Talk:Koan

Hmm. I think the null koan is a perfectly valid koan. Do you think it would be correct for me to change the "most" to "some" in that sentence? -- Lambda

Anything I write should be encoded at once into PDF and left forever untouched in the archives. Goes double for Eeyore.

Hey, it's a wiki! Don't ask permission, make an edit. If I really think you're wrong, I can change it back. If somebody can fix it so that we both agree with it, we all go on to edit other pages, and the circle of life is complete.

Of course, if you think that making a change is likely to be highly controversial for some reason, you're not wrong to ask. But it's not a potluck if we don't take what you have to offer. Wiki at will. Rootbeer 04:15, 29 Apr 2005 (GMT)

I personally have no problems with the Null koan either. Consider the following two rules:

AKHTBN iff all of its red pieces are grounded
AKHTBN iff all of its red pieces are ungrounded

The null koan satisfies both of those rules (vacuously), but so would any koan that contained no red pieces. I can see why this sort of thing would be disquieting, especially for those uncomfortable with first-order predicate logic, but it's a general property of the game, it's not specific to the null koan. By the way, I generally use an empty stash pad to indicate the null koan, which avoids the "stray stone" problem. -- Jeremiah 20:21, 18 May 2005 (GMT)

Quoting the rules, "Over the course of the game, players will create different arrangements of one or more pyramids on the table. Each arrangement is referred to as a 'koan,' pronounced 'KO-ahn.'" Note: "one or more pieces". Quoting the article, "In Zendo, a koan is a collection of Icehouse pieces that has certain observable characteristics." No pieces, no koan. A koan that is not is not a koan. --Eeyore 20:42, 18 May 2005 (GMT)