Counterintuitive Facts (96): If Everything Is Already Determined, Why Are You Still Anxious?

I. In 1814, French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace proposed a thought experiment. Suppose there's a wise being (later called Laplace's Demon): It knows the precise position and momentum of every atom in the universe at this moment. It has infinite computing power. Then, through physical laws, it could calculate the universe's state at any future moment, and any past moment.

II. For this demon: Future is just as certain as past. No "maybe." No "perhaps." No "if." Only "inevitable." What will you do tomorrow? It knows now. Where will your grave be in a hundred years? It can calculate now. Everything is already written. Time is just film rolling.

III. Although quantum mechanics later tried to kill this demon. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says: you can't simultaneously know a particle