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Ghosts, Time Travel, and Space / Inter-dimensional Neural Communication...

philosophygirl78

A-List Customer
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Aventura, Florida
Here's an interesting concept:

Literary history and modern testimonials are filled with grimoire of ghosts, hauntings, and other supernatural phenomena.

What if, those experiences are merely a communication from another time? Or an alien world that has developed the ability for extended neural communication ability? What if it is ourselves from another dimensional reality?

Which concept do you find most viable?
 
If I had to pick one, I'd say aliens. I'm not an alien conspiracy theorist, nor do I believe aliens built the pyramids. But from a strictly scientific view, it's pretty hard to believe that there is not life out there in the universe. What doesn't exist are ghosts. When you're dead, you're dead. You simply cease metabolic electron transfer. That's it. You're gone.
 

philosophygirl78

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445
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Aventura, Florida
If I had to pick one, I'd say aliens. I'm not an alien conspiracy theorist, nor do I believe aliens built the pyramids. But from a strictly scientific view, it's pretty hard to believe that there is not life out there in the universe. What doesn't exist are ghosts. When you're dead, you're dead. You simply cease metabolic electron transfer. That's it. You're gone.

I agree with what you said, although it's interesting that neuron activity can continue without a body host.... etc
 
Messages
17,197
Location
New York City
While I know Hudson Hawk will just throw a big boulder at me, something beyond what we understand is going on. Otherwise, I don't see how anything started. The Big Bang is just a point when something happen, what put the Big Bang in motion? I have no idea, but I know that our linear view of time isn't sacrosanct - Einstein took care of that. But something outside of our understanding has to be at work or none of this would be here (even if "here" is only in each of our minds). Either God or a system where we are just happenstance could explain it for me - but something beyond our understanding is at work.

In that context, my view of ghosts is (1) they might not exist, (2) they could be the result of different time dimensions or universes overlapping or (3) the universe has complexities well beyond our understanding (the edge of physics today hints at this quite provocatively) and they are part of that complexity.

Go ahead HH - I'm putting on my helmet and digging a fox hole.:)
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I think it's the height of hubris for humanity to think that Earth is the only planet in the universe to harbor life, and eventually we'll have proof that someone, or something, is out there. I don't think there's anything particuarly odd or unusual about that at all -- it simply makes sense.

I'd also not be shocked at the discovery of alternate universes or time travel. We do things today as a matter of routine that would have been outlandish fantasies a hundred and fifty years ago, so there's no reason to think that other things aren't possible that we just haven't figured out yet.

As far as time travel goes, I'm of the school that believes history is immutable. Even if you have a time traveler who gets in his capsule and goes back to kill Hitler, something will always happen to prevent him from doing so. Because we know nobody killed Hitler. And how do we *know* that von Stauffenburg wasn't in fact a time traveler with a carefully-integrated cover story sent back in time to do that deed?

I don't believe in ghosts as phantasmagorical manifestations of the dead. But I wouldn't be unwilling to believe that there might not be some kind of impression left behind -- like the traces of writing you find on a pencil tablet after the top sheet's been peeled away. Who knows what we don't know?
 

staggerwing

One of the Regulars
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284
Location
Washington DC
In one of my day (night?) jobs, I'm the director of a TV show about a group of real life paranormal investigators. As an engineer (BSEE) by training, I started out skeptical, and thought I could easily debunk any evidence the cast members/investigators captured. The majority of the evidence they get is audio, in the form of what are called "Electronic Voice Phenomena" or EVP. These are voices we don't hear physically at the time they occur, but only on playback of our audio recorders. Initially, I wrote this off as Radio Frequency Breakthrough Interference, and indeed we did once pick up a local radio station on one of our shows (the transmitter was across the street!). However, many of the "messages" we receive in this manner are direct responses to questions asked by an investigator or comments on what we are doing at the time. I'm not ready to say that these are the voices of ghosts or spirits yet, but they are very interesting. Perhaps they are the thoughts of the investigators themselves? All I know for certain is that I'm not quite as skeptical as when I started out.

