Are ghosts real?

Hegel believed that: the world is the unfolding of spirit. From a scientific perspective, ghosts should not initially be understood as "a humanoid entity floating around," but rather as a "state of information that cannot be fully externally verified but can be genuinely experienced by the subject."
Our consciousness constitutes our experiential world; all objects experienced have a form of existence within consciousness. In this way, the question of ghosts shifts from "Does an objective ghost exist?" to: why are there some states that cannot be publicly proven yet still have a real impact on human consciousness, judgment, emotions, and behavior.
Definition of ghosts in idealism
The core concern of idealism is not the material object itself, but its presentation within consciousness. From this perspective, ghosts can be defined as a kind of existence that is felt, recognized, and named within the consciousness system but cannot be fully reduced to public physical evidence.
This definition has three characteristics:
First, it is experiential rather than experimental. People feel it first, then interpret it.
It depends on the subject structure. Not everyone can feel the same "ghost" at the same time and place. This indicates that its appearance is related to the perceiving structure of the subject.
It has causal effects. Although it cannot be publicly demonstrated, it influences heartbeat, sleep, judgment, narratives, spatial perception, and relationships. This means it is not purely emptiness but something that can enter the system and change its state.
From an idealist perspective, as long as an object continuously enters consciousness and causes disturbances in the consciousness structure, it already has a certain degree of existence.
From another angle, if we use information theory to express it, we can see "ghosts" as a kind of "low observability, high impact" information state.
Taking AI computation as an example, many states in the system are not directly visible. We can only infer how AI is thinking through output changes.
For example:
• You cannot see the full content of another person's consciousness
• You cannot see a traumatic memory in the brain
• You cannot see the ghost itself
But you can see the outputs:
• Sudden emotional shifts
• Abnormal spatial perception
• Recurrent dreams
• Shared group fears
• Strong discomfort in certain places
• Persistent perceptual biases without clear reasons
Thus, ghosts can be described as:
A hidden information pattern inside the system that cannot be directly accessed but leaks its existence through abnormal outputs.
At this point, ghosts are like ghost variables in a system: they cannot be directly read but continue to influence results.
Why are ghosts unverifiable yet experiencable?
A person can be certain that a certain state exists, but they may not be able to fully communicate this state to others.
The experience of a ghost is very similar to this.
The experiencer is like the prover, and the observer is like the verifier.
The experiencer says:
"Ghosts exist."
But they cannot produce traditional full evidence because this state cannot be fully downloaded, copied, or publicly broadcast.
Therefore, ghosts can be interpreted as:
A state of existence that only a partial subject has witness to, but cannot output a complete proof to the public world.
Here, witness can be:
• The subjective experience of the individual
• Bodily reactions
• Repetitive structures in dreams
• Persistent abnormal feelings in certain scenarios
These witnesses are strong but often non-transferable. So, if we further abstract, humans can be understood as perception systems.
A complete system includes:
• Input layer: vision, hearing, touch, memory, cultural cues
• Processing layer: cognitive modeling, emotional amplification, meaning interpretation
• Output layer: language, behavior, fear, avoidance, dreams, rituals
Ghosts are like a special state switch:
When certain inputs and internal structures couple, the system enters an abnormal interpretive mode. In this mode, the body organizes some unclassifiable information into the form of a ghost.
Therefore, ghosts are not just objects but more like a high-density meaningful state generated by the system when facing unexplained disturbances. So how do ghosts influence the real world?
Sleep paralysis is a typical example. In many reports:
Individuals wake up at night, fully conscious, able to confirm they are in a familiar environment;
Their bodies cannot move, speech is limited;
Perception of space is significantly amplified, with room boundaries and positional relationships becoming unusually clear;
At the same time, they experience an enhanced sense of presence, perceiving a position outside the visual confirmation of the space.
Similar descriptions are found in ancient Chinese records of strange tales:
"Sleeping at night, suddenly feeling heavy as if pressed down, unable to open eyes or speak, as if someone is beside." — "Zi Bu Yu"
"While sleeping, feeling something leaning on them, unable to get up, knowing it’s strange but unable to move." — "Yue Wei Cao Tang Bi Ji"
Note that the descriptions of "someone beside" and "something leaning" emphasize positional existence, not visual perception. That is, an additional unseen but certain node in space.
This is entirely consistent with modern reports of "something in the room."
From an information theory perspective, this phenomenon can be unified as: the system introduces an unobserved node into the existing spatial model.
In this process, ghosts influence reality indirectly by altering the human decision-making structure, thus exerting an influence on the physical environment in the spiritual realm.
Therefore, ghosts are not only real but tend to come more as humans fear them more.
If ghosts can enter a person through experience and retain their influence without being fully parsed, then their reappearance no longer depends entirely on external conditions.
Specifically, when a person forms a memory of a particular ghost’s behavior, that ghost gains a stable entry point. In subsequent instances, the ghost no longer needs the person to feel it first or to contact it through some medium; it only needs to meet certain conditions to reactivate that state.
These conditions often include low light environments, enclosed spaces, and expectations of possible anomalies, with the last being the most critical.
Because once a person begins to reserve interpretive space for a certain ghost, that ghost becomes more likely to invade again.
And the best way to reduce the chance of ghost invasion is to erase it from memory.