5 Top Objections To "Ghosts" (in the form of questions)

[MrFrankZito]

1. How can ghosts "speak"?

Discussion: Humans need vocal cords in order to speak. Moreover, humans need their special vocal cords in order to make human language possible (i.e. Dogs are physically incapable of speaking in human language). After death, the vocal cords, like the rest of the body, rot in the ground. Therefore, ghosts do not have vocal cords, and therefore, ghosts should be incapable of speech. So, back to the original question: Lacking any vocal cords at all (or any alternate vocal apparatus like birds have), how can ghosts speak?

2. How can ghosts have memories or a personality?

Discussion: Through advanced brain study, scientists have discovered that the brain corresponds directly to such things as memories and personality. Injuries to certain parts of the brain will erase memories, and injuries to certain other parts of the brain will alter one's personality. Upon death, quite obviously, the brain rots in the ground. Thus, why would a ghost retain any memories or personality whatsoever? From a scientific perspective, with the deterioration of the brain, memory/personality are irreversibly lost forever.

3. How does the immaterial interact with the material?

Discussion: There is no known method by which the immaterial (supernatural) interacts with or affects the material (natural). Indeed, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of the immaterial at all. But, even assuming that the immaterial exists, that still begs the question how these two disparate things can somehow interact. How can a "spirit" interact with a hard-wood floor and make the boards creak? How can a "spirit" interact with the air around us to create a chilly breeze?
This same objection can be used as an argument against the existence of a "soul." What is the method by which a ghostly soul can animate material flesh yet totally escape detection through centuries of scientific research--research which has discovered impossibly small and hard-to-find things (atoms, protons, electrons, neutrons)? Before proposing that the immaterial can interact with the material, shouldn't one first devise a method by which such would even be possible? And upon devising such a method, shouldn't it first be tested in a controlled environment?

4. Why do ghosts wear clothes?

Discussion: If you believe in this "soul" nonsense, I suppose you won't have a difficult time believing that ghosts represent a disembodied human soul. But, why would that disembodied human soul appear to us living people still wearing clothes? Do clothes have an afterlife or a soul? Indeed, this objection can be extended: Why would they appear to us in their former human form? "Bodies" don't have souls--"bodies" are the machine that the soul inhabits during earthly life. Once the soul leaves that body, it makes little sense that the body, too, would ascend to the spirit realm.

5. Why do "cold spots" and "EM fields" serve as evidence for ghosts?

Discussion: Amateur "ghost hunters" often talk about ghosts creating EM fields or producing "cold spots." I've never quite understood why those two particular physical phenomona serve as evidence of the ghostly. What's the proven connection? Who has objectively tested this notion and scientifically proven that ghosts are connected to cold spots and EM fields? At present, to me, it seems like 2 random physical phenomena that ghost-enthusiasts have decided they want to adopt. They'll get around to that proven connection thing later...

[Shrinker]

How can they walk through walls, but not fall through the floor all the way down to the Earth's core?

[kittynh]

good points. The National Geographic channel had on a good show about ghosts last night. Mr.Randi was ofcourse on! It tried to be objective, but even so, came down on the side of skeptics!

I enjoyed the psychologist who is studying why we feel afraid in certain situations and places. Like the dark! Could it be our ancestors that would go into dark caves would be eaten by bears? While our smart, but cowardly ancestors that feared the dark managed to breed?

[advancedatheist]

Why do ghosts look like white people who have died in the past couple hundred years? Demographically speaking you'd think you'd see more ghosts resembling Amerindians, blacks, East Asians or Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by WWFStern
1. How can ghosts "speak"?



They can't and they don't.



2. How can ghosts have memories or a personality?



Because a ghost might be a self and a self is constituted by memories and personality.



Discussion: Through advanced brain study, scientists have discovered that the brain corresponds directly to such things as memories and personality. Injuries to certain parts of the brain will erase memories, and injuries to certain other parts of the brain will alter one's personality. Upon death, quite obviously, the brain rots in the ground. Thus, why would a ghost retain any memories or personality whatsoever? From a scientific perspective, with the deterioration of the brain, memory/personality are irreversibly lost forever.



Through everyday experiences people have discovered that their mental states causally impact upon the physical. Would you therefore conclude that the physical world only exists by virtue of consciousness?

Correlations between brain and mental states do not prove that mental states have their origin in the brain.

The fact that states of "A" may be correlated with "particular states of "B", means neither that "A" and "B" are one and the same thing, nor does it entail that "B" originates from "A", or indeed "A" from "B". It could be that both "A" and "B" both independently are generated by "C". Or it could be the case that although states of "B" are modified by states of "A", "B" ultimately originates from "C".


3. How does the immaterial interact with the material?


There is no mechanism anymore than there is when the material causally impacts upon the material.



Discussion: There is no known method by which the immaterial (supernatural) interacts with or affects the material (natural). Indeed, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of the immaterial at all.



That's right. Reductive science cannot give any evidence for the immaterial, the immaterial being consciousness. Yet we know with absolute certainty that at least we ourselves are conscious. Therefore the hypothesis that everything that exists is material is demonstrably false.





This same objection can be used as an argument against the existence of a "soul." What is the method by which a ghostly soul can animate material flesh yet totally escape detection through centuries of scientific research--research which has discovered impossibly small and hard-to-find things (atoms, protons, electrons, neutrons)?



The soul or self is not physical. Reductive science, by definition, can only discover the physical. Therefore it cannot be definition discover the self.



4. Why do ghosts wear clothes?



The mind clothes them. Ghosts are extremely similar to hallucinations. The difference is they have an external origin.



Discussion: If you believe in this "soul" nonsense,



{sighs}

What do you mean by a soul? A self which survives the body? If so why on earth do you think it is nonsense?

[MrFrankZito]

Because a ghost might be a self and a self is constituted by memories and personality.

Unsubstantiated claim. No evidence to support the existence of ghosts; no evidence to support the existence of a self. Also, no means by which to prove that such a hypothetical self can retain memories or a personality.

Through everyday experiences people have discovered that their mental states causally impact upon the physical. Would you therefore conclude that the physical world only exists by virtue of consciousness?

Correlations between brain and mental states do not prove that mental states have their origin in the brain.

The fact that states of "A" may be correlated with "particular states of "B", means neither that "A" and "B" are one and the same thing, nor does it entail that "B" originates from "A", or indeed "A" from "B". It could be that both "A" and "B" both independently are generated by "C". Or it could be the case that although states of "B" are modified by states of "A", "B" ultimately originates from "C".

Things are much more black and white than you are letting on. Are you familiar with the story of Phineas Gage? He suffered a terrible brain injury, and immediately afterward, his personality changed. He retained his memory, motor skills, language abilities, etc. He simply injured the region of his brain responsible for determining one's personality, thus changing his personality. Therefore, personality is a function of that region of the brain and is an entirely physical entity. With respect to memory, one need only look at amnesia victims. A brain injury causes the temporary or permanent loss of memory. Thus, memory resides in a particular region of the brain, and is an entirely physical entity.

There is no mechanism anymore than there is when the material causally impacts upon the material

But, with respect to material-material interaction, a great deal of analysis is possible. Such interactions are infinitely understandable. Material-immaterial interaction is hypothetical. Indeed, I think an explanation is necessary for how two things that are "on different planes" or are "in different realms" can somehow interact. I don't think, based upon our current natural laws, there is any explanation for material-immaterial interactions.

