James Redford
2015-04-17 23:16:40 UTC
A *god* (minuscule G) is an immortal sapient being who is still finite
at any given time. Whereas *God* (majuscule G) is the infinite sapient
being.
As physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler noted, "Any
cosmology with unlimited progress will end in God." (See Anthony
Liversidge, interview of Frank Tipler, "A Physicist Proposes a Theory
of Eternal Life that Yields God", Omni, Vol. 17, No. 1 [Oct. 1994],
pp. 89 ff. [8 pp.].) This means that, e.g., any form of immortality
necessarily entails the existence of the capital-G God, in the sense
of an omniscient, omnipotent and personal being with infinite
computational resources. This is mathematically unavoidable, for the
reason that any finite state will eventually undergo the Eternal
Return per the Quantum Recurrence Theorem. This is very easy to see by
considering the simple example of two bits, which have only four
possible states (i.e., 2^2): hence, once these four states have been
exhausted, states will have to recur. What that means is that any
finite state can only have a finite number of experiences (i.e.,
different states), because any finite state will eventually start to
repeat.
Thus, immortality is logically inseparable from the existence of the
capital-G God, since mathematically, immortality requires the
existence of either an infinite computational state or a finite state
which diverges to an infinite computational state (i.e., diverging to
literal Godhead in all its fullness), thus allowing for states to
never repeat and hence an infinite number of experiences.
Consequently, transhumanism--if the goal by that position is
immortality--is inherently theistic, not only in a lowercase-G god
sense, but also in the capital-G God sense.
Interestingly, this also means that the existence of biological
evolution, far from demonstrating that God is unnecessary, is in fact
a logical proof of God's existence *unless* one posits the additional
postulate that there is a limit to evolution. Yet there is no logical
limit to evolution other than infinite complexity; and there exists no
empirical evidence that evolution is finitely-bounded. Thus, to
believe that evolution has a finite cut-off would be to hold a belief
without evidence, and thus it would be an irrational belief.
The concept of man being gods and becoming ever-more Godlike is simply
traditional Christianity, going all the way back to Jesus's teachings
(e.g., see John 10:34), that of Paul and the other Epistlers, and that
of the Church Fathers. In traditional Christian theology, this is
known as apotheosis, theosis or divinization. For many examples of
these early teachings, see the article "Divinization (Christian)",
Wikipedia, Apr. 14, 2015,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Divinization_%28Christian%29&oldid=656379874
. Though this traditional position of Christian theology has been
deemphasized for the last millennium.
Indeed, the words "transhumanism" and "superhumanism" originated in
Christian theology. "Transhumanism" is a neologism coined by Dante
Alighieri in his Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto I, lines 70-72),
referring favorably to a mortal human who became an immortal god by
means of eating a special plant. For the Christian theological origin
of the term "superhumanism", see the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd
ed.), the first appearance being by Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of
Manchester, in his Al Mondo: Contemplatio Mortis, & Immortalitatis
(London, England: Robert Barker, and the Assignes of John Bill, 1636).
Moreover, Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology is a proof (i.e.,
mathematical theorem) demonstrating that sapient life (in the form of,
e.g., immortal superintelligent human-mind computer-uploads and
artificial intelligences) is required by the known laws of physics
(viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and
Quantum Mechanics) to take control over all matter in the universe,
for said life to eventually force the collapse of the universe, and
for the computational resources of the universe (in terms of both
processor speed and memory space) to diverge to infinity as the
universe collapses into a final singularity, termed the Omega Point.
Said Omega Point cosmology is also an intrinsic component of the
Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of
Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in
physics, of which TOE is itself mathematically forced by the aforesaid
known physical laws. The Omega Point cosmology has been published and
extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.
The Omega Point final singularity has all the unique properties
(quiddities) claimed for God in the traditional religions. For much
more on Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the details on how it
uniquely conforms to, and precisely matches, the cosmology described
in the New Testament, see my following article, which also addresses
the societal implications of the Omega Point cosmology:
James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of
Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012
(orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF,
1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 ,
https://archive.org/details/ThePhysicsOfGodAndTheQuantumGravityTheoryOfEverything
, http://theophysics.host56.com/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf ,
https://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/redford-physics-of-god.pdf
,
http://sites.google.com/site/physicotheism/home/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf
.
Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain
very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point
cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard
Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of
Tipler. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of
these videos.
James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's
Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?",
alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: ***@4ax.com
, July 30, 2013,
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sci.astro/KQWt4KcpMVo ,
http://archive.today/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS . The
plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5:
b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761, http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp ,
http://webcitation.org/6WGd90MBa , http://archive.today/cVRmc .
----------------------------------------
James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science
Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 4, 2011 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2001),
doi:10.2139/ssrn.1337761, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 ,
http://theophysics.host56.com/anarchist-jesus.pdf ,
http://webcitation.org/66AIz2rJw
Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theorem and the quantum gravity
Theory of Everything [TOE]), http://theophysics.host56.com ,
http://theophysics.freevar.com
at any given time. Whereas *God* (majuscule G) is the infinite sapient
being.
As physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler noted, "Any
cosmology with unlimited progress will end in God." (See Anthony
Liversidge, interview of Frank Tipler, "A Physicist Proposes a Theory
of Eternal Life that Yields God", Omni, Vol. 17, No. 1 [Oct. 1994],
pp. 89 ff. [8 pp.].) This means that, e.g., any form of immortality
necessarily entails the existence of the capital-G God, in the sense
of an omniscient, omnipotent and personal being with infinite
computational resources. This is mathematically unavoidable, for the
reason that any finite state will eventually undergo the Eternal
Return per the Quantum Recurrence Theorem. This is very easy to see by
considering the simple example of two bits, which have only four
possible states (i.e., 2^2): hence, once these four states have been
exhausted, states will have to recur. What that means is that any
finite state can only have a finite number of experiences (i.e.,
different states), because any finite state will eventually start to
repeat.
Thus, immortality is logically inseparable from the existence of the
capital-G God, since mathematically, immortality requires the
existence of either an infinite computational state or a finite state
which diverges to an infinite computational state (i.e., diverging to
literal Godhead in all its fullness), thus allowing for states to
never repeat and hence an infinite number of experiences.
Consequently, transhumanism--if the goal by that position is
immortality--is inherently theistic, not only in a lowercase-G god
sense, but also in the capital-G God sense.
Interestingly, this also means that the existence of biological
evolution, far from demonstrating that God is unnecessary, is in fact
a logical proof of God's existence *unless* one posits the additional
postulate that there is a limit to evolution. Yet there is no logical
limit to evolution other than infinite complexity; and there exists no
empirical evidence that evolution is finitely-bounded. Thus, to
believe that evolution has a finite cut-off would be to hold a belief
without evidence, and thus it would be an irrational belief.
The concept of man being gods and becoming ever-more Godlike is simply
traditional Christianity, going all the way back to Jesus's teachings
(e.g., see John 10:34), that of Paul and the other Epistlers, and that
of the Church Fathers. In traditional Christian theology, this is
known as apotheosis, theosis or divinization. For many examples of
these early teachings, see the article "Divinization (Christian)",
Wikipedia, Apr. 14, 2015,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Divinization_%28Christian%29&oldid=656379874
. Though this traditional position of Christian theology has been
deemphasized for the last millennium.
Indeed, the words "transhumanism" and "superhumanism" originated in
Christian theology. "Transhumanism" is a neologism coined by Dante
Alighieri in his Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto I, lines 70-72),
referring favorably to a mortal human who became an immortal god by
means of eating a special plant. For the Christian theological origin
of the term "superhumanism", see the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd
ed.), the first appearance being by Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of
Manchester, in his Al Mondo: Contemplatio Mortis, & Immortalitatis
(London, England: Robert Barker, and the Assignes of John Bill, 1636).
Moreover, Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology is a proof (i.e.,
mathematical theorem) demonstrating that sapient life (in the form of,
e.g., immortal superintelligent human-mind computer-uploads and
artificial intelligences) is required by the known laws of physics
(viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and
Quantum Mechanics) to take control over all matter in the universe,
for said life to eventually force the collapse of the universe, and
for the computational resources of the universe (in terms of both
processor speed and memory space) to diverge to infinity as the
universe collapses into a final singularity, termed the Omega Point.
Said Omega Point cosmology is also an intrinsic component of the
Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of
Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in
physics, of which TOE is itself mathematically forced by the aforesaid
known physical laws. The Omega Point cosmology has been published and
extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.
The Omega Point final singularity has all the unique properties
(quiddities) claimed for God in the traditional religions. For much
more on Prof. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the details on how it
uniquely conforms to, and precisely matches, the cosmology described
in the New Testament, see my following article, which also addresses
the societal implications of the Omega Point cosmology:
James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of
Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012
(orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF,
1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 ,
https://archive.org/details/ThePhysicsOfGodAndTheQuantumGravityTheoryOfEverything
, http://theophysics.host56.com/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf ,
https://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/redford-physics-of-god.pdf
,
http://sites.google.com/site/physicotheism/home/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf
.
Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain
very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point
cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard
Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of
Tipler. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of
these videos.
James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's
Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?",
alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: ***@4ax.com
, July 30, 2013,
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sci.astro/KQWt4KcpMVo ,
http://archive.today/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS . The
plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5:
b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761, http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp ,
http://webcitation.org/6WGd90MBa , http://archive.today/cVRmc .
----------------------------------------
James Redford, author of "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science
Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 4, 2011 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2001),
doi:10.2139/ssrn.1337761, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 ,
http://theophysics.host56.com/anarchist-jesus.pdf ,
http://webcitation.org/66AIz2rJw
Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist (a website with information
on Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point Theorem and the quantum gravity
Theory of Everything [TOE]), http://theophysics.host56.com ,
http://theophysics.freevar.com