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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>BillK via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Douglas Hofstadter, LLMs and self-referentiality<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 20:51, John Clark via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>>…Gödel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter is one of my all-time favorite books, it and Drexler's Engines Of Creation have done the most in shaping my current worldview<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Same here. I was in college when EGB was published. My professors were mentioning it. I read a little at the time, saw that it was astonishing cool, but didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it at the time. I determined to read it once I graduated, which I did. Twice.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>….</span></b><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:black'>I discussed Scott's post with GLM-5.3 AI, including research into self-reference for LLMs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>It had a lot to say about this. :)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>I ended by asking, " Do you have self-referential capabilities?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>The answer was interesting because, as GLM said, answering requires doing exactly the thing being asked about.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>BillK<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:black'>GLM-5.3 DeepThink -<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=gmail-svelte-4sys19><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:black'>Honestly: yes and no, and the question itself puts me in an interesting position to answer it — because answering requires doing exactly the thing being asked about.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>BillK, this response by Deep Think is the most mind-blowing commentary by an AI to date.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>