I always assumed that a rule that could not decide all pyramids was invalid. I use the syntax "A Koan Has The Buddah Nature If and only if..." meaning that it either meets the condition or it doesn't. With a rule like "...all of its blue pyramids are grounded" you have to make a judgement call whether this rule is even valid, since it relies on the Koan containing blue pyramids. Personally, I would simply decide to interpret the precondition as a condition in the rule, making it effectively "...it has at least one blue pyramid and all blue pyramids are grounded." I might also decide to phrase the rule negatively, "...it contains no ungrounded blue pyramids." These last two are inverses (if one marks it white the other will mark it black) but I find the second one more concice, and both of them are more specific than the first one.
Or, to put it simply, a rule must be in if-then-else form, with a condition that any koan at all can meet or fail to meet.
3-state Zendo sounds like it should be done in if-then-elseif-then-else form, with one rule taking priority over another. A koan has the buddah nature, a koan does not have buddah nature, or a koan is mu. So it it follows rules 1 and 2, it only gets the Buddah Nature mark because it cannot have two marks. Or even the variant "A koan that has both conditions has the buddah nature, a koan with only the first condition lacks the buddah nature, and a koan that lacks the precondition is mu." This allows the use of rules with a precondition, so you could do "If it has a blue pyramid, it is well-defined. And if all those blue pyramids are grounded, it has the buddah nature."
~nupanick (or other appropriate name)
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Guvf VF zl jvggl fvtangher.
On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Dale Sheldon
<dales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 10 Mar 2009, Joshua Kronengold wrote:
Um, no. It's not at all subjective. You have two rules; one distinguishes "green" from black/white, the other distinguishes black from white.
I don't see how this relates to nullity, which is I think why your line of thinking has seemed so off-track to me.
If you want to add complexity to zendo, rock on with your bad self. Failing part I of a two-stage rule doesn't strike me as "mu" though; it's just "false to the second order".