Frank J. Tipler Quotes

The biologists argue that the number of evolutionary pathways leading from one-celled organisms to intelligent beings is minuscule when compared with the total number of evolutionary pathways, and thus even if we grant the existence of life on 10⁹ to 10¹⁰ planets in our Galaxy, the probability that intelligence has arisen... [there] on any planet but our own is still very small. I agree...

Wolfhart Pannenberg... suggested... there may exist a... universal physical field (analogous to Teilhard's "radial energy")... as the source of all life, and... identified with the Holy Spirit. ...[T]he universal wave function... is a... field with the essential features of Pannenberg's... "energy" field. ...If this identification is made ...as a matter of physics ...God is in the world, everywhere... with us... at all times.

The germ theory was resurrected... by Pasteur and his new medical physics.
Thus... physics had to be extended to medicine in order to save the germ theory. Similarly, for religion to survive, physics must be extended into theology.

Only if God is not in any sense contingent can one avoid regress posed in the query, who created God?

[T]he probability of the evolution of creatures with the technological capability of interstellar communication within five billion years after the development of life on an Earth-like planet is less than 10^-10, and thus we are the only intelligent species now existing in this Galaxy.

The essential difficulty with divorcing morality from facts is that... there would be no way to resolve moral disputes. Morality would... be... a matter of taste... [I]n... so-called disputes over morality there is... no disagreement over fundamental moral principles, only... over facts. ...[C]onsider ...the abortion issue. There is no dispute over "Thou shall not kill,"... only... whether a fetus is a "person."

The payload of a probe to another stellar system would be a self-reproducing universal constructor with human level intelligence (...a von Neumann machine) together with an engine... travelling... within the stellar target system—[the engine] could be an electric propulsion system... or a ...

[I]t seems likely that a species engaging in interstellar communication would possess a fairly sophisticated computer technology. ...Sagan has asserted that 'Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence... will require... computer actuated machines with abilities approaching... intelligence'.

[T]o really test the Theory, we will need the upgrade and either the SSC—the Texas Supercollider—or the European LHC. ...[P]erhaps it would be worth several billion dollars to establish that God exists, and that one day we will all be resurrected to live forever with Him/Her.

The Omega Point is in essence the Tillich-Pannenberg God: Being itself, but the mode of Being is futurity. This establishes the Omega Point as the God... there cannot be more being than all Being...

[M]aterials [to reproduce the von Neumann machine] should be available in virtually any stellar system—including systems—in the form of meteors, asteroids, comets, and other debris from the formation of the stellar system. ...[M]aterial in asteroids are highly differentiatied; many... are largely nickel-iron, while others contain large amounts of hydrocarbons.

[T]his necessary existence... and omniscience... can... be consistent with... free will... by showing that... William James's definition of and free will might be physically realized in . This physical indeterminism can arise only in the context of quantum gravity... completely different from the "indeterminism" arising from the uncertainty principle. (Nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is... deterministic)

[I]nclusion of the whole past, present, and future universal history in the Omega Point is more than a mere mathematical artifact. ...[T]he Omega Point "experiences" the whole of universal history "all at once."

The probability that intelligent life which eventually attempts interstellar communication will evolve in a star system is usually expressed by the :<math>p = f_pn_ef_lf_if_c</math>where <math>f_p</math> is the probability that a given star system will have planets, <math>n_e</math> is the number of habitable planets in a solar system, <math>f_l</math> is the probability that life evolves on a habitable planet, <math>f_i</math> is the probability that intelligent life evolves on a planet with life, and <math>f_c</math> is the probability that an intelligent species will attempt interstellar communication within 5 billion years after the formation of the planet...

One avoids... contradiction between contingency and necessity by avoiding... sharp distinction between God and... reality. This... distinction... leads to gnostic heresy: ...a wholly other God... divorced from our ...world. It also leads... to the Problem of Evil... naturally resolved in the Omega Point Theory.