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The New God Argument at Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology

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Below is a transcript of my presentation of the New God Argument today at the annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. I hope to follow up later with a recording, when it becomes available. Thank you to all who attended for the thought-provoking questions and conversation. Please note that the transcript is not a formal document, and doesn't contain the references it should contain. We're working on preparing a presentation of the argument that would be suitable for publication. That will remedy the lack of references. In the mean time, I'll just note that the major references are at least indicated by name within the transcript. I look forward to your feedback.
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Revised Summary of the New God Argument

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Below is the revised summary of the New God Argument, as presented today at the annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. Those who are familiar with the argument will recognize that we renamed the Charity Arguments to "the Benevolence Argument" and focused in on one of the original arguments -- which is not to say there is not merit in the others, but this one lends itself best to the formal argument. We also revised some of the syntax, most notably using "posthumans" now rather than "advanced civilizations", which serves to clarify some areas. As always, I'm interested in your feedback. Thank you.
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Complex Life Found Under 600 Feet of Antarctic Ice

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This news is particularly interesting to those who are familiar with the Great Filter Argument: EITHER prehumans are improbable OR humans probably will go extinct before becoming posthumans OR posthumans are probable. On Earth, we continue to discover prehumans in abundance and in unexpected locations, leading many to suppose prehumans to be probable elsewhere in space, despite hostile environments. If such supposition attains empirically in the future (say, we discover prehumans on Europa), we're left with the other disjuncts of the argument: EITHER humans probably will go extinct before becoming posthumans OR posthumans are probable. The New God Argument contends for the pragmatic value, even the moral obligation, of rejecting the position that humans probably will go extinct before becoming posthumans. If we do that, we're left with the conclusion that posthumans are probable. Where are they?

 
 

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via Slashdot by timothy on 3/17/10

Chroniton writes "NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling only an 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.


 
 

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Presenting the New God Argument at the Annual Conference of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology

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I will be presenting the New God Argument at the Annual Conference of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. The 2010 conference takes place on 25-27 March at Utah Valley University in Orem UT, and I will be presenting on Friday 26 March at 4pm mountain time. I'd enjoy seeing family and friends there!

Location: Library Lecture Hall (LI 120) at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

Joseph West and I formulated the New God Argument and have presented it on a few occasions, including a Sunstone symposium in 2008 and the Mormonism Engineering conference at Claremont Graduate University in 2009. We're continuing to work on the presentation of the argument in preparation for publication. A preliminary version will soon be published by Kofford Books and edited by Scott Howe and Richard Bushman as part of a compilation of papers from the Mormonism Engineering conference. Subsequently, we're aiming to publish a more formal version in a secular journal, such as the Journal of Evolution and Technology.

Below are some videos and documents that will help you become familiar with the New God Argument.

The Role of Human Culture In Natural Selection

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Human evolution is increasingly the consequence of cultural and technological evolution rather than biological evolution. As medical and biological technologies continue to advance and converge with information technology, our evolution will become increasingly volitional and decreasingly random (at least from our perspective). Consider, from the broadest perspective, the ramifications of such a trend. Will we be the first or only civilization to seize control of its evolution? If not, what are the present capacities of civilizations that have already attained such capacities? Perhaps posthuman civilizations are analogous to DNA at the magnitude of cosmic evolution?

 
 

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via Slashdot by Soulskill on 3/2/10

gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "... for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution. The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology. The evidence of its activity is the more surprising because culture has long seemed to play just the opposite role. Biologists have seen it as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine. Because of this buffering action, culture was thought to have blunted the rate of human evolution, or even brought it to a halt, in the distant past. Many biologists are now seeing the role of culture in a quite different light. Although it does shield people from other forces, culture itself seems to be a powerful force of natural selection. People adapt genetically to sustained cultural changes, like new diets. And this interaction works more quickly than other selective forces, 'leading some practitioners to argue that gene-culture co-evolution could be the dominant mode of human evolution.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.


 
 

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Why the internet will fail (from 1995)

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Computing continues to change the way we work and play, expanding our capacities in ways previous generations could hardly imagine. Not a few have been excessively skeptical of the possibilities, displacing considered questioning with indiscriminate dismissal. Not a few continue to indulge in that excess. Faith need not be blind, passive or unreasoning. Practical faith is not merely a cognitive position. It is a creative will, seeking a way to empower its desires. Maybe we can engineer solutions to climate change, over-population, aging and even death. "No way"? Way.

 
 

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"No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works." - Clifford Stoll, Newsweek, Feb 27, 1995 (Source: http://threewordchant.com/2010/02/24/why-the-internet-will-fail-from-1995/)

 
 

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