the picture, this is unlikely-but for humans and the way they look at their
minds, this is usually what happens. Wefeel self-programmed. Indeed, we
couldn't feel any other way, for we are shielded from the lower levels, the
neural tangle. Our thoughts seem to run about in their own space, creating
new thoughts and modifying old ones, and we never notice any neurons
helping us out! But that is to be expected. We can't.
An analogous double-entendre can happen with LISP programs that
are designed to reach in and change their own structure. If you look at
them on the LISP level, you will say that they change themselves; but if you
shift levels, and think of LISP programs as data to the LISP interpreter (see
Chapter X), then in fact the sole program that is running is the interpreter,
and the changes being made are merely changes in pieces of data. The
LISP interpreter itself is shielded from changes.
How you describe a tangled situation of this sort depends how far back
you step before describing. If you step far enough back, you can often see
the clue that allows you to untangle things.Strange Loops in GovernmentA fascinating area where hierarchies tangle is government-particularly in
the courts. Ordinarily, you think of two disputants arguing their cases in
court, and the court adjudicating the matter. The court is on a different
level from the disputants. But strange things can start to happen when the
courts themselves get entangled in legal cases. Usually there is a higher
court which is outside the dispute. Even if two lower courts get involved in
some sort of strange fight, with each one claiming jurisdiction over the
other, some higher court is outside, and in some sense it is analogous to the
inviolate interpretation conventions which we discussed in the warped
version of chess.
But what happens when there is no higher court, and the Supreme
Court itself gets all tangled up in legal troubles? This sort of snarl nearly
happened in the Watergate era. The President threatened to obey only a
"definitive ruling" of the Supreme Court-then claimed he had the right to
decide what is "definitive". Now that threat never was made good; but if it
had been, it would have touched off a monumental confrontation between
two levels of government, each of which, in some ways, can validly claim to
be "above" the other-and to whom is there recourse to decide which one is
right? To say "Congress" is not to settle the matter, for Congress might
command the President to obey the Supreme Court, yet the President
might still refuse, claiming that he has the legal right to disobey the
Supreme Court (and Congress!) under certain circumstances. This would
create a new court case, and would throw the whole system into disarray,
because it would be so unexpected, so Tangled-so Strange!
The irony is that once you hit your head against the ceiling like this,
where you are prevented from jumping out of the system to a yet higher
authority, the only recourse is to forces which seem less well defined by
692 Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies