 So welcome to the 2013 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. My name is Lincoln Cannon and I'm the President of the Association by appointment of the Board of Directors who are elected by the voting members of the Association, many of whom are here today. And I'll be leading this morning's session of the conference. On behalf of the Association I want to thank you all for being here and I want to particularly thank the leaders of the Association for all of the work that they've put in to make this happen and are currently doing to make this happen. I know that there were emails flying around in the middle of the night last night. I woke up this morning and had more emails respond to that I hadn't seen when I went to bed. So a lot of work being put into this and I want to thank them very much for that. I'd like to start the conference today by commenting on the purpose of this Association. The Mormon Transhumanist Association stands for the proposition that we should learn to become gods. And not just any kind of God, not the kind of God that would raise itself above others, but rather the kind of God that would raise each other together. We should learn to become Christ's saviors for each other, consolers and healers as exemplified and invited by Jesus. In fact, the religion Mormonism itself is an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. It's not so much a religion about Jesus as it is the religion of Jesus. With Jesus we would trust in, change toward and fully immerse both our bodies and our minds in the role of Christ. And we would also endure in that role working to reconcile ourselves, our relations, our world and even do that through suffering and death if need be. Anticipating the day of transfiguration and resurrection to immortality and eternal life in a fullness that this afternoon our keynote speaker Richard Bushman will be speaking more about. So while we may not be Christian by creed, we're plainly Christian by gospel. And I hope that Carl Teichner will say a few things about that later on. Carl will be talking about giving a Christian criticism of religious transhumanism. I'm looking forward to that. Mormonism is also a school for prophets. The name of the religion itself reminds us of a book that would extend the Bible. And the way it would extend the Bible is in part by claiming that yet other books would also extend the Bible. And in turn, that book reminds us of a man. And that man would speak and act for God in part by saying everyone should speak and act for God. The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith are not fortune tellers but rather fourth tellers. They would express a sublime aesthetic, a Holy Spirit provoking us to speak and act so as to fulfill their prophecies, in part by learning to become prophets ourselves. For some prophecy is not a living proposition, let alone religion or God. They wonder if perhaps we've not heard that God is dead. And they're right to wonder. Following their gods, traditional religions do seem to be dying, particularly in technologically advanced and prosperous places. And observing this, many have embraced the secularization hypothesis that religion itself is dying. However, that hypothesis is showing its age, and it's now embraced more by anti-religious voices in popular culture than by experts, among whom another hypothesis is coming of age. If God is merely a supernatural superlative, he very well may be dead, but positing such as God misses the function of God. God always has been and is at least a post-human projection, an extension and negation of human desire, imagined and expressed through human thought, language and action and their constraints. That's not to say God is only so much, to the contrary as demonstrated in the New God argument. We've moral and practical reasons to suppose that others have already realized these post-human projections. And I hope that Peter Wicks was Peter. I hope that you'll be talking a little bit about that in your speech to us. Peter's been invited to deliver an atheist critique of religious transhumanism. However, no matter your attitude toward faith, God is at least this much, a post-human projection. Understood in terms of that function, God clearly isn't dead and never was, except perhaps to the extent that evolution is part of, to the extent that recurring death is part of evolution. Likewise, if religion is merely genuflection to the supernatural, it very well may be dying as well. But again, that overlooks function. Most of us have regarded religion too narrowly. And much that's supposed to be secular actually functions as religion. For example, some claim inspiration from science or ethics. Ah fills us as we contemplate the vastness of space or the voice of the people. Yet the inspiration is not merely in the reductionist implications of science or in the procedural adjudications of ethics. Rather, aesthetics are woven through them, tying them together in meaning. And that's why we care about science and ethics. Aesthetics shape and move us, and at their strongest, they provoke us to a communal strenuous mood. When they do that, they function as religion. Not necessarily in any narrow sense, but aesthetics that provoke a communal strenuous mood are always religion from a post-secular vantage point. Of course, none of this means that science or ethics should or even could be displaced by religion. To the contrary, science should continue to reconcile our contending accounts of experience, as ethics should our contending accounts of desire. Each should expand its reach to the uttermost, always better informing our