Which statement seems more true: (1) I have a brain. (2) I am a brain.

In fact, a sense of essence is, in essence, the essence of sense, in effect.

The "Strange Loop" phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through levels of some hierarchial system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.

The proverbial German phenomenon of the verb-at-the-end about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire lecture, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which their audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be totally nonplussed, are told, is an excellent example of linguistic recursion.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism. … Dualism is the conceptual division of the world into categories. … human perception is by nature a dualistic phenomenon— which makes the quest for enlightenment an uphill struggle, to say the least.

Relying on words to lead you to the truth is like relying on an incomplete formal system to lead you to the truth. A formal system will give you some truths, but as we shall soon see, a formal system, no matter how powerful—cannot lead to all truths.

Below Every Tangled Hierarchy Lies An Inviolate Level