 Now, here from Eric Sweden. Why transhumanist immortality is a bad idea? Eric is an associate professor in the history department at Weber State University. His doctorate is in the history of science and technology. He also teaches computer science and information systems classes. His publications include numerous articles, five history books, two science fiction novels, a historical mystery novel, and two other forthcoming science fiction novels. His When Angels Wept, A What If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, earned the 2010 Sidewise Award in Alternate History. Eric lives with his family in a house built in 1881, and his website is sweden.org. Two years ago, I had a brain aneurysm, leading to a near-death experience. A four-hour operation a day later clamped off the bleeding. In short, I lost about 18 days in my life, no memories at all, and spent 27 days in the hospital. I remember that I prayed while in the ambulance. I prayed to survive, but more so, I prayed that my family would be OK without me. This had always been a deep concern of mine. I felt a warm feeling that my family would be OK. They would thrive without me. As a consequence, effectively, I was ready to die. I am the first to admit that my feeling in this matter could have been heavily influenced by the sedating effect of all that increased blood pressure bruising my brain. Though I prefer the interpretation that this was my own personal revelation. Immortality is a dream that people have often desired. We find the quest for this elusive attribute in ancient and modern religious myths. And fiction stories meant for both entertainment or education, and especially in science fiction. Like many in this group, I have been inspired by science fiction throughout my life. It has been my touchstone as much as my religious faith has. Immortality in a story often excites my sense of wonder when I read science fiction or fantasy and is still a common theme in my own science fiction novels. While I share the emotional appeal that immortality offers, as a practical matter, I think that immortality is the worst thing that could happen to a society. The most obvious consideration that it would aggravate our overpopulation problems, I will set aside because the natural course of arguing over that consideration would be a rabbit hole that I don't need to go down. Suffice to quote Murray Lindster in his famous science fiction short story, a logic named Joe. You've got to make room for the kids to grow up. Of course, some transhumanists have offered up the solution of solving overpopulation by literally living virtual lives. My other objections to transhumanist immortality are three-fold. Questions of power, questions of innovation, and questions of self. Let's start with power. No technological innovation in history has been made readily available to all people, at least at first. Every innovation costs money to develop and early customers must pay higher prices. Technological immortality would be available at first only to the rich. In all probability, the technologies will be so expensive that immortality will remain the preserve of the rich. Wealthy people, instead of seeking to preserve their fortunes for their children, will then seek to preserve their fortunes for themselves. The creative destruction that is the heart of capitalism would be constrained and controlled by the wealthy trying to preserve their positions in the sources of their wealth. In the end, our form of innovative society requires that wealth must be turned over and recycled, not concentrated and hoarded. Now to questions of innovation. Immortality will not only socially stratify our culture, that same culture will stagnate from the lack of scientific and technological innovation. Most major scientific and technological innovations are developed by people in their 20s or 30s. The reason for this is that a person is old enough to have acquired the necessary prior knowledge, but not so committed to that body of knowledge that they can still think outside of the box. There are exceptions, but they are so rare that they actually prove the rule. Some fields like history and literature often find that the best work is done by scholars in their later years. These fields, which are not about major new directions, reward years of wisdom and experience unlike science and technology. In order to innovate, we need a continuous supply of fresh blood. One might argue that we don't need innovations, that science and technology has gotten us into enough trouble already. That is not an attitude I expect to find among transhumanists. But the cold hard truth is that we have a large population in an industrial civilization that can only continue to function by advancing, retreat, or stagnation. And stagnation is sure defeat. We are constrained by Earth's resources and only science and technology will develop new resources and new ways to use old resources. Finally, two questions of self. Latter-day Saints have specific ideas about which life experiences are most useful in order to fully develop as human beings. Not everyone gets each of these experiences, but most do. One of those experiences is marriage, a crucible where we blend and live with another person learning love, tolerance, and selflessness. Being a parent is another such experience where we again learn noble traits. A world full of immortals leaves no room for children. To not have the experience of raising children is to miss out on one of the greatest challenges of mortality. To not be aware of the cycle of life and the joy and tragedy implicit in that cycle is to be less than fully human. We tend to stagnate in other ways also. Many people like the music of their youth because that was what was imprinted on them, but declined to like the music from earlier times or the present. We all have a right to our individual tastes. But if those tastes do not evolve, then culture becomes frozen in time. Imagine a world in which we only had the music of the 1980s. Surely an awful wasteland. To bring the conversation back to my own near-death experience, the experience of death, both the death of others and our own personal potential death, and the mourning associated with that brings us closer to God. Absent that experience, our need for faith suffers. I'm afraid that this paper has come off as a sermon, and that was not my intent. Perhaps this intensity comes from how strongly I feel about these issues. Even so, I may go to hear and learn about contrary points of view. Clearly, the God-given immortality that we aspire to as Latter-day Saints will be different from the immortality offered by transhumanist technologies. I think that God has figured out ways around the pitfalls that I've described. As a conclusion, as Latter-day Saints, we should not fear death. Why don't think that we should welcome it as enthusiastically as Brigham Young once proposed when he described how funerals should be moments of celebration. I do think that we should not fear death. Death is merely a necessary transition on our continuing journey as internal intelligences. Thank you. Oh, first a short comment. I disagree with nearly everything you said, but I think you said it very well. Thank you very much. As you imagine, I've had many observations, but I'll just make one here. One thing that you said, which is very, very right, is that most creative advanced are usually done by young people. And you think that there would not be any young people in a society of immortal. But as a matter of fact, what we mean by immortality is not living forever as a 95-year-old person. It is living forever as 25-year-old persons, which means that among the technology that we would like to see deployed in society are also technology to give back to all of us the mental plasticity that we had when we were 25-year-old. And that's what as a almost 55-year-old, I look forward very much to that. I agree that we, I agree that we want to live as young people, and we want the vibrancy that comes from being a young person. But nature's already created a system for creating innovation, and that's killing us and having new people come along. And while I personally like the idea of immortality, as I've said before, I'm more horrified what I see as the consequences of that.