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James Redford

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Dec 27, 2010, 6:40:52 PM12/27/10

Hi, Thomas Goorden. The following is in response to your post entitled
"Why your understanding of Quantum Mechanics is almost certainly
wrong" (December 27, 2010):

Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory is now a mathematical
theorem per the known laws of physics, i.e., the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics. The only
way the Omega Point cosmology could be wrong is if one or more of the
aforesaid known laws of physics are wrong. Hence, the only way to
avoid the conclusion that the Omega Point exists is to reject
empirical science: as these physical laws have been confirmed by every
experiment to date. That is, there exists no rational reason to think
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 Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/
Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and
unifying 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.

Furthermore, you incorrectly and bizarrely state that Prof. Tipler's
Omega Point cosmology is untestable. Nor do you give any indication
that you've actually studied Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, or that
you know anything about it other than from a superficial and extremely
confused popular-audience perspective.

What's so bizarre about your statement regarding the testability of
the Omega Point cosmology is that it demonstrates that you know
essentially nothing about the Omega Point cosmology, yet this nearly
complete lack of knowledge on your part didn't stop you from issuing
such a pronouncement as if you were knowledgeable about the subject.
Prof. Tipler gives many simple testable experimental predictions for
the Omega Point cosmology, a number of which have already been
confirmed.

Indeed, since the Omega Point cosmology is now a theorem according to
the known laws of physics, any experimental confirmation of said laws
is also experimental confirmation of the Omega Point cosmology. This
constitutes a massive body of empirical evidence for the correctness
of the Omega Point cosmology. Although the nature of the Omega Point
cosmology leads to additional testable predictions that one wouldn't
be able to derive by considering the known laws of physics separately,
and it is these additional testable predictions that were referred to
in the previous paragraph.

Prof. 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 science and physics
journals 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 Theory.)

* 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.

* Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to
Pannenberg's Questions for Scientists", Zygon: Journal of Religion &
Science, Vol. 24, Issue 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://www.webcitation.org/5nY0aytpz

* Frank J. Tipler, "The ultimate fate of life in universes which
undergo inflation", Physics Letters B, Vol. 286, Issues 1-2 (July 23,
1992), pp. 36-43, doi:10.1016/0370-2693(92)90155-W, bibcode: 1992PhLB..
286...36T.

* 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://www.webcitation.org/5qbXJZiX5

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

* 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, 1998; doi:2060/19990023204. Document ID: 19990023204.
Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.
http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRip Full proceedings volume:
http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

* 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, Issue 2 (August 2007), pp. 629-640, doi:10.1111/j.
1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode: 2007MNRAS.379..629T.

* 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, Issue 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148,
doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.
http://www.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

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 Theory (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://www.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, particularly see Prof. Tipler's above
2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper in addition to the following
resources:

"God Proven to Exist According to Mainline Physics", TetrahedronOmega,
December 26, 2008 http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=122&mforum=libertyandtruth

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

Tipler is Professor of Physics and Mathematics (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.

-----

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 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 fundamentally wrong with
it within its operating paradigm, i.e., the known laws of physics.

----------------------------------------

James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science
Research Network (SSRN), revised and expanded edition, October 17,
2009 (originally published December 19, 2001) http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761
, http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf ,
http://theophysics.ifastnet.com/anarchist-jesus.html

Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory and the quantum gravity
Theory of Everything [TOE]) http://theophysics.chimehost.net ,
http://theophysics.host56.com

Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome

unread,

Dec 28, 2010, 4:55:29 AM12/28/10

Hello James,

OK, I'll bite. (You seem to have been very active in copy-pasting your
objections around the internet, please try to not do that in replying
to me, if possible.)

First of all, I specifically mentioned in my post that it is not
necessary to completely know much about the underlying physics to
raise some serious objections to Tipler. However, I am perfectly
capable of debating this topic on the science and logic only.

Some general questions:
* You seem to imply that the "Omega Point Theory" is a well
established theorem. How so? All of your referenced articles are by
Tipler himself. Where is the rest of the scientific world?
* Regarding your "Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/ Standard
Model Theory of Everything": I'd be very interested in a paper that
successfully unifies strong and electroweak forces with gravity. Some
experimental proof would also be nice.

Anyway, on to the arguments to debunk Frank J. Tipler.

Argument from thermodynamics:
The second law of thermodynamics clearly states that entropy in an
isolated system will always increase. The universe (as agreed upon in
the omega theory) is such a closed/isolated system. Inevitably, this
will end up in something called the "heat death" of the universe, with
maximum entropy. Now, entropy can also be regarded as a statistical
measurement of the number of ways in which a system can be arranged,
or how "ordered" it is. So, here is the question: how can intelligence
be embedded in a system with maximum entropy and maximum disorder? All
known computational systems result from a distinctly ordered system.
As proof I'd be happy to see "intelligent plasma" or something like
that, but if you can show me how you make a computational "Turing
machine" in a chaotic system that'd be impressive too. I'll refer you
to Stephen Wolfram for more information on that topic.

Argument from testability:
OK, you (and Frank Tipler) clearly state that the omega point theory
is testable. Please describe the test you or he proposes. To help you
along, here are some properties that a good test should have. Note
that the test of of gravitational lensing, resulting from general
relativity and referenced in my post, matches all of these points:
* The test is a prediction that results directly from the theorem. In
doing the test, either the prediction can be found to be correct OR it
disproves the theorem.
* The test is repeatable. (All you need to see gravitational lensing
in action is an eclipse.) In this bizarre discussion, I'll also state
that a *human* has to be able to perform the test and it has to be
testable in our lifetime.
* The prediction is as precise as possible. Predicting a specific
measurement or previously unseen "fact" would be optimal.

Please note that even a successful test does not prove a theorem. As
you are hopefully aware, the only thing that can happen is either
falsification or the lack thereof. However, very accurate predictions
are usually a strong indicator of the usefulness of a theorem, so I'd
still be impressed.

Argument from religious fallacy:
First of all, Tipler specifically states that his theory results not
just in a god, but in the Judeo-Christian god specifically. Does he
mean the god of the old testament or the new testament? Here is the
problem: Christians (if we loosely lump them all together) only
comprise of about a third of the world population. If Tipler were to
have been born in - say - China, would he believe in the Judeo-
Christian god? Would he have "discovered" the Omega point theory as a
chinese physicist? Would he believe it proves incarnation instead of
resurrection if he were born a Hindu? Or (and this is my challenge) is
his theory a direct result of him having been born in Alabama where
about 86% of the population self-identifies as a Christian? I'll state
it even more boldly: it is my firm conviction that Tipler is not
interested in doing actual science, because he starts with an "a
priori", namely the bible. His writings clearly serve one purpose
only: to "prove" certain Christian notions he has come to believe in,
where any evidence to the contrary is disregarded or at the very least
ignored. This is quite clear in the absolute conviction with which he
writes (throwing testability, experimental verification and modesty to
the wind). Here is the million dollar question: has Tipler ever
acknowledged to be proven wrong at some point, any statement? Most, if
not all really good scientists will have anecdotes of a situation in
which they discovered they were wrong on some point. I'd like to see
something like that. Religious people (which I assume you are as well)
tend to not do that: anything that contradicts their "belief" is
disregarded as a "test of their faith" or something similar. This
makes for a very narrow-minded "scientist".

There are a few arguments to be made from logic alone, but let's leave
those for later.

Regards,
Thomas

> 97000114.http://www.webcitation.org/5nY0aytpz

>
> * Frank J. Tipler, "The ultimate fate of life in universes which
> undergo inflation", Physics Letters B, Vol. 286, Issues 1-2 (July 23,
> 1992), pp. 36-43, doi:10.1016/0370-2693(92)90155-W, bibcode: 1992PhLB..
> 286...36T.
>
> * 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://www.webcitation.org/5qbXJZiX5

>
> * Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society", Critical

> Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 23, 1998).http://www.webcitation.org/5sFYkHgSS

>
> * 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, 1998; doi:2060/19990023204. Document ID: 19990023204.

> Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRipFull proceedings volume:http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

>
> * 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, Issue 2 (August 2007), pp. 629-640, doi:10.1111/j.
> 1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode: 2007MNRAS.379..629T.
>
> * 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/0104011Published 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, Issue 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148,

> doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.http://www.webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuWAlso 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.pdfAlso 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

> December 26, 2008http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=122&mforum=libertyandtruth

>
> Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicisthttp://theophysics.chimehost.net

> ,http://theophysics.host56.com,http://theophysics.ifastnet.com

> ,http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf,http://theophysics.ifastnet.com/anarchist-jesus.html

Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome

unread,

Dec 28, 2010, 5:46:31 PM12/28/10

Self-correction: It appears that Tipler's 2005 article in Reports on
Progress in Physics does in fact contain not one, but three proposed
tests. As an aside, the article itself is quite extensive and
unfortunately almost impossible to decipher without spending an
enormous amount of time studying all of the topics touched and
retracing the math. I'm going to prove my own point and admit that my
current knowledge is insufficient to really make a judgement and I'm
not even sure I'll be able to convince any of my friends to go through
it.
Skipping straight ahead to the tests and assuming they are valid (this
in itself would take quite some research), it mentions three:
* One test that requires a Penning trap in "dry air" conditions.
Tipler unfortunately states that it might take 250.000$ to pull off
and I have not found a reference to anyone actually trying.
* One test that requires a CMBR detector, plus some filters. Again,
there do seem to be potential problems with "multiple internal
reflections" or "too thick a foil" and it is not entirely clear if
there has been any successes with these tests.
* One test involves a Rydberg atom, but lack of precision is claimed
to have produced inconclusive results.

Now, this paper is already five years old, which is not an enormous
amount of time, but perhaps enough time to conduct any of these
proposed tests properly and conclusively. I've looked around a bit and
am hoping to find some definitive results, alas no success yet. Any
help appreciated.

