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If ghosts were real every restaurant would be haunted as fuck (piefed.zip)
submitted 19 hours ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] 0 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

Just pointing out, this is a logical fallacy is all.

To put it in a non-ghost perspective:

"Given how many people have walked, seeing a gold medal Olympic gymnast should be a common occurrence if they're real... The fact that they aren't is proof that they're not"

Basically the amount of something isn't evidence of the lack of something, it's only evidence of possible rarity.

Your argument is a logical fallacy and could be easily countered by the same fallacy with "Given how many people over time and history have said they have had a paranormal experience, they must be real"

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    This entire argument is nonsensical.

    Why are we equating walking with gymnastics, for one? It doesn’t take years of training to die, you can do it the moment you’re born.

    Even if we want to move the goalpost for ghosts from “died” to “extreme trauma” or “unfinished business” you can’t tell me there aren’t thousands of people who die in those exact states every day.

    Sure, we can’t “prove” ghosts don’t exist, just like we cant prove I don’t watch you sleep at night. But with such an extreme lack of evidence, it makes it much more likely that ghosts do not exist.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 hour ago*

    That was the point. A logical fallacy is nonsensical - I used a more hyperbolic example to highlight the fallacy.

    Many humans very long ago saw the sun moving and therefore logically concluded it orbited the earth. Hence the logic in logical fallacy. They're fallacies that are rooted in logical thinking.

    In this case, the logic of "many people have died" yet "ghosts are rare", therefore "ghosts don't exist" is what's flawed, because it assumes we know exactly what ghosts are - as a phenomena.

    The reality is ghosts - and the paranormal - has had some scientific explanations in the past hundred years. Infrasonic hallucinations for one thing, as discovered by Vic Tandy. Then there's the better known sleep paralysis, and the lesser known as still studied hypnogogic hallucinations. And on top of that, there's things still unexplained, though hypothesis have been made but not properly tested, like will-o'-the-wisps.

    So, already in some sense, some "ghosts" do exist, just not as intelligent, independent spectres necessarily but as hallucinations. Yet, even the definition of "ghost" varies, changing what can be described as existing or not. Many religions consider anything if the sort demonic instead for example.

    And lastly, there's the rare phenomenon that is random and simply unexplainable, that's unreproducible in a lab to test for. I myself have seen such things, and despite being a huge skeptic who is science forward and works in STEM fields, cannot explain past a label as "paranormal". If anything, it's these experiences that have led me to my interest in science and trying to find explanations for things. Most people don't even know of Hypnogogia. Most creepy night time sightings can be explained by that though.

    I have yet to know what can explain my cousin rising up in air multiple feet/meters from her hospital bed while she was allegedly possessed. Along as witnesses my aunt, another two cousins, and a poor terrified nurse, ruling out my own mind somehow hallucinating this.

    But perhaps with time something will be discovered. Discovery isn't made by deciding not to investigate, let alone using a logical fallacy.

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