Vast Intellect Thought Experiment

Disclaimer: The following is a completely useless discussion on determinism, predictability, physics, and God. Read only if you're out of better things to do — or if you enjoy philosophical rabbit holes.

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past could be present before its eyes.

— Pierre Simon Laplace

Laplace introduced this concept of a “vast intellect” while talking about determinism in classical physics. Here we take it a step further and apply it to literally everything (and see if we can create God).

There have been arguments against this demon based on the non-deterministic nature of quantum mechanics or thermodynamic systems. But we don’t really care about determinism, reversibility, or the past, since we are trying to create God. A being of such perception would already know what has already happened. We are mainly concerned with predictability. If this being even knows all the possible futures, that should be sufficient. There have also been arguments citing the unpredictability of chaotic systems or free will acts. However, I think (in my limited knowledge) that this “unpredictability” is a result of our limited human precision. Such a creature would have unlimited precision, making what seems unpredictable to us entirely predictable to it.

Suppose such a vast intellect exists, having access to all the parameters and knowledge necessary to determine at any point in time how things will unfold. It would require an enormous amount of processing power. Is it possible? There is, in fact, a computational limit of the universe defined by Bremermann's limit, which places an upper bound on the computational capacity of a finite system. Since computation is a physical process, it is bound by the constraints of the physical universe. There is obviously limited mass and energy in the universe, hence, a limit to computations. While this limit is far beyond human capability, it still is a limitation. However, since this is a thought experiment, let’s hold that thought for now and assume it has the necessary computational power. Perhaps everything played in its favor (like human evolution), leading to its emergence over time without self-destruction (unlike humans). It could have neurons—or some equivalent processing units—billions of times more numerous than those in human brains. The sheer scale of such an entity is incomprehensible. Imagine the sensory input required to gather that much data, process it based on the corresponding knowledge, and determine its consequences.

Talking about senses - since its not just the processing, but also the ingestion of this data, The creature might possess a multitude of senses, allowing it to perceive reality at both the most microscopic and macroscopic levels, spanning atomic interactions to universal-scale events. Such a creature would be able to see past, present and future alike. Since I mentioned past, present and future, this creature might even be a higher-dimensional being. This simply means it can observe the (block) universe from any coordinate system, such that it can view what is past or future from our point of view. For this entity, past and future would be as real and coexisting with present as “forward” and “behind” are to us three-dimensional beings. Making even the calculation unnecessary because past present and future exist simultaneously for Him. It could also “interfere” in the system from time to time to tweak the events according to its will.

Its almost scary seeing this vastness. But assuming this creature does have intellect, it would be fair to assume that he has understanding of Game theory, and would want to keep the system stable and would want to induce balance in order to protect it from collapsing.

Interestingly, such a being also wouldn’t need to approximate. If you think about it, physics and chemistry (largely) are approximations of particle and quantum physics, economics is an approximation os individual psychology, medicine is an approximation of molecular and cellular biology. Such segregations won’t exist for this entity. Segregations only exists to make it comprehensible to our limited human perception.

In such a vast universe though, would it matter to this creature whether humans live or die? Maybe its not as vast as we imagined then. Still baffling.

Remember how we talked about a limit to the computational capability of this being. It still would be smart enough to figure out a way of delegating responsibilities and appointing lesser beings to oversee specific domains. Or, if it is advanced enough, it might generate smaller versions of itself to manage different aspects of existence.

Who or what is this higher entity then? Is the universe itself alive? Or is this an entity bigger/higher than the universe itself? Is it Bradley Cooper?

Who is to say? I just created God and every concept associated with Him sitting in my bedroom. Human mind and intellect itself is puzzling.

Maybe God is indeed a thought experiment.
(typical human arrogance)