Lincoln Cannon Blogs

From Infancy of Following Christ to Maturity of Being Christ

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:07:00 +0000

In conversation with a friend today, he commented that Paul in the New Testament seems to tell us to leave behind Christ (Hebrews 6: 1). I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the passage, but I do think Paul invites us to leave behind the infancy of following Christ for the maturity of being Christ.

Below are the NIV and KJV translations of Paul's words (Hebrews 5-6). Notice the bolded parts. Paul's not saying he wants to stop talking about Christ. To the contrary, he says he has much to say about Christ, but he's having a hard time communicating more than the basics because we seem to be perpetually unready for anything more advanced. Paul's also suggesting that Jesus is not different from us in origin or potential: somehow Jesus wasn't the Son of God until God told him so, and Jesus did not begin perfected, but rather became perfected. Paul would like to help us understand these things better, so he encourages us to move beyond the milk of Christ to the meat of Christ, beyond merely following Christ to fully being Christ, as Jesus exemplifies and invites us.

Here's the NIV version:

1 Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.
3 This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.
4 And no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”
6 And he says in another place, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.
8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered
9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him
10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.
12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
1 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God,
2 instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
3 And God permitting, we will do so.

Here's the KJV version:

1 For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins:
2 Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.
3 And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.
4 And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
5 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.
6 As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.
11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
3 And this will we do, if God permit.

Do Dyson spheres and von Neumann probes make the Fermi paradox worse?

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:11:00 +0000

Scientists Anders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong are working on a paper that explores the relation between theoretical engineering capacities and colonization of the universe. Of course, this is not a new topic. For decades, scientists and philosophers have analyzed what has come to be known as the "Fermi paradox", named after physicist Enrico Fermi, who called attention to two apparently conflicting observations: on the one hand, the universe appears old and large enough to have produced many Earth-like planets capable of supporting intelligent life; yet on the other hand, we have no objective evidence for the existence of intelligent life beyond humanity on Earth. Many have argued that if intelligent life existed elsewhere then it should have been able to colonize the universe many times over by now, but perhaps "many times" grossly underestimates just how many times it could have happened by now.

In the video, Stuart provides an enjoyable and thought-provoking presentation of the analysis that he and Anders have been working on. He reasons, based on our improving understanding of theoretical engineering capacities, that an intelligent civilization not much more advanced than us could start and complete within 10,000 years (and perhaps orders of magnitude faster) a project of launching a sufficient number of replicators for universal colonization. Basically, the civilization could build a Dyson sphere around its star and harness that energy to build and launch trillions of von Neumann self-replicating probes toward all the galaxies in the observable universe. Stuart then observes that this makes the Fermi paradox "worse" because 10,000 years (or less) on cosmological scales is almost no time at all, suggesting that the critical path would be travel time (rather than any earlier stage in the project), and there's clearly been more than enough travel time available to the probes of any intelligent inhabitants of stars and galaxies older than our own. He concludes that one of following explanations must be true:

1) The technology is impossible.

2) His calculations or assumptions are wrong.

3) We are already colonized, but don't know it.

4) Technological civilizations are far rarer than most imagined.

Near this point in Stuart's presentation, the audience engaged him in some interesting conversation. Everyone allowed #1 and #2 to be rejected, at least for sake of argument. However, when Stuart expressed his inclination toward #4 rather than #3, some members of the audience questioned his reasoning, suggesting that we ourselves are perhaps the self-replicating probes (panspermia?) of another civilization that has already begun colonizing the universe. Stuart responded that he considers this unlikely because it doesn't seem to make sense that the colonizing civilization would use a mechanism that forgets its origin. I don't share his assessment for a few reasons: first, if evolution is sufficiently predictable then we may not have forgotten our origins in the most pertinent sense; second, forgetting in some senses may be valuable to the robustness of a replicator or the interestingness of its results; and third, we have practical and moral reasons to trust that technological civilizations are not rare, as outlined in the New God Argument.

In case you didn't actually watch the video, I'll add in closing that Mormons make an appearance in Stuart's presentation. He uses us as an example of persons that would want to colonize the universe for ideological reasons. I wonder if he knows anything about Mormon Transhumanists?

Turn Back the Doomsday Clock

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:36:00 +0000

The Doomsday Clock has moved a minute closer to midnight. It's managed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who have since 1947 used the clock to communicate their assessment of the degree of global catastrophic risk facing humanity.

Humanity faces a broad set of extinction risks, both natural and artificial. While it seems obvious to many of us that it's in our interest, both practically and morally, to seek to understand and mitigate these risks, some of us ignore or actively marginalize efforts to call attention to them. Such resistance is particularly common among conservative groups, sometimes driven by religious expectations that God will save us from these problems, regardless of our efforts. I hope my fellow Mormons will increasingly recognize that our religious texts clearly reject such passivity, as exemplified by Alma 60 in the Book of Mormon:

"And now, my beloved brethren — for ye ought to be beloved; yea, and ye ought to have stirred yourselves more diligently for the welfare and the freedom of this people; but behold, ye have neglected them insomuch that the blood of thousands shall come upon your heads for vengeance; yea, for known unto God were all their cries, and all their sufferings — Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain. Do ye suppose that, because so many of your brethren have been killed it is because of their wickedness? I say unto you, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain; for I say unto you, there are many who have fallen by the sword; and behold it is to your condemnation; For the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God . . . Have ye forgotten the commandments of the Lord your God? Yea, have ye forgotten the captivity of our fathers? Have ye forgotten the many times we have been delivered out of the hands of our enemies? Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us? Yea, will ye sit in idleness while ye are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands, who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword, yea, wounded and bleeding? Do ye suppose that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay. Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also."

Let's listen to the voices of warning. Let's understand the challenges presented to us by our environment and technology. And let's do what we must to make and preserve the better world to which we commonly aspire.

John 3: 16 from a Mormon Perspective

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Sports news media and google searchers are presently giving the Biblical passage at John 3: 16 a lot of attention because Tim Tebow, an American football player known for advocating Christianity by displaying references to "John 3: 16", recently led the Denver Broncos to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers by passing for 316 yards and averaging 31.6 yards per completion. Do you see it? "John 3: 16", "316 yards", and "31.6 yards per completion": the statistics would appear to point at Tim's favorite reference, as if by divine intervention.

Here's how the passage reads in the King James Version of the Bible: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Many Christians, including some Mormons, interpret this passage to indicate a hard distinction between our own nature and capacity and that of Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus is the "only begotten Son" of God, whereas (the assumed implication goes) we're not begotten sons or daughters of God.

However, other passages of the Bible, particularly those that teach theosis, undermine such an interpretation, as do the teachings of many early Christian authorities on theosis. Of particular note is John 17: 22, where Jesus says, “I’ve given others the glory you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” Here, Jesus invites us to participate in his glory, the glory of Christ, not partially, but together as one with him, making us all together the only begotten of God. In Mormon scripture, Doctrine and Covenants 76: 24 makes this even more explicit: "That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God."

A common will and work of taking on the identity of Christ, serving and suffering for others, for the sake of a better world beyond present notions of suffering and death, is Jesus' central message, and essential to my Christian identity. We, together, should be that child of God, maturing to Godhood according to the nurturing grace afforded us.

Deification Banned "By Common Consent"

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:43:00 +0000

[3 January 2012 11:48pm - If I were to write this post again now, it would be titled and focused differently. As I've reviewed and discussed with others the posts and comments exchanged between BCC and me, and as I've considered subsequent claims by BCC, I've become persuaded that BCC chose to ban me more because of the timing and tone of my comments than because of their content. By this, I do not mean that I now agree with the ban. To the contrary, my surprise has only shifted, from an apparent ideological disagreement with BCC, to the hypocrisy of BCC employing ridicule and taunts while banning me for expressing an idea at a time and with a tone that "some folks didn't like". In any case, this post will remain in place, to document communication and clarification after the ban. Hopefully this note will resolve concerns that I misrepresented BCC before it communicated a reason for the ban.]

"By Common Consent" is a Mormon blog that has banned persons from affirming that faith in deification is essential to Mormonism. Fundamentalists rejoice! You've scared the Mormonism right out of some of us.

Today, a blogger at "By Common Consent", BHodges asks the question, "Did President Hinckley downplay deification?" BHodges' question refers to instances when the former president of the LDS Church, Gordon Hinckley, interviewed on national television and, according to critics, downplayed Mormon faith in deification. BHodges' analysis shows that Hinckley only appeared to downplay faith in deification because (a) Hinckley was actually acknowledging limited attention to God’s origins, and (b) Hinckley later affirmed faith in deification. The implied conclusion is that Hinckley did the right thing by not downplaying faith in deification. However, BHodges' analysis undermines its implied conclusion from the beginning by engaging in the very behavior that most often leads others to charge that Mormons downplay our faith in deification. Here are the first two sentences:

“‘Do Mormons believe they can become Gods’ is a question that requires much more than a yes or no answer, to be sure. If members of the Church are reluctant to answer with a simple 'yes' or 'no', they seem to be trying to hide something, or to be unversed on the subject.”

These introductory sentences downplay faith in deification. There's no affirmation, simple or nuanced. There's only noncommittal rhetoric that earns (while ironically acknowledging) the criticism it receives: charges of deception or ignorance. In this case, the charge should be ignorance, not in any doctrinal sense, but in an unintentional sense that arises from insufficient editing. To illustrate, here’s a simple edit that would decrease the likelihood that a reader would understand BHodges to be downplaying Mormon faith in deification:

“Do Mormons believe they can become Gods” is a question that often requires much more than a yes, to be sure. If members of the Church are reluctant to answer with a simple “yes”, they seem to be trying to hide something, or to be unversed on the subject.

When I read BHodges analysis, I agreed with it, but I didn't like how he introduced it. So I expressed my concern by affirming Mormon faith in deification and by challenging other self-identifying Mormons as follows:

"Do Mormons believe humans can and should become God? Yes. If you don’t then you’re about as Mormon as a fundamentalist or an atheist."

