explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1652: Conditionals

2016-03-07T16:04:28Z

Leoboiko: minor rewording

{{comic
| number = 1652
| date = March 7, 2016
| title = Conditionals
| image = conditionals.png
| titletext = 'If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner.' 'You did it again!' 'No, I didn't.'
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is about the many different uses of conditional statements in human languages, such as those marked by the English word "if". The most obvious kind of conditional is a statement about conditions and consequences. An expression such as "If A, then B" amounts to asserting that, if A is true, then B is also true:

"If it rains, then the air gets cleaner." (a general law or observation)
"If it rains, they'll cancel the event." (a prediction)

This kind of '''simple conditional''' statement is the most common case, and has been adapted for use in computer programming and formal logic. But consider the following statement:

"If Seattle is always rainy, Beijing is smoggy just as often."

This kind of "bleached conditional" doesn't at all assert that, if the left statement is true, the right one needs to be true. Rather, it's just a way of introducing the right statement (taken as novel) by comparing it with the left one (taken for granted). "As everyone knows, Seattle is always rainy, right? Well, Beijing is smoggy just as often".

So conditionals in language are more varied than those of logic or programming. Another kind of linguistic conditional is as follows:

"There are biscuits in the sideboard if you want some".

No one would understand this statement as meaning "if you want biscuits, they'll magically pop up in the sideboard". The if-clause ("if you want some") doesn't specify the conditions in which the then-clause ("there are biscuits") is true. Rather, it describes the conditions in which it's ''relevant''. We can paraphrase it as: "If you want biscuits, then you'll be interested in knowing that there are some in the sideboard". If A is true, then it's relevant for us to talk of B. This construction is known to linguists as '''relevance conditionals''', or "biscuit conditionals", due to J.L. Austin's discussion based on the example above.

The humor in the comic is based on the difference between simple conditionals and relevance conditionals. Cueball gets an invitation to a social event: "I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out." This is an everyday relevance conditional, with a meaning like: "if you want to hang out, then it's relevant for you to know that I'll be in your city tomorrow".

However, Cueball interprets it as a simple conditional, just as in a formal logic. Under this interpretation, the message amounts to a claim that, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then it's also true his conversation partner will be in his city. Cueball is willfully forcing this interpretation, due to his belief that simple conditionals are the only "proper" ones. That is, he's being a pedant.

Under this deliberate misreading, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then we automatically know the other person's location. But if Cueball does ''not'' want to hang out, we don't know anything about their location; they could be in the city or anywhere else. Since the person is only guaranteed to be in the city if Cueball wants to hang out, he asks them where they will be if he doesn't.

The other person then makes an excuse to drop their invitation, apparently tiring of his pedantry. Hence the caption observes that being pedantic with regard to conditionals is likely to make your friends disinclined to hang out with you.

===Title text===
In the flavor text, the initiator of the conversation presents another "If A, then B" conditional: "If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner". In most contexts, this kind of "If you're done being X" utterance marks relevance conditionals. Cueball assumes so, and answers "You did it again!". But the reply is "No, I didn't." Which means that ''this'' time they're actually using a simple conditional; because, if Cueball isn't done being a pedant, then they think it's a bad idea to have dinner together.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown texting on a phone with a friend. Above him in light gray rectangles with indentations pointing left are the two text messages from his friend, and between them in dark a gray rectangle with an indentation pointing right is Cueball's message.]
:Friend (text): I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out.
:Cueball (text): But where will you be if I ''don't'' want to hang out?!
:Friend (text): You know, I just remembered I'm busy.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Why I try not to be pedantic about conditionals.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1652: Conditionals

2016-03-07T16:01:49Z

Leoboiko: minor rewording

{{comic
| number = 1652
| date = March 7, 2016
| title = Conditionals
| image = conditionals.png
| titletext = 'If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner.' 'You did it again!' 'No, I didn't.'
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is about the many different uses of conditional statements in human languages, such as those marked by the English word "if". The most obvious kind of conditional is a statement about conditions and consequences. An expression such as "If A, then B" amounts to asserting that, if A is true, then B is also true:

"If it rains, then the air gets cleaner." (a general law or observation)
"If it rains, they'll cancel the event." (a prediction)

This kind of '''simple conditional''' statement is the most common case, and has been adapted for use in computer programming and formal logic. But consider the following statement:

"If Seattle is always rainy, Beijing is smoggy just as often."

