Semi Sci-fi Solution Suggestions?

[happypurinsu]

I’m currently working on a murder mystery set in modern-day South Korea, which starts with a scientist getting his mind swapped with a commoner from the end of the 60’s/beginning of the 70’s, and I’m having difficulty properly explaining the logic (if there is any?) behind this swap. I don’t want to reveal too much, but my (current) background

Comments

[houseboatonstyx]

If you're not interested in a technical mechanism for the swap, I wouldn't spend wordage and time trying to think of one. There have been plenty of sf and fantasy stories using the premise with some sort of traditional handwavium device, and the reader knows to skip over it to get to the story. Trying to invent credible details would just focus attention on the basic impossibility.

[lied_ohne_worte]

This. If it's impossible, any detailed explanation will be incomprehensible to one part of the readers, while the other part will know it's nonsense.

[houseboatonstyx]

With all that said, one loose end might be tied up, by having the scientist and the commoner very close kin. Hm, it's traditional for a ghost to be tied to some descendant, as in Manning Coles's BRIEF CANDLES. And a ghost taking possession of a live human's body/brain/memories is established also. That could explain how the commoner got the scientist's body.

Really, the whole premise of swapped minds/bodies is such a familiar device in fantasy -- at least in Barsoom iirc -- that it doesn't need any scientific or occult support at all.

[happypurinsu]

(I'll be answering both your comments here, if that's okay)

First of all, thank you for replying - you certainly have a point that, unless very well-written, the majority of readers won't bother reading a long scientific explanation about something that, admittedly, doesn't take up that much of the story. However, I'd still at least like to have some idea behind to how to swap works (for example, when I have to design the lab). And considering how weak my explanations are (because bluntly, that's true), that's what made me ask if others (you) had some thoughts about this and perhaps could offer a different approach.

But as you, among others, said, it might wiser to not explain the process behind all the science, and since the story will mostly follow the person from the past, someone who probably won't understand much of it anyway, I think I'll be going with this option after all.

The relative/ghost suggestions won't fit with the (current) plot unfortunately, but thank you for telling me!

[full_metal_ox]

This is admittedly a digression from your topic, but your userinfo puts you in Jutland, suggesting that you're ESL. If you're planning to write your story in English, "commoner" means someone not of noble birth; if what you meant to denote was a non-scientist, "layman" is probably the word you want.

[syntinen_laulu]

"commoner" means someone not of noble birth

Actually it doesn't; it means either someone eligible to be a Member of Parliament, which means every British subject except peers (peers' children are all commoners); or someone with rights (e.g. of pasturage) over a piece of common land. Also, in a few ancient universities it can mean a non-scholarship student.

I doubt if any of those senses is what the OP means.

[happypurinsu]

Thank you for pointing this out; I'm not planning on using 'commoner' about the specific character in the story, it was just to make it easier to tell the two apart in my explanation above.

[alextiefling]

Mental time travel cannot be readily accounted for in any contemporary theory, even under exotic conditions where closed timelike curves are possible. Either make up a complete pseudoscience theory of your own, or leave it unspecified.

[happypurinsu]

Thank you for replying - I probably won't explain the procedure in the actual story, with too many details, but I'd still like to have at least a basic theory behind it. And, considering how weak my explanations above are, I figured it would be a good idea if others had thoughts about it and perhaps could offer a different approach.

[lilacsigil]

You could have the person from the 1970s be in physically the same place that the modern-day scientist is. The person from the 1970s could be closest to a particular kind of energy. You could make the "tunnel" be of a fixed length and direction, or even just a particular length and direction this time, and the person on the other end is the chance recipient.

[happypurinsu]

That's some good suggestions, thank you for commenting!

[bopeepsheep]

There's an Arthur C Clarke short story ('No Morning After') where aliens make contact with the most 'receptive' human mind they can find, which happens to be a man who is very very drunk but not yet unconscious. Could your layman be in some kind of altered state (drugged, drunk, under anaesthetic) when the swap happens?
Experimenting with 1970-relevant hippy ideas like Astral Projection might be a bit too silly for you (but was good enough for the Lois Duncan novel 'Stranger With My Face', where the heroine has her body stolen while she's out of it).

[happypurinsu]

That might actually work, having the person under influence of some kind but not completely knocked out. Thank you for replying!