zombies; vampires; ghosts impossible, scienticians claim
All compelling arguments, but remember that anyone of us could be part skeleton.
[url]http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1725868.htm[/url]
Physics proves horror movies get it wrong
Judy Skatssoon
ABC Science Online
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Who needs ghostbusters when you've got Newton, says a scientist who has used physics and maths to poke holes in the way Hollywood depicts ghosts and vampires.
In a paper, published recently on the physics website arXiv, theoretical physicist Professor Costas Efthimiou of the University of Central Florida shows that when it comes to things supernatural, the figures just don't add up.
For instance, the ability to walk through walls is a common talent of celluloid ghosts.
But Newton's laws of physics suggest that if a ghost can walk it shouldn't be able to pass through walls, say Efthimiou and Cornell University postgraduate student Sohan Gandhi.
Newton says a body at rest will remain at rest until it's acted on by an external force and for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
So in order to walk, we apply a backward force on the floor with our feet, propelling the feet up and us forwards.
But if a ghost can walk through walls, it must be "material-less", the authors argue, and incapable of exerting force.
By the same token, a ghost that can walk through walls should also sink through the floor, and a ghost that can walk should be bouncing off the walls it tries to pass through.
"The depiction of ghosts walking contradicts the precept that ghosts are material-less," they write.
Ghostly chills
Sharp drops in temperature are also associated with the arrival of a ghost.
But the paper says physics, which suggests that a sense of cold is correlated more to the rate at which heat is transferred from bodies to the environment than actual temperature, can provide an explanation.
ghost
What do you mean Newton says we can't walk through walls? (Image: iStockphoto)
"It has become almost a Hollywood cliché that the entrance of a ghostly presence be foreshadowed by a sudden and overwhelming chill," they write.
"This feature of supposed ghost sightings lends itself naturally to physical explanation."
Efthimiou and Gandhi say when a warm object is placed next to a cold object, energy flows from the warm body to the cooler body, cooling the warm body.
In a room with a high window or a door with a gap, the cool air from outside displaces warm air inside, creating a system of heat cycles and eddies.
The effect is increased because humans are more sensitive to rapid changes in temperature even if the absolute change is small.
A 2001 UK investigation of the famous Haunted Gallery at Hampton Court, by the University of Hertfordshire's Dr Richard Wiseman, found that hidden doors were letting in draughts.
This produced a combination of air currents that caused temperatures to plummet up to 2°C in some parts, the paper says.
Blood suckers?
Efthimiou and Gandhi also use the mathematical principle of geometric progression to rule out the existence of vampires.
They argue it would take just two and a half years for vampires to wipe out the entire human race from the day the first one appeared, based on the myth that vampires turn their victims into other vampires by sucking their blood.
If vampires feed once a month, the great grandaddy of all vampires would have killed one human and produced one vampire in the first month. So in total there would be two vampires and one less human, or a tally of vampires 2, humans -1.
By the next month, the 2 vampires would kill 2 humans, and so on.
After n months there would be 2 x 2 x 2 ... x 2 = 2n, or a geometric progression with ratio 2.
"The vampire population increases geometrically and the human population decreases geometrically," they say.
Using the principle of reductio ad absurdum, they conclude that vampires can't exist as their existence contradicts the existence of humans.
Professor Alan Carey, dean of the Mathematical Sciences Institute at the Australian National University, says the paper successfully debunks the depictions of the supernatural in the movies.
"They poke holes in the clichés and mistakes that are made, and that's not too hard to do," he says.
I've often wondered, if ghosts don't have mass then why should they stick to the Earth? The Earth is moving at a buhzillion miles per hour through space, there's no reason ghosts should get sucked along with it. Maybe ghosts are magnetic or something.
This is a really good idea.
I believe the ghosts are held to earth by sticky shoes and past life blues.
VP - Workshop Dog
Event Horizon everybody.....Space Ghosts!
If ghosts are massless, wouldn't they reappear once every 365 days when the earth orbiting the sun brought them back in contact with the planet they died on? If they're in space the rest of the time that would explain the ragged clothing and the bad attitude.
Z:
Yeah, I'm hopin' it'll even my own show. My show's not a comedy, it's a horredy. It's called Blood Dumpster.
