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I certainly can't attest to its correctness, but I found it insightful and thought-provoking.

As to the misattribution, the paper reads:

The best I can offer as an answer to that question is a Zen koan from Douglas Hofstadter:

It seems to me he is describing Hofstadter as the conduit and not the origin.




I got it from GEB. Hofstadter doesn't attribute it, so I just assumed it was original with him. (And frankly I'd be surprised if you found any references to Zen Master Zeno prior to GEB.)


It is not original to Hofstadter; it comes from the Mumonkan: http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/29.html . Of course the original doesn't call the sixth patriarch "Zeno"; it leaves him unnamed. (The sixth patriarch actually appears to have been called Huineng: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate#Case_29:_Huin... .)




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