It was fascinating to see Frank Tipler @TEDxBrussels this week. Together with Ray Kurzweil, he fries my brain occasionally when I try to understand his writings ;-). Tipler is big on what he calls the ‘ultimate future of the universe’ . He combines his ideas on the ‘anthropic principle’ with “The Omega Point” thinking of the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Singularitry of Kurzweil. In a nutshell the universe is evolving towards a state of maximum organized complexity (complexity combined with centricity)… this has a fundamental impact on all matters of existence, matter, intelligence and space.
Kurzweil, de Chardin and Tipler combined give a fascinating thinking frame where intelligent life is moving fast towards pure computational power. That power would be so fast that in running all possible equations of our civilization, current past and future, it would make time and space irrelevant. (quantum technology, anyone? :-)). Something that would be pretty close to immortality, and absolute power. The ‘omega point’… 🙂
Hearing Tipler condense his lifework in 18 minutes was a bit absurd, but impressive. He states: ‘Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.’
I’m counting on it 😉
I’m glad you enjoyed his presentation, Danny. Hopefully the video of it will be released soon so that I and others can see it.
He squeezed his thinking in 18 minutes of eloquentness 😉
No crazy cook, but an excellent presentation linking some of the most provocative thinking lines together. Truly enjoyed it 😉
Hi, Danny. Thanks for this report.
Can you please give an outline of what Prof. Frank J. Tipler spoke about at TEDxBrussels?
I know he spoke about his Omega Point Theory, but could you please go over the particular points he raised or arguments he made? Whatever you remember from it, I’d be glad to hear about it.
I thank you in advance for your time on this matter.
I see that you appear to be at least open-minded about Prof. Tipler’s talk. Sadly, I’ve seen some Twitter reports by people who were at TEDxBrussels who thought Tipler is just some crazy kook who can be dismissed, with no information relayed by them that they understood who he really is or what his qualifications are (as Tipler’s qualifications are truly immense, given that his doctorate is in global general relativity, which Penrose and Hawking developed, and given that he is also an expert in quantum field theory and computer science). (Nor was information relayed by them that he started off in his professional career as an atheist, but became a theist due to his investigations into physics. They just make it out to be that this is some religious kook, and hence anything he says is utter garbage that can be ignored.) These commenters didn’t mention the fact that Tipler’s Omega Point Theory has been peer-reviewed and published in a number of the world’s most prestigious physics journals. But then, for many people, if something strikes them as strange, it doesn’t matter how much it is backed up by empirical science and peer-review, they just deem it as “kooky”.
Hence the reason why I would love to hear the details of your report on his talk.