.
.

Frank J. Tipler: The Laws of Physics Say The Singularity is Inevitable!

by Socrates on October 29, 2013
Frank-J-TiplerDr. Frank J. Tipler is a physicist and cosmologist perhaps best known for concepts such as the Omega Point or The Cosmological Singularity. He is a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University and the author of books such as The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, The Physics of Immortality and The Physics of Christianity.
During our 1 hour conversation with Dr. Tipler we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he is both a physics imperialist and fundamentalist; the cosmological singularity, the technological singularity and the omega point; his personal journey from Christian fundamentalism through agnosticism and atheism and back to theism and Christianity; why most physicists are good atheists and bad scientists; immortality; determinism and whether God plays dice with the universe; mind-uploading and [Quantum] consciousness…
The most interesting quote that I will take away from this interview with Frank J. Tipler is:
“If the laws of physics be for us, who can be against us?!”
(You can listen to/download the audio file above or watch the video interview in full. If you want to help me produce more episodes please make a donation!)
Adobe Flash Player or an HTML5 supported browser is required for video playback.
Get the latest Flash Player
Learn more about upgrading to an HTML5 browser
 
Who is Frank J. Tipler? (in his own words)
I was born and raised in Andalusia, a small farming town in southern Alabama. At the age of five, while in kindergarten, I became fascinated by the work of Alabama only famous physicist, the rocket scientist Werner von Braun, and decided then that I wanted to be an astrophysicist. With this goal, I obtained by undergraduate degree in physics in 1969 at M.I.T., where I first learned of the Many-Worlds of quantum mechanics, and of the Singularity Theorems of Stephan Hawking and Roger Penrose. In 1976, I obtained a Ph.D. in physics for my proof, using the techniques of Hawking and Penrose, that creating a time machine would necessarily result in singularities in the laboratory. I was hired in 1979, as a post-doc by John A. Wheeler, the great physicist best known for his work on black hole theory, to extend my 1978 proof that in general relativity, time is not relative: a unique rest frame exists. I became Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1981 at Tulane University, where I have been ever since, working to draw the full implications of my earlier work: that quantum mechanics and general relativity require that the Cosmological Singularity – the Uncaused First Cause – consists of Three Persons but one Cause. I have now written up these results for a popular audience, and the book is The Physics of Christianity.
Related articles
.

Like this article?

Please help me produce more content:

OR

Please subscribe for free weekly updates:

Sign Up Here!

.
We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide.
Avatar
Join the discussion…

  • in this conversation
⬇ Drag and drop your images here to upload them.
        Media preview placeholder
        Sign in with
        or register with Disqus
        ?

