 Can you hear me alright? Yeah, there we go. Thank you, Hank. And it's been a real pleasure to be here listening to the presenter so far, and I'm looking forward to what we'll hear shared together this afternoon. I've been particularly impressed already from the perspectives we've heard, both from a Wiccan view and from a Euranchian view of commonalities that we share, that I actually value quite a bit. And I'll be talking a little bit more about that further on in my presentation. So, four things I'd like to discuss. They're up here on the agenda. Of necessity, I'm going to have to be brief about, superficial even about them, because these are complex and nuanced things, just like when you're presenting about Euranchia or Wicca or Christianity or whatever. It's difficult to put these really complex lived experiences and ideas that have developed over a lifetime into a short period, so I'm going to try. And hopefully, I'll do a decent job of it. So, first of all, I'm going to introduce Mormonism to you. Some of you probably already know about Mormonism. Some of you probably have some Mormon neighbors that have knocked on your door or something like that at one point in time. I'll say a little bit about Mormonism. And then I'm going to switch into talking about Mormon transhumanism. So, a Mormon perspective on transhumanism, how they go together. Then I'm going to talk about an argument, a logical argument that's very popular among Mormon transhumanists. And finally, I'll talk a little bit about the Mormon transhumanist association as an institution, as an organization, what we do, what we consist of, stuff like that. So, those are the four things for our agenda. So, first of all, Mormonism. Mormonism is, above all other things, an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. And when I say immersive, what I mean by that is that it's not so much a religion that is about Jesus as it is an aspiration to live the religion of Jesus. So, when we think of the Gospel of Christ, we think of faith, baptism, faith, repentance, baptism, that's at the heart of Mormonism. And what I would suggest to you that from a Mormon perspective, this Gospel is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse both our bodies and our minds in the role of Christ. That's what I mean by immersive, to immerse ourselves in the role of Christ, to become one in Christ as Jesus exemplified and invited us to become. To become gods and saviors, to console and to heal and to raise each other up together. To reconcile with each other, to reconcile our relations, to reconcile with our world. And to do that even through suffering and death, if need be, trusting in an eventual transfiguration or resurrection beyond traditional notions of suffering and death. So, while we're not necessarily Christians by creed, we do reject the creeds as Mormons, the traditional creeds. I'd say that we're still clearly Christian by Gospel. This is the heart of Mormonism, and that's important that you keep that in mind as I talk about other things today, that this Gospel of Jesus Christ, this immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ underlies Mormon transhumanism. Mormonism was founded in the early 19th century by Joseph Smith. Joseph experienced visions and revelations starting when he was a teenager and continuing throughout his life. In 1830 he published the Book of Mormon, which the religion ended up being named after, and he also founded the Church of Christ, not to be confused with maybe the Church of Christ that Micah and my friend at the back is a part of, as it turns out the Church of Christ is a popular name for churches. Subsequent to various controversy and persecution over the years, Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844. A sort of schism occurred at that time. Some Mormons went in different directions with different leaders, but the majority of Mormons followed Brigham Young, pictured in the upper right corner here, as pioneers into the American West, and founded Salt Lake City, where today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest Mormon denomination by far the largest. There's some very small Mormon denominations elsewhere in the world, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reports 15 million members today, which is about the same number of people as there are Jews in the world today. So Mormonism has grown quickly to become a major world religion. Metaphysically, Mormonism is strange, unusual for a religion, particularly a Christian religion, in that it rejects substance dualism. It's a very materialist religion from a philosophical perspective, and it's also quite naturalistic. While miracles are permitted in Mormonism, we believe in miracles, we don't believe that they're somehow like supernatural or contraventions of law. Miracles are understood by most Mormons to be something we just don't know how to do yet, but we'll figure it out through natural law over time. Mormon scripture talks about matter as being pervasive. Everything is material, even spirit or mind, and even God in Mormonism is material and embodied. Everything in Mormonism is material and embodied. It's a very this-worldly religion. I'll talk about in a minute how this earth is to become heaven for Mormons. Heaven is not somewhere far away, it's here, and heaven is not just something that we should wait for, it's also a very practical, action-oriented