Ghosts Aren’t Real, and Here’s Why (w/video)

Video above; transcript below

When I was a kid, I used to believe in everything:  The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Space Aliens, Human Decency.  But then I started reading science book after science book and slowly these things started to fall away.  I eventually became a skeptic and hardcore adherent to science, requiring any claims to have the proof it was due.  Loch Ness Lake has been scanned by sonar and satellites and found no sign of a plesiosaur nor did samples of DNA evidence show anything resembling a monster.[1]  Bigfoot is likely not real since there’s been no actual biological evidence ever to be found—all the footprints, videos, and eyewitness accounts have been deemed hoaxes whether by examining the submitted evidence or by admission.[2]

And the same goes for ghosts. 

Ghosts aren’t real.  And here’s why.

If I tell you to picture a ghost in your mind, you’ll probably come up with something like in Ghostbusters: a visible specter floating in the air, in full clothing, and you can kinda see through them.  That’s how people typically think of spirits.  So, to that, let’s talk a little bit about how our eyes actually see and how we perceive the world around us.

Point 1:  Objects either reflect or emit their own light.

We see objects around us because they are either reflecting light from another source or because they are the source and considered a luminous object.  A candle flame produces light and is luminous, but we see the walls in our room because they are reflecting light from the overhead lights, lamps, or the candle I just mentioned. 

So, an object has to create its own light or reflect light to be seen by our eyes.  That’s how our sense of sight works. 

That being said, in order to see a ghost, you have to ask yourself the question, is the ghost producing its own light or is it reflecting light?

If it’s producing its own light then it must be generating this power from some source.  To go back to the candle I just mentioned, a candle burns paraffin wax which is a hydrocarbon that comes from crude oil.  Furthermore, a flashlight is powered by a battery source.  The sun, for the most part, is consuming and burning hydrogen and helium. 

So, if a ghost is a luminous object, how is it being powered?  To this question, some people resolve and cite the law of thermodynamics that energy cannot be created or destroyed.  Einstein proved that all energy in the universe is constant.[3]  They say that when we are alive, we have electrical energy in our bodies—it makes our hearts pump and breathing possible—so what happens to that electricity when we die?  Is that what powers a ghost to be seen?

Well, what happens to that energy when we die is a simple answer.  It’s not mysterious at all, in fact.  After a person dies, the energy in their body goes out into the environment in the form of heat.[4]  It’s also transferred into the animals that eat us, i.e., animals if we aren’t buried, or worms and bacteria if we are, as well as to the plants that absorb us.  And, if we’re cremated, the energy in our bodies is released in the form of heat and light. 

Whenever we eat plants and animals, we are consuming their energy and converting it for our own use.  This food is metabolized, digested, and the chemical reactions release the energy that we need to live.  This energy doesn’t exist as a glowing ball or ghostly orbs, it’s in the form of heat and chemical energy. 

So, it’s true that our human bodies do indeed generate low-level electrical currents.  This is what ghosthunters claim to be reading with their EMF readers.  But these low-level currents no longer exist in an organism that has died because the source of that energy has ceased.  The energy has stopped, the electrical currents have stopped.  It’s like a lightbulb that turns off when you switch the electricity running it.

Any energy that a dead person leaves behind takes years to re-enter the environment in the form of food.[5]  The rest of our energy dissipates shortly after death in the form of heat.  Whether it’s a washing machine or the universe, you can never get back all the energy you put in.  This is very important to understand and I’ll get into why this is important in a second.

In essence, anyone thinking Einstein proved the existence of ghosts just doesn’t understand basic science. 

Basically, a ghost cannot produce its own light because the energy source that would be powering it has ceased to be.

Okay, then that leaves us with the other option, that a ghost is simply reflecting light.

For this, I want you to think of a laser beam.  We’re all familiar with the obnoxious laser pointer.  Well, when you shine a laser through the air you don’t see it until it strikes an object like a wall.  The wall is reflecting back that light, it’s being illuminated by the laser.  However, if you shine a laser through mist or fog, you can see the laser beam because it’s passing through particles in the air whether it’s the droplets of moisture from the fog, or the chemicals that might be present.

What I’m saying is this, if you were to see a ghost then it would have to be made up of some physical element, i.e., droplets of moisture, haze, dust, or some other physical property that would be able to interact with any surrounding light. 

