Kuthumii, again - science fiction. Fiction distinct from fantasy in that it (usually and certainly in the case of FL/Disco) bases itself on reality and advances it through science and technology, not supernatural elements.
There's nothing unscientific about the Phantoms. There's nothing unscientific about the Nomads either, although they certainly use technology human science is unable to grasp. Ghosts are, and consider their impact on our virtual universe. If they exist, certainly there has to be an afterlife, every human must have a soul, etc...all things we've so far either rejected or deliberately left ambiguous in our universe.
Maybe you don't care. Maybe Zapp doesn't care. Maybe I care too much, for I am a raving hard sci-fi-nut (WHERE'S MY TECHNOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGY!?). But the majority of our roleplaying playerbase is here to RP within a science fiction universe (and would never accept ghosts as canon RP), and most of them also share my belief that ghosts belong into a fantasy world, not the semi-scientific world of Discovery.
Zapp Wrote:They don't exist? I think they don't exist as well, but who's to say they don't? Who has concrete empirical evidence that ghosts don't exist?
They don't just "don't exist", they are what is called "not even wrong" - and thus have no place within science or science fiction.