Socrates (according to Plato) is explaining to a follower, Glaucon, an overly-complex but famous metaphor. Prisoners who have been raised in a cave sit chained facing a wall, which is lit only by the fire behind them. For the prisoners, says Socrates, reality is “only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another.” And if a prisoner does leave the cave, “his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.”
Isaac Newton, quoted by a biographer: “I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Abstruse Goose must be the first person in the history of mankind to say that Newton answers Socrates. And I think I get it, at least emotionally: let’s bust outa here and oh lordy! whammo! will you look at that!
Except AG has a sneaky little mouseover balloon that says, “Y’all lying and getting me pissed.” That, I don’t get. Does anybody?
It’s a reference to Insane Clown Posse’s anti-science rap, “Miracles.” That’s a line from the song, directed at scientists — it’s the old “science ruins the wonder” argument, if such it can be called. 🙂
Sounds like old Walt Whitman and his learn’d astronomer. Walt was an idiot. So AG’s mouseover is criticizing the Insane Clown Posse’s song? (Now THERE’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.) And thank you, Jennifer.
It’s exactly Whitman’s argument, only less eloquently phrased. ICP’s tune is famous for the words, “F#$$-ing magnets, how do they work?”
And just one more instance of youth (Jennifer) helping age (Ann) cross the street.
A few people have realised the cultural delusion of being an individual, and have got out of the cave. But most people cannot do it and get angry at the suggestion that they are missing something.
As an Abstruse Goose fan, this is one of the comics that I didn’t understand at all. But it sounds too witty it was funny nonetheless…:) And it’s a gem considering the fact that the artist used multiple colors which he/she don’t use that very often.
I’m an Abstruse Goose fan too, and though I get his references here, I can’t quite put them together either.
If you haven’t seen the reference material, it’s tough to get the references. Email from one particular friend can only be read with the help of wikipedia. I mean, who has heard of John Philoponus? Apparently Galileo read his works.
And this is my main complaint with James Joyce. He wrote for a local audience, but not local to me.