Self-reference,woven intothe structure of AI services
AI Service Planner · PM, working across four domains — heritage culture, startups, financial IT and AI. The Threshold Recursive Isomorphism Hypothesis (TRIH), proposed in my bachelor’s thesis "Self-Reference and the Possibility of Mind", now carries into LLM-based service design and mechanistic-interpretability research.
The Threshold Recursive Isomorphism Hypothesis (TRIH)
See the self-referential structures and isomorphism evidence across four domains — Escher, Bach, Gödel and the Transformer — through the three-stage model of reduction → self-reference → emergence.
STAGE 01
Reduction
Complexity is reduced to its simplest units — pixels, pitches, symbols, tokens.
STAGE 02
Self-Reference
The reduced units form a circuit that points back at itself — a strange loop.
STAGE 03
Emergence
Once self-reference crosses a critical complexity, an irreducible new hierarchy emerges.
Four-domain overview — self-reference map
Inspect the structure node by node
CLICK A NODE →TRIH-CORE
Drawing Hands
Visual · Escher
A picture that contains itself, recursively
In Drawing Hands two hands sketch each other, and in Print Gallery a figure inside the picture is looking at the very picture that contains him. The reduced units of line and plane are recombined into a structure that draws itself. Beginning from the symmetry rules of wallpaper groups and hyperbolic distance, an irreducible visual infinity emerges.
SEC §3
Case index · deep-dive
Four domains, one strange loop
Case deep-dive — the four nodes from the overview above, seen in full: a large figure, its sources and the three-stage schema (reduction → self-reference → emergence).
CASE 1 — the picture inside the picture§3 · Escher · Visual
Drawing HandsVisual Self-Reference
A picture that contains itself, recursively
In Drawing Hands two hands sketch each other, and in Print Gallery a figure inside the picture is looking at the very picture that contains him. The reduced units of line and plane are recombined into a structure that draws itself. Beginning from the symmetry rules of wallpaper groups and hyperbolic distance, an irreducible visual infinity emerges.
ReductionWallpaper groups (symmetry) · hyperbolic distance
Self-referenceA picture that recursively contains itself
EmergenceVisual infinity · impossible figures
Domain
Visual
Section
§3
Category
Visual Self-Reference
Sources
Drawing Hands (1948) · Print Gallery (1956) · Circle Limit series
CASE 2 — palindrome in time§4 · Bach · Auditory
Endlessly RisingAuditory Self-Reference
Palindrome in time, endless rising, a theme meeting itself
The Crab Canon is a palindrome in time, and the Endlessly Rising Canon (BWV 1079) climbs forever. In Contrapunctus XIV the name B-A-C-H is embedded as pitches, and in the six-voice Ricercar the King's theme meets itself across six voices. From the reduced units of counterpoint an auditory infinity emerges — a formal parallel to the causal self-attention mask of the Transformer.
ReductionCounterpoint rules · pitch relations
Self-referenceTime palindrome · endless rising · name embedded · a theme meeting itself
EmergenceAuditory infinity · musical time (a formal parallel to the Transformer mask)
Domain
Auditory
Section
§4
Category
Auditory Self-Reference
Sources
BWV 1079 Musical Offering · BWV 1080 Art of Fugue
CASE 3 — the sentence that names itself§5 · Gödel · Logical
This statement is unprovableLogical Self-Reference
A formal system naming itself through Gödel numbering
The sentence G states of itself, "this statement is unprovable." Through Gödel numbering the reduced system of arithmetic points back at itself, and an undecidable statement emerges. Turing's halting problem is the computational version of the same self-application, and the second incompleteness theorem shows that self-reference is not the same as self-completeness.
