Being open to a possibility is, from what I've witnessed, a functional difference from acceptance. It's easy to say "I'm open to whatever", but it's harder to convince yourself to give up a belief you've held for years, even in the face of evidence. The tendency is to challenge the evidence rather than the belief. People like to hold on to what they've been holding on to if for no other reason than they're used to believing something.

From my experience, people that believe in the most fantastical things are usually the first to reject any rational explanation for it. People in the middle are usually more open to rationality. Again, this is just my experience, and I know I'm generalizing.

I have to agree with you on this. Conspiracy Theorists are a group that tends to throw away or laugh off rational explanations frequently.

Precisely. You wouldn't believe how flabbergasted I was the other day when an ex-f*ck on my Facebook called me ignorant when I tried to explain to her what contrails (condensation trails) were.

Apparently she doesn't even believe in clouds either. Apparently the only thing that can float is man-made toxin sprayed by evil corporate puppeteers of the government, and water vapor does not exist.

in defense of conspiracy theorists, i used to think chem trails were a thing. i thought this because i couldn't understand the complexity of why the condensation would stay sometimes and other times would not, and why quite often i see them forming grid patterns in the sky. i brought it up with my cousin out of curiosity and he - a pilot - explained it in such a way that i could understand, and i changed my mind. just sayin, cuz yeah, i believe there's some conspiracies, but it doesn't mean i think everything is one, and that if i happen to believe one, it doesn't mean my mind can't be changed. anyway. end random interjection.

Then you're not crazy like some of the others out there. Most of these people view the rational explanations as part of the conspiracy.

Personally, just knowing how inept the government is on pretty much every level, much less keeping a secret, I think most of the crap that spawns in the conspiracy theorist camp is probably more outrageous due to the credit they give to the government in the first place.

As an environmental science major I find that utterly ridiculous.

as much as i wish that weren't true, it is. it was seeing this in others which got me out of a similar mindset, and for that i am very thankful. again, i still think conspiracies exist, but i'm tired of trying to figure out which ones are legit or vice versa. it's too much work to no end.

lol. that's something i'm going to keep in my argumentative arsenal.

Indeed. I think there's something behind it all, and I'm sure we'll find out what in due time. I, for one, am not desperate to know. Not that I care about ghosts or whatever being disproved, but the unknown (to me anyway) is so much more interesting. Sitting in a house having freaky stuff happen would seem more entertaining to me without knowledge of an explanation. I'm sure that finding that explanation is what's fun for some people. BUT NOT ME MAN. NOT ME.

You don't sound like someone who is convinced either way.

Yeah I'm kind of in the middle. I don't believe that's what's happening is caused by any sort of personal spirit. On the other hand, what has put forth from the other side seems to be scattershot. It puts forth various possibilities, but considering how similar all of the experiences are, it seems to me that there would be some singular or more narrow explanation. Maybe not though. Maybe it's always a combination of factors.

Not much I don't believe in. Yeah, I believe in ghosts. Too many people have seen them for me to say they are all crazy. My grandma said she saw my grandpa after he passed.

Ok so while my mind is still awake, instead of being defensive I'm going to explain my side...
First of all I am not afraid of death so for a counterarguer to say believing in them pacifies that does not apply to me.
Anyway the same could be said about nonbelievers, that they are scared of the idea being true. There are times I wish it was all bogus (demons, spirits, ghosts, imprints, etc) but unfortunately I feel there are things. I have only seen a few in my life and I have heard one of them. Of the few, one was the grim reaper... although I will admit to being high during that one.
To my knowledge there haven't been any in my waking sites for over a decade, but last month I did hear what sounded like dozens of voices in a conference in my living room while I was standing in the kitchen. It lasted a few seconds and came from the large aquarium.
There is no TV to be left on, no shows running on the computer, nothing outside to confirm anything like that was going on nearby, and we don't use radios.
Then I got to thinking of my studies of ghosts and remembered they use water to manifest/communicate. With the two ceramic water fountains going 24/7, the aquarium, and the sink running it was the perfect time for them to come through. I don't, however feel watched or like my house is actually haunted. OTOH I do think that if the atmosphere is right they'll use the energy.

