Lisa here. I was talking about our relatively new ghost-hunting venture today with some skeptical friends, and one of them asked a question that I think bothers most people who consider the paranormal...I know it bothers me! If a spirit is capable of communicating, why can't they just say straight up full sentences and communicate normally!? Why is it when you ask for a name, you might get a grainy noise on a recorder that sounds like it could be a first name...why can't they just say "My name is Peter Parker and I'm the ghost of Spiderman"?
Well, ever since he asked, I've been thinking about it. Of course, no one can really know. This isn't a subject you can separate into control groups and test groups and run experiments. But here is the thought process that went through my mind:
All matter is energy...proven fact, originally by Einstein. All matter acts as both waves and particles, and not just light...even the atoms that make up your body. The double-slit experiment, which most effectively shows how observation by itself can change particles from a wave state to a particle state, has been done with all types of materials, atoms and molecules...it is the same across the board.
So your body is one giant mass of energy. The more energy something has, the more tangible it becomes, so everything that is physical has a high amount of energy (kinetic and potential) compared to things that are not physical. We've got muscles constantly moving, organs that work off electricity...we're just a giant mass of energy. And to us, something like speaking audibly takes so little energy compared to what we have that it is almost negligible (though I bet if you had to talk for 24 hours straight, you'd agree that it DOES take up energy! Just not much at a time.)
But, assuming a spirit did exist, what would that spirit be made of? Well, of course, it would also be energy. Everything in existence is energy. But it has no physical manifestation. Your spirit must be just a tiny, intangible wisp of your current energy level, containing your most basic personality, maybe you're memories. So small as to not be detectable.
(In 1901, Duncan MacDougall claimed to have succeeded in measuring the weight of a soul--21 grams--but his methods were deemed not scientific and further research on the matter has been unable to replicate his results, so until further notice, the soul, assuming it exists, must be so low-energy that it isn't measurable in a lab).
So for something that contains less energy than even the smallest physical thing, creating a physical manifestation, like a sound wave or photons to create an image, would be a herculean task. They would actually have to put ALL of their energy PLUS energy from around them into the manifestation, because all of their energy is clearly not enough to generate a physical existence. If it were, we could see them and interact with them physically.
(Quantum physics does indicate that, given an infinite amount of time, physical objects will spawn out of nowhere because the energy constantly fluctuating throughout the universe statistically CAN pile up in one spot enough to become physical...the chances are just SO extremely low that it is as impossible as any impossible thing can be).
Think about when you have had to do something that drained every ounce of energy you had. A tremendous physical exertion perhaps, or extreme pressure. It was exhausting, was it not? If someone were trying to communicate with you, and you had to go through that EVERY time you communicated back, wouldn't you try to minimize your interaction to only what is necessary, if you were even willing to interact at all?
Now, I can't say that this is TRUE, that spirits exist as this tiny amount of energy. In the end, all of experience is being translated by a brain we don't full understand, so no one can know for sure what is true. What I can say is that I see nothing inherently illogical about this explanation. That still doesn't mean it must be right...many things that are inherently logical don't occur just because the circumstances aren't correct. But, if it is inherently logical, then it is a POSSIBLE explanation, and the data that I have collected so far (far too small an amount to make a judgment, I know, but I'm revising my ideas as I collect more) seems to correlate with what I would predict assuming the above explanation is true. Manifestations are limited, short, and sometimes low-quality. In science, finding results that match predicted results of a hypothesis turns your hypothesis into a theory. So that's my theory.
I can't imagine why, if they were able, at least some spirits (assuming they retain their personality from their previous lifetime) would not be willing to communicate fully and normally. So that leaves two options: either there are no spirits, or they are unable. Since I have had experiences which make me think spirits (or intelligent energy of some sort) are likely, I am pursuing the second option, though no one can really assert either option is true or not true, and now I have my theory as to why the second option could be the case.
What do you think? Do you see any flaws in my theory? Anything to add to it? Let's start a discussion on this!
Interesting post. I've been ruminating on a similar subject in regards to the fact that "cold spots" are often reported prior to supposed spiritual phenomena. Such reports appear to be transcultural in the sense that very different cultures report the same thing, which may be taken as slight evidence that the phemonon is actual rather than simpy imagined. What's interesting to me is that cold spots may be the result of a being drawing energy out of the environment in order to accomplish something. The more molecular motion in an environment, the greater the energy, which is perceived as heat. Reduce the molecular motion by drawing energy out of the environment and there would necessarily be a drop in the temperature of that locale. So perhaps cold spots, if genuine, are the result of energy being drawn out of an environment in order to gain energy needed to accomplish something in the physical world.
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