038: Can We Predict the Future?

This week's podcast asks about the benefits and problems associated with both hard "mathematical" prediction and soft "storytelling" prediction. We discuss the limits of mathematical prediction in terms of theory, randomness, chaos, and non-computability. We discuss the limits and benefits of storytelling and scenario planning as predictive tools as well, and we also discuss the self-reference problem, which can apply to both types of prediction. Finally we discuss the fictional discipline of psychohistory, and wonder whether truly working prediction machines could exist without lacking transparency.

Om Podcasten

Enter a simulated universe where software beings engage in classic human struggles for belonging, status, and attention, and old certainties like death and gravity are just settings to be negotiated. You can be the god of your own private world, but if find yourself feeling lonely, you might be tempted to give away some of your precious control. This podcast will take you behind the scenes with comic book authors and veteran podcasters Jon Perry (@perryjon) and Ted Kupper (@tedkupper) as they write and develop a science fiction graphic novel called Constellation, set in a metaverse unlike any you’ve seen before: neither a utopia nor a dystopia, neither real nor virtual, it is a simulation where everyone knows they are being simulated and no one much cares, where there’s no hope of leaving and no reason to, just an endless supply of human-designed worlds to create and explore.