natural-selection-2
Original: natural-selection-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Green-skinned woman (the brain): Hi, natural selection! It's neat how you made the right brain for emotions and a left brain for reason.
Woman (off to the side): What? What are you talking about?
Panel 2:
Woman: There are left brain people no right brain people, you know?
Green brain-woman: Oh god. Jesus. What's the matter with you?
Panel 3:
Green brain-woman: Here's what happened. I made your brain good at finding patterns. Perhaps that's a fault. You've apparently tried to categorize your brain in a way that is in defiance of all common sense, in a desperate effort to understand something that is far too complex for you.
Panel 4:
Woman: My brain is too complex for my brain to understand?
Green brain-woman: Oh yeah! Way too complex. You can't even process how simplified you've made it. There isn't a single, indivisible, autonomous natural process... what... a ghost or something?
Panel 5:
Woman: Yeah, I guess a sort of like... ghost-nymph sort of thing?
Green brain-woman: A ghost-nymph-thing that speaks english and looks human like a person you're imagining who is irritated with you and you're starting to get defensive about it?
Panel 6:
Green brain-woman: What's your problem, lady?
Woman: Okay! Sorry I brought it up.
Votey:
Large caption text: MAKE MORE BABIES!
A line-drawn anthropomorphic face (representing natural selection / the brain personification) looks on.
Green-skinned woman (the brain): Hi, natural selection! It's neat how you made the right brain for emotions and a left brain for reason.
Woman (off to the side): What? What are you talking about?
Panel 2:
Woman: There are left brain people no right brain people, you know?
Green brain-woman: Oh god. Jesus. What's the matter with you?
Panel 3:
Green brain-woman: Here's what happened. I made your brain good at finding patterns. Perhaps that's a fault. You've apparently tried to categorize your brain in a way that is in defiance of all common sense, in a desperate effort to understand something that is far too complex for you.
Panel 4:
Woman: My brain is too complex for my brain to understand?
Green brain-woman: Oh yeah! Way too complex. You can't even process how simplified you've made it. There isn't a single, indivisible, autonomous natural process... what... a ghost or something?
Panel 5:
Woman: Yeah, I guess a sort of like... ghost-nymph sort of thing?
Green brain-woman: A ghost-nymph-thing that speaks english and looks human like a person you're imagining who is irritated with you and you're starting to get defensive about it?
Panel 6:
Green brain-woman: What's your problem, lady?
Woman: Okay! Sorry I brought it up.
Votey:
Large caption text: MAKE MORE BABIES!
A line-drawn anthropomorphic face (representing natural selection / the brain personification) looks on.
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A green-skinned woman personifying a person's brain (and natural selection) argues with a normal-looking woman. The brain-woman sarcastically thanks natural selection for making a 'right brain for emotions and a left brain for reason.' When the woman mentions 'left brain people' and 'right brain people,' the brain-woman is exasperated: 'Oh god. Jesus. What's the matter with you?' She explains she made the woman's brain good at finding patterns, which led her to categorize her own brain in defiance of common sense, trying to understand something far too complex. The woman asks if her brain is too complex for her brain to understand; the brain-woman says yes, way too complex, and that there's no single indivisible autonomous process running it — then incredulously asks if the woman is imagining it as a 'ghost or something.' The woman admits, 'a ghost-nymph sort of thing.' The brain-woman mocks the idea of a ghost-nymph that speaks English, looks human, and is getting defensive — 'What's your problem, lady?' The woman says, 'Okay! Sorry I brought it up.' The joke: the brain is too complex to model itself, so we invent a tidy little homunculus, then get defensive when that imagined self is challenged. Votey (aftercomic): a rough line-drawn face shouts in big letters 'MAKE MORE BABIES!' — natural selection's blunt actual priority.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.