Impossibility of Self-Reference

Things always take a long time with me. This is beginning to take shape at last.

Discussing democracy with a friend I posed the situation where a country took a referendum on democracy itself. Suppose in the ballot box room the vote tallies began to show that there had been a resounding victory for the anti-democratic vote. What should the vote counters do? Counting votes in a country that no longer wants democracy is a waste of time. What exactly would the result mean also?

This illustrates again the problem with things that are self-referential. When they are self-supporting they seem the work. But when they are self-defeating they result in nonsense or NULL as I have been calling it.

As already argued if they result in NULL rather than false when self-defeating then they can’t result in truth when they are self-supporting. Someone can’t give themselves as an alibi in court any more than something can be self-supporting.

What exactly is going on then with the statement: “This sentence is composed from seven words.”?

It seems to be true. Let us test it: “This sentence is composed from six words.”. This is false so we have shown that there is not true self-reference (if one accepts the SRH)

“This sentence is true” seems to be ok. But famously “This sentence is false” gives us an undecided result- NULL. This is true self-reference so “This sentence is true” is actually NULL!!! A self-referential statement is not true because it can’t be false. It can only be NULL since the opposite of NULL is NULL also.

Now all this looks trivial. However it points to a very important piece of wisdom which keeps being rediscovered: that all things are interconnected, have a dependent origin, and that there is no-self.

If self cannot support itself then it must be supported by things that are non-self. Thus self is actually non-self when you look into it. It means that everything gains its existence and its meaning from the things around it. That truth and existence do not reside in the object of scrutiny but rather in the objects not-under scrutiny. It means that what is inside is so because of what is outside. I am what I am because of you as the Orange advert recently revived. Tat tvam asi in Sanskrit and ‘This is this because that is that’ in the translation of the similar Buddhist doctrine.

What remains is to determine with greater clarity the process by which we link statements like “This sentence is true” with “This sentence is false”. If they have no link then how can I use these pairs to test the structure!

Secondly what exactly is the “this” in “This sentence is compose from six words”. It seems that the reference is not dependent upon the statements truth.

However “This statement of nine words has eight words” is running into problems. I need to stick it on the back burner again… will update eventually !