Self-reference

Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself.

(TO DO: expand, organize, cross-reference, illustrate.)

Description

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 himself, herself, or itself: to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun, the word "I" in English.

Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, and linguistics. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical.

See also

• Computer programming
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Ouroboros
• Paradox
• Philosophy
• Recursion

External links

• Self-reference @ Wikipedia