What time is it at the North Pole? Thats Odin's 18th secret.

Worldwide, 'pataphysics is unconsciously, but deliberately practised, by two groups of people:
computer hackers, and students of Zen. The hacker uses 'pataphysical heuristics to probe and control hardware in unexpected ways.  Techniques like fuzzing explore state space with conscious understanding; any result that can be made to fit the task at hand is valuable. Its important to note that any fuzzing technique does not explore in any sort of logical or comprehensive way. Equally well, its random approach will often yield nuggets of considerable value.

It is instructive to note that the C programming language makes a nod in a 'paytaphysical direction with its warnings about 'undefined behavior'. Unlike many languages which take careful steps top limit the number and range of possible states a program can create, C merely sketches out the known and (semi) safe paths, recognizing that paradigms of all-encompassing safety are cumbersome and slow.
They have their place: I have no interest in the safety control systems of, say, Bruce A & B Nuclear Power Plants being greatly capable of 'undefined behavior'. It certainly is capable of some: such is the brutal lesson of Turing and Godel.

Zen is famous for its use of koans, vignettes designed to jam the mental structures of disciples. Contradiction, paradox, oxymoron; these are all logical descriptors of anti logical states. Koans encompass them, and more.
It is no co-incidence that many advanced hackers have shown a keen interest in Zen concepts.

Perhaps it is unfortunate that such subtle and advanced concepts have really only be explored as farce, philosophy and espionage; but perhaps Alfred Jarry  would have appreciated the joke that the idea before him could be used to break the most regimented and orderly of human creation: digital computers.

because I can't shut up, consider that Odin didn't gain powers when he hung himself on the World Tree, he gained insight, and he was able to use that insight to gain powers.

"I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run."

 A prototypical strange loop is demonstrated as a sacrifice ' by myself to myself'.
He hangs until the twigs on the ground form the shape of letters, which he reads, and is enlightened.

"Ere long I bare fruit,
and throve full well,
I grew and waxed in wisdom;
word following word,
I found me words,
deed following deed,
I wrought deeds."

What deeds? he is already a god, with godlike powers, but without lists of heroic actions. Odin's actions are manipulative and secretive; he always preferred the indirect course and the hidden way to the blatant exercise of power. His characteristic weapon is the spear  Gungnir, which is a weapon that leaves the hand, and kills with sudden thrust.
In the Havamal he boasts of eighteen charms that he knows, presumably from his quest.

"I know a fourth 

if I should find myself 

 fettered hand and foot, 

 I shout the spell 

 that sets me free,

bonds break from my feet, 

 nothing holds my hands."

That is practically the plot of the Matrix, in a nutshell.

The majority of the charms do things like manipulate emotions and actions. Especially emotions: out of seventeen explicated charms, five of them manipulate emotions. two more are about knowledge, and a third allows him to extract knowledge from the dead.*
This of course leads to another point made ins several different ancient poems, that Odin knew seid which while immensely powerful, was considered unmanly.
Seid might be translated as 'witchcraft' but is closer to what the Oracles of Delphi did, and like the Oracles, these skills may have been seen as acceptable for only women to practise, adding a hint of immorality to his knowledge.
Doesn't that sound like hacking, with its queasy morals and hidden powers?
I know many if-knowledge-is-power-than-a-god-am-I types would rather the cool shapeshifting trickster Loki to be their patrons, and in a way his Coyote bumbling and savage punishments do mirror the real-world manifestation of hackers wannabes.

But the true un-masters, the enlightened of the Rootless Root, have their prototype in the shadowy archetypal world:

Odin - the hidden god of hackers.



*The ultimate undelete.