Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts?Or flying saucers?Or aliens?

If you do, does it mean you are not educated enough, or sophisticated enough?

We all trust our eyes, and we are certain we just saw what we saw.Actually, it isn't so simple.

I had a very simple yet educative experience a long,long while ago.I was a student then. I turned up at a nearby metro city intending to stay the night with my uncle and aunt.In the typically uncaring mode of thought that I had as a young man, I did not inform them I was coming, intending a surprise.

As I turned the corner into the lane where my uncle lived, who should I meet but my uncle, my aunt and their six-year old daughter.

I let out a shout of welcome.Meeting a cold reception I looked again.

It was another family that I had met, resembling only vaguely my uncle's family.My eyes had played tricks on me.

This was in a bustling city, in broad daylight; no supernatural involved here.But I had spent the last half an hour anticipating the "surprise" meeting. My predilection had caused me to believe that I had seen something that I hadn't.

I believe that we see not with our eyes so much as with our brain.The eyes provide a stimulus to a pattern that already exists in the brain.The brain draws out the pattern and presents it to us, fully formed.

Had it not been so, our ancestors would probably have waited too long to recognize a predator; they would not have survived, and we would not have existed.

Defence lawyers recognize this, and are relentless in cross-examinig eye-witnesses to crime.

OK- so we are programmed to sort of see ghosts under ghostly circumstances.Does it mean that there aren't any?

What do you think?