Scientist Nitwit Atheist Proves Existence of God
The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology and the
Resurrection of the Dead.   By Frank J. Tipler, 1994, New
York: Doubleday.  Cloth, 528 pp. $24.95.
Victor J. Stenger
Published in Free Inquiry 15(2), Spring 1995, p. 54-55.

	The book jacket to The Physics of Immortality tells
us that author Frank Tipler had arrived at a ". . .
stunning conclusion:   Using the most advanced and
sophisticated methods of modern physics, relying solely
on the rigorous procedures of logic that science demands,
he had created a proof of the existence of God."  
	Conservative radio newsman Paul Harvey obviously
had read the jacket when he exclaimed:  "Professor
Frank Tipler was a typical scientist nitwit and an
atheist.  As a physicist, he could not accept anything that
he could not prove.  But when he began to calculate the
ultimate end of the universe -  wow!  He discovered
God!" (Conservative Chronicle, October 26, 1994.)
	Tipler hedges no bets.  He assures the reader who
may have lost a loved one, or is afraid of death: "Be
comforted, you and they shall live again" (p. 1).  He
claims his deductions follow straight from the laws of
physics as we now understand them.
	Frank J. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical
Physics at Tulane University.  He is already well-known
from his earlier book, The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle, co-authored with John D. Barrow, that has
become an authorative source for the new generation of
Christian apologists who claim the science and religion
are converging, and that what they are converging on is
religion.  Before the apologists get too excited about
Tipler's latest effort, however, I urge them to read it
very carefully.
	Tipler's idea is not new, being the sort of thing
cosmologists prattle about when they sit around drinking
beer.  However, he has added a few wrinkles.  The author
argues that the robots we should be able to build by the
next century will ultimately spread themselves
throughout the universe, each generation of robot
producing ever-superior versions of itself.   He estimates
that robotic life will blanket the galaxy in a mere million
years.  In a hundred million years, it will spread to the
Virgo cluster of galaxies.  By then, homo sapiens will
likely have long vanished from the universe.
	Finally, after the passage of a billion billion years,
give or take a hundred billion years or so, the universe
will be uniformly populated with an extremely advanced
form of life that will be capable of feats far beyond
anyone's (but Tipler's) imagination.
	At that point, Tipler assumes the universe will
begin to contract toward what is called the big crunch,
the reverse of the big bang.  Now, it should be noted that
most cosmologists currently do not expect that the big
crunch will happen.  The best guess based on current
observation and theory is that the universe is open;  that
is, it will expand forever.   Tipler, however, claims that
his theory "predicts" that the universe is closed. 
It is a strange sort of scientific prediction, when a
desired result far in the future is used predict a current
fact.  But, at least we have a falsifiable claim: If
someday cosmologists convincingly demonstrate that the
universe is open, then Tipler will be refuted.
	Tipler makes other "predictions" such as the
masses of the top quark and Higgs boson.  But these are
essentially based on the unrelated calculations of others
and he is being a bit disingenuous to claim them as his
own.
	The big crunch is not sufficient for immortality. 
The crunch must happen in a highly specific way in order
to maintain causal contact across the universe and
provide sufficient energy for what life must then
accomplish in order to avoid extinction.  In other words,
the collapse of the universe must be very carefully
controlled.
	Now if Tipler believed in a supernatural cosmic
mind controlling everything, he could simply say
"anything is possible."  But he does not escape to
supernaturalism.  Rather he escapes to chaos.  He notes
that the equations of general relativity imply that the
collapse of the universe is chaotic, meaning that it is
very sensitive to the conditions that exist at the start of
the collapse.  According to Tipler, the "butterfly
effect" that characterizes chaos will be utilized to
guide the collapse of the universe.
	The advanced life form that evolves from our
twenty-first century robots must collapse the universe
in a highly controlled way.  Assuming it can manage this,
life then converges on what the French Jesuit Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin called the Omega Point.  Tipler
associates the Omega Point, as did Teilhard, with God.  
