Impossible creatures having fun with our language

Cartoon of the Week


Each week, a different cartoon will appear here. These are selected from "More Phisms" and "Even More Phisms" in the Overlooked Creatures series and present a somewhat sardonic take on language and nature, as currently understood.

The archive of previous weekly cartoons can be found here.

The week of May 13, 2024: 



Cartoon of
          pigeons asking how far it is to travel back before matter
          existed



Well, no, we don't have pigeons and ravens and gulls that think like humans and speak our language. But that's not quite the point here. Anthropomorphisms appear to pervade and degrade our language and thought processes far more deeply than is commonly (and even uncommonly) understood. If we are trying to think clearly about nature, it seems important to watch for this. These cartoons are a light-hearted (perhaps light-headed) attempt to point out conceptual weakness in ways that might lead to further insight.


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