whatever you wish to term them. I feel that distinction is often overlooked i.e. there are plenty of multiple-witness poltergeist accounts but not so many multiple-witness ghost encounters
 
Last edited:
Shakespeare often visited book sellers on London Bridge, apparently. From the volumes he bought, he created stories featuring fantastic insights into the state of being human; he rarely if ever invented an entirely new story (though doubtless he could have done).
 
Steven said:
Shakespeare often visited book sellers on London Bridge, apparently. From the volumes he bought, he created stories featuring fantastic insights into the state of being human; he rarely if ever invented an entirely new story (though doubtless he could have done).
Click to expand...
Lazy bugger. Mind you, he was well-attuned to ghosts, fairies, witches, spirits and premonitions. I bet Will would have been on here if he was around now.
 
Come to think of it, the ghost of Hamlet's father demands vengeance - a habit of ghosts, as Tunn mentioned - of his son; and yet Hamlet is unsure what to think, let alone do; a neat example, perhaps, of our own lack of certainties in the wake of a sighting.
 
With reference to one of my numerous ill-thought-out and impulsive ideas, which can hardly be glorified by being labelled 'theories', here's an example of a ghostly appearance that reminded people of a possible injustice; specifically, the type of unpunished crime perpetrated by the rich and powerful. The 'popular justice' is achieved by said crime(s) being remembered by the public despite the passing of years or even centuries, whether by way of apparitions both genuinely seen or else stories of such (non)events concocted by those with some or other vested interest. I don't even believe that Robert Dudley was guilty of being responsible for Amy's tragic death but many people, then and later, certainly believed that he was:


1735395272533.png

Cumnor Place

('In 1560 Cumnor Place saw the accidental death and rumoured suicide or murder of Amy Robsart, ailing wife of Lord Robert Dudley, the alleged paramour of Elizabeth I. This death, which seemingly freed Dudley and would allow him to marry Elizabeth, instead made any such marriage impossible due to the resultant scandal.')

'Beginning at the end of the 16th century, the House remained vacant for over one hundred years, during which time it became ruinous. Certainly one of the reasons nobody wanted to live there was the reputation it had for being haunted by Amy Dudley’s ghost (it was during this time that it began to be called Dudley Castle). Her ghost supposedly appeared in the form of a beautiful, well-dressed woman who was seen at the bottom of the stone staircase in the northwest section of the House where her body was found. The entire village of Cumnor came to fear the House and believed that, because of Amy’s unexorcised ghost, the village was cursed. The panic reached such a fever pitch that the villagers supposedly engaged nine parsons from Oxford to exorcise Amy’s ghost. The religious men laid the ghost in a pond, at which spot it was said the water ever after refused to freeze.'
 
Last edited:
Steven said:
If we disregard the human element (hallucination, poor eyesight, sincere mistakes, mental aberration, the fact of consciousness etc etc) and also arguably possible factors like environmental causes and so on, then what is left to explain the (apparent) existence of ghosts? A return from death is scientifically impossible, as far as I know; alternative dimensions of time unproven; so what remains? And why - frustratingly - if we leave aside the possible elements and causes mentioned previously, does there seem to be no single explanation?
Click to expand...
This is clearly a sincere post, but you almost slip into what I call the "Von Daniken technique" as used by various writers on the weird and wonderful from around the time of Von Daniken's books. "If you exclude A, B, C,...,Y (see how fair I'm being!) that still leaves Z unexplained."

The next step is to say, "And if we accept that Z is unexplained, then maybe some of A-Y shouldn't have been so easily dismissed."

Your question presupposes that there are some ghosts that cannot be explained. That is not the same as "have not yet been explained". It also doesn't take into account that in many cases, there is so little data and so much inconsistency that an explanation is impossible.

For comparison, if I tell you I was in pain on Wednesday, you cannot offer a credible diagnosis of the cause. This is not because the pain is "inexplicable" but because I have given you insufficient data for any one explanation (Migraine? Broken leg? Gastroenteritis? bee sting?) to be justifiable.

You use the expression, "scientifically impossible." This is a strong term. Something is only "scientifically impossible" when it cannot possibly happen without conflicting with well established and tested scientific theories.

A man-made perpetual motion machine is "scientifically impossible" because there is extensive scientific knowledge about conservation of energy, and efficiency losses through friction and other causes.

A ghost is not yet "scientifically impossible" because science has not strayed far into those areas that might possibly explain ghost sightings. At best, we can only say "unexplained by science".

You also show a strong preconception when you refer to the apparent absence of a single explanation as "frustrating". There is no reason why so many varied reports should fit a single explanation or theory.

