Frank Tipler is a crackpot. At one point in his life, he did very good technical work in general relativity; he was the first to prove theorems that closed timelike curves could not be constructed in local regions of spacetime without either violating the weak energy condition or creating a singularity. But alas, since then he has pretty much gone off the deep end, and more recently has become known for arguments for Christianity based on fundamental physics. If you closely at those arguments (h/t wolfgang), you find things like this:
If life is to guide the entire universe, it must be co-extensive with the entire universe. We can say that life must have become OMNIPRESENT in the universe by the end of time. But the very act of guiding the universe to eliminate event horizons – an infinite number of nudges – causes the entropy and hence the complexity of the universe to increase without limit. Therefore, if life is to continue guiding the universe – which it must, if the laws of physics are to remain consistent – then the knowledge of the universe possessed by life must also increase without limit, becoming both perfect and infinite at the final singularity. Life must become OMNISCIENT at the final singularity. The collapse of the universe will have provided available energy, which goes to infinity as the final singularity is approached, and this available energy will have become entirely under life’s control. The rate of use of this available energy – power – will diverge to infinity as the final singularity is approached. In other words, life at the final singularity will have become OMNIPOTENT. The final singularity is not in time but outside of time. On the boundary of space and time, as described in detail by Hawking and Ellis [6]. So we can say that the final singularity – the Omega Point – is TRANSCENDANT to space, time and matter.
All of the signs of classic crackpottery are present; the vague and misplaced appeal to technical terminology, the spelling mistakes and capital letters, the random use of “must” and “therefore” when no actual argument has been given. Two paragraphs later, we get:
Science is not restricted merely to describing only what happens inside the material universe, any more than science is restricted to describing events below the orbit of the Moon, as claimed by the opponents of Galileo. Like Galileo, I am convinced that the only scientific approach is to assume that the laws of terrestrial physics hold everywhere and without exception – unless and until an experiment shows that these laws have a limited range of application.
Compares self with Galileo! 40 points! There is really no indication that the person who wrote this was once writing perfectly sensible scientific papers.
Perhaps you will not be surprised to find that Tipler has now jumped into global-warming denialism. In just a few short paragraphs, we are treated to the following gems of insight (helpfully paraphrased):
People say that anthropogenic global warming is now firmly established, but that’s what they said about Ptolemaic astronomy! Therefore, I am like Copernicus.
A scientific theory is only truly scientific if it makes predictions “that the average person can check for himself.” (Not making this up.)
You know what causes global warming? Sunspots!
Sure, you can see data published that makes it look like the globe actually is warming. But that data is probably just fabricated. It snowed here last week!
If the government stopped funding science entirely, we wouldn’t have these problems.
You know who I remind myself of? Galileo.
Stillman Drake, the world’s leading Galileo scholar, demonstrates in his book “Galileo: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2001) that it was not theologians, but rather his fellow physicists (then called “natural philosophers”), who manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting Galileo. The “out-of-the-mainsteam” Galileo had the gall to prove the consensus view, the Aristotlean theory, wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo’s fellow scientists first tried to refute him by argument from authority. They failed. Then these “scientists” tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, Galileo’s fellow “scientists” called in the Inquisition to silence him.
One could go on, but what’s the point? Well, perhaps there are two points worth making.
First, Frank Tipler is probably very “intelligent” by any of the standard measures of IQ and so forth. In science, we tend to valorize (to the point of fetishizing) a certain kind of ability to abstractly manipulate symbols and concepts — related to, although not exactly the same as, the cult of genius. (It’s not just being smart that is valorized, but a certain kind of smart.) The truth is, such an ability is great, but tends to be completely uncorrelated with other useful qualities like intellectual honesty and good judgment. People don’t become crackpots because they’re stupid; they become crackpots because they turn their smarts to crazy purposes.
