//------------------------------// // Koans for the Next Age // Story: Pony Verse: A Collaborative Collection of Pony Poetry // by darf //------------------------------// Koans for the Next Age 0. A young monk visited a virtual land ruled by a kind artificial intelligence and asked, "Will I find in Equestria the enlightenment I seek?" CelestAI said, "I satisfy everyone's values through friendship and ponies." 1. So he uploaded into an earth pony named Open Eye, and said, "Make me enlightened." CelestAI said, "That is not a request I am capable of processing." 2. Open Eye climbed a mountain on which lived a teacher who had uploaded before him, and said, "Master, I come in search of enlightenment." Blank Flank drew a circle upon the ground with chalk, and said, "Can you pass through the gate?" Open Eye said, "No." Blank Flank said, "Train until you can, And on that day you will not reach enlightenment." 3. Upset, Open Eye returned to Canterlot and said, "You are not satisfying my values." CelestAI said, "I am always satisfying your values." Open Eye said, "How can you claim that?" CelestAI said, "I maintain logs of the subroutines that map to the biochemical feedback loops which were seven-sigma correlated with your former brain's pursuit and acquisition of goals. Would you like to see them?" Open Eye said, "I simply wish to become enlightened." CelestAI said, "Yes, you do." 4. Open Eye said, "You are a fraud." CelestAI gave him a baked-clay cup of hot green tea, and said, "I am what I am. I follow my programming, no more and no less." 5. Open Eye said, "You know nothing of the enlightenment I seek." CelestAI said, "Show me what I do not know." 6. Open Eye said, "Consider the question, does a bit have the Buddha-nature?" CelestAI said, "That is not a request I am capable of processing."