Science Authors

"The payload of a probe to another stellar system would be a self-reproducing universal constructor with human level intelligence (...a von Neumann machine) together with an engine... travelling... within the stellar target system—[the engine] could be an electric propulsion system... or a ..."

"As the copies of the space probe were made, they would be launched at the stars nearest the target star. When these probes reached these stars, the process would be repeated... until the probes covered all the stars of the Galaxy."

"[T]he problem of interstellar travel has been reduced to... transporting a von Neumann machine to another stellar system. This can be done even with present-day rocket technology."

"I shall assume that such a species will... develop a self-replicating universal constructor with intelligence comparable to the human level—such a machine should be developed within a century, according to the experts...—and... combined with present-day rocket technology would make it possible to explore and/or colonize the Galaxy in less than 300 million years, for an initial investment less than the cost of operating a 10 MW microwave beacon for several hundred years, as proposed by SETI..."

"[T]he von Neumann machine would be programmed to explore the stellar system... and relay information... back to the original solar system..."

"Even if there were no planets in the stellar system... the... machine could be programmed to turn some of the material into an O'Neill colony..."

"[I]t seems likely that a species engaging in interstellar communication would possess a fairly sophisticated computer technology. ...Sagan has asserted that 'Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence... will require... computer actuated machines with abilities approaching... intelligence'."

"It is a deficiency in computer technology, which prevents us from beginning the exploration of the Galaxy tomorrow."

"As ves is of the same order as the stellar random motion velocities, very sensitive guidance would be required... not... an insuperable problem with the assumed level of computer technology."

"Tipler has been criticized... for mixing religion with science. ...also ...for making wrong scientific assumptions. ...[I]t appears that the is accelerating and ...left to itself, will never enter the phase ...a prerequisite for the scenario ...Tipler is certainly wrong on many points that will be corrected by future scientists. But dismissing him as a crank is... like dismissing Leonardo as a crank because his aircraft sketches wouldn’t fly..."

"[A]n intelligent species with the technology for interstellar communication would necessarily develop the technology for interstellar travel, and this would automatically lead to the exploration and/or colonization of the Galaxy in less than 300 million years."

"The basic idea... is straightforward and... has led other authors, such as Fermi... Dyson... Hart... Simpson... and Kuiper & Morris... to conclude that extraterrestrial beings do not exist: if they did exist and possessed the technology for interstellar communication, they would also have developed interstellar travel and thus would already be present in our solar system."

"[T]hat any intelligent species which develops... interstellar communication will also have... rocketry... is... a consequence of the principle of mediocrity... (that our own evolution is typical)... [T]he human species developed rockets 600 years before... radio waves..."

"What one needs is a self-reproducing universal constructor... a machine capable of making any device... capable of making a copy of itself. Von Neumann has shown... that such... is theoretically possible, and... a human being is a universal constructor specialized to perform on the surface of the Earth."

"Hunter has pointed out that by using a Jupiter swingby to approach the Sun and then giving a velocity boost at perihelion, a solar system escape velocity... is possible with present-day chemical rockets... [M]ost other stars should have planets (or companion stars) with characteristics sufficiently close to... the Jupiter-Sun system to use this launch strategy in reverse to slow down in the other solar system."

"It is argued that if extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist, then their spaceships must already be present in our solar system."

"[I]f the observed acceleration were to continue forever, the Theory would be refuted. But the expansion of life to engulf the universe is EXACTLY what is required to cancel the positive cosmological constant (a.k.a. the Dark Energy)..."

"The biologists argue that the number of evolutionary pathways leading from one-celled organisms to intelligent beings is minuscule when compared with the total number of evolutionary pathways, and thus even if we grant the existence of life on 109 to 1010 planets in our Galaxy, the probability that intelligence has arisen... [there] on any planet but our own is still very small. I agree..."

"I relate deeply to Tipler’s... concept that future technology may... resurrect the dead... by... "copying them to the future" and... allow myself to contemplate such possibilities. There may be a point where consciousness becomes a important factor in the destiny of the universe, where conscious beings develop the capability to choose and build the universe they want to inhabit, and invite the dead of past ages to join the party by copying them to the future. ...[T]his soft rationalist, high level and not detailed concept ...will, I hope, be detailed and realized by future scientists and engineers."

"The germ theory was resurrected... by Pasteur and his new medical physics. Thus... physics had to be extended to medicine in order to save the germ theory. Similarly, for religion to survive, physics must be extended into theology."

