Do you belive in ghost?

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Zeb Jackson
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Post by Zeb Jackson » 05 Jul 2011 06:38

to clarify on the old man though, I Saw him and my little brother saw him. I saw him first, and told no one thinking that i was being retarded or maybe it was a delusion. but about 2 months later my bro saw him and described him the the T, of what I saw without me giving him ANY prior knowledge.

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Jeremy
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Post by Jeremy » 05 Jul 2011 15:38

I understand the humour at my suggestion that I am the old man, but do you understand how you're taking events that are not evidence for ghosts at all and imposing them in to some cultural belief, in this case in ghosts. If we begin by assuming that you're story is completely true - an old man really did appear to multiple people, in no way does that suggest that "ghosts" exist, unless by "ghost" we just mean "visual appearances that we can't explain."

Your story of your brother makes me suspect that you have a guided memory. You saw something, we can't really be sure what, and then your brother talking about it turned your memory in to something similar to his. This is a very common experience that is common to nearly everybody. A great example I saw on TV recently was a psychological study where people came in and were asked to describe a minor surgery they had as children. In the first session none of them could remember the surgery (because they hadn't had one). In the second session a week or so later a large percentage of them gave accounts of some detail of their memories of the surgery. When they were later told about what the study was doing, many of these people rejected the idea that their memories were false.

Of course I'm not saying that this is what happened to you, I'm just offering a rational explanation by invoking a well documented psychological phenomenon. The fact that rational explanations exist tells me that at the very least a person looking at this situation, even if they experienced it, should be unsure whether ghosts exist or not, rather than sure that they do.

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Zeb Jackson
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Post by Zeb Jackson » 06 Jul 2011 07:04

Jeremy wrote:I understand the humour at my suggestion that I am the old man, but do you understand how you're taking events that are not evidence for ghosts at all and imposing them in to some cultural belief, in this case in ghosts. If we begin by assuming that you're story is completely true - an old man really did appear to multiple people, in no way does that suggest that "ghosts" exist, unless by "ghost" we just mean "visual appearances that we can't explain."
touche

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Post by Pasquar » 06 Jul 2011 10:44

Jeremy wrote:Your story of your brother makes me suspect that you have a guided memory. You saw something, we can't really be sure what, and then your brother talking about it turned your memory in to something similar to his. This is a very common experience that is common to nearly everybody. A great example I saw on TV recently was a psychological study where people came in and were asked to describe a minor surgery they had as children. In the first session none of them could remember the surgery (because they hadn't had one). In the second session a week or so later a large percentage of them gave accounts of some detail of their memories of the surgery. When they were later told about what the study was doing, many of these people rejected the idea that their memories were false.
Couldn't have said it better and couldn't agree more. It's also common among researchers who obviously usually have a hypothesis they are trying to find evidence for, so they hone in on aspects of research that confirm their suspicion and place far less emphasis on results that disprove their hypothesis. Confirmation bias I believe is the term.
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