Higher-order reified adaptive network models with a strange loop

In this chapter, as in Chap. 7, the challenge of exploring plausible reified network models of order higher than two is addressed. This time another less usual option for application was addressed: the notion of Strange Loop which from a philosophical perspective sometimes is claimed to be at the basis of human intelligence and consciousness. This notion will be illustrated by examples from music, graphic art and paradoxes, and by Hofstadter’s claims about how Strange Loops apply to the brain. A reified adaptive network model of order higher than 2 was found, that even can be considered as being of infinite order. An example simulation shows the upward and downward interactions between the different levels, together with the processes within the levels. Another example addresses adaptive decision making according to two levels that are mutually reifying each other, as in Escher’s Drawing Hands lithograph.