One of the blog regulars, J Stapley, expressed his disagreement, ironically, through repeated appeals to ridicule. When he finally got around to expressing his disagreement otherwise, it turned out he thought I would "excommunicate" self-identifying Mormons that don't affirm faith in deification. I explained that I'm not interested in excommunicating anyone. To the contrary, to avoid a vacuous "Mormonism" that means everything and nothing, and to avoid a dogmatic "Mormonism" that's too inflexible to survive, I'm interested in communicating positions and reasons among Mormons, perhaps most particularly when we don't like what each other has to say.

Another apparent regular, Ray, reminded everyone that I wasn't focusing on the main point of the analysis. He was right, of course, but there's also some irony here. The analysis would persuade us that Mormons don't downplay faith in deification, but the defenders of the analysis apparently don't want such faith affirmed!

Another, Sonny, wondered whether I had previously been banned from commenting on the blog because he didn't like my attitude. I hadn't been, but the comment made me wonder whether others had been banned for making comments like mine, so I requested that I be banned if that were the case. Within 90 minutes, Steve Evans confirmed by banning me, apparently thinking it funny.

With my fellows, banned "By Common Consent" from affirming our faith in deification, I wonder, "Are we still Gods in embryo?"

The Consolation (Turing Church Workshop 2011)

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:18:00 +0000

This is a transcript of my talk at the Turing Church Workshop 2011, today. The text is an early (and incomplete) draft of a paper I hope to publish at some point. I look forward to your feedback.

-----

Like others today, I’m going to call your attention to the subject of our dead. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, gave a sermon on the same subject a few months before he was killed. He dedicated that sermon to his dead friend, King Follett. Today, I’m going to share with you an interpretive variation on that sermon, in memory of my father. Layne Cannon was among the inventors of the word processor, an early engineer of software that became WordPerfect, and eventually Vice President of Engineering for the business of the same name. November 27th would have been his 61st birthday, but consumed by repeated cancers, he died thirteen years ago at age 48. Most, if not all of you, have also lost friends, so I feel to speak on the subject of our dead generally, and offer you my ideas for consolation.

I ask sincerely for your hope and trust that I may speak truth, particularly of the sort that carries conviction to hearts and minds of its trustworthiness, truth of the sort we should create to the extent we don’t discover it, so that even if you happen to think it’s not true yet, you’ll forgive me for thinking it is, and join me in the work to make it so. Trust, at least, that my voice could be true, relax inclinations to skepticism, and let hope inspire a strenuous mood. That is powerful and effective prayer. There’s strength here, and I’m confident our prayer will matter.

Before I enter fully into the subject of our dead, I’ll provide some context. I wish to go back to when Gods without beginning find themselves making worlds without end. There’s the starting point for us to look to. To understand the subject of our dead, we must start with an understanding of God. If we start right, it’s easier to go right; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it would be hard to get right.

There are few in our world who understand rightly the nature of God. The great majority of humans comprehend little about their relationship to God, so they know little more than the beast – little more than to eat, drink and sleep. That’s all humanity knows without inspiration, and I mean that by definition, not hypothetically. The beast eats, drinks, sleeps, and knows nothing more about God; yet it knows as much as we, except to the extent we comprehend God. If humans don’t comprehend God, they don’t comprehend themselves. I want to go back to when Gods without beginning find themselves making worlds without end, and so lift our minds to a more lofty sphere and a more exalted understanding than what the human mind generally aspires to.

I want to ask this group, each of you, to answer this question in your own heart: what kind of being is God? Put aside creeds and dogmas. Ask yourself, turn your thought into your own heart, and ask if you’ve seen, heard, or communed with God. I repeat the question: what kind of being is God? Do you know? Have you seen, heard, or communed with God? Going forward, the question will perhaps occupy your attention more than before.

If any of us can explain or convey an understanding of God, so that the esthetic seals itself in our hearts, then we should never speak or act against prophets. But if all fail, we should renounce any pretension to inspiration or inheritance of revelation, and welcome each other as reformed sinners or crackpots: hailed as friends, no longer offenders of the religious nor fools to the irreligious. In any case, if we’re all honest enough to renounce our pretensions when our ignorance is shown, we’d all be as bad as each other. We might as well shun or ridicule you as me, and if that’s justified then where would be the end? Who wouldn’t suffer? But we shouldn’t oppress others for their religion, if it doesn’t call for oppressing us. Everyone should have the right to be a false prophet, or a true one. Indeed, as Moses says in the Bible, “I wish that all were prophets!” In that spirit, we’re going to enquire after God, to know and be familiar with God; and if we succeed then we’ll also know prophecy.

So let’s go back to when Gods without beginning find themselves making worlds without end, to show the kind of being God is. What sort of being was God? I wish the world could hear it. God was once as we are now, and is a posthuman! That’s the great secret. If time and space were opened to reveal the God whose power created our world and innumerable others, if we were to see God here and now, we would see posthumanity. Prehumanity evolved within the contours of its environment, humanity projected itself on that environment, and posthumanity realized that projection. The Gods created worlds in their own image, watched those things that they had ordered until they obeyed, and thus created humanity in their own image.

In order to understand the subject of our dead, for consolation of those who mourn the loss of friends, we must understand how God came to be. I’m going to tell you how God came to be God. We’ve imagined and supposed that God was God forever. I reject that idea, and so should you. God was once like us. Yes: God, our creator, lived in a world like ours. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they’re simple.

The first principle of the Gospel of Christ is trust in God, and not just any god, but rather the God that was once like us. That’s Jesus’ good news, and I wish I could tell it to fundamentalists like an archangel from the Apocalypse, so their dogmatizing would cease forever. What does Jesus say? “The Son can do only what he sees his Father doing . . . As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” What does Jesus do? He lays down his life, and takes it up again, only what he sees his Father doing. Do the fundamentalists believe it? If they don’t then they don’t believe the Bible.

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God,” and we’ve got to learn how to be Gods ourselves, the same as all Gods have done before us, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one, from compassion to compassion, from creation to creation, until we can resurrect our dead, and are able to live in everlasting love and light, as do those who live in everlasting power. And, in these times of accelerating change, this proposition is serious.

These are the first principles of consolation. How consoling to mourners when they must part with a friend, to know that, although their bodies go down and dissolve, they shall rise again to live in everlasting love and light. As the Bible says, we will be heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. What is that? To gain the same love, the same light, and the same power, until we become God, the same as those who have gone before, not merely as their prosthetics, but rather as genuinely compassionate creators in ourselves.

The Bible tells of two persons aspiring to Godhood. One “will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” In contrast, Jesus, “being in very nature a God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” Rather, Jesus says to his Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence.” Jesus exemplifies Godhood, not egotistically, but rather altruistically in cooperation with his Father, so that they would be glorified together. Likewise, Jesus says to his disciples, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. If you love me, keep my commands.” So Jesus further exemplifies and invites us to cooperative altruism.

Love posthumanity with all your heart and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it. Love humanity as yourself – not as being human, but rather as becoming posthuman. Trust in and change toward posthumanity: these are the first principles of the Gospel of Christ, about which so much has been said. When we climb up a ladder, we must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until we arrive at the top; and so it is with these principles. We must learn the first, before learning others. Even as we change, transfigured or resurrected to posthumanity, we will continue to learn. For now, we don’t even have the anatomical or environmental capacity to comprehend our creator.

I suppose I shouldn’t speculate excessively beyond what experience and logic warrant. If I do, rationality itself will cry "treason" and start ridiculing me. So I’ll turn to old fashioned logic for a while.

I’ll comment on the Simulation Argument. I want to analyze it. As the philosopher wrote it, “at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.” The argument can be generalized to all feasible creation mechanisms, whether they be computation, terraforming or cosmoforming, or even resurrection itself, which from the inside could be indistinguishable from the others. If you disagree, you disagree with logic. Logicians can do no more than I’m telling you. Thus, it follows that belief we’ll one day become posthumans who create worlds or resurrect the dead is false, unless we are currently living in a created world.

I want the atheist transhumanists that ridicule religion to understand, so I’ll simplify. We almost certainly will not be the only or first to create worlds like those in our past. Without beginning, Gods find themselves making worlds without end. Some suppose contemporary science and technological trends will make us the first Gods, but they’re wrong.

The logicians say, “if you trust in anything not warranted by experience and logic, we’ll cry ‘treason’.” Yet how can we escape extinction, except God be with us? Reason binds us. As we’ve looked at the world, we’ve found life everywhere. Yet, as we look at the heavens, not recognizing posthumanity, we are tempted to despair: if humans are probable then we are destined for extinction! That is the conclusion warranted by experience, and that is the conclusion warranted by logic, unless posthumanity already exists. I’m grateful for logic, but I’m also grateful for that sublime esthetic in our hearts, which encourages our will to posthumanity. Logicians, reason with me. If God does not exist, we will not become God.

Without beginning, Gods find themselves making worlds without end. When we start this way, we start to learn about the living God, transcendent and immanent, what we should worship, and how we should worship. We approach Godhood, and we ask not just any way, but rather we ask so as to receive answers, both with our voices and with our actions. The heavens unfold to us, and nothing is withheld. Whether there be one God or many Gods, they are discovered and created. If there are bounds to the worlds, they are discovered and created. When we are ready to come to God, God is ready to come to us.

Now, why do so many of the religious say that God created the world out of nothing? The reasons are creeds and dogmas, which make it blasphemy to contradict their idea. If you tell them that God made the world out of something, they’ll call you a fool. But we’ve learned and know more, and the sublime esthetic in us would do more, so I’ll associate myself with that. You ask the religious why they say the world was made out of nothing, and many will answer, "Doesn't the Bible say God created the world?" And they infer, from the word “create”, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from a Hebrew word that does not mean “to create out of nothing”. Rather, it means something like “organize” or “shape”, as we would organize materials to shape a ship. Hence, the Bible suggests God had materials to organize the world out of chaos – chaotic matter and energy. Matter existed from the time God existed. Matter can never be destroyed. It may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. It had no beginning, and can have no end.

I’ll mention another subject, which is calculated to exalt humanity, but I can’t say much about it. I’ll just touch on it, because time won’t permit more. It’s associated with the subject of the resurrection of our dead: the soul, the spirit, or the mind. Where did it come from? Most theologians say that God created us from nothing, but we shouldn’t believe it. The idea lessens humanity. I’m going to tell of things more noble.

