Laplace’s demon
E139494
Laplace’s demon is a hypothetical intellect in classical determinism that, knowing all forces and positions of particles at one time, could predict the entire future and reconstruct the entire past of the universe.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Laplacean demon | 1 |
| Laplacean determinism | 1 |
| Laplace’s demon canonical | 1 |
| Laplace’s intelligence | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1221705 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Laplace’s demon Context triple: [Pierre-Simon Laplace, developedConcept, Laplace’s demon]
-
A.
Maxwell's demon thought experiment
Maxwell's demon thought experiment is a famous conceptual scenario in thermodynamics that imagines an intelligent being seemingly violating the second law by sorting fast and slow gas molecules without expending energy.
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B.
Lovelock
Lovelock is a small city in northwestern Nevada that serves as the county seat and primary community of Pershing County.
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C.
The Laws of Nature
*The Laws of Nature* is a popular science book by physicist Rudolf Peierls that explores how fundamental physical principles govern the behavior of the universe.
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D.
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon Laplace was a French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer whose work laid the foundations of celestial mechanics, probability theory, and statistics.
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E.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Laplace’s demon Target entity description: Laplace’s demon is a hypothetical intellect in classical determinism that, knowing all forces and positions of particles at one time, could predict the entire future and reconstruct the entire past of the universe.
-
A.
Maxwell's demon thought experiment
Maxwell's demon thought experiment is a famous conceptual scenario in thermodynamics that imagines an intelligent being seemingly violating the second law by sorting fast and slow gas molecules without expending energy.
-
B.
Lovelock
Lovelock is a small city in northwestern Nevada that serves as the county seat and primary community of Pershing County.
-
C.
The Laws of Nature
*The Laws of Nature* is a popular science book by physicist Rudolf Peierls that explores how fundamental physical principles govern the behavior of the universe.
-
D.
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon Laplace was a French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer whose work laid the foundations of celestial mechanics, probability theory, and statistics.
-
E.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
determinism thought experiment
ⓘ
hypothetical intellect ⓘ philosophical concept ⓘ thought experiment ⓘ |
| assumes |
complete state description of the universe at one time
ⓘ
exact knowledge of laws of motion ⓘ no computational limitations ⓘ no measurement error ⓘ |
| basedOn |
Newtonian mechanics
ⓘ
classical determinism ⓘ |
| challengedBy |
chaos theory
ⓘ
quantum mechanics ⓘ statistical mechanics ⓘ |
| contrastedWith |
uncertainty principle
ⓘ
surface form:
Heisenberg uncertainty principle
quantum indeterminacy ⓘ |
| describedIn |
Essai philosophique sur les probabilités
ⓘ
surface form:
A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
Essai philosophique sur les probabilités ⓘ |
| field |
classical mechanics
ⓘ
determinism ⓘ philosophy of physics ⓘ philosophy of science ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeName |
Laplace’s demon
ⓘ
surface form:
Laplacean demon
Laplace’s demon ⓘ
surface form:
Laplace’s intelligence
|
| hasAuthor | Pierre-Simon Laplace ⓘ |
| hasInterpretation | probability as measure of human ignorance ⓘ |
| hasProperty |
assumes infinite computational power
ⓘ
assumes no fundamental randomness ⓘ assumes perfect knowledge of initial conditions ⓘ assumes perfect knowledge of laws of nature ⓘ can compute future states of the universe ⓘ can reconstruct past states of the universe ⓘ omniscient about forces acting on all particles ⓘ omniscient about positions of all particles ⓘ |
| illustrates |
deterministic universe
ⓘ
predictability of the universe ⓘ relationship between probability and ignorance ⓘ |
| influenced |
interpretations of classical mechanics
ⓘ
later discussions of determinism ⓘ philosophy of probability ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Pierre-Simon Laplace ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
causal determinism
ⓘ
free will debate ⓘ philosophical determinism ⓘ predictability in physics ⓘ |
| timeOfOrigin | early 19th century ⓘ |
| usedAs |
argument for strict determinism
ⓘ
example in philosophy of mind discussions ⓘ tool to analyze limits of prediction ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Laplace’s demon Description of subject: Laplace’s demon is a hypothetical intellect in classical determinism that, knowing all forces and positions of particles at one time, could predict the entire future and reconstruct the entire past of the universe.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Laplacean demon
this entity surface form:
Laplace’s intelligence
this entity surface form:
Laplacean determinism