Demon (thought experiment)

In thought experiments, philosophers and scientists occasionally imagine entities with special abilities as a way to pose thought experiment or highlight apparent paradoxes.

The word "demon" here does not necessarily connote a demon, a malevolent being. For instance, James Clerk Maxwell came up with his thought experiment of a "finite being" manipulating entropy microscopically to highlight the implications of the statistical interpretation of thermodynamics. It was called Maxwell's demon by Lord Kelvin who used the term in analogy to daemons in Greek mythology, supernatural beings as unseen forces of nature.

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