The human propensity for making up stories exposes a strange fact about our minds. Apparently we can become embroiled in the fate of the characters, feel emotions including fear on their behalf or pity or terror, while with one half of our minds we know it is all fictional. It is not only that we do this, but also that we find it important to do it, even when the emotions themselves would normally be unpleasant (see tragedy). Apart from raising this problem, fiction gives rise to purely logical and semantic issues. How do we succeed in referring to fictional character, and is reference the right word when we are representing to ourselves something that does not exist? And what is covered by the idea of truth in fiction, such as the truth that Sherlock Holmes lived in London and not in Paris?