This kind of "bleached conditional" doesn't at all assert that, if the left statement is true, the right one needs to be true. Rather, it's just a way of introducing the right statement (taken as novel) by comparing it with the left one (taken for granted). "As everyone knows, Seattle is always rainy, right? Well, Beijing is smoggy just as often".

So conditionals in language are more varied than those of logic or programming. Another kind of linguistic conditional is as follows:

"There are biscuits in the sideboard if you want some".

No one would understand this statement as meaning "if you want biscuits, they'll magically pop up in the sideboard". The if-clause ("if you want some") doesn't specify the conditions in which the then-clause ("there are biscuits") is true. Rather, it describes the conditions in which it's ''relevant''. We can paraphrase it as: "If you want biscuits, then you'll be interested in knowing that there are some in the sideboard". If A is true, then it's relevant for us to talk of B. This construction is known to linguists as '''relevance conditionals''', or "biscuit conditionals", due to J.L. Austin's discussion based on the example above.

The humor in the comic is based on the difference between simple conditionals and relevance conditionals. Cueball gets an invitation to a social event: "I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out." This is an everyday utterance, with a linguistic meaning like: "if you want to hang out, then it's relevant for you to know that I'll be in your city tomorrow".

However, Cueball interprets it as a simple conditional, just as in a formal logic. Under this interpretation, the message amounts to a claim that, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then it's also true his conversation partner will be in his city. Cueball is willfully forcing this interpretation, due to his belief that simple conditionals are the only "proper" ones. That is, he's being a pedant.

Under this deliberate misreading, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then we automatically know the other person's location. But if Cueball does ''not'' want to hang out, we don't know anything about their location; they could be in the city or anywhere else. Since the person is only guaranteed to be in the city if Cueball wants to hang out, he asks them where they will be if he doesn't.

The other person then makes an excuse to drop their invitation, apparently tiring of his pedantry. Hence the caption observes that being pedantic with regard to conditionals is likely to make your friends disinclined to hang out with you.

===Title text===
In the flavor text, the initiator of the conversation presents another "If A, then B" conditional: "If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner". In most contexts, this kind of "If you're done being X" utterance marks relevance conditionals. Cueball assumes so, and answers "You did it again!". But the reply is "No, I didn't." Which means that ''this'' time they're actually using a simple conditional; because, if Cueball isn't done being a pedant, then they think it's a bad idea to have dinner together.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown texting on a phone with a friend. Above him in light gray rectangles with indentations pointing left are the two text messages from his friend, and between them in dark a gray rectangle with an indentation pointing right is Cueball's message.]
:Friend (text): I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out.
:Cueball (text): But where will you be if I ''don't'' want to hang out?!
:Friend (text): You know, I just remembered I'm busy.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Why I try not to be pedantic about conditionals.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1652: Conditionals

2016-03-07T15:56:11Z

Leoboiko: as requested, linguistic explanation. feel free to rewrite / compare with logic and programming.

{{comic
| number = 1652
| date = March 7, 2016
| title = Conditionals
| image = conditionals.png
| titletext = 'If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner.' 'You did it again!' 'No, I didn't.'
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is about the many different uses of conditional statements in human languages, such as those marked by the English word "if". The most obvious kind of conditional is a statement about conditions and consequences. An expression such as "If A, then B" amounts to asserting that, if A is true, then B is also true:

"If it rains, then the air gets cleaner." (a general law or observation)
"If it rains, they'll cancel the event." (a prediction)

This kind of '''simple conditional''' statement is the most common case, and has been adapted for use in computer programming and formal logic. But consider the following statement:

"If Seattle is always rainy, Beijing is smoggy just as often."

