Everyone lives the consequences of what they have done with their own hands! Our way of life and our choices are the result of the past and, of course, the cause of the future. In that case, with what we have done and our present choices, what we will live through, everything, is predictable. Here we are speaking of the determinism that everyone knows.
The decisions we take in daily life, our thoughts, our actions, our moral preferences are determined and lie within fixed rules. Free will is an illusion. The movements we believe to be peculiar to us are merely the operation of scientific laws. Human will is a state that develops through a chain of causes, and in this state the human being has no influence. There are only causes and effects. For this reason the principle of causality is the cornerstone of determinism. There is an order in the universe, and causes and effects operate within this order. When this order is deciphered, it will be possible to explain the causes and effects and to obtain knowledge of the events that will unfold later. According to Spinoza‘s understanding of determinism, on the other hand, the fact that reason is entirely objective is characterised as absolute determinism. The classical account of determinism was given in the 18th century by Pierre-Simon Laplace. According to this account, the present state of the universe is the result of the previous state of the universe, and the cause of its subsequent state.
The French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, born in 1749, was able to calculate the positions of observable celestial bodies in the most accurate way by using probability theory. His goal was to possess the necessary information and, by using it, to calculate with certainty where the celestial bodies would stand in the future.
In order to define our problems, the question we too ask is this: if we possessed all the information in the universe, could we calculate everything as Laplace did with the celestial bodies? If this is theoretically true, then according to Laplace there can be no such thing as chance.
After all, there is nothing that has not befallen us in 2020! “What is happening to us?” And “What more will happen to us?” On top of this questioning, we wanted to consult Laplace as well.
According to Laplace, “if, with these laws, we know the position, velocity and direction of every body and particle in the universe, we can know its past and its future, but only if these elements have been determined in advance. And this was called Laplace’s Demon. Everything is predetermined.” It was a point of view that Einstein also adopted. Laplace’s Demon is a theory in which probabilities are calculated by using mathematical data. Laplace’s Demon is, in fact, a being that has command of every piece of information in the cosmos. If this being called the Demon can reach all the information of the cosmos and can calculate very quickly, it can see all possible eventualities. Accordingly, if it takes the right decision, it determines and shapes the future.
So this theory assumes that there is a living being that comprehends all the forces and positions of the cosmos. What is more, this being can calculate everything. It includes in its reckoning everything from the largest down to the smallest atoms. In that case it also knows the answer to every kind of probability that may occur, starting with whether the coin will come up heads or tails. Hence everything can be known. Nothing is a secret. Past, future and present
Or are we speaking of a system that knows everything and can change the future as it wishes? A system that our reason, in our 2-dimensional world of the mind, cannot grasp. BIG DATA!
Big Data, whose name we have begun to hear frequently these days. We learned this concept with the advance of technology and the increase in its areas of use. We have been inside it for years; with our financial transactions, our e-government applications and our accounts on social media, we have been serving this system for years. WITHOUT KNOWING?
Big Data: constantly growing sensor information, photographs, text, sound, video… The leading role in the change announced to our world as the “New Normal”.
Improving health services: Data-driven medicine involves the analysis of large numbers of medical records and images that can help in the early diagnosis of disease and in the development of new drugs.
Predicting and responding to natural and man-made disasters: Earthquake data can be analysed to predict where earthquakes are likely next, and patterns of human behaviour help organisations to obtain information on what they can do for survivors. Big Data technology is also used to monitor and protect the flow of refugees away from the world’s war zones.
Preventing crime: Police forces are increasingly adopting data-driven strategies based on their own intelligence and on public data sets in order to deploy resources more efficiently and to act as a deterrent when needed.
Up to this point, a new Digital Age that promises humanity great service, peace and security! So where is the Demon in this?
What harm have we suffered so far from the artificial intelligence algorithms we know, from the Supercomputers! In our homes, in our pockets, in our smart but not very well-behaved lives… Here the point is that we want to point to a BIG DATA that possesses all the information of the cosmos, one that we cannot comprehend with the artificial intelligence we know, of a superiority we cannot imagine.
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the result of the past and the cause of the future. If we suppose for a moment that there is a living being able to comprehend all the forces of the universe and the positions of all the beings that compose it, and if we suppose also that it could analyse these data, then if it makes a calculation taking into account at the same time everything from the largest beings in the universe to the smallest atoms, nothing is uncertain, and the future, just like the past, is before its eyes.” Pierre-Simon Laplace
In this theory known as Laplace’s Demon, what is depicted as the ‘demon’ is the living being that possesses all the true information in the universe. If this being can reach the pure information in the universe even for a single moment, if for example it can calculate the force acting on every single atom or calculate the speed of thought, it can see all the real probabilities. And provided it takes the right decision (it does this by choosing the best of the probabilities it sees), it determines its own future. The Demon, that is, the being that reaches pure information, will act knowing everything… Suppose we imagined that this science fiction is a system left at our door, in which artificial intelligence and the quantum computer are integrated! Do you think there is no probability of this? What if we looked at this fiction with data such as augmented reality, “Transhumanism” and the Neurolink projects… What do you think? In the latest news we received about the quantum computer, we had read that it could create a simulation of the universe. One that transmits all information about the future to humanity whenever it feels like it, or rather, when it decides on the way of life… Let us imagine Blockchain, that is, that we are bound tightly to one another by the links of chains, that we are blocked within the gaps of the links. Do we not see a cover every day now in those famous news magazines? Blockchain, Bigdata, The Great Reset, New Digital age… so then, Laplace’s Demon has revealed itself 271 years later. With Laplace’s Demon turning into the Quantum Demon, is it not exactly the right time for the question of free will, of what is “the HUMAN BEING and the meaning of his existence”? Can a human being be imprisoned in a chain, will he surrender his whole existence to that gap?
Keywords: PierreSimon Laplace Einstein Everyone
Translated from the Turkish original.