A Broken Koan

Eliezer Yudkowsky

At Baycon today and tomorrow. Physics series resumes tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a page of Broken Koans and other Zen debris I ran across, which should amuse fans of ancient Eastern wisdom; and a koan of my own:

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving."

The other said, "The wind is moving."

Julian Barbour happened to be passing by. He told them, "Not the wind, not the flag."

The first monk said, "Is the mind moving?"

Barbour replied, "Not even mind is moving."

The second monk said, "Is time moving?"

Barbour said, "There is no time. You could say that it is mu-ving."

"Then why do we think that flags flap, and wind blows, and minds change, and time moves?" inquired the first monk.

Barbour thought, and said, "Because you remember."

At Baycon today and tomorrow. Physics series resumes tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a page of Broken Koans and other Zen debris I ran across, which should amuse fans of ancient Eastern wisdom; and a koan of my own:

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving."

The other said, "The wind is moving."

Julian Barbour happened to be passing by. He told them, "Not the wind, not the flag."

The first monk said, "Is the mind moving?"

Barbour replied, "Not even mind is moving."

The second monk said, "Is time moving?"

Barbour said, "There is no time. You could say that it is mu-ving."

"Then why do we think that flags flap, and wind blows, and minds change, and time moves?" inquired the first monk.

Barbour thought, and said, "Because you remember."

Caledonian, perhaps I should have written "objectivity-negating subjectivity" and "subjectivity-negating objectivity". The first would deny that reality has any intrinsic qualities (qualities independent of observation, basically), while the latter ends up denying the qualities of experience itself ("not even mind is moving").

frelkins, taking a stance in opposition to Nagarjuna is difficult because he's so neither-nor, but maybe just saying that something, somewhere, has an intrinsic nature is enough to do it. :-) You shouldn't read too much more into my remarks than that. I am agnostic on many points, and I am skeptical that anyone has ever yet known the truth about metaphysics. I have my preferred hypotheses, and I'm prepared to reject certain others, and that's about it.

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