Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for January 25, 2024

You too?!?!

By golly, I had the same impulse itching me! We need to ask the current presidential hopefuls what their views are about Mereological Nihilism. We don’t want a Mereological Positivist, doncha know, in charge.

BTW, Stephen Baxter in his novel “The Time Ships,” imagines one of several alternate realities in which Earth is abandoned for habitation of a sentient Dyson Sphere. Societies of Evolved Morlocks comprise multiple divisions within the sphere and depend upon extrusions that appear as quasi-objects that serve physical needs, even propagation of their species.

This might be the future of delivery services such as Amazon. Is Jeff Bezos a entrepreneurial Time Traveler?

…of course all we are is just atoms…

…God’s video game…

…though if this is an illusion…

…it’s a good one…

…I’d rather be eating a Tumbleweed taco salad …

…than sitting in a bunch of goo…

…(you’ll know what to do)…

…we are more than the sum of our parts…

…[or in my case…

…some of my parts]…

…just got new glasses…

…pre-ordered a new phone…

…and what a coincidence…

…suddenly …

…this one stops acting up…

…all is vanity…

…those things that are such a part of your life are put in shelves (or graves)…

…or shipped back…

…never to be seen again…

…Lent is coming…

…Ash Wednesday is on Valentine’s Day…

…ashes to ashes…

…funk to funky…

…in a heart shaped box…

A mereological nihilist and a merely illogical nihilist walk into a bar…

Ooooooo….kay…..

itch no more!

Your mirror beckons.

It’s true though. And at a most fundamental level. There are no particles. No atoms, no protons, no electron, quarks, bosons or all the rest. Those are just measures of energy, quanta, discrete packets. They do not have existence of their own. They are merely expressions of a greater force than we can perceive, their apparent forms imposed on them by relative pressure, interaction and timing. Timing is really the thing that makes it all work of course. . . (pauses to take pull from cigar and examine its glowing end) . . . say goodnight, Gracie.

Sure you have.

Guilty as charged! Now get out of my space you simple-tons!

It verily rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? But what part would you take? Part of the whole, or part against part…?

Be sure to aim your name calling to the person who really deserves it! Other wise there can be hell to pay!

☺️❤️

I can’t find mereological in the Cambridge dictionary.

And I’ve been itching for an excuse to google “mereological nihilist”.

Thank God I have this cream that takes care of mereological nihilist itch.

You gotta fight, for your right, to part-y!

I googled mereological nihilist. I read all the comments. Now how do I stop my head from spinning?

I yield to the cartoonist.

https://philpapers.Org/archive/BREMNA.pdf

I like this sentence: “it isn’t actually the case that all nihilists deny the existence of moons, tables, cats, etc.”

I have long suspected that cats don’t really exist. Yes, I am one of THOSE nihilists! Other things that probably don’t exist: chopsticks, soap coupons, mufflers, granite countertops, shower curtains, eels, clothes hangers, and hockey pucks. There are other things, of course, but these were the things that came to my mind as not existing first.

My sons are mereological nihilists. They’re always saying there’s nothing to eat.