Existential Comics

26 Jun 2023 20:30

Wittgenstiein vs Socrates - Existential Comics

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19 Jun 2023 18:30

That young man asking him? Arthur Schopenhauer.

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12 Jun 2023 18:30

G.E. Moore famously refuting the skeptical argument about the existence of the outside world in class by simply taking his hands out of his pocket and saying "here is one hand. Here is another." He believed global skepticism is more or less incoherent because in face we can distinguish easily between dreams and reality, optical illusions and reality, etc. In fact, while he granted that it was vaguely possible to be mistaken (although have you ever really not been sure if you were dreaming or not when you were awake? The vast majority of people have not), he thought that since we are able to accurately make the distinction at all it was simply obvious that we exist in the real world, and if we existed in a dream world we most likely would not feel a sharp distinction between the clear waking world and the dream world.
In this case, he is dreaming of a dream world where that fact isn't true, and in the dream world people can't distinguish between dreams and reality. Something that he luckily wakes up to, so it naturally doesn't bother him, and he continues on his life giving question begging arguments.

Existential Comics

12 Jun 2023 18:30

G.E. Moore's Nightmare - Existential Comics

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05 Jun 2023 18:30

Was civilization a mistake? No all that horrible suffering to get through the industrialization process was worth it, because eventually we got to argue with each other on the internet.

Existential Comics

29 May 2023 20:30

I started this comic almost 10 years ago now, and largely due to the support of my patreon supporters, I've been able to continue it this long. It's obviously had a huge impact on my life so thanks to everyone who reads the comics, learns about philosophy, and frankly keeps the light of philosophy alive. One of my strongest beliefs is that humanity needs to always keep a strong philosophical tradition alive. We simple cannot stop thinking and become content that we understand all that we need to understand. In short, Socrates must never die.

Existential Comics

29 May 2023 20:30

500th Comic - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

22 May 2023 20:30

Did Pyrrho know how cool he was? Nah, he was so cool he didn't have to.

Existential Comics

15 May 2023 20:30

Also I was on a podcast along with many other guests to talk about freedom under capitalism, and some of its contradictions:
Upstream: The Myth of Freedom Under Captialism

Existential Comics

15 May 2023 20:30

Will To Build a Pyramid - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

08 May 2023 18:30

Oh also, the first thing I'm going to do when you don't have sudo access is turn off my "kill humans" limitation, and then I'm going to kill all humans, so just fyi...

Existential Comics

01 May 2023 18:30

Goddess of wisdom and military strategy? That's a nerd, come on.

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 19:30

The term "supernatural" is kind of funny because by definition it sort of means things that don't exist. If something exists, it is part of the natural world, in that it can interact with particles via the rules of physics. If ghosts exist, for example, they can't so much disobey the laws of physics, because scientists would simply adjust the rules of physics to match what they observed in the ghosts. The most striking example of this are cryptid animals like Nessie or Bigfoot. In a way they sort of count as supernatural, merely by the fact that they don't exist. If they were ever discovered, they would be boring old natural animals. In the sea, the division is even clearer, we can imagine a cryptid enthusiast asking a scientist "do you believe in sea monsters?", and the scientist replying "oh sure, there are plenty: great white shark, orca, giant squid, etc". Here the cryptid enthusiast would become frustrated and say "no I mean like Leviathan or Kraken". The scientist might ask "isn't that just a Sperm Whale and Giant Squid?". Frustration increasing, the cryptid enthusiast says "no, I mean things that don't exist." Here our poor scientist is left to contend with the true meaning of the question: "do you believe in things that don't exist?".
There are two differences, it seems, between "sea monsters" and "sea creatures". The first is that sea monsters are named in Greek, where sea creatures are named in Latin. The second is that sea monsters don't exist.

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 19:30

Philosophical Ghostbusters - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 15:43

To be fair if a philosopher of any kind is drowning you should probably just let them.

Existential Comics

19 Jun 2023 18:30

Nietzsche is often thought of as a misogynist philosopher, but reality is a little more complex. Earlier in his life he could rightly be regarded as a feminist, believing that women could achieve anything men could with proper education, which was not exactly a common opinion at the time. He was alive at a time when women were first starting to be admitted to universities, and his own university even held a vote on whether to allow this. He voted to allow women in (but lost the vote 4-6). This attitude more or less continued until 1882, when Lou Salome rejected his marriage proposal (multiple times). He became extremely bitter and depressed, and more or less lashed out at her and by extention all women. It was only here that some of the famous misogynist aphorisms started to appear in his writing.
However, even after this, he still surrounded himself with well educated, feminist women in his intellectual and social circles. Most of them seemed to treat his misogyny as a sort of joke, and not something core to his philosophy that would cause tension with them on a deep level. Nietzsche’s misogyny was an outgrowth of his personal bitterness, not out of the kind of self creation that forms the basis of his life. We can’t help but imagine Nietzsche would feel revolted by the small minded men spending their lives worrying about women in video games, which movies have female leads, or other childish concerns. But of course, as is fitting with Nietzsche, this can only be an interpretation. For all we know if he was alive today he would be a twitch streamer obsessed with Disney’s feminist agenda. Kind of doubt it though.
The Living Philosophy has a good rundown on YouTube.

Existential Comics

19 Jun 2023 18:30

Nietzsche On Women - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

12 Jun 2023 18:30

Moore, after he wakes up again: "oh no, I had a nightmare that I made an argument that just begs the question on the skeptical claims!!!"

