Research suggests 'ghosts' could be all in the mind..

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The whole article is Here .

If I get a chance later I will see if I can find the original study if anyone's interested in reading it.

I saw this story on the BBC website this morning.

It makes me wonder about the workings of the brain. The way I see it, just because a part of the brain is active when we experience 'supernatural' phenomena, that doesn't mean that the experience isn't real. Maybe these 'malfunctions' of the brain are actually intended and used to interact with the 'supernatural'. The fact that scientists can replicate such things does not make them illusory. I can press the accelerator pedal on my car and make it lurch forward. That is a far cry from its intended function of controlling the speed of my car.

We are no where near understanding the brain, never mind the 'soul'. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I also read this article, it would seem to me that scientists have appeared to have found a way to manipulate a sort of manual tuning button in the brain, I always thought that our brains and bodies automatically are tuned to sense and pick up energies around us?

Ecthalion wrote: We are no where near understanding the brain, never mind the 'soul'. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Actually neuroscience has come a pretty long way in developing a better understanding of the human brain....
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet

Zenchi wrote: Actually neuroscience has come a pretty long way in developing a better understanding of the human brain

A better understanding yes, but still a negligible one. There is far, far more that we do not understand about the workings of the brain than we do.

There is no scientific evidence supporting the evidence of the soul/spirit, all opinions on the matter are just that, opinions, and although we are entitled to them, they are not universal and should not be presented as such

I agree wholeheartedly. However, just because something has not yet been adequately explained and understood, it does not mean that it is an imaginary phenomenon. There are some subjects which science cannot tackle. These are the realm of the philosopher, the metaphysicist and the mystic. Imaginary? - Maybe, but I remain open-minded and am not quick to dismiss.

Of course Buddhists would just say that everything was in the Mind :silly:

There is a quote from House MD (Season 3?) when House - the great atheist - reported that he had had a supernatural event happen to him. He reported seeing the lives of several other people he had never met, Wilson (his best friend) asks whether or not it was real, House's response was "What do you mean by real? They were real experiences, as to what they mean? I don't know".

Ecthalion wrote: Maybe these 'malfunctions' of the brain are actually intended and used to interact with the 'supernatural'.

What do you mean by 'intended'? If it were an evolutionary thing, then what benefit would be gained.. and evolution doesn't 'intend' anything.. many things happen evolutionarily that aren't actually a benefit. And if you mean 'intended' in the sense of an intelligently designed purposes, then I'm still not sure what benefit there is to be gained. Or am I missing your point.

Edan wrote: What do you mean by 'intended'? If it were an evolutionary thing, then what benefit would be gained.. and evolution doesn't 'intend' anything.. many things happen evolutionarily that aren't actually a benefit. And if you mean 'intended' in the sense of an intelligently designed purposes, then I'm still not sure what benefit there is to be gained. Or am I missing your point.

By 'intended' I mean that the purpose of our lives might not be just to survive and pass on our genes as dictated by evolution. Maybe we are here for some greater reason. Maybe we are aspects of the 'divine' and, so as not to totally forget our true nature, we are given 'clues', such as sunsets, rainbows, dreams and the like which arouse 'spiritual' feelings. These are the 'benefits' of which I speak.

I suppose that I am proposing intelligent design, although I would hasten to add that I do believe in evolution as the vehicle for this design.

I may of course be totally wrong. This is my gut feelings rather than a scientifically supported theory. The way I look at it is that the nature of the universe is a puzzle. We can use science to understand the box we are in, but not to see what lies beyond. For that we rely on more 'spiritual' hints.

Ecthalion wrote:

Zenchi wrote: Actually neuroscience has come a pretty long way in developing a better understanding of the human brain

A better understanding yes, but still a negligible one.

Compared to what exactly? Where we were thirty or fifty years ago in regards to progress in the field of neuroscience?

Stating the progress made in this field is negligible I think is really cutting short how far we have come to understanding ourselves. That's of course not to say there's nothing left to discover in the field of neuroscience, but calling our progress negligible?

Zenchi wrote: Stating the progress made in this field is negligible I think is really cutting short how far we have come to understanding ourselves. That's of course not to say there's nothing left to discover in the field of neuroscience, but negligible?[/color]

Yes we do understand a great deal more than we used to but there is a huge amount we do not know. It's like understanding a tyre and a boot compared to understanding a whole car - petrol tank, electronics, engine, suspension and all.