We say that God has always existed. Who told us so? How did it get into our heads? Who told us that humanity didn’t always exist? Well, humanity has always existed in potential and pattern. God created our world and our bodies from cascading causes. How does it read in the Bible? It doesn’t say God created us from nothing. It says, "God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

Humanity, in the broadest sense, has always existed with God. So when we mourn, what have we lost? Our friends are only separated from their bodies for a little moment, as it were; and they still exist in cascading effects on our relations and our minds, the same as we do, although temporarily less empowered than we are.

This is the immortal aspect of humanity. Is it logical to say that our minds are immortal, and yet that they had a beginning? That which has a beginning may have an end. Although we change, we had no beginning, neither will we have an end. There never was a time when we did not exist in causes, nor will there ever be a time when we will not exist in effects. Unique in time and space, and yet thoroughly and pervasively interconnected, we have always existed and always will exist with God.

All the theologians from the beginning of history, who say that the human mind had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that’s true then we’ll eventually go extinct. But if I’m right, God never had the power to create humanity from nothing. God could not create God from nothing. In the broadest sense, we have always existed, information forever, and there’s no creation about it, although we all change.

Aspects of humanity always exist with God. Without beginning, Gods find themselves in the midst of chaos and potential; and, because Gods are more intelligent, they make worlds without end, whereby the rest can advance. Gods make others more intelligent, that all may increase in light and love, knowledge and power, through and for each other. These are good principles. They taste good. I can taste good principles, and so can you. You say honey is sweet, and so do I. When we receive good principles, we know they’re good.

In life, we experience everything precisely as though we had no bodies at all, and anything we learn that will preserve our minds will also preserve our bodies. So we have a responsibility, an awful responsibility, in relation to our dead. What of all who didn’t learn to preserve their minds while alive? Can we do nothing for our friends who died without an opportunity to prepare? Can they be saved, although their bodies are decaying in the grave?

Our greatest responsibility in this world is to seek after our dead. We can’t be whole without them, they can’t be whole without us, and thus our obligation. We should trust in the possibility of resurrecting our dead, according to the forthtellings of the prophets. As the Bible says, "turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents”. Imagine a posthuman genealogist. Using the tools of quantum archeology, she traces backwards through time and space from effects to causes. Sampling a sufficiently large portion of her present, she attains a desired probabilistic precision for a portion of her past, and she generates you. The future-you is distinguishable from the present-you, but no more so than the today-you is distinguishable from the yesterday-you. You are resurrected, and you learn to repeat the process for your friends.

As mourners, we have occasion to rejoice. My father, Layne Cannon, is gone only until the resurrection of our dead, to rise and reunite with my family and his friends in love and light. We all have parents, siblings, children and friends who have gone, but they are only absent for a moment. They persist in effects, and we’ll meet again when we, or our descendants, become God. We will raise our dead, so we may be God together. I trust this, and so should you. Although we should take risks seriously, the sublime esthetic moves us against fear and to action. Although we may mourn or weep, we expect our friends, and more: we actively invite our friends to rise with us in the morning of the resurrection.

What are you creating? Heaven or Hell

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:36:00 +0000

Each morning as I merge on to the freeway to commute to work, I pass a billboard that asks me, "Where are you going? Heaven or Hell." That's so completely the wrong question, and the religious fundamentalists funding these billboards are so completely evil. Yes. You read that right.

The religious fundamentalists funding these billboards are evil, if "evil" has any meaning at all. It's such persons that have inspired and justified the worst kinds of atrocities humanity has perpetrated throughout and before history. It seems less serious until you consider the psycho-social consequences of their ideologies, and follow the chain of effects from arrogant will-to-oppression beginnings, through nihilism-inducing provocation to fear and lust, and on to shunning, witch hunts, inquisitions and crusades. It's no wonder that Jesus, as presented in the Bible, reserves his most hostile words and actions for the religious fundamentalists of his day. Nothing has worse long term consequences than abuse of the power of religion. Nothing is worse than exciting the strenuous mood toward oppression.

In contrast, here is the right question, and the proper use of the power of religion: what are you creating? Are you making heaven or hell? Are your thoughts, words and actions affecting the world for better or worse? Is your faith in God an active trust in the kind of persons we should be, benevolent and creative? Do you seek to raise others with you? Can you feel the sublime esthetic when you confess your deep motivations, and when you struggle to expiate those natural inclinations toward oppression? Can you with integrity join the ancient prophets in forthtelling heaven, worthy of creation to whatever extent we do not discover it? We need new billboards.

Less child sexual abuse in our better world

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:52:00 +0000

It is common, particularly in conservative circles, to hear that the world is becoming worse. However, the evidence indicates that the world is not going to hell. To the contrary, the world is becoming a better place: less violent, less poor, longer lived, and better educated. Sometimes when discussing these trends, I get pushback. Some things really are getting worse, I'm told. Almost always the examples given to me are related to sexuality, yet even there the data says otherwise.

Take, for example, the sexual abuse of children. Countless daytime television shows recount the horrors. Particularly with the global reach of the Internet, you'd think it's worse than ever before, but it's not. Bad as it certainly is presently, and always will be to the extent that it happens at all, the past was far worse. An expert in the area, Lloyd deMause summarizes his broad investigation of historical child sexual abuse as follows:

"The history of childhood has been a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes - and the further away from the West one gets - the more massive the neglect and cruelty one finds and the more likely children are to have been killed, rejected, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused by their caretakers."

Here's just one of the many examples he provides:

"The Greek and Roman child lived his or her earliest years in an atmosphere of sexual abuse. Girls were commonly raped, as reflected in the many comedies that have scenes that were considered funny of little girls being raped. Both Greek and Roman doctors report that female children rarely have hymens--just like the Indian and Chinese girls I described above. In order to find out if your young wife was really a virgin (girls usually married before puberty to older men), one had to use mystical tests for virginity, since intact hymens were so rare."

I'm happy not to live in that time. Our world, even with the problems we do have, is the better world. There's value in recognizing that we've improved because it encourages us to keep working. It increases our confidence that an even better world is possible, and that our efforts can make a difference.

Mormons, Politics and Extra Ordinaries

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:17:00 +0000

Thanks to Hank Pellissier for the opportunity to share my views on the subject of Mormonism and politics, and for the candor in his closing remarks on the article, "A Mormon? For President? Who are these people?". I have many friends who are atheists, and although I'm a theist, their concerns resonate with me. Religion and theism, even those with which I identify, have too often been abused. Religion is a social technology, probably the most powerful of them, and like all powerful technologies, it can be used both for good and evil.

As Hank points out, religions do tend to make extraordinary claims and engage in divisive politics. Trained in philosophy, with an emphasis in philosophies of science and religion, I know the value of critical analysis and seeking disconfirming evidence, as well as the value of divergent thinking and epistemic humility. Mormonism exercises in me, sometimes to the limits of my abilities, each of these activities. I value both the practical consequences of working toward its vision, and the practical consequences of working out the tensions and conflicts its history and politics raise in me and with others. I sometimes disagree with the majority of my fellow Mormons (such is the case with our political activities related to Proposition 8, mentioned by Hank), but I still love and identify with them. I am, perhaps irredeemably, Mormon.

On the other hand, Transhumanists, with whom I also identify, also make extraordinary claims and engage in divisive politics. Of course, Transhumanists will argue, rightly in many cases, that their claims and politics are better justified by contemporary science and technological trends than are those of most religions. However, too many Transhumanists are failing to acknowledge that our claims and justifications are compatible with many religious views. Too many fail to recognize that our long term expectations have probabilistic implications regarding our past. It's either naive or arrogant for us to aspire to the status of Matrix Architect, so to speak, without also acknowledging the probabilistic implications of such status. We almost certainly would not be the only or first. Where there are Matrix Architects, the extraordinary loses some of its extra.

Below are my original responses to Hank's interview questions. He needed to edit them for length requirements on the IEET web site.

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Hank: Two Mormons are running for President as Republicans. Can you explain why Mormons are invariably Republican?

Lincoln: Actually, in the nineteenth century, most Mormons were Democrats; and today, although most Mormons in the United States are Republicans, we're not monolithic. At the denominational level, members the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the United States tend to be Republicans, while members of some smaller denominations such as the Community of Christ and Reform Mormons tend to be more diverse or Democratic leaning. At the individual level, even the LDS Church harbors some diversity. For example, one of the highest ranking Democrats in the US government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a member of the LDS Church; while 77% of Mormon Transhumanists are also members of the LDS Church, only 7% identify as conservative in cultural politics; and I'm both a member of the LDS Church and a left-leaning independent. I attribute Mormons' current Republican inclination to the late twentieth century political influence of some prominent conservative LDS Church leaders, such as Ezra Benson, who was highly critical of the civil rights movement and the Democratic party before becoming president of the church, at which time he became less vocal about his political views. More recently, the LDS Church has taken up the practice of regularly reminding members of its political neutrality, while encouraging us to engage in partisan politics without implying any endorsement from the church.

Hank: Which one - Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman - has the most support from Mormons, and why? Is one more "Mormon" than the other?

Lincoln: Among Mormons in the United States, Mitt Romney is more popular than Jon Huntsman. One reason for this, along the lines you suggested, is that most members of the LDS Church perceive Romney as being more serious about his Mormonism, exhibited by regular participation in church services and programs. Another reason is that Romney, like the majority of Mormons, currently positions himself further right on the political spectrum than Huntsman. This latter difference, however, may reflect their current political strategies more than enduring personal convictions, as Romney appears to have been more moderate as the governor of Massachusetts than he is as a candidate for the US presidency. I suspect Romney, if elected, will prove to be a moderate president.

Hank: Jon Huntsman has spoken out against "Obamacare." Is there something about Mormonism that is opposed - in principle - to universal health care?

Lincoln: There is nothing in Mormonism, either on the whole or as taught by the LDS Church, that is opposed in principle to universal health care. To the contrary, it is easier to use Mormon scriptures to make a case for universal health care than it is to make a case against it. Our scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, are replete with exhortations to care for the poor and the sick. Almost any Mormon you ask would be in favor of universal health care in the broadest sense; however, we disagree among ourselves regarding whether any government can or should be the provider of that health care, and to what extent. You'll also find that Mormons will often express concern that governments should not compel individuals to participate in or support most social programs, but rather individuals should enjoy broad freedom of choice. A significant reason some Mormons may not perceive the need for government-run universal health care is that the LDS Church runs worldwide financial and education welfare programs, established on principals of both opportunity and responsibility, that effectively supplement whatever government programs are already in place.

