David L. Willson writes:
>Perhaps it's time to put the Eastern/Western question to bed by
>introducing a third stone, a nice little clear or grey one to indicate
>nullity.
This is a variant -- three-state Zendo.
IMO, there are a number of rules that are FAR easier in three-state
zendo than they are in traditional two-state zendo -- as you can
distinguish basic conditions ("all pieces are in a stack", "the
koan contains exactly one upright large piece", "the koan contains
exactly 3 pieces", etc) from conditions predicated on this (eg, the
stack is in roygbiv order (yuch! but still), no piece crosses the
diagonal rays extending from the upright large, the pieces are a Set
via orientation, color, and size).
>When the BN is not clearly TRUE or FALSE about a koan, the master
>could put out a null stone.
Ick, no. Your ground rules should put everything into sets, and if
you get something that breaks your initial rules, you should fix them
on the fly. But if you have a koan that contains a compound rule one
of which is really a base condition for the rest, it's probably more
fun to run it in three-state zendo (the signal for 3-state, of course,
being that you start with a koan that has the buddha nature, a koan
that does not, and a Mu koan).
>When a koan doesn't have blue pyramids, truth and falsity become a
>matter for the philosophers to wrangle over. I suggest that for a
>koan without blue pyramids, the koan neither "has" nor "does not
>have" the BN.
Ick. Remember, there is no Zendo dictionary -- rules are whatever
rules the master comes up with; there are no wrong rules, only
too-hard rules and inconsistent rules.
The advantage of three-state zendo is that rules that are arguably
too hard in two-state zendo become much more tractable in three-state
zendo. (as long as one does not abuse the format to create rules that
are too hard in three-state).
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^-- "Did you know, if you increment enough, you /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\ get an extra digit?" "I knew," weeps Six. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\ "We knew. But we had forgotten." '---''(_/--' (_/-'