vol. 2, number 20, brain in a bottle

Can it get any more grim!? Why, yes! How about the swell idea that you're just a brain in a bottle being tortured by the evil genius? It's awfully similar to ideas that turn up in Hollywood science fiction like The Matrix and Dark City. Well, that's the end of volume 2 folks. I won't be making more posts until we get back from The Big Trip. For more on that, visit goin' with the a-go-gos. Want more wacky thought provoking stuff? Try looking up the Demiurge. That'll keep ya busy for a while.

vol. 2, number 19, between order and chaos

Complexity (and therefore life) lies within a fine line between order and chaos. Although this space is thin, it is vast, like the surface of the ocean between air and water, between stifling order and preemptive chaos.

vol. 2, number 18, more free will

If we reject the arbitrary creator, is that the death of it? If the arbitrary creator is dead, what meaning can we have? Oh, to heck with meaning. We're all here for such a short visit, better try to have a good time.

vol. 2, number 17, free will

OK, back to something theological again. If we reject the idea that our lives are controlled by fate or an arbitrary creator (in case you haven't gathered this from previous strips, the hook is the arbitrary creator) and we struggle to insist on our free will... what happens to meaning? Stay tuned. Yeah, I know, it's just a cartoon.

vol. 2, number 16, curved space

Continuing with all this dimensional hooey... So, you're walking along minding you're own business and you think the world is flat. Well, just look at it. It looks flat, don't it? You keep walking toward the rising sun every morning and presume that one day you'll find the edge. Nope, you don't find the edge, but you arrive back at the place you started. Hmm... either you walked in a circle without knowing it or you're walking on a three dimensional curved surface, eureka!

So, you're rocketing along minding your own business and you think the universe is three dimensional. Well, just look at it. It looks three dimensional, don't it? You keep rocketing along following your gyroscope in a straight line and presume that one day you'll find the edge. Nope, you don't find the edge, but you arrive back at the place you started. Hmm... either your gyroscope sucks or you're traveling through three dimensional space that is curved in a fourth dimension, eureka! Wait a minute, this gyroscope doesn't have any batteries in it.

vol. 2, number 15, Flatland

Flatland, a novella published in 1884 about a two dimensional world, is loaded with social criticism of Victorian society, but it provokes thought about what a two dimensional world would look like from a three dimensional point of view. This seems like an obvious place to go after the allegory of the cave as most of the two dimensional critters of Flatland can't be bothered with any notion of more dimensions and they ban all such nonsense. This has such a tidy parallel to cartoons. The characters in a strip have no knowledge that they are two dimensional, and naturally, there is always someone peering into your space from an angle that you don't even know about.

vol. 2, number 14, Plato's cave

The allegory of the cave. So, you're stuck in a place where your sight is limited to a shadow of reality. A two dimensional and incomplete version of things. Suppose someone tells you of how much more there is to see, because they have been out of the cave. They have seen the light, as it were. You angrily reject these strange ideas even when forced to experience something novel. But then who says what the layers of reality are. Even those pushing you could be stuck in their own delusion. That's right, I'm telling you we are all cactus shadows, dammit!

vol. 2, number 13, Panspermia

What the hell is Panspermia? The big idea is that life on earth has it's origin in biologically active material that somehow survived a trip across interplanetary or interstellar space. You may recall the controversy from several years back regarding some rocks of Martian origin found on Earth that seemed to contain trace evidence of biological activity inside. The pitch was that this rock demonstrated that life once flourished on Mars and rocks like these could have infected Earth with its earliest colonies of life. I like the idea a whole lot. Not because it greatly stretches the length of time available for life to crawl it's way out of chaos all on its own, but because it means we're all Martians after all.