        Disqus is a conversation network

        • Disqus never moderates or censors. The rules on this community are its own.
        • Your email is safe with us. It's only used for moderation and optional notifications.
        • Don't be a jerk or do anything illegal. Everything is easier that way.
        Be the first to comment.
        • James Redford • 14 days ago
          Hi, Socrates. Thank you for this interview with physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler.
          For those who would like more information on Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which are mathematically required by the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), see my following article. This article also examines the societal implications of the Omega Point cosmology.
          James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708.
          Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.
          James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk[at sign]4ax[period]com , July 30, 2013.
          The foregoing resource also provides details regarding the point Prof. Tipler made in his present interview about how modern physics (i.e., General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) are simply special cases of classical mechanics (i.e., Newtonian mechanics, particularly in its most powerful formulation of the Hamilton-Jacobi Equation), and how Quantum Mechanics is actually more deterministic than Newtonian mechanics.
          I find it interesting that Prof. Tipler mentioned (58:56 min:sec ff. of the video) Julian Jaynes in this interview and Jaynes's book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). A footnote is provided to Jaynes's said book in Ch. 7: "Quantum Mechanics and the Anthropic Principle" of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1986) by John D. Barrow and Tipler, but I don't recall Tipler elsewhere having mentioned Jaynes.
          I myself have written on Jaynes and the implications of his theory of the bicameral mind vis-à-vis the widespread belief among the ancients circa three millennia ago and before that they actually directly interacted with the gods. The type of unconsciousness which Prof. Tipler mentioned in his interview in the works of Homer and Chinese writers from the era can also be found very strongly in the Tanakh, particularly the Torah. Jaynes's theory can also explain the superhuman longevity found in the Tanakh as deriving from a time when people would hear the voices of their dead ancestors and pass on the memory (and preserved bodies) of them to their descendants; and the near-lack of a concept of an afterlife in the Tanakh until the Latter Prophets (e.g., Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2).
          I haven't heard supporters of Jaynes mention this as an item in Jaynes's favor before, but muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonists, such as scopolamine, provide strong evidence for Jaynes's theory--indeed, perhaps the strongest, since it makes the voice-command state Jaynes wrote about completely reproducible. Lloyd deMause's work on psychohistory also fits well the Jaynes theory.
            see more
            • CM Stewart • 3 hours ago
              I'll give Tipler leeway in connecting his definition of "singularity" to his definition of "god." But he stated he is a Christian, and I didn't hear any connection of his god to his belief that the Bible is factual. In fact, the "laws of physics" (as Tipler puts it) contradict the Bible. Did you get the connection, Nikola?
                see more
                • Socrates Mod > CM Stewart • 3 hours ago
                  No I did not!
                    see more
                    • James Redford > CM Stewart • a few seconds ago
                      Hi, CM Stewart. Regarding how physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology uniquely conforms to, and precisely matches, the cosmology described in the New Testament:
                      The Omega Point is omniscient, having an infinite amount of information and knowing all that is logically possible to be known; it is omnipotent, having an infinite amount of energy and power; and it is omnipresent, consisting of all that exists. These three properties are the traditional quidditative definitions (i.e., haecceities) of God held by almost all of the world's leading religions. Hence, by definition, the Omega Point is God.
                      The Omega Point final singularity is a different aspect of the Big Bang initial singularity, i.e., the first cause, a definition of God held by all the Abrahamic religions.
                      As well, as Stephen Hawking proved, the singularity is not in spacetime, but rather is the boundary of space and time (see S. W. Hawking and G. F. R. Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], pp. 217-221).
                      The Schmidt b-boundary has been shown to yield a topology in which the cosmological singularity is not Hausdorff separated from the points in spacetime, meaning that it is not possible to put an open set of points between the cosmological singularity and *any* point in spacetime proper. That is, the cosmological singularity has infinite nearness to every point in spacetime.
                      So the Omega Point is transcendent to, yet immanent in, space and time. Because the cosmological singularity exists outside of space and time, it is eternal, as time has no application to it.
                      Quite literally, the cosmological singularity is supernatural, in the sense that no form of physics can apply to it, since physical values are at infinity at the singularity, and so it is not possible to perform arithmetical operations on them; and in the sense that the singularity is beyond creation, as it is not a part of spacetime, but rather is the boundary of space and time.
                      And given an infinite amount of computational resources, per the Bekenstein Bound, recreating the exact quantum state of our present universe is trivial, requiring at most a mere 10^123 bits (the number which Roger Penrose calculated), or at most a mere 2^10^123 bits for every different quantum configuration of the universe logically possible (i.e., the powerset, of which the multiverse in its entirety at this point in universal history is a subset of this powerset). So the Omega Point will be able to resurrect us using merely an infinitesimally small amount of total computational resources: indeed, the multiversal resurrection will occur between 10^-10^10 and 10^-10^123 seconds before the Omega Point is reached, as the computational capacity of the universe at that stage will be great enough that doing so will require only a trivial amount of total computational resources.
                      Miracles are allowed by the known laws of physics using baryon annihilation, and its inverse, by way of electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model of particle physics, as baryon number minus lepton number, B - L, is conserved) caused via the Principle of Least Action by the physical requirement that the Omega Point final cosmological singularity exists. If the miracles of Jesus Christ were necessary in order for the universe to evolve into the Omega Point, and if the known laws of physics are correct, then the probability of those miracles occurring is certain.
                      Additionally, the cosmological singularity consists of a three-aspect structure: the final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the all-presents singularity (which exists at the boundary of the multiverse), and the initial singularity (i.e., the beginning of the Big Bang). These three distinct aspects which perform different physical functions in bringing about and sustaining existence are actually one singularity which connects the entirety of the multiverse.
                      Christian theology is therefore preferentially selected by the known laws of physics due to the fundamentally triune structure of the cosmological singularity (which, again, has all the haecceities claimed for God in the major religions), which is deselective of all other major religions.
                      For much more on the above, and for many more details on how the Omega Point cosmology uniquely and precisely matches the cosmology described in the New Testament, see my following article:
                      James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708.
                      Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.
                      James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk[at sign]4ax[period]com , July 30, 2013.
                        see more
                      Nothing for you here ... yet. But as you comment with Disqus and follow other Disqus users, you will start to receive notifications here, as well as a personalized feed of activity by you and the people you follow. So get out there and participate in some discussions!
                      Disqus helps you find new and interesting content, discussions and products. Some sponsors and ecommerce sites may pay us for these recommendations and links. Learn more or give us feedback.

                      Also on Singularity Weblog

                      Get Blog Updates

                      Show Your Support

                      Search SingularityWeblog
                      • Recent
                      • Podcasts
                      • Popular
                      • Best
                        • .
                      .
                      .
                      .
                      .

                      Over 2,000 super smart people have subscribed to my newsletter:

                      Sign Up Here!

                      .
                      Copyright © 2009-2014 Singularity Weblog. All Rights Reserved. | Terms | Disclosure | Privacy Policy | Web Design by Pixelloop
                      0%
                       
                      10%
                       
                      20%
                       
                      30%
                       
                      40%
                       
                      50%
                       
                      60%
                       
                      70%
                       
                      80%
                       
                      90%
                       
                      100%