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Even more functions are itemized and described with the detachment of a smarmy Seinfeld stand-up act or lame Leno monologue opener: “what’s the deal with people and their System 1s?” Kahneman only points out our collective foibles without any distinction for those of us not influenced by heuristics, anchors or availability. I wonder if he or his dearly departed Amos collected cars like their comic counterparts?

Not much going on during the second instalment that I went on to read the third, and will probably keep this pace for the rest of the novel. Lots of English stock characters being introduced, yet most of them comically chiseling after Dombey’s fortune, in particular those looking after young Paul, while others make their moves to win over these caretakers. Honest Walter, at least, does not view Flo as such a prize.

Taking a page from the Star Wars screenplay, the captive Juliet endures the advances of the Tarkin-like Cornwall who destroyed her home. Feste and Sir Toby then become C-3P0 and R2-D2 as they recruit an indifferent Othello to cross the threshold and rejoin the rebels fight against the empire of Richard the Third. Too bad Cade was sacrificed like a mere Porkins as he already had crossed with the Plantagenets.

A catalogue of structuralist authors soon become a collection of greatest hits from post-structuralist literary critic Foucault, it soon becomes all about him an the authors he read (Borges, Freud, Nietzsche, etc.) than about the ideas each theorist wrote about. Props to a post-poseur of philosophy who developed an anthropological attitude towards what gets read, but how come McLuhan is only mentioned once as an ism?

So Valentine and Proteus make an appearance as footsoldiers training under the rebel Cade. Not sure how closely these characters are meant to follow their original namesakes, for even Imogen is a far cry from the hopeful yet betrayed princess that fell victim to a husband’s jealousy. She would know enough about Othello to understand how rumours are turned against one so wronged. A lesson Juliet learns the hard way.

A peckish Leo Bloom looks for something to eat, meets a couple people along the way, and has about three hundred random thoughts spill onto the page. And according to the equally confusing schemata in the notes, we are already at Book Ten of the Odyssey yet only four ninths of the way through Ulysses - I am sure Bloomsdayians around the world love every textual diversion, but where is the narrative?

It is too bad Benvolio is made into such target for Juliet’s disdain and Thurio’s violence, but at least exits as his well-wishing name suggests. A mysterious Moor in the bar has some connection to someone like Juliet but is not Othello; could it be a partially-redeemed Aaron, following in Shylock’s redemptive footsteps? These tragic figures are rescued by the tragicomic heroine Imogen, leader of the Prodigals.

Inventively reimagining the roles of famous survivors of Verona tragedy, with no sign yet of any of the Two Gentlemen. Instead we have Shylock establishing himself in the Capulet household, and a still living, ever rebellious Juliet skulking around her family tomb, with a possible meeting with the Prince of Cats himself - how many more panels will it be before the story reveals who this mysterious mummer is?

All the dense obfuscation and philosophical ropetrickery reveals another moment of utter clarity, when Heidegger argues against the scholarly life in World Picture in support of a much more appealing and active researcher. That is not to say that there won’t be a place for reflective knowledge-seeking of “more than a mere making conscious of something” (p. 180) beyond what our science has hypothesized.

The Silver Dagger saga brings Strange to the brink of death and beyond to realms of unreality, meeting several familiar faces inside the Orb of Agamotto and becoming an eternal figure. His foe retains the upper hand on a stolen Eye and his captive Clea. As much as this curvy creature draws her hero back to this plane of reality, for many panels she merely is a damsel in distress as if airbrushed on the side of a van.

The Comic Code Authority must have been pressed to the limit with religious liberties in the 1970s, not just Living Buddha from a couple issues ago, but the blasphemous borrowing as Cagliostro becomes Sise-Neg and then something else. The time travel part of the story makes sense for an all-powerful magician would, with all the time there is, ultimately be a caring creator. Yet next Strange is killed by a mad hatter.

Recalling highlights from Master of the Mystic Arts then adding a trippy odyssey through the cosmos and into the Ancient One’s dying mind, Doctor Strange prepares himself to become Sorcerer Supreme while defeating the mental parasite Shuma-Gorath. The furrowed brows and dialogues on consciousness make a more headier version of comic book hero, but grounded characters like Clea and Wong bring him back home.

Straying outside the individuation bubble to see what more recent psychologists think about the way people behave, it is impressive how clearly Kahneman describes the two systems, the intuitive 1 and statistical 2, and the dilation in eyes can be one of the strongest thought indicators; and yet with so many parlour-trick cognitive puzzles, I find myself tending towards the unexpected solutions with System 2 on alert.

Did Joyce invent or stumble upon clickbait about a century ahead of its Internet-based use? The frequent headlines and scattered wordplay make it seem like the story moves forward, with both Leo and Stephen flitting in and out of a narrative, but could also just be like most news items on either print or digital platforms: filler for ads. So what are we being sold other than Joyce’s collection of factoid flippancy?

A final comicbook crossover, a first for Ditko and Lee’s Strange (if you overlook a brief glimpse of Thor when Mjölnir was missing) has Spidey and Doc take on a couple of lunkheaded thugs under the mystical mind control of Xandu. As daring as the young webslinger is, it is the temporarily knocked out Dr Strange who saves the day and deactivates a wand mentioned in the much later movie. Speaking of, where was Wong?

