27Jun/1134
Hofstadter
by Jeff
Image text: "This is the reference implementation of the self-referential joke."
Douglas Hofstadter is an American and to quote Wikipedia: "is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics."
So, the one line autobiography is meta because it is also an acronym which reads "IS META".
In the image text, reference implementation is a reference (sorry, it is early, I couldn't think of a synonym of "reference") to the standard implementation during a software development process.
That's as much as I can draw from it. Is there anything else you can get from it?
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June 27th, 2011
Hofstadter’s Law reads: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law.”
Which is what draws the link between Hofstadter & ‘meta’.
June 27th, 2011
Excellent, thanks!
June 28th, 2011
I think that Hofstadter (and his interests and writings) are very meta (self referential and recursive) regardless of “Hofstadter’s law”. I think that the law is in fact a reference to his self referential interests and writings.
Wiki: “Hofstadter’s many interests include music, visual art, the mind, creativity, consciousness, self-reference, translation and mathematics. Several recursive number-theoretical sequences and concepts in triangle geometry have been named after him”
June 27th, 2011
Most readers know Hofstadter from his nonfiction book Goedel, Escher, Bach, which is very popular among philosophy-minded people. There’s also a small genre of philosophy-y fiction books written in response to that book, and many references to him on popular geeky shows like The Big Bang Theory.
A “reference implementation” means the first implementation of a standard. It is intended to be correct, but maybe not very fast or fully featured. For example, the developers of JPEG included an example JPEG program that is now very widely used.
June 27th, 2011
However, I do believe that the word “Reference” in the image text in this case refers to the meaning: “Refer”. I.e. the phrasing “This Acronym” refers to the sentence itself. So the book sentence refers to itself as an acronym that spells out what the book sentence says about being meta (and being meta in itself implicitly refers to the subject matter)
June 27th, 2011
Stefan, are you a writer for David Lynch?
June 27th, 2011
The acronym completes the sentence: I’m So Meta, Even This Acronym I.S. M.E.T.A.
June 27th, 2011
Gödel, Escher, Bach is seriously meta. Not only the subject matter (the proof of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem hinges on self-reference, Escher’s self-referential drawings, Bach’s musical jokes), but also the form of the book. The stories have structures that mimic the subject matter, and refer back to themselves. He also uses acrostics, anagrams (see, for example, Metamagical Themas), and wordplay. His book I Am a Strange Loop is an elaboration on his ideas about self-reference.
June 27th, 2011
In this context, “reference implementation” can be considered the first example which is written by the architect of a new standard so that others may refer to the example for insight into how the standard is implemented.
June 27th, 2011
What does meta mean?
June 27th, 2011
technically meta means beyond. But I think Hofstadter popularized a narrower context, specifically when an activity or study gets turned in on itself. For example:
Adjectives are words describe things. But since every word can also be considered a “thing”, then meta-adjectives would be words that describe the things that happen to be adjectives.
Computer programs can accept numbers as input. But since every computer program can be considered a number, then meta-programs would be programs that accept programs as input. (e.g. for example a compiler)
In stories, a character is sometimes granted “wishes”. If the hero wishes to have “more wishes” that would be a “meta-wish” (though it often gets forbidden).
Companies with financial risk may purchase insurance to protect themselves against unlikely but possibly financially disastrous events (death of key employees, bad weather crops, damage to inventory while being shipped or stored). But since insurance providers are also companies with financial risk (receiving many claims in a short period of time), they may purchase “meta” insurance to protect against unlikely but financially disastrous events.
A team or corporation might regularly meet and “review their activities” and operations to improve efficiency. But since their “review meetings” are also an activity, they might discuss how to improve the efficiency of their “review meeting” and that would be called a “meta-review”
An organization or country often has a set of laws known as “the constitution” on how to govern its activities. A constitution usually has a section devoted to laws on the activity of “amending the constitution”. This section could be called meta-laws or a meta-constitution.
Forums and events often debate issues and have “rules of debate” to help settle disagreements. But since the “rules of debate” is also something people could disagree on, then when they argued over the “rules of debate” they would be having a “meta-debate” which of course could have its own set of rules.
June 27th, 2011
After all that rambling, I think a picture of a photograph would be worth a thousand self-referential words.
August 12th, 2011
Thank you. that is -perhaps surprisingly- the best explanation ive found.