religion. It's something that we should work toward, something that we should build together. Of course, concepts of grace also fit in there. Mormons do recognize the importance of grace. There's some differences perhaps from some other Christian interpretations of it. You might think of a Mormon perspective on grace as something like, grace is the opportunity that we have to work. Every opportunity to work is something that we didn't create on our own. We received it, and so grace does play a role in Mormonism as well, although works are highly emphasized in Mormonism. Our very unusual metaphysics gives rise to also something of an unusual theodicy. Theodicy meaning, how do you account for evil in the world? Most monotheists have to account for evil in the world by explaining why God would create a world with evil in it. Mormons don't need to, and the reason Mormons don't need to is that in Mormonism, God emerged inside of the world. God did not create the world from nothing, but God organizes element, which is eternal, co-eternal with God from a Mormon perspective, into the world according to laws that maybe were co-eternal with God and instituting new laws within that context. So in Mormonism, we tell this story, which is an echo of a story that we heard about with your ancha stuff. There was this grand council in heaven as the story goes, and the children of God proposed two plans. One of the plans was to optimize for the potential to thrive, to create more gods. The other plan that was proposed was to optimize to kind of mitigate the risk of suffering. There were proponents of both of these plans, and eventually as the story goes, God chose the first plan, that we would organize this world such that we would have the opportunity to thrive, but there would be great suffering as a consequence of that opportunity. And so the Mormon theodicy situates us in a world that we chose to participate in from a Mormon perspective, and that we knew that suffering would be part of it, but that this suffering is accompanied with an opportunity to become more like our Creator, to become creators ourselves, which would not have been possible had we chosen the other option. Mormon eschatology, it's a Christian religion, so this should be familiar with those of you who are familiar with Christianity more broadly. Mormons situate ourselves today in what we call the dispensation of the fullness of times, perhaps a little bit uniquely from other Christian religious views. We consider our scriptures talk about the dispensation of the fullness of times as a time of great advancement in knowledge and power, when we should expect the sciences that we see flourishing around us today to do just that, to flourish. It's also accompanied with these apocalyptic risks and these millennial opportunities, and I'd like to stress the words risk and opportunity there. While some Mormons may be fatalistic in their views on prophecy, I'd argue that the most authentic perspective on prophecy in Mormonism is an interactive perspective, one where we recognize prophecy as having its utility primarily in the way that it provokes us. In other words, if it's a terrible prophecy about a horrible future, it should provoke us to try to work away from that, and if it's a wonderful opportunity in that prophecy, it should provoke us to try to pursue and create the fulfillment of that. A great example of that, for example, would be the story of Jonah and Nineveh in the Hebrew Bible, which Mormons consider to be scripture as well. There, a very authentic Mormon interpretation of that story would be that Jonah went and told Nineveh that they would be destroyed, no qualifications. Well, Nineveh repented. They weren't destroyed. Then Jonah gets really mad at God and says, God, you made me look like a fool. I'm paraphrasing you didn't say it quite this way. Anyway, the prophecy wasn't fulfilled. Well, that's okay in Mormonism. It's okay that prophecies aren't always fulfilled because it's an interactive thing. So, as I talk about this, keep that in mind. Mormon eschatology, then, this idea of our prophetic vision of the future, it situates us at this time of apocalyptic risk and millennial opportunity that will come to a culmination in the return of Christ, which could be understood in various ways, and I'll talk more about that from a transhumanist perspective in a moment. Subsequent to the return of Christ, we will live in a millennial world here on Earth that millennial world as described in the Bible and in unique Mormon scripture would be a time beyond present notions of suffering and death. It would be a time with a progressive resurrection of the dead into physical, remember, everything in Mormonism is material and embodied. It's not a resurrection to something supernatural. It's a resurrection to physical embodied people like you and me. And at the end of that millennial period, there would be some more apocalyptic risks that we would face prior to a transition to another higher state of being. We call that a celestial world, still Earth, and the celestial world would be the inheritance of the people who become like God, which ultimately is all of us in Mormonism. Mormonism is very universalist in the sense that everybody in Mormonism gets the heaven that it corresponds with their desires. So if you desire to be there, you will end up being there. It might take a long time, but you'll