The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything

[hippifried]

Singularities are always (along with quantum theory, entropy, etc.) popular terms with the scientifically naive!

Well, after checking my entropy, I decided to "string" together a couple of singularities to create a quantum duality. Just to avoid the chaos, ya know. Should work if what we like to call the "universe" doesn't collapse.

[hippifried]

A poignancy for the first 8 1/2 minutes. The rest is funny too.

[martin48]

You're right, it might just hold it all together. Humankind owes you an enormous debt. I'm personally putting your name forward to the Nobel Prize selection committee.

Well, after checking my entropy, I decided to "string" together a couple of singularities to create a quantum duality. Just to avoid the chaos, ya know. Should work if what we like to call the "universe" doesn't collapse.

[BellaBellucci]

Wow. Is this thread really still going?

~BB~

[hippifried]

Wow. Is this thread really still going?

~BB~

This is at least the second thread that I can remember on the same article, & started by the same poster.

[Lovecox]

This is at least the second thread that I can remember on the same article, & started by the same poster.

I know. Can we just put it to rest already? Ugh!

[Jamie Michelle]

Rather than reply to Jamie's responses to my critical comments on parts of her original ppaper, I have divided my response into two parts.

Part I: Cosmology

In an attempt to take seriously the new version of the paper Jamie has made available, I have read that part of it which I understand, and have divided this very long response into two parts, dealing with the Cosmology as far as I can in part 1; and the ‘History’ in a second post which will appear after this one in the next day or so.

Since this thread was initiated by Jamie French, she has re-written the paper that she has made available on the weblinks in her post.

My name is not "Jamie French". I don't know where you get that idea from, since I have never used the name French for myself.

Nor have I rewritten my article. Mostly I added to it. But it remains the same on all the substantial points.

For those of you who do not want to read the whole of my refutation of the paper written by Jamie French, my resume is as follows:

The author, who claims that Frank Tipler’s work has been published in peer-reviewed science journals and that this gives Tipler a position of respect, deliberately ignores the ridicule and rejection that his version of ‘Intelligent Design’ has produced.
There are examples here:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/v...sicsChrist.htm
http://www.joly.org.uk/gordo/ellis3.html
http://sfgospel.typepad.com/sf_gospe...ianity.html--a relatively positive review of The Physics of Christianity.

I "claim" that physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's papers on his Omega Point cosmology have been peer-reviewed in a number of the world's leading physics and science journals?

Are you that daft? Apparently so.

Do you know what a citation is, Stavros? (Which, unlike me, you're apparently afraid to give out your legal name in these discussions, so I'm left with calling you "Stavros", which is the handle you've chosen on this forum.)

Do you know how a citation works, Stavros? Apparently not.

You act as if I'm making some mysterious claim that is just so utterly hard to check. Me-oh, my-oh, just how ever would one go about verifying such a "claim"?

Why, with the citations that I gave to the actual journal articles: that's how!

But apparently the concept of a citation is new to you.

Yet even though you so far haven't grasped the standard citation process of the Scholarly Method (which includes as a subset the Scientific Method), you're going to be the one to critique my article. God help anyone who takes you seriously--including you.

Regarding critiques of the Omega Point cosmology, see Sec. 4: "Criticisms of the Omega Point Cosmology" of my following article which is the topic of this thread:

James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), August 6, 2012 (orig. pub. December 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF, 1740849 bytes, MD5: 20b5fffb10038ab679cd7be4825176a1. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/details/ThePhysic...ryOfEverything , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...ics-of-God.pdf

Pertaining to this ridiculous "claim" insinuation of yours, Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology has been peer-reviewed and published in a number of the world's leading physics and science journals.[1] Even NASA itself has peer-reviewed his Omega Point Theorem and found it correct according to the known laws of physics (see below). No refutation of it exists within the peer-reviewed scientific literature, or anywhere else for that matter.

Below are some of the peer-reviewed papers in physics and science journals and proceedings wherein Prof. Tipler has published his Omega Point cosmology:

