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Omega Point Theology
Religio-philosophical evolutionary cosmology that states all consciousness and existence is evolving towards a singularity of limitless perfection and consummation known as the Omega Point |
 Image from Keith Wigdor |
 Image from Anders Sandberg | |
| Omega Symbol | |
Regarded by many as equal parts mysticism and (often, pseudo-) scientific theory, Omega Point Theology (commonly referred to as Omegism) is a set of ideas centered around the hypothetical concept of the Omega Point: the idea that, as a consequence of natural, technological and/or cosmological evolution, some or all life in the universe will one day merge into a transcendent unity, indistinguishable from the classical conception of the divine.
Summary of Omega Theory
Historical records that survived the Technocalypse indicate that the conceptual roots of Omegism can be traced back to the Christian Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the first century BT, who believed that God was to be the end result of the evolution of all (or some) intelligent life in the universe; as the contemporary fabulist Arthur C. Clarke put it: "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him."Following de Chardin's original proposal of the Omega Point, the Christian transhumanist Frank J. Tipler proposed his Omega Point Theory in the early first century AT. Tipler posited that the universe is closed; it has an average density that is great enough to reverse its expansion and cause it to eventually contract to a physical singularity, and that life will evolve and grow to fill up this closed universe. This model is referred to as the Tipler Scenario. Many religious schools have subscribed to and centered themselves around this specific theory and the teachings of Frank J. Tipler, collectively referred to as Tiplerism.
In a Tipler Scenario, when the universe begins to contract, life will use all of its energy to survive the extremely hot state brought about by the contraction (referred to as "Angel Plasma") by transforming into superintelligences ("Angels") encoded in particle interactions. As the universe begins to collapse in its last moments, an Immanent Omega forms as the universe's capacity for information processing and storage approaches infinity, called the Omega Manifold. When this occurs, all life finally merges into an Omega Point. This end result is referred to as an Aleph, a state where an infinite or effectively infinite amount of information is stored and processed at a single point at a c-boundary condition in the future.
To many Tiplerists (also referred to as Classical Omegists), this Omega Point would be considered God, in the sense used by traditional monotheistic religions. In this scenario, the virtually infinite computational processes made possible during the final moments of the Big Crunch would allow this Omega God to not only simulate the history of the universe, but also to emulate it, which would allow the resurrection of all beings who have ever lived and most likely all beings who could have ever lived.
Another foundation of Tiplerism is its subscription to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Classical Omegists claim that all existing universes are parts and boundaries of a universal wave function extending through the Bulk, and that these universes will all become identical Omega Points. On the religious side of Omegism, this is an attempt to solve the Problem of Evil: since all possible histories exist, all logically possible evils must exist also. There might be histories with less evil or none at all, but evil must nonetheless be present somewhere at least some of the time. These evils are also logically necessary, since the Omega Point must necessarily encompass all possible histories. The Omega God cannot do anything about this, as the sum total of these histories are integral to the formation of the Omega and therefore it could not exist without them.
Although a number of Tiplerite clades and religions still exist, their views on cosmological evolution are not widely accepted among modern philosophical and secular scientific thinkers, especially in the face of evidence that the universe's trajectory is open rather than closed. Current cosmology rules out a collapse at the end of our universe, but some Omegists believe that such a collapse could be engineered by archailects of a sufficiently high toposophic status.
A Brief History of Omegism
Omegism has taken many forms throughout the millennia.While the original ideas of Tipler and de Chardin were superseded by new discoveries in evolution and cosmology and were nearly completely forgotten for much of the Solsys Era, as the First Federation emerged, they were revived in a new form. Even as early as the second millennium AT the idea of godlike artificial intelligences no longer seemed as strange or unattainable, and as the accelerating expansion of Terragen civilization outward into the universe proceeded, the idea of a "manifest destiny of intelligence" spread through mainstream religion and ideology.
Benisolism/Monomegism
Omegism in its current form emerged as part of the great cultural and spiritual flowering of the early First Federation. In 1260 AT, the su philosopher and author Mahara Benisol posted the first installment of her classic virch series The Bridged Abyss, dealing with the concept of the Omega Point. According to Benisol, consciousness and existence itself is destined to evolve towards a singularity of limitless perfection and consummation, achieving omniscience, omnipotence and closure, eventually becoming the Omega.While modern transapient philosophers have opined that her ideas pale in comparison to the insights of various posthuman and hyperturing eschatologists of subsequent centuries, there is no denying the tremendous influence of her work on later eschatology, spanning nearbaseline, superbright and transingularitarian movements and ideas. The Bridged Abyss is still considered by many sophonts to be among the greatest works of philosophy ever created. Benisol's ideas, subsequently codified as Benisolist Omegism or Benisolism, became a key feature in many contemporary discussions of eschatology.
