0419 - Boxed in. - 2025.10.13

Comic!

Comment:

Now I know what you're thinking: did he fire five shots or six?

Being that this is one of the most powerful handguns in the world and would blow your head clean off,

and has been loaded for me by an assistant who passed it off to my partner sight unseen, who then passed it off to me,

and we've controlled for noise, vibrations, and atmospheric interference,

and this shootout is being recorded by no less than fifteen different precisely calibrated instruments, with records being copied both on- and off-site,

and all of our methodology has been scrupulously detailed and recorded,

the question you have to ask yourself is: do you feel lucky?

Well? Do ya? Punk?





...





Okay, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "Very Unlucky"...

Transcript:

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0419– 2167/07/07/12:24 - Lee Caldavera's apartment, bedroom
LC: I want to hear more about this Chinese room thing.
Zoa: Oh, conveniently enough, there’s an episode of Sox, Plate and Tottle that-
LC: I want to hear it from you, Zoa. How is a Chinese room like programming?
Zoa: Uhh… okay. So, imagine that you’re locked in a room and that you, for some reason, aren’t able to speak Chinese.
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LC: Why am I locked in the room? And what kind of Chinese, Mandarin?
Zoa: The thought experiment doesn’t explain that part, and it also assumes that there is just one language called “Chinese”. You can make it Martian if you want.
LC: I can also speak Martian. Like, without a network connection or my implants or anything.
LC: ...a few words, anyway.
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Zoa: You are in a room and there is at least one language with a written form that you cannot understand. That is what is important. We also don’t know why Schrödinger's cat is in the box.
LC: I always assumed that was a Darwinian thing, like Schrödinger was selectively breeding cats to have nearby quantum events happen in their favour.
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Doc: I’m sorry, Mezzer Caldavera, did you just imply that you believe evolution can select for being lucky?
LC: Black cats are bad luck! You can’t tell me pigment isn’t a heritable trait!
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