Wiktionary
bootstrap paradox
n. 1 (context uncountable English) The paradox of time travel in which objects or pieces of information are never literally created, because their existence begins by arriving from the future and ends by going to the past to become themselves. 2 (context countable English) An instance of the bootstrap paradox.
Usage examples of "bootstrap paradox".
Such a mind could act as cause to its own effect, affecting itself as if from outside like a feedback circuit, and, upon having successfully affected itself, the self as cause would eliminate itself as if it had never existed, which again is the ex nihilo or bootstrap paradox of time travel.