Evolution of the Mind: From Noosphere to the Omega Point

by Alex Vikoulov

"You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

When speaking of transcendence, it's impossible not to mention the work of mid-twentieth century theologian Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard has prophesied that our current phase of being, in which humans live individual, independent lives, would eventually be replaced with something else - something more collective and more spiritual, something focused on information and consciousness rather than material being. He coined such terms as Noosphere (mindsphere) to refer the globe-encircling web of thought and information that he thought would arise at the end of our current phase of being, and The Omega Point, the cosmological singularity, the point of maximum complexity and connectivity, the Universe, he believed, was evolving towards.

Terence McKenna spoke of the Omega Point as the "Transcendental Object at the end of time", universal attractor. Evolution, according to McKenna, is not being pushed from behind by the force of causal necessity, we humans, like the rest of nature, are being pulled toward this universal attractor, this temporal vortex, reacting to the siren song of the Transcendental Object. "It beckons across the dimensions, it throws an enormous shadow over the enterprise of human history... The presence of creatures such as ourselves on this planet is an indication of the nearness of the Transcendental Object at the end of time; it is an attractor, an energy sink in the epigenetic landscape... We are going to shed the monkey; the linguistic being that is symbiotic with these monkeys is about to disentangle itself from matter and realize some kind of angelic transformation very difficult for us to anticipate or understand."

Dr.Frank Tipler, among other prominent physicists, argues that the technological Singularity is inevitable and the destiny of human race is to live forever, expand universally and finally reach the Omega Point, the networked mind of universal proportions, living conscious universe. As the laws of physics dictate, we are set to achieve the Technological Singularity, and then move forward towards the Cosmological Singularity, the Omega Point. It's a logical necessity, argues Dr.Tipler who has developed the Omega Point scientific theory. The ultimate destiny of our Universe, according to Tipler, is multi-billion year expansion, then contraction and finally compression of space-time, matter and energy into an infinitely dense point (Omega Point), leading to the next Big Bang (Alpha Point in another universe).

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Tags: self-transcendence, transcendence, neuroscience, collective intelligence, sentience, self-awareness, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, exocortex, Teillard de Chardin, Terence McKenna, Frank Tipler, Quantum Multiverse, Syntellect Hypothesis, noosphere, superintelligence, singularity, mind uploading, postbiological superintelligence, posthuman superintelligence, Syntellect emergence, technological singularity, AGI, artificial general intelligence, transhumanism, superlongevity, superwellbeing, cognitive enhancement, substrate-independent mind, digital mind, digital immortality, Gaian Mind, evolution of consciousness, Omega Point, transcendental object, cosmological singularity, transcendentalism, neo-transcendentalism

*Image Credit: Shutterstock

About the Author:
Alex Vikoulov is a neo-transcendentalist, cosmist, singularitarian, evolutionary extrapolist, digital philosopher, futurist, founder of Ecstadelic Media, painter and media artist, author of "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution". Graduated from Armstrong University, Berkeley, CA. Lives in Burlingame, California (San Francisco Bay Area).