June 27th, 2011
Literally, meta- means ‘beyond’; so, for example, metaphysics is a branch of philosophy studying the soul, or supernatural phenomena, which is beyond the scope of physics.
Likewise, a language describes objects and actions in everyday life, but a metalanguage discusses the parts and operations of language.
August 8th, 2011
Actually, metaphysics is named like that because it was the book next to “Physkia” in aristoteles bookshelf….
=P
http://atheism.about.com/od/philosophybranches/p/Metaphysics.htm
Where does the Term Metaphysics Come From?:
The term metaphysics is derived from the Greek Ta Meta ta Physkia which means “the books after the books on nature.” When a librarian was cataloging Aristotle’s works, he did not have a title for the material he wanted to shelve after the material called “nature” (Physkia) — so he called it “after nature.” Originally, this wasn’t even a subject at all — it was a collection of notes on different topics, but specifically topics removed from normal sense perception and empirical observation.
June 27th, 2011
Look up “meta” on wikipedia. There’s a section devoted to Hofstadter (he popularized the term and the idea of meta meaning “self-referential” primarily).
June 27th, 2011
“Hofstadter uses meta as a stand-alone word, both as an adjective and as a directional preposition (”going meta”, a term he coins for the old rhetorical trick of taking a debate or analysis to another level of abstraction, as in “This debate isn’t going anywhere”).”
That kind of just flew over my head. I need an explainwikipedia.
June 28th, 2011
Simple English Wikipedia? =D
June 30th, 2011
does that entry link back to itself or link to a page that analyzes the first page? if not, that page isn’t worth its electrons and photons
June 27th, 2011
The way I’ve been reading the acronym is as a continuation of the sentence:
I’m so meta, Even this Acronym IS META
June 27th, 2011
My interpretation of the image text is “This is the joke that this joke is referring to.” Apparently a reference implementation is some kind of placeholder. Am I way off?
June 28th, 2011
No, you’re right on. Randal’s depth of knowledge/intellect-humor is staggering sometimes.
June 29th, 2011
There were actually some Hofstadter jokes going around a while ago.
Why did Douglas Hofstadter cross the road?
Ans.: To make this joke possible.”
Person 1: Have you heard the latest Doug Hofstadter joke?
Person 2: No.
Person 1: Yes!
June 27th, 2011
The book Gödel Escher Bach includes discussion of some sentences that are completed by putting themselves in quotes and appending them without quotes. This is called Quining, after the philosopher Willard Quine who invented it. For example: is a quotation. Because if you put “is a quotation” in quotes, and follow it by itself, you get: “is a quotation” is a quotation. So I’m So Meta even my Acronym is meta in a particular way.
June 27th, 2011
And Dave, a reference implementation is not a placeholder, it is an implementation designed to serve as an example. SO the image text is an example of a self-referential joke.
June 28th, 2011
Has anyone else noticed that it’s not actually an acronym, but an acrostic?
June 28th, 2011
Acrostics are perfectly valid acronyms.
June 28th, 2011
I know they are pretty similar and can be easily confused, and it’s not that it detracts from the joke in any way, but an acrostic is not an acronym. An acronym is an initialism. An acrostic is not.
I’m aware that there may be other, more ambiguous uses that I might not be aware of, but I did a little google and didn’t find anything.
Again, unimportant. Just bugs me for some reason…
June 28th, 2011
Depending on where you look, an acronym is not necessarily the same as initialism. Some would define acronym as “pronounceable” initialisms (ie: SWAT) compared to simple initialism (ie: FBI)
Acrostics, if I understand correctly are (usually) things like “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” for order of operations in math (parenthesis exponents muldiply/divide add/subtract) -Phrases that USE initialism/acronyms as phrases to remember things. So, acrostics would be acronyms (or at least initialism if you go by the definition of having to be “readable”)
just my $.02
June 28th, 2011
Is that your 0.02 dollars or 0.02 cents?
I couldn’t help my self.
June 28th, 2011
lol…well since it has the $ and not a cent after it, what do you think? use your common… >.> …cents
June 28th, 2011
i couldn’t help myself either
June 30th, 2011
can anyone explain how it is a self referential joke?
where does this joke reference itself?? (beside that sentence)
June 30th, 2011
that’s kinda the definition
speaking of which, how do you define definition?