American physicist noted for his book The Physics of Immortality
(born February 1, 1947) is an American mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has written books and papers on the based on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's religious ideas, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. He is also known for his theories on the (Tipler time machine) and for the , an argument that no intelligent life exists outside of the Solar System. His work has attracted criticism, notably from systems theorist George F. R. Ellis who has argued that his theories are largely pseudoscience.
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Native Name:
Frank Jennings Tipler III
Alternative Names:
Frank Jennings Tipler
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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.
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[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.
The problem with the Drake equation is that only <math>f_p</math>—and to a lesser degree <math>n_e</math>— is subject to experimental determination... [O]ne must have a fairly large sample; for <math>f_l</math>, <math>f_i</math>, and <math>f_c</math> we have only... the Earth. However, if... any intelligent species... will begin... galactic exploration within 100 years after developing... interstellar communication... the sample size is enlarged... Since <math>f_p</math>—and <math>n_e</math> can... be determined by direct astrophysical measurement, the fact that extraterrestrial intelligent beings are not present in our solar system permits us to obtain a direct astrophysical measurement of an upper bound to... <math>f_lf_if_c</math>, which depends only on biological and sociological factors.
It is often said that the central concern of religion is an attempt to answer... "What is the relationship between humanity and the universe (and/or God). I agree... the factual answers... led to the ethical norms of... religions. The sharp distinction between fact and value which is common in twentieth-century philosophy and in the West was not present in the traditional religions. ...[T]his sharp distinction is ...contrary to the continued existence of science ...The growth and existence of science require certain ethical norms: for example, THOU SHALT NOT IMPOSE YOUR THEORIES ON OTHERS BY FORCE. Only persuasion, based on rational argument and experimental results, is allowed.
I shall assume that such a species will... develop a self-replicating universal constructor with intelligence comparable to the human level—such a machine should be developed within a century, according to the experts...—and... combined with present-day rocket technology would make it possible to explore and/or colonize the Galaxy in less than 300 million years, for an initial investment less than the cost of operating a 10 MW microwave beacon for several hundred years, as proposed by SETI...
[W]e cannot "see" a person who lived a few centuries before, because the light rays... have... left the solar system. Conversely, we cannot "see" the Andromeda galaxy as it now is, but... as it was 2 million years ago. So we experience as "simultaneous" the events on the boundary of our past ... But all timelike and lightlike curves converge upon the Omega Point. ...[L]ight rays from all people who died... from all... people now... from all [future] people... intersect there. The light rays... from people... are not lost forever... [T]hese rays will be intercepted and intercepted again, by the living beings who... engulfed the physical universe near the Omega Point. All the information which can be extracted from those rays will be extracted at the instant of the Omega Point.
Paul Dirac was the first physicist to argue for the Postulate of Eternal Life: "With my assumption... life need never end. There is no decisive argument for dediding between [certain] assumptions. I prefer the one that allows the possibility of endless life. One may hope that some day the question will be decided by direct observation.
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...
[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)