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‘Pataphysics

I took an introductory philosophy class during my first year of college. We concentrated on three topics during the semester: the existence of God, moral relativity, and metaphysics–that is, existence and its nature. The word “metaphysics” means One thing we didn’t talk about what was beyond metaphysics, maybe because metaphysics was deep enough for an introductory course.

Such a thing does exist, and it’s called ‘pataphysics. Note the opening apostrophe. It’s actually a parody of academic fields that describes itself as “the science of imaginary solutions”. Not silly (or cool) enough? Enter the ‘pataphor.

You know what a metaphor is: a direct comparison between two dissimilar objects. The metaphor compares the two objects on only one level, while the ‘pataphor compares on two levels, usually abandoning the original context to get to the second level. As an example, you may compare something to a flower, then mention someone else gardening in another world. It reminds me of cuil theory with its abstractions from reality. Maybe the ‘pataphysicists should pick this up.

Alternately, this idea could be a good premise for another world on which to build a novel. Hmmm.

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