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cousin_it comments on Open Thread, August 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong
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This makes you vulnerable to quining, like this:
Hypotheses that consist of ten words must have higher priors.
I'm hoping that when the hypotheses are written in a well defined computer language, this problem doesn't crop up. (you would think that after reading GEB I would know better!)
Of course there may be multiple fixed points or none at all, but it would be nice if there was exactly one.
Oh, no. Quines are just as common in programming as they are in natural languages. Also see the diagonal lemma. I use self-referential sentences to prove theorems all the time, they're very common and can be used for a huge variety of purposes.