'Pataphysics
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"If physics proposes: 'You have a brother and he likes cheese,' then metaphysics replies, 'If you have a brother, he likes cheese.' But 'Pataphysics says: 'You don’t have a brother and he likes cheese.' "
—Georges Perec, novelist and pataphysician
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"If you understand something in only one way, then you don’t really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we’ve connected it to all other things we know."
—Marvin Minsky, American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI laboratory
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′Pataphysics resists definition[1], giving it hundreds of them. Here are some more.
'Pataphysics (French: 'pataphysique) is an absurdist, pseudo-scientific literary trope. ′Pataphysics is to metaphysics as metaphysics is to physics. ′Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions. ′Pataphysics describes the hypothetical that comes from the imaginary. ′Pataphysics sometimes finds useful from the useless. ′Pataphysics is tongue-in-cheek rules taken seriously, but not too much. ′Pataphysics has become a joke of applied pseudoscience in that it has been seriously done[2]. ′Pataphysics on rare occasions is how the world ought to be and points out Reality Is Unrealistic.
’Pataphysics is not postmodernism. The two philosophies are fundamentally incompatable, in fact[3]. Postmodernism proposes that reality is a fiction or that there is no difference between literal and metaphorial truth. ′Pataphysics proposes that there is a reality and that it is not the same as metaphorical realities, which themselves are distinct constructs. Indeed, the construction of metaphorical realities is taken from metaphysics and their study and in depth exploration is a core part of ′pataphysics. ′Pataphysics recognizes these metaphorical realities as just that, imaginary. ′Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions after all. It might even be argued that ’pataphysics is the exact opposite of postmodernism for all this.
In terms of tropes, ′pataphysics might be the greatest one of all, with all tropes being examples of it as the rules of narrative causalities called stories. The troper is the pataphysician of these pataphorical worlds. Our metaphors run amok become pataphors, and our pataphors subject to our tropes. In these worlds the Genre Savvy are the physicists, and everything around them is the result of some person asking "what would it be like if All Theories Are True?" Or maybe it's just Artistic License Physics for worlds based on Rule of Cool, Just for Fun.
Architecture
- Neil Spiller has pursued the pataphysical aspects of architecture
- Peter Olshavsky researches and writes about ‘pataphysics in architecture
Literature
- The authors Giannina Braschi, Raymond Queneau, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Boris Vian, Rene Daumal and Jean Ferry have described themselves as following the pataphysical tradition.
- 'Pataphysics and pataphysicians feature prominently in several linked works by science fiction writer Pat Murphy.
- The philosopher Jean Baudrillard is often described as a pataphysician and identified as such for some part of his life.
- American writer Pablo Lopez has developed an extension of 'pataphysics called the pataphor.
Music
- In the song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" on the Beatles album, Abbey Road "'Pataphysical science" is mentioned as a course of study for Maxwell Edison's first victim, Joan.
- The debut album by Ron 'Pate's Debonairs, featuring Reverend Fred Lane (his first appearance on vinyl), is titled Raudelunas 'Pataphysical Revue (1977), a live theatrical performance. A review in The Wire magazine said, "No other record has ever come as close to realising Alfred Jarry's desire 'to make the soul monstrous' – or even had the vision or invention to try". 'Pate (note the 'pataphysical apostrophe) and Lane were central members in the Raudelunas art collective in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- Professor Andrew Hugill, of De Montfort University, is a practitioner of pataphysical music. He curated Pataphysics, for the Sonic Arts Network's CD series, and in 2007 some of his own music was issued by UHRecordings under the title Pataphysical Piano; the sounds and silences of Andrew Hugill.
- British progressive rock band Soft Machine were self described as "the Official Orchestra of the College of Pataphysics", and featured the two songs "Pataphysical Introduction" parts I and II on their 1969 album Volume Two.
- Japanese psychedelic rock band Acid Mothers Temple refer to the topic on their 1999 release Pataphisical Freak Out MU!!.
- Autolux, a Los Angeles based noise pop band, have a song "Science Of Imaginary Solutions" in their second album Transit Transit.
Real Life
- The Collège de 'Pataphysique, founded in 1948 in Paris, France, is a "society committed to learned and inutilious research". (The word 'inutilious' is synonymous with 'useless'.)
- The London Institute of 'Pataphysics was established in September 2000 to promote ‘pataphysics in the English-speaking world. The institute also contains a pataphysical museum and archive and organised the Anthony Hancock Paintings and Sculptures exhibition in 2002. The institute has various publications, including a journal and has six departments:
- Bureau for the Investigation of Subliminal Images
- Committee for Hirsutism and Pogonotrophy
- Department of Dogma and Theory
- Department of Potassons
- Department of Reconstructive Archaeology
- The Office of Patentry
- Musée Patamécanique is a private museum located in Bristol, Rhode Island. Founded in 2006, it is open by appointment only to friends, colleagues, and occasionally to outside observers. The museum is presented as a hybrid between an automaton theater and a cabinet of curiosities and contains works representing the field of Patamechanics, an artistic practice and area of study chiefly inspired by Pataphysics. Examples of exhibits include a troupe of singing animatronic Chipmunks, A Time Machine, which the museum claims to be the world’s largest automated Phenakistoscope, an olfactory Clock, a chandelier of singing animatronic nightingales, an Undigestulator (a device that purportedly reconstitutes digested foods), A Peanuts Enlarger, A Syzygistic Oracle, The Earolin (a 24 inch tall holographic ear that plays the violin), and a machine for capturing the dreams of bumble bees