soul-3
Original: soul-3 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
A man, head bowed and eyes closed, prays.
Man (praying): Dear God, are all apparently-conscious people conscious? Or are they just empty husks behaving as if they're like me, but lacking complex imaginative thought?
Panel 2:
God (replying, small voice from above): Look, originally, there were two humans. I set up good souls in a templates pile so there'd be plenty to go around.
Man: Little ol' robot?
Panel 3:
God: About 3 seconds later you inbred monkeys woke up to a billion of you, and I just put new bodies on souls i'd basically already eternal.
Man: Am I one of the good souls?
Panel 4:
God: Those guys are way better at calculating probabilities.
Votey:
The man (drawn from behind/profile, looking dejected): Boy I'm glad I don't have a rich inner mind.
A man, head bowed and eyes closed, prays.
Man (praying): Dear God, are all apparently-conscious people conscious? Or are they just empty husks behaving as if they're like me, but lacking complex imaginative thought?
Panel 2:
God (replying, small voice from above): Look, originally, there were two humans. I set up good souls in a templates pile so there'd be plenty to go around.
Man: Little ol' robot?
Panel 3:
God: About 3 seconds later you inbred monkeys woke up to a billion of you, and I just put new bodies on souls i'd basically already eternal.
Man: Am I one of the good souls?
Panel 4:
God: Those guys are way better at calculating probabilities.
Votey:
The man (drawn from behind/profile, looking dejected): Boy I'm glad I don't have a rich inner mind.
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic. In the first panel, a man bows his head and prays: "Dear God, are all apparently-conscious people conscious? Or are they just empty husks behaving as if they're like me, but lacking complex imaginative thought?" In the following panels God answers from above, explaining that originally there were only two humans and he set up good souls in a templates pile so there'd be plenty to go around, but "about 3 seconds later you inbred monkeys woke up to a billion of you," so he just put new bodies on souls he'd basically already used. When the man asks "Am I one of the good souls?", God deflects, saying the others are "way better at calculating probabilities." The joke turns on God dodging whether this particular man got a real soul. In the votey aftercomic, the same man, now looking deflated, says: "Boy I'm glad I don't have a rich inner mind."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.