SG:
Your pilot gave me nightmares! This is 22 minutes of a guy running down a tunnel.
JB:
This is a show?
Z:
Yes.
SG:
And what's with your character, the guy with the blades? What's that?
Z:
The dumpsterkeeper.
SG:
Who's gonna identify with the "dumpsterkeeper"? I mean, maybe if he were in a motorized wheelchair you'd have some sense of sympathy for him.
Z:
Well, it tested well.
(beat)
Z:
I mean really well.
ghosts are super natural. they defy nature.
Brentinlouis Wrote: What was that rule about being intentionally annoying?
This is just another example of special interest groups who'll lobby Congress and get our ducking stools taken away. The Bill of Rights guarantees us the right to defend ourselves against witches and their dark master, Satan.
[QUOTE=Spike]If ghosts are massless, wouldn't they reappear once every 365 days when the earth orbiting the sun brought them back in contact with the planet they died on? If they're in space the rest of the time that would explain the ragged clothing and the bad attitude.[/QUOTE]
The whole solar system is also rotating around the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is accelerating away from almost everything else in the Universe. So, we would return to the same place relative to the Sun, but not to any absolute point in space. When a ghost is created, it should either stay at the same point in space and everything else moves relative to it, or it should fly off the Earth at a tangent to the Earth's rotation and continue on that vector indefinitely. But why doesn't it just disintegrate? For ghosts to exist in the traditional sense, they pretty much have to be made of some kind of "stuff" and "stuff" should have measurable properties and be affected by forces. The more I try to think about it, the more it seems like nonsense.
This is a really good idea.
[QUOTE=Spike]Z:
Yeah, I'm hopin' it'll even my own show. My show's not a comedy, it's a horredy. It's called Blood Dumpster.
SG:
Your pilot gave me nightmares! This is 22 minutes of a guy running down a tunnel.
JB:
This is a show?
Z:
Yes.
SG:
And what's with your character, the guy with the blades? What's that?
Z:
The dumpsterkeeper.
SG:
Who's gonna identify with the "dumpsterkeeper"? I mean, maybe if he were in a motorized wheelchair you'd have some sense of sympathy for him.
Z:
Well, it tested well.
(beat)
Z:
I mean really well.[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure they made that into a children's cartoon show.
This is a really good idea.
[QUOTE=meatthinker]For ghosts to exist in the traditional sense, they pretty much have to be made of some kind of "stuff" and "stuff" should have measurable properties and be affected by forces. [/QUOTE]
Most definitely. A ghost would have to be some form of energy/ subtle matter. And since modern physics assures us there's no neat, clear dividing line between matter and energy, we know we're talking about two ends of a continuum or sprectrum and not two separate things.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that entities composed of such spectral matter necessarily exist. But many, many things do exist at other frequencies along the continuum. Radio waves and probably a thousand other radiations pass through us and go unnoticed without special equipment designed to receive and interpret those frequencies.
What if ghosts are more like chance encounters with people existing at different frequencies? Certain conditions make it possible to perceive some aspect of them, like picking up an interference pattern with electronic equipment, except the equipment in this case being the extraodinarily sensitive and impressionable human psyche.
If that were the case, then much of the way a ghost is perceived would be a projection of the living mind, an interpretation that frames something very different from us in terms of the known. Such a being could certainly be perceived to engage in bi-pedal locomotion as an interpretation of its apparent movement, without that perception in any way hinging upon actual 1-g resistance walking and also without interfering with an equally apparent ability on its part to pass through walls or other solid objects unhindered.
There's no good evidence, as far as I know, to assume that such human perceptions link to any independent reality, but there's also no conclusive evidence that such things don't exist. More importantly, there's no good evidence that such things [i]can't[/i] exist. The article we're critiquing tries to make the case that the existence of ghosts is logically impossible. But it only succeeds if we accept a very narrow definition of what it is to be a ghost. Likewise for the vamps. It's easy to show that the Hollywood stereotype is logically impossible, but that's picking on a very easy target.
...
VP - Workshop Dog
If ghosts exist and are made of some kind of yet unknown matter or energy, I hope they name it something like Ghostronium.
Ectoplastonium.
I bet that dude Saint Me would pop a mega boner cause he be excited about his Ghostbuster film.