So, in conclusion I am happy to see that Tipler included some fairly
straight-forward tests and deeply regret not having the means (time or
lab-wise) to follow it up myself. However, reading chapter 11 of the
paper is a very strange read. It seems to lack a lot of the scientific
vigor of the early chapters and sort of "pastes on" the need for
intelligent life to "make the laws of physics fit". In particular,
I'll quote this part:
"So once again the existence of intelligent life in the far future is
required for the consistency
of the laws of physics, since in the absence of life acting to speed
up fermion annihilation, the
universe would accelerate forever, violating unitarity, forcing
quantum ﬁeld theory to diverge,
and incidentally, extinguishing life. "
It seems that Tipler pastes "the existence of life in the far future"
into his theory to prevent inconsistency of the laws of physics. There
are several objections to make here:
1. It might be that the laws of physics fall squarely under Gödels
first incompleteness theory and be complete but not consistent (or
vice-versa).
2. It is a "god of the gaps" argument: Tipler's problem seems to be
that unitarity would be violated if there is not some "fix" and he
then jumps to the conclusion that an infinite intelligence is the only
solution there. In cases like this, it has often been shown that
either the original theory has turned out to be false (hence not
requiring a fix) or that a different solution is possible. Having to
throw in an "infinite intelligence" instead may just be a lack of
imagination.

Regards,
Thomas

On Dec 28, 12:40 am, James Redford <jrredf...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> 97000114.http://www.webcitation.org/5nY0aytpz

> 1993dgr2.conf.....H.http://www.webcitation.org/5qbXJZiX5

>
> * Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society", Critical

> Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 23, 1998).http://www.webcitation.org/5sFYkHgSS

> Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRipFull proceedings volume:http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

> Problem", arXiv:gr-qc/0003082, March 20, 2000.http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0003082

> Cosmological Constant", arXiv:astro-ph/0104011, April 1, 2001.http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0104011Published in J. Craig Wheeler

> doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.http://www.webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuWAlso 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.pdfAlso 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

> December 26, 2008http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=122&mforum=libertyandtruth

>
> Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicisthttp://theophysics.chimehost.net

> ,http://theophysics.host56.com,http://theophysics.ifastnet.com

>
> Tipler is Professor of Physics and Mathematics (joint appointment) at
> Tulane University. His Ph.D. is in the field of global general

> relativity (the same rarefied field that ...
>
> read more »

James Redford

unread,

Dec 28, 2010, 8:02:28 PM12/28/10

On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:55:29 -0800 (PST), Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome
<thomas....@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hello James,
>
>OK, I'll bite. (You seem to have been very active in copy-pasting your
>objections around the internet, please try to not do that in replying
>to me, if possible.)

It is my own writings that I posted in reply to you. It would be
highly irrational of me to waste time and effort reformulating my
wording in order to say what I want to say when I have already said it
before. What logically matters is that I made the points I wished to
make in response to you. Furthermore, I did also write original
content in my response to you.

>First of all, I specifically mentioned in my post that it is not
>necessary to completely know much about the underlying physics to
>raise some serious objections to Tipler. However, I am perfectly
>capable of debating this topic on the science and logic only.

It was obvious from your post that you knew essentially nothing about
Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology. But that didn't stop
you from making pronouncements on it as if you were knowledgeable
about it.

>Some general questions:
>* You seem to imply that the "Omega Point Theory" is a well
>established theorem. How so? All of your referenced articles are by
>Tipler himself. Where is the rest of the scientific world?

Again, Prof. Tipler's Omega Point Theory, and now Theorem, have both

been peer-reviewed and published in a number of the world's leading

physics journals. If someone disagrees with the proof, per the
Scientific Method, it's imperative upon them that they publish
whatever crucial objections they think they might have in the
peer-reviewed physics literature, assuming such objections can pass
the referee process. The ball is in the court of those who would
disagree with the Omega Point cosmology, and has been for quite some
time.

>* Regarding your "Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/ Standard
>Model Theory of Everything": I'd be very interested in a paper that
>successfully unifies strong and electroweak forces with gravity. Some
>experimental proof would also be nice.

You should have read all of my first reply to you. As I there stated,
to quote myself:

""
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://www.webcitation.org/5o9VkK3eE )

In my same reply, I also provided a web link to where one can read the
said paper in full for free.

As I also said, there has already been experimental confirmation of
the aforementioned Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard
Model Theory of Everything (TOE). In Tipler's said 2005 Reports on
Progress in Physics paper, he gave a number of simple experiments to
test said Omega Point TOE. As Tipler wrote in a recent preprint:

""
If the CBR is an SU(2)L gauge field combined with the Higgs vacuum,
and not a complete electromagnetic field, then it cannot couple to
right-handed electrons either. Thus we would expect CBR pseudo-photons
to show substantially less Sunyaev-Zel-dovich effect that conventional
theory would predict, as I pointed out in [11]. This has now been seen
[9].
""

From Frank J. Tipler, "Identifying the Unidentified Auger UHE Cosmic
Rays with the Help of the Standard Model of Particle Physics",
arXiv:1007.4568, July 26, 2010. http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4568

In the above, citation No. 11 is Tipler's stated Rep. Prog. Phys.
paper. Citation No. 9 is the below paper:

Richard Lieu, Jonathan P. D. Mittaz and Shuang-Nan Zhang, "The
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in a Sample of 31 Clusters: A Comparison
between the X-Ray Predicted and WMAP Observed Cosmic Microwave
Background Temperature Decrement", Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 648,
No. 1 (September 1, 2006), pp. 176-199.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/505627 Also available at
arXiv:astro-ph/0510160, October 6, 2005.

>Anyway, on to the arguments to debunk Frank J. Tipler.
>
>Argument from thermodynamics:
>The second law of thermodynamics clearly states that entropy in an
>isolated system will always increase. The universe (as agreed upon in
>the omega theory) is such a closed/isolated system. Inevitably, this
>will end up in something called the "heat death" of the universe, with

>maximum entropy. ...

That's not what the Second Law of Thermodynamics states. Rather, it
states that the entropy of a closed system (such as the universe) must
either increase or stay the same. What entropy is is a measure of
information. In the International System of Units (S.I.), entropy is
given in units of joules per kelvin (J/K). The conversion factor for
entropy in the natural units of nats (i.e., the form of entropy units
often used by theoretical physicists, from having normalized
Boltzmann's constant to 1) is S/ln(2) = I, where S is entropy, ln(2)
is the natural logarithm of 2, and I is information in bits. For the
more common form of entropy units used by chemists (the S.I. unit of
entropy of J/K), the conversion factor is S/(ln(2)*k) = I, where k is
Boltzmann's constant of ~ 1.3806504*10^-23 J/K.

In other words, the Second Law of Thermodynamics requires the number
of bits of information of the universe to increase or stay the same,
i.e., the information measure of the universe can never decrease.

Heat death is a related yet somewhat different topic. One can have
heat death with low entropy or with high entropy. What heat death
means is a state where everything has become the same temperature,
hence no more work can be performed (since all work is possible due to
there being a temperature differential). If no work can be performed,
then no bits can be processed (since work is required in order to
processes bits), and hence no consciousness can exist.

Where your confusion on this matter stems from is that heat death
represents the *maximum* amount of entropy a system with a given
amount of energy can obtain. That is, given a system with a specified
amount of energy, the maximum amount of entropy it can obtain would
also be its heat death. But this could still be a very low amount of
entropy compared to a different system with a greater amount of energy
which is not at maximum entropy yet which also has a much greater
amount of entropy.

And so entropy increasing, in and of itself, says nothing about heat
death.

In the Omega Point cosmology, entropy diverges to infinity. In other
words, the computational memory space of the universe diverges to
infinity. Heat death is avoided in the Omega Point cosmology because
during the collapse phase of the universe, life obtains gravitational
shear energy by forcing cycles of Taub universe collapses (named after
physicist Abraham Haskel Taub), whereby the universe collapses along
one axis into the shape of an oblate spheroid by life directing
trajectories of mass, thereby creating greater heating along the axis
of collapse and hence a temperature differential whereby usable energy
can be obtained. The Taublike collapses, first in one direction, and
then another direction (i.e., Mixmaster oscillations--a Mixmaster
universe is also called a Bianchi Type IX universe), are also used to
eliminate event horizons by allowing communication across the universe
along the axis of collapse, which is necessary for information
processing (and hence life) to continue. (Black hole event horizons
are eventually eliminated via the trapped surfaces of today's black
holes merging with the future trapped surfaces of the collapsing
universe.) This mode of collapse ends (in proper time, as in computer
clock time it never ends) in a single c-boundary (i.e., causal
boundary) point: the Omega Point. The gravitational shear energy
thereby available to life diverges to infinity as the Omega Point is
approached. That is, by making the negative gravitational energy go to
minus infinity, the positive energy available to life goes to plus
infinity, as the total energy of the universe at all times sums to
exactly zero, as physicist Stephen Hawking has pointed out:

""
The answer [to where the univere's energy came from] is that the total
energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is
made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting
itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other
have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because
you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational
force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the
gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe
that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this
negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy
represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is
zero.

Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount
of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational
energy without violation of the conservation of energy. ... As
[physicist Alan] Guth has remarked, "It is said that there's no such
thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch."
""

From Stephen Hawking, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time (New
York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1996; 1st ed., 1988), Ch. 8: "The Origin and
Fate of the Universe", pp. 166-167.

> ... Now, entropy can also be regarded as a statistical

>measurement of the number of ways in which a system can be arranged,
>or how "ordered" it is. So, here is the question: how can intelligence
>be embedded in a system with maximum entropy and maximum disorder? All
>known computational systems result from a distinctly ordered system.
>As proof I'd be happy to see "intelligent plasma" or something like
>that, but if you can show me how you make a computational "Turing
>machine" in a chaotic system that'd be impressive too. I'll refer you
>to Stephen Wolfram for more information on that topic.

See my comments above. This conception of entropy representing
disorder is a 19th century conception of thermodynamics, which remains
in the popular literature. Actually, greater entropy means greater
complexity, in the sense of information theory, i.e., a system of
greater entropy cannot be compressed (on average) to the same size, in
terms of bits, than a system with greater entropy: the system with
greater entropy will take up more memory space, after compression,
than a system with lower entropy (i.e., on average, given a non-biased
sampling of data compressors, as the number of different compressors
sampled diverge to infinity).

Thus, e.g., a file that describes a highly advanced and very useful
computer program would be at much higher entropy than the same-sized
file which is just a string of zeros. The two files have exactly the
same bit-size, yet one is simple, and hence of low entropy (given the
available file size); yet the other is highly complex, and hence has a
high entropy (again, relative to the available file size). So
obviously entropy does not mean disorder *per se*.

