I have to admit that I find this post impossible to understand, even after reading Eliezer's clarification in the comments. If there's a correct interpretation, what is it?
I think that there is an actual impossibility lurking here.
Imagine the situation in which the pupil is fixed in this view "To learn from my teacher, it suffices to learn his words off by heart." and never does anything more. The teacher notices the problem, and tries to help the pupil by telling him that it is not enough to learn the words, you must understand the meaning, and put the teachings into practice.
The pupil is grateful for the teaching and writes it in his note book "To learn from my teacher, it is not enough to learn the words, I...
Today's post, Two Cult Koans was originally published on 21 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Politics and Awful Art, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
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