The Omega Point and The Meaning of Life

I tried asking Wiki what the meaning of life is, and was referred to a write-up of Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Specifically, the number 42.

Excerpt:

In Douglas Adams’ popular comedy book series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything has the numeric solution of 42, which was derived over seven and a half million years by a giant supercomputer called Deep Thought. After much confusion from the descendants of his creators, Deep Thought explains that the problem is that they do not know the Ultimate Question[1], and they would have to build an even more powerful computer to determine what that is. This computer is revealed to be Earth, which, after 10 million years of calculating, is destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass moments before it finishes calculations.[163][9][14] In Life, the Universe and Everything, it is confirmed that 42 is indeed the Ultimate Answer, and that it is impossible for both the Ultimate Answer and the Ultimate Question to be known about in the same universe, as they will cancel each other out and take the universe with them, to be replaced by something even more bizarre, and that this may have already happened

Imagine that! Earth as a supercomputer. The answer to the ultimate question to life is revealed by the number 42, and while we might know the answer, we do not really know the ultimate question from which this answer stems. Or something like that.

If Earth is a supercomputer, does that mean God is a programmer? HERE is a funny answer.

This is beginning to make a bit more sense - life’s a giant Sims simulation, and we are living inside a giant supercomputer, Neo.

Here’s where it gets trippy: The Omega Point.

Wired: God is the Machine

Probably the trippiest science book ever written is The Physics of Immortality, by Frank Tipler. If this book was labeled standard science fiction, no one would notice, but Tipler is a reputable physicist and Tulane University professor who writes papers for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics. In Immortality, he uses current understandings of cosmology and computation to declare that all living beings will be bodily resurrected after the universe dies. His argument runs roughly as follows: As the universe collapses upon itself in the last minutes of time, the final space-time singularity creates (just once) infinite energy and computing capacity. In other words, as the giant universal computer keeps shrinking in size, its power increases to the point at which it can simulate precisely the entire historical universe, past and present and possible. He calls this state the Omega Point. It is a computational space that can resurrect “from the dead” all the minds and bodies that have ever lived. The weird thing is that Tipler was an atheist when he developed this theory and discounted as mere “coincidence” the parallels between his ideas and the Christian doctrine of Heavenly Resurrection. Since then, he says, science has convinced him that the two may be identical.

Sounds quite familiar: 1 Thessalonians Ch 4:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Tipler’s got a new book on his website: The Physics of Christianity

Tipler begins by outlining the basic concepts of physics for the lay reader and brings to light the underlying connections between physics and theology. In a compelling example, he illustrates how the God depicted by the Jews and Christians is completely consistent with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existence is required by physics. His discussion of the scientific possibility of miracles provides an impressive, credible scientific foundation for many of Christianity’s most astonishing claims, including the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation. He even includes specific outlines for practical experiments that can help prove the validity of the “miracles” at the heart of Christianity.

Interesting indeed.