Selfreferential

Self-referential describes statements, objects, or processes that refer to themselves or to their own properties. The concept spans disciplines such as language, logic, mathematics, literature, and computer science. It is central to questions about truth, definition, and identity, since referencing oneself can clarify or obscure the meaning of a statement depending on context and rules governing the reference.

In logic and philosophy, self-reference can generate paradoxes, such as the liar paradox: "This sentence is false." These puzzles led to formal frameworks that separate levels of reference or constrain self-application. Gödel's incompleteness theorems use self-reference through diagonalization to construct true statements that are unprovable within a system, illustrating how self-reference interacts with consistency and decidability. Other constructions, like the Yablo paradox, attempt self-reference without a sentence that directly names itself.

In literature and art, self-reference appears in metafiction and self-reflexive works that draw attention to their own fictionality or artistic fabrication. In computer science, self-reference shows up in quines—programs that output their own source code—and in systems with self-hosting or self-reproducing properties.

Self-referential ideas can be used creatively and technically, to explore meanings, to test logical boundaries, or to mirror the structure of a work or system.