Editing 659: Lego

{{comic
| number    = 659
| date      = November 6, 2009
| title     = Lego
| image     = lego.png
| titletext = Dad, where is Grandpa right now?
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Lego}} is a popular brand of building toy, which [[Cueball]] here uses to describe a philosophical conundrum: the distinction between a composition and the collection of parts that make up that composition. For example, the pieces of Lego that he and his daughter, [[Ponytail]], used to make a house are still around; they were put back into the bin, and can be used on future designs. However, the house itself, as a specific combination of those blocks, is gone. It ceased to exist when they took it apart. In essence, they "killed" the house. Those elements could be used to build a car or an airplane, so if there is still a house in the box after it has been dismantled, then there is also a car in the box and a plane in the box, and a large number of other objects in the box: making it a very crowded box. Thus, it is more logical to consider the house to be one possible arrangement of the LEGO® brand building bricks that only exists when the blocks are put into that arrangement.

Another possible way of thinking about this is that the house never existed; it was just {{w|pareidolia}} turning a random arrangement of lego blocks into a "house".

Later in her life, Ponytail extends this thinking to humans and {{w|organ donation}}. The US has an opt-in system for organ donation; in the event that you die, any of your organs or tissues that remain functional after your death can be donated for transplantation or medical research, provided you've opted into the organ donor registry. Ponytail compares her organs to the Lego blocks she's carrying - even if she (the composition) dies, her organs (the pieces) can continue to serve another. As such, she is compelled to register as an organ donor.

The title text is the same question asked in the first panel, from this new perspective - instead of asking where the Lego house went, the questioner (presumably a young child, possibly still Ponytail) is asking where his/her Grandpa went. Humans are a composition of many parts; the parts are usually buried or cremated when we die, but the composition is something else entirely. What exactly happens to a human composition after death is a question for religious debate, but we know for sure it doesn't stay ''here''. Alternatively, if Grandpa chose to donate his organs (or, because the final decision is actually made by the deceased individual's family, if Cueball and Grandpa's other relatives choose to have Grandpa's organs donated), Grandpa would be in multiple other people, assuming that at least some of his organs were fit to be donated when he died.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and her father Cueball are putting away Lego bricks.]
:Cueball: When you take apart a Lego house and mix the pieces into the bin, where does the house go?
:Ponytail: It's in the bin.

:Cueball: No, those are just pieces. They could become spaceships or trains. The house was an arrangement. The arrangement doesn't stay with the pieces and it doesn't go anywhere else. It's just gone.

:[Ponytail, older, is standing at a desk. She's holding a couple of Lego bricks.]

:[She looks at the bricks.]

:[She checks off a box next to the words "Organ Donor" on a paper on the desk.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]