Cheers,
Staggerwing
 

philosophygirl78

A-List Customer
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445
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Aventura, Florida
In one of my day (night?) jobs, I'm the director of a TV show about a group of real life paranormal investigators. As an engineer (BSEE) by training, I started out skeptical, and thought I could easily debunk any evidence the cast members/investigators captured. The majority of the evidence they get is audio, in the form of what are called "Electronic Voice Phenomena" or EVP. These are voices we don't hear physically at the time they occur, but only on playback of our audio recorders. Initially, I wrote this off as Radio Frequency Breakthrough Interference, and indeed we did once pick up a local radio station on one of our shows (the transmitter was across the street!). However, many of the "messages" we receive in this manner are direct responses to questions asked by an investigator or comments on what we are doing at the time. I'm not ready to say that these are the voices of ghosts or spirits yet, but they are very interesting. Perhaps they are the thoughts of the investigators themselves? All I know for certain is that I'm not quite as skeptical as when I started out.

Cheers,
Staggerwing

Very Interesting!! The first thing that came to my mind was that it was yes, their voices perhaps from another time dimension... There are just SO many possibilities, that we can't call it any one thing.....
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
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Most supernatural phenomena that I've read or heard about...or experienced...fall far short of being "communications". At best, they are encounters or sightings, and most are merely premonitions or feelings. After eons of human existence, it would seem that any entity trying to actually communicate with us would be doing a better job by now.

Just sayin'.

AF
 

philosophygirl78

A-List Customer
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445
Location
Aventura, Florida
Most supernatural phenomena that I've read or heard about...or experienced...fall far short of being "communications". At best, they are encounters or sightings, and most are merely premonitions or feelings. After eons of human existence, it would seem that any entity trying to actually communicate with us would be doing a better job by now.

Just sayin'.

AF


I understand where you are coming from.... Thing is, there is lore throughout human history of contact with the supernatural and extra terrestrial life. This is not something that was created by new age wookies or some strange alien love club.....

And therein, lie many possibilities of what truly was and is...
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
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2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
I understand where you are coming from.... Thing is, there is lore throughout human history of contact with the supernatural and extra terrestrial life. This is not something that was created by new age wookies or some strange alien love club.....

And therein, lie many possibilities of what truly was and is...

No question that all of human history is replete with stories of supernatural and extraterrestrial contact. But I'm not sure this implies that some other intelligence is attempting communication with us...or even acknowledging it's awareness of our existence.

AF
 
While I know Hudson Hawk will just throw a big boulder at me, something beyond what we understand is going on. Otherwise, I don't see how anything started. The Big Bang is just a point when something happen, what put the Big Bang in motion? I have no idea, but I know that our linear view of time isn't sacrosanct - Einstein took care of that. But something outside of our understanding has to be at work or none of this would be here (even if "here" is only in each of our minds). Either God or a system where we are just happenstance could explain it for me - but something beyond our understanding is at work.

In that context, my view of ghosts is (1) they might not exist, (2) they could be the result of different time dimensions or universes overlapping or (3) the universe has complexities well beyond our understanding (the edge of physics today hints at this quite provocatively) and they are part of that complexity.

Go ahead HH - I'm putting on my helmet and digging a fox hole.:)

I agree that there's a lot we don't know, so I'll save the boulders for really egregious things like wearing a hat at the dinner table.
 

sheeplady

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
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4,479
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Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
So, I'm sort of contradictory on this one.

On the one hand, I believe when you're dead, you're dead. I don't believe in an afterlife, and if I do, I am quite certain there isn't any heaven versus hell sort of thing. I think you just cease to exist, and the only thing that remains are the memories that others had of you. As in, I'm pretty sure I'll just disappear when I die.

On the other hand, I've had a number of encounters in my short life with "ghosts," including two that inhabit our new home. One I've had so many encounters with the female ghost that I've lost count. As a child, I grew up in a highly "spiritually charged" house and I won't even get into the encounters I had there, many of which were uninviting. While I'm willing to discount every single one of my childhood encounters as the result of a child's overactive imagination, I can't discount the multiple experiences I've had over the past three years with the female ghost that hangs out at the new house and seems to be fixated on letting us know (both myself and my husband) that she is there.

So, yeah. Hypocrite.
 

