In March I focused on the classic article by Bill Joy (the future doesn't need us). Now it is time for another classic or landmarc article called God Is The Machine (again from Wired Magazine). This time by Kevin Kelly - also one of my favorite thinkers and writers - published in december 2002. The main thesis is that the whole universe is based on information and computations in its essence. That the virtual and real worlds are equivalent. This reminds me of the great book from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann called The Quark and the Jaguar.
Interestingly, the below quotes based on Tipler seem to resonate with near-death experiences of many people. The implosion of a single human being into singularity and reliving all key emotional moments from its now closed life. Omega Point as a form of death? Anyone?
"The
scientist John Archibald Wheeler (coiner of the term "black hole") was
onto this in the '80s. He claimed that, fundamentally, atoms are made
up of of bits of information. As he put it in a 1989 lecture, "Its are
from bits." He elaborated: "Every it — every particle, every
field of force, even the space-time continuum itself — derives its
function, its meaning, its very existence entirely from binary choices,
bits. What we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes/no questions.
Probably the trippiest science book ever written is The Physics of Immortality,
by Frank Tipler. If this book was labeled standard science fiction, no
one would notice, but Tipler is a reputable physicist and Tulane
University professor who writes papers for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics. In Immortality,
he uses current understandings of cosmology and computation to declare
that all living beings will be bodily resurrected after the universe
dies. His argument runs roughly as follows: As the universe collapses
upon itself in the last minutes of time, the final space-time
singularity creates (just once) infinite energy and computing capacity.
In other words, as the giant universal computer keeps shrinking in
size, its power increases to the point at which it can simulate
precisely the entire historical universe, past and present and
possible. He calls this state the Omega Point. It is a computational
space that can resurrect "from the dead" all the minds and bodies that
have ever lived."
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