| Mu (negative) |
Article Index for Mu |
Information AboutMu (negative) |
|
.]] Mu () is a word which can be roughly translated as "none" or "without". While typically used as a prefix to imply the absence of something (e.g., 無線 ''musen'' for "wireless"), it is more famously used as a response to certain Koan s and other questions in Zen Buddhism , intending to indicate that the question itself was wrong. The ''Mu'' koan is as follows: A monk asked Zen master or not?", Zhaozhou answered: ''"Wú"'' (in Japanese, ''Mu''). Some earlier Buddhist thinkers had maintained that creatures such as dogs ''did'' have the Buddha-nature; others, that they did not. Therefore, to answer "no" is to deny their Wisdom , whereas to say "yes" would appear to blindly follow their teachings. Zhaozhou's answer has subsequently been interpreted to mean that all such categorical thinking is in fact a Delusion . In other words, yes and no are both right and wrong. This Koan is traditionally used by students of the Rinzai School of Zen as their initiation into Zen study. This answer has also been interpreted in a humoristic way, as "WuuUU." In other words, the disciple laughs, and this also shows the wisdom of the ideal teacher. In his 1974 novel '' Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance '', Robert M. Pirsig translated ''mu'' as "no thing", saying that it meant "unask the question". He offered the example of a Computer Circuit using the Binary Numeral System :
According to the Jargon File , a collection of hacker jargon and culture, ''mu'' (here pronounced "moo") is considered by Discordians to be the correct answer to the classic Logical Fallacy of the Loaded Question "Have you stopped beating your wife?"http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html Assuming that you have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes" is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you have one and are still beating her. As a result, various Discordians proposed ''mu'' as the correct answer, alleged by them to mean "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions". In the Manga series Death Note , Mu is said to be where all humans go after they die, and that there is no Heaven or Hell. In this case, “Mu” is considered to mean “nothingness”. The word features prominently in Douglas R. Hofstadter 's 1979 book, '' Gödel, Escher, Bach '', where it is used fancifully in the context of discussions on Symbolic Logic , particularly Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem . SEE ALSO REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|