This page is self referential. To read more about it, please check this link. Also check out this Self-Referential Aptitude Test and this open course on the Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize winning Gödel, Escher, Bach.
Outline
Fractal pattern
Escher Cube
Penrose triangle
Mobius Strip
Golden Ratio
Swans – M.C. Escher
Hand with Reflecting Sphere – M. C. Escher
Smaller and Smaller – M.C. Escher
Print Gallery – M.C. Escher
Drawing Hands – M.C. Escher
The Treachery of Images – René Magritte
Self portrait by Alex Allemany
Ourorobos
- David Moser’s Self-referential story (This is the Title of the Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself)
- T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land
- Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22
- Cervante’s novel Don Quixote
- Asimov’s short story The Last Question
- C.S. Lewis’ novel The Dark Tower
- French philosophy and Borges Century of Borges
Héctor Zagal – Ese imbécil no soy yo
- Graham Priest Derrida and Self-Reference
- Andrew Brook Kant, Self-awareness and Self-reference
Other self-referential statements and paradoxes:
- All generalizations are false
- There are no truths
- All truths are relative
- All theory is class ideology
- Nothing can be known
- All truth is historical (also: All truth is construced)
- All memory is deceptive
- The barber is a man in town who shaves all those, and only those, men in town who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?
- Does the set of all sets which do not contain themselves, contain itself?
- Hofstadter’s law: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law”.
- I am lying
- Avoid clichés like the plague
- This sentence employs two a’s, two c’s, two d’s, twenty-eight e’s, five f’s, three g’s, eight h’s, eleven i’s, three l’s, two m’s, thirteen n’s, nine o’s, two p’s, five r’s, twenty-five s’s, twenty-three t’s, six v’s, ten w’s, two x’s, five y’s, and one z.
- Grelling’s paradox: an autological word is one which describes itself (e.g. “noun”). Hetelogical words don’t (e.g. “verb”)
- Is “heterological” a heterological word?
- no → “heterological” is autological → “heterological” describes itself → “heterological” is heterological, contradiction
- yes → “heterological” does not describe itself → “heterological” is not heterological, contradiction
- Is “heterological” a heterological word?
- Gödel’s revolutionary Incompleteness Theorems:
- Monty Python
- Inception: Nolan directs DiCaprio as a thief of the subconscious.
- Woody Allen: the man who helped define ‘neurosis’ in the public mind, not only because of his stereotypical New York protagonists, but also of his real public behavior which is just as crazy as his roles. Woody and his characters cannot be completely separate; it is as if the existence of one referred to ther other. To read about his style and biography open this article.
Bonus points for breaking the ‘fourth wall’ in this scene with legendary communication theorist Marshall McLuhan.
- 8 1/2: Fellini’s classic film on filmmaking
- Shrek: self-referential postmodern parody of pop culture.
- Phineas and Ferb: the most enjoyable kids’ show ever. Full of references and jokes that only adults will understand (CSI, Existentialism, James Bond, etc.)
- Adventure Time: popular Cartoon Network postmodern psychedelic show
- Looney Tunes: Daffy Duck fighting the cartoonist
- Film gets stolen in Cobbler and the Thief (video automatically skips to scene)
- Pink Panther: amazing self referential chase
- Yellow – Coldplay:
I came along, I wrote a song for you, and every thing you do, and it was called Yellow
- Tribute – Tenacious D:
This is not the greatest song in the world, no, this is just a tribute
- You’re So Vain – Carly Simon:
You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you
- J.S. Bach’s infinite loop: Canon a 2 per Tonus
- Fibonacci series played on the piano
- Weird Al Yankovic – This Song’s Just Six Words Long
- Woozle effect: when a group of articles reference each other as support, seemingly providing proof for something with no real evidence. According to Wikipedia: “A Woozle is an imaginary character in the A.A. Milne book, Winnie-the-Pooh, (…) Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet start following tracks left in snow believing they are the tracks of a Woozle. The tracks keep multiplying. Christopher Robin then explains that they have been following their own tracks around a tree.”
- One person’s answer to “Is it true that googling Google can break the internet?”: No. In fact, I google google using google a googol amount of times every day and I get results about other people googling google while using google and when im done googling with google I google on google maps to find googols of maps about google and then I google google videos of google which demonstrate google and how to google it and when Im finally done I google with google while I blog about having googled using google and if you google a googol amount of times you will find this blog about me googling about google using google to illustrate how my daily life of googling works.
- Positive loop: A produces B which in turn produces more of A.
- The decentralized organization of knowledge:
- Consciousness: The Self-Referential Loop We Call Consciousness
- Chicken or egg problems in causation
The Next Phase 