Hank: Both candidates portray themselves as highly-qualified on economic issues. Utah (under Huntsman) recently had the best state economy, and Mormons are a wealthy demographic. Is there something about Mormonism that espouses economic practicality? A balanced budget? Sensible investments?

Lincoln: Mormonism is a practical religion. Faith, for us, is an action word. In LDS Church meetings, at global and local levels, we regularly advocate hard work, emergency preparedness and financial responsibility. As mentioned previously, the church runs successful welfare and education programs for members, as well as private universities with highly ranked financial and business programs. Local congregations gather financial donations to redistribute among themselves as needed, and engage often in service projects for each other. In my local congregation, we've been holding regular seminars on financial management and investment, so that members with more experience in these areas can help others with less experience.

Hank: Mormons are joining the mainstream. But don't they perceive their values as uniquely different from other Christian groups?

Lincoln: Mormons do generally perceive themselves as different from other Christians, although we also share commonalities. Like other Christians, we consider ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, and aspire to trust in and live according to his teachings. We revere the Bible, but unlike some Christians, we do not require literal interpretation or confine ourselves from revering additional books as scripture. Also unlike some other Christians, we teach that our trust in Jesus Christ should lead us to share in the identity of Christ, worship through emulation, and become increasingly like God (theosis), which some other Christians consider heretical. Consequently, some Mormons, seeking improved relations with non-Mormon Christians, have downplayed our doctrine of theosis. I consider that a grave mistake, and a focus of my work with the Mormon Transhumanist Association has been to establish a stronger voice for advocacy of theosis.

Hank: The American Left is very frustrated with the anti-gay agenda of the Mormons. Why are Mormons homophobic? What's in the Book of Mormon that condemns gays? I assume Mormons think gays are going to Hell. Can they change their mind on this?

Lincoln: Not all Mormons are homophobic. At the institutional level, the Community of Christ (the second largest Mormon denomination) recently extended full membership privileges to homosexuals. Also, the LDS Church has in recent years reformulated its positions on homosexuality, for example, no longer characterizing homosexual thoughts as sins, expressing support for various non-marriage legal rights for homosexuals in Salt Lake City, and actively reminding members not to harbor or express hatred toward homosexuals. On the other hand, the LDS Church certainly has been highly active in combatting the legalization of gay marriage. Why? Perhaps surprisingly, there is nothing in the Book of Mormon that condemns homosexuality, although the book does condemn sexual promiscuity generally. It may also be surprising that most Mormons actually don't think homosexuals are going to hell in the conventional sense; most Mormons consider hell to be a temporary spiritual state that we may all experience to some extent, leading eventually to varying degrees of heavenly glory, to be enjoyed almost universally by all but those who do not desire any degree of heaven. I think the main reason Mormons generally have been more active than other Christians in combatting gay marriage is that we have highly developed and deeply revered unique doctrines related to marriage that most consider to be utterly irreconcilable with gay marriage. Could that change? Most Mormons will tell you that they cannot imagine that changing. However, a 2009 poll of Mormon Transhumanists indicated that half disagreed with the proposition that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and more than half agreed that Mormon doctrine can accommodate homosexuality. Personally, while I don't know whether the LDS Church position on this issue will ever change, I suspect it would change only subsequent to homosexual reproductive technologies becoming effective and commonplace, and non-promiscuous committed homosexual relations becoming commonplace. Such changes would make it easier to see potential for reconciliation between Mormonism and homosexuality.

Hank: It is becoming increasingly well-known that Mormon women have one the highest rates of anti-depressant usage in the USA. Can we infer from this that Mormon women are depressed? If so, why? And why can't women be "Presidents" of the Mormon Church?

Lincoln: Although the subject is controversial, because anti-depressant usage may have an inverse correlation with smoking and other activities that Mormons avoid, I suspect there's some truth to the observation that Mormon women have higher than usual rates of depression. There may be both environmental causes, such as a correlation between rates of depression and high altitudes, and social causes: Mormons do tend to have high expectations of themselves and others, and too often these expectations are insufficiently tempered with patience. Do the social causes of depression among Mormon women include the LDS Church's constraints on women's authority? I know that's a concern for some women, but my informal observation is that they are the minority. For example, the fact that women cannot hold the same positions of authority as men in the LDS Church appears to concern me far more than any of the women in my own family. We do have many women leaders in the LDS Church, both at congregational and worldwide levels; however, they are all directly or indirectly supervised by men. The reason for this is that the LDS Church requires persons in the highest leadership positions to be ordained to the priesthood, and only men are permitted to be ordained. This may be more of a cultural issue than a doctrinal issue. The Bible sets precedents for women in priesthood roles; a prominent early Mormon, Eliza Snow, set a precedent for a woman acting under the title of "high priestess"; Mormons sing about our Heavenly Mother; and Mormon women officiate in temple ceremonies. I expect this matter will continue to evolve with time.

Hank: Jon Huntsman speaks Mandarin and was ambassador to China. Mormonism is an international religion. Does Mormonism make a genuine attempt to understand other cultures? If so, why proselytize? Sending missionaries somewhere suggests that the indigenous culture is wrong, is lacking, and needs Mormonism to perfect itself.

Lincoln: Mormons work hard to understand and appreciate cultures worldwide. The Book of Mormon, available in 82 languages, teaches that God speaks to and through all peoples - not just Mormons, Christians and Jews. LDS Church leaders have regularly affirmed that idea, expressing conviction that God has inspired the founders of many major religious and non-religious ideologies throughout history, and that the work of God is too great to be completed by any one people alone. The LDS Church also encourages members to respect and promote their local cultures. For example, members in Israel observe the Sabbath on Saturday, male missionaries in some tropical island locations wear skirts, and the church operates a formidable Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii. Of course, Mormonism may not be compatible with all aspects of all cultures, and members of the LDS Church worldwide make promises to act and not act in ways that may be incompatible with some aspects of their local cultures. Does this mean Mormons think other cultures are wrong or lacking? Most Mormons are not moral relativists, so we may express concerns when we see a cultural aspect that we deem immoral. More importantly, though, we do generally believe that we have something valuable to share with others, not even necessarily to replace what they have, but at least to complement what they have. When training missionaries, the LDS Church encourages them to learn to love the peoples and cultures they'll seek to serve. Sometimes we fail, but my own experience is that it can work remarkably well: my father was a missionary in France, I became a missionary in France, I since married a French woman, and we speak French in our home with our three children. Finally, I'll just mention that the LDS Church also assigns missionaries to serve in Utah, and puts an even greater effort into its internal missionary program known as "home teaching", illustrating that we consider ourselves to have needs like those of external cultures to which we send missionaries.

Hank: There's a high rate of technological and engineering expertise among Mormons. Can you explain this? Is there something in the creed's tenets that encourages tech, science, computer knowledge?

Lincoln: Mormonism has always emphasized education and technology, reflecting founder Joseph Smith's teaching that "the glory of God is intelligence". The Book of Mormon contains an intriguing story about a man named Lehi, who in ancient times sought guidance from God while journeying in the desert with his family to find a new home. One morning, upon opening the door of his tent, he discovered on the ground a fine brass ball of “curious workmanship”. On inspecting the ball, Lehi saw that it contained two spindles, and soon learned that one of the spindles would move to guide him through the more fertile parts of the desert. From time to time, messages also appeared on the ball, providing additional assistance during the journey. When Lehi and his family arrived at the sea, his son, Nephi, climbed a nearby mountain to seek further guidance from God. He was inspired to make tools and build an unusual ship, the likes of which he had never before seen. When completed, the ship served to carry them across the sea to their new home. For me, this story epitomizes the importance of education and technology in the Mormon worldview. Mormons do expect inspiration from God, but we do not expect God to do what we can do for ourselves. We can learn and we can build, and so we do. Like Lehi, we expect education and technology to be part of our journey to a new and better home.

Hank: The American public has probably formed many of their ideas about Mormonism based on two media productions: the book "Under The Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakhauer, and the TV show "Big Love." How do Mormons feel about these cultural depictions of their religion?

Lincoln: Most Mormons don't identify with these productions because they focus on Mormon fundamentalism, which is practiced by a small percentage of Mormons - perhaps vanishingly small, given that the LDS Church has been excommunicating persons practicing polygamy for about a century. The media productions do make for exciting stories, but they're probably as likely to confuse as help you in an effort to understand a Mormon neighbor.

Hank: Mormonism is suspected by many Americans as being very racist. Can you explain these passages in the Book of Mormon? "Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain" (p. 101).

Lincoln: This quotation is not from the Book of Mormon. It's from a book by a former president of the LDS Church, and it's not recognized by Mormons as scripture. However, there are a few passages of the Book of Mormon that I do consider racist, in that they attribute dark skin to a curse from God, which is something most Mormons reject today. The Book of Mormon also contains passages such as this: "[God] inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile." Such passages don't justify the racist passages, but they do illuminate a fuller picture. It's also worth repeating that Mormons don't necessarily hold to scriptural literalism or inerrancy. Brigham Young, who led the Mormon pioneers after Joseph Smith's death, once said the following, which resonates with my own view of scripture: "Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to re-write the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be re-written, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation. According as people are willing to receive the things of God, so the heavens send forth their blessings. If the people are stiff-necked, the Lord can tell them but little." On the subject of racism more generally, the LDS Church does unfortunately have some institutional racism in its past, and that was resolved in 1978 when the church extended priesthood to blacks. Since that time, the church has added blacks, as well as increasing numbers of other non-caucasians into leadership roles, at both local and global levels. I confident we'll continue to improve in this area, along with the broader culture.

Hank: The life of Joseph Smith - founder of Mormonism - has come under scrutiny by historians. Many accuse him of fraud, of being a conman. He was supposedly arrested for charlatanism by swindling people out of money with "magic stones." Also - to outsiders - his claim that he was given golden tablets by an angel, but that he later lost them, seems highly dubious. How do Mormons refute, or ignore, these charges?

