Knuth
= K =
kook
koan /koh'an/ n.
A Zen teaching riddle. Classically,
koans are attractive paradoxes to be meditated on; their purpose is
to help one to enlightenment by temporarily jamming normal
cognitive processing so that something more interesting can happen
(this practice is associated with Rinzai Zen Buddhism). Defined
here because hackers are very fond of the koan form and compose
their own koans for humorous and/or enlightening effect. See
Some AI Koans, has the X nature, hacker humor.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.