Explaining Ghost Sightings (Part 2 – Temporal Lobe Epilepsy)

When I said that pareidolia can explain a lot of ghost sightings, I didn’t mean all of them. Sometimes the environment is bright and clear, you’re fully awake, and yet you still get that “ghostly” feeling. Scary, eh? Well, that may just be a hallucination, and here I shall tackle a common cause for hallucinations – temporal lobe epilepsy.

Defining Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

The temporal lobe would be the part in red. Only the left temporal lobe is shown.

The temporal lobe is separated into 2 parts: right and left. It’s responsible for auditory processing, processing of semantic & lexical information in speech, and long-term memory. On the other hand, epilepsy aka seizure disorder is a common neurological disorder that causes recurrent & unprovoked seizures in patients. These seizures happen when clusters of neurons fire excessively/abnormally/synchronously. Combine these two, and you’ve got temporal lobe epilepsy.

Temporal lobe epilepsy causes simple and complex partial seizures. Simple partial seizures simply cause unusual behaviours and patterns of cognition, including hallucinations and paranormal experiences; complex partial seizures can render the patient disabled and lose awareness temporarily. If one is unlucky though, it may spread and become a tonic–clonic seizure, a type of seizure that affects the entire brain, and is much more lethal.

Causes

Temporal lobe epilepsy may be caused by a variety of factors, including:

1. Hippocampal sclerosis, which is present in 2/3 of patients, and causes mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).
2. Infections
3. Febrile seizures
4. Malignancies
5. Vascular malformations
6. Idiopathic (genetic), but it’s rare.
7. Trauma producing contusion/haemorrhage that results in encephalomalacia or cortical scarring
8. Difficult traumatic delivery such as forceps deliveries
9. Hamartomas

Symptoms Related to Ghost Sightings/Paranormal Experiences

Since the temporal lobe is responsible for hearing, information processing, and long-term memory, abnormal functioning in the temporal lobes will also cause these brain processes to function wrongly. Complex partial seizures are unrelated to ghost sightings, so I’ve decided not to write about them.

Simple Partial Seizures/Auras

Just to make it clear, the word “aura” in this context is defined as a “warning” before “a complex partial seizure occurs, not the pseudoscientific human/soul aura or whatever it’s called. For patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, they may have a simple partial seizure, which creates an aura, and usually leads to a complex partial seizure.

Somatosensory and Special sensory phenomena

Auras may come in the form of olfactory, gustatory, auditory, and visual hallucinations and illusions. Auditory hallucinations consist of a buzzing sound, a voice/voices, or muffling of ambient sounds. On the other hand, visual hallucinations may take the form of distortions of shape, size, and distance of objects, shrinking (micropsia) or enlarging of things (macropsia), and also tilting of structures.

Psychic Phenomena

Patients may also feel déjà vu, the feeling that’s you’ve seen something before, although you’ve not, and jamais vu, in which one suddenly feels eerie and unfamiliar to the environment, although he/she has been in the same situation before, and he/she knows it.

Patients may also experience depersonalization (feeling of detachment from oneself) or derealisation (surroundings appear unreal). “Out of body” experiences can also happen to the patient, a phenomenon known as dissociation/autoscopy. Plus, if the seizure arises from the amygdala, the patient will become fearful and anxious, sometimes to the point of having “an impending sense of doom”.

Conclusion

Here, I’ve shown that so-called ghost sightings may be caused by temporal lobe epilepsy instead of a real ghost appearing, which goes against Occam’s razor and science too much (violation of the laws of physics, anyone?)

However, I am aware that not everyone has temporal lobe epilepsy, yet many still experience its symptoms. There’s another similar cause for such experiences – electromagnetic disruption of the temporal lobe, and it’s one that I shall address next.