Second, the superficially disconnected forms of crackpottery that lead on the one hand to proving Christianity using general relativity, and on the other to denying global warming, clearly emerge from a common source. The technique is to first decide what one wants to be true, and then come up with arguments that support it. This is a technique that can be used by anybody, for any purpose, and it’s why appeals to authority aren’t to be trusted, no matter how “intelligent” that authority seems to be.
Tipler isn’t completely crazy to want “average people” to be able to check claims for themselves. He’s mostly crazy, as by that standard we wouldn’t have much reason to believe in either general relativity or the Standard Model of particle physics, since the experimental tests relevant to those theories are pretty much out of reach for the average person. But the average person should be acquainted with the broad outlines of the scientific method and empirical reasoning, at least enough so that they try to separate crackpots from respectable scientists. Because nobody ever chooses to describe themselves as a crackpot. If you ask them, they’ll always explain that they are on the side of Galileo; and if you don’t agree, you’re no better than the Inquisition.
Gee, I hope you’re better at avoiding the actual plague than you apparently are at avoiding this blog.
John Faughnan has a point, see another example here::
Remarkable insights! Bush should have appointed him as his science advisor. He has all the credentials and he would had fit perfectly in his administration.
Another good example of why we should abandon the tenure system. This guy should be sacked; he’s an embarassment to his colleagues and his university.
Has anyone, anywhere, ever, compared themselves to Galileo on legitimate grounds?
Well, OK, other than having a beard?
(Incidentally, I noticed that David Brin has been beating a drum about cosmologists changing their stance on the Big Bang: Cosmologists will admit “the Big Bang was an actual explosion (with a center), after all…” and then they’ll change their minds again. To me, this sounds like one part confused-by-bad-analogies plus one part being-deliberately-contrarian, with perhaps an actual insight tangled up in there somewhere. Then again, these days I’m getting paid (not much) to do econophysics (badly); it’s been a while since I’ve had to calculate anything with regard to an FRW metric. Since I recalled our host complaining about the balloon analogy, I figured it might be an item of interest.)
This is what can happen when you mix fun ideas about evolution (e.g. the technological singularity), especially anthropologically centered ideas, with over-speculation about physics. You become a very speculative futurist. You have at this point used science as a launch pad to make vague predictions about some unguided convictions you’ve developed about reality.
However, I think there is a problem with the pejorative “crackpot,” even though its totally fun to call people crackpots. I just don’t think that it is entirely useful to follow through with the logic “because Frank Tipler is talking crazy, everything he says is therefore useless and false.”
Frank Tipler is referring to some interesting topics in that first paragraph. They are topics which are not yet ready to be connected with physics (other than extremely speculatively), but ideas about what comes after humans are, in my opinion, very interesting to think about.
Just the sample quoted above, sounds kind of like the fevered outpourings of a schizophrenic, but that kind of stuff usually presents before you hit 30. And it’s too early for a stroke.
Maybe he’s just smoking a little too much weed?
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Does this quote from Einstein cross the “crackpot line”?
“For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”
How about claims that we’re floating around on a three-brane in a universe with 11 dimensions? That sounds kind of weird to my ears.
Many Worlds Interpretation? Mathematical Universe Hypothesis?
I personally don’t believe in free will, but many people consider would consider that the craziest thing they’d ever heard (barring the things that actual crazy people say).
I agree with Micah that Tipler just got a little florid on his prose, and that you could rewrite the first paragraph in a way that wouldn’t sound crazy without losing any of the content.
Of course, the fact that he didn’t rewrite it in such a way may indicate that he is indeed crazy.
Or, how about the idea that in an infinite universe (space and/or time) you may exist an infinite number of times, not to mention with a lot of variations.
If you do more than mention it in passing, it takes on a crackpot tinge.
Last comment. I promise.
Another Einstien quote (via Dan Falk):
“His friend, the philosopher Rudolf Carnap, recalls Einstein admitting that ‘the experience of the Now worried him seriously.’ The experience of the Now, Einstein told him, ‘means something special for man, something essentially different from the past and future, but that this important difference does not and cannot occur within physics.'”
