George Ellis Cape Town 23/2/95 Review for the Cape Times.Here it is at last, just what we've all been waiting for! Modern science proves everything you always wanted: resurrection after death, eternal life, idyllic sex for ever! The abstruse topics of quantum cosmology and computer complexity theory prove it's all true: "If any reader has lost a loved one, or is afraid of death, modern physics says: `Be comforted, you and they shall live again'"! Not only that, but you no longer have to take on faith that God exists and loves you - it can be proved by science! Hallelujah!
Wait a minute. The guy who's shown this has to be the brightest person who ever lived - he's outperformed Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Einstein, Hawking. This virtuoso performance demonstrates what every well-educated philosopher over the past hundred years has thought impossible - that science can prove the existence of God. No scientist before has had such daring or proved such amazing things ("I will attempt to solve the most important problems of human existence by using the most up-to-date knowledge of modern mathematics and physics"). So author Frank Tipler, Professor of Physics at Tulane University (New Orleans), has to be the cleverest person who ever put pen to paper.
Or is he? Perhaps one should take these assertions with a pinch of salt? Worry a little about the methods that lead to such fantastic claims? Consider if maybe he's pulling your leg, having a joke at your expense? (while at the same time becoming very rich on the proceeds, and making vast profits for the publisher).
In fact, it's quite unclear if the author believes what he writes or not. What is clear is that his argument is full of holes from beginning to end. It is dressed up in very fancy technical language - see the wave function of the universe in an Appendix! calculate how an infinite amount of information can be processed in a finite time! The problem is that none of this has any possibility of proving what is claimed. Dr Tipler does not understand the limits of science - and in order to persuade you to follow his pipe dream, he wants you too to forget those inconvenient obstacles to his fantasies.
Well if you are gullible, go for the ride. See how human beings are nothing but computers! Believe that life will exist for ever in a universe that collapses in the future to an infinitely hot singular state, that living beings will manipulate the entire universe so as to shape the way it comes to an end, that a computer outside the edge of space-time will `resurrect' each and every one of us by creating a perfect electronic emulation of our thoughts and emotions! Disregard the silly old people who think there's a difference between those digital ones and zeros and a real human being. Suspend your disbelief and accept that because Tipler calls a mathematical structure God, it is God. Close your eyes when (on page 305) he tells you that he himself does not believe in the truth of the theory he has been presenting with such gusto and sincerity in the previous 304 pages (actually, he's an atheist). If Tipler says it's so, it must be true, even if he himself does not come on the ride ....
If you are into pseudo-science and illusion, you might buy the book as a classic example of the art - see a master at work, creating a fairy tale dressed up as science. Or is it science fantasy? - Whatever. It is not science, nor is it theology, and the philosophy presented here would fail any first year course (Tipler confuses models of reality with reality, and redefines the meanings of words in arbitrary ways that take his fancy - indeed this is the secret of his conjuring trick).
Actually why not save your money, leave Tipler's book on the shelf, and instead buy one of the recent books that seriously tries to understand the interaction of modern physics and ultimate meaning - a fascinating endeavour. It requires far more discipline and care than you will find in Tipler's flamboyant monograph.