monism
Original: monism on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (a man with flame-like/spiky hair, gesturing): "Monists believe there is no distinction between mind and body."
Panel 2 (same man): "Dualists believe mind and body are, in some sense, separate aspects of being."
Panel 3: "There's a lively debate here, but the important point is that both are talking about the same human beings."
Panel 4: "This proves that you can add 1 to the quantity of aspects without altering the being itself."
Panel 5: "By induction, you can be a monist, dualist, triplist, quadruplist, and so on. I am literally infinite-aspected. The greatest philosopher in ontology-space."
Panel 6: "Personally, I am a ten-to-the-twenty-fourth-ist. I believe every one of the aspects is meaningful but meaningless distinct."
Panel 7 (a woman, skeptical): "You've taken a difficult philosophy problem and reduced it to a solvable but pointless counting problem."
Panel 8 (the man): "You may also be interested in my work on firewalls."
Votey: A hand-lettered text panel reads: "I'm a 1.1ist. Body + 10% focused mind."
Panel 2 (same man): "Dualists believe mind and body are, in some sense, separate aspects of being."
Panel 3: "There's a lively debate here, but the important point is that both are talking about the same human beings."
Panel 4: "This proves that you can add 1 to the quantity of aspects without altering the being itself."
Panel 5: "By induction, you can be a monist, dualist, triplist, quadruplist, and so on. I am literally infinite-aspected. The greatest philosopher in ontology-space."
Panel 6: "Personally, I am a ten-to-the-twenty-fourth-ist. I believe every one of the aspects is meaningful but meaningless distinct."
Panel 7 (a woman, skeptical): "You've taken a difficult philosophy problem and reduced it to a solvable but pointless counting problem."
Panel 8 (the man): "You may also be interested in my work on firewalls."
Votey: A hand-lettered text panel reads: "I'm a 1.1ist. Body + 10% focused mind."
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic about philosophy of mind. A man with spiky, flame-like hair lectures a woman. He explains that monists believe there is no distinction between mind and body, while dualists believe mind and body are separate aspects of being. He argues that since both describe the same human beings, you can keep adding aspects without changing the being itself, so by induction one could be a triplist, quadruplist, and onward. He proudly declares himself infinite-aspected, the greatest philosopher in ontology-space, then says he is personally a ten-to-the-twenty-fourth-ist. The woman flatly responds that he has taken a difficult philosophy problem and reduced it to a solvable but pointless counting problem. He replies that she may also be interested in his work on firewalls. The votey aftercomic shows a hand-lettered panel: "I'm a 1.1ist. Body + 10% focused mind" — joking that he is barely more than just a body plus a slightly-engaged mind.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.