Ghosts
When TV show that introduces some spooky element wants to portray a character as "rational," the character says something like, "You know ghosts don't exist." Why is dogmatically asserting this supposed to be "rational"? There is all sorts of testimony to the existence of ghosts, across many different cultures in radically different times and places. There is nothing wrong with being skeptical of such testimony: "Let's see the proof!" is a fine attitude. But that is a very different attitude from, "It is already known that no such proof is possible." First of all, what about "can't prove a(n empirical) negative"? "Empirical" because we can, I think, "prove" that, say, perpetual motion machines don't exist, since we can show they are impossible. But no one has shown ghosts are impossible: how could they, when it is not even clear what, precisely, ghosts are supposed to be? If they a...