	Being the ultimate form of power and knowledge,
the Omega Point would also be the ultimate in Love. 
Loving us, it would proceed to resurrect all humans who
ever lived (along with their favorite pets and popular
endangered species).  This is accomplished by means of a
perfect computer simulation, what Tipler calls an
emulation. 
	Since each of us is defined by our DNA, the Omega
Point simply emulates all possible humans that could
ever live, which of course includes you and me.  Our
memories have long dissolved into entropy, but Omega
has us relive our lives in an instant, along with all the
other possible lives we could have lived.  Those that
Omega-God deems deserving will get to live even better
lives, including lots of sex with the most desirable
partners we can imagine.  Even this Tipler places on a
mathematical basis, computing the relative
"psychological impact" of meeting the most
beautiful women whose existence is logically possible
compared to simply the most beautiful woman in the
world.  He finds this to be [log1010^1,000,000]/[log1010^9] =
100,000 (p. 257).
	Those deemed undeserving by Omega will be put
through purgatories, but if they perform satisfactorily
they may gain heaven.  So, we can all correct our
mistakes.  I will live a life where I learn to hit a
curveball.  Hitler will live a life in which he is Jewish. 
Bill Clinton will be President over and over again until he
finally gets it right.  
	Tipler claims that the Omega Point represents the
God of Judeo-Christian religion.  Omega is the God of the
Jews who told Moses, in Hebrew, "Ehyeh Asher
Ehyeh" which Tipler translates as "I WILL BE WHAT
I WILL BE" in place of the conventional "I AM THAT
I AM."  Omega is the God of the early Christians who
will reassemble the complete bodies of all humans on
Judgment Day.  Omega is the God of Islam, who
continually destroys and recreates the universe from
moment to moment and provides for his warriors a
paradise of total pleasure.
	Tipler finds parallels of Omega Point immortality
with the views of rebirth in Taoism and early Hinduism. 
He finds Buddhism also consistent, interpreting nirvana
as "heaven" despite its literal meaning of
"extinction."  And not one to be politically
incorrect, Tipler finds parallels as well in African and
Native American religions.
	Scientists have been less kind than media reporters
in their evaluation of The Physics of Immortality.  George
Ellis starts his review in Nature magazine: "This has
to be one of the most misleading books ever produced . . . .
a masterpiece of pseudoscience."(Nature 371,
September 8, 1994, p. 115.)  Other prominent scientists
have called the book "awful" and accused Tipler of
writing it for the money.  Undoubtedly, Paul Harvey would
call them "nitwits," so I will not mention their
names.
	However, Harvey and other believers should read
The Physics of Immortality more carefully, though much
of the text is incomprehensible to non-physicists.  For
Tipler's Omega Point God is not the supernatural,
spiritual being that their religious leaders have
imagined.  Tipler's Omega is completely material
rather than spiritual, natural rather than supernatural. 
His resurrected humans do not have bodies or souls - they
are bits in a computer.  I doubt very much that this is
what Paul Harvey or the Pope have in mind.
	Is the Omega Point possible?  Who can say what
will happen a billion billion years in the future?  Tipler,
despite his claim, cannot predict that we will be
resurrected at the Omega Point.  And I can't predict
we will not be.  Maybe we are living a simulation right
now!  
	Others have imagined computers and robots as a
means for extending human survival.  While a purely
material immortality may be problematical, the chances
are surely better than those provided by supernatural
fantasies.  It's too bad Tipler makes his case so
poorly, providing so many targets for ridicule.  I am not
sure he isn't pulling our legs.
-----------------------------
Victor J. Stenger is professor of physics and astronomy
at the University of Hawaii and the author of Not By
Design:  The Origin of the Universe  (Prometheus Books,
1988) and Physics and Psychics:  The Search for a World
Beyond the Senses  (Prometheus Books, 1990).  He is
currently working on The Unconscious Quantum: 
Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology.