“The self, such as it is, arises solely because of a special type of swirly tangled pattern among the meaningless symbols.”

“meaning comes in despite one’s best efforts to keep symbols meaningless!”

“When a system of “meaningless” symbols has patterns in it that accurately track, or mirror, various phenomena in the world, then that tracking or mirroring imbues the symbols with some degree of meaning—indeed, such tracking or mirroring is no less and no more than what meaning is.”

“…one can look at a newspaper written in an unfamiliar writing system, and the strange shapes seem like nothing more than wondrously intricate but totally meaningless patterns. Thus even human language, rich though it is, can be drained of its seeming significance.”

“…just what it is that makes an “I” seem so terribly real and tangible to its own possessor, and yet also so vague, so impenetrable, so deeply elusive”

GEB