Changes

===6.17. Patterns of Self-Reference===

===6.17. Patterns of Self-Reference===

In setting out the plan of a full scale RIF there is an unspoken promise to justify eventually the thematic motives that experimentally tolerate its indulgence in self-reference, and it seems that this implicit hope for a full atonement in time is a key to the tensions of the work being borne.  This section, in order to inspire confidence in the prospects of a RIF being achievable, and by way of allaying widespread suspicions about all types of self-reference, examines several forms of circular referral and notes that not all contemplation of self-reference is incurably vicious.

In setting out the plan of a full scale RIF there is an unspoken promise to justify eventually the thematic motives that experimentally tolerate its indulgence in self-reference, and it seems that this implicit hope for a full atonement in time is a key to the tensions of the work being borne.  This section, in order to inspire confidence in the prospects of a RIF being achievable, and by way of allaying widespread suspicions about all types of self-reference, examines several forms of circular referral and notes that not all contemplation of self-reference is incurably vicious.

In this section I consider signs, expressions, sign relations, and systems of interpretation (SOIs) that involve forms of self-reference.  Because it is the abstract forms of self-reference that constitute the chief interest of this study, I collect this whole subject matter under the heading "patterns of self-reference" (POSRs).  With respect to this domain I entertain the classification of POSRs in two different ways.

In this section I consider signs, expressions, sign relations, and systems of interpretation (SOIs) that involve forms of self-reference.  Because it is the abstract forms of self-reference that constitute the chief interest of this study, I collect this whole subject matter under the heading ''patterns of self-reference'' (POSRs).  With respect to this domain I entertain the classification of POSRs in two different ways.

In this section I take notice of a broad family of formal structures that I refer to as "patterns of self-reference" (POSRs), because they seem to have in common the proposed description of a formal object by means of recursive or circular references.  In their basic characters, POSRs range from the familiar to the strange, from the obvious to the problematic, and from the legitimate to the spurious.  Often a POSR is best understood as a formal object in its own right, or as a formal sign that foreshadows a definite object, but occasionally a POSR can only be interpreted as something in the character of a syntactic pattern, one that goes into the making of a questionable specification and represents merely a dubious attempt to indicate or describe an object.  All in all, POSRs range from the kinds of functions and objects, or programs and data structures, that are successfully defined by recursion to the sorts of vitiating circles that doom every attempt to define an unknown term in terms of itself.

In this section I take notice of a broad family of formal structures that I refer to as "patterns of self-reference" (POSRs), because they seem to have in common the proposed description of a formal object by means of recursive or circular references.  In their basic characters, POSRs range from the familiar to the strange, from the obvious to the problematic, and from the legitimate to the spurious.  Often a POSR is best understood as a formal object in its own right, or as a formal sign that foreshadows a definite object, but occasionally a POSR can only be interpreted as something in the character of a syntactic pattern, one that goes into the making of a questionable specification and represents merely a dubious attempt to indicate or describe an object.  All in all, POSRs range from the kinds of functions and objects, or programs and data structures, that are successfully defined by recursion to the sorts of vitiating circles that doom every attempt to define an unknown term in terms of itself.