"These paradoxes are all consequences of a formalization of an observation as old as humanity: an object bears a very special and unique relationship to itself, which limits its ability to act upon itself in the way it can act on all other objects. A pencil cannot write on itself…People cannot see their own faces except via external aids that present images - and an image is never quite the same as the original thing. We can come close to seeing and understanding ourselves objectively, but each of us is trapped inside a powerful system with a unique point of view - and that power is also a guarantor of limitedness. And this vulnerability - this self-hook - may also be the source of the ineradicable sense
of 'I'. "

- Douglas Hofstader The Mind's I