I need help with a debate point on ghosts.

[jayman]

There's a local ghost-hunter group in my hometown of Cleveland, OH. I decided to join their Facebook group and start some friendly conversations. I asked him "what's your best evidence that ghosts exist?"

He responded,
"The amount of eyewitnesses."

I then explained how unreliable eyewitness testimony is and how it's the lowest form of evidence in science.

He responded to that point by saying,

"Let's look at it this way, have you ever seen or photographed a radio wave? I haven't but I believe they exist. Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't. If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then it/they are invisible, and like lightening if you have the right film, timing and direction you may get a photo of it. So like a single click of a camera towards the sky catches lightening the visibility of a ghost is happenstance."



I'm having a hard time putting my finger on this argument. Any thoughts?

[bookitty]

We do have instruments that can measure radio waves, it's not like they are magical.

As for the lightning analogy, it doesn't work. It is a completely random event. Your traditional haunting centers around a certain place and occasionally a certain time. - The ghost who comes into the specific room at night, the monk that walks the hallways, the headless man in the corridors, the shadow in the empty hospital. It is more possible to film an event that happens with regularity in a small area, than one that is random, less common and happens over a large one.

As to eyewitness accounts - ghost-hunters use them to decide where to go. They hear about a place that is haunted. But if this eyewitness testimony is so great, why haven't they found anything definite that they could photograph? Sarcasm aside, there's a ton of evidence on the net that relates to eyewitness accounts and most of it is damning.

Don't give up on ghost hunting though. The idea of ghosts - leftover human personalities that flicker briefly - isn't very interesting. But the reasons behind why people believe in them is fascinating.

[Jack by the hedge]

...He responded to that point by saying,

"Let's look at it this way, have you ever seen or photographed a radio wave? I haven't but I believe they exist.
Hmm. I haven't heard a tomato or smelt the moon either, but I believe they exist too.:) I daresay his point is that we can be surrounded by energy in a form undetectable to human senses. Happily, we have invented a wide range of instruments to extend the range of our senses.

Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't.Actually, I have. I'm not sure that helps make a point, but I'm happy to brag. If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then it/they are invisible, and like lightening if you have the right film, timing and direction you may get a photo of it. So like a single click of a camera towards the sky catches lightening the visibility of a ghost is happenstance."That's rather a large "if". I believe it's fairly well establised that people sometimes hallucinate and "see" people who are not really there. That would neatly explain what a ghost is: something which only exists in the observer's head. Instead of this mundane explanation, he postulates the independent existence of an external phenomenon which produces the same effect, plus the release of some unspecified energy from bodies when they die, plus some unexplained mechanism powered by this energy to produce a simulation of the dead person and which is, for unexplained reasons, sometimes perceptible and sometimes imperceptible to humans and cameras. It's a very large house of cards built on no foundation at all and it's not been demonstrated that such a contrived hypothesis is required to explain observations.

As an aside, lightning is a weak analogy for the above. The reason we can't see lightning all the time is not that it's usually invisible, it's that it's usually not happening. When there is lightning we can see it and photograph it.

I rather doubt that this will be much help to you - it's just off the top of my head.

[kittynh]

well I'd ask for what their definition of a ghost IS. Is it really the "dead"?

Or is it some weird energy?

Also, what evidence do they feel "proves" ghosts exsist. Do they feel this evidence is good enough that ghosts (Life after death, the biggest question of all) should be accepted and what does that acceptance mean?

Just going around pointing a camera and taking temperature readings, does that "prove" there is life after death or not? Ghost hunters tend to be people that join groups (nothing wrong with that) and have a lot of fun. They can feel they are doing something "important" but I've never got just what. A skeptic in the crew is GREAT. Since they are answering the biggest question of all time (life after death) they should welcome a skeptic.

Do they attempt to get rid of the ghosts? What is the POINT of the group? Is it just to meet and do the same old tired routine at cool places? If so, well, a skeptic would be a good balance. You'll probably get to visit a lot of fun places and play with some interesting gear. But I don't think they really know WHY they are doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. They don't even get RID of the ghosts anymore.

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

There's a local ghost-hunter group in my hometown of Cleveland, OH. I decided to join their Facebook group and start some friendly conversations. I asked him "what's your best evidence that ghosts exist?"

He responded,
"The amount of eyewitnesses."

