QASP
Explanation
The Joke
A philosopher announces that he has solved the philosophical problem of qualia using a simple theory he calls "Q.A.S.P." — which stands for "Qualia Are Shitty Perception." His theory posits that if you had a perfect perception organ operating at quantum-level resolution, you and a friend would agree on every detail about a perceived object (say, a cow named Edgalbert). Since we don't have perfect perception, we get "shitty" versions of reality that differ from person to person — and that's all qualia are.
He then tries to address edge cases: what about people with synesthesia, or Mary's Room (the thought experiment about a colorblind scientist who knows everything about color but has never seen it)? His answer to each objection is essentially "that's just more shitty perception." The final panel has someone in the audience ask, "Does that mean a human-level machine intelligence would have qualia?" He responds, "Maybe, if you dropped it on the floor enough times."
The Humor
The comic takes one of the hardest problems in philosophy of mind — the nature of subjective conscious experience (qualia) — and "solves" it by essentially declaring that qualia are just measurement error. This is funny because it's simultaneously dismissive and weirdly plausible: if you strip away all the philosophical jargon, "your brain is a bad sensor and that's why things seem different to different people" is not an entirely unreasonable position.
The acronym "Q.A.S.P." is deliberately crude and reductive, undercutting the gravitas that philosophy of mind usually demands. The progressive escalation of objections — each met with the same blunt answer — parodies how philosophers often have one big idea and try to force every counterexample into it.
The final punchline about dropping a machine on the floor to give it qualia is the perfect capstone: if qualia come from imperfect perception, then you could give a perfect machine "subjective experience" by simply damaging it enough to make its sensors unreliable.
Broader Context
SMBC frequently engages with philosophy of mind, consciousness, and the hard problem of qualia. Weinersmith often has characters propose reductive or deflationary solutions to deep philosophical problems, mining humor from the gap between the profundity of the question and the crudeness of the answer. This comic also touches on the Chinese Room argument, Mary's Room, and the question of machine consciousness — all staples of SMBC's philosophical repertoire.