Add a few capitalized words and I think you’re in Tipler Territory.
Speaking of Galileo, I think the revisionist attitude of the Catholic Church towards Galileo bears at least a passing mention here if not a full blown post. Perhaps the most condescending and offensive intellectual faux pax in recent memory.
For those who missed it google around. I can’t do it justice. But clearly the Vatican believes they are the sole arbiters of justice and can conveniently change their stories to fit the times and facts.
I wouldn’t make too much fun of crackpots. As I was once told by a beggar on a New York City subway, “you are not exempt.” Mental illness can strike anyone.
Sort of reminds me of the Asimov story “The Last Question”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
Except that 1. It’s a story, 2. It’s good
Perhaps it’s true what they say — there’s a fine line between genius and insanity.
I remember hearing a colloquium talk by Tipler at Berkeley over 20 years ago. He was already into the anti-ET dogma. He didn’t mention his God-oriented worldview, but you could read it between the lines.
He came across as a fool.
“Recently, after giving a high school commencement talk in my hometown, Denison, Iowa, I drove from Denison to Dunlap, where my parents are buried. For most of 20 miles there were trains parked, engine to caboose, half of the cars being filled with coal. If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains — no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.”
Does that look insane enough ?
This guy has gone overboard long time ago too but if I am not mistaken he had not yet been sacked .
To crackpot , crackpot and a half .
the superficially disconnected forms of crackpottery that lead on the one hand to proving Christianity using general relativity, and on the other to denying global warming, clearly emerge from a common source.
This may be true for Tipler, but I don’t think it’s a general finding. Strong financial incentive in the form of the Templeton Prize may influence scientifically competent persons to shill for Christianity.
Hi, Sean Carroll. In the excerpt of Prof. Frank J. Tipler that you gave, Tipler therein is referring to his previous work on the Omega Point Theory. He wasn’t therein attempting to give a derivation of the Omega Point Theory, so your critique regarding “no actual argument” is a non sequitur. Further, two paragraphs before the excerpt that you gave, Tipler stated “Now let me outline the proof of my three claims above. I can give here only a bare outline. For complete details, the reader is referred to my book [1], and to papers ([3], [4], [5]) on the lanl database (available over the Internet at xxx.lanl.gov).” So your critique of Tipler is also fundamentally dishonest.
For much more on the physics of the Omega Point Theory, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):
F. J. Tipler, “The structure of the world from pure numbers,” Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964; available on Prof. Tipler’s website. Also released as “Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything,” arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007.
Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler’s above paper was selected as one of 12 for the “Highlights of 2005” accolade as “the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website.” (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, “Highlights of 2005,” Reports on Progress in Physics website.)
Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain’s main professional body for physicists. Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal’s impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers. (And just to point out, Tipler’s 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a “letter” as defined by the latter journal.)
See also the below resource for further information on the Omega Point Theory:
Theophysics (a website on GeoCities)
Tipler is Professor of Mathematics and Physics (joint appointment) at Tulane University. His Ph.D. is in the field of global general relativity (the same rarefied field that Profs. Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking developed), and he is also an expert in particle physics and computer science. His Omega Point Theory has been published in a number of prestigious peer-reviewed physics and science journals in addition to Reports on Progress in Physics, such as Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (one of the world’s leading astrophysics journals), Physics Letters B, the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, etc.
Prof. John A. Wheeler (the father of most relativity research in the U.S.) wrote that “Frank Tipler is widely known for important concepts and theorems in general relativity and gravitation physics” on pg. viii in the “Foreword” to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by cosmologist Prof. John D. Barrow and Tipler, which was the first book wherein Tipler’s Omega Point Theory was described. On pg. ix of said book, Prof. Wheeler wrote that Chapter 10 of the book, which concerns the Omega Point Theory, “rivals in thought-provoking power any of the [other chapters].”
