Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Can you scientifically prove spirits' existence? No, so there you go.
There's very little that you can "scientifically prove" in the social sciences, or at least anything very interesting or meaningful. There really is no empirical support to scientifically conclude that, in this case, there is no spirit or whatever. Basically, what you've done is apply a theoretical perspective or "lens" to a set of observations. The conclusion you've come to is really the result of the way you chose to interpret the evidence, and it doesn't represent any sort of irrefutable logic or connection. At some point you crossed the line from scientific observation into the realm of metaphysical speculation.
Of course, the lack of empirical evidence of 'spirit' gives you reason to doubt its existence to varying degrees depending on how illogical someone's definition is, but that doesn't mean you can categorically deny its existence with any finality.
And I'm not sorry to say that to investigate what 'spirit' is, will probably require a spiritual, not a scientific approach to uncover. Based on the evidence at hand, all we can say is that 'spirit' is something that exists within subjective experience or that it is a label that we attach something we experience subjectively. A person would have to gain a personal understanding of what it is that people are referring to when they speak of spirit (and it would likely be different for every person based on their experiences and understanding etc) by experiencing it for themselves. And finally, they would have to figure out what it might correspond to that could be measured and observed using scientific methods. In the end, you wouldn't conclude that 'spirit' exists, only that it refers to a valid experience (practically the same thing), which I would say is something you already knew. It was just the nature of that experience that was a mystery.