Michael Mitchell: Archive

This statement is not a contradiction or a paradox. It's neither true nor false. Symbols simply cannot refer to themselves, even statements, which are merely sophisticated combinations of symbols creating a new symbol. Even a work of art, even the longest novel ever written, is ultimately just a symbol for its theme. That's just their nature. Symbols are man-made tools we invented for a reason, to help us better comprehend and retain reality. If you turn them on themselves, all hell breaks loose!

The number "3", for instance, was invented to represent that many of something, but it can also be used to refer to three numbers, even three instances of the number "3", but the number you count is different from the things you counted. You can even count the numbers three times and the number you'll count is different from the times you counted. Add it all up and you counted three number 3's three times, but the number 3 still hasn't referred to itself, because it can't.

Symbols have meaning. That's their purpose, to represent reality, other things, and unlike numbers, words refer to concepts which represent an unlimited number of other things. The word "word" refers to all words, even words you may never learn, even ones that haven't been invented yet, even multiple instances of the word "word".

The word "word" doesn't refer to itself any more than any other word does, though. What a word really symbolizes is a concept, a mental integration of similar things. A concept only exists in your mind. A word concretizes it, brings it into reality, gives it an identity, so you can be aware of it perceptually, like everything else that exists in the physical world. Without words, the number of concepts you could hold in your mind would be severely limited.

(Conceptualization is a natural function of human consciousness, not a man-made system like math or language. The concept of "concept" is formed long after you've formed countless other concepts, if you ever do, and most philosophers and scientists would argue we still don't understand them, because of childish wordplay like in this ridiculous statement.)

If a symbol means itself, then it has no meaning. It simply is what it is. The same is true of this statement. You're still observing one thing in reality while thinking of another in your mind, but in this case what you're observing is the same as what you're thinking, making it literally pointless. It's confusing because symbols just don't work that way. The statement in the statement isn't really a statement of anything. It's invalid.

• ◾ This statement contains 123 letters.
• ◾ This statement is not a statement.
• ◾ This statement is so meta.
• ◾ Green Lantern could kick Ryan Reynolds' ass.