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Self-referential sentences

created by madvid

(idea) by madvid (1.1 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) 1 C! Thu Nov 16 2000 at 10:10:57

A self-referential sentence is a sentence that describes itself in some manner. Classic examples; "This sentence is true" - or the derivation of Epiminides' paradox, "This sentence is false".

Another amusing example:

    This sentence has three a's, two c's, two d's, nineteen e's, six f's, two g's, five h's, ten i's, two l's, twelve n's, nine o's, five r's, twenty six s's, sixteen t's, four u's, four v's, eight w's, four x's, and two y's.
Douglas Hofstadter presented some self-referential sentences in his book Metamagical Themas, but with an emphasis on numbers and how to "construct" them, such as this one;
    In this sentence, the number of occurences of 0 is 1, of 1 is 11, of 2 is 2, of 3 is 1, of 4 is 1, of 5 is 1, of 6 is 1, of 7 is 1, of 8 is 1, and of 9 is 1.

printable version
chaos

strange loops Converting Pi to binary: Don't do it! This sentence is false Their are three misteaks in this sentence
Stupid Word Tricks neurotic sentences Metamagical Themas quine
Douglas Hofstadter This sentence is in English while you're not looking The absurdity of power and diamonds The Orange Box
Turn Off Your TV This sentence is in Spanish while you're not looking It's hard to hide a hard-on when you're dressed like Minnie Pearl. Healthy sentences
self-referential Thought loop self-referential structures Lexiphanicism
bollocks false hardlink Reality bubble
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