From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Aug 23 1998 - 11:57:34 MDT
Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> writes:
> Would someone briefly summarize Tipler's argument here? The local library
> doesn't carry The Physics of Immortality and I don't want to buy the book
> to find out.
The quick version:
1. Tipler shows that it is possible under certain conditions (closed
universe, Taub-like collapse, Higgs mass in a certain range etc) to
have an Omega Point (infinite processing, info storage and life goes
on forever).
[ This part is fairly accepted, people might disagree with the
feasibility of some steps (like extracting the shear energy of the
universe, colonizing it all or surviving as high frequency plasma
states) but it is mainly "technical" problems. Nothing more than
ordinary cosmological engineering :-) ]
2. Tipler hypothesizes that the universe has a future Omega Point as a
boundary condition. This would force the natural laws to be of the
right kind to support an OP, and require at least one intelligent
species to implement the OP. This is falsifiable, since the
assumptions can be checked.
[2 is a big hypothesis to swallow, it is by no means obvious and may
contain some real subtelities when you take the MWI into account. But
it is still logical, even if Occam is standing by with his razor.]
3. Tipler argues on economical and game theoretical grounds that the
OP or beings near it will be very nice, and since they will have lots
of computing power to spare they will resurrect everybody who has ever
lived into a wonderful virtual world. He looks into this state,
discuss the complications of simulation vs. emulation, compares it to
traditional afterlives etc.
[ This is the weak part. His argument isn't that bad, but it makes it
all look silly and makes people confuse the science and religion
parts. It isn't necessary, and as some here would argue we can't
predict anything about SIs. ]
I have more at http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/tipler_page.html
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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