* Frank J. Tipler, "Cosmological Limits on Computation", International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 (June 1986), pp. 617-661, doi:10.1007/BF00670475, bibcode: 1986IJTP...25..617T. (First paper on the Omega Point cosmology.) http://webcitation.org/64KHgOccs , http://flashmirrors.com/files/kfxn99...omputation.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Sensorium of God: Newton and Absolute Space", bibcode: 1988nnds.conf..215T, in G[eorge]. V. Coyne, M[ichal]. Heller and J[ozef]. Zycinski (Eds.), "Message" by Franciszek Macharski, Newton and the New Direction in Science: Proceedings of the Cracow Conference, 25 to 28 May 1987 (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1988), pp. 215-228, LCCN 88162460, bibcode: 1988nnds.conf.....C. http://webcitation.org/69Vb0JF1W , http://flashmirrors.com/files/0xicxa...ium-of-God.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point Theory: A Model of an Evolving God", in Robert J. Russell, William R. Stoeger and George V. Coyne (Eds.), message by John Paul II, Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 2nd ed., 2005; orig. pub. 1988), pp. 313-331, ISBN 0268015775, LCCN 89203331, bibcode: 1988pptc.book.....R. http://webcitation.org/69VaKG2nd , http://flashmirrors.com/files/0kwtgp...int-Theory.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Anthropic Principle: A Primer for Philosophers", in Arthur Fine and Jarrett Leplin (Eds.), PSA 1988: Proceedings of the 1988 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers (East Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1989), pp. 27-48, ISBN 091758628X. http://webcitation.org/69VarCM3I , http://flashmirrors.com/files/1uim5b...-Principle.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions for Scientists", Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 24, No. 2 (June 1989), pp. 217-253, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb01112.x. Republished as Chapter 7: "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions to Scientists" in Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen (editors), Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (Chicago, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 156-194, ISBN 0812693256, LCCN 97000114. http://webcitation.org/5nY0aytpz , http://flashmirrors.com/files/wschm7...s-eschaton.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The ultimate fate of life in universes which undergo inflation", Physics Letters B, Vol. 286, Nos. 1-2 (July 23, 1992), pp. 36-43, doi:10.1016/0370-2693(92)90155-W, bibcode: 1992PhLB..286...36T. http://webcitation.org/64Uskd785 , http://flashmirrors.com/files/zfu3hb...-inflation.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "A New Condition Implying the Existence of a Constant Mean Curvature Foliation", bibcode: 1993dgr2.conf..306T, in B. L. Hu and T. A. Jacobson (editors), Directions in General Relativity: Proceedings of the 1993 International Symposium, Maryland, Volume 2: Papers in Honor of Dieter Brill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 306-315, ISBN 0521452678, bibcode: 1993dgr2.conf.....H. http://webcitation.org/5qbXJZiX5 , http://flashmirrors.com/files/tb8kpb...-foliation.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "Ultrarelativistic Rockets and the Ultimate Future of the Universe", NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Workshop Proceedings, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, January 1999, pp. 111-119; an invited paper in the proceedings of a conference held at and sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, August 12-14, 1997; doi:2060/19990023204. Document ID: 19990023204. Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694. http://webcitation.org/5zPq69I0O Full proceedings volume: http://webcitation.org/69zAxm0sT

* Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society", Critical Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 23, 1998). http://webcitation.org/5sFYkHgSS , http://flashmirrors.com/files/h7lkzd...en-Society.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, Jessica Graber, Matthew McGinley, Joshua Nichols-Barrer and Christopher Staecker, "Closed Universes With Black Holes But No Event Horizons As a Solution to the Black Hole Information Problem", arXiv:gr-qc/0003082, March 20, 2000. http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0003082 Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 379, No. 2 (August 2007), pp. 629-640, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode: 2007MNRAS.379..629T. http://webcitation.org/5vQ3M8uxB , http://flashmirrors.com/files/mhaali...t-horizons.pdf

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Ultimate Future of the Universe, Black Hole Event Horizon Topologies, Holography, and the Value of the Cosmological Constant", arXiv:astro-ph/0104011, April 1, 2001. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0104011 Published in J. Craig Wheeler and Hugo Martel (editors), Relativistic Astrophysics: 20th Texas Symposium, Austin, TX, 10-15 December 2000 (Melville, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics, 2001), pp. 769-772, ISBN 0735400261, LCCN 2001094694, which is AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 586 (October 15, 2001), doi:10.1063/1.1419654, bibcode: 2001AIPC..586.....W.

* Frank J. Tipler, "Intelligent life in cosmology", International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148, doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T. http://webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuW Also at arXiv:0704.0058, March 31, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0058

* F. J. Tipler, "The structure of the world from pure numbers", Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964, doi:10.1088/0034-4885/68/4/R04, bibcode: 2005RPPh...68..897T. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything", arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276

* Frank J. Tipler, "Inevitable Existence and Inevitable Goodness of the Singularity", Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 19, Nos. 1-2 (2012), pp. 183-93. http://webcitation.org/69JEi5wHp , http://flashmirrors.com/files/09x8nr...ingularity.pdf

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in which the above August 2007 paper was published, is one of the world's leading peer-reviewed astrophysics journals.

