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The optional-skills copy was still the v1.0.0 constraint-dispatch skill (SKILL.md + full-prompt-library.md only). This brings it up to the current tool: a situation-routed library of 22 named ideation methods drawn from working artists, scientists, designers, and writers. SKILL.md becomes a 4-step router (extract PHASE/DOMAIN/SPECIFICITY signals → apply overrides → route phase-then-domain → resolve ambiguity), with anti-slop operating rules and an anti-default check. Adds: - 22 method files under references/methods/ — oblique-strategies (Eno/Schmidt), oulipo, scamper, lateral-provocations (de Bono), triz (Altshuller), leverage-points (Meadows), pattern-languages (Alexander), compression-progress (Schmidhuber), analogy-and-blending, pataphysics, first-principles, polya, biomimicry, volume-generation, creative-discipline, premortem-and-inversion, defamiliarization, derive-and-mapping, affinity-diagrams, jobs-to-be-done, story-skeletons, chance-and-remix. Each: when/when-not, the actual cards/principles/operators, a procedure, a worked example, anti-slop notes. - references/method-catalog.md (index + when-to-use), heuristics.md (extended decision tree), anti-slop.md (rules applied to every output), exercises.md (time-boxed exercises). - full-prompt-library.md restructured into domain-affinity sections (general / software / physical / social / lists) so the no-direction default isn't developer-biased. Frontmatter: name aligned to directory slug (creative-ideation, folding in the fix from #18084); version 2.0.0→2.1.0; platforms field preserved. Original wttdotm-derived constraint dispatch is kept as the default path. Supersedes #19295 (which targeted the pre-move skills/ path). Co-authored-by: SHL0MS <SHL0MS@users.noreply.github.com>
64 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
64 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
# Pataphysics
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Alfred Jarry, *Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien* (1898/1911). The science of imaginary solutions and particular cases.
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Where physics is general laws applied to common cases, **pataphysics studies particular cases and imaginary solutions** — the *one-offs*, the *exceptions*, the *imagined entities whose virtuality* (potential being) can be described as lawfully as actual objects.
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The OuLiPo was founded as a sub-committee of the Collège de 'Pataphysique. Marcel Duchamp, Eugène Ionesco, Boris Vian, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco were members. Borges, Lem, Calvino, Roussel are pataphysical writers in this sense.
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## When to use
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- Push past plausibility; specify the impossible thing in detail
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- Parodic / satirical work that needs rigorous form
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- Producing fictional artifacts (encyclopedias of non-existent civilizations, manuals for non-existent devices, reviews of non-existent books)
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- Stuck and the realistic solutions feel exhausted — specify the impossible solution
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- Highlighting that a "natural" framing is actually a choice
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## Don't use when
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- You need an actually-implementable proposal on the first pass
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- Audience requires sincerity (drifts toward irony)
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- Avoiding harder analysis (slop variant: pataphysical-flavored dodge)
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- You don't actually have anything to say (form requires content)
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## Operating moves
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### Specify an imaginary object
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1. Pick the object. A device, organism, institution, place, work, person — something that cannot exist.
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2. Specify its **lineaments** in concrete material detail. What is it made of? How does it operate? What are its parts?
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3. Identify its laws — internal consistency rules. What can it do? What can't it?
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4. Describe consequences if it existed.
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5. **Stop short of asking whether it could exist.** That question is not pataphysical.
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### Exception-finding
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1. State the general rule in your domain.
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2. Find the actually-existing case that doesn't fit.
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3. Describe it on its own terms — not as deviation, but as what it is.
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4. Resist generalizing back into a modified rule.
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5. The particular case is the result.
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### Pataphysical fiction
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1. Adopt the form of a serious genre (encyclopedia, manual, technical paper, museum catalog, book review).
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2. Apply the form rigorously to a non-existent subject.
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3. Don't break frame. Don't wink.
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## Worked example
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**Problem**: file synchronization software. Realistic solutions all involve some compromise on conflict resolution.
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**Pataphysical specification**: a file system in which two simultaneous edits to the same file produce a *third* file containing both edits as "ghosts" — versions visible to and editable by readers but not committed until a quorum of readers reads them and chooses one. The file exists in superposition until observation.
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**Lineaments**: ghost-files have an "observation count"; below threshold they are interactive but not committed; above, they collapse to chosen version.
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**Consequences**: editing a popular file is fast (quorum collapses quickly); editing an obscure file is slow (no quorum). The file system has *audience-dependent commit semantics*.
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The specification is impossible. But *audience-dependent commit semantics*, surfaced by the pataphysical move, is in fact a useful concept with plausible implementations.
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## Anti-slop notes
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- Whimsical incoherence is not pataphysics. "What if cows could fly" without the cow's wing-loading and lift coefficient = sloppy fantasy.
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- Don't generate fake-Borges or fake-Calvino. Their work is grounded in deep specifics. Generated "in the style of" is decorative.
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- The dry, committed register matters. Comedic SF is not pataphysics.
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- Don't walk back to "of course this is just a thought experiment" at the end. That undoes the operation.
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Sources: Jarry, *Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien* (Fasquelle, 1911); Borges, *Ficciones* (1944); Lem, *A Perfect Vacuum* (1971).
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