Physicist Frank J. Tipler at TEDxBrussels: Physics Proves God Exists

Nostromo said:

I'm pretty sure he did too much LSD back in the day.

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Who are you speaking about? Prof. Frank J. Tipler? If so, then no. Tipler is a teetotaler.

Exiledoomsayer said:

Okay I read it again, thanks for that it was quite nice to be able to read aswell as listen.

However I still do not quite see where my summary differs from what he is saying.

Perhaps you could in your own words sum up what the arguement is.
And after that show me where I went wrong?

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Prof. Frank J. Tipler's proof of the Omega Point cosmology doesn't assume that life goes on. Rather, the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics) require that life diverges to infinite computational resources (i.e., both in terms of processor speed and memory space), with an infinite number of bits processed and stored before the end of spacetime.

Perhaps you became confused when Prof. Tipler states in his TEDx talk that life must go on. That is not an assumption: rather, that is a conclusion based upon the mathematical consistency of the known laws of physics.

See the text of the proof that I posted for the details. If you go over it carefully, you'll see that it is not circular--as your confusion would imply--as it makes no assumption regarding life going on. Rather, life going on is a result of the consistency of the known laws of physics.

For that, see:

"Why the Acceptance of the Known Laws of Physics Requires Acceptance of the Omega Point Theory", Theophysics. http://theophysics.chimehost.net/omega-point-physics.html

Split Rock said:

A lot of his "proofs" seem to be nothing but assertions. For example, he claims that since we communicate with each other that when the biosphere engulphs the universe that we will be able to communicate over its entire breath. That makes no sense. Is he talking about communicating in real time? Were the Aztecs able to communicate with the Chinese? Did the Mississipians of North America communicate with the English? No.

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Prof. Frank J. Tipler doesn't make any such assumption. Rather, that is a conclusion based upon the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics). The way event horizons are eliminated during the universe's collapse is by life forcing Taublike collapses (i.e., Mixmaster oscillations) of the universe by directing trajectories of mass, whereby the universe collapses into the shape of an oblate spheroid in one direction, and then in a different direction, which thereby allows communication across the universe in the direction of collapse while also creating a temperature differential across the universe whereby usable energy can be obtained (as greater heating occurs along the axis of collapse). A Mixmaster universe is also called a Bianchi Type IX universe.

Black hole event horizons are eventually eliminated by the universe's future trapped surfaces merging with the black hole trapped surfaces (i.e., their densities equalizing).

Split Rock said:

Two more questions:

Will all this occur before Heat Death of the universe?

How does this guy know our species will not become extinct before we leave the solar system? For example, if a star goes supernova too close to us, the resulting gamma radiation will kill us off. What is preventing such a situation from occurring?

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It's highly unlikely that would occur. But for the sake of considering a hypothetical scenario, if it did occur, then another sapient species would have to be evolved within roughly the vacinity of our same Hubble volume in order for the known laws of physics to be mutually consistent.

For the details on that, see the below paper:

* Frank J. Tipler, "Intelligent life in cosmology", International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2, No. 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

Dark_Lite said:

Been awhile since you've posted this. God still isn't a black hole.

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I agree with you. Instead, God is the totality of existence, forever and all times. God is all that exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist.

Bushido216 said:

Two things.

1. God breaking His own laws doesn't necessitate that He isn't omniscient. You only think it does.
2. The difference between breaking and going beyond natural laws is semantic.

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Breaking arithmetic would mean that God could make 2+2 = 5. God cannot do that, as that involves a logical contradiction. But God does go beyond arithmetic, because arithmetic doesn't apply to infinity. Instead, a different sort of arithmetic applies to infinities, called transfinite arithmetic, first developed by mathematician Georg Cantor.

The laws of physics can never be violated, or else they wouldn't be physical laws. But the laws of physics don't apply to infinity--i.e., to the cosmological singularity--because physical values are at infinity at the singularity, and hence it's not possible to perform the arithmetical operations of addition and subtraction on those physical values, and hence no physics equation can be applied to those values. Quite literally, the cosmological singularity is supernatural, as no possible laws of physics can apply to it.

Regarding "God breaking His own laws", you're thinking of how governments act. You're invoking an arbitrary and capricious ruler. Such was the conception of the gods held by the Greeks and Romans, and the conception of God held by the Jews and by the Muslims. Yet traditional Christian theology has maintained that God never violates His laws. It was this conception of God which allowed the systematic study into the physical world, and which created the Scientific Revolution and modern Western civilization.

As Augustine of Hippo wrote concerning miracles (The City of God, Book 21, Ch. 8; cf. Romans 1:19,20),

""
For we say that all portents are contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature.
""

That is, traditional Christian theology has maintained that if we had the ultimate physical law, then we would be able to explain how God's existence and His miracles are possible. According to the known laws of physics, we now have that ultimate physical law, the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics, and so we are now able to explain God's existence and His miracles.

In addition to the points I already raised about what traditional Christian theology said about God violating His own laws, traditional Christian theology also concluded that if God could violate His own laws, then we could have no hope in the resurrection, because then God could simply change His mind.

Split Rock said:

OK, then why would this other species wish to resurrect us a trilion years from now, considering the fact we are not their ancestors? Also, what about my heat death question?

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Our resurrection is an unavoidable consequence of the general resurrection.

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.

Regarding heat death, I already answered that. See my post at position #26 in this thread regarding the Mixmaster ocillations.

Nostromo said:

How exactly does one process an infinite amount of data?
Well, yes, but that seems to be an entirely different claim to that being made by Tipler.

It's nice of you to vociferously defend Tipler all over the Internet (one might even suspect you had some kind of personal interest ), but trying to squeeze Jesus into the formulae of fundamental physics is just bizarre. The whole thing is a non sequitur.

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Entropy diverges to infinity going into the final single-point singularity, termed the Omega Point. Entropy is informational complexity: S/(ln(2)*k) = I, where S is entropy, ln is the natural logarithm, k Boltzmann's constant in J/K, and I is information in bits. In other words, the computer memory space diverges to infinity. At the same time, processor speed diverges to infinity, because the time it takes a signal (such as a photon) to traverse the universe is continously decreasing as the radius of the universe goes to zero.

Christian theology is preferentially selected by the known laws of physics due to the fundamentally triune structure of the Cosmological Singularity (i.e., the Initial Singularity, the All-Presents Singularity, and the Final Singularity), which is deselective of all other major religions.

The Standard Model of particle physics provides the mechanism by which the miracles recorded in the New Testament can be achieved 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 (in that case, then such miracles would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the simulation, even though it would seem amazing from our perspective). This process uses baryon annihilation, and its inverse, via electroweak quantum tunneling controlled by the cosmological end state of the Omega Point (since in physics it's just as accurate to say that causation goes from future to past events: viz., the principle of least action; and unitarity). If the coming of Jesus Christ and the miracles that He performed were necessary in order to lead to the Omega Point, then the probability of said event occuring is exactly 1: certain to happen.

Regarding personal interest, I'm not connected with Prof. Frank J. Tipler in any way. I'm not related to him, nor do I know any of his family or friends. I have no personal stake in supporting Tipler as a person.

Although I do have a desire to make people aware of what the known laws of physics requires vis-à-vis humanity's immortality, and making people aware that we now have the quantum gravity Theory of Everything (TOE) according to the known laws of physics. But so also, I have a desire to make people aware of other important knowledge, such as political theory and economics, as well as Biblical knowledge and theology.

Nostromo said:

Diverges to infinity, yes. Reaches infinity in a finite amount of time? No.

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Then it wouldn't be diverging to infinity. It would be diverging to some finite state.

Event horizon elimination requires an infinite number of distinct intelligent manipulations. Each manipulation is irreversible, and so adds entropy. The result is an infinite amount of entropy at the final singularity.

