Use & Mention is widely used in logic and text.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction#In_philosophy
Apparently even Mediaeval philosophy was aware of this problem where it was named Suppositio or substitution. Things can be referred to in different ways depending on the context (see previous post). So in fact self-reference is impossible by itself as the referent needs a context to determine how the referent is to be treated.
But it happens in all places where there is meaning. Famously Magritte refers to the ambiguity present with a painting of a pipe. Indeed in one sense it is a pipe (its not a pig is it) but in another sense no it isn't as you would not get far trying to smoke tobacco in this pipe.
Surely these are actually pipes? Well no of course they are not, you can't smoke them, not the ones of this mage anyway. What the brain very quickly does is substitute these [pictures for a thought about real pipes. We "imagine" smoking them and so they become real. But drop the imagination. They are just pictures and no one reading this is able to even hold them. Such is the rapid movement of the mind, and its ability to quickly confuse!
So what about a pipe in VR. We can pick it up then and we can even smoke it. We'll we think we can, but in reality we are just sitting in a VR headset with haptic gloves on. we are being tricked we are not actually smoking anything. The computer is mentioning pipe just like Magritte.
So what about The Matrix. We were born with the headset on and so our reality is VR. Well this doesn't quite work either because the language we use contains words like VR and haptic and we might end up asking what they are and then we can start to realise that there may be a reality.
So what if we are in VR now? Well same thing what do the words VR and Haptic mean?
Well what if we put the VR headset on in a super Virtual Reality. Now we are entering the world of SRH. Once something depends upon itself it also becomes meaningless. If you try and construct reality in terms of Virtual Reality, and Virtual Reality itself is part of that Reality then you are in a loop.
There must be an actual reality for Virtual Reality to exist! Now we may have been fooled into thinking the Virtual Reality is Reality but actually that is the meaning of Reality. Morpheus needs to exist for Virtual Reality to exist! No Morpheus then no Virtual Reality. You can't be fooled by something that you can never know!
The problem with "brains in tanks" thought experiments is that we are told about the "brains in tanks" first and then asked to consider whether the brains know. We know that these brains are not an analogy of ourselves because those brain doesn't know and we do. But we are supposed to then forget the opening axiom that we are brains in tanks, and then starting from the fact we can't tell we are brains in tanks deduce we are brains in tanks. That is analogous to start with 5 (brains in tanks). Multiply by 0 to get 0 (lets forget we are brains in tanks). Then divide by 0 to get 5 (lets start from the fact we wouldn't know we are brains in tanks and deduce we are brains in tanks). We forget that 0/0 can be anything. Right now you can imagine you are really a butterfly or anything you like. As long as you wouldn't know you can invent anything. Occam's Razor was designed specifically to rid all this time wasting irrelevance, and clean up our thinking. If your ontology is undefined and enables you to pluck something out at random (0/0 in our maths example) then really your are just exploring what you already know. Let me pluck out a Unicorn. As long as Unicorns don't know they are Unicorns then I am a Unicorn QED.
So in all things thoughts, words, pictures, videos, computer simulation literally anything that is supposed to represent something else we have a context and we must pay attention to that context in order for the reference to gain its meaning.
This is Wittgenstein and language games. Just as a ball can be used in a multitude of games with different rules, so references can too. "pipe" is a word. Here it is in quotes to refer to the context of the word itself. But "I've never smoked a pipe" is a mention of a sentence where the context is a reference to a real pipe in general.
Now the real point of interest is the sentence "I am false." That "I" is making a reference and seemingly making unequivocal reference to the sentence itself.
But there are language rules, and context to navigate from the word "I" to get back to the sentence. You can't just substitute one for the other without going through the context and meaning.
Now in computers and logic substitution is virtually treated as a zero step operation. Its so axiomatic and obvious that it just happens. But if we can show that no substitution can take place without context then its a 1 step operation, and that step enables ambiguity to occur.
In reality our thought process goes:
"I am false"
Someone who has never seen this before may think "so what" and they move on. But depending on IQ they may follow the direction of the reference. "What is false?" And then they see that the sentence is false. Ok the sentence is false, big deal. But then again depending on IQ they see the problem that if the sentence is false that contradicts their opening assumption that the sentence was making a true statement. Oh wait a second they think "I assumed the sentence was true, but if its true then it is contradicting my opening assumption. So it must be false. But if its false then (assuming a binary logic) it must be true, which also contradicts the opening assumption. So there are no opening assumptions on its truth that do not lead to contradiction.
Now there is quite a lot of "process" and context and meaning going in here. Its not an atomic issue.
#TODO run out of time.
Just note what if English Language is tristate. True/False/Null. So we can just assume its nonsense and then put the statement in the bin without issue.
But if English is like this then "I do not what to get out of the boat" does not necessarily mean I want to say in the boat.
In fact English is like this. You get asked "Do you want Fish and Chips?" and when you say "no" it just means you want something else. Normally if we don't want to eat anything we would say "no, I'm not hungry" to illustrate that the "null" is not within the context of the "menu" but in the context of "eating" all together.
So there are levels of Context to negotiate. It is very like computer code where Context is identical to "scope" and scope can be nested, or even recursive.
So when we read "I am false" we actually read it in the same way as we read a menu when we don't want to eat.
Also of interest is "I am true." Like the "I am false" it doesn't matter what your opening assumption is. If you think it is true, then it works. If you think it is false then it works to "I am true" is false if you think it is false! So we should read this the same way as we do "I am false."
This is just rehashing in different language the same conclusions as Tarski, Godel and Turing about undecidability.
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