Yes, this seems to be a problem, but what is precisely the self-referential aspect of consciousness? "Self-Reference" seems to be used too loosely by Hofstadter. A self-referential sentence is a sentence that refers to itself, as "this sentence has five words". If the conscious Self refers to itself, the result seems to be solipsism.

Phenomenological/introspective investigation of the contents of consciouness show us that they are intentional. Therefore, the strange loop is not really Self-referential, but referred to the other (World). A better concept of consciousnes would be "reality experiencing itself in the first person perspective of a cognitive agent"; see Article Consciousness and Cosmos: Building an Ontological Framework

Another problem is if the conscious experience can be reduced to integrated information in the brain. Conceptually this reduction does not work. The concepts of information and information processing are good to explain cognitive processes, but fail to account for affective processes. In my theory of consciousness I propose that besides information processing consciousness also requires feeling; without feeling, information is processed not consciously.

I believe I am interpreting your question correctly, but I may not be. I looked up self-referencial and strange loop just to check to see if I'm missing something. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

In reading what I have of what Tononi and his coauthors have developed I may also be missing something, as they seem to go extremely, extremely deep.

Nonetheless, if you are referencing a sort of "circular reasoning" to it as I did (albeit once again I havn't read their research in full), then I also arrived at this point. And this is my hypothesis:

Where does the information come from? Consciousness can't just be information "processing" capability or the flow of it through one's brain..

I had this thought concurrent to, "Isn't information intrinsically derived from the relationship/comparison/etc. between at least 2 things in at least any way?"

Nor can it come from the comparison of it to one's past experience...(try imagining and freezing the first visual frame of your life...how much information is there? can you really differentiate between colors, etc.?...or do you just see this..."this" I guess).

If we completely isolate (in all ways, ie. the coin is all that is) an example of flipping a coin whereby both sides are heads...how much information do we get if the coin is flipped? None. There's no uncertainty to become certain of.

A completely blind person (since they were born) has never gotten any information from visual stimuli. All they know is that one state they are in and always have been in, blindness.

And thus, there must exist something more fundamental than information. Information cannot circularly be defined by it's relationship to other information.

Of course, there are others who argue in a quantum sort of theory of consciousness much less accepted. I was aware of it a little, but that was the first place I looked.

Anyways, to put it simply and to not even bring up wave-particle duality or superposition, the fact that when two maximally and somehow controlled (I'm not going that deep) particles become entangled, once a measurement such as spin is made on one (Particle A), the other one will take on a correlated spin state (Particle B), but it will take on the opposite or "complementary" state. If A = clockwise then B = counterclockwise.

The fundamental aspect that when one particle is measured, it takes on a seemingly random state (either state 1 or 2 here) while the other does just the opposite (and additional information cannot be extracted in this way) must be what actually is the fundamental thing that seeds information.

There is always 1 of at least 2 states.

Any measurement causes decoherence such that the system loses its entanglement as well..causing it to now be entangled with the measurement device...and that entanglement or the entanglement/decoherence dynamics are, in my opinion, the essence of information itself.

Things get more complicated yes, but, as far as breaking the circular loop, that's all I got and really all that is needed, fundamentally.

Also, it appears that 2 entangled particles affect each other instantaneously at faster than light speeds when measured. To me, I take this "strange" effect as entanglement dynamics revealing itself to disobey higher order "laws," and that therefore, it must be more fundamental than them, perhaps entanglement dynamics = time.

Hypothesis only, although if asked, I can provide citations.

I hope I was close to your question and didn't misinterpret it.

Hello Mark... ahhhh... when my thoughts dwell on the strange loops of my mind, my breathing slows, my eyelids narrow and I quietly savor the sweet nectar of knowing that I am knowing that I know.... and I know that I know that too! No wonder so many researchers gravitate to this tantalizing topic; secreting an endless stream of cognitive delights.