Comic #6179: uncertainty

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Description

Here's the transcription of the comic:

Panel 1: Person 1: "How can you be certain you’ve lived a good life?" Person 2: "It’s literally impossible."

Panel 2: Person 2: "A good life is obviously a life made of lots of goodness." Person 1: "In order to get the sum of total goodness, you have to integrate goodness over lifespan."

Panel 3: Person 2: "Because the future is unpredictable, you can’t use an equation. There is no hope of a precise answer." Person 1 (off-screen): "…"

Panel 4: Person 2: "So the only way to know you have a good life is to self-assess goodness at smaller and smaller particular moments."

Panel 5: Person 2: "The problem is that measuring goodness alters the amount of goodness of a given moment."

Panel 6: Person 2: "So, yeah, maybe you can measure the goodness of a macro piece of time, like a year or maybe a month or a week without messing it up." Person 1 (off-screen): "…"

Panel 7: Person 2: "But moments remain unknowable."

Panel 8: Person 2: "Humans therefore exist in a perpetual state of hedonic uncertainty. This is a fundamental aspect of the universe that can’t be altered."

Panel 9: Person 1: "What if you’re some kind of freak who derives joy directly from the act of measurement?" Person 2: "Then you’d be happy and certain all the time."

Panel 10: Person 1: "Maybe this is why engineers never read philosophy."

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