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Omega Point against the wall?


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#1 Bruce Klein

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Posted 18 December 2002 - 11:33 AM


For those of you who are not familiar with the Omega Point Theory, here's an intro, If you're familiar, you can skip this first paragraph and go to my question. -BJK

From Transhumanity.com
"The Omega Point Theory in a nutshell": intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the collapse along a specific mode (Taub collapse) with unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a "brute force" computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. We are using a weak "may", but Prof. Tipler thinks that there is plenty of evidence for the Omega Point Theory in today's universe.

---
I've never been to gungho about Tipler's Omega point theory. I do not know enough about physics to give it a fair assessment, however, my instinct is that he's latching this idea onto some sort of "higher power".

His recent Transhumanity article may have wabling on the theory... or am I reading this wrong? It's hard to make heads or tails of this. - BJK



Posted Image
Credit: Transhumanity.com


Tipler said:
"I SHOULD have predicted acceleration in the expanding phase, since the existence of a net number of baryons in the universe implies the Higgs field would not be in its true vacuum, where we would expect the positive cosmological constant (which is the mechanism for acceleration in the collapsing phase of universal history) would be exactly cancelled.

So, if the observed acceleration were to continue forever, the Omega Point Theory would be refuted. But the expansion of life to engulf the universe is EXACTLY what is required to cancel the positive cosmological constant (a.k.a. the Dark Energy)"



Tipler says:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me." Criticism is the driving force of science. Much of the criticism has consisted of insults, and hence not useful. But my improvements in the Omega Point Theory, describved above, are due in large part to technical criticisms. My explanation of the Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and the simple experiment to test it, derive from criticisms I received from Gordon Kane, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan, after I gave a seminar at the University of Michigan a few years ago.

What I was unprepared for was the hostile "stone throwing" I received at Tulane University. I was actually formally tried for heresy (this word was not used by the panel convened to try me. Instead, I was told that I "didn't think like everyone else in the department"). I was not fired --- it's difficult to fire a tenured full professor, especially for unorthodox thinking, exactly what tenure is supposed to protect. But my salary was frozen: since my work was "worthless", it is clear to University officials that I should receive no raise. So now my pay is some $30,000 less than the Tulane full professor average, almost at the level of a starting assistant professor at Tulane, and definitely less than the assistant professor at a place like Cal Tech.

Transhumanity Full Article

#2 MichaelAnissimov

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Posted 13 January 2003 - 09:32 AM

Oh dear, Tipler is quite the backpedaler these days. It always seemed like the original "testable predictions" Tipler made which the OPT was supposed to be contingent upon were in actuality filler material to make his general idea seem more credible. No information from basic-level physics can confirm or negate the possibility of posthuman entities reviving every possible being which could have ever lived, but Tipler seems to treat his own theory as such. Quite odd. I don't think he quite deserves the label "quack" though, personally. More of a "kook".

#3 Bruce Klein

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Posted 02 June 2003 - 09:55 PM

The following, is this really from Tipler? Seems a bit over the top. Let me know. - BJK


The Omega Point and Christianity
Frank Tipler

Bonting's depiction of my Omega Point Theory (OPT) is so inaccurate that I shall not reply to his "criticisms" directly (since these criticisms do not apply to my theory). I shall instead outline my actual Omega Point Theory - a theory of the future of the universe - and then address Pannenberg's valid objection that the OPT, in the form published in my book The Physics of Immortality [1] has no Christology. For reasons I describe at length in my book, I identify the singularity of spacetime with God. I shall show in this paper that this singularity actually has a Trinitarian structure, and that this structure is innate to the mathematics of the OPT, but I did not realize this in 1993 when I completed the manuscript to my book. I shall argue below that the central miracles of Christianity - the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Virgin Birth - are completely consistent with known physical law. Furthermore, once we see how the Son (who is required by physics to be the Second Person of the Trinity) did these miracles, we will see that indeed He came into the world to save it. I shall outline how to test experimentally whether these miracles in fact occurred; I shall, in other words, show how to confirm Christianity experimentally.


more: http://home.worldonl...ttdc/tipler.htm

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#4 celindra

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Posted 02 June 2003 - 10:44 PM

Why don't you e-mail him to verify? His address is available here.

#5 Bruce Klein

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Posted 02 June 2003 - 10:59 PM

Thanks Celindra.. i've sent him an email.

#6 fruitimmortal

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Posted 03 June 2003 - 06:50 AM

`Kurt Goedel ( Mathematical proof of God )
Edward J. Gracely ( On infinite sequences )
Joseph S. Fulda ( The mathematical pull of Temptation) + ( A plausibly theory of Counterfactuals)
Einstein Religion




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