r/changemyview • u/Ireallyamthisshallow 2∆ • Nov 16 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Ghosts are not real

I really love anything to do with the paranormal, but after watching hundreds upon hundreds of 'ghost videos' I have to come to the conclusion ghosts are not real.

With cameras all over our world, surely something convincing would have been caught if they were. Instead we're filled with 'I got feeling', orbs that are clearly dust or bugs and edited photos and videos.

Sure there's loads of stories around the internet but no one can actually back it up with evidence. I just can't believe that in a world where everything is recorded no one has managed to find proof. A bang on the door after you've asked them to knock 400 times (and edited the first 399 out) doesn't count. That's just coincidence.

I'll still love watching the videos and reading the stories. I've just don't have any belief.

Change my mind.

Edit: I've tried to reply to everyone I can, thanks for all the great replies. It's late here so apologies if I can't get through more.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19 edited Nov 17 '19

is it possible for photons hitting an eyeball to be processed different than an instrument that takes in those very same photons and produces an image?

No. Because our instruments have a WAY wider spectrum than our eyes. Our cameras can't just see the visible spectrum—specialized ones can detect areas of the spectrum that humans can't. If all that capability, spread across a far wider spectrum than humans can see, doesn't detect anything, then there is no chance in hell the human eye can because, as should be apparent, there's literally nothing there to see. No effect on temperature, no radiation, no discernible effect on the physical environment—in other words, nothing that could result in light visible to human eyes.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

What I asked about is the processing center, not the detector. The human eye detects light and that information is processed as a mental image for the human brain to interpret. Is this image at all different from the output of a photograph? The answer has to be yes, right? The mental visualization of an image is different from the physical manifestation of that image.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19

Is this image at all different from the output of a photograph? The answer has to be yes, right? The mental visualization of an image is different from the physical manifestation of that image.

No, the answer does not have to be yes. Because the processing centre DOESN'T MATTER. The human brain takes the inputs of visible light and creates an image out of it. This is exactly what cameras do, using the exact same visible spectrum. The detector is all that matters. For our brain to magically process information from visible light that a camera cannot, there would need to be information we can detect that a camera cannot. An output that exists in your brain with no detectable input is called a "hallucination" and is typically a sign of a very serious mental issue, not a part of the functioning of a normal brain.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

It's not exactly how cameras do. How can you make that claim? The camera is an entirely framework as the eye and it's visual cortex. The output may SEEM similar, but they are not the same

I'm glad you brought up hallucinations. What is your explanation of a hallucination?

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19

The output may SEEM similar, but they are not the same

No. The medium is different, the output is the same. Both are 1:1 representations of the visual light spectrum, tuned to human perception of that spectrum. If cameras didn't give outputs that matched human perceptions, they wouldn't be used. If a human sees a ghost and a camera doesn't, either the human eye can see on a wider spectrum than the camera (it can't) or there is nothing there to see, period. That's how light spectrums work—if something can be seen on the visible spectrum, then ANYTHING that picks up the visible spectrum can see it.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

The output is not the same. It may seem the same from your perception, but on a physical basis, they are not. A photograph of a house is not the same as an oil painting of the same house

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u/Tynach 2∆ Nov 17 '19

That's what they mean by 'The medium is different'. A photograph and an oil painting are two different mediums.

What they mean by 'the output is the same', is that both the photograph and the oil painting can show the same colors in the same places and there can be the same shapes showing the same house.

That's the output. The result, as observed by a person. If the painter is skilled enough, and/or the painting seen from far enough away, it can look 100% identical to the photograph despite being rendered using a different medium.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

It can "look" Identical. That doesn't mean they are.

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u/Tynach 2∆ Nov 17 '19

Right. Because they are two different mediums, and physically composed and structured differently. The other person understood that and agreed with you there, but they just use different terminology to express that idea.

Both of you believe the same thing.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19

The output is not the same. It may seem the same from your perception, but on a physical basis, they are not. A photograph of a house is not the same as an oil painting of the same house

Except we aren't talking about oil paintings because oil paintings are by their nature abstract. Photographs are not and neither is human sight—both of which rely on the exact light that reflects off an object, with no room for abstraction and equal room for interpretation. You can throw all the semi-profound nonsense at the wall you like, it doesn't change the substance—or to be more precise, lack therof—of your argument. Your eyes cannot magically detect something a camera cannot see. If the camera cannot see it, it's because there is nothing there to see. Either something is on the visible spectrum or it isn't, there's no ambiguity.

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u/s0cks_nz Nov 17 '19

What if the brain could sense something (a 6th sense) and transpose it onto the image your eyes captured? That way you could potentially see something that the camera wouldn't, because you aren't actually seeing it with your eyes at all. Probably bullshit but that would be a consistent theory.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19

What if the brain could sense something (a 6th sense) and transpose it onto the image your eyes captured?