You'll notice they avoided werewolves. Probably didn't want ot set themselves up for a dismal failure in the event that I came forward publicly.
Three cheers for violence.
My Doctoral Thesis: [b]The Ghost Molecule[/b]: Discovering the Physiology, Appearance, and Being of Ectoplasmic Entities
VP - Workshop Dog
[QUOTE=MAD D]You'll notice they avoided werewolves. Probably didn't want ot set themselves up for a dismal failure in the event that I came forward publicly.[/QUOTE]That is just your hairline falling down to your ass dude.
My Doctural Thesis: Hairy Man Wolfs: The Discovery of Hairy Manbacks Physiology, Appearance, and being of protruding bodily hair entities
[QUOTE=UbikRex]My Doctural Thesis: Hairy Man Wolfs: The Discovery of Hairy Manbacks Physiology, Appearance, and being of protruding bodily hair entities[/QUOTE]
I'm at least a follicle gratified to see you're so astute about the hirsute.
VP - Workshop Dog
Well they are more rampant in this area of the world. Hardly need to go far for research when they are tending my lawn.
The scary thing is that some moron, somewhere, is FUNDING this research!
This is almost as bad as studying cow flatulents.
| adj | facebook | an american atheist| warmed and bound |
[QUOTE=LeHaHi]ghosts are super natural. they defy nature.[/QUOTE]
Wow, common sense. Didn't think I'd see that here.
And it doesn't matter, because Science is all lies anyway. A load of shite based on theories that really, can't be proven at all. It's faith disguised as fact. And people think they know all about it, and that makes them smart, but anyone who knows alot about Christianity is a wack. Fucking people.
Don't worry, all these so called scientists will get it when the zombie-ghost-vampire hybrid escapes from Area 52 and destroys the planet.
[QUOTE=corellion]
And it doesn't matter, because Science is all lies anyway. A load of shite based on theories that really, can't be proven at all. It's faith disguised as fact.
[/Quote]
So is it wild co-incidence, miracle, or hoax that science has been used successfully for numerous dramatic things, from the cure for polio, to landing a man on the moon, to building bombs that could send us all back to the stone ages?
Science is not a doctrine, it's a self-correcting method. Conclusions in science are always open to revision and theories get changed in the face of new and overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
[Quote]
And people think they know all about it, and that makes them smart...
[/Quote]
Lots of people believe in the value of science without really understanding much about it. Some may even have a primitive, worshipful reverence for science, but I'd say that's pretty rare. It certainly isn't the people who practice science who believe that it delivers some ultimate handle on truth. Real scientists always know they only have a tentative grasp on things, and all of their conclusions are subject to revision. It's this self-correcting aspect to science that makes it useful at all. Everything from the light that comes on when you flick the switch to the local anasthetic that saves you from excruciating pain in the dentist's chair is evidence that science works.
[Quote]
but anyone who knows a lot about Christianity is a wack.[/QUOTE]
Not so. Coming through a philosophy program, I know people with master's and doctoral degrees in theology/divinity, as well as advanced degrees in secular philosophy. I know people who know the real history of Christianity, including the inside story on Orthodox Christianity, the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church, starting with its departure from Rome and continuing through the real living conditions of Arab Christians today, and all of the finer points of the doctrine and how it differs from Roman Catholicism.
On the Protestant side, I know a Ph.D. philosophy professor who was formerly a Baptist minister.
I know people who have grown in their Christian faith as they have become more educated and I know people who have grown away from their original faith as they have become more educated.
None of these people is a "wack job." And none of them are con artists, starting television ministries and telling everyone to donate "seed money" and God will surely repay them ten-fold.
The unfortunate thing for religion is that a tiny minority of "wack jobs" can do unsavory things in the name of their religion and create a bias in the minds of others. This is certainly true in the violent extremism we see from certain religious minority groups today.
All of the world's major religions teach peace and ethical living. All provide a coherent tradition reaching far into the past and providing a culture of belonging for the follower. No sane, rational, thoughtful person can dismiss the good in religion out of hand, just because a certain amount of crazyness and even violence is done in the name of religion.
A certain amount of crazy and violent behaviour has always been with us, and would seek other justification. Some people are simply driven to the brink through political and economic oppression.
