The Omega Point

The Omega Point's near the world's end
Where complexity/consciousness tend.
We are singular points
That the alpha anoints;
We're aware that our beings transcend.

The French Jesuit and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) came up with the expression the Omega Point. In his theory, the universe is evolving towards higher levels of physical and mental complexity, which Teilhard called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. For Teilhard, this is only possible if a higher form of consciousness is attracting the universe to itself. Thus Teilhard postulates the Omega Point as the critical point (or complex) of consciousness — in chaos theory terms a strange attractor giving rise to fractal self-similar images.

Similar expressions are used by the American mathematical physicist Frank J Tipler (b. 1947); his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality describes a Singularity, a point in the future of infinite computational facility. Both Teilhard and Tipler see their theories as underpinning a rational understanding of certain mysteries of Christianity. In their terms, the Omega Point is for all intents and purposes God; indeed, the expression alpha and omega, "the first and last", is frequently used to signify God's eternity.