To look into ghosts in any sort of rational way, we would first need some working definitions, and an agreed body of data. What we actually have is a huge amount of anecdotes (some sincere, some not), perception, folklore, misreporting (honest or otherwise), and a welter of speculative explanations, some of which are dignified with the name "theory". (The "stone tape theory" is not a theory, or even yet a hypothesis, in the usual sense of these words. At best it is a speculative explanation based on an analogy.)

What we do know is that ghosts of one kind or another have been prominent in all or most cultures in history. Apparently sincere people with good reputations have reported seeing things that they interpreted as ghosts. However, it is hard to separate these "credible" reports from all the folklore, the FOAF accounts, and the "They do say..." stories.

As others have remarked above, this may be more of an area for the philosopher (and the psychologist?) than the scientist. This may never change. Scientists need reliable data, testable hypotheses, and repeatable experiments, and it is unlikely that ghost research will ever offer even the first of these, never mind the last.

Many explanations for ghosts involve the spirit or soul of a deceased person remaining active after the body has died. We do not yet have an accepted explanation or formal definition of a spirit or a soul. It is a remarkably challenging problem for philosophers. If consciousness is an emergent property of brain activity, who is conscious of it? If self-awareness is an emergent property of brain activity, who is being aware? If the spirit is separate from the body, but inhabits it, what "powers" the spirit? What binds it to the body? How does the immaterial spirit experience the physical senses (touch, sight, hearing, etc.) of the body? If the spirit needs the body in order to exist, then how could it survive after the death of the body? If it does not need the body in order to exist, why is the spirit so closely associated with the body?

I think some of these things are inherently unknowable. Not everything can be explained, and not everything that can be explained can be tested.

Personally, I think it is overwhelmingly likely that all ghost reports arise from circumstances that could be rationally explained with our current level of knowledge if only we had sufficient data. Trouble is, we never will: if I see a hooded figure in the distance, there are so many variables that could come into play before I can record it and report it and you can investigate it.

If I see a small bird fly past me into a hedge row, then it flies away on the other side of the hedge before I can identify it, there has clearly been an event explicable with our current level of knowledge (it may have been a sparrow, or a wren, or a finch, etc. as they are all common near where I live) but it will never be wholly explicable because my honest report will lack detail, and the evidence is not longer there. It may simply have been a female house sparrow, but we will never know.
 
Steven said:
If we disregard the human element (hallucination, poor eyesight, sincere mistakes, mental aberration, the fact of consciousness etc etc) and also arguably possible factors like environmental causes and so on, then what is left to explain the (apparent) existence of ghosts? A return from death is scientifically impossible, as far as I know; alternative dimensions of time unproven; so what remains? And why - frustratingly - if we leave aside the possible elements and causes mentioned previously, does there seem to be no single explanation?
Click to expand...
I was pondering the question about why there are no sightings of cavemen and wondered if it could be something to do with the way that they thought at that time and the beliefs that they had.

In other words, is there a glut of sightings of say Roman soldiers or monks, because they were thinking/acting differently to a caveman and it therefore has a bearing on their spiritual (?) chances of 'staying around' after death?

If I'm talking twaddle, I'm quite happy to get back to a particularly fine Chilean red instead. (Wine, not a woman).
 
@Mike: Great post. Though, as it happens, my von Däniken-style questioning - e.g. 'WHY are the Secret Libraries of the Secret City of Secrecy kept secret?!?!' - isn't really a matter of any scepticism/doubts but is instead emblematic of my usual bewilderment. :)

@Floyd: I'd love to think that your idea is possible. :)
 
Steven said:
isn't really a matter of any scepticism/doubts but is instead emblematic of my usual bewilderment.
Click to expand...

I've heard it called autistic burrowing, which I think sounds rather nice :)

When we can't take in whole vast pictues easily and furtle down into one section, thoroughly enjoying it and adding to our own internal map, but worrying the NTs that we are getting obsessed with, for example, the exact species of lice the poor soldier had in his tunic!
 
I like to believe that there are things as yet unexplained (but that are only inexplicable because of our current level of scientific knowledge). Didn't the Victorians believe that they had discovered all there was to discover? And yet they believed in ghosts - presumably they thought they knew the mechanism behind spectral appearances (which seems to have been of the 'seeking justice' variety, although where this leaves the frozen chicken type tales I'm not sure). Maybe one day quantum physics will come up with an explanation for some of the things seen. It is just too reductionist to say 'well, we don't know, we can't know, we will never know', because we might, at some point in the future.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top