That's right. Reductive science cannot give any evidence for the immaterial, the immaterial being consciousness. Yet we know with absolute certainty that at least we ourselves are conscious. Therefore the hypothesis that everything that exists is material is demonstrably false.

The "I" within us is a clever illusion perpetrated by our brains. There is no ghost animating our flesh. The "I" within us is just our brains. Our wonderful, fantastic brains. Our material, natural brains. Our supposed consciousness is just one of the brain's many marvelous illusions.

The soul or self is not physical. Reductive science, by definition, can only discover the physical. Therefore it cannot be definition discover the self.

Perhaps that is because there is no such self to discover.

The mind clothes them. Ghosts are extremely similar to hallucinations. The difference is they have an external origin.

I agree with you about the hallucination part. People hallucinate ghosts in clothing because they'd rather not hallucinate their grandmother naked. Your explanation, once again, takes an material-immaterial interaction for granted, in that you think the physical mind can interact with the immaterial "self" to create illusory clothing. Highly speculative.

What do you mean by a soul? A self which survives the body? If so why on earth do you think it is nonsense?

We are our brains. Our brains are us. Once our brains start rotting, we cease to exist. The ghost that seems to animate our flesh is illusory. If you break the brain down by region, every conceivable function of the soul, from personality down to memories, is discovered.

It's nice to believe that there is some timeless, eternal essence in each of us. I wish there were. However, there is no evidence to support such belief.

[kittynh]

Originally posted by WWFStern
1. How can ghosts "speak"?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



They can't and they don't.



Look literature and history and lore are full of ghosts that speak!

One of the main groups of ghosts (I was told ghost hunters have 3 types of ghosts) is the recently dead ghost that visits loved ones to offer words of reasurance. One case was a woman that had been in a car accident with her husband. The husband died, but no one told her. She told her doctor "oh my husband is dead now." She related he had come into her room,held her hand and told her he was dead, but that she was to keep fighting to get better. He also told her he had to leave, but that there was an afterlife and he would look forward to the day they were reunited.

And what about all those tape recordings of ghost speak? Or is it because you can only hear them on tape (the theory being that since they are electromagnatic, their voices aren't really speaking...it is the tape picking them up) mean they aren't speaking?

if ghosts are real or not, in fiction and in life, they speak!

[clarsct]

Originally posted by kittynh
Originally posted by WWFStern
1. How can ghosts "speak"?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



They can't and they don't.



Look literature and history and lore are full of ghosts that speak!

One of the main groups of ghosts (I was told ghost hunters have 3 types of ghosts) is the recently dead ghost that visits loved ones to offer words of reasurance. One case was a woman that had been in a car accident with her husband. The husband died, but no one told her. She told her doctor "oh my husband is dead now." She related he had come into her room,held her hand and told her he was dead, but that she was to keep fighting to get better. He also told her he had to leave, but that there was an afterlife and he would look forward to the day they were reunited.

And what about all those tape recordings of ghost speak? Or is it because you can only hear them on tape (the theory being that since they are electromagnatic, their voices aren't really speaking...it is the tape picking them up) mean they aren't speaking?

if ghosts are real or not, in fiction and in life, they speak!


Well, now, hold on kitty. Ghosts have been REPORTED to speak. Ancedotal evidence is one thing, hard facts are another. Fiction is fiction, reality is reality.

As for the tape recordings, they've been debunked..By Randi, I believe, amongst others. (search for Ghosts in the commentaries..I'm sure you'll run into something)


Let's not get confused, here. I believe that what is being said is that most ghost stories have some gaping holes in them.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by kittynh


Look literature and history and lore are full of ghosts that speak!

One of the main groups of ghosts (I was told ghost hunters have 3 types of ghosts) is the recently dead ghost that visits loved ones to offer words of reasurance. One case was a woman that had been in a car accident with her husband. The husband died, but no one told her. She told her doctor "oh my husband is dead now." She related he had come into her room,held her hand and told her he was dead, but that she was to keep fighting to get better. He also told her he had to leave, but that there was an afterlife and he would look forward to the day they were reunited.



Yeah that's the type of ghost which provides suggestive evidence for a "life after death". Her husband might not have actually said it; rather it might have been a telepathic impression but her mind dresses up that telepathic impression into a form she can understand. If there had been a video camera in the room, I don't think it would have recorded anything.





And what about all those tape recordings of ghost speak? Or is it because you can only hear them on tape (the theory being that since they are electromagnatic, their voices aren't really speaking...it is the tape picking them up) mean they aren't speaking?

if ghosts are real or not, in fiction and in life, they speak!

These tape recordings I suspect are an entirely different type of ghost. There seems to be several distinct phenomena, all of which we confusingly label "ghosts".

Edited to add: Or rather maybe are not ghosts at all. The only evidence for ghosts interacting with their environment are poltergeists so far as I am aware. How do we know these tape recordings are an anomalous phenomenon?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by WWFStern

Things are much more black and white than you are letting on. Are you familiar with the story of Phineas Gage? He suffered a terrible brain injury, and immediately afterward, his personality changed. He retained his memory, motor skills, language abilities, etc. He simply injured the region of his brain responsible for determining one's personality, thus changing his personality. Therefore, personality is a function of that region of the brain and is an entirely physical entity. With respect to memory, one need only look at amnesia victims. A brain injury causes the temporary or permanent loss of memory. Thus, memory resides in a particular region of the brain, and is an entirely physical entity.



So the case of Phineas Gage proves that consciousness is entirely a product of the brain? So Gage would have had to be literally a different person after his accident as compared to before it. Did Gage acknowledge that his post-accident self was literally a different person as compared to before the accident? Or did he simply state that he felt different?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
So the case of Phineas Gage proves that consciousness is entirely a product of the brain? So Gage would have had to be literally a different person after his accident as compared to before it.
I'm a different person than I was yesterday. You are confusing different and not same.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I'm a different person than I was yesterday. You are confusing different and not same.

~~ Paul

They mean precisely the same -- indeed by definition.

But anyway, presumably you are also a different person from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, and second to second?

In which case why plan for the future at all since it will not be you experiencing it? Why even cook yourself a meal, why chat up that girl? Indeed why do anything at all?

The idea here that you and WWFStern are proposing is that different mental states equate to different selves. But that is precisely what I deny, and indeed any person who believes we are spiritual beings.

Phineas Gage is apparently a different person for those who knew him, although I'm willing to bet that Gage himself didn't think he had literally become a different person. A person who has drank a lot of alcohol is apparently a different person to that when "he" is sober for those who know him, although I'm willing to bet that the drunk person himself doesn't think he has literally become a different self. A person on hearing bad news becomes moody and ill-tempered. He may not apparently become a different person, but only because ones moods changes throughout the day. But still, according to you a change of mood means that one has literally ceased to exist and another self has sprang into being to take their place.

Maybe that's all true, but it is mind numbingly counter-intuitional and no reason whatsoever has been advanced to suppose it is true. Merely pointing out that our moods dispositions, interests etc, continually change doesn't cut it. I say that those are merely properties of the self -- not constitutive of the self.

[kittynh]

Gage is kind of a local historical character.