Prof. Tipler's paper "Ultrarelativistic Rockets and the Ultimate Future of the Universe" was an invited paper for a conference held at and sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center, so NASA itself has peer-reviewed Tipler's Omega Point Theorem (peer-review is a standard process for published proceedings papers; and again, Tipler's said paper was an *invited* paper by NASA, as opposed to what are called "poster papers").

Zygon is the world's leading peer-reviewed academic journal on science and religion.

Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper--which presents the Omega Point/Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE)--was selected as one of 12 for the "Highlights of 2005" accolade as "the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website." (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, "Highlights of 2005", Reports on Progress in Physics. http://webcitation.org/5o9VkK3eE )

Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain's main professional body for physicists. Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal's impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers.

For much more on these matters, see my aforecited article in addition to my below website:

Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist http://theophysics.host56.com , http://theophysics.ifastnet.com , http://theophysics.freevar.com

The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and hence to reject empirical science: as these physical laws have been confirmed by every experiment to date. That is, there exists no rational reason for thinking that the Omega Point cosmology is incorrect, and indeed, one must engage in extreme irrationality in order to argue against the Omega Point cosmology.

Additionally, we now have the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE) required by the known laws of physics and that correctly describes and unifies all the forces in physics: of which inherently produces the Omega Point cosmology. So here we have an additional high degree of assurance that the Omega Point cosmology is correct.

-----

Note:

1. While there is a lot that gets published in physics journals that is anti-reality and non-physical (such as String Theory, which violates the known laws of physics and has no experimental support whatsoever), the reason such things are allowed to pass the peer-review process is because the paradigm of assumptions which such papers are speaking to has been made known, and within their operating paradigm none of the referees could find anything crucially wrong with said papers. That is, the paradigm itself may have nothing to do with reality, but the peer-reviewers could find nothing fundamentally wrong with such papers within the operating assumptions of that paradigm. Whereas, e.g., the operating paradigm of Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper and his other papers on the Omega Point Theorem is the known laws of physics, i.e., our actual physical reality which has been repeatedly confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. So the professional physicists charged with refereeing these papers could find nothing fundamentally wrong with them within their operating paradigm, i.e., the known laws of physics.

Instead, Jamie uses Tipler’s anti-evolutionary cosmology to argue not only that God exists, ...

Here you demonstrate that you haven't understood the first thing about physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, as his Omega Point cosmology is as pro-evolution as is logically possible.

What Prof. Tipler's Omega Point Theorem mathematically demonstrates is that evolution must continue to its logical conclusion. That is, evolution mathematically must proceed to infinity, according to the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics).

... but that most of recorded human history since the death of Jesus has been a giant conspiracy to undermine the legacy, the values and the message of Jesus Christ. Omega Point Cosmology not only proves the existence of God, it predicts a ‘Day of Judgement’ as an event –or sequence of events- in which those with the ‘Mark of the Beast’ will be punished, and those who have accepted Jesus into their hearts will be saved. A global conspiracy led by ‘the Rothschilds’ (phoney Jews who make a mockery of Jews and Judaism) has enabled the rulers of Empires and States to form secretive societies –the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Bilderberg Group et al- to maintain their campaign of financial greed and universal evil, based around a pagan pre-Christian and indeed, Anti-Christian cult. Using Government as the instrument of absolute evil, God has forced humans to live through the evils of mass murder and hatred in order to learn the difference between it and the absolute purity of Christ’s message. No Pain, No Gain. The paper draws on numerous events in history to show how this Global Conspiracy has victimised ordinary people –mostly through hugely destructive world wars and genocide- and claims that only those who have lived in the way of Jesus will be saved.

Your above paragraph is quite a butchery of what I actually wrote. But then, as with Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, you haven't grasped the first thing about it, so it's not actually possible for you to accurately paraphrase it.

Actually, my position here and in my article is that mankind is evolved from much more primitive animals, such that mankind is evolving from a more brutal and ignorant state into knowledge. The Messiah, in the form of Jesus Christ, showed mankind a far more rational and humane way to live. But mankind's animalistic predispositions cause much of mankind to keep repeating the same brutal and genocidal errors of the past--of which errors continue to our present time.

The brutal desire for dominance over others is what is driving the globalist oligarchy in their self-termed New World Order.

If you wish, you can describe this as a conspiracy against Jesus Christ's message. But that is because Jesus Christ represents the very best of what mankind can become, whereas those who dominate others are giving into their baser, animalistic instincts.

Although this does in many instances take the form of a conscious conspiracy against genuine Christianity, such as with many of the Communist countries and with Nazi Germany, as they sought to destroy Christianity because it conflicted with their philosophies of state power.

I am not sure how far Jamie has actually understood the theory of Frank Tipler, but here is a succinct resume of his theories by a scientist:

In The Physics of Immortality, Tipler provided the mechanism by which we will all live forever. In a billion-billion years or so, life in the form of highly advanced and supremely intelligent robots, evolved from those that we humans invented and sent into space before destroying ourselves as a species, ...

