2014-03-25
Explanation
The Joke
A character says, "All I'''m saying is, technically, you don'''t know this is false." The image shows a vast field densely packed with kittens, with a narrow triangular wedge labeled "Your field of view" cutting through it. The implication is that just outside your current line of sight, the entire world could be covered in densely packed kittens, and you technically cannot disprove it because you can only see a small portion of reality at any given time.
The Humor
The comic is a playful take on epistemological skepticism -- the philosophical position that we can never be fully certain about things we cannot directly observe. It takes this legitimate philosophical concept and applies it to the most absurd possible scenario: that the entire world outside your field of view is packed wall-to-wall with kittens.
The humor works on multiple levels. First, there is the visual absurdity of imagining an impossibly dense carpet of kittens filling the universe. Second, the argument is technically valid in a narrow philosophical sense -- you genuinely cannot prove what exists outside your current perception at any given instant. Third, it parodies how skeptical philosophical arguments can be used to "defend" completely ridiculous propositions, highlighting how unfalsifiability alone does not make a claim reasonable.
The comic also gently mocks a certain type of internet debater who uses "you can'''t technically disprove it" as if it were a compelling argument.