Pierre-Simon Laplace （1749-1827）

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace

Laplace's demon

Main article: Laplace's demon

In 1814, Laplace published what may have been the first scientific articulation of causal determinism:^[70]

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 would be the present to it.

— Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities^[71]

This intellect is often referred to as Laplace's demon (in the same vein as Maxwell's demon) and sometimes Laplace's Superman (after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace, himself, did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment. As translated into English above, he simply referred to: "Une intelligence ... Rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l'avenir comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux."

Even though Laplace is generally credited with having first formulated the concept of causal determinism, in a philosophical context the idea was actually widespread at the time, and can be found as early as 1756 in Maupertuis' 'Sur la Divination'.^[72]As well, Jesuit scientist Boscovich first proposed a version of scientific determinism very similar to Laplace's in his 1758 book Theoria philosophiae naturalis.^[73]