Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

The comic begins with a philosopher explaining the concept of "p-zombies" (philosophical zombies) -- hypothetical beings that are physically identical to normal humans and behave identically, but have no conscious internal experience. The philosopher suggests there might be "p-humans" -- the inverse: individuals who appear to not be doing much but actually have a rich internal world.

As an example, the philosopher points to Sandra, a computer programmer, who says "Okay? I look like I am getting coffee all day but I am doing tons of stuff." When challenged about how anyone could know whether she truly has a rich internal world, she responds that if you heard a shouting match about whether Python or Perl is better, then the answer is obvious. The final panel shows the philosopher saying "People are wrong and they need to know!" as Sandra storms off, clearly demonstrating passionate consciousness.

The Humor

The humor works on multiple levels. First, there is the inversion of the p-zombie concept -- instead of worrying about beings without consciousness, we are presented with beings who seem unconscious but are secretly brimming with inner life. Second, the joke about programmers is that they may look like they are doing nothing (getting coffee, browsing the internet) but claim to be deeply engaged internally. The punchline about the Python vs. Perl flame war is the perfect proof of consciousness -- only a being with genuine passionate internal experience would get that heated about programming language preferences. The final panel of Sandra storming off to argue proves her "rich internal world" in the most comedically aggressive way possible.

References

The concept of "philosophical zombies" (p-zombies) was popularized by philosopher David Chalmers as a thought experiment in the philosophy of mind, particularly in discussions of the "hard problem of consciousness." A p-zombie is meant to demonstrate that physical processes and conscious experience might be separable. The Python vs. Perl debate is a classic programming language holy war that has raged in software development communities since the 1990s.