Self-reference

The self-reference (from Latin referre, " to relate anything "), even Autoreferenzialität, self-referentiality, self-reference and self-reference, is a term that describes how a symbol, an idea or statement ( or a model, image, or story) to be itself refers.

The term is derived by the identity of symbol and referent (reference object).

In a narrower sense, the term has a purely logical meaning. Depending on the area, different reference objects are thus addressed.

Logical paradoxes

The concept of self-reference has been ( among other things in connection with Cantor's diagonal method, Russell's paradox and Gödel's incompleteness theorem ) frequently examined epistemologically. Various logical statements or theories can be put together in conflict and thus useful in distorted and produce logical paradoxes as in the Strange Loop.

• Liar Paradox: "This sentence is not true. "
• The barber paradox: " The ( only ) of a village barber shaves all those ( and only those ) who do not shave themselves. "

A statement without self-contradiction, however, is consistent and always self-referential in itself. Each of the classical paradoxes can be broken down by Tarski's metalinguistic scheme of the Convention T logically formal: The statement " x Paradox is the case " is true if x Paradox is the case. The paradoxes actually lack the linguistic property of the equation.

Application

Epistemology, philosophy and logic

• Thinking about thinking

Language, computer science, mathematics

• Sentences that refer to themselves, such as: "This sentence was translated by a computer from the Japanese ." ( This sentence is nonsensical in Japanese. )

Systems theory

This is an empirical use. It tries to describe (living, social) systems that are to be self-referential. The term can be viewed in the context of systems theory of autopoiesis.

Self- Related Systems Stabilize at yourself and join in from their environment from. This gives them stability and enable system formation and identity. Self-referential systems are " operationally closed"; in their processes they refer only to itself and not reach out into their environment. The resource creation is to be considered independently.

Literature and Art

In literature and art, the self-referentiality has a long tradition. Here one uses the technical term mise en abyme.