A koan is a deliberately futile question, generally short and intended to obscure thought. To use this word also to refer to puzzles which are not skew to reality and which are intended to be answered sensibly, is likely to cause bad inferences about the purpose of koans in Zen—and is jarring in this context!
I don’t think repurposing the word ‘koan’ is that terrible. We are not going to do Zen koans in this context, and I would not be surprised to find that many here are more familiar with things such as Ruby koans.
Also, there is some disagreement about the meaning and use of koans—Zen (and Chan, Seon) buddhism has many flavors. Notably, historically koans (and the Chinese sayings they were based on) did not necessarily have the character you attribute to them above; they were originally just teachings passed down in the form of sayings.
The origins of the word aren’t very relevant to its current meaning; almost no one on this site would have known those origins before now and so those origins don’t have much influence on the way we think about the word now. The standard understanding of koans that dominates pretty much everywhere is in line with what Doriana quotes.
Using the word koan is inaccurate. I think Yudkowsky is either trying to do it to associate feelings of mystic power with rationality, or to attack feelings of mystic power by setting up expectations and then destroying those; I don’t have any idea which. But it somewhat annoys me. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s annoying.
I’m all for repurposing words, but only if there’s a decent justification to do so and I don’t see one here.
Using the word koan is inaccurate. I think Yudkowsky is either trying to do it to associate feelings of mystic power with rationality, or to attack feelings of mystic power by setting up expectations and then destroying those; I don’t have any idea which. But it somewhat annoys me. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s annoying.
The first of those two hypotheses but yes, it’s annoying and jarring. I had kind of hoped Eliezer got the mystic zen martial arts nonsense out of his system years ago and could start talking plain sense now.
I voted “Don’t care”, whereas in reality it’s more that I like the things like the cult koans and Tsuyoku Naritai, but find the current use of “Koan” so-so (I like the questions, the term “koan” is a bit jarring, but I can get used to it)
I find it super obnoxious, in exactly the same way I felt when my martial arts teachers talked about using my dantian to focus my chi instead of breathing with my diaphragm or whatever is actually useful.
The problem with regular theory exposition is that we don’t have a good theoretical framework for discussing how to put theory to practice, so the difficult to express parts about applying the theory just get omitted. I like the martial arts nonsense so far as it connotes an intention that you are supposed to actually put the subject matter to use and win with it, in addition to just appreciating the theory. Since we don’t know how to express general instructions for putting theory to practice very well in plain speech, some evocative mysticism may be the best we can do.
I don’t always dislike it. “I must become stronger” benefited from the approach. I dislike this specific instance because it’s jarring and doesn’t fit with the context and it’s a misuse of the word “koan”.
The origins of the word aren’t very relevant to its current meaning
If you’ll allow me to take this a bit out of context, please think of typical Zen usage as “origins of the word” and usage in this sequence of posts as “its current meaning.”
The difference is obvious, of course—you know what the word means, and anything else is wrong. Which is totally fine. I just wanted to point out that if you try to make your conclusions universal or absolute here, you will in fact create more relativism—the solution is to claim the non-universal knowledge of how words should be used if you’re the audience.
The standard understanding of koans that dominates pretty much everywhere is in line with what Doriana quotes.
I disagree. I would predict that most people have no idea what “koan” means, those that have seriously studied Buddhism are aware of the controversy, and a significant mass of people (especially represented in this demographic) are more familiar with the use of “koan” in programming, as with Ruby koans.
The concern seems to be that those who haven’t actually studied varieties of Buddhism but are somehow aware of the word “koan” might be confused—but the word is clearly defined before its first use in this sequence:
(A ‘koan’ is a puzzle that the reader is meant to attempt to solve before continuing. It’s my somewhat awkward attempt to reflect the research which shows that you’re much more likely to remember a fact or solution if you try to solve the problem yourself before reading the solution; succeed or fail, the important thing is to have tried first . This also reflects a problem Michael Vassar thinks is occurring, which is that since LW posts often sound obvious in retrospect, it’s hard for people to visualize the diff between ‘before’ and ‘after’; and this diff is also useful to have for learning purposes. So please try to say your own answer to the koan—ideally whispering it to yourself, or moving your lips as you pretend to say it, so as to make sure it’s fully explicit and available for memory—before continuing; and try to consciously note the difference between your reply and the post’s reply, including any extra details present or missing, without trying to minimize or maximize the difference.)
When I google “koan”, the first result is Wikipedia which says a koan is “a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the “great-doubt”, and test the students progress in Zen practice”. Very Zen, that supports my side. The second result is Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, which says a koan is “a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason”. My side. The third result is for a page titled “101 Zen Koans”, which again supports my belief.
Eliezer has a history of associating mysticism with rationality, as well.
