Ghosts That Go Bump In the Night: Part One

I think there might be a real scientific case to answer regarding an explanation for ghosts. However, IMHO ghosts have nothing to do with human spirits and evidence of an afterlife. Rather, all can be explained by postulating that we live in, and are the product of a simulated Universe.

Apparitions, ghosts, phantoms, spectres, spirits, spooks, wraiths – call them what you will like ‘things that go bump in the night’ if you wish. Here’s a mystery that needs explaining. Who hasn’t heard and/or read about ghosts? Ghosts are a staple of thousands of novels, short stories, plays, operas, TV episodes, feature films, video games, documentaries, theme park rides, songs, mythological and not so mythological legends, and all manner of campfire and other tall tales, and have been, in one form or another, for generations upon generations. So, ghosts are the theme to be explained here.

Now I must stress that I am NOT, repeat NOT, talking about séances, ouija boards, spiritualism, mediums, channelling, and yucky ectoplasm. Rather, just old fashion unexpected, unplanned, undesired, unwanted close encounters with those things that go bump in the night and go ‘boo’ and like to haunt things. The unfortunate thing is that said encounters go back to the ancient Greeks (and probably before if there were records) and proceed through every century up through and including the 21^st. Ghostly encounters are recorded across the entire spectrum of the human condition. Young and old; male and female; every race, creed, culture, socioeconomic group, nationality, IQ level, etc. has recorded encounters. By now, that’s probably in the hundreds of thousands to millions of cases, not all by any means noted and logged in the literature. I’m sure many members of the great unwashed keep quiet for obvious reasons. Problem one: has each and every one of those witnesses to ghostly happenings been mistaken?

Problem two is the counterpoint. If you can see or hear ghosts, or photograph them or record them and their activity with other instruments, then ghosts must be composed of matter and energy, yet there is no way known to science to form these ghostly apparitions, comprised of necessity of matter and energy. Since ghosts are apparently whatever leaves the body after death (including, apparently, animals as well as humans), and since a body doesn’t lose any mass in that interval or transition between life and death, there’s no decrease of X amount of grams, the ghost has to be comprised of nothing and be 100% immaterial – but then you couldn’t see or hear them! That contradicts all those millions of witnesses.

Another problem is that not all ghosts are biological. There are reports of ghost trains, and phantom ships, and other things that have no connection with the biological world.

However, sticking with the biological world for the time being, it must be noted that we humans tend to have a near universal fear, or at least intense dislike, of certain other life forms that often have relatively little to do with any actual threats they represent. We tend to hate cockroaches (but very few other beetles) even though they aren’t likely to tear you apart limb from limb. And the cockroaches-spread-disease idea behind cockroach loathing doesn’t wash. While we might kill flies, fleas and mosquitoes that equally can spread disease, we’re not revolted by them. We don’t care too much for snakes even though relatively few can harm us and in any event we can run faster than they can slither. We have an instinctive dislike of certain spiders even though we’re a thousand times their size and have a vast array of arsenal at our disposal to deal with them. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I hate and will kill huntsman spiders on sight although they pose no danger to me and are actually probably useful pest control agents in the house. On the other hand, other spiders, even the venomous red back spiders, it’s live and let live. It’s not all very rational, but then who said human behaviour was always rational! But further on the theme…

There are many biological things in this world that can be deadly to us, yet which we have to instinctive or innate fear of. We don’t recoil in horror at the sight of a tiger or lion or a wolf or a bear. Certain fish and amphibians can be toxic, but don’t cause us any revulsion. Some invertebrates like the blue-ringed octopus, box jellyfish, and some cone shells can give you a nasty, even fatal experience, but they don’t feature in our list of loathing. So there’s probably no absolute relationship between inner loathing and external danger. But, anything we are hardwired to be instinctively repulsive of is nevertheless real.

We tend to be afraid of is ghosts, in fact usually downright terrified – that’s why they feature so prominently in horror fiction.  Why this is so, if ghosts are just spirits of usually dead strangers to us, is slightly mysterious since we accidentally come across – well you come across – strangers everyday, in the street, in the office, while shopping or stopping to smell the roses in your local park without any feeling of revulsion or being scared. Somehow we’re hardwired to be nervous, probably terrified, around things that go bump in the night. So perhaps that’s an argument that ghosts do in fact exist. However, let’s look at alternative explanations.

To be continued…