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steven0461 comments on The First Koan: Drinking the Hot Iron Ball - Less Wrong
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Comments (51)
Huh?
Anyway, people only run on treadmills because they don't have a lot of places they really need to go to on foot. People only lift weights in gyms because there isn't a lot of heavy stuff that needs lifting. But someone who seeks to sharpen the intellect will never run out of real, important practice problems. Insight, unlike transportation and lifting, has not yet been mechanized or obsoleted. So why settle for fake problems?
When the answer is too simple for us to perceive it, the quickest way to simple is through complex.
Humans are silly that way. Eliminating false concepts often involves lots of hard, complicated work. You'd think it would be simpler...
Is Newcomb's Paradox a "real, important practice problem"?
More specifically, what distinguishes thinking about Newcomb's Paradox from thinking about this koan? Is it just that most of us have enough background in these sorts of things to see the purpose of NP immediately, but not to see the purpose of the koan (and we're reluctant to spend time on things we don't immediately see the point of)?
Is it that we don't trust Zen traditions/Annoyance enough to think that there is an interesting purpose behind the koan unless we can immediately see it for ourselves?
If so, is that a good reason to ignore it? [added:] Could Annoyance encourage greater engagement by trying harder to convince people that there is an interesting point (without giving the away too much)?