2012-05-09
Explanation
This comic features a person being arrested by a police officer for smoking marijuana, but instead of going quietly, the person launches into a neuroscience-based defense. She argues that the conscious part of her brain isn'''t directly experiencing the active ingredients -- the cannabinoids are just triggering cell receptors that release chemicals her conscious mind then enjoys. She contends that strictly speaking, the officer should prosecute her hands for transporting the drugs, her lungs for smuggling them into her body, and her cannabinoid receptors for actually taking the drugs.
She further argues that her frontal lobe -- the part of the brain associated with decision-making and the seat of her conscious "self" -- merely made some suggestions to the other body parts, and they were the ones who did the deed. Arresting her ego, she claims, would be like arresting someone for walking into a room filled with pot smoke. It'''s a clever (if absurd) application of the philosophical problem of free will and the mind-body problem to get out of a drug charge.
The cop responds by handcuffing her and saying "Don'''t get mad at me. My hands are just obeying the frontal lobes in Congress" -- turning her own argument back on her by suggesting that just as she claims her brain parts act independently, the officer'''s hands are merely following orders from lawmakers. The arrested woman mutters "I hate those frontal lobes!" The votey shows the comic'''s author (Zach Weinersmith) saying "Jesus... I need to do more penis jokes," a self-deprecating acknowledgment that this comic got unusually philosophical.