<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Science tries to illuminate the world, itself, and us, yet I still find myself wishing that ghosts, spirits, and beings from folklore were real. Inspired by the invisible microscopic world and the second law of thermodynamics \u2014 the idea that entropy does not decrease \u2014 I imagine that \u201cghosts\u201d might be something like scattered fragments or particles with broken forces. When we tell ghost stories or think about them, our information briefly forms a meaningful pattern out of formless chaos. Perhaps, in that moment, entropy drops just a little, and the dispersed particles of a ghost briefly gather together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or maybe this is nothing more than an imagining born from longing and fear.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But two problems arise from this idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first is the saying, \u201cIf you talk about ghosts, they come to listen.\u201d If that were true, even ten bodies would not be enough for a single ghost, especially in summer, when horror films are everywhere and vacations are hard to dream of. My work Bikini Ghost<\/em> depicts ghosts who always appear the same \u2014 sad figures draped in white cloth \u2014 but here they enjoy the summer in bright, colorful outfits. The wax used in the work reflects a childlike thought: that a ghost\u2019s freedom begins after the candle \u2014 the clich\u00e9 of every ghost-summoning scene \u2014 finally melts away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second problem is this: what becomes of ghosts that were once famous but have since been forgotten? Do they vanish, like extinct animals, once people stop speaking about them? If so, is their extinction a disappearance of existence itself? If everything \u2014 including us \u2014 is made of particles, perhaps death is not erasure but dispersal. They may simply scatter and lodge themselves within other objects or beings, or drift into things like old household items, just as in the beliefs of my hometown. Through my Ghost Furniture <\/em>series, I try to let them reside in the world again, even for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Could ghosts \u2014 or anything invisible and spritual\u2014 exist in a wave-like form when they do not interact with anything and are not being observed? Could the fact that they appear only when \u201cchosen\u201d mean their existence resembles a wave?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is said that death is not complete disappearance from a physical perspective. The elements that once composed a being continue to exist, scattered across other beings or other worlds. Memory is what allows a particular existence to remain itself. If memory could be stored at a cellular level, or even in units smaller than cells, then perhaps existence does not vanish after death, but lingers in the universe in a dispersed form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our universe is generally regarded as a closed system. Changes to its mass or elemental makeup are thought to be negligible. If that is so, the things we believe have \u201cdisappeared\u201d may still exist in some scattered or transformed state. Death might not be deletion, but the rearrangement of elements into new patterns. When we speak of the dead, remember them, or pour emotion into them, we may be briefly weaving their remnants back into the fabric of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 6<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Kentaro Miura\u2019s Berserk<\/em>, when speaking of spiritual beings such as goblins, fairies, and spirits, there is a line: 7<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many old tales of monsters and spirits were, perhaps, created to highlight the heroic nature of human characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Humans who lacked the ability to feel fear vanished long ago. Modern humans, on the other hand, tend to fear the unknown and imagine supernatural beings when confronted with things we cannot immediately interpret. Perhaps this very ability to imagine fear and conjure monsters offered an evolutionary advantage, and that ability has been passed down to us. Fear itself is a protective emotion; it does not seek to harm. Panic can be dangerous, but a healthy amount of fear keeps us safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From this perspective, the figure of the Eoduksini \u2014 the embodiment of fear \u2014 may not intend harm at all. As observational technologies have developed, many once-mysterious beings are now recognized as natural phenomena. The Hidarugami, for example, a yokai said to lure travelers to their deaths in remote mountains, could be repelled by licking the character for \u201crice\u201d written on one’s palm or by eating wild plants. Seen from today\u2019s viewpoint, these actions closely resemble responses to hypoglycemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If forgotten beings lose power and fade over time, monsters too must transform. Dragons were once divine creatures who controlled rain and weather. But as meteorological knowledge advanced, people stopped leaning on superstition to explain uncertain weather. Dragons adapted. They became more romantic and humanlike. Starting with characters like the Dragon Boy in Princess Maker, dragons have become beloved companions in many romance-fantasy stories. In this way, dragons live on in media, not as terrifying forces of nature, but as alluring unknowns reshaped by their era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The actual engine of the universe \u2014 the domain of physical laws \u2014 does not readily allow spiritual entities that do not belong to its system to remain for long. To drift within such a dimension is inherently temporary. Just as spiritual beings fade when they are no longer spoken of or remembered, anything that becomes \u201chaunted\u201d in our world is fragile by nature. Its presence is brief, easily thinned out, and destined to disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Science tries to illuminate the world, itself, and us, yet I still find myself wishing that ghosts, spirits, and beings from folklore were real. Inspired by the invisible microscopic world and the second law of thermodynamics \u2014 the idea that entropy does not decrease \u2014 I imagine that \u201cghosts\u201d might be something like scattered fragments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-333","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jiwonsongji.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy does not decrease. Disorder, randomness, and uniformity are the universe\u2019s dominant tendencies. Yet when we focus our intention on something, entropy can locally and temporarily fall, allowing meaningful patterns to arise within the chaos. If some form of existence could persist through such patterns, perhaps this would explain why beings that are spoken of or remembered often linger, while those forgotten gradually fade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Questions like \u201cWhat was before the Big Bang?\u201d or \u201cWhat lies beyond the universe?\u201d remain outside the boundaries of provable inquiry. These are realms that cannot be observed, calculated, or meaningfully interacted with. But that does not mean nothing exists beyond what we can measure. There remains at least the possibility \u2014 however faint \u2014 that some form of existence, perhaps even a spiritual one, lies beyond what we know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s not about believing in what you cannot see. If there\u2019s no room for doubt, you can see, feel, and touch it yourself.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n