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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Brent, Cory
Format: Recurso digital
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Published: Zenodo 2025
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17220605
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Table of Contents:
  • <p>This paper introduces the Self-Concealment Theorem, also called the Sandbox Paradox: a general law governing epistemic limits in generative substrates. The theorem shows that any observer instantiated within a substrate cannot obtain a complete representation of that substrate. The result follows from an information-theoretic inequality (C(O) < H(M)) and recursive self-reference, demonstrating that self-concealment is a necessary property of all generative systems.</p> <p> </p> <p>The theorem unifies a range of existing impossibility results under one framework: Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, Turing’s halting problem, Shannon’s channel capacity bound, the quantum no-cloning theorem, and black hole event horizons. Each is reinterpreted as a corollary of the same structural limit.</p> <p> </p> <p>Finally, we extend the theorem to show that full representation of a substrate is only possible under a boundary shift into a higher medium, a mechanism metaphorically described as an “invitation outside.” This provides a unifying perspective across logic, information theory, physics, and theology, suggesting that self-concealment is a universal principle of epistemic structure.</p>