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Frank Tipler
This nOde last updated June 20th, 2003 and is permanently morphing...
(3 Lamat (Rabbit) / 16 Zots (Bat) - 68/260 - 12.19.10.6.8)

• authored _The Physics Of Immortality_
• Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

  

The Metaphysics of Information

The physics of information ultimately leads people into deeper questions, including the one raised originally - about eschatology or the fate of the universe. Some physicists suggest the universe has only two possible fates available to it, depending on the curvature constant of spacetime: continual expansion, in which case it will spread out into entropic heat death; or recollapse, into the Big Stop, which might possibly be the seed of a succeeding Big Bang. But this pondering of the fate of the universe doesn't take into account a third possibility. Some physicists like Frank Tipler suggest that at the last possible moment, all conscious life with unite into one "Omega Point" supermind, and place the cosmos under its control, annulling heat death. This viewpoint is the inverse of Deism, essentially postulating the Creator at the end of time rather than at the beginning.

• trip hop acid jazz track _Heat Death Of The Universe_ MP3 by Fila Brazilia off of _Luck Be A Weirdo Tonight_ CD on Twentythree #008 (1997)

Tipler's assumption is that various negentropic processes are actually driving the universe toward improbability - in this case, the most improbable thing imaginable, a Universal Mind. But one can take a sort of "weak" position with regard to Tiplerian theory, and  merely state that the universe is becoming more and more self-aware (through the sense organisms of conscious life), and, as a result, a more self-organizing system, reducing its own entropy. (Whether it ever becomes totally self-aware can be left to the mystics.) That is to say, the universe isn't a box which requires a Maxwellian demon roaming about. The box is the demon, becoming more and more aware of what's inside of it, and also what's outside.

Frank J. Tipler has proposed that it is possible for intelligent beings to process and store an infinite amount of information in the universe, if certain conditions are fulfilled. His definition of the Omega Point is essentially a future c-boundary which is a single point and an Aleph state, where

   1.Information processing continues indefinitely along at least one world-line gamma all the way to the future c-boundary of the universe.
     i.e. Life never dies out.

   2.The amount of information processed between now and the future c-boundary is infinite in the region of space-time with which the  worldline gamma can communicate. i.e. There will be an infinite number of thoughts, experiences and events.

   3.The amount of information stored at any given time tau within this region diverges to infinity as tau approaches its future limit. i.e. More and more is learned, and things never repeat themselves.

What has made his theory controversial is his claims that it is experimentally verifiable, that the beings near the Omega Point will resurrect anybody who has ever lived into a state close to classical descriptions of Paradise and that the Omega Point itself corresponds to the religious notation of god.

From a transhumanist perspective, the Omega Point is the logical conclusion of our striving towards higer levels, regardless of its nature. It is more of an engineering problem than a philosophical question.

The Tipler Scenario: Life expands to fill the universe, which is closed. As it begins to contract, life uses its shear energy to survive and manipulate its evolution. As the universe collapses, the speed of information processing increases without bound and life evolves into an Omega Point.

 - Terminology from The Omega Point Theory Mailing List

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