Ghosts in the Science Lab:
A Glimpse into the Conflict between Reason and Believing in
the Supernatural
Emily Bencsics
Indiana University South Bend
ENG – 680
Professor Joe Chaney
August 4, 2012
Ghosts in the Science Lab:
A Glimpse into the Conflict between Reason and Believing in
the Supernatural
Internally, there is an ever-present
struggle going on within human beings.
How is it possible to be a reasonable, logic-minded individual while at
the same time still believe in ghosts or spirits? Consciously, most people do not focus on this
kind of conflict; however, subconsciously, it is always there lurking within
our psyche like some sort of wandering specter.
The juxtaposition of science and the supernatural has been a dance
throughout hundreds of years; moreover, it is a dance people have participated
in across all cultures and classes.
Central to understanding this conflict, one must first understand how we
form beliefs. “We form our beliefs for a
variety of subjective, emotional and psychological reasons in the context of
environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture and society at
large” (Shermer, 2011, para. 2).
Essentially, our belief systems are environmental productions on a grand
scale. In addition to outside
influences, Shermer (2011) goes on to state that “[a]fter forming our beliefs,
we then defend, justify and rationalize them with a host of intellectual
reasons, cogent arguments and rational explanations. Beliefs come first; explanations for beliefs
follow” (para. 2). Nowhere is this
theory about belief systems and how it relates to the conflict between science
and the supernatural more prevalent than in our literature. In many cases, ghosts (and other supernatural
figures) are more than merely plot-helpers in our collective tales. When a ghost is introduced, it immediately
calls into question our belief systems and forcibly shows us some rather
terrifying internal truths about ourselves.
One of the most famous literary
examples of these struggling beliefs, and a primary focus of this exploration,
is the ghost of Hamlet (also known as Old Hamlet). When Marcellus and Bernardo welcome Horatio
into the beginning of their ghost story, there is a poignant piece of dialogue
that transpires. Marcellus says,
“Horatio says ‘tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along With us to watch the minutes of the
night, That if again this apparition come He may approve our eyes and speak to
it” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). Here we
see Marcellus struggling with not only having seen an otherworldly spirit, but
perhaps even more fascinating; he seeks the validation from the other
watchmen. “How many subsequent ghost
stories begin with the disbelief of one participant, both legitimating our
incredulity and making the evidence to the contrary, when it comes, the more
appalling? Stout common sense restores
the everyday – but only for an instant” (Belsey, 2010, para. 6). This play between what we know as logical and
“real” and what we experience as unexplainable is the tension that has been the
basis for this uniquely human encounter.
After Horatio sees Old Hamlet for
the first time, Bernardo remarks, “How now, Horatio? You tremble and look
pale. Is not this something more than
fantasy? What think you on’t?” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). Horatio is considered to be a scholar and a
reasonable person. For Horatio to see
and interact with the spirit is to raise the level of uncertainty among the
watchmen, and most assuredly, the audience as well. In this case, Old Hamlet is an uncanny
“thing.” It “unsettles the familiar
categories of knowledge, prompting ‘thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls’
(1.4.56). Is it dead or alive, this
figure that cannot rest in its tomb? … The oppositions we normally think with
do not hold” (Belsey, 2010, para. 10). It
is important that Horatio experiences the ghost of Old Hamlet as it lends a
credibility to how beliefs are formed.
Shermer (2011) coined the term “belief-dependent realism,” and it most
definitely applies in the example of Horatio.
According to Shermer, the process “wherein our perceptions about reality
are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it [is called] belief-dependent
realism” (2011, para. 2). Culturally,
all of the guardsmen in these scenes have an underlying belief in ghosts even
if that flies in the face of their religion, or, in Horatio’s case, even if it
goes against his reasoning and logic skills.
Much of the Elizabethan environment would have been filled with the
mysterious and unexplained; and thus, much of what constituted the watchmen’s
belief systems could have already been rooted in the supernatural.
When the beliefs are formed, then
the task of backing them up becomes paramount.