Actually, we will use nanotechnology to transform the substrate of our minds in order to become superintelligent. That is, we will use technology to become immortal.

... will have spread throughout the universe. At that point the robots will control the collapse of the universe down to a final singularity called the Omega Point. Following the teaching of the famous Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who died in 1955, Tipler associates the Omega Point with God, in particular, God the Father, the First Person of the Trinity. ...

Actually, Prof. Tipler only "follow[s]" Teilhard in using the name "Omega Point".

You are horrible at paraphrasing, Stavros. You reek at it.

But then, given your above idiotic paraphrase of the evolution topic vis-à-vis the Omega Point cosmology, you obviously haven't understood the first thing about the Omega Point cosmology, as the Omega Point cosmology is none other than the theory of evolution expressed in its fullest extent.

... This also follows from God's message to Moses in Exodus 3:14, "I SHALL BE WHAT I SHALL BE. The collapse to the final singularity takes an infinite time as viewed from inside the universe. During that time the robots recreate all the humans and life forms that ever existed in a computer simulation. Not only do we all live our lives over again in that simulation, but over and over and over again. And not just our lives, but also all the possible lives we ever might have had, good and bad. That's the immortality Tipler says we can look forward to.[/I]
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/v...sicsChrist.htm

It should be noted that Jamie has included this biographical note at the end of the paper:

Born in Austin, Texas and raised in the Leander, Texas hill country, James Redford is a born-again Christian who was converted from atheism by a direct revelation from Jesus Christ. He is a scientific rationalist who concludes that the Omega Point (i.e., the physicists’ technical term for God) and the Feynman–DeWitt–Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) are an unavoidable result of the known laws of physics (Page 128).

The starting point for Jamie’s version of Tipler’s cosmology is a book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) co-authored by John D. Barrow and Frank J.Tipler. Works subsequently written by Tipler form the main body of work on ‘Omega Point Cosmology’.

I have no expertise in hard science and am frequently baffled by cosmology; and to me the author has done nothing to advance the cause of those who rely on cosmology for the ‘big picture’ of how the Universe was created, and where it is going.

That's no fault of me or of Profs. Tipler and John D. Barrow.

Your lack of understanding a matter holds no logical relationship to that matter being correct or to it having been explained correctly.

Rather than holding an adversarial relationship to the truth, you should instead simply seek out and accept the truth for what it is. When a person puts themselves in opposition to something which seems strange to them, they thereby often cut themselves off to what is true.

So rather than attempt to debate me, you should instead seek to understand what I am saying. But in order to do so, you must first take upon yourself a spirit of genuine inquisitiveness and curiosity. You must first genuinely want to know the truth and seek out the truth. Only then can understanding come.

Above you just admitted that you don't have the slightest clue as to what in the world you are talking about. Yet nevertheless you took it upon yourself to attempt refuting me.

That's a very strange action on your part. No clear-headed person would undertake such an impossible task.

Do you just like arguing with people even when you have no real idea what you are arguing about?

Here is a key point that drives much of the paper’s arguments:

The Omega Point is a term used by Prof. Tipler to designate the final cosmological singularity, which according to the known laws of physics is a physically-necessary cosmological state in the far future of the universe. Per the laws of physics, as the universe comes to an end at this singularity in a particular form of the Big Crunch, the computational capacity of the universe (in terms of both its processor speed and memory storage) increases unlimitedly with a hyperbolic growth rate as the radius of the universe collapses to zero, allowing an infinite number of bits to be processed and stored before the end of spacetime. Via this supertask, a simulation run on this cosmological computer can thereby continue forever in its own terms (i.e., in computer clock time, or experiential time), even though the universe lasts only a finite amount of proper time (page 4).

Crucially, the Omega Point is the definition of God…well sort of, as the author writes:
The Omega Point final singularity and its state of infinite informational capacity is by definition God, due to it having all the haecceities claimed for God by the traditional religions (as is detailed in Section 7.1). The final singularity is actually a different aspect of the Big Bang initial singularity, i.e., the first cause, a definition of God held by the Abrahamic religions. (page 4).

The key point here is that of all the world’s religions and belief systems, the only one that matters is Christianity. As the author remarks, without naming Islam, Hinduism Buddhism or any other religion of system of belief:

Christian theology is therefore preferentially selected by the known laws of physics due to the fundamentally triune structure of the Cosmological Singularity within the Omega Point cosmology, which is deselective of all other major religions (Section 7.1, p44).

