What makes a strange loop appear in a brain and not in a video feedback system, then, is an ability — the ability to think — which is, in effect, a one-syllable word standing for the possession of a sufficiently large repertoire of triggerable symbols. Just as the richness of whole numbers gave PM the power to represent phenomena of unlimited complexity and thus to twist back and engulf itself via Gödel’s construction, so our extensible repertoires of symbols give our brains the power to represent phenomena of unlimited complexity and thus to twist back and to engulf themselves via a strange
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