If I remember my reading it was said he "lost his soul" after the accident. His wife left him as he had become abusive, and everyone agreed (in those long ago times) that whatever had made him human had been "killed" in the accident - that indeed perhaps his soul had been killed and he had been left alive.

Basically he went for a pretty nice guy to a real violent jerk.



from this site.....http://www.deakin.edu.au/hbs/GAGEPAGE/Pgstory.htm


Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again. Before the accident he had been their most capable and efficient foreman, one with a well-balanced mind, and who was looked on as a shrewd smart business man. He was now fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows. He was also impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action. His friends said he was “No longer Gage.�

[kittynh]

OK and we can redefine anything until it's plausable. If ghosts aren't what everyone else thinks of as a "ghost" (you know, dead people walking around and going "whoooowhoooo") then is it a ghost? If it's a hallucination (partial hallucination, partial we dont' know) then is it still a ghost?

Ghost is ghost.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ghost

hey a ghost is a red blood cell that has lost its hemoglobin! that's definition number 7! cool!

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by kittynh
Gage is kind of a local historical character.

If I remember my reading it was said he "lost his soul" after the accident. His wife left him as he had become abusive, and everyone agreed (in those long ago times) that whatever had made him human had been "killed" in the accident - that indeed perhaps his soul had been killed and he had been left alive.

Basically he went for a pretty nice guy to a real violent jerk.



from this site.....http://www.deakin.edu.au/hbs/GAGEPAGE/Pgstory.htm


Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again. Before the accident he had been their most capable and efficient foreman, one with a well-balanced mind, and who was looked on as a shrewd smart business man. He was now fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows. He was also impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action. His friends said he was “No longer Gage.�

All extremely interesting indeed and obviously consistent with materialism. Indeed, in and of itself, it is suggestive of materialism, or at least that conscious states are a by-product of brain states. But it does not vindicate the hypothesis that consciousness is generated by the brain. It's simply a logical fallacy to suppose that the fact that Y is correlated with states of X, necessitates that Y must have its genesis in X.

Only Phineas Gage is in a position to say whether he is the same self as before the accident or not. Thus the 1st person perspective is vastly more important when considering questions of selfhood than the 3rd person perspective. So what did he say had become of his self? I think I could guess his answer since people when they are drunk can differ quite radically personailty wise from when they are sober -- and yet they do not claim that their self literally changed.

[Soapy Sam]

Do ghosts only exist when someone senses them?

If so, they may be hallucinations. (Possibly of trees falling in the forest).

If not, we should find indirect evidence of their existence.

If they do exert a cold field for example, thermostats should respond. Heating bills should go up.

As psychical researchers often report battery failures around ghosts, we might seek ghosts by testing for lower than predicted battery life.

Do ghosts trigger PIR sensors? Interfere with radio and TV signals? Affect the weather? Cause any anomalous effect on sensitive equipment?

Suppose there are 100,000 ghosts active in Britain at any moment. How will this affect electricity generation / cow milk yields / the stock market?
Actually, my heating bill has gone up recently. And my radio crackles. And Windows is acting funny- it hasn't crashed in weeks. Possibly a ghost is cooling my processor.

[Open Mind]

5 Top Objections To "Ghosts" (in the form of questions)


I doubt one can list the 5 top objections to ghosts since even proponents do not agree on exactly what a ‘ghost’ is ….to some it is a real living dead person (survivalist theory) to others it is memory impression of the past being picked up by human brain psi ability (super PSI theory) etc. ………

……….. what they agree (with the exception of skeptic disbelievers) is a real paranormal phenomena is sometimes occurring.

To answer your questions I am going to largely ignore the super PSI theory and give the answers as given by communicators to some survivalist researchers.......... I am not stating these are correct or factual but reoccurring explanations given by the so called 'dead' communicators taken at face value


Originally posted by WWFStern
1. How can ghosts "speak"?



Do you mean physically to humans? They generally can’t, since most ‘clairaudience’ claims are only heard by the person hearing it, so it is probably not heard by the physical ear. …… However there are several (rare) historical claims of ‘direct voice’ (or ‘independent voice’) where a voice is heard by all present coming directly out of the air from a location not near anyone.

My grandfather often told me about the day he heard his dead mother's voice speak to him in just one ear, he heard the phrase ‘Tommy son, I never thought I would be able to speak to you like this’ …. He got a startle and rushed out of the room :) He immediately regretted doing so …….. however as a result he then started investigating mediums and one told him his mother was there and she had spoken to him before, naming the location and part of the day his voice in one ear experience took place. …he claimed they couldn’t possibly have found out this information and he was finally fully convinced.

This however doesn’t prove it was a physical voice he heard, even although it was clearly only in one ear to him.

Also this is not my evidence, I have my own personal evidence why I think PSI most probably exists which I have already told before on this forum. Since it is all to easy for armchair skeptics to accuse someone else of being in self deception, error or worse being fraudulent .... people should investigate for themselves - sincerely and rigorously but not with an intention to debunk and defend a-priori belief.



3. How does the immaterial interact with the material?



Is an electron a wave or a particle? It is both, a duality. Consciousness, memory, soul/physical body may be dualities too? Science has shown our common sense material perception of reality isn’t accurate.



2. How can ghosts have memories or a personality?

One idea is that we have both physical memory and non physical memory, when the physical memory is destroyed upon death a non physical memory counterpart survives. The consciousness uses the memory source appropriate to where is it functioning, when functioning through a brain, it has access to brain memory (mostly). When functioning on a different level/reality it has access to the information stored there …… this is a rather ancient idea in eastern religion of the individuality being like layers of an onion, the outer layers are possible to disregard (and reobtain) to find that all consciousness comes from one source and has split and divided ... perhaps much like cells do. .

For example say when consciousness leaves the brain, it can experience other realities, upon return to the brain, it has poor recall since nothing was stored in the physical brain. Upon brain physical death, does all earth brain memory survive? According to some claims, the more emotional information is remembered better than say your car registration number type information ….. apparently the memories of earth become more dream like when the surviving soul gradually loses interest in their past earth existence, this is not considered sad or a great loss to them, as it then viewed much like us recalling our early childhood, we are more interested in present and forget much detail of the past except the emotionally valuable bits we remember better and keep

The communicators with most accurate earth memories, are often claimed to be recently deceased ..... but this is made more complex by the presence of ‘earthbound’ spirits (souls apparently obsessed with earth life who are reluctant to move on and reportedly often mischievous or worse parasitically trying to control human minds for earthly sensation, so the brain perhaps evolved to shut down PSI?)

Does personality survive? Yes and no, they claim individuality behind personality survives (and behind the individuality lies a collectivity of individual group species from which individuality emerged eventually which is traceble back to one source - call it God or whatever) , the personality is just a means of expression and changes and evolves or in a sense dies (but apparently the soul can also express itself as any of it's past source personalities if desired, so in a sense it does survive)

All of this of course sounds far fetched and it is difficult to test, we can only seek evidence first that proves PSI, secondly that proves survival and the hypotheses emerge from that but these are difficult to test ..... but since you asked the questions. ;)


4. Why do ghosts wear clothes?

Seemingly because they want to (or expect to). We are told they don’t need to eat, drink, play golf, live in a house, make furniture, create music but they do so because it gives them order and pleasure doing so, until it doesn’t give satisfaction, then they seek and find something else that does. Not even the human form is permanent, internal organs aren’t necessarily there and the once earthly human shape may no longer appear in a formed human shape unless desired …..

