Archive 2010

Anarchist, atheist, buddhist, extropian, libertarian, mormon, singularitarian, technoprogressive … and cosmist are among the many self-identifications that sometimes accompany transhumanist self-identification. Below are some quick thoughts on how the Ten Cosmist Convictions, as authored by Giulio Prisco and Ben Goertzel, compare to my perspective as a Mormon Transhumanist. Some of ... Read the article →

Information hazards are reasons to withhold knowledge, such as how to build an atomic weapon, the genetic makeup of deadly viruses, etc. The idea is not new. For thousands of years, esoteric groups, such as Masons and Mormons, have formed around knowledge that was considered privileged. The reasoning, basically, is ... Read the article →

Technology is certainly an important aspect of transhumanism. Although some (too many so long as there’s one, so far as I’m concerned) transhumanists focus on a narrow definition of “technology,” others regard technology as a principle that encompasses far more than plastic and metal stuff bundled together within the last ... Read the article →

Some of us perceive science as dry, boring, aloof, impersonal, elite, callous and perhaps disturbing, confusing or even stifling. This is an esthetic problem – a spiritual problem. The consequences include unnecessary and ineffective forms of communal division and relational stress, slowed progress in knowledge and its application, and increased ... Read the article →

“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 Computing continues to change the way we work and play, expanding our capacities in ways ... Read the article →

“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.” (Nicholas Wade) Human evolution is increasingly the consequence of cultural and technological evolution rather than biological evolution. As medical and biological technologies ... Read the article →

“In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists found a shrimplike creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath an Antarctic ice sheet.” (Boston Globe) This news is particularly interesting to those who are familiar with the Great Filter Argument: EITHER prehumans are improbable OR humans probably will go ... Read the article →

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 ... Read the article →

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. ... Read the article →

Today, the Mormon Transhumanist Association announced that Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) terminated its affiliation program. This ended Humanity+ affiliation with the MTA and other notable transhumanist groups, including the Immortality Institute, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology, and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The MTA and ... Read the article →

Regarding apocalyptic prophecies from scripture, a friend asks: “If the prophecy of the last days paints a picture of increasing wickedness, moral degradation, and political erosion, doesn’t it become somewhat heretical to seek significant and sustainable political, environmental, and social improvements, as their accomplishment would necessarily negate the fulfillment of ... Read the article →

This morning, I found that someone, using the pseudonym “Vblogger”, has set up a blog entitled “Mormon Transhumanist Association Response”, with the stated purpose of showing that Mormonism and Transhumanism are not compatible. Vblogger describes herself as a member of the LDS Church, married with children, and convinced that truth ... Read the article →

This post continues my response to Vblogger’s assessment of Mormon Transhumanism, as found in the “Doctrinal and Logical Response” section of her blog, “Mormon Transhumanist Association Response”. My previous post addressed Vblogger’s thoughts about the first of the three points in the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation. This post begins by addressing ... Read the article →

The post continues my response to Vblogger’s “Doctrinal and Logical Response” on her blog, Mormon Transhumanist Association Response. I already published a first response and a second response. As before, I will quote portions of Vblogger’s comments and follow these quotes with my thoughts. Vblogger: “The Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation emphasizes ... Read the article →

The post concludes my response to Vblogger’s “Doctrinal and Logical Response” on her blog, Mormon Transhumanist Association Response. I already published a first response, a second response, and a third response. As before, I will quote portions of Vblogger’s comments and follow these quotes with my thoughts. Vblogger: “The affirmation ... Read the article →

On the Mormon Transhumanist Association Response blog, Vblogger has commented on the New God Argument. Below are my thoughts in response to those comments. I already published a first response, a second response, a third response, and a fourth response to other comments on her blog. The question of whether ... Read the article →

As widely reported, physicist Stephen Hawking has warned us not to talk to aliens. His concern arises from an analogy between the supposed possible character of advanced aliens and the observed historical behavior of colonizers on Earth. While Hawking is an excellent physicist, I suspect his credentials in sociology are ... Read the article →

Will universal resurrection of the dead be the natural consequence of increasingly detailed genealogical work? Do the thought experiment: Historian A sets forth a basic representation of a past person Historian B improves on A’s work, providing a more detailed representation of the past person Other historians repeat #2 indefinitely ... Read the article →

If sincere questions or disagreements detract from your spiritual experiences then you might ask yourself whether your inspiration is coming from the right God. This thought confronted me today during church services, when a speaker told a story about his missionary work. While trying to connect spiritually with a group ... Read the article →

Expressing concern about the status of Jesus and emotion, Vblogger has written some additional thoughts about Mormon Transhumanism. I welcome the opportunity to respond to some of those thoughts, and hope Vblogger will continue to probe. Vblogger: “At the same time, he admits that science does not describe a means ... Read the article →

Today, Philippe Verdoux of the IEET asked, “Will posthumans all be atheists?.” My first reaction was: “This is ridiculous, like an embryo asking whether humans will not believe in humans.” I think I even mumbled it out loud, although there was no one around to hear me. Could Philippe, like ... Read the article →

Do rituals save us? Are ordinances required for salvation or exaltation? Put differently, for those with less familiarity with religious language, are there desirable modes of existence (perhaps subsequent to death) that we cannot attain without engaging in particular rituals, perhaps performed by particularly authorized persons? For example, it is ... Read the article →

Transhumanists have been charged with hubris: the arrogance of playing God. As the argument goes, our aspirations are beyond moral bounds, our trust in human ability is unwarranted and dangerous, and we may even risk the wrath of some God that would punish us to rectify our attitude and put ... Read the article →

Today, I was browsing the results of the Pew Research Center survey of Americans’ expectations of life in 2050. There were a couple problems that jumped out at me. The first is that our expectations of technology are certainly too low in some areas. For example, only 42% think scientists ... Read the article →

In 2007, I read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. At the time, the New Atheists appeared newer than they now appear (although they were perhaps not so new even at that time). And they were frequently referenced in articles and discussions that crossed my path. Prior to reading Dawkins’ book, ... Read the article →

In Pope Benedict’s Holy Saturday address on 3 April of this year, he presented perspective on immortalism. He suggested that radical extension of life as we currently know it is not a cure for death. But rather a cure for death must “transform our lives from within” and “create a ... Read the article →

Dvice lists “6 reasons why you’ll never upload your mind to a computer.” There are some problems with Dvice’s reasoning. Uptime If the uptime of future computers is no better than the uptime of current computers, few if any of us will trust them enough to upload our minds. However, ... Read the article →

Below is a transcript of my presentation at Sunstone 2010 yesterday at the Sheraton Hotel in Salt Lake City. I invite your feedback. Science and Religion? How often have we heard the question: are science and religion compatible? And yet, how many of us are still waiting for the answer? ... Read the article →

A Wired article recently explained “Human Evolution Recapped in Kids’ Brain Growth.” Basically, the idea is that 25 million years’ of human brain evolution are repeated at relatively high speed in the developing brains of contemporary human children. I’ve sometimes wondered whether something similar might not be true of posthuman ... Read the article →

Recently, a friend wrote me a letter requesting my thoughts on some of the challenges, particularly historical and political, facing the LDS Church and how they affect him personally. With his permission, I’m responding on my blog because I expect these thoughts will interest and may benefit others. I am ... Read the article →

A friend asked for my opinion on what came before the big bang. I’m not a physicist or cosmologist, but I read enough to have (dangerous) opinions that might provoke imagination in productive directions. With that disclaimer, here are my thoughts. First, maybe there wasn’t a big bang. Clearly, scientific ... Read the article →

A friend (Jeremy Owen Turner) called my attention to an article published today in the Telegraph, which asks, “Are we living in a designer universe?” There are strong similarities between the ideas expressed in this article and those I expressed in my blog post a few days ago, “Before the ... Read the article →

On 14 September, Thomas Horn of Raiders News Network wrote an “open letter to Christian leaders on biotechnology and the future of man.” The letter attacks transhumanism and merits response from religious transhumanists. To that end, here are my thoughts. The letter begins by advocating that Christians should offer an ... Read the article →

Here is a transcript of my speech on the New God Argument at the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010. If we will not go extinct before becoming posthumans then, given assumptions consistent with contemporary science and technological trends, posthumans probably already exist that are more benevolent than us and that ... Read the article →

Transfigurism is exemplified by a syncretization of Mormonism and Transhumanism. Together, they illustrate the compatibility of religion, science, spirituality and technology in the following ways: Theology - Trust in posthuman potential entails that which qualifies as faith in God. Metaphysics - The basic assumptions of science lead to engineering miracles. ... Read the article →

My friend, Brad Carmack, would like to share with you a draft of his book, “Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student’s Perspective”. It is a heart-felt and thought-provoking look, from the perspective of a faithful Mormon, at homosexuality as it relates to Mormon culture and religion. The book begins with an ... Read the article →

Today, while looking through old journal entries, I came across the following passage, written when I was a missionary for the LDS Church: “He is God. He is a plurality of beings on the cutting edge of reality. He is the dictator of truth and the guardian of truth. He ... Read the article →

These matrices help me visualize categories, or relations between key concepts, as I understand and use them in my writing. Relations are both within and between matrices. For example, here’s a relation within a matrix: individuals are to communities as anatomies are to environments. And here’s an example of a ... Read the article →

Recently, Joshua Fox gave an insightful presentation on why “super-intelligence does not imply benevolence.” Thanks to Michael Anissimov for bringing this to my attention. Joshua identifies two kinds of benevolence: instrumental and axiomatic. And he argues that neither is a necessary outcome for super-intelligence. He observes that instrumental benevolence results ... Read the article →

Yesterday, I presented a case study on cloud computing security at the Cloud Security Alliance Congress 2010 in Orlando, Florida. Below are the notes I put together in preparation for my presentation. The conference was technically oriented, so I didn’t comment on futurism or philosophy. However, it’s worth noting here ... Read the article →

Carl Teichrib, editor of the “Forcing Change” journal, drove for two days to attend the recent Transhumanism and Spirituality conference sponsored by the Mormon Transhumanist Association in Salt Lake City UT. Afterward, he wrote a review of the conference in his journal and discussed his experience in an interview on ... Read the article →

Fundamentalist Christians are demonizing Transhumanism. It’s not new, of course. But it has become increasingly frequent and hostile. “Evil” “Hitler” “Nazi” “racist” “pagan” “deadly” “elitist” “fooling around” “Babel” “Sodom and Gomorrah” “occult” “demonic” “crazy” “crush” “hurt” “destroy” “antichrist” “Satan” “eerie” “run over ourselves” That’s a sampling of words and phrases ... Read the article →

The Bible story of the tower of Babel is commonly considered a warning against hubris and is often used to condemn both the deification aspirations of Mormons and the posthuman aspirations of Transhumanists. The word “Babel” only appears in the Bible twice, both in the book of Genesis, once just ... Read the article →

We believed. That’s what they told us, and we trusted. Their stories were awesome and awful, situating us in meaning and purpose. We knew where we came from, why we were here, and where we were going. It made sense. It felt good. We consented. That’s how they pressed us, ... Read the article →

Bob (the blue blob from Monsters Inc) claimed that you don’t need a brain. Although all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals have brains, some animals don’t. For example, jellyfish have only a decentralized nervous system, and sponges have no nervous system at all. Then, of course, there are countless non-animal ... Read the article →