Somebody found the number 3 in something and that proves Christianity is true?

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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.

So do Penn & Teller.

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For the historical reliability of Jesus Christ's ministry and his bodily resurrection, and the untenability of theories which deny his resurrection, see William Lane Craig, "Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ", Truth, Vol. 1 (1985), pp. 89-95. http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html For more on the historicity of Jesus Christ's resurrection, see William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Ch. 8: "The Resurrection of Jesus", pp. 333-404, particularly pp. 360 ff.

What I mean when I say "personal interest" is financial gain, rather than whether you're dating him or not.

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I don't make any money by speaking about these matters. If that were my interest, then I would promote antitheism, as the New Atheists are promoted by the government-beholden major media. Whereas people such as Profs. Frank J. Tipler and William Lane Craig are virtually persona non grata vis-à-vis the major media.

The New Atheists' media success isn't due to their own merits. Take for example Prof. William Lane Craig, who is far more knowledgeable and well-spoken than any of the New Atheists on the subject of religion (and indeed, more photogenic, since we're speaking to the issue of media success). Rather, their media success is because those in the corporate media tend to like their message, and so those in the media promote their message.

Both academia and the corporate media in our modern day are grafted to the hip of the state, and the natural tendency of the state is to tolerate no God before it. As the inherent inclination of the state is to aggrandize all allegeance to itself--even to the extent of seeking the abolition of the family (as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels set forth as one of the Communist goals in their Manifesto of the Communist Party); as the natural tendency of people is to owe a higher allegeance to their own family than to the state, which for the state is among the ultimate heresies. The rise of Christianity in the West somewhat shifted this fulcrum of power, so that the state rulers could no longer proclaim themselves gods. The old order was not completely thrown off, but this shift was enough to enable voluntary society to gain a foothold. This liberalization in thought and action brought about by Christianity is *the* great turning-point in history which allowed the rise of free inquiry enough to lead to the Scientific Revolution (its inception dated to the publication of devout Catholic cleric Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium).

Thus the love affair by academia and the corporate media with collectivist ideologies, beginning in a major way in the 19th century. If the state hadn't loved Marx, almost no one would even know his name today. (As contrast his ideology's popularity with governments and their toadies with that of the great liberal thinkers of the 19th century, including the great French liberals of the 19th century who Marx admits in his writings is where he obtained his class-conflict theory from [the original being the state against voluntary society]--of which he butchered, making it into a struggle of voluntary actors in society against each other, with the state as the Savior. All of these great 19th century liberal thinkers are virtually unknown today.) The state loves Marx because Marx's Communism is the ultimate aggrandizement of the state: God marching upon the Earth, to paraphrase Georg Hegel's statements on this issue.

And so modern society being basted in collectivist and atheist ideologies is simply nothing more than the state striking back at Christianity, attempting to regain the ground it lost. Although atheism isn't the state's ultimate goal, for the state desires that society worship it as God. But Christianity must be torn down before that can occur.

Indeed, the occultic Thule Society (Thule-Gesellschaft) sponsored the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which was later transformed by Adolf Hitler into the Nazi Party (i.e., the National Socialist German Workers' Party). It is interesting to note that Hitler's Master Plan was the abolition of Christianity and the formation of a pagan New Age religion, as the recently released (and previously classified) Nuremberg documents prove:

"The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches," U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Research and Analysis Branch, July 6, 1945; posted at the Rutgers University School of Law, Camden, New Jersey website in Winter, late 2001. http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/nurinst1.shtml
http://web.archive.org/web/20021218...rs.edu/publications/law-religion/nurinst1.htm
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/publications/nazimasterplan01.pdf
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/publications/nazimasterplan02.pdf
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/publications/nazimasterplan03.pdf
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/publications/nazimasterplan04.pdf

"The Nazi's Persecution of Religion as a War Crime: The OSS's Response Within the Nuremberg Trials Process," Claire Hulme and Dr. Michael Salter, Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001). http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/publications/churches.pdf
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/articles/RJLR_3_1_2.pdf
http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/vol3.shtml