I get the impression though that none of this will satisfy your logic (nor should it necessarily) so I don't know why I bothered typing it :)


5. Why do "cold spots" and "EM fields" serve as evidence for ghosts?


I don’t think these do in isolation, if with other inexplicable phenomena, these might offer some supportive evidence.

[Deetee]

Originally posted by Open Mind
Is an electron a wave or a particle? It is both, a duality.

You mean light, and not electrons.

[Open Mind]

Originally posted by Deetee
You mean light, and not electrons.

I meant an electron too

[Ipecac]

Here's another:

Why is the world not crawling with ghosts?

If even 1% of everyone who ever died became a ghost, there would still be, what, billions or at least hundreds of millions of ghosts. Do ghosts expire after a certain time so that only the recently deceased walk the earth?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
They mean precisely the same -- indeed by definition.
No, they don't. The opposite of not same is same. The word different does not necessarily mean "entirely different."

I am somewhat different than I was yesterday.

But anyway, presumably you are also a different person from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, and second to second?

In which case why plan for the future at all since it will not be you experiencing it? Why even cook yourself a meal, why chat up that girl? Indeed why do anything at all?
Because I am not entirely different from moment to moment. If I was, I couldn't plan at all.

But still, according to you a change of mood means that one has literally ceased to exist and another self has sprang into being to take their place.
Wherever do you get such nonsense?

~~ Paul

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Ipecac
Here's another:

Why is the world not crawling with ghosts?

If even 1% of everyone who ever died became a ghost, there would still be, what, billions or at least hundreds of millions of ghosts. Do ghosts expire after a certain time so that only the recently deceased walk the earth?
Not to mention animal ghosts. You often hear of the ghosts of horses (often with a ghost human on top of them) or ghost dogs.

In addition to the "expiration date" question, I'd add to the list of questions:

Why do ghosts rarely appear in broad daylight?

Are ghosts confined to the place they died, or to the place they lived before death (even if they died elsewhere)?

If they can communicate with humans (via telepathy or other methods), why don't they give us any useful information? For example, the ghost of a murdered person could tell us who did it, along with the evidence that would show it.

Can ghosts be captured on camera? Can ghosts be seen on camera even though they are not visible to the eye?

[Ossai]

Interesting Ian
Because a ghost might be a self and a self is constituted by memories and personality. Contained in the brain.

Through everyday experiences people have discovered that their mental states causally impact upon the physical. Explain what you mean. All you are saying is that people interact with the world around them, based on what they are thinking.
However, what you are implying is that people somehow magically cause the world to be the way they want it to be without physical interaction.

Would you therefore conclude that the physical world only exists by virtue of consciousness? Based on what you said, no. Based upon what you implied, no.

Correlations between brain and mental states do not prove that mental states have their origin in the brain.
What would it take to prove to you that mental states do have their origin in the brain?
What about twin studies?

There is no mechanism anymore than there is when the material causally impacts upon the material. You just stated that matter does not interact with matter.
So did you wish your old computer to fix itself or did you purchase a new one or have the old one serviced?
Oh wait, by your statement, a computer is unnecessary. You could merely mentally read and post to the net.

So the case of Phineas Gage proves that consciousness is entirely a product of the brain? So Gage would have had to be literally a different person after his accident as compared to before it. Did Gage acknowledge that his post-accident self was literally a different person as compared to before the accident? Or did he simply state that he felt different? Ian, go cut your toenails. Once you’re finished do you consider yourself a different person or do you just have shorter toenails?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
But still, according to you a change of mood means that one has literally ceased to exist and another self has sprang into being to take their place.Wherever do you get such nonsense?
He’s Idiot Ian, he makes it up as he goes along.
Ossai

[Ducky]

Originally posted by clarsct
Well, now, hold on kitty. Ghosts have been REPORTED to speak. Ancedotal evidence is one thing, hard facts are another. Fiction is fiction, reality is reality.

As for the tape recordings, they've been debunked..By Randi, I believe, amongst others. (search for Ghosts in the commentaries..I'm sure you'll run into something)


Let's not get confused, here. I believe that what is being said is that most ghost stories have some gaping holes in them.

Finally someone talks about something within my expertise...

Yes they have been debunked, but ridiculous (and poorly written) movies like "White Noise" perpetuate some paranormal answer to simple physics.

As to the suggestion "Maybe it's another type of ghost" I would congratulate an especially lame ad-hoc hypothesis.

If you would like to know what EVP really is, see Robert Carroll's Skeptic Dictionary entry on it. In it, I go into a very rudamentary explination of the physical happenings that cause electronic devices to either a) pick up errant transmissions, or b) are actually REAL white/pink noise filtered by poor ground loops to sound like open vowel sounds. Nothing paranormal about it. Apply occam's razor here, if I properly shield and ground my equipment and the ghosts stop talking, would it not follow it was actually cross modulation and faulty power sources?

As for the original intent of the post, my 2 cents lay with the fact that ghosts can do anything your imagination can come up with - They're imaginary.

The link to the Skeptic's Dictionary:

http://www.skepdic.com/evp.html

[songstress]

Ghosts are not imaginary. Many sane and rational people have reported experiences, for which they have no other explanation.

Ghosts don't only appear in the dark. They appear in broad daylight most of the time.

Ghosts are not always spirits of the dead. Phantoms of the living are often reported.

Ghosts are not 'dreams'. A ghostly encounter cannot be confused with anything else.

Ghostly activity isn't always accompanied by drops in temperature.

Ghosts can be seen by more than one person at a time.

Ghosts usually haunt places where they once lived and were happy.

Ghosts aren't always murder or accident victims.

Ghostly sightings are extremely rare. Usually people 'pick up' surrounding energy field anomalies.

Ghosts rarely haunt graveyards.

Ghosts can speak.


Patsy.

[Z]

Originally posted by songstress
Ghosts are not imaginary. Many sane and rational people have reported experiences, for which they have no other explanation.

Non-sequitur. Fifty million Elvis fans spotting the King doesn't mean he really exists somewhere out there. And just because the witness has no other explanation, doesn't mean the explanation doesn't exist, either.

Besides which, sane and rational people have imaginations and are prone to being fooled, as well.

Ghosts don't only appear in the dark. They appear in broad daylight most of the time.

Evidence, please?

Ghosts are not always spirits of the dead. Phantoms of the living are often reported.

Evidence, please?

Ghosts are not 'dreams'. A ghostly encounter cannot be confused with anything else.

While I will agree that ghosts are not 'dreams' (why the scare quotes?) I have to disagree that ghostly encounters cannot be confused with anything else. In fact, check out any debunked ghost encounter or even faked ghost visitation for examples of such confusion.

Ghostly activity isn't always accompanied by drops in temperature.

True.

Ghosts can be seen by more than one person at a time.

Depending, of course, on what the exact explanation is for the particular phenomenon in question.

Ghosts usually haunt places where they once lived and were happy.

Evidence, please? In fact, I believe (though I may well be wrong) that the majority of ghost researchers believe that ghosts specifically hang around due to unfinished business or untimely deaths - not exactly happy circumstances.

Ghosts aren't always murder or accident victims.

True - they are illusions and delusions.

Ghostly sightings are extremely rare. Usually people 'pick up' surrounding energy field anomalies.

???

Er, I mean... Evidence, please?

Ghosts rarely haunt graveyards.

Evidence, please? Though I think you're right here - most sightings are in homes and in out-of-the-way places where known events have occured - like civil war battlefields and such.

Ghosts can speak.

Evidence, please?

Patsy.

PATSY: (n) chump: a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

You certainly are.

[wahrheit]

Originally posted by songstress
Santa Claus is not imaginary.

Santa Claus doesn't only appear in the dark.

Santa Claus is not always a spirit of the dead.

Santa Claus is not 'dreams'.

Santa Claus activity isn't always accompanied by drops in temperature.

Santa Claus can be seen by more than one person at a time.

Santa Claus usually haunts places where he once lived and was happy.

Santa Claus isn't always a murder or accident victim.

Santa Claus sightings are extremely rare. Usually people 'pick up' surrounding energy field anomalies.

Santa Claus rarely haunts graveyards.

Santa Claus can speak.


Patsy.

:rolleyes:

[Deetee]

Glad you used Santa and not the Easter Bunny as your counterexample.
The Easter Bunny cannot speak.

[davidsmith73]

wahrheit,

What precisely are you trying to say?

[Darat]

Originally posted by songstress
Ghosts are not imaginary. Many sane and rational people have reported experiences, for which they have no other explanation.


Other explanation then what? Just having no other explanation does not make something true.

From all your statements it would seem that you know what ghosts are. Can you please provide the definition you are using for the word "ghost"?

I can quite honestly say that I believe ghosts are real.

This would seem to indicate that we are both in agreement however I suspect we may be using different definitions for the word “ghost�.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by songstress

Ghosts can speak.



Originally posted by zaayrdragon

Evidence, please?



Ghosts do talk. I once saw a ghost late in the evening in an old theatre. It drifted across the stage and said “I am the Ghost of Christmas yet to come�

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Tricky

Can ghosts be captured on camera? Can ghosts be seen on camera even though they are not visible to the eye?

Nah, I'm going with the super-psi hypothesis. There's no need for any physical manifestations that way. You can't photograph information contained in the mind.

Its interesting to speculate that people who see ghosts are suffering from a kind of psi-schizophrenia. Current ideas about schizophrenia I think involve a disfunction in the level of importance that the mind gives to perceptual information available to it. Schizophrenics are thought to hallucinate because the distinction between what is "internal" and what is "external" breaks down. Their brain therefore sometimes assigns a higher level of importance to information that would normally be assigned an "internal" status and instead is assigned an "external" status and hallucination results. If so then, it would be natural to assume that any information reaching the brain via psi could be subject to a similar mechanism. Under normal circumstances, psi information is assigned a status of "internal", an example could be intuition. But under other circumstances, psi information could be assigned a status of "external" and manifest as sensory perception. The difference between normal schizophrenia and psi-schizophrenia being of course the way in which the information gets into the brain in first place, so an explanation of ghosts in terms of super-psi first needs an explanation of psi.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Its interesting to speculate that people who see ghosts are suffering from a kind of psi-schizophrenia. ..... so an explanation of ghosts in terms of super-psi first needs an explanation of psi. or a single piece of credible evidence that psi exists.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
or a single piece of credible evidence that psi exists.

considering that's already been produced, we should be concentrating on the theory.

[Z]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
considering that's already been produced, we should be concentrating on the theory.

Evidence, please?

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Evidence, please?

No thanks, I'll pass. Been there, done that, convinced few if any, waste of time.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
No thanks, I'll pass. Been there, done that, convinced few if any, waste of time.
Why do you think that is ?

Are you poor at putting your case over or is your reasoning flawed ?

Alternatively perhaps you fall into the “People are not intelligent enough to understand my arguments� camp or do you buy into cognitive dissonance.

Or do you have another reason why you can’t convince people.

[DavoMan]

That last post was interesting. Shame I don't know weather to put it into the Fiction section or Non-fiction section.

Anyway with regards to the definition of ghost. If your definition of ghost is 'an amaginary type of entity thought to exist because lots of people see things they think were the same type of entity." then ghosts exist.

OH GOD THE DOG JUST FARTED. That is apauling. I cant beleive such a disgusting smell came out of something so cute. Anyway if your definition doesnt include the 'thought to exist' part then I'd say ghosts dont exist.

'Ghost' suffers from the same definition problem as 'God' and 'Big Foot'. Solid definitions cant be agreed apon, so characteristics can't be agreed apon. That leads to people saying 'this isnt from big foot' or 'this is from big foot' and disagreements arising.

My post is largely this whole thread summed up. Except for the dog farting bit. Oh god I have to end this post so I can get some fresh air.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
Why do you think that is ?

Are you poor at putting your case over or is your reasoning flawed ?

Alternatively perhaps you fall into the “People are not intelligent enough to understand my arguments� camp or do you buy into cognitive dissonance.

Or do you have another reason why you can’t convince people.

People are not objective about psi research. Simple as that. On this board, bad psi research gets noticed, the good research gets ignored. People here are plenty intelligent enough to understand that there are demonstrated consciousness related anomalies, but few admit it for reasons I don't understand.

[Z]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
People are not objective about psi research. Simple as that. On this board, bad psi research gets noticed, the good research gets ignored. People here are plenty intelligent enough to understand that there are demonstrated consciousness related anomalies, but few admit it for reasons I don't understand.

Hmmm.. I'd love to see some good psi research. I would love for psi to be real.

I even believe it may be real. But so far, NO ONE has ever presented good psi research with positive results.

So, I ask again: evidence, please?

Otherwise, you've got jack squat, and you're admitting it.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Hmmm.. I'd love to see some good psi research. I would love for psi to be real.

I even believe it may be real. But so far, NO ONE has ever presented good psi research with positive results.

So, I ask again: evidence, please?

Otherwise, you've got jack squat, and you're admitting it.

Go to Daryl Bem's web site and read his paper on precognitive habituation and get back to me. But really zaayrdragon we've all seen psi papers flying about this forum for years now. Everytime good psi research is presented, people with attutudes like yours stumble about, move the goal posts and demand "better" results or more replications. Then a few months later when the subject arises again, the same people who were presented with good evidence repeat "evidence please"! Can't you understand that people like me, Ian, Openmind or whoever can't really be bothered with this circle of denial any more?

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Go to Daryl Bem's web site and read his paper on precognitive habituation Can't you understand that people like me, Ian, Openmind or whoever can't really be bothered with this circle of denial any more? David. from the paper you quote If the holy grail is a straightforward laboratory demonstration of psi that can be replicated by any competent experimenter, then the PH protocol appears to be a promising candidate for achieving that elusive goal. So Daryl believes that his experiment is a promising candidate.

So to repeat Zaayrdrgon's plea, do you have any evidence or just something that appears to be a promising candidate.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
David. from the paper you quote So Daryl believes that his experiment is a promising candidate.

So to repeat Zaayrdrgon's plea, do you have any evidence or just something that appears to be a promising candidate.

Do you not consider the experiment to be evidence because it has not been independently replicated?

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Do you not consider the experiment to be evidence because it has not been independently replicated?

I don’t consider it evidence that PSI exists, but then again neither does the author …..

