Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Whitman Richards Zen Koans
One day, Gunkel walked into Whitman's office.
"I have listed all of the ways that humans ambulate," he said. "Walking, running, hopping, leaping, and skipping."
Whitman told him, "Patrick, your list is incomplete."
"What have I left out?" asked Gunkel.
In response, Whitman walked to the coffee machine to get himself a cup of coffee. In that moment, Gunkel was enlightened.
One of Whit's grad students had been standing outside of the office when that happened. Later in the day, he walked into Whit's office and said,
"I have a real list of the ways people ambulate," and he began to walk across Whitman's office, then to run, then to hop, then leap, then skip.
"Get back to work, you lazy man!" said Richards, "You keep running around my office, but you are not going anywhere!"
During a lecture, Whit had drawn on the board a diagram of the degrees of codimensionality. Zalesky raised his hand and said,
"That diagram does not describe codimensionality.".
"Why not?" asked Richards.
"Because it is drawn with yellow chalk," was Zalesky's response.
At that point, Whitman let Zalesky lead the rest of the lecture.
At the end of the term, the grad students were all handing in their final papers for 9.34. Zalesky walked up to Richards empty-handed and said,
"Our papers were supposed to give a model for us to understand how the mind functions."
"That is correct," said Richards.
"Then my paper has written itself," replied Zalesky.
"Where, then, is your paper?" asked Whitman.
"It is not here," replied Zalesky.
Richards then gave him an A in the course.
Norwood's commentary: The paper writes itself, the mind grasps itself. There is no paper, there is no mind.
