consciousness-3
Original: consciousness-3 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1
Young woman with orange hair (walking beside an older bearded professor in a green outdoor setting): Professor, why do we even have consciousness? It's clear most of our actions are done automatically and "free choice" is just a story we tell ourselves. Why pretend "we" are in control?
Panel 2
Professor: That's easy. You get a fitness benefit from being able to imagine scenarios. In social creatures, that includes modeling other animals. As a byproduct, some creatures become able to model themselves.
Panel 3
Young woman: Okay, but why all the lying?
Panel 4
Professor: Imagine you wake up one morning in a car driven by an insane monkey. You can only observe the monkey from the back seat. The doors are locked. You try to talk to the monkey, touch the monkey, but it won't listen.
(A silhouetted scene shows two small figures.)
Panel 5
Professor: You spend a little while freaking out, clawing at the windows, but it becomes clear there's no escape.
Panel 6
Professor: What's the only way to get by without going mad?
Professor: Decide you are in control of the car.
Panel 7 (close-ups of the wide-eyed professor, then the woman)
Panel 8
Professor (gesturing): This is why babies spend their first 3 years crying. And then forget that they did so!
Votey:
A crying face is drawn, with large letters "WAAAA" scrawled above it.
Young woman with orange hair (walking beside an older bearded professor in a green outdoor setting): Professor, why do we even have consciousness? It's clear most of our actions are done automatically and "free choice" is just a story we tell ourselves. Why pretend "we" are in control?
Panel 2
Professor: That's easy. You get a fitness benefit from being able to imagine scenarios. In social creatures, that includes modeling other animals. As a byproduct, some creatures become able to model themselves.
Panel 3
Young woman: Okay, but why all the lying?
Panel 4
Professor: Imagine you wake up one morning in a car driven by an insane monkey. You can only observe the monkey from the back seat. The doors are locked. You try to talk to the monkey, touch the monkey, but it won't listen.
(A silhouetted scene shows two small figures.)
Panel 5
Professor: You spend a little while freaking out, clawing at the windows, but it becomes clear there's no escape.
Panel 6
Professor: What's the only way to get by without going mad?
Professor: Decide you are in control of the car.
Panel 7 (close-ups of the wide-eyed professor, then the woman)
Panel 8
Professor (gesturing): This is why babies spend their first 3 years crying. And then forget that they did so!
Votey:
A crying face is drawn, with large letters "WAAAA" scrawled above it.
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A young woman with orange hair walks outdoors with an older bearded professor. She asks why we even have consciousness, since our actions seem automatic and "free choice" feels like a story we tell ourselves, so why pretend "we" are in control. The professor explains that imagining scenarios gives a fitness benefit, including modeling other animals, and as a byproduct some creatures become able to model themselves. She asks why all the lying. He answers with an analogy, shown in silhouette: imagine waking up in a car driven by an insane monkey; you're locked in the back seat and the monkey won't respond to you. You freak out and claw at the windows, but there's no escape. The only way to get by without going mad, he says, is to decide you are in control of the car. After wide-eyed reaction close-ups, he concludes that this is why babies spend their first three years crying, and then forget that they did so. Votey: a crude drawing of a crying face with the scrawled letters "WAAAA" above it.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.