That being said, you’d have to ask yourself the question, what is kicking up these tiny bits of matter in the form of ghostly haze?  What is helping assemble it into the form of a person?  Whatever process that would involve the assemblage of these tiny particles would also require an energy source which we’ve already established a ghost could not possess because its energy source has long since dissipated into the atmosphere. 

For point number one, in order to see ghosts we would have to be seeing a luminous object or an illuminated object.  Both of these would require some energy source that would have to be detectable:  a power source to produce light to our eyes.  Both of these ideas defy common sense as the supposed energy source has long died out.

Furthermore, people typically propose that ghosts aren’t composed of matter but purely energy.  Well, this defies the second law of thermodynamics which proposes energy is always lost to heat and the spirit would quickly dissipate.

Let me explain.  The second law of thermodynamics also states that the total entropy of an isolated system always increased over time.[6]  The universe is an isolated system; our bodies are an isolated system.  Entropy is a measure of randomness or disorder within a closed or isolated system, and the second law states that as usable energy is lost, chaos increases—and without extra energy being put into a system, that progression towards disorder can never be reversed.

In other words, energy is always lost to heat in any system. This explains why time always marches forward, and why you can’t unscramble an egg, because it would lower the Universe’s entropy.

So, if ghosts are made of energy and energy is lost within every system—especially if they’re moving, emitting light, or making spooky noises—it would be impossible for them to maintain their existence for any period of time. 

And thus, wraps up point number 1.  Moving on to point number 2:

Point 2:   Perceiving the Frequency

Let’s just assume that a ghost isn’t visible for a second.  Because sometimes we perceive a ghost as a presence, i.e., A person can sense that a house is haunted.

If a person perceives the presence of a ghost then that would posit that there is some frequency or particle associated with that ghost for us to pick up on.  If we see a ghost then some particle has to be associated with it; if we perceive the presence of a spirit then we have to be able to perceive a frequency in which that spirit exists.  Whether we are interpreting bad vibrations, an ill feeling, some sort of unease, then our brains are responding to something.

This frequency or this particle has to correspond with a human or a body with which it was once attached.  If you get the sense that some Civil War veteran is residing in your attic then you’re getting some frequency, some information that is associated with that particular person.  Basically, a frequency or particle is carrying the information of the person in which it was associated.  And if this is the case then we should be able to detect them.

After all this time, with all the advancements in technology we have yet to come up with definitive proof that ghosts exist.

And I’ll go one step further with this by using an example posed by Brian Cox, the theoretical physicist closely associated with CERN and the Large Hadron Collider.  He says there’s no room for ghosts in the Standard Model of Physics to allow for a substance or medium that can carry on our information after death, and yet go undetected in the Large Hadron Collider. 

Quote, “If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist, then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern, and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made.”  He goes on to say that, “We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That’s almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies.”[7]

Well, we can’t see everything in the universe but we can see how energy drives our cells’ information.  And if we assume that the energy that sustains ghosts isn’t an entirely new substance or medium, but carries on the information of us from when we were living, then this mysterious force that controls our cells would have to be detected in the Large Hadron Collider by now.  

It hasn’t.

That wraps up point two which states any frequency that would be able to carry on our information after death has never been detected, and the energy required to even consider something like this would be inconceivable.

Let’s move away from science a tad and look at some of the questions that the existence of ghosts would bring up, some things we would have to seriously consider to take ghosts seriously. 

Point 3: there are too few ghosts.

From all the living things that have died you’d think we would surely be inundated with spirits.  But for some reason we only see human ghosts.  No one has ever seen the ghost of a dinosaur.   There’s no haunted forest with the lingering spirits of brontosauruses taken from us before their time.  You’ve never seen a ghost pterodactyl from outside your airplane window.  No one has seen a ghost dolphin.  I’ve heard of ghost dogs but that’s because we tend to love dogs and cats more than some humans.  Chimpanzees are closest to us biologically speaking but no one has ever reported the ghost of a chimp at any zoo.  But maybe that’s all because people supposedly have souls and we all know that cars are soulless. 

We only see human ghosts because we’re all afraid of death and want to think there is something beyond.

Point 4:  Death results in ghosts for living things, so what’s up with ghost clothing?

