Poster Asks the Boards: Am I the Cosmic Joke? Twenty-Six Replies Offer Mirrors, Laughter and a Boltzmann Brain

4CHAN /X/ — An anonymous poster on 4chan's /x/ board opened a thread this week with a question that has detained philosophers for centuries: what, precisely, is the "Cosmic Joke"? According to the post, the author once watched reality "literally re-arrange itself" and indicate that he was the cause. He adds, with some candor, that he had taken roughly 1000 micrograms of LSD at the time, though he does not believe the experience was coincidence.

He asks whether he is himself the joke, and whether that would make him God. The thread has drawn 26 replies so far, and the community has responded with the range of opinion customary to the board.

One camp offers instruction. A respondent advises the author to find the nearest mirror and gaze deeply within, whereupon the answer will reveal itself. Another states that no one can supply the answer, and that others can only point the way. A third offers a verse, which advises that, all things being apparitions, one might as well burst out laughing.

A second camp reports confirmation. One poster says he, too, was told or shown that he was God, and could only laugh. Another declares that everyone is the monotheistic God, a paradox. A reply on ego death holds that when the ego dissolves, only the self remains.

A third camp counsels restraint. One poster urges the author to discard what he saw while intoxicated, while another maintains that drugs produce predictable effects, comparable to aspirin dulling pain. Others propose that the joke is the absence of a punchline, that life is a role one signed up for, or that one is simply born without a cosmic sense of humor.

The thread also contains an all-capitals plea from a poster who demands to know whether he is God, and a Boltzmann brain theory of existence posted three times in succession, possibly for emphasis. The original question, as of this writing, remains unresolved.