The leading quantum physicist in the world, Prof. David Deutsch (inventor of the quantum computer, being the first person to mathematically describe the workings of such a device, and winner of the Institute of Physics’ 1998 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for his work), endorses the physics of the Omega Point Theory in his book The Fabric of Reality (1997). For that, see:
David Deutsch, extracts from Chapter 14: “The Ends of the Universe” of The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes–and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), ISBN: 0713990619; with additional comments by Frank J. Tipler. Available on the Theophysics website.
The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to resort to physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking’s paper on the black hole information issue which is dependent on the conjectured string theory-based anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence). See S. W. Hawking, “Information loss in black holes,” Physical Review D, Vol. 72, No. 8, 084013 (October 2005); also at arXiv:hep-th/0507171, July 18, 2005.
That is, Prof. Hawking’s paper is based upon empirically unconfirmed physics which violate the known laws of physics. It’s an impressive testament to the Omega Point Theory’s correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the black hole information issue must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he’s forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.
Some have suggested that the universe’s current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in “Geometry and Destiny” (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.
There’s a very good reason for that, because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe’s collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as B – L is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.
Prof. Tipler’s above 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper also demonstrates that the correct quantum gravity theory has existed since 1962, first discovered by Richard Feynman in that year, and independently discovered by Steven Weinberg and Bryce DeWitt, among others. But because these physicists were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order), they abandoned this qualitatively unique quantum gravity theory since in order for it to be consistent it requires an arbitrarily higher number of terms. Further, they didn’t realize that this proper theory of quantum gravity is consistent only with a certain set of boundary conditions imposed (which includes the initial Big Bang, and the final Omega Point, cosmological singularities). The equations for this theory of quantum gravity are term-by-term finite, but the same mechanism that forces each term in the series to be finite also forces the entire series to be infinite (i.e., infinities that would otherwise occur in spacetime, consequently destabilizing it, are transferred to the cosmological singularities, thereby preventing the universe from immediately collapsing into nonexistence). As Tipler notes in his 2007 book The Physics of Christianity (pp. 49 and 279), “It is a fundamental mathematical fact that this [infinite series] is the best that we can do. … This is somewhat analogous to Liouville’s theorem in complex analysis, which says that all analytic functions other than constants have singularities either a finite distance from the origin of coordinates or at infinity.”
When combined with the Standard Model, the result is the Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics.
Regarding the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (A.G.W.), as Prof. Tipler points out, this is a hypothesis which has been repeatedly experimentally disproven. Recall that it only takes a single experiment to disprove a theory (so long as the experiment and its data are correct). For more on that, see also “The ETS: Completely unnecessary,” David Evans, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), December 19, 2008.
As you do a good job of pointing out, Sean Carroll, A.G.W. theory is an irrational dogma. Those heretics who insist upon actual scientific empiricism will be accused of engaging in “denialism,” with mendacious criticisms made against them (e.g., your dishonest “paraphras[ing]” of Tipler’s words).
The reason why A.G.W. theory has become such a virulent dogma is due to the political power that it’s being used to justify. If government and its connected interests could find a way to get as much power out of which sock, the left or the right, a person puts on first in the morning then we would never hear the end of the alleged horrors brought about by putting socks on the wrong foot first, and that if the government doesn’t step in to save humanity from itself then it could well mean our extinction. Anyone who doubted the sock-crisis and pointed out that it’s disproved by the empirical evidence would be accused of being party to “denialism.” Later on they would be charged under state edicts which threaten loss of their tenure (such as A.G.W. heretic Bjørn Lomborg). And if the government’s anti-sock-on-wrong-foot-first efforts managed to actually cause humanity’s extinction, then this result would be cheered (before their own deaths) by those who consider humanity as a cancer, with the sock-crisis regarded by them as merely being one example of mankind’s cancerous ways.