Explaining Ghost Sightings (Part 1 – Pareidolia)

During a debate with my friend on the existence of the soul, he raised ghost sightings as an argument for the soul’s existence. While I quickly refuted his argument, it led me to consider writing a naturalistic explanation for ghost sightings, since they’re frequently used when spiritualists argue against naturalists. I’ll start with pareidolia, a common psychological/neurological phenomenon.

What's Pareidolia?

Did your friends ever said to you: “I saw a ghost when I was walking to the toilet with my own eyes”? Or have you ever heard someone calling your name, but there’s no one around? Meet pareidolia, the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer; such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals or seeing shapes in clouds.This phenomenon is extremely common, and can be created easily. Lets see….

That's an alien on Mars...... or is it?

That may be an alien disguising as a tree sticking its tongue towards us... Yeah that's obvious.

In addition to the ghostly female face, I also see the head of an avian-like monster beside the face, and a ghost with eyes, hands and a mouth at the centre-right of the 1st image. Something’s definitely wrong, or I simply have a great imagination.

I bet you saw the faces. And if you did, congratulations, for you're a normal human, and like all of us, susceptible to illusions and pareidolia. So if you see a ghostly apparition, don't worry - it's your mind seeing an image that vaguely resembles something you’re familiar with, in which your brain then exaggerates and modifies to be clearer.

Conditions that Cause Pareidolia

Vague Stimuli (Blurry Images/Sounds)

The brain is a gifted interpreter – it’s capable of responding to blurry face-like images and interpreting them rapidly – in fact this study suggests that it takes only 165ms for our ventral fusiform cortex to be activated, compared to 130ms for a true face. This study shows that pareidolia is an instinctive response, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.

Despite that, our first instincts are often wrong, and when the same object is looked more carefully and with more detail, it’s often revealed that the so-called “ghost” is an illusion after all. The best example for this would be the “Face of Mars” in the Cydonia region.

Here's part of the Cydonia region, taken by the Viking 1 orbiter and released by NASA/JPL on July 25, 1976. And yes, that's the so-called face of Mars near the top.

Upon seeing the “face”, conspiracy theorists claimed that it was “intelligently designed” by Martians, and that it was located next to a city whose temples and fortifications could be seen. On the other hand, NASA and the skeptics explained that it was simply the effects of light, but the conspiracy theorists took that as a sure sign of a cover up. Until the high-res images appeared.

High resolution Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006-present) image of the "Face on Mars". Taken using the onboard HiRISE camera.

Similar high-res images were took by the NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (1997-2006) and the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe (2003-present). All wild speculations about the “face of Mars” were put to rest, and the conspiracy theorists went silent (if not embarrassed). However, this is not the first case of pareidolia caused by vague stimuli, and will certainly not be the last.

Examples of pareidolia inducing environments (happens especially, if not only at night):

1. Half-lit hallways.
2. Toilets.
3. Dorms.
4. Camping sites.
5. Highways.
6. Quiet parks.

When You're Half-conscious

Sometimes, the stimuli doesn’t have to vague/blurry -  pareidolia can also happen when you’re aren’t fully self-aware (half awake, fatigued, sleepy etc). When we’re not fully conscious, our brains tend to misinterpret things, and pareidolia can occur easily. That’s why ghosts love to come out at night, or when you’re working overtime, or when you wake up at night. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Evolutionary Origins of Pareidolia

Since pareidolia is literally hardwired into our brains, there must be a evolutionary advantage for our brains to see "faces" or hear "voices" when there are none. A plausible explanation is the false-alarm hypothesis (or whatever it’s called).

The False Alarm Hypothesis

Let's assume that there're 2 individuals, A & B living in the wilds of yesteryear. A is able to respond to familiar stimuli (faces, animal voices) quickly, but is susceptible to pareidolia; B doesn't respond as well, and thus never have any false alarms. In the prehistoric world (perhaps even in the modern world), A would be much more likely to survive by recognizing familiar patterns quickly, and escape on the first sign of a threat. Even it was a false alarm, it wouldn't affect  A negatively. B, on the other hand, failing to recognize patterns quickly, would be less self-aware, and fall prey to sabre-tooth tigers easily.