"Camden online legal journal to offer first public look at rare Nuremberg Trial documents," Mike Sepanic, Rutgers-Camden Public Information Office, January 2, 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20020302...s.edu/medrel/viewArticle.phtml?ArticleID=1984

"Papers reveal Nazi aim: End Christianity," Edward Colimore, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 9, 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20020111...nt/inquirer/2002/01/09/front_page/JNAZI09.htm

"Hitler's war on Christ," Joel Miller, WorldNetDaily.com, January 12, 2002 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26030

"Analysis: Nazis vs. Christians," Uwe Siemon-Netto, United Press International (UPI), January 14, 2002 http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2002/01/14/Analysis_Nazis_vs_Christians/UPI-55711011059133/

"You Mean Hitler Wasn't A Priest?," Dave Shiflett, National Review, January 21, 2002 http://www.nationalreview.com/shiflett/shiflett012102.shtml

"Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection", Cornell University Law Library http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/index.cfm

"Nuremberg Trials Collection: The Donovan Archive Index", Cornell University Law Library http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/show.asp

On the last page above, do a page search on the words "christian" and "church" in order to find documents pertaining to the foregoing matters.

If everyone dropped dead tomorrow, and there was never another life in the universe, it wouldn't make one iota difference to the laws of physics.

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According to the known laws of physics it would. They are mutually-contradictory without the Omega Point cosmology. Hence, the Omega Point cosmology is now a mathematical theorem. The only way it could be incorrect is if the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics) are wrong. Yet they have been confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. Thus, the only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject empirical science.

jonmichael818 said:

It is my understanding that it is not known whether singularities actually exist in reality. General Relativity predicts them and it is thought that the big bang and black holes are examples of singularities, but the fact is that we do not know what happens inside a black hole or what happened prior to 10-43 seconds after the big bang.
We do not know this because we do not have a quantum theory of gravity, so any theory based on the assumption that a true singularity exists is simply a theory or an assumption.

You can say that mathematical singularities exist, but that is not the same thing.

You say that Tipler is not making assumptions but that he is making conclusions based on the known laws of physics. Ok, but this theory supposedly proves that god exists yet much of what he says has no observational verification.
His theory may be mathematically sound, but many theories of cosmology are mathematically sound. These other cosmological theories also do not have observational validation, so we could just as easily conclude that they are true as well.

Even the Standard Model relies on the Higgs boson which has yet to be found. Perhaps we will at the LHC, but not yet.

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In General Relativity, singularities are unavoidable with realistic energy conditions (i.e., given any universe with matter that can contain life), as the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems proved that per General Relativity the universe began in the Big Bang singularity (see, e.g., S. W. Hawking and R. Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology", Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A, Vol. 314, No. 1519 [January 27, 1970], pp. 529-548 http://www.webcitation.org/5uBzE1N4W ).

The only way singularities could not exist is if General Relativity were wrong, yet it has been confirmed by every experiment to date.

Likewise, the only way the Omega Point cosmology could be wrong is if the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, or Qantum Mechanics were wrong, yet they have been confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. Hence, the only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject empirical science.

jonmichael818 said:

Hawking did not prove anything, he wrote a theoretical paper suggesting that this is a possibility.

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That's not a hypothetical result, that's a mathematical theorem per General Relativity. The only way it could be wrong is if General Relativity were wrong. Again, for Stephen Hawking's proof that 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.

Physicist Neil Turok thinks the the following:

I am just saying we do not know yet.

Or if the known laws of physics are incomplete.

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Neil Turok is speaking about string theory, which violates the known laws of physics and has no experimental support whatsoever. If one is willing to abandon the known laws of physics, then one can come up with any result, as Prof. Tipler points out in his below article:

Frank J. Tipler, "Proving the Existence of God", Pajamas Media, September 14, 2010. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/proving-the-existence-of-god/?singlepage=true