Expert reveals the precise science behind ghosts – and if they’re actual or not
The reality of ghosts has been revealed. For centuries, humans have believed that ghosts are real – be it entities of dead loved ones or evil demons here to eat your face.
And according to a leading expert, the reason why we believe in haunting spirits is because of generations before us have. Completely baffled by that? So were we. However, Emeritus Professor Chris French of the Anomalistic Research Unit at Goldsmiths told IFLScience about the theory behind it.
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He said: “In terms of our evolution, our brains have evolved to keep us alive long enough to pass our genes on to the next generation, full stop. That’s it. Not to apprehend the truth with a capital T about the nature of the universe, you know, and in those terms, for most of our evolutionary history, there were real threats out there, from predators, from enemies, and so on and so forth.
“(It is a bias) towards believing that when something happens in the world around us, it happens because someone or something with intentions towards us made it happen.
“I think a lot of the kind of biases that underlie our propensity towards paranormal beliefs can be explained in terms of those cognitive biases.”
(Image: Getty Images/Cultura RF)
Although appearing to pour scorn on his own neutrality in the field, he went on to admit that he actually doesn’t believe in ghosts at all, but has “no objection” to those who do.
He said: “It’s fair as long as you’re not imposing your belief system on other people, or anything like that, then fine, believe whatever you like.”
It was revealed in 2021 that the earliest ever ghost sighting could have happened more than 3,500 years ago after a Babylonian tablet contained what appeared to be a drawing of a man being led back to the afterlife. It is also thought that the tablet contains instructions on how to get rid of ghosts, including the phrase “not look behind you!”.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Email [email protected] and let me know what happened…
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