On a not-so related side note, I propose that we fear ghosts because they look so damn similar to the predators our ancestors had to escape from at night – blurry, vaguely resembling things we’re familiar with, making all sorts of noises, and yes, their ghastly eyes. Those who were afraid of the predators survived, while the others left offspring. Thus, when we see similar images in our lives, we still invoke a “fight or flight” response and get freaked out.

Conclusion

Here, I’ve put forward pareidolia as the first of my explanations for ghostly encounters, and there’s going to more. I just hope that my friends would try and take a look at my explanations, instead of simply repeating the same-ol’ argument every time. I bet they won’t though.

How about you, my fellow readers? Do you think that pareidolia manages to explain some, if not most ghost sightings? If it can’t, then why is it so?

Problems of the Soul (Arguments from Physics)

The soul theory’s contradiction with neuroscience isn’t the end to its implausibility; it’s strongly at odds with modern physics as well. While neuroscience may be a more subjective field, physics is certainly not, and here I shall present problems that the soul theory faces according to physics (some of my arguments are directed specifically at ghosts aka wandering souls).

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics, which is the principle of conservation of energy states that the overall energy within a closed system will remain constant, although it may be converted into other forms. For its energy level to change, it must come into contact with another system. In such a case, the energy level of the system will increase if work is done onto the system, and vice versa. As far as evidence goes, the Universe is a closed system.

Here comes the problem. For the soul to be able to do work in the material world, some of the soul’s energy must be converted into physical energy. Since the soul exists independently of the physical universe, the total energy in the universe will increase when the soul does work, and this must mean that the universe is an open system, which is contradictory to modern science.

Another saying that I’ve heard from my friends is that instead of existing in a separate realm, the soul enters the physical world when one is born (or during fertilization, gastrulation etc.). Somehow, the soul can affect physical entities, but not the other way around. This hypothesis doesn’t make sense, as they’re implying that the energy that makes up the soul is limited, and being unable to receive energy from the physical universe, it will use up its energy quickly and cease to exist.

Light

For us to see something, then that thing must either reflect or emit visible light. Ghosts are supposedly visible in quite some anecdotes, but that’s not possible if we’re to follow the usual definition for ghosts. Let me explain.

First of all, a ghost shouldn’t be able to reflect light. For light to be reflected, it must hit a surface. Since the soul is defined as being made up of only energy, there’s no way it can reflect light, and if I’m not wrong, all forms of light emission require matter as a source of fuel. Thus, for us to see ghosts, they must be made up of matter (at least partially). However, as the soul is supposed to survive physical and material death, such a definition is self-contradicting.

Gravity

In every single anecdote that my friends gave me, ghosts have the ability to float. This, however, simply contradictory to most widely established model for gravity – general relativity. Unlike previous models, general relativity describes gravity not as a force, but as a curvature of space-time, and everything in this universe is subject to the effects of gravity – matter, light, electromagnetic waves, energies etc.

If the souls exist within the material plane, then it must be subject to the gravity as well, no matter what it’s made of. No matter what universe you’re in, you’re going to subject to it’s time-space constraints. It’s logically contradictory for a ghost to float and not be affected by gravity. If a ghost is to float, then it must exert force against the centre of gravity. Such an act would require massive amounts of energy, and the soul would quickly cease to exist. Unless the 1st law of thermodynamics is violated, of course.

And by the way, if ghosts are free from gravity, they should be hurtling into space.

Conclusion

Here I have put forward a few points showing that the concept of the soul is quite problematic from the viewpoint of modern physics. It’s a wonder that mind-body dualists can still insist that the soul theory is true even when it contradicts one of the most objective fields of science.

Of course, the list is far from complete, and I would be thankful if anyone can come up with even more ideas showing how the soul contradicts physics.

