Existential Comics

08 Jul 2024 18:30

The Bertrand Russell Paradox - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 Jul 2024 19:30

AI and the Meaning of Life - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

24 Jun 2024 19:30

Seriously though, what was Galadriel's economic policy? Seems to be a mostly leaf based economy, which is bound to fail in the long run.

Existential Comics

17 Jun 2024 19:30

Seriously though, the fact that they had to go get the "real" Excalibur from the Lady in the Lake means that the Sword in the Stone was a sort of magician's trick set up by Merlin to put his puppet on the throne, right?

Existential Comics

10 Jun 2024 18:30

Academic Skepticism was a school of ancient Greek philosophy that believe all things were inapprehensible, and criticized the dogmas of other schools of thought, such as the Stoics, for believing that they could come to truth by the senses or other means. They thought that judgment should always be suspended at least a little.
The comic is describing something called the Paradox of Dogma, which says that if you actually achieve true 100% knowledge of something, it can never be undo, because you would logically be required to discard all evidence against it as misleading. Take something that we believe we know 100%, that 1 does not equal 2. Below we see a demonstration that 1 DOES equal 2:

x = y
x^2 = xy
x^2 - y^2 = xy - y^2
(x - y)(x + y) = y(x - y)
(x - y)(x + y)/(x - y) = y(x - y)/(x - y)
x + y = y
y + y = y
2y = y
2 = 1

Now, even if we can't spot the flaw in this argument, we basically know it is misleading because we just know that 1 does not equal 2. Something must be wrong with it, so we just discard it (the flaw is that it divides by zero sneakily). Does this mean we discard all evidence forever though? What if there were proofs that no one could find the flaw in? Is our certainty infinite? A lot of people might say yes.
Take an empirical example though. Say we know with 100% certain that there is no tiger in the room. Using the same reasoning, we would have to discard any evidence in the same way. Even if a god damn tiger showed up, seemingly. This one seems more wrong.

Existential Comics

03 Jun 2024 19:30

The fourth little piggy built his out of leftist infighting, and the wolf was finally defeated.

Existential Comics

27 May 2024 20:30

A lot of words come to us from ancient Greek schools of philosophy (stoic, cynic, skeptic, etc). None of them are is far off from their original definition as "epicurean", which seems to sort of mean rich people who indulge in luxury and pleasure. Epicurus believed the road to happiness was more about restricting your desires, living in simple moderation, and having good friendships. This nerd on YouTube explains it pretty well, if you are interested in more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpDOfTHLKg

Existential Comics

27 May 2024 20:30

Epicurean Fine Dining - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

20 May 2024 19:30

Early Wittgenstein Becomes Late Wittgenstein - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

13 May 2024 20:30

seriously though why did we even bother industrializing if we weren't going to share in the gains that it made??

Existential Comics

13 May 2024 19:30

Freedom From Struggle - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 May 2024 18:30

The Philosophy of Time and Ice Cream - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

29 Apr 2024 18:30

The Philosophy of Genie Wishes - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

22 Apr 2024 18:30

Socratic Hostage Negotiations - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

15 Apr 2024 18:30

Philosophy Museum - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 Jul 2024 19:30

AI is cool because they just renamed "intelligence" to "predicted what other people might say without really understand any of it".

Existential Comics

24 Jun 2024 19:30

Sauron is often portrayed as a force of pure domination and destruction, but that was more Morgoth's deal, Sauron was originally a student of Aule, the Smith God, and was interested in a perfectly ordered world that progressed through industry and craft. In a way Sauron was the world that came to be, organized advanced industrial capitalism (or the Soviet system, I doubt Tolkien saw too much difference) which globalizes the economy and destroys local traditions.
For more on Tolkien's political ideas you can see this excellent Ink and Fantasy youtube video on why he hated democracy.
Also, my Dad is trying to raise some money for a surgery, if you could spare a few dollars it would really help.

Existential Comics

24 Jun 2024 19:30

Sauron the Economist - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

17 Jun 2024 19:30

The Sword in the Stone - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

10 Jun 2024 18:30

One way you can know for SURE that you are dealing with a skeptic is if they think you don't know something that for sure you know, on account of the fact that you are you, and therefore have unique access to the truth.

Existential Comics

03 Jun 2024 19:30

The Three Little Pigs - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

27 May 2024 20:30

As for myself, what causes the most happiness is being rude to customers.

Existential Comics

20 May 2024 19:35

"on second thought, the entire history of philosophy is stupid."

Existential Comics

13 May 2024 20:30

Panel 1 is a depiction of Neanderthals in the Shanidar Cave, in particular the "Shanidar 1" specimen, which showed a large number of old injuries and disabilities in the individual. The fact that they had lived for so long showed that the Neanderthal community cared for their members even when they were no longer "useful" physically to society.
It's kind of hard to imagine going back and showing the Shanidar Neanderthals all the gains we've made as a society to produce enough food for everyone, and yet people still go hungry. Then again, imagine showing him Nintendo Switch. I bet he'd love Nintendo Switch, so it's really a wash.

Existential Comics

13 May 2024 20:30

Freedom From Struggle - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

06 May 2024 18:30

Sort of an homage to this comic:
http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/archive/index396.html
And Pokey the Penguin in general. I read that comic around 20 years and somehow always remembered the phrase "Suddenly, Time Passes". Possibly the most metaphysically philosophical phrase to ever be written in a webcomic, and amazingly, the Pokey the Penguin comic is still running today.

Existential Comics

29 Apr 2024 18:30

Dang actually we should have wished to live forever, then we would have infinite time to figure out if chairs exist or not.

Existential Comics

22 Apr 2024 18:30

Socrates, pointing the gun, "oh yeah, one more thing, can you go ahead and define what you think justice means? because you seem to claim to know..."

Existential Comics

15 Apr 2024 18:30

Also, on a metaphysical level, the science museum and the philosophy museum are exactly the same anyway, when you think about it.

Existential Comics

08 Apr 2024 18:30

Despite believing that poets corrupted society because poets did not seek the truth, Plato himself was quite open to philosophers telling lies to an uneducated society. The Myth of Er is a sort of proto Christian Hell idea, which would keep people behaving well because they thought they would be punished in the afterlife. Plato actually thought we should behave well because a virtuous life was genuinely the best life on Earth, but presumably not everyone was going to go along with that.