i’ve come across one of the best sentences ever while reading gödel escher bach: and eternal golden braid (aka geb):

“yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation” yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

this operation of preceding a phrase with it’s quotation was invented by willard van orman quine and is hence called “to quine a phrase” to quine a phrase

quine also refers to a category of computer programs which output their own source code. here is an example in c by thad smith

#include<stdio.h>
main(){char*c="\\\"#include<stdio.h>%cmain(){char*c=%c%c%c%.102s%cn%c
;printf(c+2,c[102],c[1],*c,*c,c,*c,c[1]);exit(0);}\n";printf(c+2,c[10
2],c[1],*c,*c,c,*c,c[1]);exit(0);}

and another in lisp by john mccarthy(creator of the language) and carolyn talcott

((lambda (x)
   (list x (list (quote quote) x)))
  (quote
     (lambda (x)
       (list x (list (quote quote) x)))))

parentheses are elegant weapons for a more… civilized age

seriously tho, geb is amazing. after a brief intermission, i’ve delved into part two which has kicked it up a notch and begun theorising about the mind and the essence of consciousness. now this is what i signed up for!

makes me swoon with recursive joy