Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead II:Frank Tipler Does it with Physics

Penrose Diagram, for an Omega Point; Arrow is the "world-line" of a photon
from Wikimedia Commons

"It is our relative insignificance in time, not space, which is the real challenge posed by modern cosmology for traditional religion.  I shall show that this view leads naturally to a physical theory for an evolving God, which I term the Omega Point theory." Frank Tipler, "The Omega Point Theory: A Model of an Evolving God" in Physics, Philosophy and Theology--A Common Quest for Understanding

INTRODUCTION

In the post, Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead I: Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Logic, I discussed  Andrej Grib's proposition that there would be a "Big Crunch", the universe disappearing in a singularity.    Grib, in his article about this and quantum logic, referred to that Big Crunch being an "Omega Point", proposed by the Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin and later by the American physicist Frank Tipler.   I'll discuss Tipler's version (with which I disagree) in this post,  and then turn to that of de Chardin in a third.

PANTHEISM RUN RIOT?--TIPLER'S OMEGA POINT

If you do a Google search: "Frank Tipler Omega Point", you'll find several entries with the term "crackpot".    I won't go that far;  if you agree with Tipler's base assumptions, his arguments are cogent, to an extent.   These assumptions are listed below:

1. "...the possibility of a TOE [Theory of Everything]...might imply that there is only one logically possible universe. This would refute...the premise that God had some freedom of choice in creating the universe."
2. "An evolving God is very much in the world, creates it, and is created by it."
3. "...at the most basic ontological level there is nothing but physics and the 'stuff' studied by physics."
4. "...value is something connected with life, and thus if value is to remain in the universe, life must persist indefinitely;"
5. "...I claim that life is a form of information processing (the converse is not true) and the human mind--and the human soul--is a very complex computer program. [emphasis added]"
6. "...the future c-boundary of the universe consists of a single point--call it the 'Omega Point'." Frank Tipler, op.cit.

Let's examine these assumptions.   I don't disagree with #4 (which is not exactly the same as agreeing with it--there are quite a few qualifications that have to be added to make that statement satisfactory).    The pantheism implicit in #2 is rejected by Catholic teaching;  God transcends the universe even though He is immanent in it*.   I also reject the scientism implicit in #1 and #3;  I have posted

many articles** to the effect that much in the world cannot be explained by science, and that even in that prime example of physics theory, quantum mechanics, there is "a veiled reality" which science can not penetrate.  The proposition that  mind is nothing more than the emergent product of a meat computer,  the brain, is one with which many philosophers and scientists would disagree (including the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, and the philosophers of mind, John Sears and Thomas Nagel).

The term "c-boundary" comes from terminology devised by Roger Penrose in his  cyclic conformal cosmology thesis.  (And this thesis deserves a post, nay a chapter, on its own.)   The c-boundary is defined as the set of points which are not the pasts of any points or the future of any point in spacetime.  The c-boundary is essentially the "edges" of spacetime--the perimeter of the square, as in the diagram above.   As the list of terms in the link gives it, an Omega point is a c-boundary in which an infinite amount of information has been stored***.

Tipler's vision of the Omega Point is described in more detail in his book,  The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead.   In the far distant future the universe is contracting.   Super-intelligences (not necessarily carbon-based life) use the shear forces of this contraction for energy.   These intelligences are benevolent:  they can reconstruct and download personalities into computers, where they will live a virtual life (a la' Matrix?), happy and pleasurable.  This virtual life will be essentially eternal, since time will slow down as the universe approaches the Big Crunch (as if one were descending into a black hole).    One remarkable "benefit" of such a virtual life is romantic fulfillment:

"it would be possible for each male to be matched not merely with the most beautiful woman in the world, not merely with the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, but to be matched with the most beautiful woman whose existence is logically possible." Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality.

And what's the story for females, and those of non-heterosexual inclination? Certainly this is a picture of Heaven different from that given by Jesus:

"For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." Matt 22:30 (KJV)

I have raised objections above to Tipler's thesis, and it is evident that it does not correspond to a Catholic position on the transcendence of God, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment and being a saint in Heaven.

*See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Relation of God to the Universe.

**See, for example, "There's more to there than physics", "Philosopic Issues in Cosmology 4: Creatio ex Nihilo, Theology vs. Physics", "Are All Great Scientists Atheists?", "Tipping the Sacred Cow of Science: Confessions of a Science Agnostic"

***If you go to this link you'll see many terms that are used for Tipler's Omega Point thesis.

Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead I: Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Logic*

The Resurrection of Christ
James Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins 1 Cor:13-17 (KJV)

"So the same combinations of atoms, the same space volumes corresponding to human bodies, cars, buildings and so on, will come again.   All events in spacetime will be reorganized or 'resurrected'  but not in such a way that they will be in time...It is not that the dead will arise from their graves, as it were, but rather sets of events of any life can arise again,  together with the consciousness of those who were alive." Andrej Grib,  'Quantum Cosmology: Observer Logic' in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature--Perspectives on Divine Action**

INTRODUCTION

Easter, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, will soon be upon us, so it is appropriate to reflect on that resurrection and on the one which will be given to us, as Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians.   It is an article of faith for us as Catholics that we will be resurrected and that we will be judged on the Last Day.  Could there possibly be a basis for that belief in contemporary science?   Possibly, although as I will comment below, in the last analysis Revelation is more convincing than science.