He suggests that this experiment might possibly be the one to show that PSI exists.

Although given that it was written 2 years ago and we have heard nothing since……. I expect it will end up along side his similar claim that ganzfeld would be the experiment to show PSI exists.

I am not sure about successful replication as he ran a few variations. I think the postive results came from Emotional people who weren’t bored, as long as there were no willies in the picture.

It that when PSI works ?

[Z]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Go to Daryl Bem's web site and read his paper on precognitive habituation and get back to me. But really zaayrdragon we've all seen psi papers flying about this forum for years now. Everytime good psi research is presented, people with attutudes like yours stumble about, move the goal posts and demand "better" results or more replications. Then a few months later when the subject arises again, the same people who were presented with good evidence repeat "evidence please"! Can't you understand that people like me, Ian, Openmind or whoever can't really be bothered with this circle of denial any more?

Is this the Cornell University professor who was using autoganzfeld and meta-analysis, two procedures that have been under-fire since their inception, and who has barely written on the subject of Psi in the last two years?

Or is there another Daryl Bem with some actual solid research on Psi?

And, no, I cannot understand that people like you, Ian, Openmind, or whoever can't really be bothered with this circle of denial any more. After all, you can certainly be bothered to spend time posting on an internet forum where you KNOW people will be looking at your posts with a critical eye. So EVERY SINGLE time you claim there is evidence of Psi, you had best be prepared to present SOLID, REPLICABLE evidence for Psi, not more of this contraversial autoganzfeld meta-analysis nonsense.

After all, where is the real psi? Where are the people moving things with their minds, reading minds, predicting the future, etc? Absolutely nowhere. THAT'S what I want from evidence, not questionable randomizers. It's like trying to defend homeopathy with those ridiculous basophile experiments: there may be some related phenomenae involved, but it's not evidence.

[Z]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Do you not consider the experiment to be evidence because it has not been independently replicated?

Independent replication is definitely a defining aspect of evidence. Otherwise, we could just take any anecdote as evidence - like Ian does - without bothering to do real research.

[Open Mind]

Why is the world not crawling with ghosts?

And if the world is, would we necessarily notice? :)


If even 1% of everyone who ever died became a ghost, there would still be, what, billions or at least hundreds of millions of ghosts

How is this a problem? How much space would a non material ghost take up? ;)
Also I don’t think the survivalist claim is that all spirits are extremely interested in earth, the more traditional claim is that they have their own reality and life and can return to visit .... the ones trying to live an earth reality are traditionally considered confused or mischievous (or not real ghosts/residual energy/super PSI effects) ....... the goodies, relatives etc. are claimed to just visit, they don’t generally live in one’s haunted attic :)



Why do ghosts rarely appear in broad daylight?


Tyrell’s report on these in the 1950s found over 130 cases of multiple witnesses simultaneously seeing the same apparition many of those in daylight.

The association with darkness is partly due to claims of Victorian séances often held in the pitch dark where ectoplasm was claimed to be destroyed by light source – yes very suspicious claims … however reportedly successful séances took place held in bright electric light with conjurors (still detecting no fraud) ……others in poor light are not quite so easy to debunk as one would imagine, unless it is assumed the scientist/researcher was part of a hoax as magicians of that period and since have struggled to produce all the same phenomena under the same reported circumstances..

[Darat]

Originally posted by Open Mind
And if the world is, would we necessarily notice? :)

...snip...

What do you mean by the word "ghost"?

[wahrheit]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
wahrheit,

What precisely are you trying to say?
Why ask a question if you already know the answer?

Hint: It has to do with this pesky thing of presenting a tirade of extraordinary statements without providing any evidence.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
David. from the paper you quote So Daryl believes that his experiment is a promising candidate.

So to repeat Zaayrdrgon's plea, do you have any evidence or just something that appears to be a promising candidate.

Lothian, I think you need to read his words a little better.

He says that this experimental technique is a promising condidate for a straightforward laboratory demonstration of psi that can be replicated by any competent experimenter. Not that his results are a promising candidate for evidence.

He doesn't make an explicit statement on whether the results of his described experiments are evidence for psi. I strongly suspect that he does regard his series of PH experiments together with the noted independent replication by Savitsky as evidence for psi. Why wouldn’t he? An anomalous effect has been cleary demonstrated, manipulated with variables and indepdendently replicated. I would say it is strong evidence for psi.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
Lothian, I think you need to read his words a little better.

He says that this experimental technique is a promising condidate for a straightforward laboratory demonstration of psi that can be replicated by any competent experimenter. Not that his results are a promising candidate for evidence.

He doesn't make an explicit statement on whether the results of his described experiments are evidence for psi. I strongly suspect that he does regard his series of PH experiments together with the noted independent replication by Savitsky as evidence for psi. Why wouldn’t he? An anomalous effect has been cleary demonstrated, manipulated with variables and indepdendently replicated. I would say it is strong evidence for psi. So the experimenter does not say this is evidence of PSI but you do.

Perhaps one reason he does not say it is 'evidence' is that he has not finished his study. This was, in 2003, an interim report to a conference. Where are the published results ? Did they pass peer review ? Did he sort out the non randomness of the computer choice that concerned him ?

You think this is evidence of PSI. A lot of his experiments showed no effect.

Please tell me from this evidence, how a competent experimenter can get a PSI effect ? What kind of people do you need, or can anyone do it ? What pictures do you need and how erotic do they need to be ? also at what stage does the boredom effect come in and affect the results ?

Or do you just do any old experiment then look for a link between the candidates with the highest scores ?

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Is this the Cornell University professor who was using autoganzfeld and meta-analysis,

Yes.


two procedures that have been under-fire since their inception, and who has barely written on the subject of Psi in the last two years?

I am not aware of any major objections to the use of autoganzfeld. Can you describe one?

I am also not aware of any major objections to the use of meta-anlysis in science, other than to say it is not the ideal method to demonstrate the existence of a small effect. I would say that meta-analysis has been invaluable in giving psi researchers confidence that there is something there to study after all. These experiments by Bem also demonstrate that.

So it seems he has not published much psi research in the last two years. Your point being?


Or is there another Daryl Bem with some actual solid research on Psi?

No, just this one with solid research.



After all, where is the real psi? Where are the people moving things with their minds, reading minds, predicting the future, etc? Absolutely nowhere. THAT'S what I want from evidence, not questionable randomizers.


Thats fine, but you have unrealistic preconceptions. Laboratory experiments have already shown us that, for now, only small effects can be reproduced in the lab. If you stick to your preconceptions then you will live a life of ignorance.

[Z]

http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html

Ray Hyman, who worked alongside Honorton and was one of the first to use meta-analysis in parapsychology, recognizes the failures of meta-analysis. He also recognizes problems with the autoganzfeld experiments.

And that was the very first Google hit I got.

Homeopaths are running into sceptics constantly on the issue of meta-analysis, because, of course, M-A often shows effects if you want the effects to be there. It's an entirely too subjective method of studying data to be used accurately.

So, no, autoganzfeld and meta-analysis are not considered to be reliable procedures.

Now - back to the question. Any evidence?

[DavoMan]

Maybe one could argue that the brain is just a receptor for this magical information. Some times the receptor screws up or the transmission screws up.

A tv arial on its own is a pretty useless object...

[Open Mind]

Originally posted by Darat
What do you mean by the word "ghost"?

That is a good question Darat, and as I said in my first post proponents would not agree on what a ghost is ....

There is modern tendency to draw a differentiation between ghost/appriation and spirit/soul. The ghost is often reported as hanging around earth, sometimes oblivious or not interested in those on earth as reported by witnesses often seen in the same location doing the same thing as if stuck in time loop ....... the spirit however is considered more interactive and intelligent.

I think the answer divides into 3 clear proponent groups

(1) Super ESP - A ghost (or spirit) is not real but something picked up by the human mind/brain by ESP usually from another mind .....the human mind interprets it as human being ... this idea made popular amongst parapsychologists and scientists such as Rhine, although the idea goes back earlier to some psychical researchers ... they reject the idea of survival generally as too complex to be real

(2) Modern day survivalist/spiritualist theory - *some* but not all ghosts are 'residual energies' memories from the past - there is no ghost there again just a human interpretation of one. To them 'ghost' is false but the interactive 'spirit' is a real being, visiting earth but living elsewhere

(3) The older more traditional spiritualist/survivalist idea. Here the ghost is a confused ghost stuck between 2 realities (a betwixt and between state between earth and other shared realities). They believe they are 2 states possible in other worlds ... a shared reality with other spirits (the normal occurrence) ..... and personal reality which is a dream like state that doesn't correspond. ......... this was a common explanation of why some ghosts appeared oblivious or confused .... reportedly these 'lost souls' were very hard to convince by spirits in shared realities, they just appear dream like to them and vast periods of time could pass in this dream state ......... sometimes these were called 'earthbound spirits' ....... early spiritualist tried to wake them up in 'rescue circles' ...... this old idea has resurfaced somewhat in 'regression' where some therapists think what is being picked up is not past life but earthbound spirits or a spirit attachment (possession).........

My criticism of each of these would be ….

(1) The super ESP (super PSI) theory is seldom ‘super’ …. In parapsychology laboratory trials human psi ability appears weak and erratic (but real in my opinion) .. hardly accurate enough to explain the most interesting cases of psychical research where the phenomena appears much more impressive. For example if poltergeist is reported to be moving objects, the claimants, nearly always claims a ghost is doing so …..they do not claim it is their own mind (and lab evidence for macro psychokinesis under human mind control is poor ….. there is some evidence for micro psychokinesis) … I think the popularity of this idea is due to it being simpler than survival hypothesis using Occam/Reductionist type logic.

(2) One problem with the modern day spiritualist tendency is to decide nice pleasant cases as real ghosts and unpleasant cases as residual energies. They like the idea that when someone dies, they are greeted by their loved one and all go off happily to live ever after – it makes pleasant religion ……communication between worlds is portrayed as natural and safe (and more accurate than it often is) ….Yet this does not match psychical research which are more problematic, almost like many ghosts playing tricks on people, some lying over their identity and spoiling experiments….….. nor does it match the claims of their early spiritualist pioneers which were painting a less rosy picture of type (3)

(3) The problem with this traditional idea is the sheer complexity of it … it is hard to test and may just be ad hoc explanation to make diverse claims all fit together.

The only thing all 3 agree on is some paranormal events are inexplicably real.

Now finally the problem with ‘ghosts are all nonsense’ skeptic hypothesis …. Is that it requires hoax theories (or far fetched) human stupidly by scientists, magicians, lawyers, doctors, etc. ….. .. it requires an assumption that a skeptic has an honest accurate perception and a ‘spiritual’ believer is lying, exaggerating or gullible idiot …It is often the belief that if a fraudulent method can be imagined, it must have occurred.

There is another approach called ‘I don’t know what ghosts are…… yet’ :) They used to call them 'skeptics' but not anymore, skepticism seemingly means organized disbelief nowadays ;)

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
So the experimenter does not say this is evidence of PSI but you do.

I tell a lie, he does think his experiments are strong evidence for a precognitive effect:

"To date, more than 400 men and women have participated in 9 variations of the PH experiment, ,including an independent replication by a skeptical investigator. Collectively the studies provide strong support for the two predicted effects. "


This was, in 2003, an interim report to a conference. Where are the published results ? Did they pass peer review ?

I don't know. I can't find the report in the major psi journals. Perhaps you're right in that he's waiting for more experiments to be complete before publishing.

Does that make you doubt the results?


Did he sort out the non randomness of the computer choice that concerned him ?

Which concern? Target selection and left/right placements were checked and found not to differ from chance. The other potential problem was sequential left/right patterns correlating with participant response bias. But these problems were avoided thus:

"This problem is avoided in the PH procedure because successive decisions of the same kind are not made by successive calls to the PRNG. For example, between successive selections of a target or picture placement, the PRNG is called upon to select the
picture pair for the trial. Because it does this by repeatedly generating random numbers until an unused pair is located, the number of intervening calls to the PRNG varies from trial to trial,
thereby destroying any systematic patterns that might be generated by the PRNG itself. "


You think this is evidence of PSI. A lot of his experiments showed no effect.

Which were largely on the trials involving low-affect targets and with emotionally or erotically unreactive people! This is even stronger indication of a real effect! see tables 2a and 2b.


Please tell me from this evidence, how a competent experimenter can get a PSI effect ?

Attempt to repeat the experiment of course!


What kind of people do you need, or can anyone do it ?

the report predicts that emotionally or erotically reactive people will get better results. Have you read the report?


What pictures do you need and how erotic do they need to be ?

see "Experimental materials"


also at what stage does the boredom effect come in and affect the results ?

According to Bem's results, they initially found that 10 or more exposures of a low-affect target resulted in a tendency to avoid it (while less than 10 exposures results in the expected chance level). Because of this result they tried to replicate the effect in another experiment by seeing if people who scored high on the personality variable "openness to experience" would significantly avoid the high exposeure low-affect pictures, which they did indeed find.

All in all, the experimental series is highly consistent between studies.

[Ossai]

davidsmith73
People are not objective about psi research. Simple as that. On this board, bad psi research gets noticed, the good research gets ignored. People here are plenty intelligent enough to understand that there are demonstrated consciousness related anomalies, but few admit it for reasons I don't understand.
Examples of what you consider good psi research are?

Open Mind
Now finally the problem with ‘ghosts are all nonsense’ skeptic hypothesis …. Is that it requires hoax theories (or far fetched) human stupidly by scientists, magicians, lawyers, doctors, etc. ….. .. it requires an assumption that a skeptic has an honest accurate perception and a ‘spiritual’ believer is lying, exaggerating or gullible idiot …It is often the belief that if a fraudulent method can be imagined, it must have occurred. Considering that research into ghosts has indeed turned up human stupidity and gullibility, spiritualists lying and exaggerating guess what my money’s on.

Ossai

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html

Ray Hyman, who worked alongside Honorton and was one of the first to use meta-analysis in parapsychology, recognizes the failures of meta-analysis. He also recognizes problems with the autoganzfeld experiments.

I agree that meta-analysis is not the way to be "proving" psi. It is however, a legitimate tool in science and has been used to show the existence of real effects in conventional science, regardless of these objections. People may have formal objections to its use but, lets face it, it does work.