Lincoln: Joseph Smith was human, and I don't agree with everything he said or did. However, he was acquitted of those swindling charges, and he actually claimed that he returned the gold plates to the angel (still dubious perhaps, but hardly the most extraordinary claim he made about angels). Where I think Joseph is most vulnerable to moral criticism is in his marital relations. He should have been more honest with his first wife before engaging in polygamy. His moral failings, whatever they may be, clearly concerned him too, as illustrated when he mentions his own need to repent in writings that are today part of Mormon scripture. In contrast, though, and without intending to justify any moral failings, I'll add that I consider Joseph Smith a prophet, if ever there was one. A few sentences won't do justice to my reasons, but basically his words and actions on the whole inspire me. Throughout human history, some persons have managed to articulate an esthetic that moves and shapes us, emboldens and ennobles us, invokes in us the strenuous mood toward benevolence and creativity beyond human capacity, toward the divine. Joseph Smith is one of those persons, for Mormons and even for non-Mormons, as expressed by Harold Bloom, a Jew and professor of humanities at Yale, who observes: "A literary critic necessarily is more at home with Emerson than with Joseph Smith, though I would name them both (with Walt Whitman) as our authentic American prophets."

Hank: A Rasmussen poll named Mormons as the 3rd least-electable belief system in the USA behind Muslims and atheists. Do you think this is false, and what can Mormons do to counteract it?

Lincoln: I haven't examined the process quality of the Rasmussen poll, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's accurate. Many persons are suspicious of Mormons, mostly because they don't know much about us. I think if you polled only persons that personally know Mormons, you'd get more positive results, as you would with persons that personally know Muslims and atheists. The LDS Church is doing a number of things to help others better understand and trust us: member profiles published at mormon.org give others insight into our personalities and interests beyond religion; media information published at newsroom.lds.org addresses common misunderstandings and clarifies official positions. At an individual level, most Mormons welcome the opportunity to talk about our religion, as I've enjoyed doing with you. Sincere questions won't offend most of us, so ask! I wager you'll end up agreeing that Mormons should be as electable as any other commonly respected ideological group.

The Singularity doesn't require Paul Allen's understanding

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:54:00 +0000

Like others before him, Paul Allen argues that the "singularity is not near": we will not anytime soon engineer computers superior to human brains, he says. His argument is based on the observation that human biology, neurology and cognition are highly complex, and he concludes we will need to understand this complexity before we can match or exceed it with our computers. Also like others before him, Paul is probably wrong because the Singularity does not require understanding.

Scanning technology permits us to model and simulate systems that we do not understand. Of particular importance to the subject at hand, and even generally important given that human brains are the most complex objects known to humanity, brain scanning technology is increasing in resolution at an exponential rate. Assuming the trend continues, we will be able to model and simulate human brains sometime this century, unless current expert assessments of the essential degree of complexity of the human brain are many orders of magnitude incorrect. Furthermore, assuming it is the pattern rather than the substrate of the human brain that leads to cognition, then the word "simulation" would not be appropriate once our scanned models attain a sufficient degree of detail, because they will be cognizing. Yes. Unless trends in scanning technology cease, and unless there's something magical about carbon, sufficiently detailed scanned models will cognize, even if we don't understand how they do it any more than we understand how we do it.

Paul references scanning technology, claiming that it will be insufficient because it will need to model not merely brain state, but also brain function. In other words, it must be both spatially and temporally detailed. He's right, of course, that function is an essential aspect of a detailed model of the human brain. However, he offers no reason to believe that the exponentially advancing capabilities of scanning technology will be limited to spatial details. Is he up to speed on advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging? If so, what am I missing?

I don't know whether there will be a technological singularity, and I don't even think it would necessarily be a good thing (depending on the form it takes). However, it's a mistake to bet against it simply because we think it will take humans a long time to understand our brains. We don't have to understand them. We need only scan and model them, and our computers are already helping us do that, even when human scientists cannot.

Dynamic Faith in Pancritical Rationalism

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:11:00 +0000

In the comments on an H+ Magazine article on "Why Christianity and Transhumanism are not Enemies", Max More disagreed with my assessment of the inevitability of faith. Here's the exchange, including an opening comment from someone named "Ben".

Ben: "Christianity is based on FAITH. Transhumanism is based on SCIENCE. What more is there to say?"

Lincoln: "Science also depends on trust in non-contradiction, spatial and temporal uniformity, causality, etc. Faith is inescapable, but we don’t need to be irrational."

Max: "No, that’s just not true. That’s a common argument, and understandable enough. But you should read Karl Popper and William Warren Bartley. Pancritical rationalism shows why NOTHING need be taken on faith. I summarize this line of thinking here: http://www.maxmore.com/pcr.htm"

I responded to Max that I want to press him on this further, and this post is aimed at that end. Before I proceed, though, I want to say a few things about Max. I had the opportunity to meet and interact extensively with Max during the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010 organized by the Mormon Transhumanist Association in Salt Lake City. The experience was a pleasure. His speech at the conference was excellent, side discussions with him were intriguing, and on a personal level I found him to be engaging and friendly, as friends and I guided him on a tour of the Salt Lake City area after the conference. My respect is particularly high for his broad contributions to and influence on Transhumanist thought.

Near the beginning of Max's article on Pancritical Rationalism, he appeals to a lesson learned from Ayn Rand's Objectivism: "Superficially and officially Objectivism opposed blind faith, dogma, unquestioned authority, and unexamined assumptions ('check your premises!'). Independence and rationality were core virtues; those who could not or would not think critically for themselves were branded as second-handers, mystics, or Witch-doctors." He then goes on to note that Objectivists failed to live up to this lesson, instead becoming "true believers dogmatists suffering from a hardening of the orthodoxies". The use of the word "faith" here, I suspect, already reveals the source of our disagreement.

When I use "faith", I do not mean blind trust. I mean only trust, with no more blindness than necessary at a given time and place. Moreover, I do not mean dogma or any unquestioning or unexamining attitude. Rather, I mean only that no matter how many questions we ask, and no matter how much we examine and press the frontiers of our knowledge, there are more questions to ask, and there are more matters to examine. I also suspect that will always be the case. So we, whether we like it or not, find ourselves in a context that requires faith in practice. Life and death hang in the balance, and we cannot wait for absolute answers (if they even exist) before we act.

Furthermore, even when we have the luxury of time, we cannot make progress without at least tentatively agreeing on basic premises. Science typically posits causality and uniformity as basic premises. Some will argue that these are proven by science, but that's not true, as the empiricist philosophers, Hume and Berkeley, taught us. No matter how many times we think we have experienced something, no matter how many places we think we've experienced it, it could all change the next time we try it. Well, some may respond, at least we have probabilities? Strictly speaking, no, we don't even have probabilities. Can we demonstrate that all of our remembered experiences were not planted in our minds moments ago by an evil demon? A matrix architect? No. We cannot, but we don't worry much about that because it's not practical, or at least so we judge based on our memories, but that is circular reasoning.

The same is true of logic. We require some basic axioms and methods, taken unproven, in order to do any work at all. For example, most logical systems assume non-contradiction, and various operations for coupling, decoupling, and otherwise operating on propositions. Logic doesn't prove these axioms and methods. They are assumed, which is an act of faith, as I'm using the word.

Max proceeds to attribute Objectivism's failure to its claims (or at least attitudes) of completeness and closure. They chose some assumptions, considered them sufficient and final, and proceeded dogmatically from there, without going back to question and improve their initial assumptions. He contrasts this with the Principles of Extropy (a kind of Transhumanism), which affirm "reason, critical inquiry, intellectual independence, and honesty. We reject blind faith and the passive, comfortable thinking that leads to dogma, mysticism, and conformity . . . Extropians therefore feel proud by readily learning from error rather than by professing infallibility . . . We choose challenge over comfort, innovation over emulation, transformation over torpor." Max calls this systematic openness a "pancritical rationalism" or "epistemological fallibilism".

To this, I respond with support, so long as it is approached practically - faithfully. We should re-examine our premises, our assumptions, our conformities. We should honestly acknowledge the limitations of our knowledge. We should engage in and welcome criticism. All of this, over time, strengthens our knowledge, much like the brutal hardships of nature have shaped our anatomies through billions of years of evolution. However, there are practical limits, and perhaps no philosophical movement has better addressed these limits than the pragmatist school. As William James once described it, you can wait for a long time for hard evidence that a woman loves you, or you can make a move. You can stand in front of a charging bull calculating the probability that it will trip, or you can run. You can wait for more evidence of anthropogenic global warming, or you can begin cleaning up your act. Furthermore, because you are limited, and because you will always be limited, you will always find yourself dependent on this faith, this trust in the knowledge at hand at any given time, according to whatever education or experience you were lucky to have had (or at least presume yourself to have had) prior to needing it.

Beyond the practical necessity, there may even be a creative power in faith. If the universe (or the multiverse) is not finite, if real creativity and genuine novelty are possible, it will not be those who wait for evidence that will be the creators. It will be those who act, despite not knowing everything in advance, that will be the creators. Faith may be essential even to the power of the gods themselves. For this, we need not look even so far as the creation (or computation) of new worlds. The creative power of trust may be seen even in matters as common as love. As we exercise trust in each other, and as the strength of that trust grows, we gain love for each other, and this love in turn moves us to do that which we would not otherwise do. Wo to that person that underestimates the world-changing power of love.

Yet, we shoud examine it, of course. We should question and learn more of it, of course. Yet there are still practical limitations. Should we test hypotheses of how best to terminate our relations? Should we test hypotheses of how best to annihilate the Earth? Perhaps there are some detached and indirect, relatively non-consequential, ways to do these things - simulations or whatever. However, our faith shapes the approaches we take to criticism and examination. We do not proceed arbitrarily.

Max mentioned in his original comment to me that I should take a look at Karl Popper, and at the beginning of his article's section on "Rationalism and Justificationalism", Max quotes Popper: "We could then say that rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to critical arguments and to learn from experience. It is fundamentally an attitude of admitting that 'I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth'." I agree with this idea, and perhaps ironically, I see in it an expression of faith! The attitude of acknowledging our limitations is trust that those limitations can be overcome. I don't start with evidence of that, and even after much learning I don't have evidence that all of my limitations can be overcome. The effort to continue, to remain open, to question and seek answers, is itself an expression of faith. Certainly, it's not the blind unquestioning faith against which Max and Karl would warn us. Yet it is still faith of the anticipatory sort.

