Happy Atheist Forum

This is one of the funniest god of the gaps presentations I've ever seen. Please enjoy:
[youtube:37uccdrm]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zqnh7yH0DI[/youtube:37uccdrm]
My favorite line: "As long as you're using general relativity and quantum mechanics, you're forced to conclude that god exists."
Hahahah... massive physics fail.

QuoteTippler has a new book out...

Ahh...there it is. I knew there would be a financial reason he was pushing his hypothesis.

QuoteGod exists outside of space, time and matter

Meaning god is immeasurable and unprovable by General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, since they describe the observable.

Snake oil salesman at his best, And the Rubes will eat it up.

QuoteHe says physics can justify, among other things, the birth of Jesus and the ressurection of the dead.

I thought those were supposed to be miricles (hence not conrolled by physics). Either way this is pure bullshit. I'd be interested to see what exactly his proof is, but apparently it uses concepts that we're all to stupid to understand...

I'm not going to spend any money on this book but I couldn't resist wasting a little time on some research to get an idea of what this "proof" is like. I found a book review:

http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/Ph ... ality.html (http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html)

It hardly seems fair to judge the book from a review but I got a sense of the claims he makes. The reviewer seems to take the book quite seriously. Here is a funny quote from the review.

QuoteThe primary feature of this book is Tipler's Omega Point theory. The Omega Point is the singularity in space-time that marks the end of the universe. Tipler and Barrow's eschatology predicts That the universe will not expand forever, but will eventually collapse back onto itself. If the collapse can be induced to occur non-uniformly, then the information content of the universe will be preserved and that information content includes the quantum phase-space of every atom that has existed since the Big Bang. This then infers that every intelligent being that has ever existed will have the potential to be reassembled, and hence resurrected. To accomplish this induced nonuniform collapse requires that a "human-like" intelligence must exist in all parts of the universe and that this "being" must have a working knowledge of the requirements of the Omega Point collapse. Tipler demonstrates that it will be impossible for human beings to occupy the entire universe but hypothesizes it will be possible to create a new life form based on miniature, possibly microscopic, self-replicating Turing machines. These "living computers" will carry with them all of the knowledge of the known universe, including the requirements for inducing the non-uniform collapse of the universe as they colonize each section, traveling at speeds that approach the speed of light. Given the existence of this universal intelligence, the rest of the Omega Point theory follows quite logically--well, almost. It seems that the physics required for the non-uniform collapse requires that the mass of the as yet undiscovered, Higgs boson must be within a certain range, 220 +-20 GeV, the mass of the top quark must be 185 +- 20GeV, and the ratio of the width for the Higgs boson decay into transversely polarized Z bosons and longitudinally polarized Z bosons must be 0.55. Thus, the Omega Point theory has real experimentally verifiable parameters. One section of Chapter 4 is dedicated to listing the testable predictions of the theory.

I'm going to be resurrected as a miniature self replicating turing machine traveling at speeds approaching the speed of light! Yay!

My favorite part was when he told us his theory.....oh, wait....nevermind.

I like how there are all the symbols and than the one arrow that says "GOD EXISTS"

QuoteThe primary feature of this book is Tipler's Omega Point theory. The Omega Point is the singularity in space-time that marks the end of the universe. Tipler and Barrow's eschatology predicts That the universe will not expand forever, but will eventually collapse back onto itself. If the collapse can be induced to occur non-uniformly, then the information content of the universe will be preserved and that information content includes the quantum phase-space of every atom that has existed since the Big Bang. This then infers that every intelligent being that has ever existed will have the potential to be reassembled, and hence resurrected. To accomplish this induced nonuniform collapse requires that a "human-like" intelligence must exist in all parts of the universe and that this "being" must have a working knowledge of the requirements of the Omega Point collapse. Tipler demonstrates that it will be impossible for human beings to occupy the entire universe but hypothesizes it will be possible to create a new life form based on miniature, possibly microscopic, self-replicating Turing machines. These "living computers" will carry with them all of the knowledge of the known universe, including the requirements for inducing the non-uniform collapse of the universe as they colonize each section, traveling at speeds that approach the speed of light. Given the existence of this universal intelligence, the rest of the Omega Point theory follows quite logically--well, almost. It seems that the physics required for the non-uniform collapse requires that the mass of the as yet undiscovered, Higgs boson must be within a certain range, 220 +-20 GeV, the mass of the top quark must be 185 +- 20GeV, and the ratio of the width for the Higgs boson decay into transversely polarized Z bosons and longitudinally polarized Z bosons must be 0.55. Thus, the Omega Point theory has real experimentally verifiable parameters. One section of Chapter 4 is dedicated to listing the testable predictions of the theory.