get there. Some people might not desire it. Well, then, they'll be in some other heaven. And in fact, this idea of heaven and Mormonism is that there's diverse heavens. We call them celestial, terrestrial, telestial, that correspond with different desires. And of course, Mormons have their perspective on which one's the best. Let's talk about Mormon transhumanism. Mormon transhumanism has some very interesting parallels, calls out some very interesting parallels between Mormonism and transhumanism. One of them is this perspective that science and technology, as it's advancing today, is something that we should expect. Our early Mormon leaders, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, talked about this idea that God would be increasing the pace of his work, or I'll add her. I think the Wiccan already left Mormons believe in the heavenly mother as well, although that's a subject that I could talk about longer at a different time. But God is accelerating the pace of the work, so we should expect something like what we experience with accelerating change. That's one thing that Mormon transhumanists call out. Another thing that Mormon transhumanists, like many religious transhumanists, find a parallel in their own faith is the idea of a technological singularity. When you think about the different views that are expressed in relation to a technological singularity, you get the whole gamut, right? You get these people who have this very negative expectation about what's going to happen. You get this very positive utopian expectation. You get people who think, oh, we need to work to make this happen in a positive way. You get these people that are very passive about it. There's nothing we can do to make this any better or any worse. You get all of those same attitudes among secular transhumanists. And you go and you talk to people that are working, for example, for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute or other secular groups of transhumanists. You get all this diverse perspective about what the technological singularity might be like, what it might entail for us, what we need to work towards or for in relation to it. Same sort of emotional things. Now, do they associate it with supernatural forces? No, most of them are very naturalistic and most of them probably are not even religious at all. But the same sorts of social behaviors result that you see among religious people that have had millenarian and apocalyptic and messianic expectations for thousands of years. We see those same kinds of expectations among singularitarians. So Mormon transhumanists, of course, bring this whole array of things. Different Mormon transhumanists have totally different views on the singularity, some are pro-singularity, some are against the singularity, some are saying that singularity is an exaggeration and that something gets dangerous. We get all of that. How does that relate to the return of Christ? Well, some Mormon transhumanists associate the singularity with the return of Christ. If Christ came the first time as a child, born of a biological woman, why can't Christ return as an artificial intelligence? Or there's also the interpretation that, well, maybe like the Bible teaches, Christ is something that will return in the sense that Christ consciousness goes through all this. Christing you, as Paul says in the New Testament. And in the singularity, we may become more compassionate and more creative. I'll talk about that in a minute. And we may become one in Christ with Jesus, and that might be part of the technological singularity. So there's lots of ways that Mormon transhumanists integrate these ideas. The important thing to call out is that they do integrate these ideas. Transhumanity, lots of parallels there. Rejuvenation biotechnology. Remember, for Mormons, immortality is physical. It's embodied. Rejuvenation biotechnology, it's not hard for a Mormon to go, hey, you know, the possibility of making people live longer, that sounds just like the prophecies from our scriptures. And further on down the road, of course, maybe full body prosthetics, there is in Mormonism this notion of progressively improving bodies as well. Our scriptures have this idea of a transfigured being receives a certain quality of body, but then a resurrected being receives an even better body, a more robust body. It's still physical, but it's more glorified and robust, whatever that might mean. It talks about it in various ways. Then post-humanity. This is an area where Mormonism and transhumanism have an incredible amount in common. A very transhumanist idea from transhumanist philosopher Nick Boestrom is this idea of ancestor simulations and the ramifications of ancestor simulations. Mormonians, as you might know, love genealogy, love doing family history work. They collect lots of data. We probably know who all of your ancestors are. And there are some interesting ramifications of that. I'm going to be talking about that in just a moment as part of the New God argument. But one thing I'll mention here, just briefly, is think of it this way. It may be, if there's no hard limits, that the recurrent effort to make a more and more detailed family history account of a person, the natural consequence of that would be the resurrection of that person. Now most Mormons won't tell you that, but many Mormon transhumanists will think of those things in that way. That