here:

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/by-gum-a-haunting

Believing in something like ghosts or the paranormal * is relatively easy to get into, but very different to get back out of again. It's a form of Stockholm Syndrome, that the emotional strength of belief almost holds the mind captive.

The solution is to keep emotion out of it, and instead look to objective factors, as you tried to do. Objectively there is simply no strong reason (let alone compelling reasons) to believe any of this stuff: all too often it comes down to powerful emotional factors at work (eg sense of loss, fear, insecurity, desire for attention, etc).

The problem too often is that the believer is not really interested in objective evidence and possible rejection of their beliefs, as the beliefs themselves are so seductive.

In essence, the really interesting part of all this is not *what* people believe, but *why*.

* I'd personally add religion and conspiracy theories to this too, but appreciate they've been the topic of other very long threads here in the past.

...that they haven't reasoned themselves into.

I recently read the above quote in Ben Goldacre's book, or it might have been Marcus Brigstocke. Either way, it has subsequently saved me a lot of hitting-my-head-against-a-brick-wall type arguments on the internet!

I didn't belive in ghosts either, up until five minutes ago. But I've since done some research on the subject. I looked up " do ghosts exist?" on google and on the first site up someone named Sunshine wisely declared that "Ghost do exist. There has been more than enough proof in the world but people can be too damn stubborn to agree."
So there you go. Bet you feel silly now.

why don`t they sink through floors ?

We all believe in the laws of physics, we use them all the time: driving a car, pouring a cup of tea, walking...

Ghosts do not obey these laws, and yet people continue to believe in them. Quite absurd.

Because I think I believe in ghosts. Or rather some sort of physics or dimensions that haven't been discovered yet. But then it's probably not a rational view. I have seen some weird things in my life though that I didn't think were nonsense or worthy of being laughed at. I can't back it up with any science as I got really really bored of physics, chemistry and biology at school.

Scooby Doo has taught us that there are no ghosts?
It's always the disgruntled mine / fairground / campsite owner in a rubber mask.
Meddling kids!

Who claim to have witnessed some very strange things. One night in particular on Hanbury Tout in Lulworth back in 1992 springs to mind. Two of the people concerned were Royal Navy seaman officers, trained in observation. Another two were Royal Naval supply officers who would struggle to see a barn-door at ten yards so we'll ignore them. The strange and slightly indistinct hooded figure which seemed at different times to be following the group of my friends as they descended the hill, none of them could explain. My friends spread out, came together, tried to view the figure with peripheral vision, tried to convince themselves that it was a trick of the light, tried to approach it and watched it move away. All rational, cynical people, they don't know what it was. They were on their way back from the pub but, as far as I know, Whitbread Best Bitter never had the ability to induce mass concurrent hallucination.

I live in Old Portsmouth. It's riddled with ghosts if you believe the tales. I also work just down the road from Portchester Castle and lots of the locals have interesting stories to tell about what they think they've seen there.

...I watched Insidious on DVD yesterday and it was quite good. I had to run up the stairs when going to bed after I'd turned the lights off.

Also, Warwick Castle is haunted; fact! Source: Mother-in-law.

to find out exactly what was going on. We found out.

I've posted about this before, so I won't go into the whole story again.

Is it possible that our rationale is flawed? And that there are forces at work which lie outside of our understanding?

I don't particularly believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but I'm always surprised when I see how ready certain people are to dismiss the idea out of hand.

I think there are three propositions which guide my thinking here:

(i) I've never seen a ghost or similar;
(ii) contemporary science suggests they don't/can't exist; and
(iii) contemporary science can be wrong.

Re: point (iii), our understanding of the universe is still at a frighteningly primitive level, seen in perspective. There is plenty we do not know or understand (e.g. dark matter, to give one current scientific method of fitting a square peg into a round hole), and plenty of examples of long-accepted scientific principles which are reversed almost overnight despite decades or centuries of "certainty" (e.g. Newtonian gravity).

That doesn't mean that contemporary science is worthless, or should be ignored, simply that blind faith in science as the whole story can be lazy and can narrow the debate in an unhelpful manner.

Do I believe in ghosts? Not particularly, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility and I'm willing to lend an open mind where someone has a story to impart.

There is plenty we do not know or understand (e.g. dark matter, to give one current scientific method of fitting a square peg into a round hole), and plenty of examples of long-accepted scientific principles which are reversed almost overnight despite decades or centuries of "certainty" (e.g. Newtonian gravity).

I don't think that's a valid analogy; dark matter is a hypothesis to explain an observable, objective phenomenon — galaxies contain more mass than the sum of their observable parts. Ghosts have not been measured objectively (they seem to be chronically shy of film and video cameras); nor has any testable hypothesis been formulated to explain them.

Also, Newtoninan gravity wasn't reversed overnight — Newtonian gravity put men on the moon. It turned out to be a partial theory of gravitation that just didn't apply in more unusual situations.

one set of unprovable beliefs automatically accept all others, or do they approach some beliefs with faith and other rationally? Would they say "Ghosts are real but aliens are a load of nonsense" or "My belief in angel feathers is well grounded but you're a complete nit for saying there's fairies in the garden"? "Or, "We lied to you about Father Christmas but the Jesus stuff is true"?

It's a load of old nonsense really isn't it.

However, despite not believing in them I reserve the right to remain frightened by the thought of them.

I suppose it's why the only really scary horror films are generally ghost films, because in the back of our minds, even those that don't believe in them, we are still a little scared at the thought of seeing one. Some of the best horror films (Dawn of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Near Dark, etc) are not actually scary, as good as they are, but ones with ghosts (The Shining, The Haunting, The Innocents, etc) do make you a little nervous when you turn the light off.