From: c8922369@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au (Leon James Garde)
Subject: Re: Ghosts
Organization: Uni of Newcastle, Australia
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 16:01:15 GMT

philipm@papillon.ucsd.edu (The Philster) writes:

>A little change of pace here...

Huuuh...  Don't think this post will measure on the richter scale.
Why would it, you are merely mortal.

> many individuals in my personal life who have either seen ghosts,
> experienced hauntings, and
> been in the midst of other supernatural events. The most common

what other supernatural events are there !!! these are more
important. Ghosts are common, as the human brain has a fixation with humanity.
people are especially fixated with those they love ( by definition).
(Weird that ain't it ?? )

> occurrence is a visitation by
> relatives who had died at that moment. This happened when the visitee

But why don't strangers visit at the time they die ?? 
And shouldnt there be some confusion ??
ie. if you were just 'visited', and both Uncle Harry, and you second
cousins 2 month old protege died at the same time as the visitation, which
one did the visiting ??

> was unaware of the
> person's death. This is hard to explain in terms of standard
> arguments.

Is the person who is visited aware of the visitation before they learn
of the death ? Are they alerted to the death by visitation ?
Is this a claim of ESP ? 

>Medically, researchers say that specific regions of the temporal lobe,
when stimulated, can
>produce hallucinatory experiences (including seeing ghosts, aliens,
>religious figures, etc.). Also,

Hallucination is just using imagination when you don't know your doing it.
Dreams are hallucination when your asleep and therefore unable to react.
(and the brain is quitee prepared to accept the hallucination with 
raising an eyebrow, so to speak.) Whats a halluciantion or two between friends ?
Whats your point here ?

> I've read that one researcher stimulated the brain with
>electromagnetic fields with high frequency

Light ?? short wave radio  frequency ?? MICROWAVES !! they'ed sure cause
stimulation to the brain !!!

What frequency are you talking about ??? 1000 HZ or what ??
In my opinion people are working in environments with all sorts
of E/M fields. Are you proposing that there is some sort of
E/M field that humans can't work in ?? Go look in an engineers safety guide.
They'll list large electric fields, and microwave, infrared, ultra-violet,
and light frequency E/M fields as dangerous, but thats it. And no-ones ever
found 'crazy' areas on their industrial plant, where the workers go crazy cause 
of you E/M field brain stimulation.

>explainable. Hauntings (and there are actual documented cases) are not
There  was a stange noise on my roof tonight, but I'd best not blame
it on dead birds. I'd say it was contraction due to sudden cooling by 
a sprinkle of rain. And again, we believe we are either surrounded
by a. dead humans (humans are scared of death remember !!),
or b. live monsters ( loch ness, bigfoot, boogey men, fear of spiders, etc)
Why aren't we haunted by dead monsters ? By rampaging bloodthirsty muons,
or evil comets, or spooking galaxies.

>The answer, I think, can be found in nature. Somehow, we cannot
>perceive all aspects of our
>surroundings. Since we are limited in sight (a particular range of

umm, less than light frequency is infra-red, and then
there's waves with instantaneous values we could measure. Ie. we 
could produce a vibration on a magnet with a low frequency EM wave.

>wavelength), sound (40-10,000
> dB, I believe), and our other senses only give us an indication of an

40-15000 Hertz, dB is a measure of volume ...

> limitations is somehow restricting us from total lucidity, i.e.

Of course, we wouldnt need scientists with science tricks otherwise :) ...

> function at any given moment. Is there a correlation between our
> senses/the ability to perceive
> and brain function? Most likely.
No. thats no true at all. Brain function requires no input or output,
our brains just process information it has stored .
Now our senses provide an input, and the output is muscle movement, and 
physiological changes.
To be able to sense requires a receptor like the nerve ends in ones skin,
the taste buds, the retina's rods and cones, our ears.
Perception is achieved  through deciphering the messages our receptors
send to our brains. 
So, to improve our perception, we need only improve our senses,
except that our senses are most suitable for our environs, there'd be
no extra sensesory information. Should you change environment, then
maybe the extra sense may help, like a sense for infrared may help.
But you suggest the brain could itself be a receptor, an antenae   for
ESP type signals. Which part ? Maybe our brains contain more than
chemical matter ??? :)  but then maybe there is an ether !!! 
There are many possibilities, so till you provide reproducable empirical
evidence  ......

> to ramble on, is natural phenomena such as strange objects raining
> from the sky (frogs, fish,

Why don't we see these object rain into the sky ??
Why has the object got to be from a nearby spot ??
I'd like to see a polar bear in the sahara.
Also I'd like to see Ayers Rock (Australia, VERY large solid lump of sandstone)
flatten the Statue of Liberty.
> automobiles!, and more). How can rocks fall on one house for three
And Dorothy's in the Land of Oz.
> days? This is all
Persistant kids !! (Dont know what your talking about really ... )
> documented...what an insane world, we think. But it is actually us who
Where is it all documented ??? And why shouldnt the documentation best be
given to physchologists ....
> are insane, freaking
> out because we lack the capability to completely integrate everything
> and understand.
We also have an inability to determine fact from fiction. We can take
inteligent guesses, but we can never know anything.

>p.s. Sorry about the format...my editor is at fault.
Well sack him. And press return after every 80 characters, or dont post !!

leon