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Ghost Illusion Created in the Lab

posted 9 years ago by shrugs
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Neuroscientists awaken ‘ghosts’ hidden inside the cortex.

Ghosts exist only in the mind, and scientists know just where to find them, an EPFL study suggests. Patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric conditions have often reported feeling a strange “presence”. Now, EPFL researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in recreating this so-called ghost illusion in the laboratory.Full article here:http://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-tle-sensorimotor-ghost-illusion-1494/

[–] bastasch8647 9 years ago

Ghosts exist only in the mind

Typically overconfident materialist/reductionist claim. Sorry, but that first sentence really made me disinclined even to read the link's content. Just because an artificial ghost experience can be generated does not argue against the existence or non-existence of ghosts or other paranormal beings and categories. Ditto with mystical experience, which, neuroscientists claim, can be counterfeited in the lab: it doesn't say anything relevant about the reality, truth, and validity of non-artificially-occurring mystical experience. Surely the appropriate neural stimulus could make the subject feel "love" or even "IN love", but that does not argue that love and being in love are solely the product of artificial brain stimulation.

...and at the heart of the citation's first goofy statement -

"Ghosts exist only in the mind"

lies the unstated truth:

"Science exists only in the mind".

Humility is not neuroscience's strong point, especially where it joins the Meet The Press crossroad.