Archive 2007
This is an archive of articles that Lincoln Cannon published in 2007. Monthly archives for March 2007, May 2007, June 2007, July 2007, August 2007, September 2007, October 2007, November 2007, and December 2007 are available. And a full archive of all articles that Lincoln has published since 2005 is also available. You may also search for articles and other content that's available on any of Lincoln's websites, including social media.
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Understanding Mormons
As a result of Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency of the United States, media scrutiny and debate of what ...
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Watching the Law of Accelerating Returns
Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel Corporation, observed in the 1960s that the ratio of complexity to cost ...
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Resurrecting Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov
Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov was an historical precursor of Transhumanism and particularly Christian Transhumanism. His name in Russian, никола Фёдорович Фёдоров, ...
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Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler
I recently finished reading Engines of Creation, written by Eric Drexler in the mid 1980s. This is perhaps the most ...
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Diversity through Empowerment
Some have suggested that human empowerment over physical appearance will decrease diversity. For example, see a recent blog entry by ...
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Jon Huntsman Increases Support for Cancer Research
As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, Jon Huntsman plans to donate to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University ...
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Are you living in worlds without end?
As recently reported by the Register and Slashdot, the United States military is using powerful computers to run increasingly detailed ...
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Everyday Theology Mischaracterizes Transhumanism
I recently came across a document produced by a Christian group that takes on the admirable task of presenting “Everyday ...
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Transhumanist Evils of Individualism and Communalism
Demonization of Transhumanism abounds, and ironically arises for apparently contradictory reasons. Just the other day, I commented on how “Everyday ...
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Skeptical of the ideas proposed by Transhumanists?
Are you skeptical of the ideas proposed by Transhumanists? Perhaps you have something in common with the folks quoted below. ...
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Mormon Senator Invites Hindu Prayer
I was happy to read this morning of a decision by Senator Harry Reid (a Mormon) to invite a Hindu ...
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Transhumanist Faith
Some have wondered whether Singularitarianism, with which a subset of Transhumanists identify, is the true religion. Their point, with which ...
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President Packer Looks to Eternity
Helen Whitney recently interviewed several leaders of the LDS Church for the PBS documentary on the Mormons. PBS posted transcripts ...
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TransVision Tuesday Morning Session I
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Tuesday morning session I. Charlie Kam opened ...
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TransVision Tuesday Keynote Aubrey de Grey
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Aubrey de Grey’s keynote. Aubrey de Gray ...
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TransVision Tuesday Morning Session II
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Tuesday morning session II. James Hughes James ...
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TransVision Tuesday Afternoon Session II
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Tuesday afternoon session II. Ralph Merkle Ralph ...
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TransVision Wednesday Keynote Ed Begley, Jr.
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Ed Begley’s keynote. Ed Begley talked about ...
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TransVision Wednesday Morning Session II
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Wednesday morning session II. Marvin Minsky Marvin ...
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TransVision Thursday Morning Session I
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Thursday morning session I. Max More Max ...
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TransVision Thursday Keynote Peter Diamandis
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Thursday morning session II. Peter Diamandis spoke ...
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TransVision Thursday Afternoon Session I
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Thursday afternoon session I. Giorgio Gaviraghi Giorgio ...
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TransVision Thursday Afternoon Session II
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Thursday afternoon session II. Natasha Vita-More Natasha ...
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TransVision Thursday Keynote William Shatner
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Ray Kurzweil’s keynote. William Shatner began with ...
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TransVision Thursday Keynote Ray Kurzweil
I’m in Chicago for TransVision 2007. Here are some notes and thoughts from Ray Kurzweil’s keynote. Ray Kurzweil mentioned that ...
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More Blessed are the Disciples of Life
Today, I came across the blog of Paul Toscano. His relationship with Mormonism is difficult to describe and beyond the ...
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"The Language of God" Influencing Mormon Perspectives
Today at dinner, my mother mentioned that she had recently purchased a book by geneticist (and head of the Human ...
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Powerful Mormon Myths for the Modern World
Dave Banack, writing for Times and Seasons, asks: What sort of mythology would develop or result from the modern world ...
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The Work of Immortality is Not Complete
Bill Muehlenberg, in his CultureWatch blog, recently wrote about “The First Church of Transhumanism”. After providing a summary of his ...
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Eternal Recurrence of Our Children
Adam Greenwood at Times and Seasons speculates regarding millennial children. He wonders whether we might have future opportunities to raise ...
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I'm Insane, Blake Ostler Tells Me
While at the recent symposium organized by the Sunstone Education Foundation in Salt Lake City, I attended a presentation by ...
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Life Emerging from Eternal Matter
When I think about the origins of life in our time and space, I tend toward a materialistic animism. Matter ...
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Simulation Argument and Synthetic Worlds without End
The Simulation Argument has been getting a lot of attention since being referenced by the New York Times. Writing for ...
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The Accelerating Exponent of Kurzweil's Law
Kurzweil’s Law (generalizing from Moore’s Law) observes that technology changes exponentially as new technologies contribute toward increasing the rate of ...
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Faithful Science
Jared, a guest blogger at By Common Consent, wonders what “Faithful Science” would look like and how it would be ...
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Church Internet Coordinator on Technology for Good
Ronald Schwendiman is the coordinator for the worldwide Internet activities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He ...
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Independent Mormon Transhumanists
I’ve been wondering how many independent Mormon Transhumanists are out there, unaware of or uninterested in groups like the Mormon ...
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Why would God create worlds?
Put another way, why would neohumans run detailed world simulations? Not being neohumans ourselves, we can only speculate. However, it ...
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Neuroscience and a Mormon Understanding of the Soul
James Hughes posted to the TransSpirit board a message on “Non-materialist neuroscience as a crypto-theist conspiracy.” In the message, James ...
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Dogmatism, not Religion, is the Enemy of Science
Gary Shapiro is an apologist for the decreasing segment of Mormonism that is hostile to evolution theory. He recently posed ...
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Is "Mormon Transhumanist" Redundant?
Is Mormonism a form of Transhumanism? Michael Anissimov recently posted seven definitions of “Transhumanism” on his blog. Let’s see how ...
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The Wisest Designer Would Be Neo-Darwinian
An LDS Science Review post on “Disbelief and Silliness” directed my attention to an article in The Nation, entitled “Root ...
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Intelligent Design of Religion
Philosopher Dan Dennett argues that religions are like cows: we’ve been redesigning them for thousands of years, perhaps without doing ...
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Mormons Are Thinking About Enhancement Technologies
Sam MB at By Common Consent has taken up the subject of enhancement technologies. He asks whether Mormonism offers any ...
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The Awful Monster Strikes Again
Today I attended the funeral of a friend’s father: a kind and hard-working man, now dead from heart problems at ...
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God Created the World with a Computer? Makes Sense
This morning I watched the clip below from MSNBC, in which Keith Olberman discusses the Simulation Argument. During the clip, ...
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Eyring, Son of Scientist, Now in First Presidency
Gordon Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, today announced the appointment of Henry B Eyring ...
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The Problem with Atheism
Sam Harris, a well-known atheist (well, at least until now), recently spoke at an Atheist Alliance conference in Washington DC ...
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Elder Scott on Knowledge from Science and Inspiration
During the LDS Church general conference last weekend, Elder Richard G Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave ...
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Diversity and Similarity of Future Persons
In a blog entry entitled “Here Come the Warlocks,” Wesley Smith suggests that “transhumanism would probably result in stultifying sameness ...
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Chapter One of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
I recently read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, who I respect as an excellent (and, dare I say, inspiring) ...
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Aubrey de Grey is Spicy Today
Aubrey de Grey is a Transhumanist and biomedical gerontologist that is working hard to promote funding of research to end ...
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Chapter Two of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
This is my second post reviewing the book, The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The first post can be found ...
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Chapter Three of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
This is my third post about Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. The first two posts are available at the ...
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Mormon Inventors and their Inventions
While surfing the net this evening, I came across an interesting web page that lists various Mormon inventors. I was ...
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Response to the "Mormon Transhumanist Problem"
I recently responded to a Mormon blogger, Jettboy, who expressed concerns with Mormon Transhumanism. I’m going to post my response ...
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Thoughts on God's Relationship with Mind Uploading
Today at the “By Common Consent” blog, participants were polled in response to the MTA article in Sunstone magazine. The ...
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Skin Cells become Stem Cells
Big news today from biotech scientists: researchers have successfully converted human skin cells into stem cells. This process can be ...
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Mormons ask, "What if we didn't die from old age?"
Today at the Mormon blog, New Cool Thang, one of the contributors asked, “What if we didn’t die from old ...
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Death Is Neither Inevitable Nor Good
In discussions with friends recently, the subject of death came up and comments were made about it being inevitable and ...
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Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on Reconciling Faith
I recently watched videos of speeches given by United States presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on the subject ...
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Yes: Mormons ARE Cool
Erik Davis, a Transhumanist and author of Techgnosis, writes that “Mormons are cool” for at least the following reasons: “The ...
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Faithless Science is Manifestly Bogus
So claims Paul Davies in a New York Times editorial, entitled “Taking Science on Faith.” He rightly points out that ...
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Absurdity and Authority Do Not Refute Evolution
These days, if you ask a university-educated faithful Mormon whether she believes God may have used biological evolution as a ...
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Merry Christmas, Fellow Transhumanists!
Today, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, recognized among Christians as Christ, as messiah and savior. I join in the ...