However, there is some truth in this 19th century conception of
entropy meaning disorder. Where this conception would become true is
in a system where entropy has increased high enough, relative to the
file space or energy of the system, such that useful information can
no longer be encoded. A file with genuinely random data is at maximum
entropy, and such a file can contain no meaningful data (it can also
not be compressed). But what appears to be nothing more than random
data could also be highly complex and meaningful information. The
modern cryptography systems that we all use in our daily interactions
with the internet (even transparently to us via our web-browsers, such
as when we log on to a website or make a purchase) rely upon
pseudo-random-number generation and data compression in order to make
the meaningful data encrypted as close as detectable to random noise.
Without the cryptography key to decode it, it might as well be random
noise (at least as far as we are able to detect with current means).

So this 19th century conception of entropy meaning disorder only *per
se* becomes true when the complexity of a specified system truly
matches that of genuinely random noise (and again, apparent matches,
such as with modern cryptosystems, come very close--as close as we can
currently detect, if the implementation is sound--to being genuinely
random noise, yet they encode meaningful information). This would be a
true heat death situation for that system, i.e., a state of maximum
entropy per the given energy or file size.

>Argument from testability:
>OK, you (and Frank Tipler) clearly state that the omega point theory
>is testable. Please describe the test you or he proposes. To help you
>along, here are some properties that a good test should have. Note
>that the test of of gravitational lensing, resulting from general
>relativity and referenced in my post, matches all of these points:
>* The test is a prediction that results directly from the theorem. In
>doing the test, either the prediction can be found to be correct OR it
>disproves the theorem.
>* The test is repeatable. (All you need to see gravitational lensing
>in action is an eclipse.) In this bizarre discussion, I'll also state
>that a *human* has to be able to perform the test and it has to be
>testable in our lifetime.
>* The prediction is as precise as possible. Predicting a specific
>measurement or previously unseen "fact" would be optimal.
>
>Please note that even a successful test does not prove a theorem. As
>you are hopefully aware, the only thing that can happen is either
>falsification or the lack thereof. However, very accurate predictions
>are usually a strong indicator of the usefulness of a theorem, so I'd
>still be impressed.

See above regarding Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics
paper, where in addition to the experimental confirmation already
obtained for the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard
Model Theory of Everything (TOE), Tipler also gives in the same paper
other simple testable experiments.

Yes, Prof. Tipler admits that he was wrong in being an atheist. 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.webcitation.org/5uLtsw18V ).

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).

To answer another part of your query, as Prof. Tipler has said, "To
appreciate the full power of my theory, it's essential to be an expert
in particle physics, global general relativity, and computer science.
You don't need to know theology" (from Anthony Liversidge, "Frank
Tipler--physicist--Interview", Omni, Vol. 17, Issue 1 [October 1994],
pp. 89 ff.). Recall that the physics aspects of the Omega Point
cosmology have since 1986 been repeatedly published in prestigious
physics journals. The Omega Point cosmology unavoidably results if one
follows the known laws of physics. Any advanced modern physicist
performing a consistent global analysis of the future of the universe
based upon the known laws of physics will come to the same
conclusions. But therein lies the rub. Tipler is doing
interdisciplinary work in physics, when extreme specialization in
present-day physics is the norm. There exists no other physicist upon
the globe who has all the physics background and expertise that Tipler
does, and of those who come close (such as Stephen Hawking, Roger
Penrose, and Steven Weinberg), they're not performing such an
analysis. Hawking is off on string theory now (which involves new laws
of physics), Penrose is now promoting his own idea of the beginning of
the universe (which involves new laws of physics), and Weinberg
doesn't appear to be in the mix right now regarding such matters.

>There are a few arguments to be made from logic alone, but let's leave
>those for later.

Aw, I've very much enjoyed my discussion with you so far. Please don't
hold back.

----------------------------------------

2009 (originally published December 19, 2001)
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 ,
http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf ,

http://theophysics.ifastnet.com/anarchist-jesus.html

Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory and the quantum gravity

James Redford

unread,

Dec 28, 2010, 9:26:05 PM12/28/10

On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:02:28 -0500, James Redford
<jrre...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>See my comments above. This conception of entropy representing
>disorder is a 19th century conception of thermodynamics, which remains
>in the popular literature. Actually, greater entropy means greater
>complexity, in the sense of information theory, i.e., a system of
>greater entropy cannot be compressed (on average) to the same size, in
>terms of bits, than a system with greater entropy: the system with
>greater entropy will take up more memory space, after compression,
>than a system with lower entropy (i.e., on average, given a non-biased
>sampling of data compressors, as the number of different compressors
>sampled diverge to infinity).

Pardon me. I meant to say in the above that "a system of greater

entropy cannot be compressed (on average) to the same size, in terms

of bits, than a system with *lesser* entropy". In the above I
absentmindedly reproduced the word "greater" where I meant to say
"lesser".

Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome

unread,

Dec 29, 2010, 11:20:31 AM12/29/10

Hello James,

Thank you for your reply and for staying mostly on topic.

Before we dive further into thermodynamics, I would like to see you
address the following:
* You basically describe Tipler as a new born Christian. You do
realize this is even more location bound than mere christianity,
right? (There is an estimate of about 680K new born christians
worldwide and a full 660K of those live in the USA.) How do you
explain this strong correlation between Tipler's findings and a strand
of religion that can almost only be found in the place where he was
born? In other words, would Tipler be a born again Christian if he was
Chinese? How about when he wouldn't live on this planet and had never
even heard of the Judeo-Christian god? Would he come to the same
conclusions?
* Please explain how the resurrection of Jezus would work in a world
that is not an emulation. (If I understand correctly, this is what you
are claiming, right?)
* Why is this specific miracle story (Jezus) plausible and none of the
thousands of others? Or, if this type of "scientifically valid
miracle" still happens worldwide, where and when can I see one?
* Where is this Theory of Everything you refer to experimentally
confirmed? It seems that Tipler 2005 paper posits an SU(2)L gauge
field as the "corner stone solution" to the problem of the ToE, but
the paper itself does not state that it has itself been experimentally
proven. It only provides a series of tests that "could be done" and
certain experiments that "possibly indicate" that it is valid. Nowhere
is there a statement of conclusive evidence, which you seem to assume.
* There seems to be an underlying assumption that life HAS to go on.
Why is this? Why can't life just cease to exist at some point?
Certainly a total extinction event is possible on earth (e.g. a firm
push outside of the habitable zone right about now would be enough),
so why not on a larger scale?

I would then like to return to a previous issue I had with the theory,
namely that of the testability. Looking at the 2005 paper, chapter 1-8
outline the SU(2) L gauge field hypothesis. Chapter 9 & 10 address
"potential confirmations already known" and "test that could confirm
the theory" respectively. However. It is only in chapter 11 where the
theory of a end-of-time intelligence pops up. This in itself indicates
that the "proposed" tests have nothing to do with the validation of
his Omega Point Theory as a whole (only up until the SU(2) hypothesis,
which remains elusive). Tipler himself basically admits as much:
"I propose that life itself acts to annihilate protons and other
fermions via induced instanton
tunnelling. Barrow and I have established that the main source of
energy for information
processing in the expanding phase of the far future will be the
conversion of the mass of
fermions into energy. Baryon number conservation prevents this process
from being 100%
efﬁcient, but since the SM allows baryon non-conservation via
instanton tunnelling, I assume
that some means can and will be found in the far future to allow life
to speed up this process."

He basically states that there needs to be a way to get a 100%
efficient induced instanton tunneling effect, which is not the topic
of the paper. There is absolutely no indication on the how or if this
is actually possible, no test, no math, nothing. This leads me to
conclude that the rigorous science wheels came flying off in between
chapter 10 and 11. Now, the rest of the paper, if proven correct,
would already be no less than revolutionary. It would say something
profound about the beginning of the universe and its underlying
structure. Therefor, I find it simply unfortunate that this idea
somehow made Tipler "jump the shark" in chapter 11 and go off into a
very risky tangent that in a way undermines his overall credibility.
If chapter 11 were as scientifically sound as the rest of the paper
(in methodology), it would be a whole different matter, but it simply
isn't.

On with the show. Let's look at the problems with thermodynamics and
the basics of information theory again:
Information is not equal to intelligence. Sand in the desert has "high
entropy" and its information (e.g. location of every grain of sand) is
impossible to "compress" without losing this said information.
However, it is certainly not intelligent. Neither is an encrypted file
by the way, which still needs a vastly lower-entropy "program" and
secondary information (the key) to decrypt it. But, there is still a
distinct difference between an encrypted file and sand: the former is
very highly ordered, the latter is not. In other words, it takes quite
some energy and work (which creates more entropy, although you
obviously think this can be avoided, see below) to order out
information so that its bits are in such a specific order that it can
a) be decrypted and b) "looks" like random information when looked at
through statistical detection. Note that the ability to mimic
randomness doesn't imply it is actually there! Consider the following
thought experiment: could you devise encrypted information that is
undetectable as such, but which doesn't need a structured key to
decrypt? In a very simple way, you could generate a random string of
bits and subtract it from any signal to "encrypt" it. This is the "one-
time pad" encryption. The result would look perfectly random, but it
needs to be combined with the key to resolve; an external ordered set
of information, making the complete system not that random at all. The
two pieces (key+encrypted file) together fail the "additivity" test of
information: the sum of likelihoods is not equal when combined! You
can also not successfully divide the encrypted file and still get
meaningful information afterwards from the parts, which is another
indicator of the non-randomness.

Let's look at the second law again. Entropy can be written as the
"density of states": -kB*SUM(Pi*ln(Pi)) over all i (this is called
"discrete Shannon entropy"). kB would be the Boltzmann number and Pi
is the probability of a specific microstate i. Now, for one specific
microstate to be the "ultimate end" of the universe ("heat death", but
I understand your objection to the term) which contains equal or more
entropy than the current condition of the universe, only one of two
possibilities are possible: 1. The source itself is not probabilistic
(like in the encryption example). However, this would also require the
source to not be included in the microstate itself (because that would
imply a lower entropy), an external actor so to say. 2. The source
(the universe) to be a genuine probabilistic engine.

