Omega Point

Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. Rather than divinity being found "in the heavens" he held that evolution was a process converging toward a "final unity", identical with the Eschaton and with God. According to Chardin and the Russian scholar and biologist Vladimir Vernadsky (author of The Geosphere 1924 and The Biosphere 1926), the planet is in a transformative process, metamorphosing from the biosphere into the noosphere.

Omega point is reprised by the mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler to describe a hypothetical cosmological scenario in the far future of the Universe. According to his omega point theory, as the Universe comes to an end in a specific kind of Big Crunch, the computational capacity of the Universe will be accelerating exponentially faster than time runs out. In principle, a simulation run on this Universe-computer can thus continue forever in its own terms, even though the Universe the computer is in lasts only a finite time. The omega point theory assumes that certain cosmological parameters have values that require the universe to eventually contract, and that there will be intelligent civilizations in existence at the appropriate time to exploit the computational capacity of such an environment.

Tipler identifies this asymptotic state of infinite information capacity with God. The implication of this theory for present-day humans is that this ultimate cosmic computer will essentially be able to resurrect ("simulate" might be a more modest verb) everyone who has ever lived, by recreating all possible quantum brain states within the master simulation. This will be manifested as a simulated reality, except without the necessity for physical bodies. From the perspective of the simulated "inhabitant," the Omega Point represents an infinite-duration afterlife, which could take any imaginable form due to its virtual nature.

Tipler crucially predicated his omega point theory on an eventual Big Crunch, now thought to be an unlikely scenario by virtue of a number of recent astronomical observations. Tipler has recently amended his views to accommodate an accelerating universe, if the acceleration results from a positive cosmological constant. He proposes baryon tunnelling as a means of propelling interstellar spacecraft. If the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by this process, then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant, stopping the acceleration, and allowing the universe to collapse into the omega point.

Transhumanists argue on the basis of the accelerating technological development inherent in The Law of Accelerating Returns, that within 20-140 years into the future we will arrive at what John Von Neumann called a "technological singularity" or "prediction wall" in which humans will be semi-aware components of a computerised social structure of such complexity that no one person or group of persons can understand more than a tiny fraction of the whole. They believe we will soon enter a time in which we must eventually make the transition to a "runaway positive feedback loop" in high-level autonomous machine computation. The result is a technological Omega Point, in which our human tools eventually completely surpass human capacities.

Omega Point in Popular Culture

 * In the Isaac Asimov short-story "The Last Question" (in the Book "Robot Dreams"), Humanity merges its collective consciousness with its own creation: an all-powerful cosmic computer. The resulting intelligence spends eternity working out whether The Last Question can be answered; the The Last Question is "Can entropy ever be reversed". When the intelligence discovers that entropy can be reversed, it does so with the command: LET THERE BE LIGHT.
 * The musical band Mr. Bungle references the Omega Point in the song "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" on the album "California."
 * In Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a book by Charles Sheffield, the main character Drake Merlin is on a quest to cure his sick wife. He has her frozen and then freezes himself to hope the future holds the cure. Eventually, he finds that the only hope to having her back is to wait out the aeons until the Omega Point, at which time she will again be accessable.