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SoullessAutomaton comments on On Things that are Awesome - Less Wrong
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Personally, the symbol "Douglas Hofstadter" in my mind stands for "the symbol "Douglas Hofstadter" in my mind".
i disagree with this. the symbol "X" may stand for "the symbol 'X' in my mind" when you are explicitly thinking "what does the symbol of X stand for in my brain" and you cleverly return "well, it is simply a symbol and i should recognize that and treat it as such."
but in the practical functioning of your mind, the symbol stands for much more than itself. if, when confronted with the input "X", your brain returned "the symbol X," that would be wholly useless (and possibly send the computational portion of your mind into a recursive loop). "X" must stand for a some concept outside of "X" for it to serve a purpose in your mind.
a symbol existing solely for the sake of itself with no attachments outside of itself is mentally useless.
Professor Hofstadter writes books about mental symbols, recursive loops, and self-reference. That is to say, it was a joke.
in that case, apologies; i am not familiar with his work. though after this series of posts, i will certainly be reading G, E, B.