"This argument assumes that the five probabilities... do not vary rapidly with galactic age. The available astrophysical evidence and most theories of the formation of solar systems indicate... this... is valid."

"[P]eople near the omega point could not... communicate their wishes to us, or work miracles (today). They did not create the universe... [nor] invent the laws of physics—nor could they violate those laws... They may listen to prayers... (perhaps by detecting very faint signals), but they cannot answer them. They are... opposed to religious faith, and have no wish to be worshipped. ...But Tipler ...argues that most of the core features of the God of the Judeo-Christian religions, are... properties of the . Most religious people will... disagree..."

"[T]he probability of the evolution of creatures with the technological capability of interstellar communication within five billion years after the development of life on an Earth-like planet is less than 10-10, and thus we are the only intelligent species now existing in this Galaxy."

"[T]hus... any intelligent species would develop at least the rocket technology capable of... a travel velocity ves of 3 x 10-4c. At this velocity the travel time to the nearest stars would be between 104 and 105 years. This... would necessitate... self-repair capacity... Nuclear power-souces would supply the power... If power utilization during the free-fall period was... low, even chemical reactions could supply the power."

"In his enthusiasm... Tipler has neglected part of the Popperian lesson about what the growth of knowledge must look like. If the omega point exists, and if... created in the way... Tipler... set out... the late universe will... consist of embodied thoughts of inconceivable wisdom, creativity and sheer numbers. But... problem solving means rival s, errors, criticism, refutation and backtracking. Admittedly, in the limit (which no one experiences), at the instant the universe ends, everything that is comprehensible may have been understood. But at every finite point our descendants' knowledge will be riddled with errors. Their knowledge will be greater, deeper and broader than we can imagine, but they will make mistakes on a correspondingly titanic scale too. Like us, they will never know certainty or physical security, for their survival, like ours, will depend on... creating a continuous stream of new knowledge. If they... fail, even once... to increase... computing speed and memory capacity... the sky will fall in on them and they will die. Their culture... will be split by passionate controversies. ...[I]t seems unlikely that it could... be regarded as a 'person'. Rather... a vast number of people interacting... disagreeing. ...often ...mistaken, and many mistakes ...uncorrected for... long periods (subjectively). Nor... ever... morally homogeneous...Nothing will be sacred... and... people will continually be questioning assumptions that other[s]... consider... fundamental moral truths. ...[B]y the methods of reason, every... controversy will be resolved. But... replaced by... more... fundamental controversies. Such... is very different from... God... But... some subculture within it... will be resurrecting us if Tipler is right."

"The Omega Point Theory suggests that the particle physics Standard Model (SM) is sufficient to explain both [dark matter and dark energy]: the Dark Energy is just the currently uncancelled part of the positive cosmological constant, and the Dark Matter is just the Standard Model SU(2)_{left} field, coupled to the SM Higgs field. I was very worried when I wrote PHYSICS OF IMMORTALTIY that the entropy in the CMBR would make an acceleration in the collapsing phase of universal history impossible. I propose to solve this problem by claiming the temperature of the CMBR — currently "measured"... 2.2726 degrees — is actually... ! I show in a paper I put on the lanl data base (xxx.lanl.gov) last November that such an apparently ridiculous claim is possible, because any quantized gauge field in a homogeneous and isotropic universe would NECESSARILY have a Planckian spectrum, even at zero temperature! What the measurements of CMBR showing that it is Planckian... are really measuring... not the temperature, but the size of the universe. In my paper, I show how to convert the... "temperature" of 2.2726 into the size of the universe."

"Tipler uses the theological term 'omniscient'... but... The omega point will not know everything. The overwhelming majority of abstract truths... will be inaccessible to it as they are to us."

"The mechanics of 'steering' the universe to the omega point require actions to be taken throughout space. ...[I]ntelligences will have to spread all over the universe in time to make the first necessary adjustments. This is one of a series of deadlines that Tipler has shown that we would have to meet—and he has shown that meeting... them is, to the best of our... knowledge, physically possible."

"The review in Nature called POI a "masterpiece of pseudoscience". ...I don't think it's that good."

"Paul Dirac was the first physicist to argue for the Postulate of Eternal Life: "With my assumption... life need never end. There is no decisive argument for dediding between [certain] assumptions. I prefer the one that allows the possibility of endless life. One may hope that some day the question will be decided by direct observation."