Indeed, the author, having dismissed all other religions from her mathematical equation, goes further in claiming that

Jesus Christ founded the only civilization in history to pull itself out of the muck, and along with it the rest of the world. A great irony is that even antitheists benefit enormously from the civilization that Christ founded: indeed, almost all of the Earth’s current population—and hence, almost all antitheists—couldn’t even be alive were it not for the advancements made by Christian civilization (page 33).

There is no need to mention the achievements of ‘Science and Civilization in China’, no need to mention the crucial role that Islamic civilisation played in keeping alive the science of the Greeks and the Romans when Europeans were not interested in it; as well as its own achievements, because when you crunch the numbers, the Chinese and the Muslims are, quite simply, irrelevant to the history of science.

They are just about irrelevant to the history of science. Far too much is made of the Islamic societies' contributions to science, but in reality their contributions are virtually nihil. Islamic societies made some contributions, but they themselves could not advance because they rejected the notion that God strictly abides by natural law. Their conception of God is that He does not follow natural law, but that instead physical reality follows His whims, which may be one thing on one day and another thing on another day. Whereas traditional Christianity holds that God never changes His mind, and hence that there are definite laws of nature which do not change and therefore which can be discovered. It is this crucial concept of God which allowed for the establishment of empirical science.

With the Chinese, they could not progress because they didn't hold to a concept of historical progression: the idea that the future would be radically different from the present (one of the central concepts of Christianity). They never had an idiocultural motivation to improve upon whatever inventions they might have created. So instead, the inventions which they did manage to come up with stagnated and did not progress. Contrast that with the Christian Europeans, who took just about any invention they could get their hands on and started to rapidly improve it.

But to get back to that moment when the universe collapses and the super-computer starts up: If you want to know HOW this computational capacity has been reached, the author writes:

The known laws of physics require there be intelligent civilizations in existence at the appropriate time in order to force the collapse of the universe and then manipulate its collapse so that the computational capacity of the universe can diverge to infinity (Page 4)

This divergence is performed by human life that has transferred

its information processes to higher energy states, eventually using elementary particles to directly compute on via traveling waves and standing waves. As the radius of the universe goes to zero, the matter energy of the universe goes to positive infinity, thereby allowing the number of particle states in which to store information to diverge to infinity (page 5).

The computing power that these ‘higher energy states’ have enables them to compute the whole of life from the beginning of the Big Bang, and in the process go further by colonising space:

The interstellar colonization phase required for achieving the Omega Point will be accomplished by naturally-evolved sapient life forms (with such species independently evolved on average roughly every Hubble volume2) whose brains have been transformed (e.g., with nanotechnology) into artificial computers (such as quantum computers) onboard tiny starships of circa one kilogram that will exponentially colonize space, many times faster than mortal human beings. The incredible expense of keeping flesh-and-blood humans alive in space makes it highly improbable that such humans will ever personally travel to other stars. Instead, highly efficient substrate transformations of naturally-evolved sapient minds and artificial intelligences will spread civilization throughout space. Given the rate of exponential growth of human technological development, this colonization phase should likely start before 2100 (page 5).

The crucial point here is the way in which Tipler, supported by the author, presents human beings as machines, capable therefore of evolving into, in effect, super-computers.

The discussion of the Omega Point in Jamie’s paper continues by supporting the theory of Prof Tipler, and discusses the way in which Science has tried to accommodate itself or distance itself from God through various interpretations of the ‘Big Bang’, culminating in Tipler’s book The Physics of Christianity (2007). Further discussion of science and the physics of the Omega Point are presented up to page 33, but I don’t understand it so I cannot comment.

Again, you admit that you don't understand it, yet you took it upon yourself to write this post of yours.

Are you just a glutton for punishment? Do you just like mouthing off about things you do not understand?

As I said above, you could probably come to understand it if you allowed yourself to. But instead you have taken it upon yourself to present an adversarial position, which is completely insane given that you don't actually understand what you're arguing against.

So on the one hand, you don't actually know what it is that you are arguing against; yet on the other hand, you felt compelled to argue against it.

That is totally bizarre behavior on your part.

The rest of the paper, from Section 6 on p33 to p121, is discussion of the social, ethical, economic and political implications of the Omega Point cosmology (from the Abstract).

It is difficult for me to offer a summary of a cosmology that I do not understand, but I think I know enough about the history of civilisations to believe that it is nothing but pure arrogance, as well as a factual error, to claim that it is only the work of European scientists working in a culturally and theologically Christian environment that has any value in the history of science. This is Western Imperialism of the Mind taken to a really quite offensive level. No allowance is made, for example, in the history of medicine, which is part of science, for the use of Quinine as an anti-malarial in China and Peru long before Ronald Ross in the 19th century discovered the transmission of the disease through the bite of an infected mosquito (in India). It is also the case that Tipler, rather obviously, believes that ‘Intelligent Design’ explains the origin of the universe, not evolution; and that there has been no human agency in the creation of climate change and advanced global warming, which has been caused by sunspots.

