2010-11-21

An eight-panel comic. A red-haired man in glasses tells a brown-haired woman, 'I've always been a bit of a geek.' She snaps 'No you haven't!' and declares 'From the past, I summon 18-year-old you!' A glowing blonde teenage version of him appears; when asked what he's reading, the teen says 'Nothing. I'm mostly playing video games and trying to be cool.' The man protests 'That's not me! It's a lie!' The woman counters that the lie is his notion of self, that in ten years she could summon today's version and he'd hate him, ranting that he's 'a distant echo of your former self with a false sense of importance derived from an incorrect belief in an unbroken stream of consciousness!' Leaning face-to-face with the furious woman, he says 'Wow. Dad was right,' then turns to his elderly father: 'Son, never date a philosopher with a time machine.' Votey: the man asks his father 'Any other advice?' The bald, bespectacled father flatly replies 'Nope.'