Understand that completely, but it is only a tool that may or may not be able to provide answers.

I know of nothing better, never indicated there was, but to this point it has yielded nothing in the way of proving or disproving.

My arguments stemmed from blind belief in scientific method. Faith is what religion is based on, not science.

Edit: changed my original "blind belief" to "faith", in the above text, to reflect the result of a usage argument I once participated in and conceded. Old habits...

You still didn't answer the question. If the scientific method isn't valid then what is? You made this statement in direct response to me: "Science is great, was a science major, but not every tool fits every problem.

Science is a tool, and not useful for every question.

Hammers are great, screwdrivers are great, but each fail poorly when you need a wrench. "

I want to know what that 'wrench' is, you must have some sort of inkling as to what it is if you're going to make that statement.

As for results, the pure statistics of ghosts alone disproves itself, the earth should be a spheroid shaped sardine can of ghosts, we should see them everywhere, at all times, to the point where they overlap each other a hundredfold and make it difficult for us to see anything else. Yet we encounter very few, and interestingly enough those experiences always vary based on cultural differences, the idea of a ghost in Japan is quite different to the idea of a ghost in the US. If the prediction is that we turn into ghosts, where are they all, belief and anecdotal experiences have (with all the credence we can give those) accounted for maybe several thousand, where are the other billions?

Of the many things us humans think we see yet didn't actually see thanks to our brains and senses being far from perfect (one of the very reasons we use the scientific method) what new method do you use to give more credence to this versus anything else cooked up in our imaginations? You have to have something.

Logged back in for this.

I've covered it before, wasted far too much time on the issue, and if you want to burn a few candles while grinning at Einstein, go ahead; it will answer nothing.

Sorry, but it is late and there is nothing further that I could write that I haven't written before.

Have to sleep, after 5am here.

So you have no actual answe. Talk in circles all you want, that's what it comes down to.

The power level of the being is beyond the point, i think - what's the big deal if it's over 9 or 9000? The observable evidence is lackluster in both cases.

I argue that if your god/ghost/thing have paranormal traits and does paranormal shit, it's save to say you believe in supernatural.

Jesus (for example) was quite paranormal - walks on water, turns it into wine, cures the blind, respawns in 3 days. That's paranormal in my book witch means if you believe in Jesus you believe in the paranomal.

If not for science, I don't see any possible way to "prove" the existence of ghosts. But then again, what if suddenly many millions of people started seeing them regularly? If it was a common occurrence, would it then become "proved" simply by mass observation, with no "science" involved?

If your argument boils down to "If you believe in supernatural, you believe in supernatural", then yes, you are correct :-P But you can't say that whoever believes in supernatural is a theist.

Looks like I opened a can of worms... my bad! lol

Ghost, Religion, Stevie Wonder, Nightwish... this is a good topic! :P
That is pretty much what got me into this subject. My parents house had the same problem and we (at most 3 at once) were seeing "Shadow People" walking along the lobbies and into my room at all times of day/night. Couldn't sleep properly for years... still can't! haha!

I am not certain if my hypothesis is correct or not. However in places where there are strange vibrational frequencies there also exist certain anomalies.

As you may well understand, human beings only carry a finite number of senses through which they perceive their reality and as such can only draw a limited number of inferences.

It has been observed that ultrasound waves have a profound effect on the nature and existence of such 'para-normal' phenomena. Ultrasound waves can affect the human body and lead us to experience a myriad number of curious sensations, including that of inducing hallucinations and it is what science alludes to as being a tenable explanation for ghost sightings.

It is also possible that there are shifts in reality due to such frequencies leading to us experiencing things from an era gone by.

Most interestingly, it would explain the Irish folklore of changelings, faeries, vampires as being beings from another dimension.

However understand that this is merely me resorting to surmise and conjecture where the 'real' reasons may well be something that goes beyond human ken.

what kind of vibrations? and what is exactly oscillating so strangely? because a vibration needs something which vibrates, be it a mechanical medium or an energy field. Ultrasounds, in spite the apparent "mysterious" name, are just plain normal sounds, just in a frequency too high for the human ear.