Watch these, like I have, and try to explain:


World's Scariest Ghosts Caught on Tape (1 of 3) - YouTube

Ive personally never actually seen anything like a ghost, apparitions or whatever they supposedly appear as. But there has been a few times that I have felt some kind of presence as if it were close to me. For example, My wife and I once lived in a house in the Athens Ohio area, and in the back bedroom where we slept it always felt like someone was standing in the corner watching me or whatever. The point is I did feel a presence in that particular room every night I went to bed. I also got the same feeling outside around the same exact area where the bedroom was located. I kept this to myself for a month or so until one evening before going to bed, I mentioned it to my wife and her mouth dropped wide open and replied that she herself has felt the same way ever since we had moved into to the house.
So my wife (at the time) ask one of her christian friends to come over and see if she felt anything like what we were experiencing. She started to walk around the house to where our bedroom was located, and just before she turned the corner to where the room was located, she made an abrupt turn and returned to her car and said she didn't want to go there. I don't remember what her explanation for not wanting to encounter our supposedly ghost but she never returned to visit us at our house while we continued living there.
In all practicality, I seriously believe that it was some kind of electrical field from power lines, or what have you, instead of an actual presence from the dead.
Even if there are such things as ghost, demons, etc. They really don't bother me at all, I mean even though I felt that weird presence like someone or something was watching me...I still slept like a baby. That kind of shit doesn't worry or bother me at the least. There is an explanation for most everything.

The thing about believing in ghosts is that I am incapable of NOT believing in them at this point. There have been horrifying unexplained events which have been witnessed by another person.

My old home in NC was haunted, a murder-suicide happening a few years before we got there. Weird stuff would happen, like doors opening and closing, doors randomly locking and unlocking, and lots of banging noises in the middle of the night within our duplex which woke my family up constantly.

One day, and I remember this vividly, as does my sister...we were sitting on her bed talking about The Spice Girls. Her television set was roughly ten feet from her bed. Anyway, I proceed to performing a hellaciously off-key rendition of "Spice Up Your Life," when, from the top of her television, a Beanie Baby (yes, I'm dating myself with that admission) flies from atop her television and nails me directly in the face. Nothing had been shaking, there was no earthquake, but we saw with complete clarity this happen to me.

Another: At my mother's house, there's some lady ghost who wanders on the family property we all have seen at some point or another. It's not JUST her house, but it's predominately her house and my aunt and uncle's across the street. Anyway, no one is on my mom's couch, and it just randomly flips over onto its' back. We all watched it happen. There had never been (and has never since been) any issue with the couch staying upright, and once we righted it, we tested it to see if there were any issues that would have caused it to fall over. There were none. Another time, also in my mother's house, she'd just mentioned that she'd seen the ghost, and I said she was dreaming or full of ****, and a bottle of Clorox bleach FLEW from above the washer and dryer and hit me in the chin. I was about five feet away from the washer and dryer when it happened.

Then, there was "Bocket."

When I was little, there was so much "supernatural" activity going on, that my mom was about to just say, "**** it," and move in with her mother until finances got situated enough to find another place. I had a sister close in age, so I wasn't lacking a playmate or anything. My mother had a few terrifying encounters with what she called "shadow ghosts" based on the experiences she'd heard from others of similar phenomena.

And I apparently began freaking the **** out in the middle of the night saying that some dude named Bocket was in my room, and he'd killed someone. All of the activity had been centered around the room with my bed...I was around 4, and was completely terrified.

One day, it seemed like Bocket was okay, and I told my mom. I said he was my friend now, and that he didn't scare me anymore; he'd killed people, but he wasn't going to kill me.

My mom decided that this aspect of her terror was just me inventing an imaginary friend for whatever reason - nevermind that he was a middle-aged murderer from prison.

My mom told me that after all of this, she searched public records at the library and came across an inmate who had died in jail named Bacquet or something, and promptly moved us out of the house. He'd lived in the neighborhood, and HAD killed someone in another state; a drunk driving hit and run. He'd died in jail in 1990, and I'd started seeing my invisible friend in 1991.

