ohmygod U GUISE I'M FAMOUS

[John Galt]

wasn't really worried about it. black bears. had bear spray anyway. im here, ain't i

[The Comrade]

They should breed black bears to be smaller so we can have them as pets

[jimmyz]

[uebermann]

I think there's probably some unexplained stuff that goes on. But I think most of the stories on TV are BS. Not that the people telling them don't believe what they say, but that they've just scared themselves stupid and are behind being reasonable.

Case in point. Woman is telling about her haunted house (when her new husband and lived there for YEARS and never experienced anything abnormal). 7 yr old child doesn't want to go to bed. He procrastinates and tries to get mom to keep reading him stories. Finally she tells him he has to go to bed. 5 minutes later after the lights go out, he's screaming bloody murder saying there's something in the closet. Her reaction? "OMG we're haunted!". Most people's reactions would be reasonable and be like "ok, kid is just seeing things and trying to avoid going to bed". I mean, monsters in the closet and under the bed isn't exactly rare for kids to see here.

But she just goes on and on about bumps in the night having to be ghosts and hearing voices and the swingset outside "magically" swinging - you know, because wind apparently doesn't exist and couldn't possibly be moving the swing.

People get themselves so worked up, they can't just chill out and think rationally about it. And thats when the imagination takes over. Makes for good TV I guess. I stopped watching most of those shows on TV. I had watched "Ghost Hunters" up until a couple years ago when they faked some scene during the live Halloween event where Jay had his jacket "pulled" by a ghost. When I saw it, I just started laughing and thinking how full of shit it was and haven't watched the show since.

[Boris Johnson]

I'm pretty confident 'ghosts' can be explained quite easily in order of likelihood

1) Priming causing auditory/visual hallucinations (seriously, priming is some powerful shit, everyone starts talking about ghosts in the house at the edge of town non stop for decades, people will actually think and perceive ambiguous stimuli around said house as 'ghosts' and will report it as such no matter how rational they think they are).
2) Temperature changes causing materials to move and the reach to explanation being 'spirits'. the reason nearly all cultures seem to have this, is most likely as Dennett notes (in one of his less quacky moments) a result of a 'hyperactive agent detection module' being something that is selected for. Better to think every bump is some sort of agent than not, when you've evolved as a hunter-gatherer ape living on the savannah.
3) Other psycho-neurological phenomenon. E.g magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes. To see more google 'The god helmet'.


5 years in edinburgh, 'the most haunted city in the world', the whole thing is built on a series of mass graves for christs sake. Never saw anything that could not easily fall into 1)-3) and I saw and deliberately (often after a few drinks and feeling argumentative) went to quite a few sites that apparently were shitting ghosts on a regular basis.

What really gets me, is that people in modern society suckkle from the teat of highly complex technology all predicted on very precise physics and yet there's always space for the 'ghosts did it explanation'. Its an argument against mass disenfranchisement from the vote far as i'm concerned.

[Boris Johnson]

Oh and
4) People lie, out of their ass, a lot. Having cool stories makes you feel important
5) After a while people believe their own bullshit.

[The Comrade]

i see someone has not read the thread

[Boris Johnson]

Someone wanted to rant about ghosts. someone just proved ghosts don't exist, q.e.d.

I got here late busy week.

[Boris Johnson]

On a side note, thank you i've been looking for a gif of this scene for ages.


Do you have anymore?

[The Comrade]