#TalkThree 13: How to Use the concept of “Self-reference”?

Destructive Self-reference, Neutral Self-reference, and Constructive Self-reference (9 min read, 2003 words)

The above picture refers to the ancient symbol Ouroboros, a dragon that continually consumes itself. It refers to the concept of Self-reference.

According to Wikipedia,

Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly — through some intermediate sentence or formula — or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself, that is, to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun “I” in English.

Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, second-order cybernetics, and linguistics, as well as in humor. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical, and can also be considered recursive.

A popular book about the topic is Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 book GEB (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid).

There are three types of Self-reference:

• Destructive Self-reference
• Neutral Self-reference