A Russian mathematician, Andrej Grib (who is, I believe, a devout Christian), has  speculated on this possibility in an article in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature.   I'll attempt to summarize some of his novel ideas about how quantum mechanics is to be interpreted, what that means in terms of cosmology, and finally how it suggests the possibility of resurrection.

QUANTUM MECHANICS REQUIRES AN OBSERVER

Grib's fundamental thesis (relying on early interpretations of quantum mechanics by Von Neumann and London) is that quantum mechanics requires a measurement process and thus an observer must be the final link in the measurement chain,  in order that the measurement be meaningful.

"In the end the final observer is just the  abstract ego of the observer--the one who is the subject of observation [i.e. the one who observes]...So it is this abstract ego which is responsible for the collapse of the wave function.  This is a strong form of the subjective interpretation of quantum mechanics." Andrej Grib,  op. cit. , p 169

Accordingly, to speak of the wave function of the universe without specifying a measurement or an observer to make that measurement is "very bad philology" (to quote Grib), that is to say, contradictory to implicit assumptions on which quantum mechanics is based.***

Grib then links what appear to be puzzling features of quantum mechanics-- the uncertainty principle that says we can't get exact simultaneous measurements on complementary variables, the wave-particle duality, the entanglement of particle shown in Bell's Theorem experiments--to the following.  The human mind operates by Boolean logic, whereas the universe in fundamental reality is governed by a non-Boolean logic, a quantum logic, which I'll discuss below.

QUANTUM LOGIC****

Quantum logic violates the distribution law of Boolean logic.
Consider events or logical statements A, B, C.    The Boolean distribution law says A*(B+C) = A*B + A*C, or in words,
[A and (B or C)] =  (A and B)  or (A and C)
where "and" , "or" are logical conjunctions.   (See this link for a nice illustration applied to circuit theory.)

But in quantum logic, that equality does NOT hold.    What does this means, physically?

Boolean Logic--Newtonian Physics
from Wikimedia Commons

Quantum Logic--Particles as Waves
From Wikimedia Commons

Consider the double slit experiment, shown in the illustration to the left ("Boolean Logic").   If a beam of particles passes through the two slits and behaves according to classical physics you'd expect two spots on the detecting screen, more or less opposite each slit.     Now suppose you have quantum behavior ("Quantum Logic) as shown in the illustration to the right.  You have a beam of particles--photons, electrons (whatever!)--passing through the two slits.  If one takes A to mean a particle hits the screen, B that it has passed through the upper slit and C that it has passed through the lower slit, then the classical experiment would have particle passing either through the upper slit and hitting the screen more or less opposite that slit (A and B), or passing through the lower slit and hitting the screen more or less opposite that slit (A and C).   But that is NOT what happens.   Instead you get each individual particle behaving as if it were part of a wave and "knew" about both slits.

In other words, the logical terms B and C can't be separated into B or C, it remains B and C in quantum logic.  A particle goes through both upper and lower slits at the same time, as does a wave-front.

BOOLEAN MINDS, A NON-BOOLEAN UNIVERSE, THE BIG CRUNCH

Our minds, Grib says, operate in a Boolean logic mode.   We cannot apprehend non-Boolean logic, whence the apparent mysteries of quantum mechanics.   The perception of time itself is a consequence of this Boolean mind / non-Boolean universe dichotomy.   We must experience events separately and in succession, as past, present and future, even though the physics of relativity suggests they are conjoined, that is to say are not really separated in that non-Boolean universe.

In the short space of this blog post I won't attempt to show how this reasoning leads to a quantum cosmology.  (To be frank, I don't altogether understand it myself).    But it is a consequence of the cosmology engendered by this quantum logic that there will be a "Big Crunch":  instead of a continual expansion of space-time there will be a reversal, a contraction and, as given in the introductory quote,  events and material things will come again, as in a resurrection of everything.

Grib suggests that in this case, Revelation may be a better guide to what "will" happen. ("will"--a future tense--seems out of place given his joining past, present and future together.)

"The idea of the collapse of the wave-function of the universe after the Big Crunch corresponds to these lives coming into a new existence where different weights will be given to different events [emphasis added].   Some of the events could be annihilated (i.e. have zero weight), which is very close to the idea of The Last Judgment).   How can we know in this life what will, and what will not be important for the eternal life after the Big Crunch?  The only sure answer is Revelation [emphasis and upper-case added]." op. cit., p. 181

MY TAKE 

I agree with Grib's last sentence in the quote above: "The only sure answer is Revelation."    This attitude is not an appeal to fideism, that through faith only will we know what is truly important.   Rather, it concedes that our knowledge of material things is limited, that there is a "veiled reality" concealing the fundamental nature of things.   

Science changes.   What we take as established today may be tossed in the dust-bin a hundred years from now.   Revelation does indeed supersede scientific theory, because it is the Word of God.  

One final note:  this was published by error before I finished the article--in fact, before I did anything but the title.   I apologize to those readers who came to a blank page.

NOTES

*I've retitled this to be the first of a series of three on scientific ideas about the Resurrection of the dead, versus Catholic teaching.

**Press on the green book icon and chapter summary will appear on the right; press on that by Grib to get a summary.

***Grib also expounds on Fritz London's ideas about consciousness as final agent for quantum mechanical measurement:

"According to London and Bauer the main feature of consciousness is introspection:  in giving an account to myself of the state in which I am, I know that what I see now is white rather than black, and I know that I know."  op. cit. p. 170

****For a brief account of the relevant features of quantum mechanics see
Quantum Divine Action via God, the Berkeleyan Observer.... and links and references therein.