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stcredzero comments on How to Seem (and Be) Deep - Less Wrong
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I have played with the idea of writing a "wisdom generator" program for a long time. A lot of "wise" statements seem to follow a small set of formulaic rules, and it would not be too hard to make a program that randomly generated wise sayings. A typical rule is to create a paradox ("Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty") or just use a nice chiasm or reversal ("The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is in his heart"). This seems to fit in with your theory: the structure given by the form is enough to trigger recognition that a wise saying will now arrive. If the conclusion is weird or unfamiliar, so much the better.
Currently reading Raymond Smullyan's _The Tao is Silent_, and I'm struck by how much less wise taoism seems when it is clearly explained.
I suspect that this sort of algorithm was unconsciously internalized by many scriptwriters of Kung Fu films. I did the same thing, unconsciously, during the period I was reading Smullyan's books. That's what I did to come up with, "There's neither heaven nor hell save what we grant ourselves, neither fairness nor justice save what we grant each other."
I suspect that this sort of algorithm was used as a sort of filter by the more savvy Taoist masters -- just sit back and see who gets trapped in this particular local maxima.