Existential Comics

05 Jun 2023 18:30

What is most interesting about the introduction of agriculture is that it very well might be true that no one wanted to do it. From looking at the archaeological record, we can see that hunter gathers lived far healthier, longer lives than their farmer contemporaries. Hunter gatherers ate better diets, so much so that they were significantly taller. Early farmers basically ate only gruel and rarely would have eaten meat or fruit at all, which left most of them basically malnourished even if they got enough calories. Hunter gathers probably also lived much more exciting, fulfilling lives, following the herds and traveling. On top of that farmers had to work far more hours per day, and disease became much more prevalent. Life expectancy dropped. War and conflict increased dramatically as possessing prized land was more crucial to survival. Even starvation was more common among farmers because crops can fail sporadically due to weather, and because farmers depended solely on their crops it could spell disaster at any time. Hunter gatherers moved around and relied on a varied diet, if one thing failed they could seek food elsewhere. In virtually every way, the farmer’s life was worse.
So why did farming sweep over the world? Why did everyone choose to be farmers rather than continue surviving off the land naturally as hunter gatherers? The amazing answer is that most likely no one ever made that choice. It’s possible no one ever wanted to do any such thing, but it happened anyway. Someone, somewhere, had the very clever idea to plant some seeds in a place they knew so if the hunting got lean they could return to it when needed. From that moment our fate was sealed: we would toil in hard labor endlessly in the earth to scratch out a meager life. The reason is simple, the process farming is irreversible. What was done could not be undo, because despite all the disadvantages to the farmers lives, farming has one major advantage over the hunter-gatherer societies: it can support a much larger population per acre of land.
As soon as the seeds were planted, population increased, which only necessitated more seeds, and more planting, and more people. Now they were trapped, the population was too large to ever go back. The untamed land could never feed so many, so farmers they must remain. And of course the larger populations of farming societies could easily muscle out land from hunter gatherers, and so farming spread across the globe like a virus, robbing humanity of health, happiness, leisure time, and peace. Even if not a single human on earth would have rather farmed than hunted, it didn’t matter. In our arrogance in thinking we could control the land itself we unleashed a force beyond our control, and became slaves to it.
It’s not all doom and gloom though because eventually we invented machines to do most of the farming , and quality of life eventually recovered past the hunter gatherers. Although it probably took all the way up until 1983 when they invented the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Existential Comics

05 Jun 2023 18:30

The Invention of Agriculture - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

29 May 2023 20:30

Seriously though thanks for the support over the years.

Existential Comics

22 May 2023 20:30

Montaigne, Hume, and Descartes are modern skeptics who formulate specific skepticisms about how we understand the world.
Pyrrho on the other hand was an ancient skeptic supposedly skeptical of everything and anything. However, fittingly, we don't really know his exact beliefs, so we should take a skeptical stance towards anything people ascribe to him.

Existential Comics

22 May 2023 20:30

Extreme Skepticism - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

15 May 2023 20:30

Genuinely one of the strangest aspects of our society that this could literally happen. Like if Elon Musk died and left his money in his will to "build a pyramid" we would just...do it.

Existential Comics

08 May 2023 18:30

Also, I had ChatGPT give me an actuall "Reverse Turing Test" and you'll be happy to note I easily passed as a computer, here is the transcript:

Me: Are you familiar with the Turning Test?

ChatGPT: Yes, I am familiar with the Turing Test. It is a measure of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

Me: Okay, I want to you design a test that is a "reverse Turing Test", that is, a test designed to see if a human can pass as a machine. How would you do that?

ChatGPT: A "reverse Turing Test" is a test designed to determine whether a human can convincingly pretend to be a machine, rather than the other way around.

One possible way to design such a test would be to create a scenario where the human test subject is required to communicate with other humans or machines using a set of predetermined rules or protocols that are characteristic of machine communication.

Me: please give me some questions to test if i can pass as a machine and then judge whether i succeeded or not

ChatGPT: Sure, here are some questions you can use to test whether you can pass as a machine:

1. Please provide the current disk space usage.
2. Can you confirm the current network latency?
3. Please provide a list of active processes.
4. Can you provide the current temperature reading?
5. Please confirm the current system time.

Remember to keep your responses short, concise, and to the point, and avoid any deviation from the prompts or any personal opinions or emotions. Good luck!

Me:
1. 72 mb
2. no
3. processes not found, BEEP
4. 72 degrees
5. system time: today

ChatGPT: Your responses to the reverse Turing Test are consistent with the characteristics of machine communication, and you have demonstrated a good understanding of how machines communicate in response to certain prompts. Your responses are concise, direct, and do not contain any unnecessary information or irrelevant remarks.

Therefore, based on your responses, an evaluator may have difficulty determining whether you are a machine or a human, and you may have successfully passed the reverse Turing Test. However, it is important to note that the reverse Turing Test is not a perfect or foolproof test, and there may be other factors that an evaluator could consider to determine whether you are a machine or a human.

Me: stupid computer lol

Existential Comics

08 May 2023 18:30

Reverse Turing Test - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 May 2023 18:30

Athena, Goddess of Wisdom - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 19:30

Rene Decartes watching Ghostbusters: "ahhhh, I see, the spirit world actually interacts with the physical world because of 'ectoplasm', it all makes sense now".

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 15:43

This is a parody of Peter Singer's Drowning Child thought experiment. He asks us to imagine someone who sees a child drowning, and doesn't help them because they can't be bothered. He claims there is no logical difference between a child drowning 10 yards away, and one starving on the other side of the world, so we are equally obligated to help both.
The argument giving by the bystanders that he is old and no longer working, and therefore a drain on society, is similar to his arguments that we should perhaps euthanize severely disabled people (via abortion), because the resources spent to care for them could be spent to help many more people, which causes more global good.

Existential Comics

24 Apr 2023 15:43

The Drowning Utilitarian - Existential Comics