Archive 2015

So much anti-religious dogmatism, so much misrecognized religiosity, so little time. It’s a wonder to me that some clearly sophisticated persons can express such unsophisticated opinions about religion. Maybe it’s just because we all have vested interests? On the one hand, those who have distanced themselves from tradition seek to ... Read the article →

I’m excited to announce that I’ve accepted the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer at The World Table, and I want to tell you why. For two decades, I’ve worked in information technology, including leadership roles in software engineering and marketing technology. For about half that time, ... Read the article →

Stop a Mormon on the street, and ask her to describe God. She might say something like, “God is our Heavenly Father, an embodied glorified being, who created our world and loves us immeasurably.” That’s an accurate account of Mormon theology, so far as it goes. And yet there’s more ... Read the article →

Richard Dawkins is at it again, misapplying his extraordinary biological brilliance to religion with altogether sophomoric results. He’s worried that we’re saddling children with religious labels, like “Christian,” when the children aren’t even old enough to understand, let alone assert informed agreement with, the beliefs of their parents. It’s such ... Read the article →

I often position Mormon theology in terms of “superintelligent posthumanity”. This provides a bridge of understanding between Transhumanism and Mormonism. It can also provide a bridge of understanding between Transhumanism and broader Christianity, insofar as Mormonism illustrates an interpretive approach to Christian authoritative tradition. Recently, after reading one of my ... Read the article →

In his Orthogonality Thesis, Nick Bostrom proposes that “intelligence and final goals are orthogonal: more or less any level of intelligence could in principle be combined with more or less any final goal.” However, there’s a problem hinted at by the combination of “orthogonality” and “more or less.” Nick acknowledges ... Read the article →

A friend recently shared with me some questions about Mormon Transhumanism. The questions arose in response to a recording of my presentation at the 2013 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. In that presentation, I comment on the purpose of the Association and explain why I believe Mormonism mandates Transhumanism. ... Read the article →

Several friends have asked for my opinion on a set of controversial topics in Mormonism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) addressed in a series of essays during 2013 and 2014. The topics include: “Are Mormons Christian?” “Becoming Like God” “Book of Mormon and DNA ... Read the article →

This is a transcript of my talk at the 2015 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, held yesterday in the Salt Lake City Public Library. The conference attracted about 75 attendees in person, and about 900 visitors to the live stream on Transfigurism.org. Keynote speakers were Ralph Merkle and Kristine ... Read the article →

Quality for Animal Life: what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you read that? Animal rights or something along those lines? Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you what didn’t come to mind for me: Mormon Transhumanism. And yet, as it turns out, Quality for Animal Life, a nonprofit organization ... Read the article →

Below is version 3.1 of the New God Argument. This version appears in “What is Mormon Transhumanism?,” published today in the peer reviewed journal of Theology and Science. This formulation is closer to version 2.0 than version 3.0. Version 3.1 restores approximations of the Faith Assumption and Benevolence Argument as ... Read the article →

Technological change is accelerating and transforming our world. Assuming trends persist, we will soon experience an evolutionary shift in the mechanisms of reputation, a fundamental on which relationships are based. Cascading effects of the shift will revolutionize the way we relate with each other and our machines, incentivizing unprecedented degrees ... Read the article →

Information systems have long relied on identity to facilitate security and other forms of decision-making. In its most basic sense, an identity may be nothing more than an identifier, which, combined with a password, has sufficed for the practical concerns of many historic systems. However, as our systems have become ... Read the article →

Words may say I’m Christian. Actions too often show I’m not. I’ve conspired to heap up sanctioned fears and privileged prejudices to overwhelm and bury you. I’ve ridiculed, demonized, and threatened, cutting with innumerable strikes at your soul. Somehow the old book in my hand and the pointed building behind ... Read the article →

Occasionally I hear (or hear of) Mormons contending that cryonics (low-temperature preservation of a legally-dead body for resuscitation when new technology might cure the cause of death) is incompatible with our faith. Yet, to the contrary, those who revere the Bible have reason to trust that resuscitation, by cryonics or ... Read the article →

One of my favorite passages of The Book of Mormon is the speech of King Benjamin in Mosiah 2-5. In the speech, Benjamin makes three observations about the (in)significance of humanity that have informed my interpretation of the Gospel of Christ, particularly in light of contemporary science and social trends. ... Read the article →

Here is version 3.2 of the New God Argument, as it appears on the new website that I published last week. Changes from version 3.1 include shortening of the main summary, addition of short summaries for each section, addition of a “decentralized” qualification on the destructive capacity mentioned in the ... Read the article →