A.G.W. theory attracts etatists of multifarious stripes. They see in it a means of empowering the government and micromanaging people’s lives. The theory of A.G.W. is a collectivist’s wet dream, as not only do they have their misanthropy confirmed (to the effect that mankind is a cancer), but so also they have a pretext for social engineering.
It’s very unfortunate that A.G.W. isn’t true, as life loves a warm, carbon dioxide-rich Earth. It would be quite a life-giving boon to humanity and the other critters if A.G.W. had been true.
I notice how you brought up the issue of I.Q., Sean Carroll, which apparently you found to be a matter in need of explaining, given that Prof. Tipler is easily smarter and far more accomplished than you. But then, Sean, you can’t rationally expect to be much more than what you currently are if you insist on regurgitating noxious etatist pap.
Wow. I think James Redford has provided us with an even better example…How sweet is that?
Galileo was fond of leaving windy comments on the blogs of his time.
Yeah and look where it got him….
😉
There is another well known physicist who seems to have gone off the “deep end.” (http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0/sean-carroll)
He claims that such things as beauty, morality and ethics should be understandable as the workings out of the laws of nature according to equations of motion that they obey. Is child slavery wrong? Well, yes! And that result should not conflict with the equations of motion of physics. Presumably, “child slavery is OK” would conflict with those same laws.
This physicist believes that we should think of everything that happens in the universe as materialistic particles obeying their equations of motion. It should come as no surprise that this physicist is also a self-described atheist.
Interestingly, while this physicist believes that the immorality of child slavery should be understandable within the confines of particles in motion, he believes that the existence of the universe requires no explanation. Is all of this any less “crackpot” than Frank Tipler? I don’t think so.
Yeah Frank T. got off on a weird tangent but one of his points is very cogent: that there is no strictly logical way to define “substantive existence” such as to distinguish what we might call incarnate possible worlds (like we feel ours to be) versus Platonically real possible worlds that are not “incarnate”. Logic per se simply doesn’t have the tools to explain what “existing” is in what we want to call the material sense versus say, that there “exist” two roots of y = sqrt(4). IOW, the argument of Modal Realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism) as I often spring on folks here and about. Max Tegmark says he accepts this with his “world made of math” and also the it from bit folks more or less, but they don’t really seem to appreciate the consequences. Ironically I don’t agree with MR anyway because I don’t think everything can be defined in strictly logical terms, but if you do think they can – you have no choice but to be a modal realist, trust me.
James Redford you are mistaken about AGW. For one thing, a single disproof (or even many) is only relevant in context: after all, classical mechanics is still effectively “true” and used all the time despite being not just “a single disproof” but wrong at its very core. And the arguments you doubters use have rebuttals, such as “CO2 absorption bands overlap those of water and once all the IR is absorbed, it doesn’t matter if there’s more.” That is simplistic and false (and out of date since the early 20th c.) First of all we discovered many fine bands that can let plenty of IR through unless CO2 gets very dense (and would you ever expect two molecules to have identical spectra?!) Also, as the upper atmosphere fills up with more CO2 (and also where there’s less water vapor) the limited absorption there used to be at altitude is enhanced, absorbing IR from lower layers. Finally, there’s the silliness of people like some jackass in Brit news saying 2008 shows AGW to be a flop etc, as if there weren’t both other influences like sunspots as well as the effects of CO2 to contend with.
BTW Otis that link didn’t work so I will speculate that Sean considers ethics to be a conceptually accessible “world” of insight, that it is in the wrong context to mix together with science – ?
BTW Otis it is indeed preposterous to think that “the” universe requires no explanation. One has to either be a modal realist which is a grand stupefaction but has its problems, or evade the logical asymmetry of one or some possible worlds existing and not others. There just being “this here” enjoying a special incarnate status among possible traits is absurd, whatever anyone may think (I have said, it is like the number 23 being made up in brass numerals, alone among the numbers, despite all of them being abstractions to start with. The same problem BTW applies to any subset of numbers or analogous field of descriptions, mindscape, etc.)