Omega Point

Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness to which the universe seems to be heading. The universe evolves towards more complex states, while at the same time more conscious states. For Teilhard, this is the true theory of evolution, and he calls it the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. Matter complexifies throughout time, whilst rising to more conscious states. For Teilhard, this is only possible if a higher form of consciousness is "drawing" the universe to itself. For it is impossible that lower conscious states can give rise to higher conscious states. Thus Teilhard postulates "Omega Point" as the critical point of consciousness which draws the universe towards higher states of consciousness, as observed in the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. The human-being (the most complex, and so most conscious piece of matter) is so conscious that it is 'reflective.' Which means that the human being can reflect on him or herself. Or, the human being is self-conscious. Or as Teilhard is fond of saying, "The human-being is consciousness squared."

As Teilhard envisaged it, the Law of Complexity/Consciousness continues to rise through the socialization of mankind. Mankind is converging upon itself on the earth, creating more complex forms of communication and information exchange, all attributing to a rise in the collective consciousness of the human race. Teilhard envisages a critical point of 'reflection', in which the collective consciousness of mankind (like that of the individual human-being) will become conscious of itself, attaining its term at Omega Point, that divine center of consciousness which was always drawing the universe to itself.

Five Attributes of the Omega Point
In The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard de Chardin describes the following five attributes of the Omega Point: this is the only way to explain the rise of the universe towards higher stages of consciousness.
 * it must be already existing;

the complexification of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more individualized forms of personality, of which human-beings, who are "self-reflective", are the highest attained form of this personalization of the 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. He expressly states that in the Omega Point, the human person and their freedom will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. Omega Point, then, is a Person. And not a Person like you and I, but a higher form of Person. A Divine Person.
 * it must be personal – an intellectual being and not an abstract idea;

Omega Point can not be the result of the universe's final complexification of itself on consciousness. Omega Point, instead, is the prime mover, ahead, which draws the universe towards itself. Which essentially means, that Omega Point is outside the framework in which the universe rises. If it was found only in the framework of the universe it could not explain how the universe was able to rise to higher forms of consciousness.
 * it must be transcendent;


 * it must be autonomous – free from the limitations of space (nonlocality) and time (atemporality);


 * it must be irreversible, that is it must be attainable.

Garcia's ever-increasing creativity
In 1971, John David Garcia expanded on Teilhard's Omega Point idea. In particular, he stressed that even more than the increase of intelligence, the constant increase of ethics is essential for humankind to reach the Omega Point. He applied the term creativity to the combination of intelligence and ethics and announced that increasing creativity is the correct and proper goal of human life. He specifically rejected increasing happiness as a proper ultimate goal: when faced with a choice between increasing creativity and increasing happiness, a person ought to choose creativity, he wrote.

Tiplerian omega point
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 simulations of 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 tunneling 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.

Omega point as a reference for technological singularity
Some 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 Vernor Vinge 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 that our technological and computational tools eventually completely surpass human capacities. While some transhumanist literature refer to this moment as Omega point in reference to Chardin's concept, the idea of an Omega point reached by technological means was not present in the work of the author.

In science fiction novels

 * 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 was 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, after 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, 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 committment 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 games

 * In the series of games and books, the primary god of goodness, Josh, derives his 'divine' power from a set-up that one would describe as an Omega Point - his mind is distributed into the fabric of spacetime itself within the galaxies his empire controls, and he can alter matter, energy, and the laws of physics in any way he wishes there. He's able to expand his sphere of divinity when his armies place giant, arcanely technological monoliths called Worldstandards on new planets, which act as signal amplifiers to extend his pattern further into space and time.
 * In the shooter game Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus, the main villain actually becomes the Omega Point by sacrificing millions of innocent people, and is called Omega.

In music

 * The musical band Mr. Bungle references the Omega Point in the song "None of Them Knew They Were Robots" on the album "California."
 * Apollo 440 wrote a song called "Omega Point" for their debut album (Millennium Fever), in which a friend of the band recites a quote from Barrow and Tipler's "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle", p676: "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know."
 * The electronic band The Shamen refers to the Omega point as an inevitablity in their song Re-Evolution: "Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organisation that preceded it that it must be the response to a kind of attractor or dwell point that lies ahead in the temporal dimension.
 * The Omega Point is referenced in the song Love On Haight Street on BT's third album Movement in Still Life.
 * It can be speculated Marilyn Manson's CD Mechanical Animals, which contains motifs of Posthumanism and transhumanism, also contains references to Omega point, as can be deduced from lyrics and imagery of the Omega symbol. Furthermore, that the main character of the concept album is named "Omega".

Movies and comic strips

 * There is a Dilbert comic strip in which Dogbert postulates that since everything develops from simpler forms to more complex forms, a supreme being must be our future, not our origin. His idea is that God must be the entity that will be formed when enough people are connected by the Internet.
 * In the Neon Genesis Evangelion movie End of Evangelion, which ends the story, the Human Instrumentality Project, which aims to merge all human souls (in the form of LCL) into a single mind, as a final step on evolution, is largely influenced by this theory.