I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. We’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, caught up with the underlying metaphysics of persons, and outlined Chislenko’s reasoning. But we’re still sorting through a host of difficulties, related to physical interaction or otherwise, person re-identification...
I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. In earlier posts, I have suggested that such a theory would include a necessary element of death, a form of recurrence (something from the past reappears in the present), and the intimation of an inevitability. How does the implied theory that drives Chislenko’s thought...
I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. After preliminaries (the pseudoscientific psychobabble, underlying metaphysics of persons), we’re knee-deep into Chislenko’s reasoning and the identification of ghosts with persons (and not for the first time). 6. There is an extra complication with the story’s theory of...
I’m discussing the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story, “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”, and in particular the first of the premises whose truth is simply assumed in that theory: that a ghost is a person (or in some sense a continuation, possibly “disembodied”, of a person). Since we’re at it, I might as well make a cross-referencing remark about this idea. I have...
I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. Now that we’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, caught up with the underlying metaphysics of persons, and outlined Chislenko’s reasoning, let’s look more deeply into the actual theory of ghosts it implies. 5. As we have seen, that theory has two components:...
I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. Now that we’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, let’s go back to the actual theory of Chislenko’s that evolves. 3. Given the mantra that “there are no ghosts”, the task becomes the rather perverse proof of there being nothing the ghostly appearance could...
I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. 2. Hill has some fun with “rational” explanations in the story. The character of Natasha provides the requisite psychobabbling turns of phrase: Perhaps I could dress it up for you. A para-psychological phenomenon, how would that sound in your report? Or perhaps you prefer...
Here’s an interesting assumption: in order for there to be a ghost, there must first be someone (or something) for it to be a ghost of. Interesting, because in a situation where you’re trying to prove that a given episode, whatever it is, is not a ghost appearance, that would hardly be the first line of thought that comes to mind. You may think of many ways (typically involving rational...
I did a poor job, in two of my earlier posts (here and here), of explaining what I meant by the formulation “unreal time” in their titles. I meant it, of course, as an explication of something Durrell has his narrator say. But I should have made the connection clearer. 1. When Durrell’s narrator refers to time as something that characterizes the life of people in the city, he calls it calendar...
What turns out to be the love of his life — to his own retrospective surprise, as we learn from the famous last sentence of the book — builds gradually over a number of stages, the first of which seem so innocuous that for quite a while we’re left wondering whether we’re already in the main narrative or still on a tangent. Swann himself appears to be on the same tentative track, until something...
Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology. His recent interest is Jungian psychology, especially synchronicities and the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious.