A Review of "The Physics of Immortality" by Frank J. Tipler, Doubleday, 1994.

I am interested in Dr. Tipler's book, because I wish to see if my book, Millennium deals with his ideas, adequately.
Dr. Tipler, a physicist at Tulane, in this book envisions the cosmos in terms of cosmology, which means to look at the whole of the space/time continuum, not only the present and past as have astronomers, but including the future, so that the entire cosmos can be viewed as an object. This produces a decidedly different view of the future than one is accustomed to thinking of. Dr. Tipler identifies Dr. Stephen Hawking of Oxford University, England as one of the seminal thinkers in this field, and the originator of many theorems about it.
Dr. Tipler takes an unusual point of departure in this book: considering what is likely to become of our species in future and comes to some startling conclusions. He identifies humans and other living things as indistinguishable from computer algorithms and envisions the possibility and necessity for the purposes of survival of humanity, of colonizing the entire cosmos and ultimately providing for its own immortality by running emulations of every human that ever lived in computers and contending that the emulations would be indistinguishable from the originals. Rather like the holodeck simulations of Star Trek fame.
Dr. Tipler suffers from a particularly widespread subjectivity which makes the invalid assumption that masculinism is normal to the life of the species and will characterize it into the indefinite future, when were he to study my book, he would quickly discover that feminism is much more dominant in the life of the species and that, with its current resurgence, no such future is likely to transpire, at least not in the foreseeable future. This is because feminism, unlike masculinism, does not favor endless extension of the ego complex. This means, for instance, that schooling will become unnecessary and uninteresting to humans, in the not too distant future, certainly before any such scenario as Dr. Tipler imagines could come into existence. On the other hand, Dr. Tipler imagines the whole of the life of mankind, so that, perhaps in some future exploration of masculinism some such possibility could eventuate.
If I were to attempt to predict the distant future for our species, I would predict a transformation to a different form, perhaps whalelike as the likely destination for us. That is because a species, living a nearly natural lifestyle such as the American Indians (such a life style as we are likely to adopt after the failure of civilization), would, in some cases, when confronted by an ice age, look to the sea for warmth and comfort.
Dr. Tipler gives a very good summary of philosophies from ancient to modern especially with respect to their views on the possible ultimate fates of the universe: heat death and eternal return. Heat death envisions the eventual transformation of the universe into an object with a uniform temperature, thereby providing no excess energy for life. The eternal return problem postulates that the universe pulsates and each pulse exactly duplicates what went on in the previous pulse.
Dr. Tipler requires, for his theory to reach fruition, that humanity be eternally progressive, as he puts it. Progressive means in a state of change towards valued goals, such as long life and wealth. This means endlessly creative, which is to say always masculine, since masculinity is the creative sex. So, this would be analogous to visualizing a human that restricted himself to the use of one of his arms forever. Could be done, I suppose, but it doesn't sound pro-life. And the final measure for things human is: does it redound to the continued survival of the species. We cannot apply ethics to anything larger because it is outside our field of understanding. We cannot know whether we would be judged valuable or useful to the biosphere, we must assume it to be so because we are here. Fortunately Dr. Tipler does allow periods of regression, so, these periods will do for the further development of feminism, on which masculinism will be completely dependent. However, historically, it would appear that a short period of masculinism, (our own is barely 2500 years old) can be balanced by eons of feminism, thus making Dr. Tipler's predictions appear unlikely.
Another factor arguing against Dr. Tipler is the undoubted fact that humans are getting larger. He points out, probably correctly, that the ratio between brain size and body size is larger for man than any other species. This, however, suggests that man can support a much larger body size and is setting about producing, via Darwin's method, exactly that. Presumably this will result in a less intelligent human, however. Since we are moving into a feminist era, this would appear to be in order too, because feminism isn't interested in Dr. Tipler's progress, that is the endless extension of the ego. It is, though, demonstrably interested in producing a larger and more beautiful human being.
It is interesting that Dr. Tipler views himself as a follower of John Bernal, a marxist, since soviet communism, based on marxism is clearly a move away from the masculinist capitalism towards the feminist communism, suggesting that Dr. Tipler, were he to categorize himself along this scale would identify himself as a feminist and therefore ultimately opposed to ego extension which is fundamental to his idea of progress.
In fact I would say that it is a major weakness in his theory to not deal with the question of the conscious and unconscious minds. It is not at all clear that the conscious mind which to Dr. Tipler would appear to be the only mind, is actually the controlling mind and not just an observer. If this is a good model, he will have to sell his plans to the unconscious mind, which may not be much influenced by the schemes of naive consciousness.
Another problem I have with this view of reality is in the area of dimensions. For me, scale is the natural fourth dimension because it is more similar to the three primary dimensions than is time. The only way this would be untrue is if the visible cosmos is not included in something else and there is actually a primary indivisible particle. Neither of these, at the moment is known, nor are they knowable if scale is a dimension, since the next step could always produce an end. However, one must keep in mind that one end is acceptable for a dimension, just not two.
In considering the theological implications of the Omega Point Theory, Dr. Tipler demonstrates that what is accomplished is the annihilation of chaos. This is clear from his statement that memory must be encoded in the cosmos, thus organizing it completely. A task that would appear to be already complete. This demonstrates his own one-sidedness. Dr. Tipler, as are we all, is the son of a millennium long look at the orderly, masculine God that opposes his own chaotic, uncreative feminine side. To suggest that we can dispense with our femininity is to suggest that we can dispense with our materiality, which Dr. Tipler also does. This may be a wish of masculinity, but it is unlikely of realization since it coincides with non-existence and the utter destruction of nothing. As I say in my book, the universe is already as little as it can be. It is nothing. What you see is what nothing is and there can be nothing less than nothing.
What we have in Dr. Tipler is a repetition of what we had in Nietzsche, masculinism run amok, gone to its logical extreme, and the exact reason why feminism is rising. That is, feminism is the medicine required for this sort of hubris, and were it not for this medicine, we would surely destroy ourselves.
Life demonstrates repeatedly that goals are worthless, once achieved, that the value of goals lies in the effort to achieve them. Dr. Tipler is screaming out, tantrum like, that he wants to accomplish something, to leave a monument to his own existence. Why should he? He is only one of billions and worth not one farthing more than the rest.