Lean'n'mean

I'll Lock Up
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4,086
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Cloud-cuckoo-land
We create ghosts for the privilege of being haunted & they persist, because we are reluctant to let them go.

Prehaps we shouldn't be asking if ghosts exist or extra terrestrial contact occurs but why we want them to. The desire/need to believe is the crucial thing here, not the so called manifestations. I think this neeed to believe is stronger in some people than in others, which is why they don't look for or even refuse, rational explications for their experiences.
Ever since man was man, he has always wanted something beyond everyday reality, to believe in something greater than the natural (preferably in his own image of course :rolleyes:) & this inbuilt spirituality is still alive & kicking today, as is the paranormal business. :D
I would like ghosts to exist because there is a dog I would love to see again but I fear ectoplasm is strictly reserved for the 'superior species' :rolleyes:
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I would like ghosts to exist because there is a dog I would love to see again but I fear ectoplasm is strictly reserved for the 'superior species' :rolleyes:

I lived once in a tiny little house which had previously been occupied by an elderly Finnish lady whose only companion was a small fox terrier dog. I have never owned any dog. But thruout the time I lived in that house, I was annoyed by the sound of a dog's nails clicking against the bare wooden floors upstairs. I didn't know anything about the actual dog that had lived there until after I'd moved out, so it wasn't a matter of associating the sound with something I expected to hear. Make of that what you will. Perhaps every living creature has a life force that can leave behind an impression that can only be detected under certain circumstances by certain people, just as the air is full of radio signals you can't hear without a detector tuned to the right frequency. Perhaps we're surrounded by a constant white noise made up of such echoes, and we aren't aware of it only because it's so constant.

On the other hand, the couple that once owned my current house had a swearing parrot that would sit on a stand in the living room. The only swearing I've heard in the seventeen years I've lived here has been my own.
 
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down south
Very intriguing topic here.
Recently I've been reading about black holes, and what happens to matter that gets sucked into them. There is an agreement among those who study such things that that matter is gone. It's not coming back. Like Hudson Hawk's dead people. There is speculation, however, that perhaps matter emerges on another side, to come into existence in another time and space......anyone here familiar with the ideas of Stephen Hawking. Late last year, a Caltech cosmologist, Ranga-Ram Chary, discovered an anomaly in the cosmic microwave background that he says may well prove the existence of parallel universes, that is, a reality distinct and separate from our own that exists in the same time and space.
In Islam, there is a belief in the Jinn. These are not wish granting genies in bottles as portrayed in Western popular culture, but rather, sentient beings who inhabit 'another plane'. Sometimes they appear to us as ghosts or shadowy images, and quite possibly us to them, when there is a right place/right time moment between the two planes....ours and theirs.
What does all this say, except that maybe I shouldn't drink beer for breakfast, I don't know. It is something to consider, though.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk
 

philosophygirl78

A-List Customer
Messages
445
Location
Aventura, Florida
So, I'm sort of contradictory on this one.

On the one hand, I believe when you're dead, you're dead. I don't believe in an afterlife, and if I do, I am quite certain there isn't any heaven versus hell sort of thing. I think you just cease to exist, and the only thing that remains are the memories that others had of you. As in, I'm pretty sure I'll just disappear when I die.

On the other hand, I've had a number of encounters in my short life with "ghosts," including two that inhabit our new home. One I've had so many encounters with the female ghost that I've lost count. As a child, I grew up in a highly "spiritually charged" house and I won't even get into the encounters I had there, many of which were uninviting. While I'm willing to discount every single one of my childhood encounters as the result of a child's overactive imagination, I can't discount the multiple experiences I've had over the past three years with the female ghost that hangs out at the new house and seems to be fixated on letting us know (both myself and my husband) that she is there.

So, yeah. Hypocrite.

I would say we are all hypocrites when it comes to topics such as this.... Simply because of our ignorant nature. One can be a doctor and not believe in spiritual medicine, which by way of fact is tens of thousands of years older than any modern practices. Then one day have an unexplainable experience and struggle with how to deal or incorporate into their closed or limited mind ideologies.

Whether medicine, religion, supernatural, love even, we are All this kind of hypocrite in our own way.
 

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