Spooky

[gerkin]

Could ghosts be dark matter ?

[Loosehead]

No

[spaced]

ghosts, if they exist, do not have matter

[jake-the-peg]

There's over 4 times the amount of dark matter as normal matter

If Dark matter is ghosts then boy they've really let themselves go!

[tommytomtom]

no such thing as ghosts, full stop.

[spaced]

a round of applause for tommytomtom, who has just resolved one of lifes great mysteries...in one sentence.

That's you opinon tommy boy!

[mibn2cweus]

Goasts sic are manifestations of the mind of a person who has lost or never acquired the ability to seperate illusion from reality. Perceptual data must be integrated through a process of reason to arrive at a coherent grasp of reality.

Rationality is not a given state of mind but a choice to integrate yourself with the reality you have the power to ignore but can not escape. What is at stake is whether you allow yourself to be a victum of your ignorance or a beneficiary of using your mind to make the world in which you live a place you not only deserve to live in but enjoy living in as well.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Boo!
Boo hoo?
Don't cry, I didn�t mean to scare you. I was only checking to see if you had a rational mind.

[Garamond]

Nothing's more locked securely than a closed mind.

[dawkins]

Surely that should be: Nothing is locked more securely than a closed mind.

Skepticism about ghosts is not closed-minded. Superstition implies lack of enquiry.

[heathfield]

Ghosts can't be dark matter, or people wouldn't be able to see them in the dark.

[Garamond]

dawkins - I would've thought that skepticism is an obvious example of an open mind; it suggests doubt but not a refusal.

I do apologise for my total lack of semantics - I didn't realise one had to have a PhD before posting.

By the way, shouldn't that have read 'close-minded'?

[mibn2cweus]

The term/s open/ed, close/d mind/ed are not meaningfully defined concepts. Rationality is achieved through the exercise of an active mind, i.e. a mind which actively seeks to discern reality from fantasy, truth from delusion, the correlation between what it believes and what is real.

'Ghosts" are equally undefined constructs of a mind that does not find meaning an essential precondition to understanding and differentiating reality from delusion. If we choose for a definition of �ghosts�, �entities of disembodied consciousness", the concept quickly vaporizes into the oblivion of preconceived ideas from which it came. Consciousness proceeds from the physical action of a thinking brain and when the brain dies the faculty of consciousness dies with it. If you require proof of this, or wish to prove me wrong, open your skull and extract your brain and then tell me that I am "open/ed, close/d mind/ed"!

Just so you know I am not totally "close/d mind/ed", I do agree with the "Spooky" part.

[dawkins]

I think closed-minded is fine.