I'm going to be resurrected as a miniature self replicating turing machine traveling at speeds approaching the speed of light! Yay![/quote]

Well, I think you miss the point.  He tries to use mathematics, but like my earlier post; the big bang and it's full theory is that time is circular.  Like a lung (exhales then contracts).  What's funny music is too (lol).  However, these laws are always bound for our exact physical world; so in an atheist view life your the best you can (b/c you'll just repeat it again, lol).

All Best.

My hard-core study was in my youth back then I would've been able to give a better examply of circular time.

My hard-core study was in my youth back then I would've been able to give a better examply of circular time.

Quote from: "Will"This is one of the funniest god of the gaps presentations I've ever seen. Please enjoy:
[youtube:1slhwldt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zqnh7yH0DI[/youtube:1slhwldt]
My favorite line: "As long as you're using general relativity and quantum mechanics, you're forced to conclude that god exists."
Hahahah... massive physics fail.

Prof. Frank J. Tipler is quite correct in the statement of his which you quote: God has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Tipler's below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):

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. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf (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 (http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276)

Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler's above paper 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://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=ext ... /0034-4885 (http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.highlights/0034-4885) )

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. (And just to point out, Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a "letter" as defined by the latter journal.)

See also the below resource for further information on the Omega Point Theory:

Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist http://geocities.com/theophysics/ (http://geocities.com/theophysics/)

Tipler is Professor of Mathematics and Physics (joint appointment) at Tulane University. His Ph.D. is in the field of global general relativity (the same rarefied field that Profs. Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking developed), and he is also an expert in particle physics and computer science. His Omega Point Theory has been published in a number of prestigious peer-reviewed physics and science journals in addition to Reports on Progress in Physics, such as Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (one of the world's leading astrophysics journals), Physics Letters B, the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, etc.

Prof. John A. Wheeler (the father of most relativity research in the U.S.) wrote that "Frank Tipler is widely known for important concepts and theorems in general relativity and gravitation physics" on pg. viii in the "Foreword" to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by cosmologist Prof. John D. Barrow and Tipler, which was the first book wherein Tipler's Omega Point Theory was described. On pg. ix of said book, Prof. Wheeler wrote that Chapter 10 of the book, which concerns the Omega Point Theory, "rivals in thought-provoking power any of the [other chapters]."

The leading quantum physicist in the world, Prof. David Deutsch (inventor of the quantum computer, being the first person to mathematically describe the workings of such a device, and winner of the Institute of Physics' 1998 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for his work), endorses the physics of the Omega Point Theory in his book The Fabric of Reality (1997). For that, see:

David Deutsch, extracts from Chapter 14: "The Ends of the Universe" of The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), ISBN: 0713990619; with additional comments by Frank J. Tipler. http://geocities.com/theophysics/deutsc ... verse.html (http://geocities.com/theophysics/deutsch-ends-of-the-universe.html)

The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to resort to physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking's paper on the black hole information issue which is dependent on the conjectured string theory-based anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence). See S. W. Hawking, "Information loss in black holes," Physical Review D, Vol. 72, No. 8, 084013 (October 2005); also at arXiv:hep-th/0507171, July 18, 2005. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171 (http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171)

That is, Prof. Hawking's paper is based upon empirically unconfirmed physics which violate the known laws of physics. It's an impressive testament to the Omega Point Theory's correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the black hole information issue must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he's forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.

Some have suggested that the universe's current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020) ), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

There's a very good reason for that, because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as B - L is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.