Max next expounds on some of the matters I mention above, digging into the complexities of competing premises, deductive and inductive limitations, sensory limitations, and the necessity of practical action in life. Clearly, nothing I've written above is news to Max, except perhaps my perspective on "faith". Now, he might argue that my use of "faith" is so unusual that it should be considered a complete redefinition. I understand why he or others unfamiliar with my religious background would think that, and perhaps there's some truth there. However, this is the definition and usage of "faith" that I learned as a child, particularly in Mormon settings, and it's the meaning that continues to resonate with me as I study religious texts as an adult. I'd even argue that the irrational or blind sorts of faith employed by so many religious persons, particularly Christian fundamentalists, are not faith at all. As the Bible puts it, faith without works is dead. As the Book of Mormon puts it, knowledge results after exercising faith. As Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism put it, faith is a principle of action and power.

Of course, this presents some concerns, and Max expresses them. If we must all act in faith, from premises that are themselves unproven, "why not accept as your standard the proclamations of the Pope, or the urgings of your feelings, or the will of the people, or the assertions of der Füehrer?" The problem even goes deeper. Why care at all? In my late teenage years, I encountered such a crisis. I recognized my limitations. I found no grounds for choosing one direction or another. So I felt the weight of concluding that meaning was lost pressing on me. It may sound melodramatic now, but it was quite serious for me at the time. Others have passed through such experiences, and probably most have found one way or another to get out of the funk without killing themselves. I don't know how everyone has done it, but I know what worked for me, and embracing faith, not of the dogmatic irrational sort but rather of a dynamic arational sort, was essential.

Where did I put my faith and why? The answer is complex, but I'll aim to provide a brief explanation here. I began with my own wills and desires (which, of course, I have to start from, whether I like it or not, even if I had gone further in the direction of nihilism). I didn't desire the world to be meaningless, so I willed trust in the possibility of a meaningful world. On the other hand, I also didn't desire the meaningful world to be merely meaningful for me, so I willed trust in the possibility of sharing a meaningful world. This sharing of meaning, willed according to our desires (rather than just my own desires), I identified with love. From there, I found an analogy in the environment, whose physical laws (call them "gravity" and "electromagnetism" or whatever) I compared to the communal laws of relations. Love, then, extended beyond merely my will to fulfill my own desires to reconciling myself with communal rules and environmental laws, and vice versa, in an ongoing perhaps unending exchange. From a religous angle, I called this reconciliation "atonement" (intentionally alluding to the Biblical example of Jesus engaged in moral reconciliation), and I saw us all participating in this atonement in every aspect of our lives, perpetually. Science is the epistemic atonement, reconciling anatomical experience with individual knowledge, knowledge with communal truth, and truth with environmental existence. Politics is the ethic atonement, reconciling anatomical desire to individual will, will to communal rule, and rule to environmental law. Art is the esthetic atonement. Each form of atonement affects the others and itself in feedback loops. To help visualize these relationships, check out my matrices. Of course, there's more to say and explain here, but in summary, I put my faith in love, embracing a perpetual work of reconciliation, epistemically, ethically and esthetically. Accordingly, I do not accept the proclamations of the pope without consideration of the laws of biological evolution, I do not follow my feelings without consulting friends and experts, I do not embrace the will of the people without investigating the feelings of the individual, and the assertions of der Füehrer are only one, but still one, variable in an aggregate of tensions and conflicts between and among desires, wills, rules and laws.

Returning to Max's article, he goes on to describe pancritical rationalism (PCR), which he considers to be a solution to the epistemic problem of relying on faith. First, he points out that PCR requires no authorities, either those of a communal sort (scientists or kings) or those of an anatomical sort (experience or intellect). Instead of authoritarian justification, PCR espouses unbounded criticism, even of its methods of criticism, holding nothing beyond criticism. The whole process, as Max characterizes it, becomes perpetually investigational rather than justificational. As I see it, PCR is a meta-epistemology, abstracting across the philosophical investigations and turmoils of the centuries, and observing what it is we've actually done to achieve epistemic progress, even if all the while we were doing it naturally and ignorantly.

A key point in Max's explanation of PCR is the idea that even the practice of holding everything open to criticism should be held open to criticism. He notes, "perhaps someone could produce an argument demonstrating that some of the critical standards necessarily used by a pancritical rationalist were not only unjustified but uncriticizable, that even the pancritical rationalist must accept something as uncriticizable if circular argument and infinite regress are to be avoided." He then expresses doubt regarding the possibility that someone will come up with such an argument. So I'll leave it to Max to tell me whether the following is such an argument: we cannot engage in PCR without faith in meaning itself, which is something shared, and therefore a manifestation of the kind of love or trust in reconciliation that I described above. Even if approached egotistically, within the mind of a single person, meaning is relational, shared between concepts, distinguished from a meaningless chaos even before they enter our conscious and volitional mind. Indeed, something of the beginnings of this faith in meaning or trust in reconciliation may be built into us, into our bodies and minds, from the beginning by evolution itself within the environment where we find ourselves. Can we consistently doubt? Can we consistently deconstruct? As we devolve into flashes and noises, can we persist into the darkness? From darkness to nothing? From nothing to that toward which "nothing" points without pointing? This reminds me of the direction my thoughts took me twenty years ago as I struggled with nihilism. Even criticism, it seems, must have direction. We must trust in meaning, according to whatever desires we may have for it. As we do, relations between the distinctions are formed, and order arises. The alternatives are some combination of suicide and the mental hospital, and whatever of darkness and its lack lies beneath that which has no bottom.

Max points out that, in practice, PCR does not necessitate perpetual deconstruction and paralyzing self-criticism. While our memories may have been implanted into us a few moments ago, we need not take the idea seriously, he says, although we should not rule out in principle the possibility. An adherent to PCR, Max argues, can still be convinced of positions without being dogmatic about them. This, however, I'll argue, is exactly the kind of faith that I advocate. We live and act, as best we can, without turning to dogmatism, either of the sort that permanently ignores possibilities or of the sort that permanently insists on them. Yet, we do this only because we CARE. What do you tell the person that doesn't care? That doesn't share in our common faith in meaning? That would sooner throw feces and squawk at you than reflect on his desires? I don't know, and whole industries have grown around the effort to help them care, reflecting the fact that most of us DO care, and that's part of what makes meaning possible.

As I conclude this post, I trust (notice the faith) that Max can still teach me something here, not merely because of my respect for him, but also because of that respect, which facilitates a communication aimed at meaning. Let us, indeed, increase in knowledge, but let's do it in a manner that promotes life, sustainable and genuine, benevolent and creative, rather than death and nihilism. Knowledge is not inherently good or evil. We can learn much about the slide to hell, as we can about the ladder to heaven. Yet only one of the two perpetuates our power to continue choosing between the two. I trust in that.

Is postgenderism desirable?

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:13:00 +0000

Below are thoughts I composed some time ago, as I read the introduction to "Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary" by James Hughes and George Dvorsky. The authors respond to some of these criticisms in the body of their paper, but I composed these thoughts to illustrate what the idea of Postgenderism may evoke from the outset as context for any practical argument. I share the thoughts here now because a friend has been reviewing the topic.

Is our (generally) binary gender assignment accidental? Anatomically, gender appears to be the result of natural selection, which is not accurately described as "accidental". Even if genetic mutations are considered accidental, the survival and reproduction of genes that generally manifest themselves in binary gender reflect these genes' relative fitness within our environment. Individual gender identity is more complex than anatomic gender, but appears to be no more accidental. Given a particular anatomy, within the influence of a particular communal context, an individual expresses some degree of will toward a gender identity. The extent to which we see an accident in this may be no more than a reflection of our ignorance of its various causal and intentional aspects.

Has the (general) gender binary caused the categories of human experience? Or, rather, has the inherent power of binary categories resulted in their frequency among the categories of human experience? Binary categories are the simplest, most efficient and economical, type of categories. The difference between chaos and order starts with the first division, differentiation, or categorization. Practically nothing becomes practically something. Meaninglessness becomes meaningfulness. See, chaos! With that move from zero to one (the original binary), intelligence begins to emerge. From there, all categories are extrapolations, which is the power of mathematics and information technology. Observation of human anatomy lends itself to the first and most powerful of categorizations.

While anatomical gender does, indeed, present us with various limitations, it likewise presents us with various opportunities. Limits and opportunities seem never to present themselves independently, but always in complement. While a man cannot experience the world as a woman, a woman cannot experience the world as a man, and neither can a third gender (or supposed "genderless" person) experience the world as either a man or a woman. To regard one as uniquely limited in relation to another reveals more about the regarder than it does about the regarded.

Is the gender binary the most basic power dynamic in society? Maybe so, yet other contenders come to mind. What about age? The very young and very old are almost entirely at the mercy of other members of our community, and certainly more so than women generally. What about race? When first introduced to a community, race differences usually result in more dramatic disparities of power than do gender differences.

Have post-industrial production, contraception and abortion eliminated most of the benefits of traditional gender roles? They have certainly eliminated some of the benefits of traditional gender roles, but "most" is a strong claim that merits justification rather than simple assertion. It seems to me that we would expect to see broad relinquishment of traditional gender roles if most of the benefits had been eliminated. Instead, we see substantial resistance to such relinquishment. Where there is resistance, there is perceived benefit, and practicality does not distinguish between perceived and actual benefit.

Has the shorter life expectancy associated with higher risk-taking been an overall detriment to males? Is it even appropriate to frame the question in terms of higher risk-taking? Is any particular male that refrains from some sorts of risks, such as combat, always taking less of a risk, overall, than all those that engage in such risks? Given the anatomy of human males, and the communal phenomena that arise from its relation to the anatomy of human females, perhaps males have been continually approaching optimization of our behavior (including tendencies toward combat) for the least overall risk to our survival and reproduction.

