Unpredictability

How do we distinguish spontaneity from unpredictability? I think it is clear that beyond a certain complexity threshold the behaviour of any system becomes unpredictable. And I don’t mean that in a strict, principled sense, but from a practical, everyday perspective, i.e., the kind of unpredictability we encounter when dealing with others in everyday situations. I would suggest that that kind of unpredictability is consistent with a system being deterministic in a strict, formal sense. (Kasparov not being able to predict the moves of Deep Thought would be a concrete example involving an AI-system.) So the key concept is not (in)determinacy, but (in)surveyability. Like in Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations the point is not that the applications of a rule form an infinite set (they don’t), but that they are not epistemically surveyable.

Martin Stokhof
from: Radical Discussion Board
date: spring 2021