But this is becoming a slight departure from the two points I want to make:
1. Science is not a matter of faith
[indent]a. but neither does it yield answers about ultimate truth or meaning.
b. and neither does it provide many other benefits of a living, coherent tradition.
[/indent]
2. Religion is not merely a refuge for the crazy or simple-minded.
...
VP - Workshop Dog
[QUOTE=vigorous puppy]So is it wild co-incidence, miracle, or hoax that science has been used successfully for numerous dramatic things, from the cure for polio, to landing a man on the moon, to building bombs that could send us all back to the stone ages?
Science is not a doctrine, it's a self-correcting method. Conclusions in science are always open to revision and theories get changed in the face of new and overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Lots of people believe in the value of science without really understanding much about it. Some may even have a primitive, worshipful reverence for science, but I'd say that's pretty rare. It certainly isn't the people who practice science who believe that it delivers some ultimate handle on truth. Real scientists always know they only have a tentative grasp on things, and all of their conclusions are subject to revision. It's this self-correcting aspect to science that makes it useful at all. Everything from the light that comes on when you flick the switch to the local anasthetic that saves you from excruciating pain in the dentist's chair is evidence that science works.
Not so. Coming through a philosophy program, I know people with master's and doctoral degrees in theology/divinity, as well as advanced degrees in secular philosophy. I know people who know the real history of Christianity, including the inside story on Orthodox Christianity, the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church, starting with its departure from Rome and continuing through the real living conditions of Arab Christians today, and all of the finer points of the doctrine and how it differs from Roman Catholicism.
On the Protestant side, I know a Ph.D. philosophy professor who was formerly a Baptist minister.
I know people who have grown in their Christian faith as they have become more educated and I know people who have grown away from their original faith as they have become more educated.
None of these people is a "wack job." And none of them are con artists, starting television ministries and telling everyone to donate "seed money" and God will surely repay them ten-fold.
The unfortunate thing for religion is that a tiny minority of "wack jobs" can do unsavory things in the name of their religion and create a bias in the minds of others. This is certainly true in the violent extremism we see from certain religious minority groups today.
All of the world's major religions teach peace and ethical living. All provide a coherent tradition reaching far into the past and providing a culture of belonging for the follower. No sane, rational, thoughtful person can dismiss the good in religion out of hand, just because a certain amount of crazyness and even violence is done in the name of religion.
A certain amount of crazy and violent behaviour has always been with us, and would seek other justification. Some people are simply driven to the brink through political and economic oppression.
But this is becoming a slight departure from the two points I want to make:
1. Science is not a matter of faith
[indent]a. but neither does it yield answers about ultimate truth or meaning.
b. and neither does it provide many other benefits of a living, coherent tradition.
[/indent]
2. Religion is not merely a refuge for the crazy or simple-minded.
...[/QUOTE]
Well put.
| adj | facebook | an american atheist| warmed and bound |
[QUOTE=ireLocus]Well put.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. Just to be clear, let me revise my conclusion slightly. Particularly on the second point, I don't think Corellion was saying that religion IS such a refuge, and nothing more. I think that Corellion was claiming that those who value science would necessarily believe so.
1. Science is not a matter of faith
[indent]a. but neither does it yield answers about ultimate truth or meaning.
b. and neither does it provide many other benefits of a living, coherent tradition.
[/indent]
2. Religion is not merely a refuge for the crazy or simple-minded.
[color=cyan]And having a respect for science is not tantamount to taking such a dim or uncharitable view of religion.[/color]
...
VP - Workshop Dog
how did THIS thread turn into a debate.
some people are just angry
Science will debunk and improve whatever the hell it wants.
Science will build me better looking women.
Games that will require no motorary function skills
Prove that God exists and made himself not exist then reappeared and reexisted again then left again for a toga party with Budda and the spirit of L.Ron Hubbard.
Will spend countless years creating wolves, ghosts, vamps. etc. to debunk itself and then make them vanish to debunk the debunking and then they will all go out for super hoogie.
[QUOTE=Westontinople]how did THIS thread turn into a debate[?]