You here again admit that you do not actually understand what it is that you are arguing against, yet somehow you have the feeling that you must be against it.

Regarding Prof. Tipler vis-à-vis evolution, Tipler very much accepts the reality of evolution. Indeed, his Omega Point Theorem is the proof per the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics) that evolution is correct.

Regarding so-called "global warming", shouldn't you now be calling it "climate change"? Did you not get the memo? Since there has been no global warming over the last decade-plus, isn't it just some vague concept of "climate change" that we're all supposed to be afraid of and give up all our rights to government so that it can protect us against some unspecified change in weather?

I dearly wish that there was global warming, as the Earth is colder than it should be in order to support maximal life. That is to say, the equator of the Earth is abundant in life, but the poles of the Earth are virtually absent of life, due to the poles being too cold. It would be a great boon to life if the Earth were to warm. If this warming were to accompany an increase in CO_2, then this would be all the better, as carbon dioxide plant-food: almost all of the non-water weight of plants is from the carbon dioxide which they get from the air. The more carbon dioxide in the air, the greater the yield in crops, and therefore the more people and other animals that can be supported.

Since I'm a Lifest (i.e., one who desires the increase of life), it is my desire that humanity take upon itself to output a great deal more carbon dioxide than it is presently doing. Humanity has been slacking in this regard.

You see, a great deal of previous lifeforms that once existed currently now have their carbon trapped in the Earth (i.e., the carbon which made up the lifeforms' structures). Present carbon dioxide levels are a much lower than they used to be in the Earth's history when it used to support a great deal more life. Humanity should correct this unfortunate state of affairs by releasing this currently-trapped carbon in the Earth's crust into the atmosphere, so that plants can grow much more abundantly and much more robustly. The increase in plants will allow more animals to exist, including more humans.

Unfortunately, this increase in carbon dioxide by burning hydrocarbons will not increase global temperatures, as the ice records show that global temperature increases come first, and then carbon dioxide levels rise. Rising carbon dioxide levels do not cause the globe's temperature to increase.

So even though it is quite unfortunate that we cannot increase the global temperature by burning more hydrocarbons, that should not deter us from burning more hydrocarbons in order to increase the available plant food.

The colonisation of space has me completely baffled, it seems to me to an idea that has more relevance to Star Trek. We have enough issues for science to deal with right here on Planet Earth, without seeing a need to send our robotic clones into the Galaxy to spread the word of Jesus.

As you have admitted, you don't understand the first thing about the Omega Point cosmology. This comment by you simply reinforces that fact.

So this begs the question as to what it is that you think you're arguing against. As you certainly aren't arguing against the Omega Point cosmology, as you actually no nothing of substance about it.

Instead, you're arguing against some idea in your head that you formed that is loosely connected to your self-admittedly uncomprehending reading of my article.

So again I have to wonder if you're some sort of glutton for punishment. It's as if you're begging to be intellectually and psychologically eviscerated.

Are you the type of guy who walks into a biker bar and yells out, "Hey, you flaming faggots, I can take on every one of you sons of whores and still have the energy left to cum up your mothers' asses!"? (I don't suppose that you are, as you'd probably be dead by now.)

Yet translate that into a forum discussion and that's the basic equivalent of what you have done here. You are so far out of your league and understanding that it's truly pathetic. Yet for some strange reason you felt the compulsion to argue with an author about a subject you admittedly really know nothing about.

What did you think the outcome of such a process would be? Well, I can tell you what the outcome would be: it's the intellectual equivalent of walking into a biker bar and yelling out, "Hey, you flaming faggots, I can take on every one of you sons of whores and still have the energy left to cum up your mothers' asses!"

And so I have to wonder what sort of glutton for punishment you are. As it seems that you're looking for an extreme form of intellectual decimation.

If I were a sadistic sort, then I could really let loose upon you. You'd be like a playground for me. But since I don't like hurting people, I've tried to hold myself back.

But still I have to wonder what in the blazing stars you were thinking.

[hippifried]

Okay. I just added that all up, multiplied where I needed to, & divided the whole thing by pi to the last decimal point to the 4th exponent. I even remembered to carry the 4. It still comes up to 42. Oh well.

[trish]

Whereas, e.g., the operating paradigm of Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper and his other papers on the Omega Point Theorem is the known laws of physics, i.e., our actual physical reality which has been repeatedly confirmed by every experiment conducted to date.

Has experiment confirmed that spatial sections of the cosmos are diffeomorphic to 3-spheres? Can you cite the paper?

