who believes in...

[misterpoet]

ready... set... vote!

[Dr B]

I beleive some people are that silly, yes. But no - aliens flying in flying saucers exist only in hollywood and sci-fi.

[Jocky]

To me, personal belief one way or the other is irrelevant. The relevant question is "Do ghosts exist?" [by "exist" I mean "have any measurable effect whatsoever on the physical world" - being the only possible meaningful definition]. Any answer to that question should be informed by reference to valid reproducible evidence and logical reasoning.

I am not aware of any evidence or reasoning which demonstrates that ghosts exist. There are a great many possible explanations for sightings of ghosts which are considerably more plausible and a great deal easier to prove that supposing that such phenomena have anything to do with dead people.

Therefore my answer to the question "Do ghost exist?" is "There is no reason to suppose that they do, and in the absence of evidence the only reasonable course is to assume that they do not". Or to put it another way, "NO!"

As for "seeing is believing" - have you ever in your life seen a conjuring trick which you were unable to explain? To paraphrase Shaw, 99% of people have and the other 1% are probably liars. This demonstrates that seeing is not believing - if you rely solely on the evidence of your own senses for deriving facts, you would have to believe that every kid who's learnt a card trick posessed paranormal powers.

[kath23]

I do actually believe a bit. I think I've seen one maybe, others see dead people, they see them all the time :)

It depends what is meant by 'believe in' and 'exist'. People see them, maybe their ontological status/level of reality is somewhere in between existence and non-existence.

[Dr B]

The question is actually loaded and somewhat unhelpful (though common). The reason is - if you say 'yes' then what are you saying yes to? Also if you say 'no' then what are you saying no to? Your answers are mediated by the preconceptions of what ghosts are.

For me, its more a case of do people genuinely have and report strange experiences? The answer is yes. Does this mean we need a strange explanation? The answer is no.

[Admin]

I voted no.

Do ghosts exist as individual entities in their own right? - I don't think so.

Do people see and/or experience ghosts? - absolutely.

There's probably a mixture of phsysical and (mostly) psychological factors involved in ghost experiences but I don't think they exist outside of human experience.

You can never be 100% certain though.

[kath23]

I love the ghost

[tkingdoll]

That's not a ghost, it's John in his nightie.

[kath23]

Oops sorry. Then I meant to say, you look very personable :)