X-Message-Number: 3164
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 94 01:42:41 CDT
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS Tipler's new book

Bob Ettinger:

> 4. I have sent for a recently advertised book, THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY
> by Frank J. Tipler. According to the blurbs, he speculates that in a
> closed universe, as it contracts toward the Omega Point, infinite
> subjective time will be available and the advanced beings of that time
> will be able to revive everyone who ever lived. He tilts this toward
> religion in some manner, supposedly without abandoning physics or
> requiring faith.

        Tipler, along with John Barrow, first published their "Omega
Point" thesis in their 1986 book, "The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle," which I reviewed for Cryonics magazine in 1987.  The idea
is that not only will subjective time increase without limit, but so
will available computing resources.  The Universe will give rise to an
infinitude of beings, thinking an infinitude of thoughts, so that at
the end of time (whatever that means) everybody will know everything.
The Universe is thus heading toward a sort of omniscience and
omnipotence (hence his musings about religion).

        In my Cryonics article I suggested that this implied universal
resurrection.  Mike Perry of the Venturists has long held similar
thoughts.  It seems that Barrow has now concluded the same thing, and
has written an entire book about Omega Point resurrection.

        What really makes me sick is the religion angle he has taken
(to increase sales?).  Tipler is a guy who for years has written about
how intelligent life is destined to spread through, and control the
Cosmos so thoroughly as to be one day become omnipotent.  This control
will come about through audacious, deliberate technological effort,
not grovelling subservience to supernatural mysticism.  God does not
exist.  It is WE who will become God.

        The facts of reality (especially if Tipler is right) are
diametrically opposed to the supernatural anti-human nonsense spouted
by the world's relgions.  Why Tipler feels compelled to say his
theories *support* Christian and other theologies is beyond my
comprehension.

                                                --- Brian Wowk

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