Regarding Hymans analysis of autoganzfeld, Bem gave this response the HYmans criticisms:

http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy2.html


meta-analysis often shows effects if you want the effects to be there. It's an entirely too subjective method of studying data to be used accurately.

Do you have a reference that backs this up?

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
I tell a lie, he does think his experiments are strong evidence for a precognitive effect:

"To date, more than 400 men and women have participated in 9 variations of the PH experiment, ,including an independent replication by a skeptical investigator. Collectively the studies provide strong support for the two predicted effects. " Glad you finally got round to reading it. :D

I don't know. I can't find the report in the major psi journals. Perhaps you're right in that he's waiting for more experiments to be complete before publishing.

Does that make you doubt the results? Yes, lets not underestimate the effect of producing the first proof of the existence of ESP in an experiment that can be replicated showing the same effects each time. Why not publish, unless………


Which concern?

“Such PRNG’s are not very good, however,�

the report predicts that emotionally or erotically reactive people will get better results.

define emotionally or erotically reactive people

Have you read the report? No, I remote viewed it, does that count ?

see "Experimental materials" but he said that the porn, ahem , I mean erotic pictures in the IAPS were quite mild so he downloaded more graphic erotic pictures from the internet. I am just wondering what type of ‘more graphic erotic pictures’ allows PSI to work best, or which sites he downloaded them from.

All in all, the experimental series is highly consistent between studies.
Except “During the course of this project, several variations of the experiment were explored. The separate studies differed primarily in the exact instructions given the participant, the number of trials of different types (negative, erotic, and low-affect or “control� trials), the number of exposures of the target, and the specific pictures used.�
and that
“In fact, the psi effects were due entirely to the women�
Do you agree that only women have PSI abilities or was the experiment flawed ?




It seems to me that this was a fishing trip. He ran the experiments then looked for a common factor. Then pronounced the results. This is not the way to do science. It is like looking at 8 national lottery draws and saying that certain numbers have a higher change of being drawn. Because they came out more than once in the 8 draws looked at.

Of course I could be wrong but I have only read (remotely) “an (sic) modified version of a presentation given at the 46th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association."

I presume you are not claiming this scientific wonder on the basis of a modified version of a presentation, and have further details that I haven’t seen. I can’t believe you would accept as proof what limited detail is in the presentation.

[EdipisReks]

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5284/miscpetardedi37kr.png

[Ipecac]

Originally posted by Open Mind
And if the world is, would we necessarily notice? :)


How is this a problem? How much space would a non material ghost take up? ;)



If "ghosts" are at all detectable (which is the claim) and hundreds of millions of them are roaming the earth, yes, we would necessarily notice. People would spot ghosts everywhere all the time. It has nothing to do with physical space. It has to do with the fact that if even a tiny percent of humans who have died become detectable ghosts, then there would be no question about their existence.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian


“Such PRNG’s are not very good, however,�

immediately after that he wrote:

"Fortunately, most PRNG’s do an adequate job of producing equal frequencies of 0’s and 1’s for binary decisions of the kind required by the PH protocol. Moreover, it is easy to inspect the data themselves to check these frequencies—and we did: In all the studies reported in this article, neither the selection of the target pictures nor their left/right placements on the screen departed significantly from chance."

I think that should increase our confidence in the validity of the randomisation, although it would have been better to see the distribution.


define emotionally or erotically reactive people

These people were defined by way of answers to a questionaire. Of course there is going to be variability, but the prediction of the experiments is that the reactive people will score significantly higher than non-reactive people.



but he said that the porn, ahem , I mean erotic pictures in the IAPS were quite mild so he downloaded more graphic erotic pictures from the internet. I am just wondering what type of ‘more graphic erotic pictures’ allows PSI to work best, or which sites he downloaded them from.

Interesting question. Perhaps you should get in touch with Bem and ask him. Do you see this as a methodological problem, if so, why?


Except “During the course of this project, several variations of the experiment were explored. The separate studies differed primarily in the exact instructions given the participant, the number of trials of different types (negative, erotic, and low-affect or “control� trials), the number of exposures of the target, and the specific pictures used.�

I meant that the results were very consistent. Obviously, manipulating variables is part of good science.


and that
“In fact, the psi effects were due entirely to the women�
Do you agree that only women have PSI abilities or was the experiment flawed ?


No I do not agree that only women have psi abilities. Because if you have read the paper properly (and its now becoming clearer that you have not) you will see that the emotionally reactive men show a psi effect. In fact, table 1 shows that when you split both sexes' data into emotionally reactive and emotionally non-reactive, it is only the emotionally reactive people who score significantly. When Bem says that "in fact, the psi effects were due entirely to the women" he was talking about the entire pooled data for all women. And this can be explained by the fact that there were more emotionally reactive woman than there were non-emotionally reactive women (see table 1). Please read the paper properly next time.


It seems to me that this was a fishing trip. He ran the experiments then looked for a common factor. Then pronounced the results.

No, this represents the best way to perform exploratory science in an area that we know next to nothing about. Its true that he performed some post hoc analysis of some of the experiments but this was entirely necessary in order to establish further hypotheses for the next series of experiments which were a replication of the previous post-hoc findings. And almost all of the results were consistent with the idea that you get a stronger result if you use more arousing targets and more reactive people. Most importantly, the PH hypothesis made a prediction that negatively arousing pictures would be chosen more often and positively arousing pictures would be chosen less often. That's a prediction that's based in part on well established psychological effects and did not need any post-hoc hypothesis testing.



I presume you are not claiming this scientific wonder on the basis of a modified version of a presentation, and have further details that I haven’t seen. I can’t believe you would accept as proof what limited detail is in the presentation.

Well yes I am. What is there in the report that is not included and needs to be included in order for you to accept the report as evidence?

[davidsmith73]

EdipisReks,

If you have anything intelligent to say on this subject, I'll be glad to discuss with you. On the other hand, if you find you are most happy throwing insults about then I'll leave you to it, but personally I think you're making yourself look a bit silly.

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73

Well yes I am. [/B] Oh dear.

[davidsmith73]

Originally posted by Lothian
Oh dear.

What is there in the report that is not included and needs to be included in order for you to accept the report as evidence?

[Lothian]

Originally posted by davidsmith73
What is there in the report that is not included and needs to be included in order for you to accept the report as evidence? David,

As I understand the paper,

Daryl claims that if after, a participant has selected the picture he prefers from two similar pictures, one picture is flashed subliminally, then that picture “reaches back in time� to the persons brain. So that when he actually saw it his brain was dulled by the fact that he had already seen it (in the future)

If a picture is erotic he will find it less erotic and will prefer the picture not flashed as it is ‘new’ to him

If however the picture (to be flashed in the future) is negatively erotic he is more likely to pick it because he has seen it before (in the future)

So to start presuming that this is evidence for PSI:-

What does the above experiment tell us about what PSI is and how PSI causes this effect ? What controls were put in place to ensure that it is PSI causing any significant results. How and when and in what circumstances does PSI work?


What is erotic and what is negatively erotic ?

It appears that he decides whether a picture was erotic or not by the result. Were the same sex, sex pictures erotic or negatively erotic or did he decide that they were erotic for those that didn’t pick them and negatively erotic for those that did.

What was asked in the questionnaire to decide emotional reactivity ? How was this done and was this done before or after and did the experimenter know how the person had scored ?