Is occupational diversity that reflects gender-coded aspirations necessarily wrong? I don't see how that could be true in any meaningful way. Wrong and right are meaningful only in relation to desires. If a particular anatomy does not desire a particular occupation, how can that, in itself, be wrong, except from the perspective of another anatomy with different desires? So far as I am concerned, it is definitionally (not hypothetically) right for an anatomy to act in accordance with its desires, to the extent they are not oppressive. It is relatively weak to argue that occupational diversity consistent with our desires is wrong. The stronger argument is that occupational diversity contrary to our desires is wrong.

In summary, the introduction casts gender as being generally unworthy of whatever desire we may have toward it. This may detract from the major thrust of the paper's argument: technology will enable us better to overcome particular undesired effects of gender, which will yet persist according to our desires.

Quantum Archeology and the Resurrected You

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:54:00 +0000

At a recent conference on transhumanism and spirituality, I spoke on Transfigurism and proposed the following thought experiment:

Imagine a posthuman historian. Using the tools of quantum archeology, she traces backwards through time and space from effects to causes. Sampling a sufficiently large portion of her present, she attains a desired probabilistic precision for a portion of her past, and she generates you. The future-you is distinguishable from the present-you, but no more so than the today-you is distinguishable from the yesterday-you. You are resurrected.

Whether the resurrected being in the thought experiment is actually you depends on what you assume you are (and perhaps whether your assumption is correct, but that gets into some epistemology I'm not going to get into here). I assume I'm a pattern of information (a spirit) embedded in and shaping a particular substrate (a body and a world). The pattern of information that I am did not begin when the biological aspect of my present substrate (my body) began, and my information pattern will not end when that biological aspect ends. I don't know to what extent my information pattern was or will be conscious or volitional prior to and after its present biological manifestation, but I suspect I was less conscious and volitional than I am now to at least the extent that I am now less conscious and volitional than I might be if ever I become posthuman.

Essential to the thought experiment is the assumption that it would be possible, via quantum archeology in the distant future, to trace your pattern of information back from its then-present manifestation in the general substrate (whatever might be left of your body plus its cascading effects in the world at large) to its manifestation at peak consciousness and volition and then back further to even earlier origins. Also assumed is that we could then engineer something like an aggregation of the history of your manifestation in a conscious and volitional person - the resurrected you. Also essential to the thought experiment is the assumption that all aspects of your identity could be traced in this way, and that there are no immaterial or irreproducible aspects.

Some may feel that such a resurrected being would not really be the same person as the being that died so long ago. In response, I wonder what would be different to any extent that matters. Every aspect of your body already changes as you live. Even from day to day, our bodies replace parts of themselves and we lose consciousness while we sleep. How would a resurrection that restores our pattern of information to a consciousness- and volition-empowering substrate (biological or otherwise) be different in kind than present experiences? Why would it detract from our identity any more than present experiences?

What about our uniqueness? If we're patterns of information that can be reproduced in the future, could not millions of copies be made? Yes. It appears that millions of copies could be made. At the moment they're made, they would each be you, and their identities would diverge from that point forward. Is that a good or bad thing? Maybe it's bad, and perhaps we'll seek to regulate quantum archeology to ensure the preservation of uniqueness and control of identity. That reminds me of some quotes from Brigham Young:

"The intelligence that is in me to cease to exist is a horrid thought; it is past enduring. This intelligence must exist; it must dwell somewhere. If I take the right course and preserve it in its organization, I will preserve to myself eternal life. This is the greatest gift that ever was bestowed on mankind, to know how to preserve their identity... The principles of life and salvation are the only principles of freedom; for every principle that is opposed to God—that is opposed to the principles of eternal life, whether it is in heaven, on the earth, or in hell, the time will be when it will cease to exist, cease to preserve, manifest, and exhibit its identity; for it will be returned to its native element." (Journal of Discourses 5: 54)

"It has also been decreed by the Almighty that spirits, upon taking bodies, shall forget all they had known previously, or they could not have a day of trial—could not have an opportunity for proving themselves in darkness and temptation, in unbelief and wickedness, to prove themselves worthy of eternal existence. The greatest gift that God can bestow upon the children of men is the gift of eternal life; that is, to give mankind power to preserve their identity—to preserve themselves before the Lord... Cleave to light and intelligence with all your hearts, my brethren, that you may be prepared to preserve your identity, which is the greatest gift of God." (Journal of Discourses 6: 333)

"[The sons of perdition] will be decomposed, both soul and body, and return to their native element. I do not say that they will be annihilated; but they will be disorganized, and will be as though they never had been, while we will live and retain our identity, and contend against those principles which tend to death or dissolution. I am after life; I want to preserve my identity, so that you can see Brigham in the eternal worlds just as you see him now. I want to see that eternal principle of life dwelling within us which will exalt us eternally in the presence of our Father and God. If you wish to retain your present identity in the morn of the resurrection, you must so live that the principle of life will be within you as a well of water springing up unto eternal life." (Journal of Discourses 7: 57-58)

Check out this related post, "Am I a meme?", from Chris Bradford.

Questions about God from "Closer to Truth"

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:11:00 +0000

I've been watching the "Closer to Truth" videos on the subject of God. Thanks to Matthew Price for pointing them out to me. The videos follow a series of questions. While I don't entirely agree with all the answers suggested in the videos, I have found them thought-provoking. Here are some thoughts on the first few questions.

Does God make sense? That depends, of course, on how "God" is used, and how much of what kind of sense we expect. Some accounts of God don't make much sense to me. Some are self-contradictory. Some are incongruent with my experience or our science. Some seem to have little practical value. On the other hand, some accounts do make sense in at least some ways. One example is that presented by the New God Argument. On the whole, though, I don't expect God to make sense to me in any final or static way, as that would reduce God to be merely an extension of my own mind, which leads to the next question.

Wondering about God? Wonder is essential to an account of God. The wonder need not be a dogma of absolute mystery. It can be a wonder of humility and charity, acknowledging our present limitations as we seek to learn, and relinquishing others' identity from our will to control. So far as I'm concerned, God is that to which I aspire altruistically in relation to others' aspirations. I can no more give a final or static account of God than I can of our interconnected aspirations.

How should we think about God's existence? God is posited, not proven, except within the context of a position. Whether God exists depends first on you. You choose. Even if immersed in an experience of light and love, even if visited by an awesome presence, and even if your senses are stretched across the cosmos, you get to decide whether to call that "God". This is faith. This is trust. It need not be blind or irrational (it shouldn't be), but it must be volitional. There is no God where there is no faith, yet where there is faith, God can (but does not always) persist and adapt to any experience. Why do some have or keep faith and others do not? In part, dogmatism is apparently to blame. Most of us are taught particular accounts of God from a young age. When our wonder leads us away from or beyond those accounts, we think we are rejecting God when we reject those accounts. I don't see things that way. I know too many self-identifying atheists that still have faith in God from my perspective. In respect to them, I'll take their rejection of God at face-value to some extent, particularly when unacquainted, but with opportunity I will find and point out their faith and enjoy the consequent disagreement.

Arguments about God? I think there is a place for this. Arguing for or against God is an exercise in teasing out the shape of our wonder. It's an expression of our faith. We learn from it.

Arguing God's existence? The idea that we could prove logically that God (or anything else) exists is problematic, and I'm not going to solve that problem here. I'll just repeat that God is posited, not proven, except within the context of a position. Those attempting to prove God's existence have already made assumptions about God and existence, and those assumptions tend to be of the superlative and naive realism sorts, neither of which are necessary assumptions about God and existence.

Jesus Christ and our Atonement in knowledge and goodness

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:20:00 +0000

On the Mormon Transhumanist Association Response blog, Vblogger asks how the pursuit of science, if not limited, can be reconciled with faith in Jesus Christ. Do we need the grace of God? If we can figure things out on our own, why do we need Christ?

In the strictest sense, we have not figured anything out on our own. We, our bodies and minds, our relations and our world, are a product of billions of years of evolution, organization and cooperation. We are beneficiaries. We live in a context of grace, enabling all we are and do.

In that context of grace, Jesus invites us to join him in taking on the name of Christ, becoming saviors and messiahs. In the words of Paul, we can and should become joint-heirs in the glory of God with Jesus, "if so be that we suffer with him". It's not enough that we passively inherit an eternal grace. We should give back. Even to the extent of suffering, we should perpetuate and add to the grace we inherited. That is our calling.

We need Christ for all the reasons we need each other, in service and forgiveness, and in love. I without you cannot be saved. We without our dead cannot be saved. Without an eternal atonement, perpetually reconciling our minds and bodies, our relations and our world, we are not one in God. That is what Jesus taught and exemplified, and that is what he invited and even commanded us to do, following his example in every way. As Paul put it, we must "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in [our] flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church".

Jesus was perfect not by some external measure, but rather by definition. We look to Jesus as the measure of perfection. Not hypothetically, Jesus is the Son of God, and we should be the children of God. Jesus is the Firstborn, and we should be the Church of the Firstborn. Jesus is the Only Begotten, and we should be after the Order of the Only Begotten. We declare with trust that Jesus Christ is perfection, and we too should be one in that perfection.

It may appear that the scientific method does not require Christ, but it does. The scientific method is epistemic charity, unity in truth, an aspect of eternal atonement. Science is an ongoing acknowledgement that one person's experience is not more important than another person's experience. The truth revealed by science is not egotistical, but rather altruistic. It is not decreed. It is discovered together. Then, when we understand it sufficiently, we use technology to create it together. In doing this, we are fulfilling our discipleship of Christ.

Moreover, it may appear that science can progress without morality or charity, but it cannot. As we experience the world, gain knowledge and work together to discover and articulate truth, we increase in power. As we increase in power, we are increasingly presented with opportunities and risks, the option to use power for good or evil. To the extent we choose to use power for evil, we destroy our relations and our world, and consequently inhibit further pursuit of truth. To the extent we use power for good, we enable ongoing education. Progress in morality is an essential enabler for progress in truth. The epistemic atonement cannot be accomplished without the ethical atonement. We cannot be one in knowledge without being one in goodness.

I don't know for sure how we, our children or future generations might choose to organize a resurrection, assuming we someday gain such capacity. However, we probably will not gain that capacity at least until we have demonstrated a degree of wisdom and morality sufficient to survive the acquisition of many dangerous prerequisite abilities. That's well beyond where we are today, and I trust that would help us make better decisions than we would today given such power.