Prof. Tipler's above 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper also demonstrates that the correct quantum gravity theory has existed since 1962, first discovered by Richard Feynman in that year, and independently discovered by Steven Weinberg and Bryce DeWitt, among others. But because these physicists were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order), they abandoned this qualitatively unique quantum gravity theory since in order for it to be consistent it requires an arbitrarily higher number of terms. Further, they didn't realize that this proper theory of quantum gravity is consistent only with a certain set of boundary conditions imposed (which includes the initial Big Bang, and the final Omega Point, cosmological singularities). The equations for this theory of quantum gravity are term-by-term finite, but the same mechanism that forces each term in the series to be finite also forces the entire series to be infinite (i.e., infinities that would otherwise occur in spacetime, consequently destabilizing it, are transferred to the cosmological singularities, thereby preventing the universe from immediately collapsing into nonexistence). As Tipler notes in his 2007 book The Physics of Christianity (pp. 49 and 279), "It is a fundamental mathematical fact that this [infinite series] is the best that we can do. ... This is somewhat analogous to Liouville's theorem in complex analysis, which says that all analytic functions other than constants have singularities either a finite distance from the origin of coordinates or at infinity."

When combined with the Standard Model, the result is the Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics.

Quote from: "jrredford"Prof. Frank J. Tipler is quite correct in the statement of his which you quote. God has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler's below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):

The Omega Point is a purely theoretical state. The god worshiped by most on Earth operates outside of the laws of physics, which suggests infinite complexity. Infinite complexity would require infinite time to develop. As infinite time will never occur, no such point can be reached.

Why is it a layman on an internet forum can debunk this within seconds and someone with a Ph.D. in physics from MIT can't? It's simple: apologism is by it's very nature intellectually dishonest. Professor Tipler is biased and that bias is coloring his conclusions.

Quote from: "Will"

Quote from: "jrredford"Prof. Frank J. Tipler is quite correct in the statement of his which you quote. God has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler's below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):

The Omega Point is a purely theoretical state. The god worshiped by most on Earth operates outside of the laws of physics, which suggests infinite complexity. Infinite complexity would require infinite time to develop. As infinite time will never occur, no such point can be reached.

The Omega Point is theoretical in the same sense that 2+2 = 4 is theoretical: i.e., it's a conclusion which apodictically follows from the premises; in the case of the Omega Point, the premises are the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics). The only way to avoid the conclusion that the Omega Point exists is to reject the known laws of physics, and hence 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 Theory is incorrect, and indeed, one must engage in extreme irrationality in order to argue against the Omega Point Theory.

Traditional Christian theology has maintained that God does not violate physical law. But as you indicate, God is transcendent to the laws of physics, as physical values are at infinity at the cosmological singularity, and hence it is not possible for any form of physics to apply to the actual singularity since one cannot perform the arithmetical operations of addition or subtraction on infinity.

In general relativity, singularities are unavoidable with realistic energy conditions: for the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems proving that the universe began in the Big Bang singularity, see S. W. Hawking and R. Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London; Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 314, No. 1519 (January 27, 1970), pp. 529-548. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2416467 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2416467)

So it's been known for some time that physical law proves the existence of something to which no form of physics can be applied, i.e., something which is transcendent to any form of physics. As Prof. Stephen Hawking wrote in his book The Illustrated A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1996) on p. 179, "In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to spacetime and at which the laws of science break down."

Regarding your comment that "Infinite complexity would require infinite time to develop," that's true in experiential time (within spacetime), i.e., computer processor cycle time--but due to the universe collapsing to a single point of zero volume within a finite proper time, infinite entropy (i.e., informational complexity) is reached within a finite proper time; also due to this, an infinite number of particle traversals across the entire distance of the universe will occur within a finite proper time: since the distance required in order for a particle to make a complete traversal across the universe will be getting shorter and shorter, the time required in order to make such a traversal will also be getting shorter and shorter. In other words, at the same time that hard drive space is diverging to infinite memory, so also processor speed will be diverging to infinitely fast, with both becoming infinite at the end of a finite proper time. In experiential time the end will never be reached--one will always just be embarking upon an infinite journey, with infinitely more to do, learn, discover, create and experience than has ever come before--since due to processor speed diverging to infinitely fast, an infinite number of thoughts will occur within proper time.

QuoteWhy is it a layman on an internet forum can debunk this within seconds and someone with a Ph.D. in physics from MIT can't? It's simple: apologism is by it's very nature intellectually dishonest. Professor Tipler is biased and that bias is coloring his conclusions.

