‘Hey Bill Nye, Do You Believe in Ghosts and the Afterlife?’ #TuesdaysWithBill | Big Think

Hello Bill Nye. My name is Marsalina. This is my son Ohenu. And we have a question about your perspective on

ghosts

and also what do you

think

happens to your life energy that ceases after you die? Is it just pushing daisies? Thank you. Marsha. Greetings. People have wondered about life after death for as long as people have existed. It goes back a long, long time. We start with

ghosts

. I'll tell you, I don't

think

there is such a thing. I don't think there is anything to fear when it comes to ghosts. I am a member of both the Skeptics and the Scientific Research Council and we have searched and searched for haunted houses, ghosts in cemeteries, psychics who

believe

they are in contact with dead people.

And there is absolutely no credible evidence. There is no reason to

believe

that there are ghosts or life after death. People have tried and tried. And you may know that Houdini, the famous magician, said that if anyone can come back from the dead, it's me. I'm coming. And he never contacted anyone. Nobody ever knew about him. He had a secret word between him and his mother and he said: I will give you the secret word when I return. And do you know what the secret word is? Nobody knows, it was secret and he never returned. But what happens to humans is that our brains are so active.

We imagine so many things and we always look for cause and effect. That is, when you hear a knock at night you want to know what caused it. You want to know what caused it. And the first thing you might imagine is that there is someone or some entity out there causing this effect, the hit, but you can't see it. So, intuitively or instinctively, for ancient reasons, we put a pattern on it. We imagine it has an agent as we call it, but there is something out there, some agent is causing this. But it could be that the wind blew and knocked down the sail and there is no ghost and just get over it.

Don't be afraid of that. Now when it comes to life after death, I've thought about this quite a bit and what happens, what are you like when you're dead? If you see people grow old like my grandmother, my dear grandmother. She was very smart when I was a little girl. She collected wildflowers. She was very skilled as an artist. She knew how to draw landscapes and she was like a naturalist. Traditionally, she drew detailed images of flowers that represented the very detailed parts of her: petals, stamens, guns, etc. But as she grew older, she contracted dementia.

She couldn't remember things. She didn't recognize me. And she finally died of old age. And I just don't see any evidence that she suddenly became a young person like a ghost entity after she died. It seems to me that this life is all you have. That's all. Afterwards there is nothing. So what you have to do is live this life the best you can. That is the way to go. And if it turns out that there is an

afterlife

and we are all young again and can play rugby or whatever we want to do, so much the better.

But I don't see any evidence of that. And for your son there are no ghosts, sorry. And your friends who believe in ghosts you can outwit them. You'll be ahead of them because you won't waste energy running around looking for ghosts. Instead, you'll close the window to prevent the candle from going out or whatever made your friend believe in a ghost. Continue. Sorry, but it looks like this is all you get.