Ghost in the Window

mrx3010 · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 579

What does it matter?No disrespect at all meant DB, you are quite knowledgable in the field IMO and qualified to give advice but really there is little that we can say or do to sway either a hard core skeptic or believer. Personally as long as there is no real harm done then I could care less what anyone believes. And as long as they don't impose their personal beliefs on myself as being the one absolute truth, then I don't care what they say or do. I do however think that it is not good enough to accept or dismiss a claim without having enough data to make a case either way. As for this pic there is no more data to support it than there is to challenge it, all we have is all we know and truthfully that is far too little to arrive at definite conclusions about unknown phenomena at least it is for now.

D B Sweeney · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:11 am Post subject:

I agree with most of what you say mrx3010. With the picture in question we certainly don't have enough data to say that it's a face or even that it's the face of a dead person.
On the flipside of that coin we do have broad scientific consensus that life after death is very very unlikely and to date there is no real evidence to support such a claim. This has not been for want of trying or serious scientific investigation over the past 200 years.

Using the principle of Occams Razor it's more logical (and the lack of evidence supports this) to conclude that the likely explanation for this is misperception rather than it actually being the face of a ghost.

OK - so let's look at what we have:

Looking at the picture in Photoshop (passing it through various filters and enhancements) we see that the overall pattern behind the whole window - which is possibly a curtain or blind consists of vertical and horizontal strips creating a grid pattern.
The nose of the ghost just happens to fall (or IMO be formed by) along a vertical strip with the 'eyes' being created by the two squares either side of this. Additionally the mouth seems to be formed by the lower horizontal strip of the pattern with the bottom lip of the face resting on the horizontal line just above the window frame. What we see as the shadows on either side of the lower part of the nose are actually the two dark right angled corners of two square panels in the curtain/blind.
Additionally the eyes fall into two squares - this is repeated elsewhere in the window with eyes and mouths making up several vague faces.
I've detailed this on examples using the image but there seems to be no facility on here to upload pics to posts.

Basically we see what we want to see in this - if we believe in ghosts then we see a face and it's a ghost. If we're sceptical we still see a face but we fall back on the published data and research regarding human perception and cognitive psychology and say that it's our brains making a face out of the patterns in the window.

Whether it's an unknown phenomena or just an unusual pattern of light and shade in a window will be determined by how much evidence you accept. However the current view among those far better qualified than you or I on this supports the contention that we probably don't survive physical death in any form and therefore no one who is dead (and has no physicality) can actually look out of a window.

Finally, here's the kind of detailed analysis that an alleged ghost picture needs to be subjected to:

http://barsoc.org/2010/09/28/the-dorset-county-museum-ghost/

DB

flossy · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 5:46 am Post subject:

i use photobucket to get picys on here Wink

you cant upload them from here Rolling Eyes

would be interesting to have a look at what youve explained Wink

D B Sweeney · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:27 am Post subject:

flossy · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:53 am Post subject:

sounds like your pretty buzy, but if you do find the time i would love to see it Wink

D B Sweeney · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 7:27 am Post subject:

flossy · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 7:36 am Post subject:

i havent got the softwear to look to see if picys are fake or not, just thought it would be interesting to see
dosent matter if you dont want to Rolling Eyes

D B Sweeney · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 7:53 am Post subject:

flossy · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 8:21 am Post subject:

lol ok fair enough Wink

mrx3010 · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 579

" However the current view among those far better qualified than you or I on this supports the contention that we probably don't survive physical death in any form"

Im sorry I don't agree with that statement at all as this is a "fuzzy" field of study to be in therefore there are no absolutes. That means yours and my opinions are just as valid as the so called "experts" both for and against. That's also what makes this field so interesting and lively at times. The many what ifs that we cant completely deny nor can we find 100% resolution for. It's quite fascinating and I seriously doubt that science will ever embrace the paranormal as a proven field, even if it could be quantified and analyzed there still would be far to many questions that our current paradigms and academia could ever answer authoritatively.

D B Sweeney · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:47 am Post subject:

That's a fair point mrx3010 which is why I said 'probably' since we cannot say with 100% certainty that ghosts don't exist or that we don't survive physical death.
However, the current thinking among biologists, neuro scientists and physicists is that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest we do.

DB