We also had the pleasant ghost, who would inexplicably place the newspaper from the day previous on the kitchen table, with certain stories cut out. We lived in a mobile home on family property, so there was no one else with a key, and no one on the property had noticed anyone coming or going, so that was bizarre.

i once fell asleep in a cementery (cause i had no where to go and was stranded in another city), that night i saw in a dream that i was surrounded by people, and that they where all standing around me watching me, i was in the same place where i fell asleep but it all seemed diferent, and they where having a party, talking to each other...

when i woke up i felt that i was visited by the wandering souls that are in that place.

No, I don't believe in ghosts. I feel I'm too rational a thinker to jump to conclusions or explain certain things as away as "ghosts".

I do however find things that I can't completely explain or comprehend to be interesting. Thats why I tend to find it a little unnecessary when those who can't offer an explanation attack a believer, and when a believer attacks those same people despite not not having anything factual to base their belief on.

I am completely happy to sit on the fence, with no aggressive beliefs, not believe in ghosts, but continue to find any stories regarding things I havent seen, experienced, or can't rationally explain interesting.

There are plenty of things about the mind, the universe, and phenomena that we just dont understand or are not aware of yet, I'm sure. I like to keep my mind open enough to the possibilities that almost anything is, in some way, possible unless there seems to be pretty tight, undisputable scientific reasoning to why something is the way it is, but that doesnt mean I'm going to buy into the concept of ghosts.

^My mind is even MORE open than that bc I think: why wouldn't there be?..

Neat video.

According to the laws of nature as we know them, ghosts are a phenomenon we can't explain. That doesn't mean ghosts don't exist, but it means that evidence indicates that they don't. So, a critical thinker will think that the burden of proof is on those who would claim ghosts exist and not vice versa. In other words, from a logical point of view, the question should be "how can you prove ghosts exist?" rather than "how can you prove they don't?" ..

Furthermore, as current evidence is against the existence of ghosts, claiming that ghosts exist is a fantastic claim and fantastic claims should require extraordinairy evidence.

This is generally how a critical thinker will approach it and a critical thinker is someone who tries to keep their idea of the universe as close a resemblance to the truth as possible by applied logic and having some quality control of the information they accept as true or not.

Critical thinkers tend to be very close minded because they rely too heavily on evidence. So of course they will always be skeptical. People that are more open minded are the creative types and those that are right minded.

I'm not saying I disagree with what you are saying because it is all sound and logical. It makes sense. I'm just adding a bit more to it and the reasoning why some people are just open minded and feel they have a spiritual connection to the world and tend to believe in ghosts before having sufficient evidence.

I actually feel critical thinkers can be more open minded at some points. At least a critical thinker will be willing to change their views if presented with said evidence. I can't say the same for a lot of very religious people.

As for ghosts, I think personal experience comes into play. I've had my own experiences and lean towards the hypothesis that something does exist, we just can't explain it right now (I did create this thread, after all). Plus, many issues in the world have no bearing on how I live my life so I think it's fun to lift the strenuous philosophy of a critical thinker and just have fun with the possibilities sometimes.

I'm definitely the open minded/creative type. I love to daydream and fantasise about things. That's why I keep a open mind to the possiblity of alien life visiting earth and ghosts. That does not mean I think it's real at this stage but if decent evidence was provided it would certainly make me excited.

I'm the same way, I'm a bit skeptical but I slightly lean towards the side of wishing and hoping those things are real. I know they aren't though until sufficient evidence has been revealed especially if I see it with my own eyes.

Yeah it's not a bad way to be actually. I think it would be awesome to see a ghost but I'd probably poop myself.

Religious people change their mind too, it no big deal. I don't know why you want to paint a picture like they can't.

"Ghost" fall under the paranormal, which basically falls outside of mainstream science and religion.

Relax, I was just using it to compare open vs close minded people, not specifically about ghosts. But very faithful people tend to be quite close minded. Just my experience.

Yeah, everyone, no matter who, has a confirmation bias, but for the person who demands evidence before believing at the very least they are less likely to accept erroneous beliefs. In other words, they may not believe in something that is true that just doesn't have enough evidence, but they at least have a baseline of belief that will likely be more based in reality.

