Abstract
The development of Newtonian physics led the thinkers of the pre-modern era to conclude that the universe was rigidly deterministic. Pierre-Simon de Laplace developed this idea further with his famous thought experiment in which a "demon" was capable of knowing the state of every object in the universe simultaneously, and therefore could infer every event in the universe. Modern physics, namely quantum formalism and information entropy, defies the existence of such a creature. But without a way to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity, we're left to wonder whether these modern theories are really ontological, or just rudimentary models. Do these theories really stand up to Laplace's Demon, or are we kidding ourselves?
Stephen Klein