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

64
observes that "whatever is self-evident cloaks itself in
absurditv as its onls means of ~ercep-"--" [ w J hence
the humorous appearance of [ ' ] pataphysical reasoning " ( 3 1 ) ,
whose ludicrous syllogisms lead to an infinitude of
simulation:
lt[']pataphysical sophism is an apparent sophism
which envelops an apparent truth which envelops an apparent
sophism which envelops an apparent truth, and so on ad
infinitum" (111)--or as Torma observes:
J~lut metaphssics
behind r'lpatapbvsics and vou make it merels the facade for
a belief" when in fact "the essence of I'l~ata~husics is
that it is the facade of a facade, behind which there is
nothingW--only the black abyss of total doubt (Hale 145).
The Ethernitv of Faustroll
Jarry situstes his own 'pataphysical sensibility in
such a posited reality, an imaginary dimension that he calls
Ethernitv, a "NOWHERE, or SOMEWHERE, which is the same
thing" ( 1965: 248)--an interzone where the reference of a
sign does not describe, but conjures, the existence of the
real through the ur of simulation.
Ethernity resembles a
state of maximum entropp-a nullified condition whose
potential goes unmeasured, unobserved, its ei~enstate
corresponding to "the perplexity of a man outside time and
space, who has lost his[ ...] measuring rod, and his tuning