“Once we form beliefs and make commitments to them, we maintain and
reinforce them through a number of powerful cognitive biases that distort our
percepts to fit belief concepts” (Shermer, 2011, para. 4). In other words, one will always strive to
find evidence and support to confirm one’s belief in a variety of ways. At the end of act one- scene one in Hamlet, Horatio says: “So have I heard and do in part believe
it…Let us impart what we have seen tonight Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). This passage shows a couple of things. First,
it shows Horatio’s willingness to accept the ghost due in part to his
eye-witness account, but more notably, his being a part of a group
experience. One of the cognitive biases
Shermer discusses in his theory, is that called an “in-group bias.” In this bias, “we place more value on the
beliefs of those whom we perceive to be fellow members of our group and less on
the beliefs of those from different groups” (Shermer, 2011, para. 5). Because Horatio witnessed the ghost of Old
Hamlet with his cohorts, instead of apart from them, the belief in the ghost is
somehow solidified in his mind.
Secondly, and perhaps ironically, this same passage also reveals that
Horatio is not one hundred percent sold on the existence of the ghost just
yet. The words “do in part believe it”
show us that Horatio has some hesitation about what he has just seen. Also, these words reveal that internally,
Horatio is searching for some other logical and/or reasonable explanation.
Before moving forward with the ghost
of Old Hamlet, it is important to define what a ghost/spirit is within the
context of Hamlet’s time. Around the
time frame of Hamlet, several factors were at play when it came to explaining
the world in which they lived. For
example, common people still adhered to a more medieval way of describing the
unknown. This would entail a strong
belief in ghosts and/or spirits. In
addition, the early Catholic Church had strict interpretations about what
seeing ghosts and/or spirits would mean.
According to the church, witnessing ghosts/spirits implies an inherent
evil either within the environment, or within the spectator seeing the
specter. Essentially, ghosts of any sort
were equal to something demonic, and one would have to be simply mad to engage
or summon one; much less question the church on the matter. At the same time, there was an emerging
group of people concerned with scientific theory and discovering rational
explanations for “supernatural” events.
These early renaissance scientists, often at their peril, broke with ritual
and religious tradition. Most of these
young men, like Horatio and Hamlet, concerned themselves with learned
investigative and questioning techniques that did not lend themselves to
blindly accept supernatural events. “Ghosts
suspend the rules of logic just as they break the laws of nature. They belong to the past, to a history that
should have closed with their death, and yet they reappear to trouble the
present and change the future. A ghost
is always radically out of time, as well as out of place. Is this
Ghost a true revenant, the old king back from the grave, or a demon from
hell that assumes his person (1.2.244-45)?”
(Belsey, 2010, para. 10). However
that question gets answered, it is undeniable that Hamlet and his helpers must
completely reassess the beliefs they hold while being shaken to their very
core.
Some literary analysts argue that
the ghost in Hamlet is not scary or
creepy enough to warrant it being a supernatural event. “As for Hamlet, there is a supernatural
constituent, but it is no more than a fragment of the fantastic, a peripheral
phenomenon that motivates Hamlet’s actions and triggers the plot” (Traill,
1991, para. 8). Many disagree with this
theory (myself included) simply because there are so many levels of meaning to
the ghost of Old Hamlet. The ghost in Hamlet provides friction among the
characters, reveals insights into the truth of his death, and creates questions
about justice and consequences for the audience. To relegate the ghost as a mere plot device
seems undeserving and much too easy. Besides,
any time a dead man rises and takes the form of a ghost, it seems obviously
necessary to attribute the supernatural.
Also, the ghost plays another important function. Seeing Old Hamlet is at odds with very powerful
religious beliefs held at that time.
This must have had quite an effect on the audience at the time of this
performance, and is still a marker even today for the conflict between beliefs
of what we think is real and what is not.
When Hamlet first encounters the
ghost of his father, it is with these very same religious overtones that he
speaks to him. “Angels and ministers of
grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of
health or goblin damned, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
By thy intents wicked or charitable…” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). This passage confirms an idea about belief
systems. Mainly, even though Hamlet is
considered to be a learned scholarly person, upon seeing the ghost of his
father, he immediately resorts back to his Catholic belief system rather than a
scientific one. In an article discussing
Shermer’s work, A.C. Grayling states:
Although religious
scientists are few, they are an interesting phenomenon,
exhibiting the
impermeability of the internal barrier that allows
simultaneous commitments
to science and faith. This remark will
be
regarded as outrageous
by believing scientists, who think that they are as
rational in their
temples as in their laboratories, but scarcely any of them
would accept the
challenge to mount a controlled experiment to test the
major claims of their
faith… (Grayling, 2011, p. 447)
Although
Hamlet is experiencing fear and trembling at the sight of his father’s ghost
(who wouldn’t), it is important to note that his reversion back to a religious
upbringing takes precedence over his rational/logical mind. This reiterates the concept that primary
and/or early belief systems are extremely powerful and difficult to
override.
