(Last week we asked readers this question: “Do you believe in ghosts?” Here are the responses we received.)

In short, no

Do I believe in ghosts? No. Why? Lack of convincing proof.

PAUL HAGUE

Weare

Family visitor

When I was a small child, I saw an old woman when I went into our bathroom. I told my mother that I didn’t want to go into the bathroom because of this old lady who frightened me. Of course my mother could not see her and told me that I could no longer use the potty-chair. So when I really had to go I went back in the bathroom and the old lady was there. She told me she was sorry she had frightened me, and I would not see her again.

About 10 years later, my mother showed me a photo of the wedding party when she and dad got married. That old lady was in the photo, and since everyone was named on the back of the photo, I learned that she was my mother’s mother, and she had died of a heart attack when I was three months old. I guess she had to come back to see her first grandchild.

PETER SCRIPTURE

Canterbury

Our spooky brains

I live in a neighborhood that is the epicenter of Halloween in Concord, probably in New Hampshire, and possibly in New England. As I scurry around trying to be sure I have enough treats for the scads of ghosts and goblins that will be beating a path to my door on Halloween, I hardly have time to ask myself this question. But I do have an answer: yes and yes!

Do I believe in ghosts? Well, I do see them on my doorstep, between the Draculas and Frozen Princesses, so they must be real. On this generally ghoulish holiday, I’m comforted by their Casper the Friendly Ghost demeanor. After all, it’s only once a year, and it’s easier to find an old sheet or pillowcase on its last legs than it is to buy or construct something more elaborate to earn my coveted candy.

But, importantly, I do believe that the human brain is mind-bogglingly complicated, and our minds are fully capable of constructing ghosts from our past, both our personal past as well as our collective human past. We all are able to see ghosts that inhabit those realms.

The Greeks thought a lot about the human brain; Leonardo and countless others added more knowledge of its workings over the centuries. In my lifetime, we have learned a fair amount about neurons, how they are organized, what they do and how they do it. But, amazingly, we are only now expanding our understanding of how our minds work. The exciting work on “network neuroscience” seeks to figure out the brain networks that enable us to think, to imagine, to believe.

These brain networks are so complex they make the networks we are familiar with in our daily lives, like the hub-and-spoke maps of commercial airline flights, or the dizzying array of connections forming the World Wide Web, seem like child’s play. And incredibly, they exist right beneath our skulls. It’s in the nether reaches of these mind networks that ghosts hold sway. Would that they only emerged once a year!

MILLIE LaFONTAINE

Concord