Rather, your present post demonstrates why you're not among the professional physicists who referee a number of the world's leading physics journals in which Prof. Frank J. Tipler has published his Omega Point Theory, such as Reports on Progress in Physics (the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain's main professional body for physicists, with a higher impact factor than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal), and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (one of the world's leading astrophysics journals).[1]

Not only does your present post demonstrate that you're biased, but therein you also make fallacious comments on matters you know nothing about.

Prof. Tipler didn't reach the conclusion that God exists out of religious motivations. Tipler had been an atheist since the age of 16, yet only circa 1998 did he again become a theist due to advancements in the Omega Point Theory which occured after the publication of his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality (and Tipler even mentions in said book [pg. 305] that he is still an atheist because he didn't at the time have confirmation for the Omega Point Theory).

Tipler's first paper on the Omega Point Theory was in 1986 (Frank J. Tipler, "Cosmological Limits on Computation," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 [June 1986], pp. 617-661). What motivated Tipler's investigation as to how long life could go on was not religion (indeed, Tipler didn't even set out to find God), but Prof. Freeman J. Dyson's paper "Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe" (Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 3 [July 1979], pp. 447-460 http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt (http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt) ).

Further, in a section entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" in The Physics of Immortality (pg. 310), Tipler wrote, "However, I emphasize again that I do not think Jesus really rose from the dead. I think his body rotted in some grave." This book was written before Tipler realized what the resurrection mechanism is that Jesus could have used without violating any known laws of physics (and without existing on an emulated level of implementation--in that case the resurrection mechanism would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the emulation).

----------

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 declared, and within their declared paradigm none of the referees could find anything wrong with said papers. That is, the paradigm itself may have nothing to do with reality, but the peer-reviewers could find nothing 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 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 this paper could find nothing wrong with it within its operating paradigm, i.e., the known laws of physics.

jredford, are you in any way associated, affiliated, connected or indebted to Mr Tippler?

Quote from: "SSY"jredford, are you in any way associated, affiliated, connected or indebted to Mr Tippler?

Hi, SSY. The answer to your question is no.

Quote from: "jrredford"Regarding your comment that "Infinite complexity would require infinite time to develop," that's true in experiential time (within spacetime), i.e., computer processor cycle time--but due to the universe collapsing to a single point of zero volume within a finite proper time, infinite entropy (i.e., informational complexity) is reached within a finite proper time; also due to this, an infinite number of particle traversals across the entire distance of the universe will occur within a finite proper time: since the distance required in order for a particle to make a complete traversal across the universe will be getting shorter and shorter, the time required in order to make such a traversal will also be getting shorter and shorter. In other words, at the same time that hard drive space is diverging to infinite memory, so also processor speed will be diverging to infinitely fast, with both becoming infinite at the end of a finite proper time. In experiential time the end will never be reached--one will always just be embarking upon an infinite journey, with infinitely more to do, learn, discover, create and experience than has ever come before--since due to processor speed diverging to infinitely fast, an infinite number of thoughts will occur within proper time.

You don't understand infinity. Infinite entropy cannot occur in a finite amount of time or space by it's very definition. You seem to be confusing "a great number" with "infinity". Unless we are a part of a universe has infinite size and infinite particles, which would be impossible assuming the big bang, you're quote is wrong that an infinite number of particle traversals can occur. Even if the number of particles is 1 x 10 to the quintillionth power, it's still not infinity because infinity can never be reached.

Tipler, in his grand theory to prove god, assumes that human built robots will take over the galaxy (something no one outside of science fiction could say with any sort of confidence today), he then assumes that they will not only have the power to control parts of the big crunch (btw, based on what we know today, the big crunch won't happen), but the robots will somehow devote themselves to "love"? Omega is poorly conceived science fiction at best.

Quote from: "jrredford"Prof. Frank J. Tipler is quite correct...

I freely admit I'm not a physicist, but here is what I've gotten so far:  The Omega Point theory seems to require that life evolve into computers/machines with infinite computational capacity and nearly infinite capability to manipulate large (galaxy-sized, or even larger?) conglomerations of matter/energy.  Our current understanding of some things Hawking has said about black holes which seem to contradict quantum unitarity are, I take it, the reason this theory has been put forward.

