[2012-Aug-19] Zach ALSO hates you fucking people

[nobody]

he's on our team.

you know, when he's not being annoying.

[Guest]

This one's really similar to http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2533

[nobody]

Ah, that's why I hate those people

because they came out in force for that comic

[ChaoticBrain]

Clearly the first guy was not allowed to collect the prize money because the monks are racist.

[nobody]

Pretty clear from their robes that they are a different set of monks.

[James Franklin]

What is a sound? Is it the mechanical wave or the way we perceive the mechanical wave?

[ThatThereLazyGuy]

Apparently, Zen koans are Tibetan Buddhist tools, as opposed to, y'know, Zen Buddhist tools.

[Montero]

What is a sound? Is it the mechanical wave or the way we perceive the mechanical wave?

Good point indeed.

I think koan are just purposely designed to make you stop wasting your time with futile questions in real life.

[gemeric]

What is a sound? Is it the mechanical wave or the way we perceive the mechanical wave?

I say it's the mechanical wave. Otherwise you'd be able to create sound by manipulating brain cells that deal with hearing.

[sotic]

What is a sound? Is it the mechanical wave or the way we perceive the mechanical wave?

My dictionary says it's the wave, but I don't know if we should trust it for something as serious as a Zen koan.

[today's comic was particularly bad]

This "riddle" is not really a koan, it's a thought experiment that has its origins in western philosophy, not eastern mysticism. It's a little ignorant that Zach used it twice as if it were a koan. It's more than a little ignorant that both times he went with the physics perspective (also as if it were some kind of obvious practical insight) and did it... wrong.

In physics, this is a trick question. In physics, vibrations are only "sound" if they are perceived by a being capable of hearing. It has nothing to do with "conservation of energy," whatever he thinks it means in this context.

[nobody]

you realise zach was not on the side of the physics person, right?

[today's comic was particularly bad]

Hi Zach. How much are you paying yourself to defend yourself from the internet?

[nobody]

if I paid myself any amount it would come back to me, therefore I do the work pro bono

I MEAN I DON'T I MEAN HE DOESN'T I AM NOT ME

[Guy]

Sounds--like colors or smells--happen in brains. They don't exist without a brain to perceive them.