On Portmantogas and Miniontology
A Halloweentertaining diversion from our regular newsletterrain
Marie Curieous George. Skeletonya Harding. Jack’o’lantourniquet.
These were a few of the amazing costumes at my friends Natalie and Jason’s portmantalent party yesterday. (I personally find it hilariously meta that “portmantalent” is itself a portmanteau* based on what our hosts had called the party in previous years — a portmantoga party. You know you’ve got good branding when you can drop half of the portmanteau you yourself created, to making of a new portmanteau that keeps the meaning of the whole!)
My kids had dictated my “normal” Halloween costume this year: The whole family is minions. So I brainstormed many portminionteaus. Multivitaminion was a favorite. I played around for a while with minionion (so many possible interpretations! Mini-onion? Minion-ion? I personally prefer the pronunciation minYUNyin. Try repeating it three times out loud; it feels like you’ve got toffee in your mouth.)
But then the revelation hit: I would be a Miniontologist. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so certain about something in my entire life. And for the talent show, I would deliver a short lecture on miniontology.
So, with no further ado: Here is the kind of thing that happens when I have spare time on my hands…
The Minionaugural Minioannual Autuminional Lecture on Miniontology
Thank you so much for having me here today to talk about the fast-growing field of miniontology. As you know, Miniontology is concerned with the nature of Being a Minion. We tackle such important questions as the reality, modality, and identity of minions. I know that this field is new to many of you, so today I just want to give a taste of the exciting questions that we are tackling. I’ll outline three of the fundamental problems in Miniontology and leave you with one key principle in each problem area.
Problem #1: Particulars vs minioniversals.
Consider individual minions such as Bob, Kevin, and Stuart. They have various properties in common with each other as well as with other minions. For example, the form of yellow, the form of short-legged-ness; the forms of one-eyed and two-eyedness; and of course the overarching form of being a minion.
Should these properties be considered to exist beyond those minions? And if a property of minions exists separately from minions, what is the nature of that minioniversal’s existence?
Plato believed that there was a sharp distinction between the world of perceivable minions, and the world of minion-related forms. For Plato, it was not possible to have knowledge of anything that could change or was particular. And particular minions can change, but not minioniversal forms. Hence, he would argue that you can have knowledge of the concept of yellow, but only an opinion about a particular minionstantiation of yellow. This leads us to the First Principle of Miniontology:
Principle #1: One can have knowledge of the form of minions. But regarding the world of particular minions, one cannot have knowledge, one can only have minionpinions.
Problem Number 2: Minioessence
The second problem I’d like to draw your attention to today is the problem of Minioessence. The substance of a minion has two kinds of properties: Essential properties and accidental properties.
To illustrate, I would pose a question to you all. If a minion loses its overalls, is it still. Minion? Let’s see a show of hands. Who would say a minion without overalls is still a minion? And who would say a minion without overalls is no longer a minion? [Note: As expected, approximately 80% of lecture attendees expressed the view that a minion without overalls is still a minion.] You can see the common consensus is that a minion who loses his overalls is still a minion.
Hence, the wearing of overalls is an accidental property of any individual minion.
Let’s try another example: If a minion no longer wants to serve a boss and instead wants to settle down in a nice suburban home outside of Pittsburgh and raise a family, is he still a minion? Show of hands for yes? Show of hands for no? [Note: As expected, approximately 80% of in-person lecture attendees voted for “no.”]
So you see, desire to serve a boss is an essential property of minions.
These examples lead us to our Second Principle of Miniontology
Principle #2: A minion can survive a change of accidental properties. But if a minion cannot survive the loss of a property and still be a minion, then that property is minioessential.
Problem Number 3: Miniontological dependence
An entity ontologically depends on another entity if the first entity cannot exist without the second entity. Miniontologically independent entities, on the other hand, can exist all by themselves. AriStuartle was the first to state clearly that that the highest and proper goal of miniontology is to determine which entities are independent of minions and which are dependent on them. A secondary goal is to determine the miniontological hierarchy of dependence among the latter.
For example, the eye or eyes of a minion cannot exist without the minion, and so depend on the minion ontologically.
Principle Number 3: If an entity depends on minions to exist, it is minion-dependent. If it can exist without minions, it is miny-independent.
As a side note, the very similar pronunciations between these two concepts led to a near-fatal misunderstanding between the great 18th century miniontologists Imminionel Kant and Moses Minionson. At a debate in the German city of Miniunich, Kant believed that Minionson was claiming that the goggles were minion-dependent, although he was actually saying miny-independent. After repeated attempts to clarify, Kant challenged Minionson to a duel to resolve matters.
Luckily, Bob and Stuart accidentally herded several dozen stampeding sheep through the middle of the duel, two of whom took the men’s bullets. Kant and Minionson decided that Gru must want them both to live, and cleared up their earlier confusion over a feast of muttinion.
Conclusion
That concludes my presentation today. Thank you so much for coming! For those of you who find the field of miniontology as scintillating as I do, please note that I will be accepting two new graduate students next academic year. You can find the applications on the website of the Miniouniversity. I’ll be staying for the reception after the talks conclude, please don’t hesitate to come ask me questions 1-1 and hopefully I will have minioanswers!
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*For the readers who are scratching their heads and saying “I am sure I’ve heard that word before…” and haven’t yet googled it: A portmanteau is a word that is created by mashing two other words together and either dropping letters or overlapping letters — e.g., brunch, motel, webinar, bromance, cronut.
**The costumes in the photo, from left: Jason as Kebab Ross, Sadhie as NinJa Rule, me as a Miniontologist (with an ontology textbook in my front pocket), Rana as Spidermom, Christine as Ziggy Startup, and Natalie as an Umbrellephant.