The whole idea of harnessing the negative gravitational energy as a
get-out-of-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics-free-card is highly suspect
as well. How do you avoid expending energy while doing the "ordening
of all matter in the universe into a single coherent intelligence"
bit? How do you avoid generating massively more entropy during this
process than you started out with? If it were possible to harness the
negative gravitational energy in such a lossless way, then
congratulations: you've just invented a perpetual motion machine! This
is very clearly one of those theories that is nigh impossible to prove
and that very clearly requires at least two of the most fundamental
laws of physics to be "breakable".

As an aside, I want to state that I have so far refrained from using
strict ad hominem rhetoric. However, surely you know Tipler has been
featured in "Why people believe weird things" (not in a good way).
Furthermore, George Ellis (a man who has actually co-authored with
Stephen Hawking) considers the work of Tipler to be "a masterpiece of
pseudoscience ... the product of a fertile and creative imagination
unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical
discipline". It would serve you well not to try to associate Tipler
with all manner of well-known scientists, because this will surely
backfire. As a second aside, I firmly disagree with your statement
that "There exists no other physicist upon the globe who has all the
physics background and expertise that Tipler does". Certainly, to
develop a new theory of the magnitude of Einstein, Hawking, etc, it
requires quite some extraordinary skills. Tipler might even have those
skills, it is certainly possible. However, to understand said theories
requires far less "skills". Given enough time and a reasonably good
mind, it is possible to be able to work with/understand pretty much
any theory out there, even if you could never think of it yourself.
There is absolutely no reason to raise Tipler above the general
scrutiny of the scientific community and demand that only "top minds"
are allowed to critically asses it. (Which George Ellis has done by
the way, a top mind and all. But I'm sure he doesn't "count" in your
book either.)

I propose that we skip the whole "who says who" and just keep the
argument to the content. I find it at best disingenuous and it tempts
me to do the same (which I don't like either). In this same manner, I
will tell you that you have to show a willingness to learn in a debate
like this or I will simply walk away. A lot of people like me will in
fact have a closer look at theories if you ask them and admit when
there "might be something there" (which I have also done), but only if
you show them the same courtesy. Categorically dismissing arguments
(especially based on reputation) is a sign of dogmatic thinking, which
I am simply not interested in.

Regards,
Thomas

On Dec 29, 2:02 am, James Redford <jrredf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:55:29 -0800 (PST), Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome
>

> Reports on Progress in Physics.http://www.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.
> ""
>

> In my same reply, I also provided a web link to where one can read the
> said paper in full for free.
>
> As I also said, there has already been experimental confirmation of
> the aforementioned Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard
> Model Theory of Everything (TOE). In Tipler's said 2005 Reports on
> Progress in Physics paper, he gave a number of simple experiments to
> test said Omega Point TOE. As Tipler wrote in a recent preprint:
>
> ""
> If the CBR is an SU(2)L gauge field combined with the Higgs vacuum,
> and not a complete electromagnetic field, then it cannot couple to
> right-handed electrons either. Thus we would expect CBR pseudo-photons
> to show substantially less Sunyaev-Zel-dovich effect that conventional
> theory would predict, as I pointed out in [11]. This has now been seen
> [9].
> ""
>
> From Frank J. Tipler, "Identifying the Unidentified Auger UHE Cosmic
> Rays with the Help of the Standard Model of Particle Physics",

> arXiv:1007.4568, July 26, 2010.http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4568

>
> In the above, citation No. 11 is Tipler's stated Rep. Prog. Phys.
> paper. Citation No. 9 is the below paper:
>
> Richard Lieu, Jonathan P. D. Mittaz and Shuang-Nan Zhang, "The
> Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in a Sample of 31 Clusters: A Comparison
> between the X-Ray Predicted and WMAP Observed Cosmic Microwave
> Background Temperature Decrement", Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 648,

> No. 1 (September 1, 2006), pp. 176-199.http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/505627Also available at

> >> Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRipFullproceedings volume:http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

>
> >> * 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, Issue 2 (August 2007), pp. 629-640, doi:10.1111/j.
> >> 1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode: 2007MNRAS.379..629T.
>
> >> * 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/0104011Publishedin 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, Issue 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148,

> >> doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.http://www.webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuWAlsoat 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.pdfAlsoreleased as

> >> ,http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf,http://theophysi...

>
> >> Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
> >> on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory and the quantum gravity
> >> Theory of Everything [TOE])http://theophysics.chimehost.net,http://theophysics.host56.com
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science
> Research Network (SSRN), revised and expanded edition, October 17,

> 2009 (originally published December 19, 2001)http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761,http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf,http://theophysics.ifastnet.com/anarchist-jesus.html

James Redford

unread,

Dec 30, 2010, 2:35:54 PM12/30/10

On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:46:31 -0800 (PST), Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome
<thomas....@gmail.com> wrote:

>Self-correction: It appears that Tipler's 2005 article in Reports on
>Progress in Physics does in fact contain not one, but three proposed
>tests. As an aside, the article itself is quite extensive and
>unfortunately almost impossible to decipher without spending an
>enormous amount of time studying all of the topics touched and
>retracing the math. I'm going to prove my own point and admit that my
>current knowledge is insufficient to really make a judgement and I'm
>not even sure I'll be able to convince any of my friends to go through
>it.
>Skipping straight ahead to the tests and assuming they are valid (this
>in itself would take quite some research), it mentions three:
>* One test that requires a Penning trap in "dry air" conditions.
>Tipler unfortunately states that it might take 250.000$ to pull off
>and I have not found a reference to anyone actually trying.
>* One test that requires a CMBR detector, plus some filters. Again,
>there do seem to be potential problems with "multiple internal
>reflections" or "too thick a foil" and it is not entirely clear if
>there has been any successes with these tests.

As Prof. Frank J. Tipler wrote in a recent preprint:

From Frank J. Tipler, "Identifying the Unidentified Auger UHE Cosmic
Rays with the Help of the Standard Model of Particle Physics",

arXiv:1007.4568, July 26, 2010. http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4568

In the above, citation No. 11 is Tipler's stated Rep. Prog. Phys.
paper. Citation No. 9 is the below paper:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/505627 Also available at

arXiv:astro-ph/0510160, October 6, 2005.

>* One test involves a Rydberg atom, but lack of precision is claimed

>to have produced inconclusive results.
>
>Now, this paper is already five years old, which is not an enormous
>amount of time, but perhaps enough time to conduct any of these
>proposed tests properly and conclusively. I've looked around a bit and
>am hoping to find some definitive results, alas no success yet. Any
>help appreciated.

See above.

>So, in conclusion I am happy to see that Tipler included some fairly
>straight-forward tests and deeply regret not having the means (time or
>lab-wise) to follow it up myself. However, reading chapter 11 of the
>paper is a very strange read. It seems to lack a lot of the scientific
>vigor of the early chapters and sort of "pastes on" the need for
>intelligent life to "make the laws of physics fit". In particular,
>I'll quote this part:
>"So once again the existence of intelligent life in the far future is
>required for the consistency
>of the laws of physics, since in the absence of life acting to speed
>up fermion annihilation, the
>universe would accelerate forever, violating unitarity, forcing

>quantum ?eld theory to diverge,

>and incidentally, extinguishing life. "
>It seems that Tipler pastes "the existence of life in the far future"
>into his theory to prevent inconsistency of the laws of physics. There
>are several objections to make here:
>1. It might be that the laws of physics fall squarely under Gödels
>first incompleteness theory and be complete but not consistent (or
>vice-versa).

If the laws of physics were inconsistent, then per the Principle of
Explosion in the field of logic, everything in the field of physics
could be shown to be logically contradictory. If everything physical
were logically contradictory, then no physical structures could exist,
since then any law of physics could produce any result, and hence
there would be no coherency.

From Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper, pp. 907
and 909:

""
On the other hand, the Gödel theorems do not prove that no proof of
consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. The theorems merely show
that a valid proof cannot be mapped into arithmetic in which sentences
must be of finite length. It might be the case, for example, that a
valid proof of consistency can be obtained if we allow proof of
infinite length. ...

If we allow an infinite number of steps in a mathematical proof, then
a proof of the consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. Gerhard
Gentzen provided just such a proof in 1936 (he overcame the Gödel
barrier by using transfinite induction up to a sufficiently great
ordinal; see Kleene 1950, pp 440-9). A computer cannot mechanically go
through the series of steps, but a human can ‘see’ the validity of the
steps, provided the human accepts the necessary generalization of
logic. In Cohen’s (1966, p 41) proof of Gödel’s First Incompleteness
Theorem, an indecidable statement is actually constructed, and then
shown--by an argument that cannot be mapped into arithmetic--to be
false. So mathematicians accept arguments that cannot be arithmetized.
""

>2. It is a "god of the gaps" argument: Tipler's problem seems to be
>that unitarity would be violated if there is not some "fix" and he
>then jumps to the conclusion that an infinite intelligence is the only
>solution there. In cases like this, it has often been shown that
>either the original theory has turned out to be false (hence not
>requiring a fix) or that a different solution is possible. Having to
>throw in an "infinite intelligence" instead may just be a lack of
>imagination.

Prof. Tipler doesn't propose infinite intelligence in order to obtain
the collapse of the universe. 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 observed 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 baryon
number minus lepton number [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.

James Redford

unread,

Dec 30, 2010, 6:49:33 PM12/30/10

On Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:20:31 -0800 (PST), Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome
<thomas....@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hello James,
>
>Thank you for your reply and for staying mostly on topic.
>
>Before we dive further into thermodynamics, I would like to see you
>address the following:
>* You basically describe Tipler as a new born Christian. You do
>realize this is even more location bound than mere christianity,
>right? (There is an estimate of about 680K new born christians
>worldwide and a full 660K of those live in the USA.) How do you
>explain this strong correlation between Tipler's findings and a strand
>of religion that can almost only be found in the place where he was
>born? In other words, would Tipler be a born again Christian if he was
>Chinese? How about when he wouldn't live on this planet and had never
>even heard of the Judeo-Christian god? Would he come to the same
>conclusions?

Prof. Frank J. Tipler's current Christianity is a result of his work
in physics. Tipler started his academic life as an atheist, and
remained so until circa 1998.

The cosmological singularity consists of a three-mode structure: the
final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the all-presents
singularity (which exists at all times at the edge 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 Omega
Point cosmology, which is deselective of all other major religions.

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.webcitation.org/5uLtsw18V ).

