Laplace Meets Godel: How Self-Reference Foils Prediction

This lecture from the Santa Fe Institute features Jenann Ismael of Johns Hopkins University exploring how self-reference creates fundamental limitations to prediction even in deterministic systems. Discover how puzzles of counterprediction reveal a source of unpredictability that exists independently of ignorance or indeterminism. Explore the fascinating argument that this form of unpredictability emerges whenever a system represents the world from within itself, creating what Ismael describes as a "crack in the edifice of determinism" that living and cognitive systems actively exploit. Learn why representational activity must be understood as an intrinsic part of the world's fabric rather than separate from it. The 33-minute talk challenges common assumptions about perfect predictability in deterministic universes by connecting Laplacian determinism with Gödelian self-reference limitations.