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one of the things that I find fascinating about language is the way it can become twisted with self reference and paradox. Douglas Hofstadter dwells on this extensively in his writing. Here are some of his examples (which remind me in a twisted way of some of our ongoing discussions):
- This line from Shakespeare has delusions of grandeur.
- If writers were bakers, this sentence would be exactly a dozen words long.
- I don't care who wrote this sentence -- whoever he is he's a damn sexist!
-What would life be, without me?
here are some that involve translation issues:
-Would not be anomalous if were in Italian.
-When one this sentence into the German to translate wanted, would one the fact exploit, that the word order and the punctuation already with the German conventions agree.
and finally, "Hofstadter's Law" states: "It always takes longer than you think it will take, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
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Depressing this sentence's subject, plunged her into a fugue.
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"Front to back", Crab said canonically!
To take it even further:
Canon said crabbily "front to back"; Crab said canonically "back to front".
(so sorry, I just can't help myself)
This post obversely needs help.
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By describing the massive man, she increased the sentence's subject.
By saying nothing she decreased the subject's sentence.
These are so many different variations of different kinds of self-references, aren't there?
I really should be studying. I have an exam Tuesday, and the temptation to play with words far exceeds the temptation to to study. hmmmmmmmm.
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You can tell DH is a fan of lisp.
Did you notice the self-reference in the bibliography of GEB? I didn't notice until an acquaintance pointed it out to me.
(I recently read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. He has a phoney character in there with the initials GEB, which I assume is a barb at DH.)
k
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Wow, very appropriate, FF! I wasn't at all sure I could see these hidden pictures on my monitor--it is very difficult for me even when they're on paper; I can't even always see them. These things are just magical, to me--there's nothing there--but there IS!
For those who don't know, the trick to seeing these is to let your eyes unfocus a little, and keep them from re-focusing normally. I can get them unfocused by leaning forward till the surface picture blurs--my problem comes in preventing them from refocusing as I slowly lean back. And even when I can, it takes some time for me to be able to see the hidden shapes, but when I do...WOW!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re:They're stereograms.
Okay, back to words-- i have heard them called
RAS-- Random dot Astiogram S, pronounced, RAZZ(as in razz a ma tazz) -- why astiogram's? i dunno. don't remember all the detail of them either.
Steve Pinker has an nice explaination of how and why they work in How the Mind Words, someplace about page 340, (give or take 20 pages or so)if you want some details, thats one place to look.--opps, i slipped there-- but it was an interesting, and challenging concept to understand, and i reread it several times, and still only have a vague understanding.
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That's one of my favorite books.
It's got one of my all time funniest sorta-stories innit. It's the "meat can think?" bit he claimed to have gotten off the Internet. Funny, funny story.
There are some math and programming sites on the web that go into some detail on the stereograms. There's also some free software you can download to make them - which I plan to try some day.
k
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here is the one and only google hit on "meat can think", is it this to which Pinker referred? http://pages.infinit.net/philoex/dennett.html()
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