Thank you very much, jrredford, for your efforts to elucidate Tipler's theory here.  This really is fascinating stuff, and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.

An aside:  I want to thank you, Will, as well, for not using the execrable term "sci fi," which still peeves me slightly, whenever I see it.  I feel that it demeans the literature to call it "sci fi."  The "SciFi Channel" has made it increasingly popular and accepted, but many long-time readers of the genre (I guess I'm showing my age here) despise it, preferring either "SF" or the full words.  Fans (though I am not really a part of the world of science fiction fandom, I do follow it to some extent, through online fanzines (http://efanzines.com/)) tend to use "skiffy," a purposeful mispronunciation of "sci fi," as a derisive term for movies and shows that are actually space opera, rather than true science fiction.  :beer:

Quote from: "Will"

Quote from: "jrredford"Regarding your comment that "Infinite complexity would require infinite time to develop," that's true in experiential time (within spacetime), i.e., computer processor cycle time--but due to the universe collapsing to a single point of zero volume within a finite proper time, infinite entropy (i.e., informational complexity) is reached within a finite proper time; also due to this, an infinite number of particle traversals across the entire distance of the universe will occur within a finite proper time: since the distance required in order for a particle to make a complete traversal across the universe will be getting shorter and shorter, the time required in order to make such a traversal will also be getting shorter and shorter. In other words, at the same time that hard drive space is diverging to infinite memory, so also processor speed will be diverging to infinitely fast, with both becoming infinite at the end of a finite proper time. In experiential time the end will never be reached--one will always just be embarking upon an infinite journey, with infinitely more to do, learn, discover, create and experience than has ever come before--since due to processor speed diverging to infinitely fast, an infinite number of thoughts will occur within proper time.

You don't understand infinity. Infinite entropy cannot occur in a finite amount of time or space by it's very definition. You seem to be confusing "a great number" with "infinity". Unless we are a part of a universe has infinite size and infinite particles, which would be impossible assuming the big bang, you're quote is wrong that an infinite number of particle traversals can occur. Even if the number of particles is 1 x 10 to the quintillionth power, it's still not infinity because infinity can never be reached.

Tipler, in his grand theory to prove god, assumes that human built robots will take over the galaxy (something no one outside of science fiction could say with any sort of confidence today), he then assumes that they will not only have the power to control parts of the big crunch (btw, based on what we know today, the big crunch won't happen), but the robots will somehow devote themselves to "love"? Omega is poorly conceived science fiction at best.

Your present post demonstrates why you're not a professional mathematician or a professional physicist.

In general relativity, singularities (i.e., a true physical geometric point with infinite density) are unavoidable with realistic energy conditions: for the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems proving that the universe began in the Big Bang singularity, see S. W. Hawking and R. Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London; Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 314, No. 1519 (January 27, 1970), pp. 529-548. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2416467 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2416467)

You have the unfortunate habit of engaging in the logical fallacy of bare assertion, and that on matters which no actual professional mathematician or physicist would agree with you, and wherein straightforward logic demonstrates that your said assertions are erroneous.

For example, pertaining to the traversal of a particle across the universe: during the universe's collapse, the distance in order to make a complete traversal across the universe becomes shorter and shorter, and so the time required in order to make such a traversal becomes shorter and shorter. At zero distance, one can posit any speed (however slow, just so long as there is some movement) and an infinite number of complete traversals will occur in an instant. This is easy to see mathematically: since with zero distance the time it takes for a moving object to make a traversal is a measure of zero time, and hence the addition of any amount of such zeros is still a measure of zero time.

And as I detailed in my previous response to you above, Prof. Frank J. Tipler didn't set out to physically prove the existence of God. Tipler had been an atheist since the age of 16, yet only circa 1998 did he again become a theist due to advancements in the Omega Point Theory which occured after the publication of his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality (and Tipler even mentions in said book [pg. 305] that he is still an atheist because he didn't at the time have confirmation for the Omega Point Theory).

Tipler's first paper on the Omega Point Theory was in 1986 (Frank J. Tipler, "Cosmological Limits on Computation," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 [June 1986], pp. 617-661). What motivated Tipler's investigation as to how long life could go on was not religion (indeed, Tipler didn't even set out to find God), but Prof. Freeman J. Dyson's paper "Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe" (Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 3 [July 1979], pp. 447-460 http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt (http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt) ).

Further, in a section entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" in The Physics of Immortality (pg. 310), Tipler wrote, "However, I emphasize again that I do not think Jesus really rose from the dead. I think his body rotted in some grave." This book was written before Tipler realized what the resurrection mechanism is that Jesus could have used without violating any known laws of physics (and without existing on an emulated level of implementation--in that case the resurrection mechanism would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the emulation).

Regarding the Big Crunch, as I said in my original post in this thread, some have suggested that the universe's current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020) ), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

There's a very good reason for that, because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as B - L [baryon number minus lepton number] is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.

Quote from: "Recusant"

Quote from: "jrredford"Prof. Frank J. Tipler is quite correct...

I freely admit I'm not a physicist, but here is what I've gotten so far:  The Omega Point theory seems to require that life evolve into computers/machines with infinite computational capacity and nearly infinite capability to manipulate large (galaxy-sized, or even larger?) conglomerations of matter/energy.  Our current understanding of some things Hawking has said about black holes which seem to contradict quantum unitarity are, I take it, the reason this theory has been put forward.

Thank you very much, jrredford, for your efforts to elucidate Tipler's theory here.  This really is fascinating stuff, and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.

An aside:  I want to thank you, Will, as well, for not using the execrable term "sci fi," which still peeves me slightly, whenever I see it.  I feel that it demeans the literature to call it "sci fi."  The "SciFi Channel" has made it increasingly popular and accepted, but many long-time readers of the genre (I guess I'm showing my age here) despise it, preferring either "SF" or the full words.  Fans (though I am not really a part of the world of science fiction fandom, I do follow it to some extent, through online fanzines (http://efanzines.com/)) tend to use "skiffy," a purposeful mispronunciation of "sci fi," as a derisive term for movies and shows that are actually space opera, rather than true science fiction.  :borg:
 [/rant ]

Quote from: "Will"Omega is poorly conceived science fiction at best.

On the other hand, I think that a science fiction story or novel using the Omega Point theory as a backdrop/theme could make for some very interesting reading, in the hands of somebody like Poul Anderson or perhaps Olaf Stapledon.  :beer:

You're welcome, Recusant.

Quote from: "Recusant"On the other hand, I think that a science fiction story or novel using the Omega Point theory as a backdrop/theme could make for some very interesting reading, in the hands of somebody like Poul Anderson or perhaps Olaf Stapledon.  

Omega is worthy of a (dare I say it?) SciFi channel made-for-tv movie, but if done correctly it could be interesting. The problem is that it's too similar to Steven Spielberg's AI, which generally wasn't given good reviews. I liked it (though there are strong oedipal undertones), but most didn't.

Quote from: "jrredford"Your present post demonstrates why you're not a professional mathematician or a professional physicist.

Tipler's book represents copyright infringement of Battlestar Galactica, and your devotion to his teachings demonstrates that you're not objective. And you still don't understand infinity.

I suggest giving this a read:
https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merch ... Code=av177 (https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?&Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SS&Product_Code=av177)
Dr. Krauss (a man with equal or greater credentials to Tipler) tears Tipler apart while demonstrating an objective and reasonable view of our physical universe. Tipler's "theory" is demonstrated as an attempt to rationalize theology and nothing more.

I'll try to track down a full transcript, but here's a quote from Krauss:

Quote"When any scientist rejects the implications of physical law, for any reason other than experiment, then he ceases to be a scientist. He becomes a philosopher, practicing a discipline in which he has no special expertise. When he rejects the implications of physical law without experimental warrant, he is no longer speaking as a scientist; he is speaking as a layman, with no more authority that the average person in the street."

"Fortunately, when a scientist leaves the discipline in which his expertise rests for philosophy, he generally retains his scientific habits of honesty. If pressed, he will tell you that he is no longer speaking as a scientist but as a philosopher. Just ask him what the experimental evidence is for his claim, any claim. He will generally tell you that there is none. Any scientist can cite at length the experimental evidence for a true scientific claim."