I believe there probably is some form of life somewhere out there but the likelihood of them or us being able to travel the vast distances required to visit mean we will probably never know.

Why does everyone seem to partition critical thinkers into this rigid, non-movable box of pure logic and evidence? Critical thinkers simply approach arguments or claims in that way, because it's the most reasonable approach. And like Duga said, we are actually in the best position to be open minded simply because when the evidence mounts one way or the other for a claim, we will accept it. You can't say that for people that base their beliefs on something as immovable as personal conviction completely devoid of, and opposed to, evidence.

For instance, I don't believe in a sentient creator. However, if we find evidence for one, I will definitely believe in one. However, if we find proof that there ISN'T a god, I guarantee you that the majority of believers will disregard that evidence. Same thing for ghosts, or any other fantastical claim.

I would put it to you that those employing evidence-based approaches will be FAR more likely to change their beliefs than those with solely cultural or personal leanings. I would consider those people more closed minded.

I also think people are thinking of open mindedness as some sort of tag for people believing in fantastical things. That's a mischaracterization. Being open minded is being open to possibilities, not simply believing in the least-supported ones. which would be plain stupidity. As a critical thinker, I'm open to the possibility that ghosts exist, however I'm far more likely to believe that they don't until there is some compelling evidence to believe otherwise. And when there is, I will believe.

That's more than I can say for religious groups or hardcore fanatics of any flavor.
Being a critical thinker doesn't mean you just toil away non-creatively and joylessly at life, crunching the numbers of likelihood and spitting in the face of fantastical hope. I'm a very creative person in my pursuits, and I enjoy the same fantasies anyone else does. We are, after all, all humans. We have the same fears, desires, hopes and wonders. Critical thinkers simply employ a particular approach when it comes to validating a claim and resting a belief on it, and it most certainly doesn't only happen when there's a supernatural claim involved. It's a broad approach to answering questions. And for those questions we have no answers for, we're just as open as anyone else out there.

I agree with Freebase, 'critical thinking' doesn't have to be boxed into one certain way of thinking. critical =/= logical. They are not synonymous. Critical thinking means exactly what it says - thinking critically about something, which doesn't always have to be taking a very scientific or logical approach...

I once lived in a house which my family claimed was haunted. The previous owner had died there. I was the only one in our whole family who didn't have any sort of run-in with this 'ghost.' Either ghosts are scared of me, or it's all bull****. I'm leaning towards the former.

Hah, I like your style.

Supposedly I'm related to John Wilkes Booth but do not wish to say so for the deep compassion I have for what happened to Lincoln. If anyone gets the chance to I recommend reading all about his Funeral Train. It is very fascinating...
Abraham Lincoln's Funeral Train


Ghost Lab - John Wilkes Booth - Provoking an Assassin - YouTube
^Booth on EVP

Not sure what I was expecting with a TV show... and I couldn't hear much of anything. However what I did hear was audio artifacting noise due to downward bit conversion and probably downsampling. Are we going to discuss shoddy recording equipment and conversion techniques now? Or did I miss something?

i dont really think JWB killed Lincoln though so you're good

NO I DONT believe in ghosts because i have walked to 'haunted' places before and yelled SUCK MY NUT SAC GHOSTS and nothing even happened and had i been one of those ghosts I woulda been pissed.

I rescind my previous compliment.

Well guys I'm hoping to spend the night @ the famous haunted bar/hotel in Deadwood, SD in a couple weeks.

I think the attitude you have going into it basically determines the outcome. If you stay in a house and tell yourself that house is haunted and look for signs that it is, every creaking door can be evidence of that. The flicker of a curtain in the moonlight at the edge of vision can become a ghost. If you manage to remain sceptical (probably requires an effort of will as we're not really rational beings), the curtain will simply stay a curtain.

But since ghosts don't exist, you will of course never actually see one. Only what you'd believe are vague hints (I didn't put my hat down here! Sounds like someone's walking around on the empty floor above. I thought I saw something.)

I think you should try not to fool yourself.

LOL, my mind is much more open than that...

So open that any idea or belief is welcome in there, no matter how crazy?