In addition to religious
implications, it was generally accepted that involvement with a ghost and/or
spirit would most certainly be an indicator of madness. When the ghost beckons Hamlet to a moment of
privacy, Hamlet’s friends make it clear that this is a grand mistake. Horatio pleads, “What if it tempt you toward
the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff…And there assume
some other horrible form Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And
draw you into madness?” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). Following the Catholic Church’s teachings,
any spirit that wishes to take one someplace private to converse cannot
possibly be a virtuous ghost. Therefore,
Horatio’s warnings to Hamlet are more than justified. Moreover, when Hamlet does speak with the
ghost of his father, it becomes uncannily apparent that this spirit is seeking
something much more devastating to Hamlet than a conversation. Hamlet’s father commands, “Revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). At this point, Hamlet must decide whether to
trust this seemingly evil entity or seek peace through rationality. After all, what natural conclusions could be
drawn from a ghost that asks for revenge?
Indeed, is this ghost really Hamlet’s father, or is this ghost now a
reflection of Hamlet’s desires?
Perhaps the real conflict with
ghosts comes not from whether one believes in their existence, but rather what
ghosts disclose about a person’s true nature.
Old Hamlet is not imparting some new emotional quest onto his son by revealing
his death was murderous in nature.
Ironically, it is the ghost that provides a reason for Hamlet to act on vengeful fantasies. After Hamlet alludes to the current king
(Claudius) as being a villain, Horatio’s response is: “There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the
grave To tell us this” (Shakespeare, 2004 version). This outwardly simple line shows us that the
ghost resembles a mirror reflecting desires, wishes, and truths about the
individual. Deep down Hamlet (and his
cohorts) already realize that there is something terribly wrong with Old
Hamlet’s death, Gertrude’s quick remarriage, and the overall natural order of
things. Rationally, Hamlet recognizes
his anger, grief, and depression long before Old Hamlet appears to him. Similarly, Hamlet’s self-awareness leads him
to constantly check himself between committing a murderous crime, ending his
own life, or moving on and trying to forget this time of his life. Essentially, Hamlet is juggling a whole host
of cognitive biases and conflicts.
Interestingly, Hamlet’s “[b]elief-dependent realism is driven even
deeper by a metabias called the bias blind spot, or the tendency to recognize
the power of cognitive biases in other people but to be blind to [the]
influence on our own beliefs” (Shermer, 2011, para. 6). Even though Hamlet appears to be hyper
self-aware, it isn’t enough to discern the healthy from the unhealthy, or the
natural from the supernatural.
In summary, there will always be a
place for ghost stories of some sort throughout time. By examining the ghost in Hamlet, one can in turn explore all
ghost stories. Old Hamlet is special in
that “[t]he Ghost constitutes more than a device of the plot and more, too,
than a thrill of the uncanny. It brings
the prince into direct confrontation with the fact of mortality: the revenant who bears his name presents the
hero with a glimpse of his own future beyond the limits of what it is possible
to know” (Belsey, 2010, para. 51). And,
perhaps it is this very stark reality of our own impermanence that makes ghosts
and spirits so weirdly fascinating. Spirits
represent many things for us. For
instance, apparitions could signal everything from hallucinations to belief
systems run astray. “It is only by
recovering the history of lost possibilities, what might have been, that we can
shake the naturalness of what is” (Clery, 1995, p.174). Ghosts give us a chance to reconcile and
redefine ourselves, and maybe it is ultimately comforting to know that they are
designed to confound the believer, the non-believer, the spiritualist, and the
scientist all the same.
References
Belsey, C. (2010).
Shakespeare’s sad tale for winter: Hamlet and the tradition of fireside
ghost stories. Shakespeare Quarterly, 61(1).
Retrieved from Ebsco.
Clery, E. J. (1995). The rise of supernatural fiction 1762-1800.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Grayling, A. C.
(2011). How we form beliefs. Nature, 474, 446-447.
Shakespeare, (2004
version). In D. Bevington & D.S. Katsan (Eds.), Shakespeare Hamlet. New York:
Bantam Classic.
Shermer, M. (2011).
The believing brain. Scientific American,
305(1), 85. Retrieved from Academic
Search Premier.
Traill, N. (1991).
Fictional worlds of the fantastic. Style,
25(2), 196-209. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.
