"I agree. If I believed that I and those I love will irreversibly cease to exist after death, I would plunge into a despair so deep that I would jump off the closest window."
COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER.
That is exactly how I feel
I agree with your article 99.9 percent. (because no person can agree with another person's article exactly 100percent)
I think he will. He is persuaded that we already know enough physics to formulate rigorous scientific theories about these things, and that his theory is a rigorous scientific theory. I disagree. I like the spirit of his theories, but I believe that the letter is only a very preliminary sketch.
He assumes that the laws of fundamental physics that we have found so far (general relativity, quantum field theory, standard model) are correct and applicable, and he claims that his theory is a rigorous mathematical implication of those fundamental laws. He says that all evidence confirms that his assumption is correct, because we haven't found violations of those fundamental laws (general relativity, quantum field theory, standard model) in the lab.
Concerning Frank Tipler, I too was impressed with his book "The Physics Of Immortality" when it was first published back in 1994, but not so much now because he made a number of predictions and said that if even one of those predictions turned out to be wrong his entire theory could not work. And most of Tipler's predictions did turn out to be wrong, some spectacularly so.
Tipler predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, stop, then change direction and collapse in on itself. From the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could extract an infinite amount of energy and use that energy to perform an infinite number of calculations, not a very large number of them an infinite number of them. We now know that due to Dark Energy discovered in 1998 (which he did NOT predict) that the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating, so that fireball will never happen.
And there were other errors. Tipler said the Higgs boson must be at 220GEV +- 20 , but we now know it is 125.3GEV +- .5 . And Tipler said the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45 but it's about 70. We don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did. More than one of his predictions was wrong so if we take Tipler at his word his theory must be wrong.
As for Tipler's 2007 Book "The Physics of Christianity" ... what can I say ....It's hard to believe it's not a parody joke book, but apparently it's not. He said we should look for DNA on the Shroud of Turin (that for some unstated reason he is certain is not a fake ) because we should be able to distinguish between divine DNA and regular DNA because Original Sin is a gene and obviously Jesus had no Original Sin in his DNA. Tipler said that Jesus managed to walk on water by "directing a neutrino beam downward from his feet" and that's also how the Virgin Mary ascended into the clouds when she died, so he recommends we check for radiation around the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Mary that would have been caused by that intense beam of neutrinos that shot out of the bottom of her feet. I'm not joking, Tipler said all that, and sadly I don't think Tipler was joking either.
I don't believe any of these "scientific" arguments convince Tipler that Christianity is true, instead he believes that Christianity is true because his mommy and daddy told him it was true from the moment he learned how to talk, it's the same reason almost everybody belongs to the same religious franchise that their parents did. In that regard, although everybody gets older, most don't mature.
Hi John. As I say in the post I read Tipler's works "as visionary, inspiring science fiction on steroids, scientifically plausible enough to suspend disbelief in the possibility that future science might have something hopeful to say about life after death." So I don't have to believe everything he says to appreciate his theory. Others will build on it and correct mistakes and omissions and all that, as it always happens in science.
"The Physics of Christianity" is not a science (fiction) masterpiece like "The Physics of Immortality," but it does contain interesting hunches. For example, despite current experimental results, the expansion of the universe *will* "slow down, stop, then change direction and collapse in on itself" ... because *we ourselves* will force the reversal of the expansion of the universe when our technology is good enough. And since we are an integral part of the universe (ref. quotes on determinism and free will), this can be seen as a natural process.
The quotes on determinism and free will show that Tipler anticipated concepts of global determinism (or as I prefer to call it libertarian determinism) that are emerging.
By the way read Wilson's book, I think you'll like it, at times he sounds like you.
"I agree. If I believed that I and those I love will irreversibly cease to exist after death, I would plunge into a despair so deep that I would jump off the closest window."
COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER.
That is exactly how I feel
I agree with your article 99.9 percent. (because no person can agree with another person's article exactly 100percent)
Thank you Sergey! Say something about the other 0.01 percent?
0.01 one perfent is abiut Frank Tipler being mad over your article. I don't think he will be.
I think he will. He is persuaded that we already know enough physics to formulate rigorous scientific theories about these things, and that his theory is a rigorous scientific theory. I disagree. I like the spirit of his theories, but I believe that the letter is only a very preliminary sketch.
You mean he is not comfortable aknowledging we don't have enough evidence to establish conclusion?
He assumes that the laws of fundamental physics that we have found so far (general relativity, quantum field theory, standard model) are correct and applicable, and he claims that his theory is a rigorous mathematical implication of those fundamental laws. He says that all evidence confirms that his assumption is correct, because we haven't found violations of those fundamental laws (general relativity, quantum field theory, standard model) in the lab.
Concerning Frank Tipler, I too was impressed with his book "The Physics Of Immortality" when it was first published back in 1994, but not so much now because he made a number of predictions and said that if even one of those predictions turned out to be wrong his entire theory could not work. And most of Tipler's predictions did turn out to be wrong, some spectacularly so.
Tipler predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, stop, then change direction and collapse in on itself. From the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could extract an infinite amount of energy and use that energy to perform an infinite number of calculations, not a very large number of them an infinite number of them. We now know that due to Dark Energy discovered in 1998 (which he did NOT predict) that the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating, so that fireball will never happen.
And there were other errors. Tipler said the Higgs boson must be at 220GEV +- 20 , but we now know it is 125.3GEV +- .5 . And Tipler said the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45 but it's about 70. We don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did. More than one of his predictions was wrong so if we take Tipler at his word his theory must be wrong.
As for Tipler's 2007 Book "The Physics of Christianity" ... what can I say ....It's hard to believe it's not a parody joke book, but apparently it's not. He said we should look for DNA on the Shroud of Turin (that for some unstated reason he is certain is not a fake ) because we should be able to distinguish between divine DNA and regular DNA because Original Sin is a gene and obviously Jesus had no Original Sin in his DNA. Tipler said that Jesus managed to walk on water by "directing a neutrino beam downward from his feet" and that's also how the Virgin Mary ascended into the clouds when she died, so he recommends we check for radiation around the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Mary that would have been caused by that intense beam of neutrinos that shot out of the bottom of her feet. I'm not joking, Tipler said all that, and sadly I don't think Tipler was joking either.
I don't believe any of these "scientific" arguments convince Tipler that Christianity is true, instead he believes that Christianity is true because his mommy and daddy told him it was true from the moment he learned how to talk, it's the same reason almost everybody belongs to the same religious franchise that their parents did. In that regard, although everybody gets older, most don't mature.
John K Clark
Hi John. As I say in the post I read Tipler's works "as visionary, inspiring science fiction on steroids, scientifically plausible enough to suspend disbelief in the possibility that future science might have something hopeful to say about life after death." So I don't have to believe everything he says to appreciate his theory. Others will build on it and correct mistakes and omissions and all that, as it always happens in science.
"The Physics of Christianity" is not a science (fiction) masterpiece like "The Physics of Immortality," but it does contain interesting hunches. For example, despite current experimental results, the expansion of the universe *will* "slow down, stop, then change direction and collapse in on itself" ... because *we ourselves* will force the reversal of the expansion of the universe when our technology is good enough. And since we are an integral part of the universe (ref. quotes on determinism and free will), this can be seen as a natural process.
The quotes on determinism and free will show that Tipler anticipated concepts of global determinism (or as I prefer to call it libertarian determinism) that are emerging.
By the way read Wilson's book, I think you'll like it, at times he sounds like you.
Oh that he has founs theory of everythin. Long way to go to that