Intelligence of a praying wheel
Cochonfucius saw that the priest from Eastern Hill was inspecting a praying
wheel. He respectfully asked: "Are there many kinds of them?"
The priest from Eastern Hill explained: "There are many, indeed. This one is one
of the simplest, with no intelligence. On going into it, you would find only
pieces working upon one another, but never would you find anything like
reason
or perception."
"Intelligence, said the Master, and virtue, and wisdom, who would attach them to
machines?"
"There is indeed a new science of doing that with praying wheels. Prayers must be
guided. One could attach a young monk to the wheel, and use his human wisdom and
sense, but then, why use a wheel? So our wizards, shortly after having invented
magical bracelets, developed a new craft of artefactual intelligence".
"ArteFACTual? you mean, artiFICial?"
"We say artefactual, you heard it well. When a device is artificial, it is
perceived as an artifice. Since artefactual is seldom used, people are
baffled by it, and respect the artefactual priests, and their artefactual praying
wheels."
The Master went into the garden, and, looking at some flowers, he said unto them:
"May Heaven keep us from artefactual flowers! May we keep ourselves from being
artefactual gardeners."