>* Please explain how the resurrection of Jezus would work in a world

>that is not an emulation. (If I understand correctly, this is what you
>are claiming, right?)

In his book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007),
Tipler analyzes how Jesus Christ could have performed the miracles
attributed to him in the New Testament without violating any known
laws of physics, even if one were to assume that we currently don't
exist on a level of implementation in a computer simulation. This
proposed process uses baryon annihilation, and its inverse, by way of
electroweak quantum tunneling caused via the Principle of Least Action
by the physical requirement that the Omega Point final cosmological
singularity exists. Tipler also proposes that the virgin birth of
Jesus by Mary is possible via Jesus being a special type of XX male
who obtained all of his genetic material from Mary (i.e., an instance
of parthenogenesis). Tipler adduces that the Star of Bethlehem was
either a Type Ic hypernova located in the Andromeda Galaxy, or a Type
Ia supernova located in a globular cluster of our own Milky Way
Galaxy.

If the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the miracles attributed to him
in the New Testament were necessary in order to lead to the formation
of the Omega Point--and if the known laws of physics are correct--then
the probability of these events occurring is certain. Furthermore,
Tipler proposes tests on particular relics associated with Jesus
which, if the relics are genuine, could verify whether in fact said
miracles took place via the aforementioned mechanisms. Tipler writes
in this book that miracles, if they indeed exist, do not violate
physical law, but instead are events which are so improbable that they
would only be likely to occur within human history via the
Least-Action Principle if the universe is required to evolve into the
Omega Point.

Traditional Christian theology has maintained that God never violates
natural law, as God, in His omniscience, knew in the beginning all
that He wanted to achieve and so, in His omnipotence, He formed the
laws of physics in order to achieve His goal. The idea that God would
violate His own laws would mean that God is not omniscient. In
traditional Christian theology, miracles do not violate natural
law--rather, they are events that are so improbable that they can only
be explained by the existence of God and His acting in the world.

>* Why is this specific miracle story (Jezus) plausible and none of the
>thousands of others? Or, if this type of "scientifically valid
>miracle" still happens worldwide, where and when can I see one?

It appears that only the minimum of miraculous intervention is
performed by God--which can still be quite extensive--in order to
ensure the universe's evolution into the Omega Point (i.e., God the
Father), and therefore to ensure the very existence of existence
(since physics would be mathematically contradictory if the universe
didn't collapse into the Omega Point).

>* Where is this Theory of Everything you refer to experimentally
>confirmed? It seems that Tipler 2005 paper posits an SU(2)L gauge
>field as the "corner stone solution" to the problem of the ToE, but
>the paper itself does not state that it has itself been experimentally
>proven. It only provides a series of tests that "could be done" and
>certain experiments that "possibly indicate" that it is valid. Nowhere
>is there a statement of conclusive evidence, which you seem to assume.

As I said, there has already been experimental confirmation of the

Omega Point/Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model

Theory of Everything (TOE). As Tipler wrote in a recent preprint:

From Frank J. Tipler, "Identifying the Unidentified Auger UHE Cosmic
Rays with the Help of the Standard Model of Particle Physics",

arXiv:1007.4568, July 26, 2010. http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4568

In the above, citation No. 11 is Tipler's stated Rep. Prog. Phys.
paper. Citation No. 9 is the below paper:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/505627 Also available at

arXiv:astro-ph/0510160, October 6, 2005.

>* There seems to be an underlying assumption that life HAS to go on.

>Why is this? Why can't life just cease to exist at some point?
>Certainly a total extinction event is possible on earth (e.g. a firm
>push outside of the habitable zone right about now would be enough),
>so why not on a larger scale?

Prof. Tipler doesn't assume that life must go on in his 2005 Reports
on Progress in Physics paper. Rather, Tipler provides a proof that
according to the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics) life must
diverge to infinite computational resources (in terms of both infinite
processor speed and infinite memory space), with an infinite number of
bits processed and stored before the end of spacetime (i.e., a
supertask of computation). For this proof, see pp. 925 and 904-905 of
this paper.

Prof. Tipler then makes references throughout the paper to this
physical necessity of life's immortality, i.e., to this proof.

For this same proof that has been peer-reviewed and published
elsewhere by Prof. Tipler, see the following papers:

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

Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.

http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRip Full proceedings volume:
http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

* 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, Issue 2 (August 2007), pp.

629-640, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode:
2007MNRAS.379..629T.

* 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, Issue 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148,
doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.

http://www.webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuW Also at arXiv:0704.0058, March
31, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0058

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").

>I would then like to return to a previous issue I had with the theory,

>namely that of the testability. Looking at the 2005 paper, chapter 1-8
>outline the SU(2) L gauge field hypothesis. Chapter 9 & 10 address
>"potential confirmations already known" and "test that could confirm
>the theory" respectively. However. It is only in chapter 11 where the

>theory of a end-of-time intelligence pops up. ...

Not so. Again, see my above comments regarding the proof of the Omega
Point cosmology according to the known laws of physics.

> ... This in itself indicates

>that the "proposed" tests have nothing to do with the validation of
>his Omega Point Theory as a whole (only up until the SU(2) hypothesis,
>which remains elusive). Tipler himself basically admits as much:
>"I propose that life itself acts to annihilate protons and other
>fermions via induced instanton
>tunnelling. Barrow and I have established that the main source of
>energy for information
>processing in the expanding phase of the far future will be the
>conversion of the mass of
>fermions into energy. Baryon number conservation prevents this process
>from being 100%

>ef?cient, but since the SM allows baryon non-conservation via

>instanton tunnelling, I assume
>that some means can and will be found in the far future to allow life
>to speed up this process."
>
>He basically states that there needs to be a way to get a 100%
>efficient induced instanton tunneling effect, which is not the topic
>of the paper. There is absolutely no indication on the how or if this
>is actually possible, no test, no math, nothing. This leads me to
>conclude that the rigorous science wheels came flying off in between
>chapter 10 and 11. Now, the rest of the paper, if proven correct,
>would already be no less than revolutionary. It would say something
>profound about the beginning of the universe and its underlying
>structure. Therefor, I find it simply unfortunate that this idea
>somehow made Tipler "jump the shark" in chapter 11 and go off into a
>very risky tangent that in a way undermines his overall credibility.
>If chapter 11 were as scientifically sound as the rest of the paper
>(in methodology), it would be a whole different matter, but it simply
>isn't.

Actually, it's quite sound. 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 observed 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 baryon
number minus lepton number [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.

For the Standard Model mechanism that allows for the nonconservation
of baryon number (i.e., baryon annihilation, and its inverse,
baryogenesis), see the below references. Weinberg gives a derivation
of this mechanism from the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem in his below
book. Gerardus ’t Hooft, who discovered this new physical law in 1976,
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999.

Ta-Pei Cheng and Ling-Fong Li, Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle
Physics (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1984).

G. ’t Hooft, "Symmetry Breaking through Bell-Jackiw Anomalies",
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 37, No. 1 (July 5, 1976), pp. 8-11,
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.37.8 , bibcode: 1976PhRvL..37....8T .

V[alerii]. A. Rubakov and M[ikhail]. E. Shaposhnikov, "Electroweak
Baryon Number Non-Conservation in the Early Universe and in High
Energy Collisions", arXiv:hep-ph/9603208, March 1, 1996. Published in
Physics-Uspekhi, Vol. 39, No. 5 (May 1996), pp. 461-502,
doi:10.1070/PU1996v039n05ABEH000145 , bibcode: 1996PhyU...39..461R .
Also published in the Russian-language journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh
Nauk, Vol. 166, No. 5 (May 1996), pp. 493-537,
doi:10.3367/UFNr.0166.199605d.0493 .

Steven Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields, Volume II: Modern
Applications (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
bibcode: 1996qtf..book.....W , Ch. 23: "Extended Field
Configurations", pp. 421-477.

I never equated informational complexity with intelligence. In fact, I
specifically stated that they were not the same when I pointed out
that a genuinely random-number file is at maximum entropy and cannot
be compressed.

Your above response is mostly a nihil ad rem restatement of what I
already told you. In your original comments on entropy you
misunderstood what entropy and heat death are.

Regarding probability in physics, see the below article:

Maurice J. Dupré and Frank J. Tipler, "The Cox Theorem: Unknowns And
Plausible Value", arXiv:math/0611795, November 26, 2006.
http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0611795

>The whole idea of harnessing the negative gravitational energy as a
>get-out-of-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics-free-card is highly suspect
>as well. How do you avoid expending energy while doing the "ordening
>of all matter in the universe into a single coherent intelligence"
>bit? How do you avoid generating massively more entropy during this
>process than you started out with? If it were possible to harness the
>negative gravitational energy in such a lossless way, then
>congratulations: you've just invented a perpetual motion machine! This
>is very clearly one of those theories that is nigh impossible to prove
>and that very clearly requires at least two of the most fundamental
>laws of physics to be "breakable".

Again, your understanding of physics is a superficial popular-audience
conception, one thankfully not shared by the editors and referees of
the numerous leading physics journals in which Prof. Tipler's Omega
Point cosmology has been peer-reviewed and published in. The only way
to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to violate the laws of
thermodynamics (see my above discussion on the proof of the Omega
Point cosmology per known physical law).

Energy of course is expended in directing the universe's Taublike
collapse cycles--there's no need to "avoid" doing so.

Entropy of course increases during this process--there's no need to
"avoid" this, nor would sapient life want to. As I already told you,
entropy diverges to infinity as the Omega Point is approached. Without
this divergence to infinite entropy then infinite memory space would
not be possible, and hence immortality would not be possible as states
would eventually start to repeat per the Poincaré recurrence theorem.
Please pay attention.