Has experiment confirmed there is at least one life-form having worldlines extending to the causal boundary? Can you cite the paper?

Has this...

Actually, we will use nanotechnology to transform the substrate of our minds in order to become superintelligent. That is, we will use technology to become immortal.

...been confirmed by experiment? Could you cite the paper please?

The assumptions in Tipler's model are multitude and every bit as whimsical as what you're find in string theory.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that Tipler's model actually does pass as a reasonable representation of the universe as well as we can test it. Let's also grant there is a sense in which the Omega Point is omniscient, another sense in which it's omnipresent and yet another sense in which it's omnipotent. Tipler would assert that from the assumptions that were just granted for the sake of argument, there is a proof that, in the sense specified by your definitions, there is a unique omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent point (not actually in our space-time but) on the abstract causal compactification of our space-time. In what sense is that point god? In the sense specified by your definitions of three O's (omniscience etc.) of course. But that's not a proof that the Christian god exists. It's a proof (modulo all of the baseless assumptions of course) that Tipler's mathematical conception of god exists as an imaginary point on the mathematically idealized boundary of a universe that has no real boundary. I have to say (in fact I already have http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...6&postcount=46 ) that Tipler's conception of god is pretty weak tea. Hippifried's model is simpler, equally explanatory and has much wider support: the answer is 42.

[Stavros]

For those who are interested, I have produced in a separate post an examination of the citations in Jamie's paper. It will follow this one.

Comments edited as below

1. My name is not "Jamie French". I don't know where you get that idea from, since I have never used the name French for myself.
-I have already apologised for this error, I think its time to move on from it.

2, I "claim" that physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's papers on his Omega Point cosmology have been peer-reviewed in a number of the world's leading physics and science journals?
Are you that daft? Apparently so.
-Rather than edit the sentence for your convenience, read it again and you will find that it says:
The author, who claims that Frank Tipler’s work has been published in peer-reviewed science journals and that this gives Tipler a position of respect, deliberately ignores the ridicule and rejection that his version of ‘Intelligent Design’ has produced.
You have not admitted that in the peer-reviewed journals Tipler's claim that Omega Point Cosmology is also a proof of God is either ridiculed or just not considered to be the important part of what is anyway a hypothesis.

3. Do you know what a citation is, Stavros? (Which, unlike me, you're apparently afraid to give out your legal name in these discussions, so I'm left with calling you "Stavros", which is the handle you've chosen on this forum.)
-If I did tell you my real name you would probably go through my publications to ridicule them because I have not explained the role played by Jesus of Nazareth in whatever I was writing about. Surely even you have better things to do with your time.

Do you know how a citation works, Stavros? Apparently not.
You act as if I'm making some mysterious claim that is just so utterly hard to check. Me-oh, my-oh, just how ever would one go about verifying such a "claim"?
Why, with the citations that I gave to the actual journal articles: that's how!
But apparently the concept of a citation is new to you.
-On the one occasion when I did examine one of your citations it was to discover that you had deliberately quoted David Ben-Gurion out of context to prove a point -yours, not his. It is in my first response to the new version of your paper. You have not acknowledged that. I have produced a separate post in which I examine your references which I regret to say undermine your credibility as a writer of history.

4. Actually, my position here and in my article is that mankind is evolved from much more primitive animals, such that mankind is evolving from a more brutal and ignorant state into knowledge. The Messiah, in the form of Jesus Christ, showed mankind a far more rational and humane way to live. But mankind's animalistic predispositions cause much of mankind to keep repeating the same brutal and genocidal errors of the past--of which errors continue to our present time.
-So in other words, we have evolved and we haven't evolved? Or are you just too coy to argue that 'we' have evolved but 'the others' are still like beasts of the field? And who are 'the others'? Or indeed, who are 'we'? At what point did mankind make the transition from 'primitive animals' to 'knowledge'? Does Ancient Egypt qualify as an 'intelligent' civilisation? Do cave paintings found all over the world represent the 'naive' drawings of 'primitive animals' or intelligent beings? I don't understand how you understand the history of human societies, most of which are dismissed in your paper anyway because they do not fit into your pigeon-hole. More important, you need to explain why, instead of history exhibiting a procession of increasing knowledge, there have been great civilisations that collapsed and were followed by 'dark ages' which, even if not truly dark, could not maintain the level of economic, political, socio-cultural and technological sophistication that used to exist -Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and Rome come to mind.

