alt Hacker NewsYep. That's why predicting the future of a system you're a part of is sometimes literally impossible; it boils, fundamentally, to the fact that logical negation doesn't have a fixed point.
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ngruhn • today at 5:49 AM
That's a beautifully simple characterization. I've never heard of of that. What keywords do I need to find more on this topic?
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If your prediction is a probability distribution, rather than a discrete outcome label, then, assuming the distribution over the future depends continuously on your action, there should be a fixed point, I think?
Like, if you output a probability distribution among n options, and then there is a continuous map from the probability distribution you describe in your output, to another probability distribution over those options…
Err, hm, maybe you need a stronger hypothesis on the continuous map? If it is contractive then it will definitely have a fixed point. I don’t remember the hypothesis needed.