>As an aside, I want to state that I have so far refrained from using
>strict ad hominem rhetoric. However, surely you know Tipler has been
>featured in "Why people believe weird things" (not in a good way).
>Furthermore, George Ellis (a man who has actually co-authored with
>Stephen Hawking) considers the work of Tipler to be "a masterpiece of
>pseudoscience ... the product of a fertile and creative imagination
>unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical
>discipline". It would serve you well not to try to associate Tipler
>with all manner of well-known scientists, because this will surely
>backfire. As a second aside, I firmly disagree with your statement
>that "There exists no other physicist upon the globe who has all the
>physics background and expertise that Tipler does". Certainly, to
>develop a new theory of the magnitude of Einstein, Hawking, etc, it
>requires quite some extraordinary skills. Tipler might even have those
>skills, it is certainly possible. However, to understand said theories
>requires far less "skills". Given enough time and a reasonably good
>mind, it is possible to be able to work with/understand pretty much
>any theory out there, even if you could never think of it yourself.
>There is absolutely no reason to raise Tipler above the general
>scrutiny of the scientific community and demand that only "top minds"
>are allowed to critically asses it. (Which George Ellis has done by
>the way, a top mind and all. But I'm sure he doesn't "count" in your
>book either.)

Again, Prof. Tipler's Omega Point Theory, and now Theorem, have
repeatedly been scrutinized by the physics community via peer-review
in a number of the world's leading physics journals and found to be
correct according to the know laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the
Standard Model of particle physics).

Prof. Tipler has followed the standard of the Scientific Method. If
someone disagrees with the proof of Tipler's Omega Point cosmology,
per the Scientific Method it's imperative upon them that they publish

whatever crucial objections they think they might have in the
peer-reviewed physics literature, assuming such objections can pass
the referee process.

Prof. Ellis's statement that you quote comes from a non-refereed book
review. To date the only peer-reviewed paper in a physics journal that
has criticized Tipler's Omega Point Theory has been in 1994 by
physicists George Ellis and Dr. David Coule in the journal General
Relativity and Gravitation ("Life at the end of the universe?", Vol.
26, No. 7 [July 1994], pp. 731-739). In the paper, Ellis and Coule
gave an argument that the Bekenstein Bound violates the Second Law of
Thermodynamics if the universe collapses without having event horizons
eliminated. Yet in order to bring about the Omega Point, event
horizons must be eliminated, and Tipler cites this paper in his 2005
Reports on Progress in Physics paper in support of the proof that the
known laws of physics require the Omega Point to exist.

This isn't the only time that has happened to critics of Prof.
Tipler's Omega Point cosmology. Physicist Prof. Lawrence Krauss in his
review of Tipler's book The Physics of Christianity ("More dangerous
than nonsense", New Scientist, Vol. 194, No. 2603 [May 12, 2007], p.
53) criticized the book, but in the review Krauss repeatedly commits
the logical fallacy of bare assertion.

Prof. Krauss gives no indication that he followed up on the endnotes
in the book The Physics of Christianity and actually read Prof.
Tipler's physics journal papers. All Krauss is going off of in said
review is Tipler's mostly non-technical popular-audience book The
Physics of Christianity without researching Tipler's technical papers
in the physics journals. Krauss's review offers no actual lines of
reasoning for Krauss's pronouncements. His readership is simply
expected to imbibe what Krauss proclaims, even though it's clear that
Krauss is merely critiquing a popular-audience book which does not
attempt to present the rigorous technical details. Krauss's bare
assertions and absence of reasoning in his review have no place in
actual science.

Whereas Prof. Tipler gives a proof of the Omega Point cosmology and
detailed arguments for the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum
gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) in his 2005 Reports
on Progress in Physics paper which soundly refute Krauss's bare
assertions.

Quite ironically, Krauss has actually published a paper that greatly
helped to strengthen Tipler's Omega Point cosmology. Some have
suggested that the current acceleration of the universe's expansion
due to the positive cosmological constant would appear to obviate the
Omega Point. However, Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner
demonstrate 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) that "there is no set of
cosmological observations we can perform that will unambiguously allow
us to determine what the ultimate destiny of the Universe will be."
The reason for that is because that is dependant on the actions of
sapient life in annihilating baryons.

So when Prof. Tipler's critics actually do real physics instead of
issuing bare assertions and mystically nebulous cavils (the latter in
Ellis's case, since Ellis is a theist who takes a fideist position, of
which his fideist Weltanschauung extends to other areas, as he thinks
that physics cannot be capable of explaining human consciousness),
they end up making Tipler's case stronger. I find that deliciously
ironic. (Ironic though it is, it's the expected result, given that the
Omega Point cosmology is required by the known laws of physics.)

>I propose that we skip the whole "who says who" and just keep the
>argument to the content. I find it at best disingenuous and it tempts
>me to do the same (which I don't like either). In this same manner, I
>will tell you that you have to show a willingness to learn in a debate
>like this or I will simply walk away. A lot of people like me will in
>fact have a closer look at theories if you ask them and admit when
>there "might be something there" (which I have also done), but only if
>you show them the same courtesy. Categorically dismissing arguments
>(especially based on reputation) is a sign of dogmatic thinking, which
>I am simply not interested in.

You're the one who categorically dismissed Prof. Tipler's Omega Point
cosmology, even though you now admit that you knew essentially nothing
about it (and while you know slightly more about it now, you still
know next to essentially nothing about it).

I've never dismissed any argument. You're attributing to me your own
tendency.

----------------------------------------

2009 (originally published December 19, 2001)
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 ,
http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf ,

http://theophysics.ifastnet.com/anarchist-jesus.html

Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theory and the quantum gravity

James Redford

unread,

Dec 30, 2010, 10:37:24 PM12/30/10

On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:49:33 -0500, James Redford
<jrre...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Regarding probability in physics, see the below article:
>
>Maurice J. Dupré and Frank J. Tipler, "The Cox Theorem: Unknowns And
>Plausible Value", arXiv:math/0611795, November 26, 2006.
>http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0611795

Excuse me. I meant to cite the below paper in the above:

Frank J. Tipler, "What About Quantum Theory? Bayes and the Born
Interpretation", arXiv:quant-ph/0611245, November 23, 2006.
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0611245

Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome

unread,

Dec 31, 2010, 9:58:44 AM12/31/10

OK. First off, it would take me weeks to get through all those papers.
(If you can find someone to pay for that, I'd happily do it!) So, in a
way I must apologize for not being able to do that and I understand
that it would be wrong to make blank statements about the veracity of
experimental results and mathematical proofs without examining it line
by line. However, I think there are very firm arguments to be made
from logic alone. The basic pattern I see arise here is this: "When
all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

> ""
> If the CBR is an SU(2)L gauge field combined with the Higgs vacuum,
> and not a complete electromagnetic field, then it cannot couple to
> right-handed electrons either. Thus we would expect CBR pseudo-photons
> to show substantially less Sunyaev-Zel-dovich effect that conventional
> theory would predict, as I pointed out in [11]. This has now been seen
> [9].

Looking at these two references (and as said, without doing a line-by-
line), two things immediately jump out:
1. The paper linking the observation to Tiplers theory is published a
full 4 years after the observation was published. Now, this is not
necessarily bad science, but I would posit that there is a very
distinct risk here of "making the observations fit the
equation" (another way of saying "when all you have is a hammer...").
It is certainly not a prediction that was subsequently tested. The
observation bears no resemblance to the proposed tests of the SU(2)L
gauge field theory.
2. It all has very little to do with the complete Omega Point theory,
in fact none of the statements made in chapter 11 of the 2005 Tipler
paper are repeated in the 2010 Tipler paper. Chapter 11 is where the
heart of the Omega Point theory is developed. As I've stated before,
proof that the CBR is a SU(2)L gauge field combined with the Higgs
vacuum would certainly be impressive but it does not follow anywhere
that "life needs to engulf the universe". Yes, it would be the first
part in the proof for the Omega Point theory (because you need a
closed universe for it to work), but I would have to point out that
it's not enough to have just one step in your proof right, ALL the
steps need to make sense.

> If the laws of physics were inconsistent, then per the Principle of
> Explosion in the field of logic, everything in the field of physics
> could be shown to be logically contradictory. If everything physical
> were logically contradictory, then no physical structures could exist,
> since then any law of physics could produce any result, and hence
> there would be no coherency.

A good point. Some logicians dance around this issue, but I'm not a
fan of that, so I agree that inconsistency in the laws is a situation
we probably want to exclude. However, the laws of physics may very
well be unresolvably incomplete (a point I also made). Unfortunately,
this is a fundamentally untestable hypothesis, so I think we've hit a
dead end here.

> On the other hand, the Gödel theorems do not prove that no proof of
> consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. The theorems merely show
> that a valid proof cannot be mapped into arithmetic in which sentences
> must be of finite length. It might be the case, for example, that a
> valid proof of consistency can be obtained if we allow proof of
> infinite length. ...
>
> If we allow an infinite number of steps in a mathematical proof, then
> a proof of the consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. Gerhard
> Gentzen provided just such a proof in 1936 (he overcame the Gödel
> barrier by using transfinite induction up to a sufficiently great
> ordinal; see Kleene 1950, pp 440-9). A computer cannot mechanically go
> through the series of steps, but a human can ‘see’ the validity of the
> steps, provided the human accepts the necessary generalization of
> logic. In Cohen’s (1966, p 41) proof of Gödel’s First Incompleteness
> Theorem, an indecidable statement is actually constructed, and then
> shown--by an argument that cannot be mapped into arithmetic--to be
> false. So mathematicians accept arguments that cannot be arithmetized.
> ""

That's certainly interesting and something I will definitely try to
read more about. However, the fact that something is mathematically
possible does not imply that it also exists in the physical realm. As
is clear from the reasoning, you actually need quite a few physical
processes to be "pushed to infinity" (harnessing of energy) to make it
all work.

> Prof. Tipler doesn't propose infinite intelligence in order to obtain
> the collapse of the universe. 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 observed 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 baryon
> number minus lepton number [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.

I'm sorry, but this is fully in the realm of technobabble now. Sure it
uses the concepts of actual physics, but stretches it so far as to
make it pure science-fiction. Science-Fiction as in: entirely untested
and hypothetical ideas that writers needed to resolve their story-
line. Again I would pose that the logic is backwards: one would need
an "ideal energy source" and some kind of "ultimate rocket propulsion"
to make the "colonization of space" story to work. Then it is posited
that it could be done by "inversing baryogenesis using electroweak
quantum tunneling". I'm actually surprised warp drives and tachyon
beams are not featured*. Mind you, I'm not saying that the processes
Tipler describes aren't physically possible (just like warp drives are
theoretically feasible), but there are tons and tons of theories like
that out there with equal weight (in QM alone there are at least 2
dozen hypothetical particles currently posited). Tipler just picked
the ones that were convenient for his story line. When you absolutely
want to drive a nail into a wall, lots of things start to look like a
hammer.