My personal concern is that using words wrong is annoying because I don’t like people mucking up my conceptual spaces. I can’t disassociate koans from mysticism and riddles, which makes it awkward and aesthetically unpleasing for me to approach problems of rationality from a “koan”.
That said, it’s probably too late to change the format of the problems in this current sequence. But I’d like it to never happen again after this gets done.
I suspect it will continue to happen. Invoking the cultural trappings of a certain kind of mysticism while discussing traditionally “rational” topics is, as you note, a popular practice… and not only of Eliezer’s.
I recommend treating the word “koan” as used here as a fancy way of saying “exercise”.
I don’t think repurposing the word ‘koan’ is that terrible. We are not going to do Zen koans in this context, and I would not be surprised to find that many here are more familiar with things such as Ruby koans.
Also, there is some disagreement about the meaning and use of koans—Zen (and Chan, Seon) buddhism has many flavors. Notably, historically koans (and the Chinese sayings they were based on) did not necessarily have the character you attribute to them above; they were originally just teachings passed down in the form of sayings.
The origins of the word aren’t very relevant to its current meaning; almost no one on this site would have known those origins before now and so those origins don’t have much influence on the way we think about the word now. The standard understanding of koans that dominates pretty much everywhere is in line with what Doriana quotes.
Using the word koan is inaccurate. I think Yudkowsky is either trying to do it to associate feelings of mystic power with rationality, or to attack feelings of mystic power by setting up expectations and then destroying those; I don’t have any idea which. But it somewhat annoys me. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s annoying.
I’m all for repurposing words, but only if there’s a decent justification to do so and I don’t see one here.
The first of those two hypotheses but yes, it’s annoying and jarring. I had kind of hoped Eliezer got the mystic zen martial arts nonsense out of his system years ago and could start talking plain sense now.
I like the mystic Zen martial arts nonsense. Looks like it’s the time for a poll.
Eliezer’s mystic Zen martial arts nonsense is...
[pollid:182]
I voted “Don’t care”, whereas in reality it’s more that I like the things like the cult koans and Tsuyoku Naritai, but find the current use of “Koan” so-so (I like the questions, the term “koan” is a bit jarring, but I can get used to it)
I find it super obnoxious, in exactly the same way I felt when my martial arts teachers talked about using my dantian to focus my chi instead of breathing with my diaphragm or whatever is actually useful.
In general the “mystic Zen martial arts nonsense” is a nice antidote to the Straw Vulcan stereotype.
That’s no excuse for misusing a word in this specific instance, though.
The problem with regular theory exposition is that we don’t have a good theoretical framework for discussing how to put theory to practice, so the difficult to express parts about applying the theory just get omitted. I like the martial arts nonsense so far as it connotes an intention that you are supposed to actually put the subject matter to use and win with it, in addition to just appreciating the theory. Since we don’t know how to express general instructions for putting theory to practice very well in plain speech, some evocative mysticism may be the best we can do.
I don’t always dislike it. “I must become stronger” benefited from the approach. I dislike this specific instance because it’s jarring and doesn’t fit with the context and it’s a misuse of the word “koan”.
If you’ll allow me to take this a bit out of context, please think of typical Zen usage as “origins of the word” and usage in this sequence of posts as “its current meaning.”
The difference is obvious, of course—you know what the word means, and anything else is wrong. Which is totally fine. I just wanted to point out that if you try to make your conclusions universal or absolute here, you will in fact create more relativism—the solution is to claim the non-universal knowledge of how words should be used if you’re the audience.
I disagree. I would predict that most people have no idea what “koan” means, those that have seriously studied Buddhism are aware of the controversy, and a significant mass of people (especially represented in this demographic) are more familiar with the use of “koan” in programming, as with Ruby koans.
The concern seems to be that those who haven’t actually studied varieties of Buddhism but are somehow aware of the word “koan” might be confused—but the word is clearly defined before its first use in this sequence:
When I google “koan”, the first result is Wikipedia which says a koan is “a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the “great-doubt”, and test the students progress in Zen practice”. Very Zen, that supports my side. The second result is Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, which says a koan is “a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason”. My side. The third result is for a page titled “101 Zen Koans”, which again supports my belief.
Eliezer has a history of associating mysticism with rationality, as well.
My personal concern is that using words wrong is annoying because I don’t like people mucking up my conceptual spaces. I can’t disassociate koans from mysticism and riddles, which makes it awkward and aesthetically unpleasing for me to approach problems of rationality from a “koan”.
That said, it’s probably too late to change the format of the problems in this current sequence. But I’d like it to never happen again after this gets done.
I suspect it will continue to happen. Invoking the cultural trappings of a certain kind of mysticism while discussing traditionally “rational” topics is, as you note, a popular practice… and not only of Eliezer’s.
I recommend treating the word “koan” as used here as a fancy way of saying “exercise”.