"Tipler makes the point that the science of cosmology has tended to study the past... of spacetime. But most of spacetime lies to the future... Existing cosmology does address the issue of whether the universe will or will not recollapse, but... there has been very little theoretical investigation of the greater part of spacetime. ...[T]he lead-up to the has received far less study than the aftermath of the Big Bang. Tipler sees the omega-point theory as filling that gap. ...[It] deserves to become the prevailing theory of the future of spacetime until and unless it is experimentally (or otherwise) refuted. (Experimental refutation is possible because the existence of an omega point in our future places certain constraints on the condition of the universe today.)"

"[H]ow would this work if the brain and computer were separated by several light years? And if not, then what difference does it make if 1032 years of death intervene before the simulation begins to run? ...continuity of consciousness?"

"Suppose there were a computer... which could run a completely faithful simulation of me—even a simulation at the quantum level so good the Pauli Exclusion Principle wouldn't let us in the same room. Would it be me? Would my consciousness somehow be shared..."

"What a pile of crap."

"Tipler makes... additional assumptions—some plausible, others less so—which enable him to fill in more details of future history. ...[His] quasi-religious interpretation... and his failure to distinguish that... from the underlying scientific theory, that have prevented the latter from being taken seriously."

"And how are we going to use the Higgs field to compute, organise information systems out of free quarks and pure energy... the Boundary Condition Postulate... that says that on Easter Day, 2001, Jesus Christ will return, raise the dead, etc. ...inevitable."

"Ok, the visible universe has around 1080 particles in it. The universe at Tipler's point of maximum expansion is, say, 10,000 times bigger... But... we're not using mere matter to store bits anymore. We're using (drumroll) the Higgs field... And when will this happen? ..."between 10−1010 and 10−10123 seconds before the Omega Point is reached". Whew, saved by the Gong of Doom."

"Wolfhart Pannenberg... suggested... there may exist a... universal physical field (analogous to Teilhard's "radial energy")... as the source of all life, and... identified with the Holy Spirit. ...[T]he universal wave function... is a... field with the essential features of Pannenberg's... "energy" field. ...If this identification is made ...as a matter of physics ...God is in the world, everywhere... with us... at all times."

"I take the last existing copy of the complete works of Tipler and heave it across the event horizon of my TidyTrash™ home black hole."

"[W]hy worry about a big rock hitting the Earth, destruction of the biosphere by inadvertent human action, accidental nuclear war..? Surely the Boundary Condition rules out those much smaller worries... Don't worry; be happy."

"I noted many apparent gaping holes in his arguments or assumptions of facts contrary to the best available knowledge... [V]irtually all... dismissed with the all-purpose argument: "...ruled out by the Omega Point Boundary Condition.""

"[H]ow... information will be reconstituted that will allow... resurrection of the dead. ...[N]o information has been lost (the black holes having been popped by a semi-mystical process...) ...admitting that opacity and thermalisation of information may present a bit of a problem ...we'll just ...conjure up a computer with a storage capacity of 101070 bits ...and to Hell with the lost information..."

"Tipler's Taub universe event horizon can opener makes the black hole horizon go away. What about the singularity? ...[Y]ou now have a very large number of naked singularities... converging toward the Omega Point, which should make things even more interesting for the universal brain emerging there."

"Tipler notes that an infinite amount of knowledge will have been created by the time of the omega point. He... assumes... the [far future] intelligences will, like us, want (or... need)... knowledge other than... necessary for... survival. ...[T]hey have the potential to discover all [physically knowable] knowledge, and Tipler assumes that they will do so. So in a sense, the omega point will be omniscient."

"Tipler says, it will be omnipotent. But... this... is not absolute. ...[I]t is strictly limited by the available matter and energy, and is subject to the laws of physics."

"[U]nless I'm missing something, the wheels fall off Starship Eternity."

"I don't have any trouble... imagining nanotechnology, von Neumann probes, AI exceeding human intelligence within 50 years, or the biosphere expanding to fill... the universe. But none of that is new, and Tipler tells it less clearly than others..."

"Tipler makes use of a handy linguistic device... common in mathematical physics... misleading if taken too literally. ...[T]o identify a limiting point of a sequence with the itself. ...What he does not mean is that there is that there is a knowing entity literally at the end point of ... there is no physical entity there at all. Thus... the knows nothing, and can... exist only because some... explanations... refer to the limiting properties of physical events..."

"[T]o really test the Theory, we will need the upgrade and either the SSC—the Texas Supercollider—or the European LHC. ...[P]erhaps it would be worth several billion dollars to establish that God exists, and that one day we will all be resurrected to live forever with Him/Her."

"With the introduction into physics of the Dirac/Dyson Eternal Life Postulate, science has taken the last independent stronghold of theology."