A Philosophical and Spiritual Conversation with Betty part one

 Betty: I saw a ghost last night, and it really scared me.

The Philosopher: What did it look like?

Betty: It was whitish grey, and it had the shape of a human but without a face.

The Philosopher: Why did it scare you?

Betty: It was so unreal.

The Philosopher: But what you saw was real.

Betty: You mean ghosts are real.

The Philosopher: No, ghosts are not real, but what you saw was real.

Betty: I don't understand.

The Philosopher: You saw something that was partly white and partly grey, did you not?

Betty: Yes

The Philosopher: Was it translucent; that is, could you partly see through it?

Betty: Yes

The Philosopher: And it had the shape of a human figure?

Betty: Yes

The Philosopher: Then everything you saw was real.

Betty: But the ghost was not real.

The Philosopher: The ghost was not real as a combination of your experiences, but each experience that composed that combination was real.

Betty: What do you mean?

The Philosopher: You have seen white before. You have seen grey before. You have seen shapes of human figures before, and you have seen things that are translucent before.

Betty: So the ghost comprised elements of my past experiences, all of which were real experiences. But the ghost may have been merely an hallucination, a product of my mind.

The Philosopher: But if your mind is capable of producing ideas and representations of your past experiences, then aren't those ideas and representations just as real as were the past experiences?

Betty: What do you mean?

The Philosopher: If you took a picture of yourself with a camera, would not that picture be just as real as you are?

Betty: It would seem so.

The Philosopher: If your mind can take pictures of your real experiences and transform them into ideas and representations, then aren't those ideas and representations just as real as are your experiences?

Betty: That would seem logical.

The Philosopher: Then it matters not whether you had an hallucination or whether you saw an optical illusion of light and shadow. In either case, you saw a combination of real ideas or experiences that in combination you called a ghost.

Betty: But why did I call it a ghost?

The Philosopher: Because your mind was trying to make a combination that is not real, real.