[/QUOTE]
This thread started out with an article on the use of science in debunking claims of the paranormal. If a thread starts out by highlighting certain claims, and the attempted refutation of those claims--however light-hearted or whimsical--then how could it [i]not[/i] engender a bit of debate?
[QUOTE]
some people are just angry[/QUOTE]
Meaning what? That only anger fuels debate? Sometimes a love of ideas and a commitment to clear thinking fuels a debate.
A more interesting question might be how so many other threads here at The Cult dwell almost religiously upon the trivial, or upon the trivialization of anything potentially profound, making the appearance of any thoughtful debate seem anomolous by contrast.
..
VP - Workshop Dog
I still want to have a debate on the creation of the name for Question Mark. I say they called it the Garbunk Curve above a dot. Cause of Joheffie Garbunkititamus and his constant lack of never being able to answer anything he said without leaving others confused so they banded him with a horse shoe that was light to a flame till it shone with a furious white light glow and then proceeded to stick him with it but they ended up missing him partially and all that came up was a half of the shoe above his birth mole that lay'd ah dead center between his eyes.
hey, as long as were talking about science, this dude told me he bought this white honey from hawaii. it tasted pretty good. he told me you dont need bees to make honey, since this honey just comes out of the trees.
is that true? i thought honey was by definition made by bees?
[QUOTE=Westontinople]hey, as long as were talking about science, this dude told me he bought this white honey from hawaii. it tasted pretty good. he told me you dont need bees to make honey, since this honey just comes out of the trees.
is that true? i thought honey was by definition made by bees?[/QUOTE]
It must've been delicious, sperm need a really sucrose environment in order to survive.
Edit: AHA, aha, ha! oh!
.jpg "Fino35's picture"){kind=avatar}
I'm with 6, I didn't hear anything about zombies.
GF: when you die do you want to be cremated?
me: no I want to be burried in a shallow grave, about 3 feet deep.
GF: WHY?
me: So I can be one of the first Zombies out when we start rising from the grave.
[QUOTE=Westontinople]hey, as long as were talking about science, this dude told me he bought this white honey from hawaii. it tasted pretty good. he told me you dont need bees to make honey, since this honey just comes out of the trees.
is that true? i thought honey was by definition made by bees?[/QUOTE]
bees = B's = BALLS = White Honey
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial]This is totally how I want to go. Cemeteries are for goth kids and the elderly.[/url]
Science is a matter of faith, because science is based on science, not fact. People should stop teaching that science is fact.
Yeah, and we should throw out everything discovered by medical science and just smear our naked bodies with clay and dance around a severed bear head when we get sick!! That'll scare off the demons and evil spirits causing our illnesses!!
so, are Frankensteins still scientifically plausible?
Werewolves are. Many of them live in Mexico and work in the circus or more rarely, desk jobs.
Werewolves are wolf shamans in their wolf form, not necessarily bad though they got a bad rep. What we call "vampires" are bat shamans from the lower world, not necessarily evil, but you can't trust them.
This is a really good idea.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]so, are Frankensteins still scientifically plausible?[/QUOTE]
The mad scientist or his monster?
VP - Workshop Dog
[QUOTE=vigorous puppy]The mad scientist or his monster?[/QUOTE]
yes
[QUOTE=vigorous puppy]The mad scientist or his monster?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]yes[/QUOTE]
Well, insanity is always plausible, for scientists at least as well as anyone, since madness and brilliance are no strangers.
The plausibility of a re-animated corpse still has its problems, especially after a period of significant decay. But in an age of stem-cell research and animal cloning, it's actually much more plausible now than it was in the early 19th century. One of the neat things about Mary Shelley's book is the way it prefigures concerns over the misuse of science that stay with us and only deepen with time.
VP - Workshop Dog
You could strap the dead body to a robotic armature, but then it wouldn't really be a dead body rampaging through the village and scaring the townsfolk if you want to get technical about it.
[QUOTE=Spike]You could strap the dead body to a robotic armature, but then it wouldn't really be a dead body rampaging through the village and scaring the townsfolk if you want to get technical about it.[/QUOTE]
Nope, then it would be just an [i]exotic robotic meat tray[/i].
[color=cyan]Edit: Now there's a band name for you.^[/color]
VP - Workshop Dog
Finally, I can sleep at night.:cool:
VP - Workshop Dog