The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's had begun to feel faintly besieged.
Not by people.
Nor by weather.
Nor even by philosophy itself.
Rather by the growing suspicion that reality contained considerably more hidden machinery than previously advertised.
Rain continued patiently at the windows.
Professor Quillibrace sat by the fire reading.
Miss Elowen Stray was writing notes in the small notebook that had now become a permanent feature of the room.
Mr Blottisham entered with a determined expression.
"I have decided that enough is enough."
Quillibrace looked up.
"Oh dear."
Blottisham sat down firmly.
"I have tolerated the substance ghost."
He raised a finger.
"I endured the essence ghost."
Another finger.
"I suffered the origin ghost."
A third.
"And I have accepted, under protest, the representation ghost."
Quillibrace nodded solemnly.
"A difficult period."
"But now," said Blottisham, "I have located something absolutely undeniable."
Miss Stray lowered her pencil.
Quillibrace closed his book with slow caution.
"And that is?"
"Identity."
Silence.
Quillibrace stared at him.
Miss Stray stared at him.
Blottisham looked pleased.
"Things remain themselves."
He spread his hands.
"A tree remains the same tree."
"A person remains the same person."
"A nation remains the same nation."
He sat back.
"There."
Quillibrace regarded him quietly.
"I see."
Blottisham frowned.
"You've done the voice."
"What voice?"
"The one suggesting catastrophe is approaching."
"No catastrophe at all."
Quillibrace folded his hands.
"Merely a question."
Blottisham looked suspicious.
"Naturally."
Quillibrace gestured vaguely.
"What exactly remains the same?"
Blottisham blinked.
"The thing."
"The thing."
"Yes."
Quillibrace nodded.
"Let us take a person."
Blottisham looked uneasy already.
"The body changes."
"Yes."
"Memories alter."
"Hm."
"Values shift."
"Possibly."
"Relationships change."
"Certainly."
"Experiences accumulate."
Blottisham frowned.
"Yes."
Quillibrace waited.
Silence stretched.
Blottisham looked uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"What remains unchanged?"
Blottisham stared into space.
"The... person part?"
Silence descended gently upon the room.
Miss Stray looked down.
Quillibrace closed his eyes briefly.
"Oh no," said Blottisham.
"Oh yes," said Quillibrace.
Rain moved softly against the windows.
Miss Stray spoke carefully.
"The problem itself is quite old."
"If everything changes, continuity becomes difficult to explain."
She turned a page in her notebook.
"Bodies transform."
"Languages evolve."
"Relationships reorganise."
"Even mountains alter over time."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"But we still recognise things."
"Precisely."
"So something seemed necessary beneath change."
"Identity became the solution," Quillibrace said.
"Change could occur while something deeper remained self-identical."
Blottisham looked relieved.
"There we are then."
Quillibrace sighed.
Miss Stray resumed staring at her notebook.
Blottisham looked offended.
"No really, what now?"
"Nothing initially."
Quillibrace leaned back.
"It solved a genuine problem."
"But?"
"There is almost always a but."
Quillibrace looked at him carefully.
"When we attempt to identify the stable element itself..."
He paused.
"...it repeatedly appears somewhere else."
Blottisham stared.
"We say a thing remains itself because of its identity."
"Mm."
"But identity is whatever remains the same."
"Mm."
Silence.
"...oh."
"Quite."
Blottisham stared into the fire with mounting distress.
"So we explain identity by identity."
"Mm."
"And the stable core keeps moving away."
"Mm."
Miss Stray looked up.
"There is another difficulty too."
Blottisham looked resigned.
"Of course there is."
"Some things survive through change rather than despite it."
She counted quietly on her fingers.
"Languages survive by evolving."
"Communities survive by reorganising."
"Living systems survive by continual adaptation."
Blottisham frowned.
"Meaning change may not threaten continuity at all."
"Exactly," said Quillibrace.
"It may help produce it."
Long silence.
Rain continued its patient work against the glass.
Blottisham counted slowly on his fingers.
"Substance."
"Essence."
"Origin."
"Representation."
"Identity."
He looked around uneasily.
"Quillibrace?"
"Yes?"
"How many ghosts are actually in this room?"
Quillibrace considered.
"Hm."
Miss Stray looked up.
"I suspect we have been asking the wrong question."
Blottisham stared.
"What question should we ask?"
Miss Stray smiled slightly.
"Not how many ghosts are in the room."
A small pause.
"What relations are maintaining them?"
Silence.
Then Blottisham stood abruptly.
"No."
Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
"No?"
"No. I absolutely refuse to discover that the ghosts themselves are emergent."
Quillibrace reopened his book.
"A perfectly understandable position," he said quietly.
"Though I fear reality may once again prove disappointingly uncooperative."
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