This kind of "bleached conditional" doesn't at all assert that, if the left statement is true, the right one needs to be true. Rather, it's just a way of introducing the right statement (taken as novel) by comparing it with the left one (taken for granted). "As everyone knows, Seattle is always rainy, right? Well, Beijing is smoggy just as often".

So conditionals in language are more varied than those of logic or programming. Another kind of linguistic conditional is as follows:

"There are biscuits in the sideboard if you want some".

No one would understand this statement as meaning "if you want biscuits, they'll magically pop up in the sideboard". The if-clause ("if you want some") doesn't specify the conditions in which the then-clause ("there are biscuits") is true. Rather, it describes the conditions in which it's ''relevant''. We can paraphrase it as: "If you want biscuits, then you'll be interested in knowing that there are some in the sideboard". If A is true, then it's relevant for us to talk of B. This construction is known to linguists as '''relevance conditionals''', or "biscuit conditionals", due to J.L. Austin's discussion based on the example above.

The humor in the comic is based on the difference between simple conditionals and relevance conditionals. Cueball gets an invitation to a social event: "I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out." This is an everyday utterance, with a linguistic meaning like: "if you want to hang out, then it's relevant for you to know that I'll be in your city tomorrow".

However, Cueball interprets it as a simple conditional, just as in a formal logic. Under this interpretation, the message amounts to a claim that, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then it's also true his conversation partner will be in his city. Cueball is interpreting it like this due to believing that simple conditionals are the only "proper" ones; that is, he's being a pedant.

Under this deliberate misreading, if it's true that Cueball wants to hang out, then we automatically know the other person's location. But if Cueball does ''not'' want to hang out, we don't know anything about their location. They could be in the city or anywhere else. Since the person is only guaranteed to be in the city if Cueball wants to hang out, he asks them where they will be if he doesn't.

The other person then makes an excuse to drop their invitation, apparently tiring of his pedantry. Hence the caption observes that being pedantic with regard to conditionals is likely to make your friends disinclined to hang out with you.

===Title text===
In the flavor text, the initiator of the conversation presents another "If A, then B" conditional: "If you're done being pedantic, we should get dinner". In most contexts, this kind of "If you're done being X" utterance marks relevance conditionals. Cueball assumes so, and answers "You did it again!". But the reply is "No, I didn't." Which means that ''this'' time they're actually using a simple conditional; because, if Cueball isn't done being a pedant, then they think it's a bad idea to have dinner together.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown texting on a phone with a friend. Above him in light gray rectangles with indentations pointing left are the two text messages from his friend, and between them in dark a gray rectangle with an indentation pointing right is Cueball's message.]
:Friend (text): I'll be in your city tomorrow if you want to hang out.
:Cueball (text): But where will you be if I ''don't'' want to hang out?!
:Friend (text): You know, I just remembered I'm busy.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Why I try not to be pedantic about conditionals.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:35:02Z

Leoboiko: clarification

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Quick attempt; needs links and real examples, as well as summarizing/editing.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is actually a cause of the behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means Cueball's smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The title text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/ disputed]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the title text, a larger spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:33:19Z

Leoboiko: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Quick attempt; needs links and real examples, as well as summarizing/editing.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is actually a cause of the behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The title text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/ disputed]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the title text, a larger spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:31:55Z

Leoboiko: not alt text

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Quick attempt; needs links and real examples, as well as summarizing/editing.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The title text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/ disputed]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the title text, a larger spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:28:23Z

Leoboiko: not really brief anymore…

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Quick attempt; needs links and real examples, as well as summarizing/editing.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The alt-text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/ disputed]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the alt-text, a larger spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:26:51Z

Leoboiko: link formatting

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very quick and brief second attempt, may not have the right point, and needs links and real examples, as well as expansion.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The alt-text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/ disputed]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the alt-text, a larger spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:22:53Z

Leoboiko: alt-text

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very quick and brief second attempt, may not have the right point, and needs links and real examples, as well as expansion.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

So Megan misunderstands: the modularity of CPUs; the small effect of the CPU on the quality of her photography; and the actual causes of her success, much like people who reduce ability to brain advantages.

The alt-text is mocking reductionist explanations based on [[wikipedia:Magnetic resonance imaging|magnetic resonance brain imaging]]. One of the most famous (and [[http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/gender-gap-in-spatial-reasoning-mia-in-matrilineal-society/|disputed]]) claims about gendered brains is that women's brains are (slightly) worse at spatial reasoning. In the alt-text, a "larger" spatial reasoning brain area is associated with enjoyment of 3D Doritos® – a three-dimensional variation of the popular junk-food snack.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:06:08Z

Leoboiko: typo

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very quick and brief second attempt, may not have the right point, and needs links and real examples, as well as expansion.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each side.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T17:05:04Z

Leoboiko: I hope this isn't too preachy or biased. It would be good to add real examples.

{{comic
| number = 1588
| date = October 9, 2015
| title = Hardware Reductionism
| image = hardware_reductionism.png
| titletext = My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very quick and brief second attempt, may not have the right point, and needs links and real examples, as well as expansion.}}

[[Wikipedia:Reductionism|Reductionism]] is the belief that things can be explained by their smaller parts. It can be abused, when complex phenomena with multiple causes are attributed to a single, simple cause.

Neurological reductionism is the attempt to explain people's behavior and personality by physical features of their brain. With advances in neuroscience, and especially in brain imaging, there's a fad to claim that brain types determine what the mind is. Examples of this kind of bad reductionism would be:

* Male brains have more grey matter than females. Therefore males are smarter. (For an example of criticism of this kind of reasoning, see ''[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences]'' (4 December 2013).)
* Brains of gay males are slightly more symmetrical, as are female brains, when compared to straight males. Therefore gay men are fated to be more effeminate.
* The left side of the brain is associated with logical thinking, and the right, with visual and artistic thinking. Therefore people divide into "left-brain" or "right-brain" types, depending on how good they are at using each sides.

There are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, most studies identify correlation, not causation. Brains are plastic; they can be shaped by experience. For example, if, in a given society, the females are taught to mind their appearance, and the males are taught that aesthetic considerations are unmanly, then of course the female brains will end up with more developed aesthetic centers. In other words, behavior and capabilities aren't always ''determined'' by the brain. Sometimes it's the behavior that shapes the brain; sometimes a third factor (e.g. malnutrition) shapes both.

Second, even when the brain is the cause of behavior, it's far from the only piece in the puzzle. Many studies on brain differences are correlation studies, often about very small effect sizes. Unfortunately the popular science media tends to gloss over the statistical concept of "effect size". For example, imagine a study that says that male-type brains have more attention-deficit disorder (ADHD). Journalists are prone to report it simply as "STUDY SHOWS THAT MALES HAVE MORE ADHD", and this becomes a conversation soundbite. But what if the study found that males are merely 0.01% more likely to have ADHD than females (a small effect size)? This effect would be a lot less important than, say, genetics, or pregnancy smoking.

Another kind of excessive neuronal reductionism is the overemphasis on brain modules ("scientists identify brain area responsible for religious faith", and the like). Though it's true that the brain has specialized areas, it's also true that the processing is very complex, messy, and distributed all over. Some varieties of brain damage can often be overcome by learning to use undamaged areas of the brain.

The comic illustrates the problem by analogy to some better-understood general-purpose computing hardware: the CPU in a smartphone. Cueball and Megan have used their phones to take pictures of the same event: a triathlon, that is, an athletic competition comprising three modalities (e.g. swimming, cycling, and running). Cueball wonders why is it that Megan's photos are more popular. Megan gives a reductionist explanation (starting with the typical "research shows that"): Cueball's phone only has two cores. In a CPU each core is, roughly speaking, capable of acting as an independent computer. Megan thinks that this means his smartphone can only capture two events at the same time. She misunderstoods how the specialized modules work; the number of cores is unrelated to how many events can be captured. This is like saying that male brains are better at spatial reasoning, and therefore males are better photographers.

A CPU with more cores could process pictures faster, speeding up facial recognition or color filters. So it's true that Megan's CPU makes it slightly easier for her to take pictures. However, this has, at best, a very small effect in the number of "likes". There's a lot more going on with photography than the GPU of the phone: Megan's photographing skills, her luck in capturing interesting scenes, the number of online friends she has, etc.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball hold his smartphone looking at it while talking to Megan who is holding her smartphone in her hand.]
:Cueball: Your photos from the triatholon got so many more likes than mine.
:Megan: Yeah - My phone is quad-core. Research shows that iPhones like yours have just two cores, so they have a hard time capturing scenes with three different events in them.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:If we talked about phone hardware the way we talk about brain hardware

==Trivia==
*There is a spelling error in Cueball's comment where he says triath'''o'''lon instead of triathlon. (Maybe it will be corrected by [[Randall]] when he notices?)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:1588: Hardware Reductionism

2015-10-09T13:25:09Z

Leoboiko:

Is "TRIATHOLON" just a typo, or does it have a special comic value?
:At this moment of creation it exists in a limbo in which it is both a typo and a joke, but now that it is has been released for viewers to take measures, the function will soon collapse into just one of the possible states. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.197|162.158.34.197]] 13:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
::It's clearly a spelling mistake (not a typo). See http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Triathalon, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/athelete. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.149|173.245.50.149]] 13:19, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this is just parodying left-brain right-brain myths. Rather, it's parodying neural reductionism of all kinds—the currently widespread myth that our selves are determined genetically by brain structure alone, minimizing the role of culture and the way experience rewires the brain. In particular, the part about "phones like yours" makes me think of "women are from venus"–style myths (where, say, a slight correlation is found between gender and size of spacial processing module, etc, and pop-sci media reports it as WOMEN ARE INHERENTLY BAD AT SPATIAL REASONING).

[[User:Leoboiko|Leoboiko]] ([[User talk:Leoboiko|talk]]) 13:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1557: Ozymandias

2015-07-29T16:22:56Z

Leoboiko:

Look upon this comment and despair! {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.164}}
: The fact that the true author of this comment may never be known is reason enough to despair.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.66|173.245.55.66]] 14:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
: An unrelated but interesting piece of trivia about Ozymandias: "Ozymandias" is the Greek name of the pharaoh Ramesses II, one of the most famous of the Egyptian pharaohs, who built many monuments that still stand today. So the poem, which has a ruler whose monument has crumbled and who is implied to be nearly forgotten, is in fact completely inaccurate! [[User:JoeNotCharles|JoeNotCharles]] ([[User talk:JoeNotCharles|talk]]) 15:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
:: Perhaps the Ozymandias King of Kings from the poem is not the same one as Ozymandias the pharaoh? So he's doubly forgotten, because he has a more famous [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/namefellow namefellow]! [[User:Leoboiko|Leoboiko]] ([[User talk:Leoboiko|talk]])

So... [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Planepacked Planepacked]? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.145|173.245.50.145]] 05:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The page seems to give a description, but not an explanation of the joke. I still don't get it! Why has Ozymandias been singled out for this treatment? Is there some way in which recursion is particularly appropriate or inappropriate in this case, or has it just been selected arbitrarily? Is the whole joke that recursion is inherently funny? Normally when recursion is used in XKCD it's making a larger point, or cleverly riffing on something in particular. This isn't just Describe XKCD, so I'd love to see an explanation of this comic. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.47|141.101.99.47]] 09:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:The poem Ozymandias, like the statue of the king,can be thought of as a pinnacle of achievement for its civilizarion- in this case, English civilization. So it is entirely possible that one day, after the fall of this civilization, the poem will fill the same role for it that the statue filled for Ozymandias' (fictional) civilization. [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 15:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:May it be that Ozymandias is chosen because of Smith’s poem, where at last London has vanished, suggesting that Shelley’s poem is the last remains of British civilization? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.193|162.158.91.193]] 10:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:I think Ozymandias was chosen because its opening is particularly famous. Even people who don't know much about poetry are often passingly familiar with it, and there's something funny about playing with well-known classics. And yes, I do believe the joke is that infinite recursion is inherently funny. There's a long tradition of these recursion-jokes among computer scientists and math people (like the "GNU" acronym, or recursive index references), with precedents in xkcd itself. [[User:Leoboiko|Leoboiko]] ([[User talk:Leoboiko|talk]])

In Germany, we have a childrens’ song „Ein Mops kam in die Küche“, which translates as follows (there are slightly different versions, though):

A pug came into the kitchen / and stole an egg from the chef. / Then the chef took his knife / and mashed the pug. // Then many pugs came / to his grave / and set a memorial for him, / where these words were written: // “A pug came into the kitchen …”

Maybe something similar exists in English? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.193|162.158.91.193]] 10:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:We have:

: This is the song that doesn't end, / Yes, it goes on and on, my friend, / Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, / And they'll continue singing it / Forever, just because [repeat] :''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 12:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)''

:There's also:
::I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves,
::I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes...[repeat] {{unsigned ip|197.234.243.249}}

:: In Dutch: "Het was nacht, stikdonkere nacht. Veertig rovers zaten rond een vuur. De roverhoofdman stond op een zei: "Het was nacht, stikdonkere nacht... " "
:: Which translates to something along the lines of: "It was night, a pitchblack night. 40 robbers sat round a fire, their leader stood up and said: "It was night, a pitchblack night..." "
:: Sometimes the fire is replaced by the shadow of a dandelion. "..Forty robbers sat in the shadow of a Dandelion, their Chief stood up and said: "It was a dark night, forty robbers sat in the shadow of a dandelion", etc. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.67|141.101.104.67]] 13:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

::: The version I learned is: It was a dark and stormy night / and the good ship Marigold sailed the stormy seas. / The captain staggered down the steps / and said, "Mate, tell us a story!" / and the mate began, / "It was a dark and story night... --[[User:Mflansburg|Mflansburg]] ([[User talk:Mflansburg|talk]]) 15:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:I've heard a very long infinitely recursive song in English, which is a variant of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain". The standard lyrics are:

:: The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see / And all that he could see, and all that he could see / Was the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, and that's what he could see.

: Well, the infinite variant goes:

:: The bear went over the mountain the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see / And all that he could see, and all that he could see / Was a valley in the mountain, a valley in the mountain, a valley in the mountain, and that's what he could see
:: The bear went over the mountain the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see / And all that he could see, and all that he could see / Was a lake in the valley, a lake in the valley, a lake in the valley, and that's what he could see
:: ... a sailboat on the lake ...
:: ... a man in the sailbot ...
:: ... pants on the man ...
:: ... a pocket in the pants ...
:: ... a nickel in the pocket ...
:: ... a beaver on the nickel ... (Note: I just realized this line only works in Canada, where the five cent coin has a picture of a beaver on it.)
:: ... a hair on the beaver ...
:: ... a flea on the hair ...
:: ... cells in the flea ...
:: ... a prisoner in the cells ...
:: ... pants on the prisoner ...
:: ... a pocket in the pants ...
:: etc.

: I prefer a slightly shorter version which goes from "a pocket in the pants" to "a dime in the pocket", then "a sailboat on the dime" (which again only works in Canada), and back to "a man in the sailboat". [[User:JoeNotCharles|JoeNotCharles]] ([[User talk:JoeNotCharles|talk]]) 15:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

::
Note that the recursion doesn't necessary be infinite. The list of travelers who met each other can have fixed length, for example 10. Imagining that the list is infinite is the joke. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we mention {{w|quines}}, which occur when lists like this end after two iterations, as "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say/'Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say'!" {{unsigned|FourViolas}}

: That's not exactly a quine - a quine is a set of instructions which, when followed, recreates the instructions. If you take MC Quine's quote and write it out, you get just, "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say", which doesn't contain the second repetition. To be a quine, you need to find some way that taking just the quoted part will automatically expand to the full statement plus the quote.

: A closer example of a quine: "Q: Pete and Re-Pete were sitting on a bridge. Pete fell off. Who was left? A: Repeat." If you take the answer "repeat" as an instruction, you would repeat the joke, recreating it completely. [[User:JoeNotCharles|JoeNotCharles]] ([[User talk:JoeNotCharles|talk]]) 15:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This reminds me of Theodor Storm's "Schimmelreiter" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rider_on_the_White_Horse "The Rider on the White Horse"]) which descends through three nested levels of narrators before it comes to the real story. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 13:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

One connection between recursion and Ozymandias is the phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" aka "Who watches the watchmen?" and the character in ''The Watchmen'' named Ozymandias. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.51|108.162.221.51]] 14:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Nested Shelleys? Maybe associaing Shelley with shells could be part of the joke? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.115|108.162.216.115]] 16:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1557: Ozymandias

2015-07-29T14:30:11Z

Leoboiko:

Look upon this comment and despair! {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.164}}

So... [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Planepacked Planepacked]? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.145|173.245.50.145]] 05:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The page seems to give a description, but not an explanation of the joke. I still don't get it! Why has Ozymandias been singled out for this treatment? Is there some way in which recursion is particularly appropriate or inappropriate in this case, or has it just been selected arbitrarily? Is the whole joke that recursion is inherently funny? Normally when recursion is used in XKCD it's making a larger point, or cleverly riffing on something in particular. This isn't just Describe XKCD, so I'd love to see an explanation of this comic. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.47|141.101.99.47]] 09:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:May it be that Ozymandias is chosen because of Smith’s poem, where at last London has vanished, suggesting that Shelley’s poem is the last remains of British civilization? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.193|162.158.91.193]] 10:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:I think Ozymandias was chosen because its opening is particularly famous. Even people who don't know much about poetry are often passingly familiar with it, and there's something funny about playing with well-known classics. And yes, I do believe the joke is that infinite recursion is inherently funny. There's a long tradition of these recursion-jokes among computer scientists and math people (like the "GNU" acronym, or recursive index references), with precedents in xkcd itself. [[User:Leoboiko|Leoboiko]] ([[User talk:Leoboiko|talk]])

In Germany, we have a childrens’ song „Ein Mops kam in die Küche“, which translates as follows (there are slightly different versions, though):

A pug came into the kitchen / and stole an egg from the chef. / Then the chef took his knife / and mashed the pug. // Then many pugs came / to his grave / and set a memorial for him, / where these words were written: // “A pug came into the kitchen …”

Maybe something similar exists in English? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.193|162.158.91.193]] 10:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:We have:

: This is the song that doesn't end, / Yes, it goes on and on, my friend, / Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, / And they'll continue singing it / Forever, just because [repeat]

:There's also:
::I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves,
::I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes...[repeat]

:''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 12:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)''

:: In Dutch: "Het was nacht, stikdonkere nacht. Veertig rovers zaten rond een vuur. De roverhoofdman stond op een zei: "Het was nacht, stikdonkere nacht... " "
:: Which translates to something along the lines of: "It was night, a pitchblack night. 40 robbers sat round a fire, their leader stood up and said: "It was night, a pitchblack night..." "
:: Sometimes the fire is replaced by the shadow of a dandelion. "..Forty robbers sat in the shadow of a Dandelion, their Chief stood up and said: "It was a dark night, forty robbers sat in the shadow of a dandelion", etc. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.67|141.101.104.67]] 13:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Note that the recursion doesn't necessary be infinite. The list of travelers who met each other can have fixed length, for example 10. Imagining that the list is infinite is the joke. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we mention {{w|quines}}, which occur when lists like this end after two iterations, as "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say/'Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say'!" {{unsigned|FourViolas}}

This reminds me of Theodor Storm's "Schimmelreiter" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rider_on_the_White_Horse "The Rider on the White Horse"]) which descends through three nested levels of narrators before it comes to the real story. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 13:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)