Re: poly: polymath digest for 09 Dec 97

Frank Tipler's 'infinite subjective time' at the Omega Point depends on
there being a totally unified context withing the collapsing fireball. In
the Universe's final weeks, there will be so much usable free energy +
available states that calculation (modelling) can take off exponentially,
allowing an unrestrained expansion of subjectivity... effective
immortality.

The fact that all of this is taking place in the final weeks of the Big
Crunch is something Tipler shrugs aside, since those weeks have no meaning
if there is no external context in which they will be measured. The Omega
Point is effectively immortal from its own point of view, and that
suffices.

Now some of us lack Tipler's braininess, perhaps, but those 'few weeks'
still linger at the back of my mind. Won't some sub units of the OP want
to peer at that old 'objective' universe? If they do, does THAT provide a
context? Won't some irritating jerb keep interrupting everybody else's
infinite holodeck fantasies with sneering remarks about how there's only
nineteen days to go now... Then he pops back in a billion subjective years
later and says there's just eighteen... and so on. So much for
immortality.

Ironically, Lee Smolin -- the OTHER guy to present a theologically
important cosmological idea lately, threatens Tipler's blithe scenario with
utter demolition. If Smolin is right, that our Universe is just one of the
latest in an ecosystem of trillions of universes, each giving birth to new
ones that slowly evolve toward reproductive fitness ... then there is a
plethora of external context! From all these other points of view, our
last three weeks will be our last three weeks, then period. Kaput! Make
way for the new! We may have an 'infinite' subjective spree during those
three weeks... but when they are over, our OP god gets smushed.

I wrote a story about Smolin's evolving meta-universe, by the way. It's
the final piece in my collection, OTHERNESS. Kinda kinky.

In a more mundane matter -- we go attend the Postman premiere tomorrow
night. Early word is that it's a good flick. I can tell you already that
it's a huge improvement over the horrible early scripts. And Costner's
camera eye is excellent. As for the rest.... Here's hoping.

DB
Received on Thu Dec 11 08:10:01 1997