aesthetics, affecting each other in a feedback loop. Yet even as science and ethics increasingly empower us, we do not fool ourselves into supposing that they'll ever be sift-sufficient or finished. We care for and use them only in accordance with aesthetics, which presents itself as foremost among them at the most vital moments of life, when we must act according to whatever wisdom and inspiration we already have. Life cannot wait. How will we act? Will we see beauty in science? Will we feel unity in ethics? Will we care? And how much will we care? Could our degree of concern make a practical difference? These are questions that should matter to all except perhaps the most apathetic, escapist or nihilistic among us. It's not enough that we can describe our world through science or imagine a better world through ethics. We also want to make a better world. We can do that through engineering and governance, but it's also not enough to make a better world. We want to feel it, sometimes powerfully, and more. We want to share our powerful feelings with others in ways that move us together. As engineering and governance are action on science and ethics, religion is action on aesthetics. As engineering and governance are the power of science and ethics, religion is the power of aesthetics. We can raise our eyes from the altar of religious and anti-religious dogma. And if we do, we'll see that the hand raised to finish the dying God is always the sign of the oath to the resurrecting God. And if we can keep our eyes raised, resisting the carnage below, we'll also see that the hand is our own. And it holds a blade that's aged and stained. That's when we have a choice, either to repeat the old sacrifices of our ancestors, or finally to make the new sacrifice that they always implied. We can put ourselves on the altar and learn to become gods. Put differently, the negation of one post-human projection always implies another, until humanity chooses to become post-humanity. Transhumanism is the ethical use of technology to expand our abilities from the human to the post-human. For some, this conjures up images of comic book cyborgs with gun arms and laser eyes. Of course, transhumanism is partly about body enhancement, but probably most of you will agree that a gun arm doesn't qualify as an enhancement either aesthetically or practically. For better examples, look at the technology that enhances you right now. Some of you are using computing devices, in fact I dare say most of you. Some of you are using them to communicate, maybe to browse if you're bored. You might be watching through glasses or contacts or surgically modified eyes, or listening to me through hearing aids or cochlear implants. You're probably wearing clothing, maybe some of you on the stream art, but assuming you are, that clothing has served for you to enhance your ability to adapt to environmental change. Under those clothes, you might have implants or prosthetics. Through your blood, drugs may be relieving pain, heightening attention, or facilitating growth. That's just right now. Think through the rest of the day leading up to this moment, the cars, the refrigerators. Think through your life. Consider human history. If technologically enhanced humans are cyborgs, then we've always been cyborgs. At least in the context of the past and the present, that's not particularly controversial. The controversy arises when we look forward. How will technology change us in a few years or a few decades? What about a thousand years from now? How many drugs, surgeries, prosthetics, and enhancements are there between humans and post-humans? As different from us now as we are from our pre-human ancestors? Is it possible to change that much, and if so, should we change that much? Sometimes we talk about humans becoming more robotic, or robots becoming more human. When we do, our language uses a dichotomy that is increasingly insufficient for describing not only the possibility space, but even the actuality space. Does a human receiving a prosthetic limb or an artificial heart become less human? Can a body originating from artificial DNA, conceived through an artificial process, or just stated in an artificial environment ever be human? Even if it's eventually indistinguishable from a natural human? And for that matter, how natural are the humans that you actually know that are sitting next to you? Are agriculture and medicine natural? The blurring between artificial and natural is as ancient as the stick our distant ancestor wielded to extend her reach, or the leaves that he donned to enhance his skin. In an important sense, a synthesis of anatomy and environment and tools made us human, empowering us above and differentiating us from our pre-human ancestors. In that sense, perhaps we've always been robots, for at least as long as we've been humans. Of course, when we think of robots, most of us usually think of cold metal and hollow plastic. If that's what robots are, then we aren't, and never should or even could be robots. So why do we want to enhance ourselves? The answer is not new. We want to enhance ourselves for all the reasons we've made tools since the beginning of history. Tools empower us. So we'll continue to build more and better tools, and their synthesis with our anatomies will become increasingly seamless and intimate because we want to and because we can for the power it provides. Like all power, tools and their intimate evolution into body and mind enhancements are not inherently good or evil. Rather, they're both risks to mitigate and opportunities to pursue. According to whatever wisdom and inspiration we might have, on