Omega Point

The Omega Point is a spiritual belief and a scientific speculation that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of "divine" unification.[1] The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955).[2] 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." In the Book of Revelation, Christ describes himself thrice as "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." The idea of the Omega Point is developed in later writings, such as those of John David Garcia (1971), Paolo Soleri (1981), Frank Tipler (1994), and David Deutsch (1997).[3][4][5]

Tipler

Frank Tipler generalizes[6] Teilhard's term Omega Point to describe what he maintains is the ultimate fate of the universe required by the laws of physics: roughly, Tipler argues that quantum mechanics is inconsistent unless the future of every point in spacetime contains an intelligent observer to collapse the wavefunction, and that the only way for this to happen is if the Universe is closed (that is, it will collapse to a single point) and yet contains observers with a "God-like" ability to perform an unbounded series of observations in finite time. However, scientists such as Lawrence Krauss have stated that Tipler's reasoning is erroneous on multiple levels, possibly to the point of being nonsensical pseudoscience.[7][8][9] Tipler (1994) has summarized his hypothesis as follows:

Deutsch

In the final chapter of his 1997 book "The Fabric of Reality" physicist David Deutsch considers the Tiplerian Omega Point. Though he criticizes Tipler for making exaggerated physical claims concerning his Omega Point theory, Deutsch stipulates a contracting universe that includes universal quantum computers could prolong the usefulness of the universe given the inevitability of an Omega Point collapse.

Technological singularity

The technological singularity is the hypothetical advent of artificial general intelligence theoretically capable of recursive self-improvement, resulting in a runaway effect to an intelligence explosion.[11] Eric Steinhart, a proponent of "Christian transhumanism", argues there is significant overlap of ideas between the secular singularity and Teilhard's religious Omega Point.[3] Steinhart quotes Ray Kurzweil, one of the most prominent singulatarians, who stated that "evolution moves inexorably toward our conception of God, albeit never reaching this ideal."[3][12] Like Kurzweil, Teilhard predicts a period of rapid technological change that results in a merger of humanity and technology. He believes that this marks the birth of the noosphere and the emergence of the "spirit of the Earth," but the Teilhardian Singularity comes later. Unlike Kurzweil, Teilhard's singularity is marked by the evolution of human intelligence reaching a critical point in which humans ascend from "transhuman" to "posthuman." He identifies this with the Christian parousia.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Could artificial intelligence kill us off?". Newsweek. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  2. ↑ Castillo, Mauricio (March 2012). "The Omega Point and Beyond: The Singularity Event" (PDF). American Journal of Neuroradiology. 33 (3): 393–5. PMID 21903920. doi:10.3174/ajnr.A2664. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Steinhart, Eric (2008). "Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 20 (1): 1–22. ISSN 1541-0099. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  4. ↑ Green, Ronald (2012). "Challenging Transhumanism's Values". Hastings Center Report. 43: 45–47. doi:10.1002/hast.195. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
  5. ↑ Lilley, Stephen (2013). "Transcend or Transgress?". Hastings Center Report: 13–24. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4981-8_2. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
  6. ↑ Tipler, Frank J. "The omega point as eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's questions for scientists." Zygon (journal) 24.2 (1989): 217-253. "Needless to say, the terminology is Teilhard de Chardin's..."
  7. ↑ Ellis, George Francis Rayner (1994). "Piety in the Sky" (PDF). Nature. 371 (6493): 115. Bibcode:1994Natur.371..115E. doi:10.1038/371115a0. It is a masterpiece of pseudoscience
  8. ↑ Krauss, Lawrence (May 2007). "More dangerous than nonsense". New Scientist. p. 53. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(07)61199-3. I am tempted to describe Tipler's new book as nonsense—but that would be unfair to the concept of nonsense.
  9. ↑ "The Strange Case of Frank Jennings Tipler". Skeptical Inquirer. 2008. Retrieved 21 September 2016. I began to wonder if the book could be a subtle, hilarious hoax. Sadly, it is not.
  10. ↑ Tipler (1994),
  11. ↑ Chalmers, David. "The singularity: A philosophical analysis." Journal of Consciousness Studies 17.9-10 (2010): 7-65.
  12. ↑ Kurzweil, Ray (2005). The Singularity is Near. New York: Viking Books. ISBN 978-0-670-03384-3., pg 476; see also 375, 389-390
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