Existential Comics

08 December 2025 19:30

The foxhole reveals who you truly are, and some people just are that big of nerds it turns out.

Existential Comics

01 December 2025 18:30

Property is theft you say? How dare you, I worked hard writing up these contracts that say I own the entire world and everyone else has to pay me rent.

Existential Comics

24 November 2025 20:30

"Oh also we finished physics after an alien called Isaac Newton wrote Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica 20,000 years ago. After that it was just refining the numbers."

Existential Comics

17 November 2025 18:30

Really though more people do need to try to Kill the Computer.

Existential Comics

10 November 2025 18:30

This is the ideal solution because it makes them both unhappy, revealing the horrible existential truth about the world: that Schopenhauer is an asshole.

Existential Comics

03 November 2025 19:30

"Yes he has devoured my body, but I have dealt him a far greater blow, I have planted the seed that will devour his soul, for as his anguish grows — AHHH OH SHIT NEVERMIND THIS IS WAY WORSE!!"

Existential Comics

27 October 2025 16:30

Modern generative AI is sort of John Searle's Chinese Room come to life, where he postulates being inside of a machine that can pass a Turing Test and see that it is only manipulating syntax, and has no consciousness, intentionality, or actual understanding of semantics. One big opponent of his theories are the Functional Theories of Mind. People like Hilary Putnam will say that if a machine can be build that does all the functions of a mind, then it is a mind. Anything like consciousness will come along with those functions, and if Searle's room is indistinguishable functionally from a human brain, then the room itself does in fact understand as we do.
Of course they have not exactly been proven wrong either with generative AI, because while they can pass simple Turing tests they fall apart very quickly under real scrutiny, precisely because they lack the things Searle suggested. Searle believed we needed to understand how the brain creates consciousness more before trying to replicate it with machines, because what the machines are doing now is clearly quite different. As of yet, we have not created any hardware that even attempts to do this, because we simply don't know what it is. Our conscious minds do clearly seem to do something other than "make a statistical guess at what other people might have said in this situation" though.

Existential Comics

27 October 2025 16:30

Philosophy vs the Terminator - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

20 October 2025 17:30

The Lord of the Rings is considered a fantasy because the trees win the battle against industrialization.

Existential Comics

13 October 2025 18:30

It's amazing how no philosophers have come up with the idea of "the best life is hoarding endless wealth while others toil in poverty", it's almost like it's a horrible idea.

Existential Comics

06 October 2025 18:30

Luckily when they come back they'll see that it was just a mistake, and the rest of human history is totally smart and good.

Existential Comics

29 September 2025 18:30

Ultimately of course it doesn't matter what Jesus actually teaches because people just make up what they want it to be after the fact.

Existential Comics

22 September 2025 18:30

The theory of Occams Razors (plural): the simplest solution to any given problem is often to razor the other guy.

Existential Comics

15 September 2025 19:30

Those are the engineering vampires you dolt! After 10,000 years of philosophy, you still don't know the difference?

Existential Comics

08 September 2025 19:30

Thales, in the corner: "yes we are going under water, but everything is water, when you think about it, so..."

Existential Comics

08 December 2025 19:30

Philosophy in a Foxhole - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 December 2025 18:30

The Dread Pirate Robert Nozick - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

24 November 2025 20:30

Aliens and the End of Philosophy - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

17 November 2025 18:30

AI Socrates - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

10 November 2025 18:30

Schopenhauer vs A Child with Candy - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

03 November 2025 19:30

The Alien Hive vs Existentialism - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

27 October 2025 16:30

Of course those captchas are used to teach the computers how to recognize things like bridges, so ultimate we are training the Terminator to bypass our locks and expediting our own demise.

Existential Comics

20 October 2025 17:30

Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher and economist who thought that because food growth grew at a slower rate than population growth, catastrophic events such as famines and plagues were always needed to "re-balance" the population. While he didn't advocate for going back to nature like Treebeard (and to a lesser extent Tolkien, although it was more nostalgia than a real policy, as he understood you can't go back), it's clear that trying to reverse technological progress, particularly in farming, would kill of millions of people in a kind of Malthusian catastrophe.
Malthus was wrong, by the way, precisely because the industrialization of farming has the exact opposite effect that he was describing (food production goes up at a much faster rate than population). Saruman's industrialization is the cure to the perpetual famines that humanity used to suffer.

Existential Comics

20 October 2025 17:30

The Ents vs Industrialization - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

13 October 2025 18:30

The Robbery of Epicurus - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 October 2025 18:30

Aliens in Athens - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

29 September 2025 18:30

The Three Wise Men - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

22 September 2025 18:30

Occam's Razors - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

15 September 2025 19:30

Philosophy Vampires - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

08 September 2025 19:30

Philosophy in a Life Boat - Existential Comics