Quote from: "Will"My favorite line: "As long as you're using general relativity and quantum mechanics, you're forced to conclude that god exists."
Hahahah... massive physics fail.

Massive fail indeed! In fact, I would feel inclined to state that using quantum mechanics you would have to conclude an allâ€"seeing god DOESN’T exist. Unobserved particles in eigenstates collapse as soon as someone makes observations. So if you can have an eigenstate at all that means that at some point you can actually have a particle completely not observed!

An omnipotent, allâ€"seeing god would constantly observe all particles making it physically impossible to have particles in uncollapsed eigenstates.

Well, maybe we are all just trapped inside of this big balloon and cannot see on the outside of it, while someone blows us up and then deflates us again....LOL! ...Ooops....maybe it will go pop in his face and he cannot ever inflate this same universe again.....LOL! That's it! God is a child playing with a balloon, and a second of his time is an infinity for us! I knew I would figure it all out here.....LOL! Sorry, I just couldn't resist one of my quips.

Quote from: "Will"

Quote from: "Recusant"On the other hand, I think that a science fiction story or novel using the Omega Point theory as a backdrop/theme could make for some very interesting reading, in the hands of somebody like Poul Anderson or perhaps Olaf Stapledon.  :beer:

Omega is worthy of a (dare I say it?) SciFi channel made-for-tv movie, but if done correctly it could be interesting. The problem is that it's too similar to Steven Spielberg's AI, which generally wasn't given good reviews. I liked it (though there are strong oedipal undertones), but most didn't.

Quote from: "jrredford"Your present post demonstrates why you're not a professional mathematician or a professional physicist.

Tipler's book represents copyright infringement of Battlestar Galactica, and your devotion to his teachings demonstrates that you're not objective. And you still don't understand infinity.

I suggest giving this a read:
https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merch ... Code=av177 (https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?&Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SS&Product_Code=av177)
Dr. Krauss (a man with equal or greater credentials to Tipler) tears Tipler apart while demonstrating an objective and reasonable view of our physical universe. Tipler's "theory" is demonstrated as an attempt to rationalize theology and nothing more.

I'll try to track down a full transcript, but here's a quote from Krauss:

Quote"When any scientist rejects the implications of physical law, for any reason other than experiment, then he ceases to be a scientist. He becomes a philosopher, practicing a discipline in which he has no special expertise. When he rejects the implications of physical law without experimental warrant, he is no longer speaking as a scientist; he is speaking as a layman, with no more authority that the average person in the street."

"Fortunately, when a scientist leaves the discipline in which his expertise rests for philosophy, he generally retains his scientific habits of honesty. If pressed, he will tell you that he is no longer speaking as a scientist but as a philosopher. Just ask him what the experimental evidence is for his claim, any claim. He will generally tell you that there is none. Any scientist can cite at length the experimental evidence for a true scientific claim."

Actually, that's a quote of Prof. Frank J. Tipler, from his book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007). You can find the above passage by Tipler in the below text of Chapter I and excerpt from Chapter II:

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/disp ... ew=excerpt (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385514248&view=excerpt)

Ironically, Krauss  has actually published a paper that greatly helped to strengthen Tipler's Omega Point Theory. See Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner, "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020) ), which demonstrates that there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

Quote from: "Kodanshi"

Quote from: "Will"My favorite line: "As long as you're using general relativity and quantum mechanics, you're forced to conclude that god exists."
Hahahah... massive physics fail.

Massive fail indeed! In fact, I would feel inclined to state that using quantum mechanics you would have to conclude an allâ€"seeing god DOESN’T exist. Unobserved particles in eigenstates collapse as soon as someone makes observations. So if you can have an eigenstate at all that means that at some point you can actually have a particle completely not observed!

An omnipotent, allâ€"seeing god would constantly observe all particles making it physically impossible to have particles in uncollapsed eigenstates.

The so-called "wave function" doesn't collapse.

There exists only one interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that is the many-worlds interpretation. All other so-called "interpretations" either make no attempt to actually explain quantum phenomena (such as the Statistical interpretation), or they are merely the many-worlds interpretation in denial (such as David Bohm's pilot-wave interpretation).