One of the things that I find so funny about paranormal discourse is that it's full of scientific jargon about "energies" or "quantums" but they never explain what they exactly mean by that. Honestly, if you don't have a way to reveal the cause of an unknown phenomenon (be it through scientific method or whatever means), the only honest answer is we don't know. Otherwise, you're just putting fancy names to ignorance.

Dude, he may be talking in circles, but you're just repeating yourself hoping for a different outcome. If you really want an answer, science is not yet the correct tool, and neither is anything else. Just like science could not at first prove the neutrino or Higgs boson or quarks. We noticed the effects of all of these things, and we developed theories behind them, but it took time to advance science to the point where they could actually prove stuff.

You're using science in the wrong way. Science uncovers evidence which is then analyzed to determine whether something is proven(?) or disproven. No evidence =/= disproven. Only counterevidence can disprove something.

As for numbers, let's talk science again. According to conservation laws, there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter, yet there is a vast surplus of regular matter as opposed to antimatter. The explanation? We don't really have one. We have ideas, a few of which are solid, but none that have physical evidence to warrant their becoming a theory.

Likewise, ghosts can have fairly good explanations as to their numbers, lack of evidence, etc. For example, the lack of evidence and of numbers can both be explained as most ghosts being too weak to produce noticeable effects. Cultural differences are also just that. Cultural. The legends/motives are what change from culture to culture, with new features being added and embellished by storytellers and folklorists.

Without evidence or counterevidence, saying one believes in ghosts or not is a statement of belief either way.

Edit: for some weird science, look up Boltzmann Brains. It's a physics joke like Schroedinger's Cat, but it accurately illustrates how scientific extremism with what is only ever a partially correct picture of the universe can be flawed.

Nope. The sounds certainly do not exist in a vacuum and there is a definite source (read:Ghost in the machine) be it natural(environmental) or man-made. To my understanding both ultrasound and infrasound can influence such phenomena.

Ignorance is when we jump to arbitrary conclusions and I have already stated in my prior post that this merely a conjecture and in no way definitive.However it is to a degree tenable and unfortunately a rather prosaic explanation. It would explain the feelings of 'being queasy' or 'uneasy' or feeling like there is something unknown lurking around (vibrations can induce such a sensation).

Here:
http://warforscience.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/explaining-ghost-sightings-part-4-infrasound/

I am not sure if I might have misread you, and maybe I was preaching to the choir here. When I say ignorance I mean literally not knowing something, and not "being an ass", so to speak. That is, if you don't know the cause to a certain phenomenon, you might as well say "that was a ghost" or an alien, or the Cheshire Cat, but the thing is you still don't know.

What I meant is, very frequently, you read or listen the self-proclaimed paranormal expert saying more or less that "science doesn't have a valid explanation of this phenomenon, therefore my speculation is perfectly valid and maybe even true". As Neil Degrasse Tyson brilliantly pointed out, you don't say "there's a strange light moving in the sky, I don't know what it is, so it must be a flying saucer". If you DON'T KNOW what it is, well, you just don't know, period. And the same is valid for scientists, science is a human product and as such, it is sometimes faulty and it has limitations. The article you linked (very entertaining reading BTW) just points out some interesting ideas, but you'll agree with me that the results of an experiment need to be replicable to conform as a scientific theory as we know it.

And I stand by my point that the paranormal discourse often despises "official" (?) science while at the same time mimics (in a very shallow way) its jargon and methods. In regard to that, see the Ghost Hunters TV show for a few laughs.

Actually, these have been replicated under lab conditions and there was even a showcase on discovery that depicted how sounds and electric fields can have a profound effect on how we perceive things. I' ll see if I can find a link to that one.

In the meanwhile, readers can check this link out: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/ghost3.htm

Funnily enough, we have such a 'paranormal phenomenon' here at work :)

I work in a very old building, it's a former military barracks converted to local administration offices. In some of the offices, the structure, roof design or whatnot is so weird that sound propagates in a very funny way, and sometimes you see some people talking a few metres in front of you, but the whispers of the conversation come from behind you. I guess it would be pretty scary should we not know about it.

Thanks, it seems very interesting, I'll have a look at it.