Spirits and other incorporial things

Spirits are apparently beings that can have thoughts and can interact with the material world, but are not themselves material, that is they are made out of something that is not matter.How is this possible? Are they made out of something that is above matter, meaning it can decend to interact with matter but doesnt have to? If so isn't this just another form of matter?Or is it possible to have something that has thoughts but is completely immaterial.Perhaps you are a materialist and beleive that there is nothing other than matter, if so you would dismiss sprits as faulty beliefs. If so what is the evolutionary advantage of such beliefs? (I have my own theorys but am interested what others think).

Sooo, good idea, bad idea, needs work, whats the verdict?

Purple,Yes, we do indeed bump into each other often thanks for your posts.I have a question, you said: How is it obvious that they were not made of matter? Even if ghosts do exist what reason do you have to believe that they are not made out of matter? If they could pass through walls, and turn invisible couldn't they still be made out of something. My intetnion in starting this thread was partly to discuss what it would mean for something to exsist and at the same time not be made out of matter.By the way, regarding dark matter it might very well exsist on earth and thoughout or galaxy. The thing with dark matter (depending on the theory) is that it does not interact with matter (or even with itself apparently). I think one would be hard pressed if they proposed a theory that stated ghosts were made out of dark matter as dark matter isn't good at making anything.

Umm, wouldn't an even more plausable explination than repressed memories of sexual abuse (a pretty serious and disturbing claim), be that he was a CHILD when he had these memories? When I was a child I beleved all sorts of crazy things, and was sure I saw monsters ghosts, aliens in my closet etc.I also beleved I had psycic powers and to this day can remember when some of my "too unbelevably precice for it to be a coincednce" predictions came true. I was a KID I was having flights of fancy. I would have sworn by these beliefs and the fact that they I have memories of unbelevable events does not mean that these events occored in the way I thought they did.Aannnny way. We still haven't adressed how it could be possible for somthing to exsist and not be physical. We also have not discussed why it is evolutionraly advantagious to believe in spirits.If it is not advantagious then why did virtualy every culture (until very recently) belive in immaterial spirits?

When I was little I had it read to me as a bedtime story but that was a long time ago. Perhaps it's time for me to read it as an adult. Thats possible, it's also possble that they could be made out of something like dark matter. But in both cases then the extra planar, or dark matter, "spirits" would still be made out of SOMETHING right? You're, of course right that sprits are going to have a hard time finding a place in my materialistic worldveiw. But how could something that isn't made out of anything exsist in ANY worldveiw? I can imagine extradimentional angels and demons. I can imagine more mundane spirits that are invisible and, at times, intangible but they still are made out of SOMETHING.Even if it's impossible or unlikely that such things exsist, is it possible to even imagine something that exsists, and at the same time has no components, without running into logical inconsistancys?

Sigh, I guess I won't get to hear how things can be made out of nothing, what a shame.In a Stanislav Lem short story, a robotic story teller suggests that there are "different kinds of nothing" the king is displeased and orders the story teller to be rapidly dissasembeled. He does not survive the procedure, suggesting that there is indeed, only one kind of nothing.

I used to be a magician and would preform at birthday parties and such.After my shows some parent would inevitably come up to me with some explaination of how a praticular trick worked. In general these explanations were TERRIBLE, according to them I had all kinds of motors, magnets, chemicals that would have to have been extremely dangerous to have around kids etc.Now, just becase these people were not able to come up with a good explination of how I did the trick, does that mean that I had real magic powers? Of course not!This was no evedence that magic exsisted only that people could be deceved.

Hangdawg13 writes: There is a bias but it is about something else.There is a more subtle difference between the two scenarios. If I had never ever seen a mountan before I would be skecptical of my frends explanations for the phenomina they observed.This doesn't mean that I would call them liars, but I might not immediatly beleve in mountans.After I talked with my geologist frends who tell me that mountans exsist and show me pictures of mountans and discribe the theory behind mountans and so forth, I would be less sceptical that my frends had visited one. I would also become less skeptical if I were able to visit the mountan myself.So, how do we deturmine what to be sceptical about? I have seen mountans in my life but I have never seen Everest, yet I am not any more skeptical of the exsistance of Everest than I am of mountans that I have seen.Why? Becase my beleif in Everest dosn't require that any of my previous ideas about the world be revised. I know mountans exsist, so it shouldn't bother me that I have not seen a praticular mountan. I have no reason NOT to beleve in Everest.Now what about ghosts? When my frends tell me that they have seen ghosts I am just as sceptical of ghosts as I would be of mountans, if I had never heard of them before. Ghosts DO require that a great deal of my previous observations about the world be revised. In order to beleve in ghosts, I have to beleve that there are objects that can be seen by some and not others, that objects are capable of becoming incorporial, and that there are intellgent beings made out of some kind of matter that I am unfamiliar with. So I DO have some reasons to be skeptical about ghosts.When I counsult others about ghosts I find that there is a great deal of dissagreement. Having not seen ghosts myself I consult others. Where, in the case of mountans, there is a coherent theory for their exsistance and formation I find no coherant theory about what ghosts are or how they could operate, that doesn't require a radiacal reinterpritation of physics.In fact there is so little in the way of explination that even if I DID see something that behaved like a ghost I would be more inclined to beleve that I had been halucinating than that ghosts exsist.This is becase I understand what halucinations are and how they might work. I have no idea how Ghosts or spirits work.In scince this happens all the time. Sometimes scientests will find some bizzare phenomina that they can't explain. This does not distroy exsisting theories UNTIL a new theory that explains BOTH the new phenomina and the old is formed.If someone were to explain how ghosts might exsist AND show some good evedence I might very well change my mind. As this has not happened yet I remain skeptical.