ReductionPrincipia formal system · natural-number arithmetic
Self-referenceGödel numbering → ⌜G⌝ · a program applied to itself
EmergenceIncompleteness · halting problem ≅ G · meta-truth
Domain
Logical
Section
§5
Category
Logical Self-Reference
Sources
Gödel (1931) · Turing (1936)
CASE 4 — causal mask: attends only to itself and its past§6 · Transformer · Computational
Causal maskComputational Self-Reference
Self-attention lets tokens reference themselves within the sequence
Self-attention makes each token attend to itself and its past within the sequence. A triple line of evidence — induction heads (Olsson 2022), monosemantic features (Templeton 2024) and attribution graphs (Anthropic 2025) — directly observes the self-referential circuit, and beyond a threshold scale emergent abilities (Wei 2022) appear. This is the decisive evidence that lifts what was once mere analogy into a claim demonstrated at the circuit level.
ReductionQ·K·V matrices · token embeddings
Self-referenceinduction heads · monosemantic features · attribution graphs (triple evidence)
EmergenceEmergent abilities · new capabilities beyond a threshold scale
From art history to AI mechanistic interpretability
Financial-sector integrated cloud infrastructure
Integrated cloud operations
Runs the monthly cycle of a cloud region in a financial-group IT environment, handling the full SR intake, triage and registration process. Designed a 5-layer SR taxonomy and systematized the operations guides.
Jikjisa Templestay, Jogye Order
Foreign-programs lead (programs · admin · finance)
Led programs for guests from 30+ countries at a 10k+ visitors/yr templestay and managed a team of 15. Along the way, built the LLM system 'JiksaTS Master AI' solo from the scattered operational know-how.
CETANA
Founder (traditional-craft luxury brand, 0→1)
Completed the 2024 provincial startup grant and closed out its ₩12M funding. Holds two registered trademarks (verified on KIPRIS), produced najeon-lacquer prototypes, and reached the top-10 in the APEC Gyeongju project.
ESTsoft — AI Service Planner Program
960h completed · hackathon team lead
Completed 960 hours of Python, ML, data analysis and service planning. Led 'AI PERSO', a LangChain + MMPI-2-RF counseling service, as team lead into a finished hackathon deliverable.
Dongguk Univ. Industry-Academic Foundation — Youth Dream CEO
Startup founder (3D-printed ottchil craft)
Launched a venture fusing 3D printing with ottchil craft and passed the document review for the Ministry's Early-Stage Startup Package. The starting point for the craft path that later became CETANA.
Dongguk University (WISE) — Archaeology & Art History
B.A. (graduated Aug 2026 · thesis submitted)
Majored in Archaeology & Art History and completed an exchange semester at California State University, Sacramento. The graduation thesis, Self-Reference and the Possibility of Mind, proposes TRIH and was published with a Zenodo DOI.
Résumé
Résumé at a glance
AI service planning ×financial-cloud operations ×interdisciplinary research
Experience
Cloud Business Div.
Runs the monthly cycle of a financial-group cloud region · full SR intake–triage–registration
Jan 2026 – present
Jikjisa Templestay, Jogye Order
Foreign-programs lead · programs + built JiksaTS Master AI
Mar – Dec 2025
CETANA — Founder
Traditional-craft luxury brand, 0→1 · provincial startup grant
May 2024 – Mar 2025
Jingongin Realty — commercial team
Retail/office brokerage & market analysis
2023
Dongguk IAF — Youth Dream CEO
3D-printed ottchil-craft venture · passed the Startup Package review
2021 – 22
Hackers Education Group — content production
Production support for educational video content
2016 – 17
Education
Dongguk Univ. (WISE) — Archaeology & Art History
GPA 3.49/4.5 · graduated · thesis Self-Reference and the Possibility of Mind (proposes TRIH · Zenodo DOI)
Mar 2013 – Aug 2026
California State University, Sacramento
Exchange semester
2014
Training · Certifications · Military
2024ESTsoft AI service-planner program, 960h (Python·ML·service planning)
2021AI (applied) intermediate, 160h — Korea IT Business Promotion Assoc.
AI service planning ·LLM applications ·financial-cloud infra ops ·mechanistic-interpretability research — I gladly reply to work that takes both practice and research seriously.