• Question: Do Ghosts exist?

    Asked by katieyonwin to Harriet, Allan, Angela, Diva, Nathan on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Angela Lamb

      Angela Lamb answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hi
      what a great question!
      I personally don’t believe in ghosts but it is such a broad term, it could cover all sorts of supernatural phenomena. Have you read His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman? 3 great books on things like witches, Dust and Angels……..highly recommended.

    • Photo: Allan Pang

      Allan Pang answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      There are organisms that exist that we cannot see with our naked eyes. For example, viruses and bacteria. But we have tools to view them. And we know they do exist. Would ghosts classify in the same category? Are we waiting for the perfect tool to view ghosts? No idea. As a scientist, I always keep an open mind on the matter that we cannot prove or disprove yet.

      But at the same time, people are imaginative creatures. We evolve to see patterns and imagine them for something else. For example, we see Jesus image in a toast or a face in the moon. They are results of our imagination that otherwise don’t really exist.

      So, do ghosts exist? No idea.

    • Photo: Nathan Langford

      Nathan Langford answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      I don’t really know either. As Angela said, it’s such a broad term that could encompass so many things. For example, there are many things people in the past have thought of as ghosts, which actually turned out to be something else, but in some ways, that means the “ghosts” did exist.

      People used to tell stories of haunted forests where sprites used to lure people off the path to walk over cliff edges and die! Now, that’s a horrible idea, but what we do know is that sometimes, people used to see fireflies or glowbugs and on a dark night walk towards them, because they thought they were walking towards a campfire. Of course, fireflies have no problems flying over the edges of cliffs, whereas people do, and this could have caused tales of haunted forests and evil sprites.

    • Photo: Diva Amon

      Diva Amon answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Dear katieyonwin,

      As a scientist, you tend to make your decisions based on evidence. So far we don’t have any proof that ghosts or any other kind of supernatural beings do exist and so I’m not convinced they do. But with that said, we don’t really have any proof that they DON’T exist either, so maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty in making in a decision. As Alan said, maybe we just don’t have the right tools to see them yet! I get scared really easily so I think I’m just going to continue to convince myself that they don’t exist so I can sleep at night. Haha

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