I don't see your point please elaborate.Purple Yoko has been posting a lot of anecdotes so I don't think we need to hear more but do you have something to say about what things are unexplainable?In fact, if strange things happen and we say that spirits caused them aren't we using spitits as an explanation?This message has been edited by The Dread Dormammu, 12-03-2004 04:29 AM

Well simple, because I WOULD beleve in these things if they could be shown, under controled conditions, to exist so would many other people. In fact Most people beleve in magic and supenatural powers WITHOUT sicentific evedence, (Think Uri Geller, James van Praah and Jon Edwards (the medium, not the canidate). Think of how much more persuasive it would be if you they had even a SHRED of double blind experimental evedence!The great thing about science is that it CAN change it's mind, when there is enough evedence. People thought electricity was something different from lightning, Ben Franklen showed they were the same force. How? Through evidence!Unfortunately when people who claim to have these powers try to demonstrate them under laboratory conditions it doesn't work. And when science tries to find ghosts it fails.This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 12-04-2004 12:59 PM

Crash:You make it sound like dark matter is just non-luminous regular matter. I think the ship has sailed on the "perhaps that extra matter is just normal dust etc." idea. Dark matter supposedly acounts for what... 70% of the mass of the universe? So it has to be something more exotic.Apparently it has mass and is affected by gravity but it doesn't interact with either normal matter or itself.Purple:I think you should start a seperate thread on relativity. When you claim to be science minded and then say you don't beleve in realativity you are bound to raise some hackels.Why do you think dark matter is going to expalin ghosts? All the evedence seems to suggest that dark matter doesn't interact with itself so how could anything be made out of it? It's like saying that ghosts could be made out of gas! But even creatures made out of gas are more plausable than beings made out of dark matter. At least gas molecules interact with other gas molecules. Particles of dark matter DON'T interact with other particles of dark matter (or at least it appears to be that way).Just becase we don't understand dark matter doesn't mean that it is a sutable explanation for mystical things. So far the only connection between the two is that they can both pass through matter. This is not enough correlation, in my opinion.

Ok I've proposed a new thread about relativity. I can't take it anymore.Edited to add site:http://EvC Forum: What would we think if Percy..... -->EvC Forum: What would we think if Percy.....This message has been edited by The Dread Dormammu, 12-06-2004 03:59 AM

lfen says: Actualy when I started this thread it was meant to deal with the question of how beings could be incorporial, and if it was possible for something to be made out of nothing.We have, since then, begun dicussing possible materialistic explainations of spirits and whether there is any rational basis for beleving in their exsistance.The thread is meant to adress the scientific validity of claims about the paranormal. Praticualry in regard to incorporial beings (ghosts angels and demons included).Incorporiality was the main point, hence our discussions about dark matter etc.

AdminPhat says: Yes. Religous beleifs may motivate specualtion about incorporial beings but I am more interested in hypotheies about how these beings supposedly operate.Actualy I think the question I was realy interested in was answerd in post 22 by Mr jack, when he said: I feel satisfied that my question about what spirits are "made out of" has been answerd. (Though I hasten to add this has not rekindeled my belief in them).If others still want to Discuss PY's claims I have no qualms about that. But I don;t think anyone has anything more to say about incoporiality. Perhaps I am wrong.

This was part of the reason I wanted to discuss spirits as incorporial beings.The claim is that they are somehow "untestable" since they are made out of something other than standard matter. Now this would be logicaly consistant IF they never had any effect on our physical world. But people who claim to beleve in spirits DO beleve that the spitits can effect us and our world.Why should it be impossible to test for them?