[thedoc (OP)]

Camilla asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Is there any evidence that ghosts, or spirits of people who have died, exist?

Camilla

What do you think?

[Pmb]

Camilla asked the Naked Scientists:
   Hello Chris,

Is there any evidence that ghosts, or spirits of people who have died, exist?

Camilla

What do you think?

No.

[Europan Ocean]

The matter was raised here, by me:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=48060.msg413102#msg413102

[JP]

There are plenty of anecdotes about ghosts, but science has found no evidence for ghosts.  Moreover, a majority of ghostly phenomena can be explained as non-ghostly by science.

[David Cooper]

It's probably impossible to prove that ghosts don't exist because they are more slippery than God - at least with God there are impossible claims attached to him, but with ghosts there is nothing that can be used to disqualify them. The one good thing is though that ghosts cannot kill anyone other than through fright. We know that tens of millions of highly motivated ghosts were completely unable to kill Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and numerous other mass murderers, so no one should ever lose any sleep over ghosts.

[JP]

Indeed.

Not to mention--why do humans have a near-monopoly on becoming ghosts?  Imagine the number of spider ghosts that must be out there!  Nothing could be more terrifying than spider ghosts!

[syhprum]

There is no doubt that ghosts exist in as much as people see them but they have no external existence outside of the minds of those that view them.
Re non human ghosts, phantom horsemen are pretty common.

[yor_on]

Very true David, and a pity it is.

[yor_on]

heh JP

Let's have a contest.

Which is the most horrible 'ghost species' you can imagine?
JP suggestion was a spider.

I think really large green cucumbers, hollering, should scare the sh* out of me.

[Europan Ocean]

I just watched an interview with Dr Pim Van Lommel on conscious tv youtube in which as a surgeon seeing the revival of many after cardiac arrests he describes the nature of consciousness and how it cannot happen in persons with no blood flow. The Dr says consciousness is not then generated by the brain but more so received by mind, and we are able to receive like a computer connects to the internet. And the people with no blood flow see deceased relatives, which he does not call ghosts. The brain makes it possible for the body to experience consciousness.

[Pmb]

Camilla asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Is there any evidence that ghosts, or spirits of people who have died, exist?

Camilla

What do you think?

That is far too difficult to answer since any considered opinion would have been so flooded with objections to its authenticity that it'd be impossible to verify the originality by that time.

[Bill S]

I grew up with the idea that ghosts were most definitely figments of the imagination.  However, over the decades, I have come to think that there might be something in the "Stone Tape Phenomenon".  I guess this would be a difficult area in which to do scientific investigation, but it could take the supernatural out of "ghosts".

[RD]

.... I have come to think that there might be something in the "Stone Tape Phenomenon" ...

Not even via the potter's wheel ...

archaeologists discuss how they were able to "use computer scans of the grooves in 6,500-year-old pottery to extract sounds -- including talking and laughter -- made by the vibrations of the tools used to make the pottery."

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/3992/

IMO pareidolia [which can be auditory as well as visual ] is a the main component of ghost sightings and sounds.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=18086.msg388685#msg388685