From: philipm@papillon.ucsd.edu (The Philster)
Newsgroups: alt.paranormal
Subject: Re: Ghosts
Date: 8 Sep 1992 03:31:20 GMT
Organization: DIP Laboratory, UCSD/SIO, La Jolla CA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: papillon.ucsd.edu

In article <c8922369.715708875@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au> c8922369@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au (Leon James Garde) 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.


I adore your trite humor here, but I was merely referring to the fact that I am trying to start a new discussion (versus the old subjects of UFO's, etc.),
because I feel there is a need to discuss this phenomena.

>> 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 ?? )

"supernatural events"...sorry if I didn't make this clear, but I was using this last label as a generalization for all other ghost-related occurrences, i.e., 
objects moving, heard voices, and so on. (You sure are picky, Leon)


>> 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 ?? 

Yet there are people who say they've experienced these too. I was trying to say that in my own personal association with people, I have found it quite
curious that atleast four people have seen ghosts of their relatives without
being aware of their death. Here are two specific examples, just so you
understand better:

(1)  One girl, about 8 years old, was visited by her grandmother. The girl
was not aware that it was a ghost, the reason being a ghost was that her
grandmother had died a day earlier. The girl had not attended the funeral,
the girl was not aware of the death, the girl did not understand the concept
of death. The girl told her mother the next day that "grandma was here and
told me goodbye." The mother reacted with surprise, and then correlated the
event with the girl's failure to attend the funeral.

(2) A woman was over at a friend's house. The television was on yet the volume was turned down. The woman glanced at the tv, and then saw a scene where
a large mass of people were surrounding the image of a man who remarkably
looked like her father. She was so surprised that she pointed this out to
everyone. She noticed the time of the event since it was so strange. A few
days later she found out her father died around the same time as the event.



>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 ? 

I am supplying you with the facts of the event. If ESP was a possibility, we
could say that these people were sensitive to the death of their loved ones
(since emotions of attachment such as love create psychological bonds
between people...) and, as a result, hallucinated and experienced the events. Yet this would not explain #2. In addition, we would have to assume that ESP
is an actual process, and like this discussion, I am simply presenting the
information which I have read about and experienced and leaving it up to all of
us to try to find a common explanation.


>>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 am simply presenting an explanation which many scientists and researchers 
use to explain ghosts, to make you aware that I am trying to approach the
issue from a variety of directions. The above fact is just a precedent for
a further argument which I say that if the above was the case for ghost
sitings, it is rather fascinating for people to have these excessive temporal
lobe stimulations at the time of their relative's death (and not be aware of
their deaths).


>> 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 ??

Sorry. You missed a word...originally, it said "electromagnetic fields with 
high frequency fluctuations". Experiments were conducted in which a certain
EM frequency was used to stimulate an area in the TL, then rapidly switched
to another, and then back to the original.  This resulted in the subject
reporting a variety of responses such as unusual sounds, strange figures
appearing, and weird sensations. I'll find you some books if you're more
interested.  I have to add that many of these kinds of experiements were 
used to discover a possible correlation between EM waves and ESP.

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

Yes, I do agree with what you are saying. But let's talk about waves here.
We can measure wavelengths by using equipment which is based on some
standard or other. Like all science, and in fact, explanations based on
physical measures, something like "light" and "wave" are based on models. 
And models are working solutions to things which are tested using the
scientific method. However, when a scientist comes up with an explanation, he 
already has an original idea (model) which he has been trying to prove. If
his results agree, then he has a working model, theory, and explanation.
However, this says that another explanation is always possible. Because
one method has been found to explain an occurrence in nature, we often
assume that that is the key answer. But then again, this is a quite
common occurrence through history. Periodically, a theory is revised according
to new information or studies. My point is that waves, such as light, are 
merely models for the processes that occur around us (light, EM waves, micro,
etc.) measured by instruments which are based on models which are essentially
ideas of what waves are. As we are equipped with photoreceptors in our retinal cones and rods which allow us to detect light, we are assuming that the idea
of visible light is a specific set of wavelength which we have defined with
our models. Maybe then ghosts exists on different wavelengths, occasionally
wavering to visible light (400-700 nm)...but we because they cannot be
measured using any equipment is not a reasonable argument to deny their 
existence based on my above arguments.

>> 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  ......

However, we process information in our brains via associations with 
electrochemical signals (including the duration and voltage generated by
ions) and the actual processes which they produce.  Based on CAT scans, MRI's,
and electrical measures of the brain, only particular areas of the brain
are active at any one moment. This means that our brain is using only
what it needs to process information. However, what would happen if more
of this information was integrated and associated with other signals. And
these associations, by the way, are just like memories, because all a memory
is when a set of neurons are stimulated in the same exact fashion as they 
were during the original event.  Maybe we do have another sense which we are
unaware of, and this sense is a form of "ultimate integration"...taking the
combined sensory and motor data and producing a sense of awareness which
can be identified as ESP.

>We also have an inability to determine fact from fiction. We can take
>inteligent guesses, but we can never know anything.
>
True.


Phil