One day three Greek philosophers settled under the shade of an olive tree, opened a bottle of Retsina, and began a lengthy discussion of the Fundamental Ontological Question: Why does anything exist?

After a while, they began to ramble. Then, one by one, they fell asleep.

While the men slept, three owls, one above each philosopher, completed their digestive process, dropped a present on each philosopher’s forehead, the flew off with a noisy “hoot.”

Perhaps the hoot awakened the philosophers. As soon as they looked at each other, all three began, simultaneously, to laugh. Then, one of them abruptly stopped laughing. Why?