the one hand, tools can empower us against each other, some hoard, others deplete, elites form, totalitarians control, revolutionaries revolt, artificial catastrophic risks, far more serious than those of nuclear weapons start to present themselves, and perhaps we could even realize the worst interpretations of the apocalypse. But on the other hand, tools can also empower us for each other. Already, we've used them to build, relate, console, heal in ways our distant ancestors imagined only gods to have the capacity. Perhaps someday, and I can't wait to hear more from our keynote, Aubrey de Grey later on this morning about the subject, we might transfigure ourselves into ageless bodies. We might even resurrect ourselves and each other with sublime minds that relate with unfathomable compassion and conceive thoughts that in themselves constitute nothing less than the creation of new worlds. In any case, transhumanists affirm that we can and we should change through continued ethical use of technology to expand our abilities from the human to the post-human. If you're a Mormon, you should be a transhumanist. To identify as a Mormon transhumanist is not at all redundant, but to identify as a transhumanist Mormon is redundant because Mormonism mandates transhumanism. In other words, you can be a transhumanist without being a Mormon, but you can't be a Mormon without being a transhumanist at least implicitly. Of course, this is a controversial claim, but we can make an argument from Mormon scripture, so let's take a look at that and we'll start with four premises. First of all, God wants us to use ordained means to participate in God's work. This first premise is based on scriptures such as 1st Nephi chapter 3, which says God prepares ways for us to accomplish His commands. Alma chapter 60, which says God won't save us. Unless we use the means He's already provided. D&C section 58, which says we shouldn't wait for God to command us to engage in a good cause. The second premise is that science and technology are among the means ordained of God. This premise is based on scriptures like 1st Nephi chapter 17, where God commands Nephi to construct a ship to save his family. Alma 37, which says God gave Nephi a compass to guide his family to the promised land. D&C section 88, where God commands us to study and teach everything from astronomy and geology to history and politics. And finally, D&C 121, which says that we will learn all the laws, all the laws of the natural world before attaining heaven. That's the second premise. The third premise is that God's work is to help each other attain Godhood. This premise is based on scriptures like 3rd Nephi chapter 12, where Jesus commands us to be perfect like God. D&C 76, which says God would make us gods of equal power with Him. Moses chapter 1, which says God's work is to make us immortal in eternal life. And then finally, the fourth premise is that an essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified, immortal body. This premise is based on scriptures like Ether 3, where the brother of Jared sees that God is embodied. D&C section 76, which says God has a body that's glorified like the sun. D&C section 93, which says full joy requires a body. Elements are the body of God and intelligence is the glory of God. D&C 130, which says God's body is as tangible as that of a human. So from these four premises we can reason pretty straightforwardly. Since God wants us to use ordained means to participate in God's work, and since science and technology are among those means, God must want us to use science and technology to participate in God's work. Next, since God wants us to use science and technology to participate in God's work, and since God's work is to help each other attain Godhood, God must want us to use science and technology to help each other attain Godhood. And then finally, since God wants us to use science and technology to help each other attain Godhood, and since an essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified immortal body, we can conclude that God wants us to use science and technology to help each other attain a glorified immortal body. This conclusion is both a religious mandate in that it purports to express the will of God and a description of the transhumanist project, advocating the ethical use of technology to expand human abilities. So if we arrive at this conclusion by valid reasoning, which we did, and if we began with premises that accurately reflect Mormonism, as I believe we have, then Mormonism does mandate transhumanism. So again, the Mormon Transhumanist Association stands for the proposition that we should learn to become gods and that science and technology complement religion and spirituality as means for doing so. Here's how it's expressed in the affirmation of the association that all members support. Number one, we seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anatomies as well as communities and their environments according to their wills, desires and laws to the extent they are not oppressive. Number two, we believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world and discovery and creation of worlds without end. And then number three, we feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances and to persuade others to do likewise. So that's the purpose of the Mormon Transhumanist Association and that's what we're going to try to do as speakers and participants at this conference today. We have a very exciting lineup of speakers. Most of them are here already, some are still on their way I've heard and I'm personally very excited to be here with all of you.