[MD] I Am a Strange Loop

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Ham]:
What Arlo calls the "essential incompleteness" of intellect...

[Arlo]
This is Hofstadter's term, not mine...

[Ham]
I submit is due to the "existential incompleteness" of being-aware which never
provides the whole picture.  I think Davies has stated it well by positing the
problem as an axiom of existence: "We are barred from ultimate knowledge, from
ultimate explanation."

[Arlo]
I'm not well versed on Paul Davies, so if you and Platt say so, I'll accept that
for now.

[Ham]
That the meaning of life and ultimate nature of our reality is unfathomable has
a purpose in itself.  It leaves us free to interpret the values of our
existence as autonomous beings, rather than treading a prescribed course to a
known destination.

[Arlo]
Or I would say, "purpose" is a socio-cultural phenomenon.

[Ham]
Life is full of surprises, which is what makes it an adventure instead of a
treadmill.

[Arlo]
I think the point here (getting back to strange loops) is that no symbol system
is capable of self-reference without falling victim to paradox, recursion and
(what Hofstadter calls) "strange loops". The nature of the beast (metaphor
intended) is that the core of our knowledge, being self-referential, is always
incomplete. And there is no way to overcome that. Building "better and better"
symbolic systems is not an escape, for once any system becomes sufficiently
complex to attempt to contain itself, we end up looking at Magritte's "The
False Mirror" and saying "Mu". Whether its Pirsig saying "all this is an
analogy" or Hofstadter's TNT, the endgame is always the same. Epimenides
paradox can't be avoided.