2011-12-11
Explanation
This is a lengthy comic that explores the Gettier problem in epistemology, framed as a conversation between a father and his child. The child asks "Daddy, how do we know things?" and the father explains that there is a philosophical problem called the Gettier problem. He sets up the classic scenario: Smith and Jones interview for the same job. Smith notices Jones has 10 coins in his pocket and that Jones gave a much better interview. Smith thinks "the man with 10 coins will get the job." But Smith actually gets the job, and it turns out he also happens to have 10 coins in his pocket. So Smith's belief was justified and true, but it was essentially right for the wrong reasons -- he did not have genuine knowledge.
The comic then spirals into a broader philosophical discussion. The father explains that this presents a problem: if you can have what looks like knowledge but arrived at through faulty reasoning, what does "knowledge" really mean? The conversation becomes increasingly nihilistic, touching on whether there is justice, truth, or meaning. The child (or possibly a different character) pushes back by asking practical questions, and eventually concludes that perhaps "there is no justified belief, only stuff that happens" and that "humans are the universe's model of itself." The final exchange ends with "Bingo."
The comic satirizes how a seemingly simple question ("How do we know things?") can lead down an endless rabbit hole of philosophical inquiry that ultimately feels unresolvable. It's characteristic of SMBC's love of taking academic concepts and showing how they can spiral from a straightforward thought experiment into existential crisis territory. The Gettier problem is a real and famous problem in philosophy that has generated enormous debate since Edmund Gettier published his short paper in 1963.
The votey shows a panel captioned "My hand after drawing this:" with an empty box below it, humorously suggesting that the artist's hand was so exhausted from drawing this unusually long comic that it has simply disappeared or ceased to exist.