Omega point

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
 The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (October 2008)
For other uses, see Omega point (disambiguation).

Omega Point is a term invented by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe appears to be evolving. Teilhard's term recurs in highbrow and popular culture, especially the cosmological theory proposed by the mathematical physicist Frank Tipler.

Contents

[edit] Teilhard de Chardin

In this theory, the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness, a theory of evolution that Teilhard called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. For Teilhard, the universe can only move in the direction of more complexity and consciousness if it is being drawn by a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. Thus Teilhard postulates the Omega Point as the supreme point of complexity and consciousness, which is not only as the term of the evolutionary process, but is also the actual cause for the universe to grow in complexity and consciousness. In other words, the Omega Point exists as supremely complex and conscious, independent of the evolving universe. I.e., the Omega Point is transcendent. In interpreting the universe this way, Teilhard kept the Omega Point within the orthodox views of the Christian God, who is transcendent (independent) of his creation.

Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from true God," and "through him all things were made."

[edit] Five Attributes of the Omega Point

Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man states that the Omega Point must possess the following five attributes. It is:

  • Already existing.
    Only thus can the rise of the universe towards higher stages of consciousness be explained.
  • Personal – an intellectual being and not an abstract idea.
    The complexification of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more personalization, of which human beings are the highest attained form in the universe. They are completely individualized, free centers of operation. It is in this way that man is said to be made in the image of God, who is the highest form of personality. Teilhard expressly stated that in the Omega Point, when the universe becomes One, human persons will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. This is because the Omega Point unites creation, and the more it unites, the more the universe complexifies and rises in consciousness. Thus, as God creates the universe evolves towards higher forms of complexity, consciousness, and finally with humans, personality, because God, who is drawing the universe towards Him, is a person.
  • Transcendent.
    The Omega Point cannot be the result of the universe's final complexification of itself on consciousness. Instead, the Omega Point must exist even before the universe's evolution, because the Omega Point is responsible for the rise of the universe towards more complexity, consciousness and personality. Which essentially means that the Omega Point is outside the framework in which the universe rises, because it is by the attraction of the Omega Point that the universe evolves towards Him.
  • Irreversible, that is, attainable.

[edit] Garcia and increasing creativity

Main article: Total creativity

In 1971, John David Garcia expanded on Teilhard's Omega Point idea. In particular, he stressed that even more than the increase of intelligence, the constant increase of ethics is essential for humankind to reach the Omega Point. He applied the term creativity to the combination of intelligence and ethics and announced that increasing creativity is the correct and proper goal of human life. He specifically rejected increasing happiness as a proper ultimate goal: when faced with a choice between increasing creativity and increasing happiness, a person ought to choose creativity, he wrote.

[edit] Tipler's cosmological Omega Point

Main article: Omega Point (Tipler)

The Omega Point is Frank Tipler's term for what he maintains is the ultimate fate of the universe required by the laws of physics. Tipler has summarized his theory as follows:

  • The universe has finite spatial size and the topology of a three-sphere;
  • There are no event horizons, implying the future c-boundary is a point, called the Omega Point;
  • Sentient life must eventually engulf the entire universe and control it;
  • The amount of information processed between now and the Omega Point is infinite;
  • The amount of information stored in the universe asymptotically goes to infinity as the Omega Point is approached.[1]

According to Tipler's Omega Point Theory, as the universe comes to an end in a specific kind of Big Crunch, the computational capacity of the universe will be accelerating exponentially faster than time runs out. In principle, a simulation run on this universal computer can thus continue forever in its own terms, even though the universal computer is embedded in a universe that will last only a finite time. The Omega Point Theory requires that the universe eventually contract, and that there be intelligent civilizations in existence at the appropriate time to exploit the computational capacity of such an environment.

Tipler identifies the final singularity of this asymptotically infinite information capacity with God. According to Tipler and David Deutsch, an implication of this theory is that this ultimate cosmic computer will be able to resurrect (via emulation) everyone who has ever lived, by simulating all possible quantum brain states within the master simulation. This will manifest itself as a simulated reality. From the perspective of its simulated inhabitants, the Omega Point is an infinite-duration afterlife, which could take any imaginable form due to its virtual nature.

Tipler's Omega Point Theory is predicated on an eventual Big Crunch, a scenario believed unlikely by some because of certain recent astronomical observations implying that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.[2] Tipler has recently amended his theory to accommodate an accelerating universe due to a positive cosmological constant. He proposes baryon annihilation (via the inverse of electroweak baryogenesis using electroweak quantum tunneling) as a means of propelling interstellar spacecraft. Tipler maintains that if all baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by this process, then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum state, cancelling the positive cosmological constant, stopping the acceleration, and forcing the universe to collapse into the Omega Point.[3]

Tipler argues that his Omega Point theory is fully consistent with what God said to Moses in Exodus 3:14, whose Hebrew original Tipler translates into English as: "I shall be what I shall be." Tipler (2007) argues that his theory is consistent with orthodox Christianity.

[edit] Technological singularity

Some transhumanists argue that the accelerating technological progress inherent in the Law of Accelerating Returns will, in the relatively near future, lead to what Vernor Vinge called a technological singularity or "prediction wall." This singularity is a state in which humans will be semi-aware components of a computerised social structure of such complexity that no one person or group of persons will be able to understand more than a tiny fraction of the whole. These transhumanists believe we will soon enter a time in which we must eventually make the transition to a "runaway positive feedback loop"[citation needed] in high-level autonomous machine computation. A result will be that our technological and computational tools eventually completely surpass human capacities.[1] Some transhumanist writings refer to this moment as the Omega Point, paying homage to Teilhard's prior use of the term. Other transhumanists, in particular Ray Kurzweil, refer to the technological singularity as simply "The Singularity."

[edit] Omega point in popular culture

[edit] Science fiction

  • In the Isaac Asimov short-story "The Last Question", Humanity merges its collective consciousness with its own creation: an all-powerful cosmic computer. The resulting intelligence contemplates the cyclic nature of the universe, ending with a twist.
  • In Childhood's End, a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, the destiny of humanity - as well as most of the other intelligent species in the universe - seems to merge with an overall cosmic intelligence.
  • In Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos, the Omega Point was used extensively. The catholic priest character Father Hoyt/Duré who is introduced to the story frame as one of the pilgrims in the first two volumes of the tetralogy (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion) eventually becomes Pope Teilhard I.
  • In Darwinia, a novel by Robert Charles Wilson, after a mysterious event in the first decade of the twentieth century transforms Europe into an immeasurably strange place, full of hitherto unknown flora and fauna, it is revealed at the very end that the entire story is a tiny part of a virtual war inside what is effectively an Omega Point metacomputer at the end of time.
  • In the first part of Poul Anderson's novel Harvest of Stars, North America is ruled by the Avantists, an oppressive pseudo-religious regime that draws its justification from a commitment to take humanity to what they call the Omega Point. It uses the Greek infinity symbol as a logo, and it is deemed politically correct to greet each other with "alpha," to which the reply is "omega." However, since the Avantist Advisory Synod believes in social engineering and technical progress as the means to advance humanity, its teachings are in fact transhumanist.
  • In Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a novel by Charles Sheffield, the main character Drake Merlin is on a quest to cure his dying wife. He has her frozen and then freezes himself to hope the future holds the cure. Eventually, he finds that the only hope to having her back is to wait out the aeons until the Omega Point, at which time she will again be accessible.
  • George Zebrowski wrote a trilogy of space opera novellas, collectively called The Omega Point Trilogy and published as a single volume in 1983. The name appears to be a coincidence; it predates Tipler by many years and does not involve any of the Omega Point ideas listed above.
 This article may require copy-editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (February 2009)
  • In a science fiction novel of Humayun Ahmed named Omega Point, Omega point does a research on Ref by making him living in two different times simultaneously. He, in one time period, is working with the theory of time, which is about to fail. To make him successful Omega Point sends him back in time to get married so that his descendant would be able to continue his research.
  • Stephen Baxter writes about the Omega Point in many books including manifold: Time.
  • The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, a novella by Roger Williams, a computer scientist invents a computer that is self-aware and can rewrite its own code. After some time and exposure to certain knowlegde, the computer gains the ability to modify reality and thus expand its own capabilities, leading up to a technological singularity. Readable online at http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
  • Julian May's Galactic Milieu Series draws heavily for both plot and background on the concepts of Teilhard de Chardin's Omega point theories.

[edit] Other novels

[edit] Games

  • In the fictional Chronicles Of Fate game universe[2], the primary god of goodness, Josh, derives his 'divine' power from a set-up that one would describe as an Omega Point - his mind is distributed into the fabric of spacetime itself within the galaxies his empire controls, and he can alter matter, energy, and the laws of physics in any way he wishes there. He's able to expand his sphere of divinity when his armies place giant, arcanely technological monoliths called Worldstandards on new planets, which act as signal amplifiers to extend his pattern further into space and time.
  • In the shooter game Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus, the main villain actually becomes the Omega Point by sacrificing millions of people, and is called Omega.

[edit] Music

  • The band Mr. Bungle references the Omega Point in their song "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" on the album "California."
  • Apollo 440 wrote a song called "Omega Point" for their debut album Millennium Fever, in which Dr. Karl Leiker of 'Church of Exude the Phenomenon' recites a quote from Barrow and Tipler's The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, pg. 676: "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know."
  • Terence McKenna's monologue on The Shamen's Re:Evolution refers to the Omega point as an inevitability: "Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organisation that preceded it that it must be the response to a kind of attractor or dwell point that lies ahead in the temporal dimension."
  • The Omega Point is referenced in the song Love On Haight Street on BT's third album Movement in Still Life.
  • Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals, which contains motifs of Posthumanism and transhumanism, also contains references to Omega Point, as can be deduced from lyrics and imagery of the Omega symbol. Furthermore, the main character of the concept album is named "Omega".
  • The Omega Point is the main influence for the name of a band from Argentina called Punto Omega.
  • "Omega Point" is a song by Cephalic Carnage on their album Xenosapien.

[edit] Movies and comic strips

  • There is a Dilbert comic strip in which Dogbert postulates that since everything develops from simpler forms to more complex forms, a supreme being must be our future, not our origin. His idea is that God must be the entity that will be formed when enough people are connected by the Internet.
  • In the Neon Genesis Evangelion movie End of Evangelion, which ends the story, the Human Instrumentality Project, which aims to merge all human souls (in the form of LCL) into a single mind, as a final step on evolution, is largely influenced by this theory.
  • In Eureka Seven, a similar theory called the Limit of Life exists. In the Limit of Life, the Scub Coral, an omnipotent being, must not awaken while it shares space with humans or it will collapse the Earth and the space around it in a singularity of consciousness.
  • The BotCon 2000 comic, "Reaching the Omega Point", references "Omega Point" as place where points in time, and planes of reality mesh.
  • John Boorman's 1977 film "Exorcist II: The Heretic" takes the original "Exorcist" story in an Omega Point/Chardinian direction. According to Boorman's sequel (written by William Goodheart), the specific reason for the possession of the child in the original novel by William Peter Blatty (and William Friedkin's film adaptation) was Lucifer's attempt to foil or interrupt this evolution toward a kind of cosmic goodness and perfection. Apparently, an unspecified number of special humans with unique empathetic sensitivities were seen as evolutionary stepping stones toward some future of wholely good, pure consciousness; thus, the Devil's attempt to destroy them.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Tipler (1994), p.
  2. ^ Although see Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner, "Geometry and Destiny," General Relativity and Gravitation 31(10) (October 1999): 1453-59. Also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999.
  3. ^ Tipler, F. J., 2005, "The structure of the world from pure numbers," Reports on Progress in Physics 68(4): 897-964. Also here. Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything," April 24, 2007.

[edit] References

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1950. The Future of Man.
  • -------, 1955. Le Phénomène Humain (The Human Phenomenon) (1955)
  • Frank J. Tipler, 1986, "Cosmological Limits on Computation," International Journal of Theoretical Physics 25: 617-61.
  • -------, 1994. The Physics of Immortality. Doubleday.
  • -------, 2007. The Physics of Christianity. Doubleday.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_point"
Personal tools