I'm actually fine with theoretical ideas like warp drives and
inversing baryogenesis using electroweak quantum tunneling, but that
does not make them a reality. I'm also not disputing that these ideas
belong in the large set of hypothetical-but-still-unobserved
scientific theories. Some parts of the Omega theory are way more
hypothetical than others and there is currently very little in there
that has *hard* evidence, but as far as hypothesis construction goes
it looks ok. I am however firmly suspicious of the motivation for
bringing them up, which - judging by the timeline and structure of
publications - seems like "making the theory fit the story" to me. I
think this is a very severe case of confirmation bias. I am acutely
aware of the possibility that I might be suffering from confirmation
bias, but are you? I'll put it in a simple question:
"Would you even consider the possibility that Tipler and yourself are
having a bad case of confirmation bias?"
If not, I think that ends the discussion as there would be no way for
any of my arguments to even reach the critical part of your mind.

*: My apologies for the sarcasm, I hope you don't mind the joke.

Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome

unread,

Dec 31, 2010, 11:07:59 AM12/31/10

Sorry for this two-part answer, the google reader tripped me up.

> Prof. Frank J. Tipler's current Christianity is a result of his work
> in physics. Tipler started his academic life as an atheist, and
> remained so until circa 1998.

That actually wasn't my question. The fact that he once was an atheist
is a red herring. The question was this: "Would Tipler have developed
this theory if he was born and lived in China or some other strictly
secular environment?" The point is this: there is a very strong
correlation between the place he was born and the nature of his
theories. You can hopefully see that this is a problem that needs to
be answered. He is certainly a remarkable case, I'll grant you that!
(Most scientists go the opposite direction, but you know that
already.)

>
> The cosmological singularity consists of a three-mode structure: the
> final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the all-presents
> singularity (which exists at all times at the edge 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 Omega
> Point cosmology, which is deselective of all other major religions.

Wow. You do realize that pretty much any set of three related concepts
could in this way be mapped unto a trinity, right? The three stooges,
sun-earth-moon, body-mind-soul (double whammy), you name it. It is not
deselective of other major religions at all, it is self-selecting a
particular set of three concepts and yelling "eureka!"

> In his book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007),
> Tipler analyzes how Jesus Christ could have performed the miracles
> attributed to him in the New Testament without violating any known
> laws of physics, even if one were to assume that we currently don't
> exist on a level of implementation in a computer simulation. This
> proposed process uses baryon annihilation, and its inverse, by way of
> electroweak quantum tunneling caused via the Principle of Least Action
> by the physical requirement that the Omega Point final cosmological
> singularity exists. Tipler also proposes that the virgin birth of
> Jesus by Mary is possible via Jesus being a special type of XX male
> who obtained all of his genetic material from Mary (i.e., an instance
> of parthenogenesis). Tipler adduces that the Star of Bethlehem was
> either a Type Ic hypernova located in the Andromeda Galaxy, or a Type
> Ia supernova located in a globular cluster of our own Milky Way
> Galaxy.

Well, I guess the resurrection of Jesus is then experimental proof of
your baryon annihilation inversion theory! Do you not see theme here?
Furthermore, there is not a single observed case of naturally
occurring mamal parthenogenesis and the la Chapelle syndrome (Jesus-is-
an-XX-male) requires a Y chromosome to work. But I'm sure you have a
"fix" for that as well. And where are the remnants of this star-of-
bethlehem-supernova? It is perfectly clear that you're going down a
path of increasingly less and less likely and far-fetched theories
just to make it fit. But there is a serious theological problem here
as well (see below).

> If the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the miracles attributed to him
> in the New Testament were necessary in order to lead to the formation
> of the Omega Point--and if the known laws of physics are correct--then
> the probability of these events occurring is certain. Furthermore,
> Tipler proposes tests on particular relics associated with Jesus
> which, if the relics are genuine, could verify whether in fact said
> miracles took place via the aforementioned mechanisms. Tipler writes
> in this book that miracles, if they indeed exist, do not violate
> physical law, but instead are events which are so improbable that they
> would only be likely to occur within human history via the
> Least-Action Principle if the universe is required to evolve into the
> Omega Point.
>
> Traditional Christian theology has maintained that God never violates
> natural law, as God, in His omniscience, knew in the beginning all
> that He wanted to achieve and so, in His omnipotence, He formed the
> laws of physics in order to achieve His goal. The idea that God would
> violate His own laws would mean that God is not omniscient. In
> traditional Christian theology, miracles do not violate natural
> law--rather, they are events that are so improbable that they can only
> be explained by the existence of God and His acting in the world.

OK. This is just plain strange. Are you saying that god, in all of his
omniscience and omnipotence created all of the universe, but then
built in some kind of escape clause in it to nudge this creation in
the right direction at one single point in history? Furthermore, this
"nudging within the laws of physics" occurred only once in a time when
it could not be properly examined and has since then not been observed
at all anymore? That is a god with a sick sense of humor! If he is
omniscient and omnipotent, surely he could have created something that
doesn't need such horrifyingly rare nudging? Surely the universe could
have been created without adding these sort of hacks? Surely he could
have aimed this "revelation" for a time when it could be properly be
observed, a mere 2000 years later?

Do you not see how extremely unlikely all of this is? Do you not see
how Occam's razor is eminently applicable in this case? Look, I can
even do it without having to drag in any unproven theories: The bible
is a mish-mash of older and newer stories plundered from a variety of
folk stories. Virgin birth, resurrection, etc are all perfectly suited
for fairy tales, except that in religion they are misrepresented as
fact. The "jesus figure" is itself a result of the conflation of a
variety of people of the messiah variety plus some retro-fitting of
old testament prophecies. Did you know that there is a "heretical"
missing part for the bible in which the child Jezus is performing all
sorts of magic? Did you know that there are to this day dozens of
people all over the world claiming to be the second coming? That these
kinds of figures have been running around for as long as humanity has
existed?

Do you not see that reading the bible as a work of fiction makes an
infinitely larger amount of sense? Have you ever even considered
reading the bible as a work of fiction?

> It appears that only the minimum of miraculous intervention is
> performed by God--which can still be quite extensive--in order to
> ensure the universe's evolution into the Omega Point (i.e., God the
> Father), and therefore to ensure the very existence of existence
> (since physics would be mathematically contradictory if the universe
> didn't collapse into the Omega Point).

This directly contradicts the omniscience property. If he could really
know everything, he wouldn't need to do any miraculous intervention.
He would get it right the first time.

Have a great 2011!
Thomas

James Redford

unread,

Dec 31, 2010, 6:36:49 PM12/31/10

Some of the ROSAT data was collected in published in 2002, but
analysis of it for the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect wasn't published
until that Lieu, et al. October 6, 2005 paper. In Prof. Frank J.
Tipler's April 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper he explains
why the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect implies that the CMBR is a SU(2)_L
gauge field.

>2. It all has very little to do with the complete Omega Point theory,
>in fact none of the statements made in chapter 11 of the 2005 Tipler
>paper are repeated in the 2010 Tipler paper. Chapter 11 is where the
>heart of the Omega Point theory is developed. As I've stated before,
>proof that the CBR is a SU(2)L gauge field combined with the Higgs
>vacuum would certainly be impressive but it does not follow anywhere
>that "life needs to engulf the universe". Yes, it would be the first
>part in the proof for the Omega Point theory (because you need a
>closed universe for it to work), but I would have to point out that
>it's not enough to have just one step in your proof right, ALL the
>steps need to make sense.

Your above comments are due to you not having read all of Prof.
Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper, or not having
understood what you read. As I said in my previous reply to you:

Prof. Tipler then makes references throughout the paper to this
physical necessity of life's immortality, i.e., to this proof.

For this same proof that has been peer-reviewed and published
elsewhere by Prof. Tipler, see the following papers:

* Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society", Critical

Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (September 23, 1998).
http://www.webcitation.org/5sFYkHgSS

http://www.webcitation.org/5nY13xRip Full proceedings volume:
http://www.webcitation.org/5nwu4fT31

* Frank J. Tipler, Jessica Graber, Matthew McGinley, Joshua

Nichols-Barrer and Christopher Staecker, "Closed Universes With Black

629-640, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode:
2007MNRAS.379..629T.

* 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

* Frank J. Tipler, "Intelligent life in cosmology", International
Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2, Issue 2 (April 2003), pp. 141-148,
doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.

http://www.webcitation.org/5o9QHKGuW Also at arXiv:0704.0058, March
31, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0058

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").

>> If the laws of physics were inconsistent, then per the Principle of

>> Explosion in the field of logic, everything in the field of physics
>> could be shown to be logically contradictory. If everything physical
>> were logically contradictory, then no physical structures could exist,
>> since then any law of physics could produce any result, and hence
>> there would be no coherency.
>
>A good point. Some logicians dance around this issue, but I'm not a
>fan of that, so I agree that inconsistency in the laws is a situation
>we probably want to exclude. However, the laws of physics may very
>well be unresolvably incomplete (a point I also made). Unfortunately,
>this is a fundamentally untestable hypothesis, so I think we've hit a
>dead end here.

By testing the Omega Point/Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum
gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) one is, if
confirmed, experimentally showing that an infinite number of axioms
are required in order for physics to be logically consistent, i.e., a
countable infinite number of coupling constants in the standard
quantum gravity Lagrangian are required in order for it to be
consistent. For more on this, see p. 914 of Prof. Tipler 2005 Reports
on Progress in Physics paper.

>> On the other hand, the Gödel theorems do not prove that no proof of
>> consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. The theorems merely show
>> that a valid proof cannot be mapped into arithmetic in which sentences
>> must be of finite length. It might be the case, for example, that a
>> valid proof of consistency can be obtained if we allow proof of
>> infinite length. ...
>>
>> If we allow an infinite number of steps in a mathematical proof, then
>> a proof of the consistency of Peano Arithmetic is possible. Gerhard
>> Gentzen provided just such a proof in 1936 (he overcame the Gödel
>> barrier by using transfinite induction up to a sufficiently great
>> ordinal; see Kleene 1950, pp 440-9). A computer cannot mechanically go
>> through the series of steps, but a human can ‘see’ the validity of the
>> steps, provided the human accepts the necessary generalization of
>> logic. In Cohen’s (1966, p 41) proof of Gödel’s First Incompleteness
>> Theorem, an indecidable statement is actually constructed, and then
>> shown--by an argument that cannot be mapped into arithmetic--to be
>> false. So mathematicians accept arguments that cannot be arithmetized.
>> ""
>
>That's certainly interesting and something I will definitely try to
>read more about. However, the fact that something is mathematically
>possible does not imply that it also exists in the physical realm. As
>is clear from the reasoning, you actually need quite a few physical
>processes to be "pushed to infinity" (harnessing of energy) to make it
>all work.

