 Originally Posted by Wyldwraith
One thing that hasn't been brought up yet,
In specific regard to inhuman spirits of that we might consider to be either "good" or "evil" based on their actions.
A natural phenomena like say gravity or electrical current is there and available to be quantified and explored at our leisure. These are mindless forces of nature, that do not thing, and operate only insofar as natural law dictates.
If you consider a theory that focuses on a being presumed to be intelligent and self-aware (ETs, Spirits, Ghosts etc) then any solid scientific theory would absolutely require the consideration of the possibility that such intelligent beings have a minimum of ability equal to that of humans, and possibly much greater. (After all, the good scientist would consider the possibility that the inhabitants of a world that became fit and conducive to complex life-forms far earlier than Earth did could definitely have given rise to intelligent life far earlier than the rise of humanity. This could easily and logically explain the possibility of civilization(s) FAR more advanced than we are.
Referencing ETs in particular: Consider the pattern of advancement in our own arms race. Stealth technology doesn't require incredibly advanced scientific achievements in related fields. It's at its most basic the simple study of what you wish to remain unnoticed by, and then exploiting the weaknesses of the detection system.
After only 200-300 years of serious, systematic, UNIMPEDED scientific inquiry, man can already produce vehicles that travel quickly through the water, yet defeat sound-detection (Ie: Sonar). We have air-vehicles that do the same thing in their element. Every decade sees new developments. Thermal shielding to render infrared useless, and now we're up to synthetic materials that refract light waves, bringing actual invisibility within reach.
Undoubtedly I am impressed by the fact we have moved from pedestrian to supersonic travel in only a couple thousand years.
I am equally impressed by the certainty that if any government somehow gained access to a piece of cutting edge stealth tech from say, 50 years from now, it could float along at the speed of a balloon on the breeze and remain completely undetected even if it was firing on nearby targets.
So, would it not be reasonable to seriously consider the possibility that a society with a mere 1,000 more years of scientific inquiry under its belt could normally evade our ability to detect any vehicle they deployed within our atmosphere under all but a certain narrow range of situations dictated by natural law. (For example, a vehicle entering the atmosphere at high speed would create a great deal of heat, a portion of which would be radiant and possibly beyond the effective range of the craft's anti-thermal-detection tech. Or a "cloaked" vehicle skimming or moving under a hundred feet above the surface of the ocean creating an unavoidable wake/disturbance.)
If we can go from the Model T to the Ferrari in less than a hundred years, it's only logical to believe a species with even a mere two-century "jump" on us could possess technology we couldn't grasp more than the rudimentary natural laws it takes advantage of (assuming we had it available for direct observation).
As for "Spirits", the possibility of extra-dimensional life leaves us with very little room to even speculate about the capabilities of.
For anyone familiar with the scientific fictional-construct of the 2-Dimensional "Flatlander" life-form, you're familiar with the principles that support the reality that from the perspective of a 2-Dimensional observer, a 3-Dimensional life form such as Man would appear to have completely unfathomable, almost "godlike" abilities.
From the Flatlander perspective, we could "appear" (lay ourselves flat on their sheet of paper-like world) in their reality, and vanish or teleport at will. Their inability to fathom the PRACTICAL day-to-day ramifications of existing in 3 dimensions would render a large portion of our nature a completely impossible-to-unravel mystery for Flatlander scientists.
In the same way a 4-Dimensional life form could move forward or backward in time from our perspective, which would make them appear to be able to teleport or move at infinite speed across infinite distances, with no more apparent effort than it takes us to get off our beds. In reality, the 4th-Dimensional Being would consider what it was doing completely normal, and while they could effortlessly grasp the entirety of our nature, without refined time travel technology we could never understand then.
We'd be the Flatlanders then.
That's a being existing in only ONE more dimension than us, yet already we're into the inevitability of a being vastly more capable than we are.
No one besides individuals conversant with a depth of Physics-related knowledge could conceive of even the absolutely most basic attributes of a 5th-Dimensional Being.
If current scientific theory is correct about the number of dimensions, isn't it sort of ridiculous not to consider that one or more of the vastnesses of each of these dimensions could be inhabited? They could intermittently "appear" and disappear by means completely beyond our ability to detect, let alone understand.
My point is that what we call the "supernatural" could very well encompass Truths greater than the sum of our knowledge, all have rational explanations from the perspective of a sufficiently informed individual, yet remain a complete mystery to us from our limited perspective.
Hell, a being from a higher dimension might derive amusement on occasion by spooking the hopelessly limited member(s) of our species when they perceive us seeking to make contact by an absurd means. Who knows?
I simply don't consider the possibility to be the so-improbable-as-to-be-practically-impossible chance that EvilNed states such things are.
A fascinating post and I agree with a lot of what you say. I actually consider it possible, in fact highly likely, that life can exist in other universes, and in other spacial dimensions within our universe. However, just accepting the potential existence of such things doesn't make it likely that this is the explanation for some, or even any, of the ghostly encounters people claim to have experienced. I would turn to the field of psychology for an explanation first, before I turned to (meta)physics.
That's not to say I think people who experience ghosts are mad or stupid. There are, however, a lot of factors involved in how human beings process sensory and cognitive information. The processes used are fantastically impressive in how they turn the mind-bogglingly complex world into something easily understood, but this sometimes causes information to be lost or misinterpreted. Of course people will swear up and down that what they experienced was "real", but obviously everyone makes mistakes and if we all could see which of our beliefs and interpretations of the world were wrong then we wouldn't hold those beliefs in the first place.
I'm not giving it a great description here, but read up on "psychology of anomalous experiences". It's fascinating stuff.
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now whether that was the creaking and moving of an old house, his imagination going wild seen as he was on his own, or something more is anyones guess, but it was still something that always creeped me out, especially as occasionally I heard creaking on the stairs as a kid & used to hide under my covers!
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