Mormons are already engaged, if you will, in keying the database for the resurrection. So the last thing I want to say about Mormonism and transhumanism, and I was talking with Wesley about this in the break. I can't talk about it for very long for sake of time. I am a transhumanist, not despite my Mormonism, but rather I'm a transhumanist because of my Mormonism. My Mormonism mandates transhumanism. And I think that the case can be made and that most mainstream Mormons would even give pause and think about it when I make the case with them, that our scriptures require implicit, not explicit, the word transhumanism doesn't appear in our scriptures, but it requires an implicit transhumanism of Mormons. I listed some of the reasons up there. I'm not going to go through them all right now for a Mormon audience, I might. But the thing I want to call out to this audience is that I and many Mormons are transhumanists, not despite our religion, not because we were trying to find a solution to fix our religion. Our religion led us to transhumanism. We feel a spiritual mandate to engage in transhumanism. In fact, when I discovered the word transhumanism, I was telling somebody this a little bit earlier about a decade ago, I discovered the word, I go, oh, wow, that's what I am. There's a secular word for what I am. That's what I was raised to believe by my Mormon parents, by very mainstream Mormon parents. Now, they don't identify as transhumanists, one of them is dead and one of them doesn't identify as a transhumanist, but I do as a consequence of that upbringing that they gave me. All right, the New God argument. This is a popular logical argument among Mormon transhumanists, and the New God argument is not an argument that proves God exists. That's very important that we get from the beginning. It's an argument for faith in God. It's a practical or a moral argument. It's not an existential or not an ontological type argument. It's an argument that purports to say, you should trust that God exists because of this. And here's the reason why, from a Mormon transhumanist perspective, you should trust that God exists. And it's this one assumption, we call it the faith assumption, humanity will not go extinct before evolving into post-humanity. Okay, so that's not an unusual idea among transhumanists, is it? That's pretty much the heart of transhumanism, is this trust that, hey, we can use science and technology to form a post-humanity, and not just any kind of post-humanity, probably a really good one, right? A friendly AI and a universal well-being ethic. Let's combine those and let's be a really good post-humanity. So this is not an unusual assumption among transhumanists. So you take that assumption and the New God argument proceeds in two directions, one towards creation and one towards compassion. So the creation argument is a generalization of the simulation argument from Nick Bostrom. One thing that I point out is that it's a generalization because it's not just about computation. The form of the simulation argument is logically valid no matter what kind of creation mechanism you want to apply it to. It so happens that simulation is a rather persuasive one making the argument quite strong, but some people might have preferences for something like terraforming or cosmoforming, we can instrument a black hole to create baby universes of certain kinds. Maybe Smolen has ideas that maybe universes are optimized for black holes, well maybe it could fit in line with some idea like that. Anyway, it's important to recognize that this is a general, first of all a generalization of the simulation argument into creation rather than just computation, whatever your preferred mechanism of creation might be. And then it basically goes through the three different options that Bostrom identifies as one of these three has to be true. Number one, humanity will probably go extinct before evolving into post-humanity. Well, transhumanists reject that option by our faith assumption. Now transhumanists of course won't call it faith. A Mormon transhumanist will say, our faith assumption is that we're not going to go extinct. So what are the likely results if we don't, is the question. Now we might be wrong, maybe we will go extinct, but we're going to assume we won't. Well, one of two other things has to be true. Either post-humanity probably will not create many worlds that emulate its evolutionary history, or as the simulation argument generalized goes, or we're probably already living in a world created by post-humanity. Well, for reasons that I won't elaborate on right now, that second one gets rejected. It seems to be a weak position to take that post-humanity with all this computational power is unlikely to run ancestor simulations. And so Mormon transhumanists will go on to that file and say, hey, we're probably already living in a created world based on, again, this is based on the assumption that we ourselves will not go extinct before having that capacity. The compassion argument, sometimes we call it the benevolence argument. This one's based on the idea of observing the trajectory in violence and cooperation in human history and kind of extrapolating it forward and observing that because we're getting more and more technological power to destroy ourselves, it seems unlikely that we'll avoid destroying ourselves unless we kind of bridge the gap between our defensive