The mystical adventure goes to cosmic heights and deals with commonplace dangers like bombs and bullets, perhaps the influence of other authors taking the writing credit as Stan Lee moves into the role of editor: what happens if Strange gets shot? His last issue of this run finally gives him the front cover of Strange Tales instead of the even stranger Nick Fury. At last, briefly, he gets introduced to Clea!

Three innocuous words to sum up Nietzsche’s nihilism are under investigation, and the point where Heidegger explains how the will to will will will will will will nearly killed off my desire to make meaning from his inquiry. And it is not just the clumsy inflexibility of English translations, as Beständigung der Beständigkeit des Bestandes repeats an infinite loop of equivocation. The verdict? Humanity is guilty!

The otherworldly chase and face-off with Dormammu led to a cunning victory for Strange as the over-confident dark lord relied too much on his physical strength as opposed to any other means at his disposal. Using mental judo that turns his opponents attacks against them, both Mordo and Dormammu are out of the picture. Enter another unnamed female to defeat the doctor while the Ancient One looks for unnamed woman one.

The two stands of this strange story meet up in characteristically obscure ways as the funeral coach with Leo and a few other mourners, including Stephen’s father, passes by the son who might have glanced up a few chapters back to see the coach pass by (who’s to say what happens from one moment to the next? No way of knowing now!). Leo gets a bit more backstory with his father’s suicide and loss of his own son.

She’s back, or is it they and have they always been around, just not as the snarky AI interface Verity knows as Eunice? Do I need to start making a flow chart for new and half-forgotten characters ie, Manuela, Bevan, Ainsley and Carsyn, as Eunice suggested earlier with her Inception infographic? The future team seems to be put on hold while Plot A kicks into its heist-like conclusion, so what’s the take?

The multidimensional chase continues and the most exciting part for me was a return to Doctor Strange form: being mostly motionless in a room while high-stake esotericism happens. The mysterious numbered Issue 137 has Stephen trying to communicate with a comatose Ancient One and each mental trap is just one step closer to Eternity's truth he did not need to go to such distances to find: he is stronger without powers.

Good to be warned of the arduous journey an English reader faces in reading Heidegger, where every gerund and question mark signposts a tricky patch of thinking. Not sure that I got there with all the questioning, concerning, turning and being to keep track of, but slowly noticed I was getting somewhere. It may not help me design the killer app, but keeps me attuned to a world far away from smartphones and computers.

Shifting alliances across mulltiple timelines: Verity finds out her tormentor has a name, Pryor, who might only be one of the many agents gathering around the long table that Eunice would have been at the head of; Conner, meanwhile, seems to be preoccupied with White House shenanigans to leave Verity and Grim Tim to their own devices (Peripheral 3?) while Wilf has got himself entangled in a Dostoevsky novel.

A chapter about the lotus-eaters is dreamy and indistinct as Leopold goes from post office to a church to the chemist’s - quite a busy day already with a funeral in a matter of minutes to attend. The thoughts running about his head as he barely communicates to acquaintances he meets on the street are enough to lull him off to sleep, and yet he somehow works in mention of Brutus and Buddha to keep me on nimble toes.

A dapper doctor flies across dimensions and from one corner of the world to another, evading Baron Mordo while trying to solve the Ancient One’s Eternity enigma. The story gets stretched out, perhaps as neither artist nor author had figured out what Eternity might be. Dormammu, for all his dreaded omnipotence, seems to fall too easily for the same Mindless One diversion pulled on him in the often-footnoted Ish 127.

Completely remarkable how four short articles, most of the transcriptions of lectures Jung gave before, during and after publication of this book, both condense and expand upon the materials covered in the 495 pages prior to this Appendix. Not only does he reiterate the core concepts of two attitudes, four types and eight combinations, but reaches far back into the primitive mindset with an eye for future evolutions.

The separate paths each group is now on will hopefully connect in some way that is cohesively satisfying: I mean, preventing nuclear annihilation of a timeline is okay, but narratively a given. Bringing back a long-gone AI system with at least some personality can’t happen too soon, despite detours to London’s retro-cosplay area and endless ride in a van. Interesting to hear more about the centuries-long jackpot.

A well-played plan to defeat Doctor Strange after his otherworldly encounter with Tiboro. Mordo and Dormammu team up and the Doctor gets a bit punchy with their henchmen. The global chase spans several months in comic book issues, almost as long as it took me to return to my virus and asbestos-free office where this volume had been locked away, and the promise has been kept: Doctor Strange is defeated. Question mark.

After many pages turned over with detachment and a little confusion, I was struck by an example of a type that exactly matches my current situation, almost as if it was prescribed by Dr. Jung himself. The general description and definitions further explicate how his ways of seeing personalities fit together made the first half of the book make sense in its roundabout way much like how a classic type finally triumphs!

Here Comes Trouble, or this case Leo Bloom, the star of this novel (I’m told), beginning his day with a trip to the butchers’ followed by a stop at the outhouse. His mind seems to be all over the place as he interacts with his wife Molly, and she’s in no hurry to get him sorted out. Eventually he will make way to his friend’s funeral, but I suspect there will be plenty of distractions over the next few hours.