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Comment by artemonster | Hacker News Reader

I can really recommend a book called „To Mock a Mockingbird“ on this topic. Full of deep dives, cool puzzles and such.

I suspect Smullyan was one of those people who achieved enlightenment by pure reason.

Consider "Planet Without Laughter" (note this from the site of Knuth-- that Knuth --and presumably he hosts it there for a reason, so pay attention kids!)

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html

Also he looks like Gandalf! :)

Now what does it say about me if I read this whole thing and didn't find it all that funny?

There's no accounting for taste. I'm ashamed to admit my father didn't find the works of Douglas Adams funny. I loved him anyway.

In any event, I don't think the piece is meant as a "ha ha" comedy. It's more of a contemplation or a work of philosophy.

Did it make you smile at any point?

Yes it did make me smile. My response was only half serious.

The moral I extracted was that free will is fake and humor is all that matters. If that's the case I'd have hoped he'd have thrown a few more jokes in ;)

That you're not Knuth, but I suspect you knew that already.

If not, um... retroactive spoiler warning? Sorry.

Say, have you heard of that book, The Three Knuths of Ypsilanti?

Both Smullyan and Feynmann were born in the immigrant Jewish community of Far Rockaway, NY, almost exactly one year apart. Smullyan was one year younger than Feynmann, but lived 30 years longer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Rockaway,_Queens#Notable_p...

It seems Smullyan moved to Manhattan and went to high school in the Bronx, so they would not have been at Far Rockaway High School together.

I guess Raganwald's blog entry "To Grock a Mockinbird" is a reference to that book?

http://raganwald.com/2018/08/30/to-grok-a-mockingbird.html

Yes :)

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