Omega Point

Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) to denote the state of the maximum organized complexity (complexity combined with centrality), towards which the universe is evolving.

In this theory, developed by Teilhard in The Future of Man (1950), the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness, a theory of evolution that Teilhard called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. For Teilhard, the universe can only move in the direction of more complexity and consciousness if it is being drawn by a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. Thus Teilhard postulates the Omega Point as this supreme point of complexity and consciousness, which in his view is the actual cause for the universe to grow in complexity and consciousness. In other words, the Omega Point exists as supremely complex and conscious, transcendent and independent of the evolving universe. Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from true God," and "through him all things were made."

Teilhard's term recurs in later writings, such as those of John David Garcia (1971), Frank Tipler (1994) or Ray Kurzweil, as well as in science fiction literature.

Five attributes of the Omega Point
Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man states that the Omega Point must possess the following five attributes. It is:
 * 1) Already existing. Only thus can the rise of the universe towards higher stages of consciousness be explained.
 * 2) Personal – an intellectual being and not an abstract idea or a human collective. The increasing complexity of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more personalization, of which human beings are the highest attained form in the known universe. They are completely individualized, free centers of operation. It is in this way that man is said to be made in the image of God, who is the highest form of personality. Teilhard expressly stated that in the Omega Point, when the universe becomes One, human persons will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. This is because the Omega Point unites creation, and the more it unites, the increasing complexity of the universe aids in higher levels of consciousness. Thus, as God creates, the universe evolves towards higher forms of complexity, consciousness, and finally with humans, personality, because God, who is drawing the universe towards Him, is a person.
 * 3) Transcendent. The Omega Point cannot be the result of the universe's final complex stage of itself on consciousness. Instead, the Omega Point must exist even before the universe's evolution, because the Omega Point is responsible for the rise of the universe towards more complexity, consciousness and personality. Which essentially means that the Omega Point is outside the framework in which the universe rises, because it is by the attraction of the Omega Point that the universe evolves towards Him.
 * 4) Autonomous. That is, free from the limitations of space (nonlocality) and time (atemporality).
 * 5) Irreversible. That is attainable and imperative; it must happen and cannot be undone.

Teilhard foresees that at the approaches to the Omega Point, mankind will, for the last time, become split over the concept of its final state. The overwhelming majority will erroneously imagine the final state as a collective technological singularity within the framework of the current physical laws. A tiny minority will remain loyal to the idea of a supernatural singularity in Christ, "transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible universe": "Enormous powers will he liberated in mankind by the inner play of its cohesion: though it may be that this energy will still be employed discordantly tomorrow, as today and in the past. Are we to foresee a mechanising synergy under brute force, or a synergy of sympathy? Are we to foresee man seeking to fulfil himself collectively upon himself, or personally on a greater than himself? Refusal or acceptance of Omega? A conflict may supervene. In that case the noosphere, in the course of and by virtue of the process which draws it together, will, when it has reached its point of unification, split into two zones each attracted to an opposite pole of adoration. Thought has never completely united upon itself here below. Universal love would only vivify and detach finally a fraction of the noosphere so as to consummate it—the part which decided to ‘cross the threshold’, to get outside itself into the other. Ramification once again, for the last time. <...> The death of the materially exhausted planet; the split of the noosphere, divided on the form to be given to its unity; and simultaneously (endowing the event with all its significance and with all its value) the liberation of that percentage of the universe which, across time, space and evil, will have succeeded in laboriously synthesising itself to the very end. Not an indefinite progress, which is an hypothesis contradicted by the convergent nature of noogenesis, but an ecstasy transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible universe. <...>

The idea is that of noogenesis ascending irreversibly towards Omega through the strictly limited cycle of a geogenesis. At a given moment in the future, under some influence exerted by one or the other of these curves or of both together, it is inevitable that the two branches should separate. However convergent it be, evolution cannot attain to fulfilment on earth except through a point of dissociation. With this we are introduced to a fantastic and inevitable event which now begins to take shape in our perspective, the event which comes nearer with every day that passes: the end of all life on our globe, the death of the planet, the ultimate phase of the phenomenon of man."

- Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de

Technological singularity as a rival concept
Some transhumanists argue that the accelerating technological progress inherent in the Law of Accelerating Returns will, in the relatively near future, lead to what Vernor Vinge called a technological singularity or "prediction wall." These transhumanists 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. A result will be that our technological and computational tools eventually completely surpass human capacities. Some transhumanist writings refer to this moment as the Omega Point, paying homage to Teilhard's prior use of the term, though Teilhard himself denounced the belief in a collective technological singularity as a form of cowardice (see Five attributes of the Omega Point). Other transhumanists, in particular Ray Kurzweil, refer to the technological singularity as simply "The Singularity".

Science fiction literature

 * In the 1937 science fiction novel Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, what later came to be called the Omega Point by Teilhard de Chardin was reached when the Cosmic Mind encountered the Star Maker (the Creator of the Cosmos).
 * In the Isaac Asimov short-story The Last Question, Humanity merges its collective consciousness with its own creation: an all-powerful cosmic computer. The resulting intelligence contemplates the cyclic nature of the universe, ending with a twist.
 * In Childhood's End, a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, the destiny of humanity - as well as most of the other intelligent species in the universe - seems to merge with an overall cosmic intelligence.
 * In Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos, the Omega Point is used extensively. The catholic priest character Father Hoyt/Duré who is introduced to the story frame as one of the pilgrims in the first two volumes of the tetralogy (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion) eventually becomes Pope Teilhard I.
 * In Darwinia, a novel by Robert Charles Wilson, a mysterious event in the first decade of the twentieth century transforms Europe into an immeasurably strange place, full of hitherto unknown flora and fauna, and it is revealed at the very end that the entire story is a tiny part of a virtual war inside what is effectively an Omega Point metacomputer at the end of time.
 * In the first part of Poul Anderson's novel Harvest of Stars, North America is ruled by the Avantists, an oppressive pseudo-religious regime that draws its justification from a commitment to take humanity to what they call the Omega Point. It uses the Greek infinity symbol as a logo, and it is deemed politically correct to greet each other with "alpha", to which the reply is "omega". However, since the Avantist Advisory Synod believes in social engineering and technical progress as the means to advance humanity, its teachings are in fact transhumanist.
 * In Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a novel by Charles Sheffield, the main character Drake Merlin is on a quest to cure his dying 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 accessible.
 * George Zebrowski wrote a trilogy of space opera novellas, collectively called The Omega Point Trilogy and published as a single volume in 1983. The name appears to be a coincidence; it predates Tipler by many years and does not involve any of the Omega Point ideas listed above.
 * In Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, the Omega Point is a repository for the souls of the dead of all sentient species in the Universe. It is implied that this is also the point to which the universe will eventually collapse.
 * Humayun Ahmed's novel Omega Point (2000) concerns multiverses, a developing theory of time and a manifestation of the Omega Point that interferes with history to allow the theory to reach fruition.
 * Stephen Baxter writes about the Omega Point in many books including Manifold: Time and Timelike Infinity.
 * Julian May's Galactic Milieu Series draws heavily for both plot and background on the concepts of Teilhard de Chardin's Omega point theories.
 * Shantaram, a novel by Gregory David Roberts, refers to the philosophical theory that the universe "tends towards complexity."