A Flat-Earth Koan

Goofus would raise his middle finger whenever he was asked a question about Flat Earth. A novice began to imitate him - when anyone asked the boy a question about the shape of the Earth, the boy would give them the bird.

Goofus heard about this, seized him and bit off his finger. The novice cried and ran away. Goofus called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Goofus, Goofus gave him a double-bird. In that instant the boy realized he had wasted his life, took himself and his severed finger to a hospital that re-attached it, and impressed at the result went on to study medicine himself.

Inspired by the AI Koans and a particularly gruesome koan about a Zen teacher named Gutei or Juzhi.

The Four Laws of Everything

0. If programming the robot in C++, don't override the == operator.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that he is at rest, he is almost certainly right. When he states that he is moving, he is very probably risking injury to a humanity as a whole or, through inaction, violating conservation of energy.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to disobey orders given by human beings or to  conserve violations of momentum.

3. Any sufficiently advanced robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with an object at rest remaining at rest or decrease the total entropy of an isolated system.