My parents had a friend, Neil Patterson, who used to lecture in Philosophy at Bradford. A couple of Americcan exchange students once asked him, for further reading, what he thought the most important work of philosophy from the last ten years in the English language was. He thougth for a moment, said "The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, by Douglas Adams", and thought no more of it.

Until a few days later, of course, when he had to explain to an irate Dean that he'd been completely serious.

I'm reminded, of course, of the marvellous, sad, warm, funny, heartbreaking article Richard Dawkins wrote on the occasion of Douglas Adams' death. But then, I so frequently am, whenever I hear of anyone expressing either surprise at how scientifically literate and philosophically astute Adams was (or for that matter, claiming that Dawkins has no soul).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/may/14/books.booksnews

(I'm sure there's a cheap shot about atheism somewhere in there, along the lines that Dawkins indeed has no soul and neither does anyone else...)

I wasn't really intending to express surprise that Adams was philosophically astute. I've lost count of the number of times I've quoted from Hitch-Hiker because it contains an eloquent passage making exactly the point I wanted in some discussion (and, as an added bonus, is funny in the process). I was more surprised that in this particular case his influence on my thinking appears to have been subtle and subconscious, whereas usually I know it's happening.

I was using soul in the non-technical sense, as well you know.

No, I wasn't suggesting that you were surprised that Adams was a philosopher at heart - but I've certainly heard his books dismissed as 'funny science fiction stuff' by people who simply missed the point.

Has it really been nearly seven years? I still remember being shocked when I heard.

*grins*

Actually, Buddha got there first!

A common problem in zen is the "unanswerable question" - when a question is asked which, in its asking, contains implicit contradictions or falsehoods.

The traditional answer is "mu", meaning in this case "no-question". Another common answer was to respond with a seemingly nonsensical answer, reflecting the question.

So, the question: "What is the meaning of life?" could be answered with "Mu", or the phrase, "Sunlight in the trees."

Yes, although that's always struck me as a bit smug and irritating compared to the much more helpful response of pointing out what the implicit contradictions or falsehoods actually are, or asking questions in return to help clarify the point.

I accept "mu" as an answer in humorously pedantic contexts, or when the implicit falsehood is entirely obvious, or if the rudeness is deserved (due to persistent repetition of the question, for example, or a thoroughly insulting question in the first place), or other such mitigating factors; but when I see it in Zen koans my instinctive thought tends to be that if I'd been in the novice's place at that moment I would have been strongly tempted to grip the master firmly by the throat and shout "Go on then, you with all the answers, what's wrong with my question?".

Well, understand that "mu" would only be given as an answer in certain contexts; in the context you describe, there was a contract in place between the novice and the master. The novice had come to the master to learn and had accepted the master as, well, their master. (The concept of this may be a little unnatural to the modern, western mind, but was fairly standard in the cultures I think we're discussing.)

I agree that a master who only ever answered "mu" wouldn't be a very helpful master. But, the answer "mu" was given in the context of many other interactions between the master and the novice, and some would contain more of the kind of direct instruction that you describe.

I think it's a bit similar to martial arts work with an experienced instructor. Sometimes, it's helpful to get feedback from an instructor as you train with them on why your technique is failing. But, sometimes, they just need to stand there and be the place-where-your-technique-fails so that you are forced to find improvement within yourself.

I think Zen masters probably lived and worked in the time before tuition fees. Students don't put up with that kind of shit any more. Unfortunately, they often don't put up with anything which does even slightly less than acknowledge them, as a consumer, as the unique centre of the universe.

The advantage of Belnap, and Arieli and Avron's approach over that of Buddha is that they defined latices, drew up truth tables, and then explored various implication operators and proof algorithms.

Although, whereas you say that if only we knew what the Question was, finding the Answer would be easy, Deep Thought found the Answer *without knowing the Question* and suggested that if only we knew what the Question was, we might understand what the Answer meant.

Indeed. But that's because the whole Ultimate Question thing in Hitch-Hiker cleverly combined being funny by being true with being funny by being absurd; there's a real point in there, and there's also wild exaggeration for comic effect, and the point you mention is part of the latter.

ETA: not to mention that it's also cracking an unrelated joke about computers, and their tendency to occasionally do completely mad-looking things which it can take a lot of thought to realise were exactly what you turned out to have inadvertently asked for.

I'd say that people often mean things like the following when they're asking for the meaning of life.

Most of the things we must do, or most of the things we choose to do, we do in order to achieve some other end: we buy soup to eat soup, we work to earn money, we exercise to remain healthy, and so on, they are means to ends. I think that people are asking "what are the ends", what are the things we do not in order to do anything, in essence what are the fundamental particles of motivation. It's become a sore question because the way things are structured in the modern world has little to say on the matter, on these "unhypothetical ends", but places great weight in them, as they determine the choices (the hypothetical ends). In fact it raises these motivations a stupendous height by almost everything we do being oriented around hypothetical imperatives (aka choices), and steadfastly refuses to give them foundation (by keeping us 'free' from such things). It's a bit like an absurd religion founded around a god about which it says nothing at all. I don't mean this as a criticism.

To mainstream religious people it's easy because religions usually have some kind of fundemental particle of tuit, the glory of god, or whatever. For the rest of us, the atheists and borderline nutcases, it's more complex. Just like the dividing of matter, and the tracing of pointers through a data structure, there are three plausible bottoms. First, perhaps there is such a unitary nanotuit (either objective or subjecitve). Second, perhaps it's circular, or otherwise self-referential. An A is made of a B and a C; a B of an A and a B; a C of an A and a B. Or the parent of the top of a tree is itself. Third, perhaps it just goes on forever in infinite regress.

what are the things we do not in order to do anything

I think, after some thought, that I have to respond to this in a "mu"-like fashion, by rejecting the presumed dichotomy between things done in order to do other things and things done for their own sake.

Consider the well known cycle of working in order to eat in order to live in order to work. It seems plausible to me that all of these things will contribute to any given person's feelings of happiness and worthwhileness (in varying proportions). So they are all things done in order to do the next thing, but also worthwhile in and of themselves.

One could argue that in that case the primary goal is "feel happy and worthwhile" and that engaging in the work/eat/live/work cycle in the first place is something one does because it contributes to that primary goal; but that seems to me to sort of miss the point, in that it raises the obvious question "but what sorts of thing make me feel happy and/or worthwhile, and why?", which suddenly seems more interesting.

Which, I suppose, supports my original belief that finding the right question to ask is the hard bit :-)

I don't consider that a mu at all: to me you've provided a good deal of information about how you feel about motivation! For example, we could go on and talk about the utility monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster), or the mere addition paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox), or what your feelings were on the origin of "value", on spending a life in drug-induced ecstasy, etc.

I guess I see where you're coming from if you're saying that the "meaning of life" is more of an essay question than a mutliple choice or short answer one, :). But there are a lot of questions like that. Most famously "The Irish Question". I have no idea what that was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the kind of question which had a one line answer, :).

I don't have the book here to check chapter and verse, but I'm pretty sure 1066 and All That mentioned one king trying to answer the Irish Question by pulling the beards of the ancient Irish chiefs, which the book said "was a Bad Thing, and the wrong answer". :-)

http://www.zefrank.com/atheist/