Have you ever heard reports of people seeing the ghosts of dead soldiers with guns, or dead children on tricycles, or dead grandmas knitting sweaters, or dead people hanging from the rafters, or dead children playing with dead paper airplanes, or dead spinsters in period dresses, or dead gangsters smoking cigarettes, or dead babysitters rocking dead cradles, or dead children holding dead candles…

Then why are ghosts wearing clothing?  Did their clothing die, too?  How can you have ghost jeans or a ghost hat?  Why does a ghost need a watch?  How did a civil war ghost get a civil war ghost gun?   Why aren’t ghosts naked?  Are they afraid of the ghost cops?

Point 5:  Occam’s Razor

A lot of people think that Occam’s Razor means the simplest explanation is the actual explanation.  This isn’t really the case.  Occam’s Razor suggests that a question answered without raising more questions is a question better answered.[8]  So, if science already has an explanation for something, why invent another explanation?  It deals less with the plausibility of an explanation that with putting the burden of proof on someone who would suggest an explanation that is untested or new.  The implication is that even if it’s unlikely that the ghost you saw on your EMF reader was actually a nest of bees between the layers of sheetrock on a wall, it’s still more likely than discovering a new branch of physics. 

Point 6:  Perceiving a Haunted Place is a Psychological Implant.

There have been studies that show when a group of people are told that a certain place is haunted then they reinforce this suggestion with their own confirmation.  We see that suggestion plays a big part in the perception of hauntings.  This even works when the place is fictitious.  However, a person has to already believe that hauntings are possible, a skeptic wouldn’t necessarily be affected by suggestion if they already don’t believe that such hauntings could exist.  However, people that are already susceptible to paranormal believe would then perceive a place is haunted if they were told it was haunted, even if the place didn’t exist.[9]

So, that is my point of view when it comes to the existence, or non-existence, of ghosts.  Now, I don’t personally believe in ghosts because I’ve never seen any real compelling evidence to prove me wrong.  I’m certainly open to the possibility if the evidence presented is compelling and irrefutable, though I doubt we’ll ever see that. 

It would certainly be cool if there were ghosts.  But we don’t need the existence of ghosts to make life any more meaningful or interesting than it already is.  I believe the life we have exists in the here and now, that since there is nothing beyond this then it is imperative to live our best lives now and enjoy family, friends, hobbies, and the sharing of ideas while we can. 

I believe that when we die our energy, cells, bodies…it all goes back to the Earth.  We end up helping other animals thrive, plants grow, and for life to continue.  Our ideas and accomplishments will continue on beyond us until ultimately all the animals, plants, soil, Earth, our history, our art, and all of our technology is consumed by the expanding red sun.  In some 4 billion years’ time it will all be consumed in a fiery ball of celestial domination and everything we’ve ever accomplished, ever known, ever made, ever found out, or ever said will be wiped out by the expanding red sun as it finishes consuming all its hydrogen and begins to eat away at the remaining helium.  Everything will be burned, boiled, scathed, scattered and consumed by the sun until the sun too blows apart its outer layers and all we were is then scattered out into the cosmos to be reused by other stars and planets as cosmic food until we are ultimately forgotten to the infinite vast nothingness of unforgiving, uncaring space.

Goodnight, everyone. 

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[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/loch-ness-monster_b_1374803?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM6X-HmyLsiA4vPzykcFp8L4ko1nUcwHn3HFF9RvlzssZgNIMzGAEzQ78EkJjAwbRNM0s0CWvtKirnccj79Hsn3aK4JOTg6gT_L3uKkl_AaPmx7xboO8rqeygjyQROXf4ivnirLLDI1IWJnItTZX_m4he8q2A9O3ZAcU5z7MNCgf

[2] https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/local/2017/04/17/science-professor-explains-why-bigfoots-likely-not-real/100543942/

[3] http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Cosmological_constant

[4] https://www.livescience.com/16951-einstein-physics-ghosts-proof.html

[5] https://www.livescience.com/16506-einstein-theory-put-brakes-faster-light-neutrinos.html

[6] https://www.livescience.com/50941-second-law-thermodynamics.html

[7] https://sciencevibe.com/2020/03/15/brian-cox-the-lhc-disproves-the-existence-of-ghosts-and-the-paranormal/

[8] https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/occams-razor.htm

[9] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/161883567.pdf