That koan doesn’t really seem to be related to what we’re discussing.
That aside (and this is mostly off-topic, because—see previous line), the koan also seems to “rig the thought experiment”—the author makes it easy for himself. Consider an alternative version:
“A monk rowed out to the middle of a calm lake to meditate. A while later, he was bumped into and interrupted by another boat! The monk opened his eyes in anger, and saw that the rowboat was occupied by another monk, who was deliberately bumping his rowboat into the first monk’s boat. The first monk berated the second monk for doing this, yelling at him to stop, as this was making him angry and making it impossible for him to meditate. But the second monk replied that the anger was inside the first monk, not coming from anywhere else; ‘suppose that there were no one in this boat,’ he said; ‘suppose that it were just the wind causing the boats to bump into each other—you would still be angry!’. Meanwhile he continued to bump his rowboat into the first monk’s boat. The first monk tried to ignore the distraction and resume his meditations, but was unable to do so. Meanwhile the second monk bumped the boats together harder, and the first monk’s boat capsized, dumping its occupant into the water. ‘What you’re feeling is still inside yourself!’ called the second monk down to the first monk as the latter drowned in the lake.”
To be clearer, the koan is meant to be related only to a sub-item of a sub-item of a comment: “you are simulating their emotions”, rather than the original post or to any entire comment.
That koan doesn’t really seem to be related to what we’re discussing.
That aside (and this is mostly off-topic, because—see previous line), the koan also seems to “rig the thought experiment”—the author makes it easy for himself. Consider an alternative version:
“A monk rowed out to the middle of a calm lake to meditate. A while later, he was bumped into and interrupted by another boat! The monk opened his eyes in anger, and saw that the rowboat was occupied by another monk, who was deliberately bumping his rowboat into the first monk’s boat. The first monk berated the second monk for doing this, yelling at him to stop, as this was making him angry and making it impossible for him to meditate. But the second monk replied that the anger was inside the first monk, not coming from anywhere else; ‘suppose that there were no one in this boat,’ he said; ‘suppose that it were just the wind causing the boats to bump into each other—you would still be angry!’. Meanwhile he continued to bump his rowboat into the first monk’s boat. The first monk tried to ignore the distraction and resume his meditations, but was unable to do so. Meanwhile the second monk bumped the boats together harder, and the first monk’s boat capsized, dumping its occupant into the water. ‘What you’re feeling is still inside yourself!’ called the second monk down to the first monk as the latter drowned in the lake.”
To be clearer, the koan is meant to be related only to a sub-item of a sub-item of a comment: “you are simulating their emotions”, rather than the original post or to any entire comment.