Anything that acts on reality is real and exists. Quite strange then that quantum phenomena behave exactly as if the other particles in the multiverse exist if in fact they don't exist. If the actual physical nature of the "wave functions" and "pilot waves" are not the other particles in the multiverse, then new physical entities with their own peculiar physics are being invoked: for if these aren't the other particles in the multiverse interacting with the particles in this universe, then we will do well to ask what is their actual physical nature? Pinball flippers, bumpers and ramps? What is their actual physical form, and why do they behave exactly as if the other particles in the multiverse exist?

Furthermore, all wave phenomena are nothing more than particle phenomena: there is no particle-wave duality. A wave is simply a collection of particles interacting with each other. It is the particles that actually exist; the wave is simply an action by particles interacting with each other. We see this with waves through, e.g., liquids: the individual molecules are jostled about via interacting with the other molecules. Likewise, a single photon in this universe behaves as a wave because it's interacting with the ocean of its parallel photons in the multiverse.

Prof. Frank J. Tipler points out on pg. 95 of The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007), "if the other universes and the multiverse do not exist, then quantum mechanics is objectively false. This is not a question of physics. It is a question of mathematics. I give a mathematical proof of [this] in my earlier book ..." For that, see Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Doubleday, 1994), Appendix I: "The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," pp. 483-488.

As well, experiments confirming "nonlocality" are actually confirming the existence of the multiverse: see Frank J. Tipler, "Does Quantum Nonlocality Exist? Bell's Theorem and the Many-Worlds Interpretation," arXiv:quant-ph/0003146, March 30, 2000. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0003146 (http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0003146)

See also David Deutsch, "Comment on Lockwood," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 47, No 2 (June 1996), pp. 222-228; also released as "Comment on '"Many Minds" Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics by Michael Lockwood,'" 1996. http://www.qubit.org/people/david/Artic ... kwood.html (http://www.qubit.org/people/david/Articles/CommentOnLockwood.html)

Quantum mechanics is strictly deterministic across the multiverse. If one does away with causation then one also does away with the possibility of explanation, as all explanation is predicated on explicating cause-and-effect relationships. So if by "interpretation" it is meant explanation, then Prof. Deutsch's point in his above paper about there actually only being one known interpretation of quantum mechanics is again found to be inescapable.

And as Deutsch writes in The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), Chapter 9: "Quantum Computers," pg. 217:

""
The argument of Chapter 2, applied to *any* interference phenomenon destroys the classical idea that there is only one universe. Logically, the possibility of complex quantum computations adds nothing to a case that is already unanswerable. But it does add psychological impact. With Shor's algorithm, the argument has been writ very large. To those who still cling to a single-universe world view, I issue this challenge: *explain how Shor's algorithm works*. I do not merely mean predict that it will work, which is merely a matter of solving a few uncontroversial equations. I mean provide an explanation. When Shor's algorithm has factorized a number, using 10^500 or so times the computational resources that can be seen to be present, where was that number factorized? There are only about 10^80 atoms in the entire visible universe. So if the visible universe were the extent of physical reality, physical reality would not even remotely contain the resources required to factorize such a large number. Who did factorize it, then? How, and where, was the computation performed?
""

See also the below paper by Prof. Tipler:

Frank J. Tipler, "Testing Many-Worlds Quantum Theory By Measuring Pattern Convergence Rates," arXiv:0809.4422, September 25, 2008 http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.4422 (http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.4422)

This is almost as bad as the peanut butter argument:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504

F

Quote from: "Sophus"This is almost as bad as the peanut butter argument:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504

So bad it's funny! You deserve a cookie!

Wow, the irony of this? Look God is real, now to the horrible destruction of life; A tornado!

Quote from: "Recusant"On the other hand, I think that a science fiction story or novel using the Omega Point theory as a backdrop/theme could make for some very interesting reading, in the hands of somebody like Poul Anderson or perhaps Olaf Stapledon.  :D  :D

I really don't see how any information but that which existed at the time of the universe collapsing could possibly be preserved.  
Magic, perhaps?  That's the only way to make something out of nothing...

Quote from: "poobyrd"Wow, the irony of this? Look God is real, now to the horrible destruction of life; A tornado!

Haha, yeah.  I thought that was funny too.