Fwd: Omega Point

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 03:15:56 EDT

In a message dated 99-06-23 02:53:32 EDT, harrisdev.domain.name.hidden
writes:

<<
>Consider that the set of all possible futures
> narrows toward a single outcome, a single state, just like the past.
>>

This is the Omega Point suggested by Frank Tipler. I find no appeal in
Tipler's idea. His concept of time is linear. According to his implicit
assumption, each world has an independent time line and all worlds eventually
converge to the same state. This viewpoint shortchange the richness of the
MWI in which time can flow in an ever branching and merging network, and in
which the links are constrained by anthropically enforced rationality (or
computationality to satisfy the computationalists). Tipler's Omega point is
only one of the many possible future that awaits us, but it is by no means
the only one. Tipler starts with a more or less reasonable premice, but then
extrapolate wildly.

Tipler defines the "Omega Point" as a state that this universal intelligence
will reach in the limit, after a subjectively infinite time. The "Omega
Point" is endowed with "personal" god-like powers of being omniscient,
omnipotent and good. And it will resurrect the dead. And the resurrected dead
will be cured of whatever disease or physical handicaps they had when they
were living. And Tipler identifies the Holy Ghost with the universal
wave-function. From this he justifies the strong anthropic principle by
design. Clearly, Tipler shoe-horns his own brand of religious belief into his
Omega Point theory even though he denies it.

George Levy

attached mail follows:


Christopher Malloy wrote (italics): >Consider that the set of all possible futures > narrows toward a single outcome, a single state, just like the past. What might that be? The Omega Point? But evidence is mounting that the universe is open, and that the expansion is accelerating. I call it Omega Zero. The acceleration of expansion will eventually produce a precise model of the future in the same way that we now model the past with the big bang. Imagine a small circle in front of you the size of a pea. It expands outward rapidly. You stay at its edge. It becomes the size of the Earth, a galaxy, a super cluster. You can no longer detect curvature yet it is still there. The circumference of the circle never reaches that extreme of being perfectly straight which you can imagine exists between the circle in front of you and an identical one behind you. Imagine if you could form a straight line, holding your arms out perfectly straight, opposed to the curvature of the circle. This represents a straight line, an extreme seemingly impossible result of expansion. Now imagine two points along the curved line of the circle in front of you, then imagine them expanding away from one another at the speed of light. What have you got? Flatness; zero curvature, which happens also to be the point of zero temperature, zero energy, zero density, zero mass, zero time, zero volume, along with maximum expansion and entropy. (C.S Lewis) Life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move toward unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil [ignorance] but from other good [wisdom]. Great insight but I think its said knowing only half of the fundamental process of ordered systems. Imagine a game of checkers in front of you set to play. All the reds grouped and all the blacks grouped is an ordered pattern. Now imagine all the pieces moving on their own toward a different ordered pattern (red, black, red, black), a pattern where the pieces match the checkered pattern of the board. In the transition from one ordered pattern to the other their was chaos and divergence. One way of ordering things was destroyed in order to create the other pattern. My best piece of work is the theory that rather than order and disorder, there are two kinds of order in nature. It happens that the order of one kind is the disorder of the other. Of course, what goods a theory if no one else is able to recognize its significance. http://www.everythingforever.com/st_order3.htm >How does our response change if we factually > know that the observer exists beyond death? Beg your pardon? I certainly don't think the observer exists beyond death. I would substitute something else for the preposition "beyond", maybe "beside". You can imagine the lives "beside" but you can't imagine "in front of", or "in series with". What is it called when people reject an idea because it feels too familiar to ideas they reject for unrelated reasons. A good scientist doesn't polarize with such things as religious beliefs; wishful thinking with no reasonable grounds, but rather, is not influenced one way or the other. Scientists themselves harbor a vast number of biases, establish political incorrectness, fears, and expectations that are not always rational. The general reaction to your post revealed the measure to which those in this group imagine and believe in the ideas being discussed concerning the actuality of MWs. To most here, discussing these issues is a game, just a technical following of theory. A way to exercise their mind, their personality, their abilities. There is no real belief, no heightened sense of the actuality of what surrounds us; what confronts us. Soon as things get uncomfortable or unfamiliar, and the present foundation shifts, instead of exploring, the imagination ceases up. That is why I stayed up till five in the morning writing that last post, because I was so sparked by the exposure. Well, it was nice to get a response. Devin Harris -------------------- Christopher Malloy wrote (italics):

>Consider that the set of all possible futures
> narrows toward a single outcome, a single state, just like the past.

What might that be?  The Omega Point?  But evidence is mounting
that the universe is open, and that the expansion is accelerating.

I call it Omega Zero. The acceleration of expansion will eventually produce a precise model of the future in the same way that we now model the past with the big bang. Imagine a small circle in front of you the size of a pea. It expands outward rapidly. You stay at its edge. It becomes the size of the Earth, a galaxy, a super cluster. You can no longer detect curvature yet it is still there. The circumference of the circle never reaches that extreme of being perfectly straight which you can imagine exists between the circle in front of you and an identical one behind you. Imagine if you could form a straight line, holding your arms out perfectly straight, opposed to the curvature of the circle. This represents a straight line, an extreme seemingly impossible result of expansion.

Now imagine two points along the curved line of the circle in front of you, then imagine them expanding away from one another at the speed of light. What have you got? Flatness; zero curvature, which happens also to be the point of zero temperature, zero energy, zero density, zero mass, zero time, zero volume, along with maximum expansion and entropy.

(C.S Lewis)
Life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move toward
unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they
increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually
more different not only from evil [ignorance] but from other good [wisdom].

Great insight but I think its said knowing only half of the fundamental process of ordered systems. Imagine a game of checkers in front of you set to play. All the reds grouped and all the blacks grouped is an ordered pattern. Now imagine all the pieces moving on their own toward a different ordered pattern (red, black, red, black), a pattern where the pieces match the checkered  pattern of the board. In the transition from one ordered pattern to the other their was chaos and divergence. One way of ordering things was destroyed in order to create the other pattern. My best piece of work is the theory that rather than order and disorder, there are two kinds of order in nature. It happens that the order of one kind is the disorder of the other. Of course, what goods a theory if no one else is able to recognize its significance.
http://www.everythingforever.com/st_order3.htm

>How does our response change if we factually
> know that the observer exists beyond death?

Beg your pardon?  I certainly don't think the observer exists
beyond death.  I would substitute something else for the preposition
"beyond", maybe "beside".

You can imagine the lives "beside" but you can't imagine "in front of", or "in series with". What is it called when people reject an idea because it feels too familiar to ideas they reject for unrelated reasons. A good scientist doesn't polarize with such things as religious beliefs; wishful thinking with no reasonable grounds, but rather, is not influenced one way or the other. Scientists themselves harbor a vast number of biases, establish political incorrectness, fears, and expectations that are not always rational.

The general reaction to your post revealed the measure to which those in this group imagine and believe in the ideas being discussed concerning the actuality of MWs. To most here, discussing these issues is a game, just a technical following of theory. A way to exercise their mind, their personality, their abilities. There is no real belief, no heightened sense of the actuality of what surrounds us; what confronts us. Soon as things get uncomfortable or unfamiliar, and the present foundation shifts, instead of exploring, the imagination ceases up. That is why I stayed up till five in the morning writing that last post, because I was so sparked by the exposure.

Well, it was nice to get a response.

Devin Harris Received on Thu Jun 24 1999 - 00:22:41 PDT

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