2014-07-26
Original: 2014-07-26 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
A conversation between two glowing star-like beings (one yellow, one blue).
Blue being: The humans are fascinating. They're like other sapient races, but uniquely they lack an objective sense organ.
Yellow being: What do you mean? How is that even possible?
Blue being: They just don't. They have a barrage of sense organs which give different general ideas about what's around them.
Yellow being: I don't understand.
Blue being: Like, if you gave one a ball of middle element, it would say "this feels cold," meaning it felt energy leaving its body. Or, it might say "this is heavy," meaning its mass has a large directional tendency in local spacetime. Or it might say "this is shiny," meaning it reflects light, then it would say "this is iron."
Blue being: But all of those are conditional, relative statements. They're almost vacuous. Why not just perceive middle element and use your concept transmitter to tell others about it?
Yellow being: They don't have a concept transmitter.
Blue being: Sadly, one triggers another's sense organ with an assurance of affection. The other considers the assurance statistically and decides whether to proceed.
Yellow being: What?! How do they mate?
Blue being: What a nightmare. It'd be like you were born in a tiny cavity inside a giant sphere, and the only way to communicate was by poking a stick through a narrow hole in the wall.
Yellow being: Yes.
Blue being: Now, imagine those beings somehow create spaceships, warp drives, and fusion bombs.
Yellow being: What?
Blue being: They're scared, so you get missiles.
Blue being: The universe is doomed.
Votey: A person with their hand on their chin, eyes closed, looking weary/resigned. Thought or speech at top: "I PROMISE A SHORT JOKE TOMORROW!"
Blue being: The humans are fascinating. They're like other sapient races, but uniquely they lack an objective sense organ.
Yellow being: What do you mean? How is that even possible?
Blue being: They just don't. They have a barrage of sense organs which give different general ideas about what's around them.
Yellow being: I don't understand.
Blue being: Like, if you gave one a ball of middle element, it would say "this feels cold," meaning it felt energy leaving its body. Or, it might say "this is heavy," meaning its mass has a large directional tendency in local spacetime. Or it might say "this is shiny," meaning it reflects light, then it would say "this is iron."
Blue being: But all of those are conditional, relative statements. They're almost vacuous. Why not just perceive middle element and use your concept transmitter to tell others about it?
Yellow being: They don't have a concept transmitter.
Blue being: Sadly, one triggers another's sense organ with an assurance of affection. The other considers the assurance statistically and decides whether to proceed.
Yellow being: What?! How do they mate?
Blue being: What a nightmare. It'd be like you were born in a tiny cavity inside a giant sphere, and the only way to communicate was by poking a stick through a narrow hole in the wall.
Yellow being: Yes.
Blue being: Now, imagine those beings somehow create spaceships, warp drives, and fusion bombs.
Yellow being: What?
Blue being: They're scared, so you get missiles.
Blue being: The universe is doomed.
Votey: A person with their hand on their chin, eyes closed, looking weary/resigned. Thought or speech at top: "I PROMISE A SHORT JOKE TOMORROW!"
Alt text
An SMBC comic set against a black starfield. Two glowing celestial beings converse: one is a fuzzy yellow star-like orb, the other a fuzzy blue one. The blue being explains that humans are fascinating because, unlike other sapient races, they lack an "objective sense organ." It says humans instead have many sense organs giving only relative impressions: handed a ball of "middle element," a human might call it cold (energy leaving the body), heavy (mass with directional tendency in spacetime), or shiny (reflecting light, then identified as iron). The blue being complains these are vacuous relative statements and asks why humans don't just perceive the element directly and use a "concept transmitter" to share it. The yellow being replies that humans have no concept transmitter. The blue being adds that humans mate by one triggering another's sense organ with an "assurance of affection," which the other evaluates statistically before deciding to proceed. The yellow being is baffled ("How do they mate?"). The blue being likens human existence to being born inside a giant sphere, able to communicate only by poking a stick through a narrow hole in the wall; the yellow being agrees. The blue being then notes these limited beings have nonetheless built spaceships, warp drives, and fusion bombs, and because they're scared, they make missiles. It concludes: "The universe is doomed." The votey panel shows a hand-drawn person resting their hand on their chin with eyes closed, looking weary, with the caption "I PROMISE A SHORT JOKE TOMORROW!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.