As I think about the future of humanity and the forces that shape our ongoing evolution, I’m often drawn to reflect on the origins of Judaism, and particularly the origins of the Bible. A couple thousand years ago, they gave birth to Christianity, which became the most influential cultural force ... Read the article →

Mormonism is relatively unique among world religions in its regard for bodies. Where most major religions consider bodies to be temporary or inhibitive, Mormonism considers bodies to be eternal and empowering, and potentially divine. This provides strong common ground with physicalist philosophies generally, and particularly with Transhumanism. Even the radical ... Read the article →

This is a transcript of a talk I gave in my local Mormon congregation today. The leadership asked three of us to speak on the subject of the Sabbath, how we might cultivate positive feelings toward it, and how we severally try to do so in our own homes. When ... Read the article →

I’m often asked about the logo of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, the winged wheel above the name of the association. So I’d like to share part of the story behind the origin of the logo, and some of the symbolism I and others have seen in it. The association selected ... Read the article →

In April 2015, the journal of Theology and Science published my paper on “What Is Mormon Transhumanism?” Access to the version of record requires a fee. However, I am now making the accepted manuscript available for free. Theology and Science journal editor, Ted Peters, and I met at the Religion ... Read the article →

What is good? Is it good because God says so? Or does God say so because it’s good? If it’s good independent of any God, how so? Is it good inherently or consequentially? Such are the traditional questions of ethics. It begins with consideration of duty in relation to values. ... Read the article →

Writing for the Daily Dot, Dylan Love recently put together a good piece on religion and superintelligence. The title has changed since the original posting. The new one is, in my estimation, inaccurate, but it probably improved clicks. Here’s the original title: “Will we be able to convert robots to ... Read the article →

Why not gather your family and friends for a group overdose on morphine? Expressed less provocatively, why live? Why maintain life through nourishment? Why extend life through medicine? Why perpetuate life through procreation? Whatever your initial reasons, introspect further. Why do you have those reasons? And, in turn, why do ... Read the article →

I’ve written about joy being the purpose of life, using the Mormon authoritative tradition as an example of that idea. I also observed that the idea is most robust if we understand joy, not in any narrowly preconceived manner, but rather broadly in relation to that which we severally and ... Read the article →

Some laud the relative respectability of New Atheism and its adherents compared to the various explicitly religious fundamentalisms of our day. Recently, when I commented that we’ll all be embarrassed by fellow adherents to our ideologies at one time or another, one of my friends commented that he’s never embarrassed ... Read the article →

Zoltan Istvan is running for President of the United States as the candidate for the party he founded, Transhumanist Party USA. As a concerned individual Transhumanist, and not in affiliation with any organization, Transhumanist or otherwise, I have authored and circulated a petition among Transhumanists, urging disavowal of Zoltan’s candidacy ... Read the article →

Each year in the spring and fall, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds its annual general conference. Hundreds of thousands of Mormons converge on Salt Lake City for two days of sermons from top leaders of the Church, which with around 16 million members is by far ... Read the article →

Today is the tenth anniversary of my blog! Thank you so much for reading, reasoning, feeling, imagining, commenting, agreeing, disagreeing, and supporting my work over the years. In celebration, below is a list of my top 10 most viewed articles, followed by a list of the top article for each ... Read the article →

Sometimes atheist Transhumanists ask me, “What do imaginary sky masters have to do with Transhumanism?” Of course there’s an appeal to ridicule in the question, so it’s not exactly a shining model of rational engagement. But underlying the ridicule is a real question worth addressing. Here’s my answer. I want ... Read the article →

Like Christianity generally, Mormonism stresses that our duty is love, particularly because love enables joy. Echoing the central themes of The New Testament, we read in The Book of Mormon: “… wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And ... Read the article →

I learned this morning that leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the largest Mormon denomination and that in which I am a member) has chosen to prohibit the Church from baptizing or blessing minor children of gay persons, and to require adult children of married gay ... Read the article →

The Mormon authoritative tradition clearly and repeatedly advocates the kind of love that would reconcile desires. As usual, Jesus sets the precedent, expressing his love as an act of reconciliation and inviting us to ask according to our desires: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ... Read the article →

You and I begin with desires, physical and spiritual, that we seek to fulfill as the purpose of our respective lives. To the extent that we fulfill these desires, we experience joy. To the extent that our desires conflict, within ourselves or between each other, we experience misery. We may ... Read the article →

Some of the most spiritual places in the world, for me, are found in the rugged red rock deserts and blue sky scraping peaks of Southern Utah. And that not naked and alone, but rather with family and friends, and with backpacks, cameras, smartphones, and cellular connections. As a child, ... Read the article →