Ghost stories, reality, and The Philosophy of Flawfulness

I love ghost stories, but I love ghost stories because they tell us something fundamental about being human – that we are imaginative.

Even if ghosts are real (they are not) they do not interact with us in this physical world, the reality. So we may remove or dismiss them from the equation of reality.

But when ghosts interact with this world then there is trouble. The rules of reality no longer hold true. Things do not behave as expected. We cannot predict what will happen because there is something else in the equation of reality.

If ghosts do exist and things move accordingly their interaction then we must take into account their influence. And when that happens then that will then be the reality.

As long as we account for everything in the equation then we can predict what will happen. This is even true if there are ghosts.

I love ghosts and ghost stories only because they tell us not the truth about reality, but a truth about how we, the human being, flawfully see reality all the while being in the reality.

I can hear you now: “Flawfully isn’t a word!” Sure it isn’t. But the word flawfully is as necessary as ghosts are to being human. We are imaginative creatures. I would argue that the meaning of flawfully (to create and use something imperfect deliberately) is a necessary part of being us. It is also what separates us from other animals. You can perhaps even call this philosophy, the philosophy of flawfulness.