Problems of the Soul (Arguments from Neuroscience)

The concept of the human soul and life after death is almost universally accepted among the people. One may not accept the existence of gods, deities, or ghosts, but if asked on the validity of souls and spirits, he/she is most likely to answer yes. Yet, to the naturalist, such a concept is very problematic, and being a naturalist myself, I’ll give a few thoughts on why the concept of the soul contradicts neuroscience, and is thus highly implausible.

René Descartes's illustration of dualism. Inputs are passed on by the sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Neural Development

The soul is eternal, and it controls our body, as mind-body dualists love to claim. Consciousness is retained even after we die, and is passed on to our next body (whether it’s a human, animal, fairy, ghost, demon). But neural development challenges this belief strongly.

Maturing of the Mind

The mind matures as the brain grows, as shown in this picture where our brain achieves full grey matter volume during our 20s.

As we all know, when humans grow up, our thoughts start to mature, and begins to decline once we reach an old age. To the biologist/naturalist, the explanation for such a phenomena couldn’t be simpler: neural development. As we grow towards the adult stage, our brain starts to increase in complexity and amount of grey matter. Then, as we start ageing, our brain begins deteriorating, through a multitude of factors including DNA damage and free radicals damage.

A dualist, however, will find this problematic. If the soul retains our consciousness and thoughts after we die, then one should be reborn with similar thoughts from the previous life. But that’s certainly not the case, as we’re born with almost nothing in our memory, and we don’t act maturely at all until we’re older.

The Beginning of Consciousness

I put forward a simple question to all mind-body dualists: In which stage does the soul enter the body?

Theistic evolutionists face a very problematic question: When did God decide to insert the soul into the human body in the passage of evolution? During the point where Australopithecus lived? Homo hablis? Homo erectus? Homo sapiens? Theistic evolutionists have a hard time agreeing on the exact point. The same problem is there for mind-body dualists. When does the soul enter the body? During the moment of conception? Gastrulation? When we become an embryo? Perhaps the moment of birth? Dualists will have a hard time agreeing on this. While this isn’t a rebuttal to the soul theory, it does present a problem in the soul theory.

The Nervous System

It’s widely accepted to any student of science that our senses are controlled by our nervous system, which sends information to our brain through electrical charges, and our brain will respond accordingly. Such a model doesn’t fit well with the soul theory.

Our Senses

Here’s the 5 traditional senses. Obviously, all of them stop working once the specific nerves get damaged.

If the soul is to retain full consciousness in the material world after death, then it must be independent of our nervous system. The soul must be able to receive information from the material world through another method, if it’s to work as dualists claim. Such is not the case. When a person’s optical nerves get damaged, he/she loses his sight; when his/her auditory nerves stop functioning, he/she becomes deaf etc. It’s very clear that our interaction with the environment is reliant on the nervous system. So either the soul loses all connection with material world once we die, or the soul somehow regains full consciousness the moment we pass away. The first hypothesis requires a radical change in the soul theory; the second hypothesis is simply laughable.

Brain Damage

If the soul is responsible for our consciousness, then why does patients with brain damage suffer from reduced mental abilities?  In fact, neuroscientists are capable of predicting damage in which part of the brain will cause what kind of mental deterioration. The fact that mental abilities are subject to the state of the brain is at odds with common dualist anecdotes which claim that the soul can leave the body, or that the soul can keep on having thoughts in the material world after death.

Conclusion

In this post, I have raised a number of problems that challenge the soul theory greatly. The phenomena above points strongly to the view that the mind and consciousness is the product of the brain, not the soul. Before any dualist manages to explain away those problems, I’m a naturalist. But I’ve only pointed the problems from the neuroscientist’s view. In my next post, I’ll point out why the soul is completely implausible from a physics point of view.

PS: If my anyone finds any logical or philosophical errors in my opinions, please tell me. :-)