It’s only with some reluctance that I even mention Frank Tipler’s latest book, The Physics of Christianity. But people keep telling me about it, so, it’s like, my duty or something.
Now, I’m all in favor of writing about the physics of imaginary things; it can be a very enlightening exercise to compare the laws of the actual world to ones that we make up for purposes of fiction. And The Physics of Christianity is such an obvious title that you knew someone would write such a book eventually. And Frank Tipler, in his youth, did some pioneering research on closed timelike curves in general relativity, so he has credentials as an honest physicist.
But, if there remains an interesting book to be written about the physics of Christianity, this isn’t it. And I say that in full confidence, not having actually read the book. Usually I like to defer judgment about crazy-sounding books that I haven’t even looked at, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Reviews by Vic Stenger or Lawrence Krauss tell you everything you need to know. From Lawrence’s review:
As a collection of half-truths and exaggerations, I am tempted to describe Tipler’s new book as nonsense – but that would be unfair to the concept of nonsense…
Tipler, for example, claims that the standard model of particle physics is complete and exact. It isn’t. He claims that we have a clear and consistent theory of quantum gravity. We don’t. He claims that the universe must recollapse. It doesn’t have to, and all evidence thus far suggests that it won’t. He argues that we understand the nature of dark energy. We don’t. He argues that we know why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. We don’t. I could go on, but you get the point…
[Tipler] argues that the resurrection of Jesus occurred when the atoms in his body spontaneously decayed into neutrinos and antineutrinos, which later converted back into atoms to reconstitute him.
Not much motivation for reading further than that. I’ve said many times (even if people don’t believe me) that I have a great deal of respect for intelligent and thoughtful religious people, even if I disagree with them on some deep truths about the universe. But man, those people don’t seem to get a lot of press, do they? The crazy stuff is much bigger box office, which perhaps is not a surprise.
Neutrinos and antineutrinos! That kills me. Everyone knows that Jesus shifted through the extra dimensions onto another brane, where he chilled for three days before coming back.
Oh my god. It gets worse. His “popular articles” page includes a piece arguing that the Coase Theorem in economics somehow blows away the fact/value distinction.
For those non-social-scientists in the crowd (e.g. everyone but me), a quick introduction. The Coase Theorem basically proves that in a world with no transaction costs (e.g. costs of finding out who you can deal with, costs of negotiating, costs of enforcing contracts, etc.), the economy will be welfare-maximizing. (summary)
It’s hard to figure out what exactly the argument is, because it’s filled with insane digressions about “the relation between the cosmos and humanity” and so forth. But as far as I can tell, he argues that a world with “no transaction costs” also entails:
– A world of universal mind-reading, and, indeed, universal omniscience (“if transactions cost nothing, then information costs nothing, so all actors have all, and I mean all information relevant to their actions.”)
– “eternity is experienced in a split second.”
– everyone will have complete empathy for everyone else
– Since everyone knows all facts, they agree on all social/moral decisions.
Needless to say, the first three points are silly and that last point ignores so many philosophical questions about ethics that it’s worthless to any serious reader. For example, he suggests that perfect knowledge about who would turn out to be a criminal (and what sorts of positions does that commit him to about fatalism, etc.?) would entail agreement on who should be killed, etc. But that assumes away a whole ethical debate over the morality of intervening, e.g., to save A and B by killing C.
More to the point, he “refutes” the fact/value distinction by simply ignoring it, by claiming that in a world of universal empathy and omniscience, the values *of course* would be the same. Argument? Well, there isn’t one.
And then, of course, he suggests a moral rule for this, “thou shalt act to reduce transaction costs for others.” Somehow this “underlies” the scientific rule against faking data. And then he claims that he’s achieve the reduction of philosophy of economics and of economics (natch) to physics.
Maybe there were two external observations of the life of Christ, An interference of Born probability through the reconstruction of his wave function, creating a reverse superposition that will not be observed until a certain point in the future, therefore leaving resurrection still a possibility.
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I have tried to examine (in my novel ‘The Ancient Order of Moridura’) some aspects of the relationship of religion to science, and religious faith to secular pressures, in this case, an isolated order of monks guarding a nascent singularity and facing an intrusion of 21st century science into their medieval world. (The monks have a few surprises for the scientists up their sleeves!)
Some ruminations on the writing of the book, its themes, and the CERN LHC can be found on my blog http://moridura.blogspot.com also some sample chapters.
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I, too, read and reviewed The Physics of Christianity and I agree wholeheartedly with Krauss’ statements. I cannot say that Tipler at any point lies or states an erroneous fact, but his rhetorical tactics are grossly misleading about the solidity of the core assumptions from which he derives his conclusions.
One of my biggest problems with his line of logic falls on his understanding (or lack thereof) of the word “consistent.” In his argument, for the laws of physics to be consistent throughout time, life must exist and advance to sufficient technology level to somehow buffer the Second Law of Thermodynamics against violation in the collapsing universe. This, to me, means that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not a fundamental, consistent law of the universe. Either that, or it means the collapse cannot happen without help. However, his assumption was that the collapse must happen – “the laws of physics guarantee it” is his mantra, it seems – which leads to the conclusion that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is only consistent with the intervention of life in the universe, which means it is not consistent.
It’s just one of many problems. What I found most fascinating was that I think that Christians will find this book just as disappointing as physicists (not to imply there can’t be a substantial overlap between the two). For example, his definition of “heaven” as a utopia for uploaded or simulated concsciousnesses that mimic life lacks a hell … something which he does not address in his book much, if at all … I don’t recall any mention of hell, actually. I’ll have to check the index.
It describes neither recognizable physics nor recognizable Christianity, though Tipler is clearly knowledgable enough in both fields to avoid any outright falsehood in talking about either, and instead skirts the issue with compelling misdirections.
@:
That sounds like the ending to this creepy Charles Stross story.
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If you require any serious validation of Frank Tiplers research concepts look into David Deutsch ‘The Fabric of Reality’ Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking. You all sound as though you have become crazed by whatever threat you feel Tipler has provided to your current world view. As if convincing each other will serve to convince yourselves of something.
Think! no wonder it takes hundreds of years for the Newtons, the Hawkings and the Tiplers to emerge. You should all be ashamed to be representative of the scared, ignorant, rabid masses to whom a threat to their individual world view quickly becomes a threat to their very minimal being.