self
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is titled "Know Your Philosophies of Self" and presents four panels, each depicting a different (mostly fictional) philosophical school of thought about the nature of identity.
"Monism" is presented straightforwardly: "We are all one" -- the genuine philosophical position that all of reality is a single unified substance. "Bayesian Monism" adds a probabilistic hedge: "We are all probably about one" -- inserting the Bayesian emphasis on degrees of belief rather than certainty. "Ununoctism" declares: "We are all 118, which is pretty good" -- a nonsense philosophy named after ununoctium (element 118), turning the metaphysical claim into a random numerical assertion. Finally, "Single-Exclusion Monism" states: "We are all one, except Dave" -- followed by the punchline "Eat shit, Dave," singling out one specific person for exclusion from cosmic unity.
The Humor
The comic builds a classic escalating absurdity structure. It starts with a real philosophical concept (monism), then applies increasingly ridiculous modifications to it. The Bayesian version is funny because it perfectly captures how Bayesian thinkers hedge everything in probabilities, even metaphysical claims that are inherently binary. The ununoctium joke is pure mathematical/scientific nonsense played deadpan. But the biggest laugh comes from "Single-Exclusion Monism," which takes the lofty philosophical ideal of universal oneness and introduces petty personal grudges -- we are all cosmically unified, except for Dave, who can go to hell. This deflates the grandiosity of metaphysical philosophy by injecting exactly the kind of petty human behavior that such philosophies claim to transcend.
References
Monism is a real metaphysical position held by philosophers such as Spinoza and Parmenides, asserting that all of reality is fundamentally one substance. Bayesian reasoning, named after Thomas Bayes, is a statistical framework centered on updating probability estimates as new evidence emerges. Ununoctium (now officially named oganesson, element 118) is referenced as the basis for the fictional "ununoctism." The number CXVIII (118 in Roman numerals) appears on the robe in that panel.