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A 'challenge' to HNers out there from What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun. Try getting an 'A' on this passage. The answer, per Graeber, is in the text. But I
by Balgair 6y ago
A 'challenge' to HNers out there from What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun.
Try getting an 'A' on this passage. The answer, per Graeber, is in the text. But I'd love to see some other attempts from you all on here. Maybe comment down below and then look at Graeber's answer. Personally, I was unable to solve the last little bit and get an 'A'. It's a very good one to mull over:
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Years ago, when I taught at Yale, I would sometimes assign a reading containing a famous Taoist story. I offered an automatic “A” to any student who could tell me why the last line made sense. (None ever succeeded.)
Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling on a bridge over the River Hao, when the former observed, “See how the minnows dart between the rocks! Such is the happiness of fishes.”
“You not being a fish,” said Huizi, “how can you possibly know what makes fish happy?”
“And you not being I,” said Zhuangzi, “how can you know that I don’t know what makes fish happy?”
“If I, not being you, cannot know what you know,” replied Huizi, “does it not follow from that very fact that you, not being a fish, cannot know what makes fish happy?”
“Let us go back,” said Zhuangzi, “to your original question. You asked me how I knew what makes fish happy. The very fact you asked shows that you knew I knew—as I did know, from my own feelings on this bridge.”
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Indeed David, it was fun.