The Omega Point
Created | Updated Jul 15, 2003
The Omega Point is somewhat like Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. A not so obscure math professor and physicist from Tulane University in Louisiana* by the name of Frank J. Tippler has improved on the original idea. His basic premise is this:
1. A special case of the anthropic principal is true, we are the only intelligent life in the universe.
2. We will eventually expand to fill the entire universe.
3. Our computers will get better and better.
4. We will be able to record any event from the past.
5. We will conquer other dimensional spaces.
Historical Background
Tippler builds on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, who envisioned an out for humanity even after the Heat Death of the Universe. Teilhard was a Jesuit Priest that was often censured for his views. He proposed that the Church adopt Evolutionism in the 1920’s and was forever forbidden to engage in intellectual writing until he died. He continued to write anyway and several of his friends published his work after his death in 1955. His term the noosphere has been used and misused since. Teilhard envisioned the continuing evolution of mankind.
The Noosphere
The noosphere was the culmination of this process of evolution and the end product of life. Humanity it’s current “strongest shoot” and planetary, solar, galactic and eventually universal conscientiousness the evolutionary path to the Omega Point. The Omega Point would be like heaven where the information content from all that had lived would be recreated forever outside the realm of normal energy.
Tippler Mathematically proves the existance of God
Tippler, a mathematician, has set about to prove mathematically that this Omega Point will exist given that we don’t just sit around and bang the rocks together. He envisions the exploration of the entire universe, and the continuation of Moore’s law so that computer memory just gets smaller and cheaper. All of this computing power will be one day like the computer Multivac in Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question”. It will reside in hyper-space or extra dimensional space, folded up small like the missing dimensions in 10 dimensional string Theory. Here all that have ever lived will be resurrected in virtual space to live forever.
Ironic Observation
It seems ironic that Teilhard would have ideas that were like those of a scientist, while Tippler seems to have ideas that resemble those of a theologian. This has not stopped most religions from denouncing Tipplers book: “The Physics of Immortality”. They don’t like the idea of someone popping round with God’s Telephone number. If you find such things as Finite Markov Chains interesting, there are 150 pages of math in the appendix.
* He invented the first Time Machine. Unfortunately (or fortunately) you cannot build one yet, it is too big and too expensive. If you were able to construct one there is the problem of inertia, which would tear apart you and your vehicle if you tried to use it. It involves the construction of a cylinder one light year long of neutronium (the stuff neutron stars are made of) and spinning it up to 99% of light speed.