and destructive capacities through something that we'll call compassion. Minimally, it would need to be cooperative at its best. It's something like compassion or friendship, something that's stronger than just instrumental. Anyway, the basic idea of this argument is that, again, based on the faith assumption, this is an assumption. The assumption is not a proof in itself, but based on the assumption, we're going to reject the idea that we're going to destroy ourselves, although that's a possibility. When we reject that, we're only left with two possibilities. One, we'll stop increasing in destructive capacity, faster than defensive capacity, and that seems really unlikely, given our trajectory, which leaves us with one result and that is that post-humanity probably is more compassionate than us as the argument goes. And then finally, when you combine the creation and the compassion arguments together, based on those assumptions, you get the conclusion that post-humanity probably created our world and post-humanity probably is more compassionate than us, which, again, it doesn't prove that post-humanity is either of those things. What it purports to be is that based on our own faith, our own trust in our potential, we should go to these as probabilistic conclusions. That's what our argument purports to be demonstrating. Endorsements. There are some very unlikely endorsements for this idea. You've got Richard Dawkins on the left and Sam Harris on the right. Richard Dawkins in the book, The God Delusion, that they're very probably, he uses the word probable, God-like extraterrestrials exist. And now for him, he goes into this criticism saying, well, God-like extraterrestrials are not God because they didn't start that way. They evolved into that state. Well, I've got news for Richard in Mormonism. God didn't start out as God. And so that's okay. He's actually an endorsement for the Mormon view of God. Sam Harris, when he found out about the simulation argument, he says it gave him pause. And he wrote an article, a blog post called, Should We Be Mormons in the Matrix? My response to him is, yes, we should be. But I don't expect everybody to be. It works for me and my family, and maybe it would work for you. You should give it a go. But anyway, there's some unlikely endorsements for you for the New God argument. So finally, I want to talk about the Mormon Transhumanist Association as an organization. The Mormon Transhumanist Association has been around since 2006, and we've grown faster and larger than any historic religious transhumanist organization that I'm aware of. Today, we have 432 members. The last few years, we've had quite a bit of growth. Most of the members of our organization are theists. They believe in God, of one kind or another, some understanding of God or another. And most of them are members of the LDS Church, which is that largest Mormon denomination that I mentioned to you earlier. And all are, as you can see from these statistics. We actually have atheist members. How does that make sense? How can you be a Mormon atheist transhumanist? Well, it actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a second. There are Mormon atheists who think that God just doesn't exist yet. They don't buy into the New God argument for whatever their reasons are, but they think that God will exist, and so they share in the same kinds of values that Mormon transhumanists generally share, and even the theist ones, and they work with them towards those same kinds of goals. We have a Christian who aren't Mormon at all, but who support the work that we do, and the dialogue that we engage in, and the ends that we're trying to pursue. We also have non-Mormon Christians who are members, and we have non-Christian religious persons of various varieties that are members. We have a Wiccan woman who is a member of our association anyway. It's a diverse set of people, all the S and having faith in God. Every one of the members of the association declares support for some statements. I won't read them off to you. That doesn't necessarily mean they agree dogmatically with these statements. It's an expression of support that's required of all members. You can read more about those on our website at transfigurism.org if you'd like. We do a lot of online promotion. We get over 10,000 visits to our website each month. Lots of people like our Facebook page. We have an awesome YouTube channel, really awesome YouTube channel, and recordings of all the presentations here today are going to go on to that YouTube channel. We've got Clovis here from Mustache Power recording. The Mormon Transhumanist Association is paying for that. Go there, look at the recordings we've got there. I think that you'll find that there's a lot of valuable, interesting things that are being said about religious transhumanism that we put onto that YouTube channel, and then a number of other vectors of promotion that we use online. We also do offline promotions. We have meet-up groups, and we also sponsor some conferences on a regular basis. Our most recent conference was just last month in Salt Lake City. Our keynote speakers were Natasha Vitamor, and Adam Miller. Adam Miller is a Mormon philosopher. Natasha Vitamor is a transhumanist designer, both well-known in their fields. In former years, we've had an Aubrey de Grey. We've had Max Moore, James Hughes. We've had a variety of Mormon scholars whose names may not be very familiar in this audience. We invite them to come and present on themes of the intersection of science, religion, technology, and spirituality. We also invite critics of Mormon transhumanism or religious transhumanism or transhumanism come in to present at our conferences, present their disagreements, interact with us constructively. That's the kind of forum that we value. We value open-mindedness. We value constructive disagreement. We value expression of differing views, and so we try to promote that in our offline conferences as well. So with that, I don't know how much time I have, but I'm all open for some questions. Why is there a perception that Mormon transhumanism is about fixing the religion rather than... Oh, okay. Well, I don't know, first of all, whether there is a perception that Mormon transhumanism is about fixing the religion as in Mormonism itself. I would suggest that most Mormon transhumanists don't have that view. But most Mormon transhumanists would have a view of, I think... We survey our members regularly, and I haven't surveyed on this particular question, but I would think that what they do is they feel like it strengthens their religion, that there are aspects of Mormonism that become more real and more robust as a consequence. So it might be a kind of fix, but it's their Mormonism that leads them to it. They're not leaving behind their Mormonism by going to this, I guess, is what I mean by it's not fixing it. That's a good question. Yeah, so my point, and this was in response to something Wesley had said earlier, is that it's some observe that transhumanism seems to be what people go to instead of their religion. And I would suggest that in Mormon transhumanism, that's not the driver. What drives a Mormon to transhumanism is their religion. That's generally my experience with Mormon transhumanists. Testing one, testing two? That's a good question I had. This presentation, how has it or would it go if presented to just generally your church body? Yeah, so Mormons in general. How do Mormons in general react to Mormon transhumanism? Most do one of two things. They just shrug their shoulders and not a big deal. Or they're cautiously intrigued. Those are the most common responses among Mormons. Very fewer hostile to the ideas. A significant number are very enthusiastic and end up becoming members of the association. But not a lot of Mormons know about Mormon transhumanism. Most Mormons have never even heard the word transhumanism, frankly. So once they encounter it, usually it's like, I'm not interested. Or, huh, that's interesting. I should know maybe a little bit more about it. Those are the most common reactions. Every once in a while we'll get a guy doing jumping jacks. He's so excited though. Perhaps with your Rancho teaching here. Absolutely. In particular on the conception where you say that it's this worldly that even, so it wasn't clear about the afterlife in Mormonism. Is there a translation to a different dimension, another place? Or can you just clarify how that fits into the system? So let me talk a little bit more about the afterlife in Mormonism. I'm sorry I had to go through that so quickly, but now that you're asking I'll give it a little bit more attention. Everything in Mormonism is material and embodied, so I'm not talking about something immaterial or supernatural. The afterlife in Mormonism, Mormons do believe that the spirit of a person continues to exist after they die, but it's still material somehow. Explain how I have my own perspective on this, but I'm just going to give you kind of the general Mormon view. The spirit continues to exist, and that eventually it will be resurrected into a material embodied body, like what we have now, some differences might be that it will be a glorified body, and what do we mean by glorified? Well, some Mormon leaders over the years had speculated that there would be no more blood in the body. The blood will be replaced by spirit. Well, what does that mean? Some Mormon transhumanists like to think of that as like, maybe we'll become information-based bodies instead of, you know, just the typical biological bodies, but embodiment is very important in Mormonism. So this earth is where heaven is, but eventually we become creators, we become gods, we become one in Christ, and we create more worlds, and those worlds are also physical worlds with our spirit children, as we call them, growing up and also becoming creators themselves. Mormonism is very heavily emphasized as family and creation, and if you will, maybe at this idea of like a holy nursery. We have a heavenly mother and our pantheon and everything. But there are heavenly worlds where you reside in the afterlife, is that not true? It becomes the celestial glory of the gods that were mortal on this earth from a Mormon perspective, and then they go on to create more worlds. Okay, thank you. There's more, but we'll talk afterwards. Absolutely. Can you foresee a collision between the Mormon authorities and the Mormon transhumanist association as, for example, one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles going to Brigham Young and giving an address on the deadly heresies of it? I think it's highly unlikely that the LDS church in particular, that's the denomination I'm a part of, the largest one, I think it's very unlikely that they would take a hostile position toward it. I imagine there may have been a time in LDS church history when it would have been likely, but that time is behind us now. There's a lot more tolerance for diverse interpretations among mainstream Mormons than there has been historically. In fact, there's been quite a shift, even in my own lifetime, from the 1990s to the present. So I think it's very unlikely, in part for that reason, because we are kind of losing, and in part because we're not saying anything that is contrary to mainstream Mormonism. What we're doing is we are elaborating on it and how this might be describable from a scientific and technological perspective. Now, individual Mormon transhumanists may have their individual views that may run afoul of various authorities, but as an association, I foresee no problems at all. In fact, I know some high-ranking leaders in the LDS church who are familiar with the Mormon transhumanist association, and it's just not a whole lot of interest, frankly. That particular person I'm thinking of right now just has never mentioned it as an interest. I have a bishop, a local congregation. Mormonism bishops are for local congregations. I have my current bishop. He's talked to me about the Mormon transhumanist association. My former bishop has talked to me about the Mormon transhumanist association, and both of them were of the cautiously intrigued response that I was talking about. There's no science, too. And so, you know, it just hasn't been a big deal, and I don't think there's any reason why it should be, except to the extent that maybe individual Mormon transhumanists might extend their particular views in ways that are maybe particularly provocative. Mormon institutions tend to give you space insofar as you don't directly attack the authority structure. And there's nothing about the Mormon transhumanist association that does that. Oh, she's got one question. One last question from Darshan. Great question. So, let me answer that in maybe two or three ways. First of all, as you probably most know, most mainstream Mormons are fairly conservative. But for a conservative religion, we have pretty moderate bioethics. For example, Oren Hatch, who is a Mormon senator, came out in favor of stem cell research. The LDS church itself has no position on stem cell research. The LDS church does not entirely prohibit abortion. In cases of rape, incest, and there's a list of other things, abortion is okay after careful consideration in prayer. So there's some remarkably moderate bioethics positions from an otherwise pretty conservative group. That's one part of my answer. Another part of my answer is that Mormon transhumanists, in particular, tend to be more, quite a bit more socially progressive than their more mainstream peers. So you would find, for example, among Mormon transhumanists that we're more likely to be okay with gay marriage, for example, than our mainstream... A lot of our mainstream Mormon peers are quite anti-gay marriage, as you probably would know from the news. So you'll find that among Mormon transhumanists, generally, there is a position towards the more progressive social end. But not all of them are. Some of them are quite conservative among our membership. And, you know, we don't forbid somebody for being a member of the association based on whether they're too liberal or too conservative on issues like that personally. I think you also asked where I situated myself personally on such issues. I am not in favor of a post-gender future. I think that that is a... That would be taking away from the enrichment that gender provides, but I am not in favor of somehow enforcing a strict gender binary on the future. I think that the most enriching future would be a future where the genders correspond with the persons and their authenticity. Now, I expect that that will generally kind of fold out into a rough binary, because that's how humans are, a rough binary. But by no means are we a strict binary. And personally, I'm okay with that. But I think it would be an impoverishment of our nature and of our categorization of the world to try to get rid of gender. That doesn't interest me. I think that gender is an important part of our identity. And then on issues of sexuality, Mormonism has an interesting history with sexuality. We were polygamists in our early days, and the fundamentalist groups still are, but there's very few of them. Mainstream Mormonism, of course, is very monogamic today, but it's interesting when you go and you talk, when you go and you listen to the words of the early Mormon polygamists, they would blame things like prostitution, infidelity, promiscuity, and even the fall of Rome on monogamy. My own double great grandfather, who I loved to death for all kinds of reasons, did those kinds of things. George Buchanan, he was a leader of the LDS church in the early years, and he blamed all those things I just said on monogamy. I think he was wrong, but there's still a lot of things about him and what he taught and said that I value deeply. And I kind of have that same perspective on some of the contemporary positions that the LDS church takes. I support the LDS church, its leaders, but sometimes I disagree with some things. And I think that's okay. I think it's constructive to have that kind of dialogue. It can be constructive about that. We can engage in it in destructive ways, of course, too, but I try to avoid that.