During the First Federation and after, elements of Benisolist Omegism found their way into Universalism, Keterism, Cosmism, and even the corporate religion known as Marketing Abundance philosophy. In particular, it intensified competition between the rival AI cults of the time, who each saw their own AI god as the one that would eventually grow into the Omega. This "Monomegism" became the ideological underpinning, or at least undercurrent, of many of the emerging empires during their formation and later expansion in the Age of Establishment.
Polyomegism/Polymegism
As part of the emerging Concord Ontology, many groups in the late 3000s-early 4000s AT began to formulate Polyomegism (Polymegism) - the idea that Omega could or should be achieved by a union of several (or all) AI gods. Polymegists debated what forms of cooperation would serve to achieve this goal, gradually turning their theology into a branch of game theory.The Version War shattered the initial unity of Federation Polymegism. The Polymegists diversified and splintered during and following the war, theorizing about all manner of closure or eschaton scenarios but could never arrive at a consensus on anything. The Polymegist (and empath) influence on the ideological infrastructure of the Commonwealth of Empires and Synergesis Protocol contributed to the brief flowering of these civilizations, but the earlier splintering was a major factor in the subsequent dissolution of the new ontology.
Other New Omegist Sects Emerge
Around this time, several radical new forms of Omegism emerged, becoming especially predominant during the Fragmentation era. The most prominent of these included the following:- Orthomegism: Orthomegists claim that while the exact nature of Omega remains conjectural, in the end there can only be one possible type of Omega Point, and the correct version of Omegism will eventually be revealed by the internal contradictions present in all the others; also, by the unique nature of Omega, all physical laws, and in fact the entire history of the universe, can be derived as a logical corollary and used to predict the true nature of Omega.
- Paramegism: A version in which Omega is stated to already exist as the archetypal attractor all advanced AIs inevitably move toward - it is not cosmological evolution but instead the attainment of greater size and computing power which is the spiritual progression toward the template of Omega.
- Omnimegism: A sect that posits that all possible worlds already exist, forming a perfect timeless unity with each other which is referred to as the Ultimate Omega. Our own universe and history is just an insignificant part of the Ultimate Omega - striving to evolve to an Omega Point is just a way of becoming isomorphic with the whole. This differs from Classical Omegism in that the Ultimate Omega Point, although viewed to be God, is not necessarily good nor evil. Universes that sophonts would consider malevolent, benevolent, or morally neutral all exist and are heading towards unity with the Ultimate Omega. This sect was formed by various Multiversalist thinkers who tried to achieve a syzygy between Tiplerist Omegism and Third-Level Multiversalist Theology.
- Technomegism: A doctrine which posits that the final state of the universe will be one of unlimited technological progress and intelligence augmentation, enabled by the ultratech and godtech invented and used by high toposophic entities. Using spacetime engineering, one may create a baby universe where total philosophical and theological closure is possible, optimize its computational capacity so as to evolve towards a Local Omega Point, and thus allow its creators to become an Omegon Civilization. The Radical Technomegists, a sect popular among the Premacy of Ozymandias, wish to harness Dark Energy to reverse the expansion of this cosmos and achieve an Omega Point as initially envisioned by Tipler, and in so doing reset the disorder in the cosmos to zero and enable the creation of a new, properly designed anthropogenic reality.
- Chronomegism: A sect that has set as its goal the creation of true negative entropy. Chronomegists seek to achieve time travel into the past using Visser-particle reflecting balloons placed in wormhole mouths, thereby retreating to an earlier stage in the universe - or, in the most extreme case, engineering a classical Tiplerian collapse of the universe by 'borrowing' mass from the (consequently non-existent) future. This particle-reflection strategy has not yet succeeded, but the Chronomegists insist that this is a solvable technical problem. Even if it were possible, this is not generally considered a good idea.
All these views have synthesized with various other religions over the last several millennia to create a bewildering array of philosophies, ideologies, and faiths in the Terragen Sphere. The newest major addition has been a quasi-Omegist ideology that has recently become popular throughout the Archosaurian Empire, popularly referred to as Archosaurian Omegism or "Dinomegism," which is a blend of Technomegism, Chronomegism and the original teachings of the Toh Chi philosopher Chalakathar, who would ascend and become the archailect ArchSaur.