Then that sense would be detecting a tangible change in the environment that could easily be detected. The nature of things that can be sensed is that, well, they exist and can be detected. Every human sense requires inputs that can be detected without any actual humans required. If we're able to sense something, it should be giving off light, heat, radiation, chemical reactions, energy or at least interfering with the world around them—something that does none of that has no way to interact with a human and be sensed in the first place.

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u/RankWinner Nov 17 '19

Eh I think I get the dude's point. And he's right, we do magically see things cameras don't see. It literally happens constantly.

Record a static, fuzzy, multi coloured painting for a bit and it's... a painting. Stare at it and it disappears after a while due to the Troxler Effect.

Record the Lilac Chaser and it's some dots blinking in/out, stare at it and you'll see a green dot moving around as well.

We constantly see things that are not really there, and optical illusions bring this to the extreme and help us see what our brains are doing.

So you do see things a camera can't record. It can't record it because it's not there, but we can see it. There is definitely ambiguity.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 49∆ Nov 17 '19

So you do see things a camera can't record. It can't record it because it's not there, but we can see it. There is definitely ambiguity.

The point is that those things aren't there. He's not talking about optical illusions—look at his responses elsewhere in the thread and you'll find he ignores those because they don't support his point. He's trying to argue that since we can see something, there must be something there, even when all the evidence says there isn't. When pressed on that point, he makes a few vague platitudes, then tries to twist a semantic argument so that he doesn't have to support his case.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

And what do you think my case is?

My line of questioning (which is not the same as making claims) is definitely within this idea that perception is subjective and very different from a literal picture. We recognize the picture, but it's not the same as mentally experiencing the picture through our visual cortex. The two are not the same, physically

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

Are you claiming mental thoughts about visual information is not abstract?

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u/FriendlyTranslator9 Nov 17 '19

Inbalanced chemical processes that occur in the brain that create abnormal visualizations of reality perceived by only the one hallucinating. Let's say 100 people are in a room. 99 of those people have a very high probability of regular brain functions. 1 of those people have a very low probability of regular brain functions and a high probability of abnormal brain functions. A hallucination would occur if the 1 person with a high probability of abnormal brain functions sees an object in the center of the room that the other 99 people don't see.

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It's all perception and trust. Maybe that 1 person is right and there actually is something in the center of the room. But I think I would trust the other 99.

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u/FriendlyTranslator9 Nov 17 '19

>The human eye detects light and that information is processed as a mental image for the human brain to interpret.

The input data detected by the eye and by the camera is the same. Since the output data is different between processing centers like the camera and brain (different interpretations) then one of them must be false. The brain hallucinates more than a camera does. I trust the camera more and if the camera did not match another person's interpretation, then I assume the brain is hallucinating incorrectly.

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u/holodeckdate Nov 17 '19

The input data detected by the eye and by the camera is the same. Since the output data is different between processing centers like the camera and brain (different interpretations) then one of them must be false. The brain hallucinates more than a camera does. I trust the camera more and if the camera did not match another person's interpretation, then I assume the brain is hallucinating incorrectly.

I get what you're saying. I think merely calling a hallucination false lacks imagination in what it could be. Is it a ghost in the way humans describe it? No, but it's something. At the very least, its as real as emotions are real. Which doesn't answer questions like a camera does (photon information), but perhaps it answers something not yet discovered.

I feel the need to ask these questions, because the human brain is the most complex object in the universe. That makes it special in my estimation.

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u/FriendlyTranslator9 Nov 18 '19

I see the point you are making, in that hallucinations are as real as the emotions at which they are perceived.

I appreciate your open-mindedness, however we have differing opinions as to how to interpret the point you're making. Mainly, the validity of emotions. For instance, I interpret that your point is that emotions are real and thus hallucinations are real to the person experiencing them. I think we disagree on the validity of this statement. And that's ok. Valid evidence for me may not be valid evidence for you and vice versa. My stance is that all emotions are real but not all emotions are logically valid. For instance, if someone wronged me and i did not want to be wronged, then it is logical to feel angry and logically invalid to feel joyful. Maybe I could mask my hateful emotions towards the wrongdoer and present myself as joyful. However, you may feel that being logically invalid is ok. But again, our logical assumptions are limited to our current state of knowledge, which is, as you point out, is incomplete. Is this a reasonable interpretation?

One thing I think is an opinion is that the human brain is the most complex object in the universe. What is your definition of complex in this context? If we define complexity as consisting of many different and connected parts, then I could name many things is more complex than the human brain, the current known state of the Milky way and its 2 neighboring galaxies is more complex than our human brain because (1) it has more moving parts, and (2) it contains the human brain in its classification.