For the proof of the Omega Point cosmology per the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics, see pp. 925
and 904-905 of Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics
paper, as well as the other papers I cited above which also contain
this proof.

Actually, it's quite sound, being a part of the Standard Model of
particle physics, which has been confirmed by every experiment to
date. For the Standard Model mechanism that allows for the
nonconservation of baryon number (i.e., baryon annihilation, and its
inverse, baryogenesis), see the below references. Weinberg gives a

derivation of this mechanism from the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem in
his below book. Gerardus 't Hooft, who discovered this new physical
law in 1976, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999.

Ta-Pei Cheng and Ling-Fong Li, Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle
Physics (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1984).

G. 't Hooft, "Symmetry Breaking through Bell-Jackiw Anomalies",
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 37, No. 1 (July 5, 1976), pp. 8-11,
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.37.8 , bibcode: 1976PhRvL..37....8T .

>I'm actually fine with theoretical ideas like warp drives and

>inversing baryogenesis using electroweak quantum tunneling, but that
>does not make them a reality. I'm also not disputing that these ideas
>belong in the large set of hypothetical-but-still-unobserved
>scientific theories. Some parts of the Omega theory are way more
>hypothetical than others and there is currently very little in there
>that has *hard* evidence, but as far as hypothesis construction goes
>it looks ok. I am however firmly suspicious of the motivation for
>bringing them up, which - judging by the timeline and structure of
>publications - seems like "making the theory fit the story" to me. I
>think this is a very severe case of confirmation bias. I am acutely
>aware of the possibility that I might be suffering from confirmation
>bias, but are you? I'll put it in a simple question:
>"Would you even consider the possibility that Tipler and yourself are
>having a bad case of confirmation bias?"
>If not, I think that ends the discussion as there would be no way for
>any of my arguments to even reach the critical part of your mind.
>
>*: My apologies for the sarcasm, I hope you don't mind the joke.

You have shown that you have such a bias, given that you prejudged
Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology even though you know essentially
nothing about it. I don't have such a bias, because I follow the laws
of physics.

James Redford

unread,

Dec 31, 2010, 8:11:31 PM12/31/10

On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:07:59 -0800 (PST), Thomas Goorden - BeWelcome
<thomas....@gmail.com> wrote:

>Sorry for this two-part answer, the google reader tripped me up.
>
>> Prof. Frank J. Tipler's current Christianity is a result of his work
>> in physics. Tipler started his academic life as an atheist, and
>> remained so until circa 1998.
>
>That actually wasn't my question. The fact that he once was an atheist
>is a red herring. The question was this: "Would Tipler have developed
>this theory if he was born and lived in China or some other strictly
>secular environment?" The point is this: there is a very strong
>correlation between the place he was born and the nature of his
>theories. You can hopefully see that this is a problem that needs to
>be answered. He is certainly a remarkable case, I'll grant you that!
>(Most scientists go the opposite direction, but you know that
>already.)

If someone who is an expert in global general relativity, quantum
field theory, and computational theory does a consistent global
analysis of the future of spacetime within the framework of the known
laws of physics, then the Omega Point cosmology naturally and
unavoidably comes out of the analysis. The inherent triune nature of
the Cosmological Singularity also comes out of the aforesaid analysis.

>>
>> The cosmological singularity consists of a three-mode structure: the
>> final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the all-presents
>> singularity (which exists at all times at the edge 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 Omega
>> Point cosmology, which is deselective of all other major religions.
>
>Wow. You do realize that pretty much any set of three related concepts
>could in this way be mapped unto a trinity, right? The three stooges,
>sun-earth-moon, body-mind-soul (double whammy), you name it. It is not
>deselective of other major religions at all, it is self-selecting a
>particular set of three concepts and yelling "eureka!"

Those other things don't have the quidditative properties claimed for
God in the traditional religions.

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 uncaused 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 (i.e., the uncaused
cause of all causes) 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 the arithmetical
operations of addition or subtraction 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.

Additionally, the cosmological singularity consists of a three-mode

structure: the final singularity (i.e., the Omega Point), the
all-presents singularity (which exists at all times at the edge 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.

>> In his book The Physics of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007),

>> Tipler analyzes how Jesus Christ could have performed the miracles
>> attributed to him in the New Testament without violating any known
>> laws of physics, even if one were to assume that we currently don't
>> exist on a level of implementation in a computer simulation. This
>> proposed process uses baryon annihilation, and its inverse, by way of
>> electroweak quantum tunneling caused via the Principle of Least Action
>> by the physical requirement that the Omega Point final cosmological
>> singularity exists. Tipler also proposes that the virgin birth of
>> Jesus by Mary is possible via Jesus being a special type of XX male
>> who obtained all of his genetic material from Mary (i.e., an instance
>> of parthenogenesis). Tipler adduces that the Star of Bethlehem was
>> either a Type Ic hypernova located in the Andromeda Galaxy, or a Type
>> Ia supernova located in a globular cluster of our own Milky Way
>> Galaxy.
>
>Well, I guess the resurrection of Jesus is then experimental proof of

>your baryon annihilation inversion theory! ...

It's quite sound, being a part of the Standard Model of particle
physics, which has been confirmed by every experiment to date. For the

Standard Model mechanism that allows for the nonconservation of baryon

number (i.e., baryon annihilation, and its inverse, baryogenesis), see

the below references. Weinberg gives a derivation of this mechanism
from the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem in his below book. Gerardus 't
Hooft, who discovered this new physical law in 1976, was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999.

Ta-Pei Cheng and Ling-Fong Li, Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle
Physics (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1984).

G. 't Hooft, "Symmetry Breaking through Bell-Jackiw Anomalies",
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 37, No. 1 (July 5, 1976), pp. 8-11,
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.37.8 , bibcode: 1976PhRvL..37....8T .

> ... Do you not see theme here?

>Furthermore, there is not a single observed case of naturally
>occurring mamal parthenogenesis and the la Chapelle syndrome (Jesus-is-
>an-XX-male) requires a Y chromosome to work. But I'm sure you have a
>"fix" for that as well. And where are the remnants of this star-of-
>bethlehem-supernova? It is perfectly clear that you're going down a
>path of increasingly less and less likely and far-fetched theories
>just to make it fit. But there is a serious theological problem here
>as well (see below).

The extreme rarity of the event would be one of the confirmations that
a miracle had occured if Jesus was a virgin birth. Prof. Tipler
proposes that at the very least the Y gene that encodes for maleness
(the SRY gene) was inserted into one of Mary's X chromosomes (if not
all the Y genes, of which there are 28), but only became active in
Jesus. DNA tests on the Turin Shroud and the Oviedo Cloth have both
confirmed the DNA of an XX male, i.e., the blood is that of XX
chromosomes but with Y genes present, which is strong evidence that
the blood is that of an XX male. For more on this, see Ch. 7: "The
Virgin Birth of Jesus", pp. 154-193 of Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of
Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

Franciscan friar and theologian William of Ockham's epistemic razor
logically requires that the Omega Point (i.e., God) exist.

The reason for this is because if the known laws of physics (i.e., the
Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, and quantum
mechanics) are true, then God exists by logical necessity. To avoid
this conclusion results in an infinity of statements which are both
true and false at the same time, per the Principle of Explosion in the
field of logic. This result is a gross violation of friar Ockham's
razor of the highest magnitude.

And as I said, the amount of miracles performed by God can still be
quite extensive and perhaps occur on a regular basis. But those
miracles would be by God's choosing, not by man's. God, being
omniscient, would choose that course which is best for existence.

>> It appears that only the minimum of miraculous intervention is
>> performed by God--which can still be quite extensive--in order to
>> ensure the universe's evolution into the Omega Point (i.e., God the
>> Father), and therefore to ensure the very existence of existence
>> (since physics would be mathematically contradictory if the universe
>> didn't collapse into the Omega Point).
>
>This directly contradicts the omniscience property. If he could really
>know everything, he wouldn't need to do any miraculous intervention.
>He would get it right the first time.
>
>Have a great 2011!
>Thomas

God can do anything that doesn't involve a logical contradiction, such
as making 2+2 = 5, rendering a "square circle", or creating a stone so
large that even He cannot lift it.

It may be wondered why, since God can perform miracles using the
electroweak quantum tunneling mechanism allowed by the known laws of
physics, He does not simply materialize a fully-developed sapient
self-replicating spacecraft, thereby doing an end-run around the
painful early stages of the evolutionary process. The reason God
cannot do this is because this would create a logically paradoxical
strange loop whereby the knowledge of good and evil doesn't exist in
existence, thereby setting the stage for the destruction of existence
due to evil being generated by a highly advanced society: as the
universe's Taublike collapses along different axes require a high
level of cooperation among the far-future sapient beings, and hence a
highly complex free-market economy, of which could not exist if evil
were allowed to grow without restraint. (Which is to say that
existence itself selects which ethics is correct in order for
existence to exist. The closer the Omega Point is approached, the
greater the free-market cooperation will have to be. Thus, the social
ethics selected by existence is that of the Golden Rule, which in the
form of legal ethics is the Nonaggression Principle.) The only reason
God knows of evil is because evil actually exists in the early part of
the multiverse--which is to say, God knows of evil because God knows
the beginning to the end. Existence has no choice but to go through a
stage of pain and suffering in its early period in order for existence
to learn of good and evil before evil becomes powerful enough to
destroy existence itself.

Accordingly, it appears that only the minimum of miraculous

intervention is performed by God--which can still be quite
extensive--in order to ensure the universe's evolution into the Omega

Point, and therefore to ensure the very existence of existence.
Although ultimately existence is itself a divine miracle according to
the known laws of physics, given that all of spacetime comes out of
the eternal and supernatual cosmological singularity, i.e., God.

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