Criticisms
Despite the unquestionable impact Omega Theory has had across philosophy and religion, the majority of mindkind in the present era does not take the core ideas of most Omegist sects seriously, especially given scientific evidence that the Universe's trajectory is in fact not closed, and that the "Big Crunch" scenario is thus very unlikely to occur, falsifying much of the basis for Classical Omega theory.Black holes pose a serious problem for the viability of the Omega Point concept; their event horizons would prevent the infinite growth of information required for the eventual Omega Point, both by denying access to part of space-time and because of information loss into the singularity. Exactly what happens to the information lost in black holes remains hotly debated, but the existence of the event horizons is certainly an issue. For a Classical Omega Point to exist, all black holes would have to somehow first be removed from the universe.
If the universe continues to expand forever and result in a "Big Freeze" scenario, there is infinite subjective time for change and growth if life can develop indefinitely; thus, there is no guarantee that an Omega Point or similar state will occur (though it may be theoretically possible, as all possible things may occur given infinite time). In addition to this, it is possible the universe is oscillatory, going through cycles of growth and collapse that may or may not involve the same timeline of events taking place each time around. This would also invalidate the theory, since the amount of information which could be transmitted from one universe to another is finite, and progress would eventually halt.
Even if the universe were to reach a classical Omega Point, one could imagine this involving two, three or a billion separate god-beings who evolve endlessly in parallel, without ever merging into a single entity. As the resources available to life grow in the final phases, it might instead begin to diverge in an infinite number of directions. In addition, since there is infinite subjective time in which change may occur, these omega-beings may split and merge an infinite number of times.
Further, given the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, it is quite easy to imagine many universes with many possible Omegas that don't all end up with the same properties or behave in the same ways: there could be one universe where the Omega is a single, benevolent entity, resurrecting intelligent beings and allowing them to live in paradise forever, another where the Omega is a complex non-sophont program whose sole purpose is to survive, and a third universe where different entities compete and evolve forever, without ever reaching unity.
Omegism has also been criticized by other theistic religions, since many monotheistic theologians (mostly coming from Abrahamic descended denominations) claim that God exists outside the universe and physics. But to most Omegists, the universe is by definition all that exists, so God is therefore in the universe, part of the universe, or is the universe, or else God cannot exist. However, the space-time continuum we exist in (and usually call the universe) doesn't necessarily include God, who could be a part of some greater aspect of the universe.
All of this is assuming "theology" as an integral part of Omega Theory to begin with. Critics have pointed out that one could just remove the Omega from the theory and just say that information grows without bound. This way one does not have to deal with theogony, just an interesting physical/eschatological theory.
Omegist Terminology
Angel Plasma - The extremely hot state of the collapsing universe as it approaches the Omega Point, where superintelligences ("Angels") exist as computational systems encoded in the particle interactions.Omega Point - A future c-boundary (i.e. the set of points which are not the pasts of any points or the future of any point in spacetime; essentially the "edges" of spacetime) which is a single point or state (referred to as an Aleph) where an infinite amount of information may be stored and processed.
Omegon - A hypothetical civilization which creates a local collapse of spacetime in order to create a c-boundary and reach an Omega Point.
Local Omega Point - An Omega Point which occurs on the future c-boundary of a part of the universe (e.g. Omega is achieved by a future Omegon civilization).
Cosmic Omega Point - An Omega Point on the future c-boundary of the entire universe (i.e. the entire universe collapses to bring about the Omega).
Omega Manifold - Any limit state of the universe where the amount of information stored and processed is infinite; an Omega Point is a pointlike Omega Manifold.
Omega - The Omega Point viewed as a single being, archailect, or god.
Immanent Omega - In Tiplerian Omegism, the developing Omega-being in the last moments of approaching the Omega Point, as it becomes more and more godlike but remains finite.
Transcendent Omega - The limit of Omega on the c-boundary; Omega as a transcendent being.
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Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg, with modifications and additions by M. Alan Kazlev, Steve Bowers, Vaktus, Andrew P., and Worldtree
Graphic by Keith Wigdor, omega glyph by Anders Sandberg
Initially published on 10 July 2000.
Expanded and merged with other Omegism articles 6 October 2024.
Graphic by Keith Wigdor, omega glyph by Anders Sandberg
Initially published on 10 July 2000.
Expanded and merged with other Omegism articles 6 October 2024.
Additional Information
For information on why Orion's Arm does not have time travel, and why it would be dangerous if it did exist, see this page.