You claim to be inquisitive and yet you show no interest in the concept of monotheism in history, even though it must be part of your own story and part of God's Plan as you see it. In Ancient Egypt you may or may not know that Akhenaten believed in one God, there may even be a theory that he was murdered and that it was the High Priests who murdered him for undermining their previous polytheist vision of heaven and earth. The Wikipedia entry is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten

If you take it further you might be intrigued by the pre-Christian symbols that some argue are found in Akhenaten's places of worship, cf
Ann Bomann, The Private Chapel in Ancient Egypt, a study of the chapels in the workmen's village at el Amarna with special reference to Deir el Medina and other sites (Kegan Paul International, 1991), she is particularly intrigued by the 'T' shape of the chapel interior.

5. Rather than holding an adversarial relationship to the truth, you should instead simply seek out and accept the truth for what it is. When a person puts themselves in opposition to something which seems strange to them, they thereby often cut themselves off to what is true.
So rather than attempt to debate me, you should instead seek to understand what I am saying. But in order to do so, you must first take upon yourself a spirit of genuine inquisitiveness and curiosity. You must first genuinely want to know the truth and seek out the truth. Only then can understanding come.
-Inquisitive? Curious? You are the one who has dismissed all religious beliefs except Christianity, who has therefore also dismissed the histories of most of the world because it does not fit with your rigid belief that Christ's mission is the only important event we should be concerned with. Where is your curiosity in medical history that I cited in my previous post as an example of how human socieities have collaborated with each other across time rather than waged war? If you were interested in medical history you would not dismiss as you have the achievements of Islam and China, ancient and modern, as you have here:
Far too much is made of the Islamic societies' contributions to science, but in reality their contributions are virtually nihil.
and here:
With the Chinese, they could not progress because they didn't hold to a concept of historical progression: the idea that the future would be radically different from the present (one of the central concepts of Christianity). They never had an idiocultural motivation to improve upon whatever inventions they might have created. So instead, the inventions which they did manage to come up with stagnated and did not progress. Contrast that with the Christian Europeans, who took just about any invention they could get their hands on and started to rapidly improve it.

In the case of Islam, you appear to be saying that the achievements of these below were not really that important, that 'far too much is made' of their contribution:

al-Zahrawi, (Cordoba c936-1013)- considered the 'father of surgery';
Ibn Sina/Avicenna (Persia 980-1037) famous treatise on medicine; author of early medical treatises in use up to the Renaissance in Europe;
Ibn Rushd/Averroes (Spain 1126-119 eight one of the most important mathematicians in history;
For a more general view see:
Michael W. Dols 'Islam and Medicine', History of Science 26 (198eight 417-425.


For China, well, if you haven't heard of the series begun by Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China I am sure your inquisitive mind and curiosity will note the early use -was it the first use?- of drilling technology in the Early Han (210-207 BCE):
Joseph Needham (With Wang Ling), Science and Civilisation in China Vol 4: Physics and Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering (Cambridge University Press, 1965) p56.
See also: Science and Civilisation in China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


6. Regarding so-called "global warming", shouldn't you now be calling it "climate change"? Did you not get the memo? Since there has been no global warming over the last decade-plus, isn't it just some vague concept of "climate change" that we're all supposed to be afraid of and give up all our rights to government so that it can protect us against some unspecified change in weather?
-Yes, dear, I got the memo and also read the book, eg Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Harvard University Press, 2003, 2nd Edition 200eight. If you can't get hold of the book its contents are part of an inter-active web-site here: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm


7. You are so far out of your league and understanding that it's truly pathetic. Yet for some strange reason you felt the compulsion to argue with an author about a subject you admittedly really know nothing about.
-I have admitted that I am not an expert on cosmology but have relied on people who do, and if Tipler's Omega Point Cosmology was accepted by the scientific community as proof of the existence of God, we would know about it by now, need I say more? Trish has dealt expertly with the issues too.

-But I do know a lot about the non-scientific parts of your paper, which is most of it, and have already demonstrated your deliberate distortion of historical facts to be unacceptable as a credible method in historical analysis, along with your reliance on conspiracy theories that have been ridiculed for many years now because they are not based on facts but extreme positions that also happen to be extremely offensive -baiting the Rothschilds being one nauseating example.
-If you think vanity publishing makes you a published author, that is your view, but the description sells itself.


8. I note that you have not resolved one of the contradictions evident in your paper. I drew attention to it but you ignored it, so I put it here again:

On page 96 she writes:
The great tyrannies of the 20th century were first and foremost an attempt to abolish Christianity. The reason for this governmental antagonism against Christianity is the same reason this temperament is so prevalent in current academia. Both academia and the corporate media in our present day are grafted to the hip of the state, and the natural tendency of the state is to tolerate no God before it.

Does this also apply to Prof. Frank Tipler of Tulane University? Jamie’s paper is rooted in the belief that Tipler has proven the existence of God. But he has tenure on the hip of the Beast.