You need to point him in the direction of this (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=153654). Come to think of it, aren't 80-90% of ghost sightings hoaxes, misidentifications, and hallucinations? Anyone who tries arguing that the other 20-10% are real needs to read up on the homicide gremlin (http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/bfat50.htm).

"Let's look at it this way, have you ever seen or photographed a radio wave? I haven't but I believe they exist.

You needs "believing?" We have machines to generate/received/etc. radio waves in controlled settings. The same can't be said for ghosts. Well, not for the "paranormal" explanation of ghosts.

Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't.

That's a shame for him, but it hasn't stopped other people from doing so. He really needs to do a Google Image search.

If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then

...why do they wear clothes?

PS

Ask him if he knows Ted (http://gravediggerslocal.blogspot.com/2009/05/linger-longer-ii-legend-of-jimmys-gold.html).

[MattusMaximus]

He responded to that point by saying,

"Let's look at it this way, have you ever seen or photographed a radio wave? I haven't but I believe they exist. Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't. If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then it/they are invisible, and like lightening if you have the right film, timing and direction you may get a photo of it. So like a single click of a camera towards the sky catches lightening the visibility of a ghost is happenstance."

I'm having a hard time putting my finger on this argument. Any thoughts?

Ask your friend some questions in response, since he/she is making some pretty bold claims here:

1. Exactly what kind of "energy" are they talking about here? Ask them to be very specific on this point, as a mere mention of "energy" is too vague to be of any real use.

2. How would said "energy" be measured and, perhaps more importantly, quantified? What would be the units of measurement?

3. What sort of equipment would be necessary to make the measurements outlined in question #2?

4. Are there any other well-known, mundane & naturalistic phenomena which would also show up on the equipment & measurements outlined in questions #2 and 3?

5. If the answer to #4 is "yes", then how does one go about distinguishing these well-known, natural phenomena from "ghosts"? What are the protocols are making such a distinction? Again, as in #1, specificity is critical here.

If your friend is serious about investigating and/or making "ghostly" claims and putting them to the test of scientific rigor, then they'll need to address all of these questions.

Better yet, tell them you really do want to analyze the supposed "evidence" for these "ghosts", but without the answers to these questions, you cannot do a proper investigation.

If they don't want to address these questions, or they provide overly vague & inadequate answers to them, then they're just being intellectually lazy or making crap up that sounds good to them.

[Brian-M]

Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't.


If I wanted to record the occurrence of lightning, I'd use a video camera. Not a problem. :)

If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then it/they are invisible


If ghosts are invisible, that mean any eyewitness who thinks he's seen a ghost is wrong, which means there is no eye witness evidence for ghosts. If ghosts are not invisible, then you should get plenty of recordings of them by setting up security cameras in haunted houses.

And the energy which drives our bodies is chemical energy. This energy is not released when you die... at least not until you're cremated or your body rots away, in which case the energy ends either as heat or micro-organism fuel. Either way, no ghosts.

[Akhenaten]

Who says we can't photograph "invisible" stuff?


http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/SoundWave.jpg

[jayman]

Who says we can't photograph "invisible" stuff?


http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/SoundWave.jpg


What is the photograph of?

[Akhenaten]

It's actually something I posted ages ago in another thread. I'll try and find it and post a link.

The thread was about a claim of an Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) and I used some sound-playing-with software in an attempt to analyse it. It seemed very fake to me, but I can't recall the outcome of the discussion. "Fake" was the consensus at the time my picture was posted, I believe.

In any case, the waveform is a sound wave, down around 20 - 30 hz (as I recall it).

The smaller window is a spectrum analysis. It looks fake to me, for a voice recording, because of that big flat spot.


It's obviously invisible to human eyes, but I have no problem at all in producing very detailed and accurate images of it.

Please ask more questions if I can help further, or better.

[Fiona]

"Let's look at it this way, have you ever seen or photographed a radio wave? I haven't but I believe they exist. Have you ever caught lightening in a single click of camera pointed indiscriminately at a stormy sky? Again, I haven't. If ghosts are made up of the released energy that drives our bodies then it/they are invisible, and like lightening if you have the right film, timing and direction you may get a photo of it. So like a single click of a camera towards the sky catches lightening the visibility of a ghost is happenstance."



I'm having a hard time putting my finger on this argument. Any thoughts?

Perhaps it would be helpful to ask him why he believes in radio waves and lightning? I do not think it will be because of a lot of eyewitness reports.