A scientist contemplates the studies of existence and goes a bit mad.
Doctor Lind Olstom sat quietly in his infinite room. Slowly going insane.
As a child, and even to adulthood, he loved hard magic systems in books, explaining the magical with comprehensive and repeatable science, or at least magibabble. Now though, he liked it a little bit less.
‘Easier said than done’ was a hyper-understatement to the task he had. There he went again, adding random prefixes to words.
“Create a starting point for a unified theory by studying the interactions between essophysics, pataphysics, and tactical theology.”
He got up and lay face down on the white nothing-floor.
It helped him think, probably. Probably.
Well, as far as he knew, his mind was still intact, so just do it, yeah?
Yeah.
Essophysics, the study of conceptual embodiments, based on human thought. Like… super memetics. He got up to his desk again and reviewed his mind’s log of the lectures he attended, and lessons he learned.
He read, and paused, then read again. He put his head onto the desk, arms around it.
Could he maybe relate it to his current place? A place purely of mind? He rubbed at his hair. No. Won’t work.
Because essophysics is fucking physical too. It could make a mountain out of the abstract meta-systems of economics. A physical mountain that does shit if you move it.
It’s fine. Move on.
Lind took a steadying breath.
Move onto tactical theology. The application of religion and implied divinity in the field. Or literally just weaponizing religion and faith.
Liiiind, faith is a human concept. Humans make gods from faith, humans direct their brains to make a guy out of things they believe in. THEN IS THAT GUY ESSOPHYSICAL, LIND? Why or why not? WHY OR WHY NOT?!
He slammed a fist onto the desk. Causing at least a satisfying noise that jolted his own brain.
It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine. He took a breath. It’ll take so much cross experimentation and referencing, but he didn’t need to do that! He just needed to start somewhere ONE step.
Alright, just bridge them. Just a single thought to bridge them, just the seed of a seed to get them somewhere to start.
He knew how gods formed, most times, when enough people believed in something enough, that something takes the shape of a person. What about essophysical embodiments?
He realized: One difference is that gods are nearly always animate, while embodiments don’t have to be. Like that fuckhead mountain.
That’s something! Right?
Alright. What if he got more abstract: Death has an essophysical embodiment, he was pretty sure. Is that the same as theologically apothetical gods of death?
Because he really really didn’t like it if it WASN’T. Maybe he should get the department of surrealistics involved? Ha ha ha
He slammed the table again.
Can there be a god of incarnations? A god whose very domain is about incarnating into different forms? Would that god’s essophysical embodiment be recursive? Would it even need faith to sustain it at that point?!
Lind felt his brain peeling into neither.
He needed an anchor, just something concrete.
Akiva-Hume interaction. In a location with high cAk, Humes decreased. So more faith, means more likely apotheosis, means less reality in a location in preparation for the more-real god.
He didn't know if Humes had anything to do with essophysics, but he needed a lifeline to ground him. An objective truth to…
Do objective truths even ex–
He slapped his face with both hands. DO NOT go down that spiral.
It was something though, a working hypothesis: A god that people believe in hard enough could become intrinsic to the human noosphere, which could then undergo a second apotheosis into an essophysical entity.
Right? Yeah? That sounded real! That was–!
He cut his own thoughts off and encoded the initial hypothesis into his computer. It was something.
He sighed. It helped.
Lind moved onto the third concept: Pataphysics. His behated. At least, the foundation’s definition of it, not the literal parodic one. BUT FOR ALL ACCOUNTS IT WAS ABSOLUTELY SATIRE OF REALITY.
He laughed, which turned into a scream.
No, he didn’t lose his mind, it was the kind of scream that someone completely alone does when deep in thought, in the need to let some stress go.
Other people did that… right?
Pataphysics was the study of reality as a narrative, inheriting all the fun and quirky story tools like tropes, archetypes, plot devices.
In concept, easy to understand, easy to conceptualize logically. But in practice? IN PRACTICE?
He stood up “if you pata then you physica! Wow!” He said to no one as he walked over and started doing pushups. He probably wasn’t actually going insane. But he would! If he couldn’t finalize this initial hypothesis! Because no one was gonna let him out before then!
If culture was a story, if religion was a story, if religion contained stories. If narrativistic entities pulled from tropes from the human noosphere
Then,
Then then then then then
Theeeeennnn
He stopped his pushups and collapsed onto his back as he stared at the white nothing, panting. He raised a hand, and mimed a triangle.
At the top part of the triangle was essophysics. He made a line to the right part, tactical theology, and imagined the words ‘A god that embodies a ubiquitous idea may undergo a second apotheosis, and become an embodiment.’
He connected the triangle horizontally, from right—to left, which is pataphysics. ’A god cannot apotheosize if it doesn’t have a proper story.’
He connected pataphysics to essophysics, left, to top. This he spent much longer to think of. ‘Narremes, plots, stories themselves. Are–’
‘Stories are humanity’s…’
…
He sat up suddenly, eyes briefly wide. He had an epiphany. One that could be completely wrong.
Still, he imagined the words connecting pataphysics and essophysics:
‘Existence is the essophysical embodiment of stories. We are the universe telling itself about itself.’
“Chicken or egg, huh?” He rambled.
And laughed, a whole-bellied laugh. Maybe it was navel-gazing junk, maybe it was completely invalid, what it was didn’t matter, he was only here to seed the hypothesis.
“What happens when all three intersect?” He asked, but despite his science-curious mind, the answer to that didn’t matter to him anymore.
He was done, and he could get out.
And he did.