Look this argument is so simple...

Why have I spent so long trying to get this argument out... (like about 25 years on and off!!!) its nothing special, but it's implication are I think?

The rules of a system cannot be built within that system.
This is all it is!

Consider. How do you construct a system unless you know the rules? You can only construct a system once you know the rules. Now once you know a game, you can then use that game to write axioms (in a hermeneutic way) but you cannot escape the system now.

Like the anthropic principle, the very presence within a system is a "given". This has been argued to mean that there are many different systems and only some of which can support our presence. This seems like a circularity based upon the rules that have been worked out within this 1 system... that needs some thought. The alternative is that this universe had a special creation to be suitable for life... its interesting how the two ideas are so similar... that "specialness" in general seems to reflect an aspect of the ego.

There is no escape from the system... well within terms of that system. And since a kid I have realised that no theory we can construct has any real value unless it an build things from the start, and since we can't do that it seems and we have to start with a "given" universe we have to just accept the system of rules we call existence and live with it. God given or whatever we want to call it.

So the project (before I forget completely where I'm heading) is simply to create a game and try to build that game within itself to prove one way or another tat it can't be done fromally.

Quine's are a good game where rules are simple PRINT and "{string}". However there is a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes including creating memory which is hidden from the system.

So to propose: a system of characters on a grid (like chess) which have meaning in building characters, so that they can build themselves.

Things to note...
>that the meaning the "user" ascribes is not the same as the meaning the system ascribes (like with Aime)
>that some rules cannot be constructed within the system
>that given the rules a pretty good version of the rules can be built within the system using those rules ... but how good?

What is the constraint on a system that stops it building itself? Formalise that!!!