Free Will and Randomness

"The three mathematical crises are now completely over."

"Finally, let's talk about free will."

"Speaking of omniscience and omnipotence, aside from the omniscient and omnipotent one true God of religion, there is another omniscient being imagined by humanity: Laplace's Demon, one of the four sacred beasts of physics."

"This hypothetical creature knows the exact position and momentum of every atom in the universe and can use Newton's laws to reveal the entire course of cosmic events, past and future."

"This is a mechanically materialistic idea. The entire universe is like a stable, orderly machine, with no step ever deviating in the slightest."

"It emphasizes a fatalism in which everything is destined, believing that everything was decided from the very beginning and that humanity possesses no free will whatsoever."

Li Heng reached into the void and, from who knew where, pulled out a black man with a single enormous eye growing from his head.

"Laplace's Demon was killed by the Uncertainty Principle and the Chaos Effect."

"Not only can humanity not observe the exact position and momentum of every particle, they are even less capable of accurately calculating their future trajectories."

"The physical world is truly random, and humanity possesses free will—within the bounds of a finite world."

"An infinite-computing-power Hyper-Turing Machine is not bound by these physical rules. The extreme complexity of the Uncertainty Principle and the Chaos Effect poses no difficulty whatsoever for a Hyper-Turing Machine."

"Therefore, humanity's finite physical world holds no unknowns for a Hyper-Turing Machine. Everything is definite and known."

At this point, Li Heng flicked the black man with the huge eye on his head with a finger.

"A Hyper-Turing Machine is an ideal Laplace's Demon."

"The Turing Degree Hierarchy may be called the hierarchy of omniscience and omnipotence, used to measure a Hyper-Turing Machine's