four
Original: four on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Narration/Caption: The central question of epistemology is this: can you ever truly know the contents of another mind?
A man with curly hair and glasses, hand to his chin, speaks:
Man: Yeah, it's easy. Have them think about the number 4 while shouting "fooooooouuuuuurrrrrr!" and then you can be pretty confident that at that moment they're thinking about 4.
Caption (below panel): Engineers are no longer invited to the philosophy department.
Votey:
A speech bubble (no visible speaker face) reads: How did you guys miss this?
Below, a large face/head is drawn (eyes, nose), looking down. No further dialogue.
Narration/Caption: The central question of epistemology is this: can you ever truly know the contents of another mind?
A man with curly hair and glasses, hand to his chin, speaks:
Man: Yeah, it's easy. Have them think about the number 4 while shouting "fooooooouuuuuurrrrrr!" and then you can be pretty confident that at that moment they're thinking about 4.
Caption (below panel): Engineers are no longer invited to the philosophy department.
Votey:
A speech bubble (no visible speaker face) reads: How did you guys miss this?
Below, a large face/head is drawn (eyes, nose), looking down. No further dialogue.
Alt text
A two-part SMBC comic. Main panel: a caption reads "The central question of epistemology is this: can you ever truly know the contents of another mind?" A man with curly hair and glasses, hand on his chin, answers: "Yeah, it's easy. Have them think about the number 4 while shouting 'fooooooouuuuuurrrrrr!' and then you can be pretty confident that at that moment they're thinking about 4." A caption beneath reads: "Engineers are no longer invited to the philosophy department." The joke: an engineer offers a blunt, literal hack to a deep philosophical problem and gets exiled from philosophy. Votey (aftercomic): a speech bubble asks "How did you guys miss this?" above a large drawn head/face looking downward, implying the engineer smugly thinks they've solved a question philosophers overlooked.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.