PATAPHYSICS-THE-POETICS-OF-AN-IMAGINARY- SCIENCE_C_Bok

our judgments and ' knowledge ' ," for which " there is
absolutely no escape[ ...] into the real world" (Babich 89).
Science, for Jarry, is also such "a statement of what is
visible to the mortal eye ( it is always a matter of mortal
eyes, hence vulgar and[ ...] flawedi. ..], and the sensory
organ being a cause of error, the scientific instrument
simply magnifies that sense in the direction of its error)"
(1989:105). As Daumal avers, no science can exceed the
nooscopic limit of its own anthropic focus, and thus
"['p]ataphysics will measure[ ...] the extent to which
everyone is stuck in the rut of individual existence" (33).
Jarry adopts such a solipsistic viewpoint, in which
perception "s~mbolicallv attributes the properties of
objects, described bv their virtuality, to tbeir lineaments"
(1965:193), the 'pataphysician wilfully mistaking the
superfice of the image for the substance of the thing:
"he
no longer made any distinction at al1 between his thoughts
and actions nor between his dreaming and[ ...] waking"
(1989:103). Just as Nietzsche describes reality as a
vacuous surface, in which we grasp "nothing but the mirror"
(1982:141), so also does Jarry describe a reality of
"parallel mirrors" that reflect their own "reciprocal
emptiness" (1965:211).
Like Berkeley, both Jarry and
Nietzsche argue that esse is perci~i, but while Berkeley