The structure of the world itself, with natural moral hurdles between us and greater power, reflects the kind of God that seems to me to be most worthy of emulative worship. This God isn't arbitrarily withholding or granting power. Rather, this God has established a system that rewards us for our combination of creativity and morality, giving us a real opportunity to become gods - not just prosthetic extensions of God, but relinquished inter-dependent participants in fullness of joy, the immortality and eternal life that is the work and glory of God.

Ecumenical Mormonism

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:45:00 +0000

The Mormonism that has inspired me from childhood is the ecumenical Mormonism. It doesn't pretend to exclusive access to God, and it welcomes truth from any source, whether it be Mormon, non-Mormon or non-religious. Too many Mormons, like many persons of most other religions, are sectarian in their outlook. They tend to see evil everywhere, and they tend to deprecate or altogether ignore the positive contributions of persons outside their religion. This saddens and sometimes angers me. It creates unnecessary divisions, inefficient social interactions, and weakens us as a human family. That's not to say we should avoid voicing disagreements. To the contrary, let's voice and argue them passionately, yet constructively and humbly, recognizing that we are each limited and expect continually to learn from others.

I love how the Book of Mormon expresses the idea of God's inspiration going out to all of humanity:

"Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever. Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written. For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; for out of the books which shall be written I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written." (2 Nephi 29: 6-11)

Reflecting these words, a couple of my favorite quotes from Joseph Smith come to mind:

"The inquiry is frequently made of me. 'Wherein do you differ from others in your religious views?' In reality an essence we do not differ so far in our religious views, but that we could all drink into one principle of love. One of the grand fundamental principles of 'Mormonism' is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may. We believe in the Great Elohim who sits enthroned in yonder heavens. So do the Presbyterians. If a skilful mechanic, in taking a welding heat, uses borax, alum, etc., and succeeds in welding together iron or steel more perfectly than any other mechanic, is he not deserving of praise? And if by the principles of truth I succeed in uniting men of all denominations in the bonds of love, shall I not have attained a good object? If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way. Do you believe in Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation which he revealed? So do I. Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship in their midst; and they will do it before the millennium can be ushered in and Christ takes possession of His kingdom." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith 313)

"Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of 'Mormonism'; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers. Even the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together; the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf, the young lion and the fatling; and a little child shall lead them; the bear and the cow shall lie down together, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall play on the cockatrice's den; and they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord of hosts. It is a time-honored adage that love begets love. Let us pour forth love--show forth our kindness unto all mankind, and the Lord will reward us with everlasting increase; cast our bread upon the waters and we shall receive it after many days, increased to a hundredfold. Friendship is like Brother Turley in his blacksmith shop welding iron to iron; it unites the human family with its happy influence. I do not dwell upon your faults, and you shall not upon mine. Charity, which is love, covereth a multitude of sins, and I have often covered up all the faults among you; but the prettiest thing is to have no faults at all. We should cultivate a meek, quiet and peaceable spirit. Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes. Have the Baptists, Methodists, etc., any truth? Yes. They all have a little truth mixed with error. We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true 'Mormons'." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith 316)

Finally, this quote from Mormon apostle Orson Whitney (recently quoted on the LDS Church newsroom web site) sums up my assessment of the relation between Mormonism and other religions:

"Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of His Church to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else. And the same is true of the priesthood and its auxiliaries inside the Church. Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the truth; while others remain unconverted - for the present; the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in His own due time. God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people. . . . We have no quarrel with the Gentiles. They are our partners in a certain sense."

More quotes like these, from Mormon authorities, are available on the Mormon Transhumanist Association community web site.

Why should theists try to learn how to resurrect the dead?

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:12:00 +0000

On the "Mormon Transhumanist Association Response" web site, Vblogger, who is a Mormon, questions why Mormon Transhumanists think we should try to use science and technology as means for transfiguration and resurrection to immortality. He demonstrates that the scriptures teach that God has already transfigured or resurrected persons in the past, and he asks: why would it make sense to use gradual means, like science and technology, to accomplish something God's already accomplished before.

From a Mormon theological perspective, the answer is simple: because the purpose of life is to learn to become as God, it would defeat the purpose if God does for us what we can do for ourselves. We cannot learn that which is done for us. God provides only means, and expects us to do the rest. As we are saved by grace after all we can do; conversely and complementarily, within the context of grace, we are saved by works. These ideas are found all throughout the scriptures, and many of them are listed on the MTA community site. Here is a particularly good passage on this subject from the Book of Mormon:

Alma 60

10 And now, my beloved brethren—for ye ought to be beloved; yea, and ye ought to have stirred yourselves more diligently for the welfare and the freedom of this people; but behold, ye have neglected them insomuch that the blood of thousands shall come upon your heads for vengeance; yea, for known unto God were all their cries, and all their sufferings—

11 Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain.

. . .

21 Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?

22 Yea, will ye sit in idleness while ye are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands, who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword, yea, wounded and bleeding?

23 Do ye suppose that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay . . .

Moving beyond Mormon scripture, to more general theology, it's worth noting that Vblogger's question and questions like it have been asked for millennia, and they have resulted in what is known as the "problem of evil". Basically, the problem is that it seems contradictory that an all-powerful and all-loving God would create a world with misery and pain such as the one we now experience. Why wouldn't an all-loving God want to prevent all the misery and pain? Why wouldn't an all-powerful God be able to do so? More to the point, why didn't God make us all immortal to start with? More than a few persons have considered this problem and concluded that God does not exist.

Mormonism, perhaps better than any other major religion, is well positioned to respond to the problem of evil. Our theology posits a God that, although powerful, was not always God and did not create everything from nothing. This implies some limitations. Moreover, our theology posits that God's purpose is to help us become gods, joining in God in the fullest sense, rather than merely to enjoy some simple happiness in any lesser extent of flourishing. Mormon scripture also teaches that God is willing to go to just about any extent to help us achieve our potential:

D&C 43

25 How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind, and by the great sound of a trump, and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not!

So let's return to Vblogger's original question: why does it make sense for theists to try to learn to do things they think God can already do? Maybe it doesn't make sense unless you also happen to be a theist that trusts in a God that wants you to become a God too. In that case, we should expect God to do no more than necessary, even allowing us to fail to varying extents, as we learn to become gods ourselves, the same as all other gods have done before.

The Singularity merits understanding, but doesn't require it

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:16:00 +0000

Neuroscientist David Linden challenges the timeline (but not the feasibility) of Ray Kurzweil's predictions, and argues that "The Singularity is Far".

David explains that our understanding of brain processes is progressing at a linear rate. I agree with that - in any case, he would know this better than I. However, we may not need to understand brain processes before we can emulate them in a non-biological substrate. Perhaps we only need to be able to scan brain processes at a sufficient degree of detail and reproduce those details in a computer (along with an enabling body, either virtual or robotic)? Our ability to do both of these things appears to be advancing exponentially. In a sense, it would be like riding a bike versus understanding the physics of riding bike; we can do the former without the latter.

David appeals to genetic sequencing as an example of our understanding persisting at a linear rate of progress, even while our technical abilities in the area progress at an exponential rate. He could have appealed to many other examples of emerging technology, too. However, none would counter the argument that reverse engineering is sufficient even without understanding why it's sufficient. If we can reverse engineer a genetic sequence, it will work like natural genetic sequences, and we simply don't need to understand why.

Finally, David suggests that nanobots measured in microns would be too large to work in the intricate and delicate structure of the brain. I'm sure that's true, until nanobots actually become nanobots measured in nanometers rather than micrometers. I don't know when that will happen, but there are miniaturization trends that align well with Kurzweil's predictions. For example, with 22 nanometer technology, we can fit hundreds of transistors within a single squared micrometer; and we soon may be able to fit thousands of transistors into a single cubed micrometer.

Personally, although I identify as a Transhumanist, I don't necessarily identify as a Singularitarian. The reason is not that I reject Kurzweil's timelines. Rather, the reason is that I think a technological singularity, something like an event horizon beyond which we are unable to predict or control our progress, is not good, either practically or morally. Although we're probably going to continue to experience an unprecedented rate of technological progress, we should never willingly relinquish responsibility. This will be a challenge, particularly as we continue to gather data that we do not understand (to David's point), and more particularly as this data comes in dynamic forms that can act in our world without our full understanding. However, it is not a wholly unprecedented challenge. We've been raising children since the dawn of time.

Speculating Around Speculative Roadblocks to the Singularity

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:13:00 +0000

In his book "Physics of the Future", Michio Kaku outlines six roadblocks to the Singularity. The roadblocks are at least as speculative as the technological singularity, and we can reasonably speculate our way around them. Below are Michio's proposed roadblocks, followed by my thoughts.

Michio: "First, the dazzling advances in computer technology have been due to Moore's law. These advances will begin to slow down and might even stop around 2020-2025, so it is not clear if we can reliably calculate the speed of computers beyond that . . ."

Lincoln: The idea that advances in computing tech will slow down (or stop) in 2020-2025 is no more warranted than these skeptical and luddite ideas. The facts of the matter are: (1) we have observed an exponential advance in many aspects of computing tech for many years; and (2) different persons point to different reasons to predict the trend will continue (or not) in the future. I suspect the trend will continue for a long time, but even if it continues only for a few more decades, we're in for an unprecedented wild ride.

Michio: "Second, even if a computer can calculate at fantastic speeds like 10^16 calculations per second, this does not necessarily mean that it is smarter than us . . . Even if computers begin to match the computing speed of the brain, they will still lack the necessary software and programming to make everything work. Matching the computing speed of the brain is just the humble beginning."

Lincoln: Even if humans calculate slower than computers, this does not mean humans are smarter than computers. Speed of calculation is an aspect of intelligence, as are quantity of calculation and algorithms. Computers already are beating humans in each of these areas in various ways and to various extents. Did you watch Watson win Jeopardy?

Michio: "Third, even if intelligent robots are possible, it is not clear if a robot can make a copy of itself that is smarter than the original . . . John von Neumann . . . pioneered the question of determining the minimum number of assumptions before a machine could create a copy of itself. However, he never addressed the question of whether a robot can make a copy of itself that is smarter than it . . . Certainly , a robot might be able to create a copy of itself with
more memory and processing ability by simply upgrading and adding more chips. But does this mean the copy is smarter, or just faster . . ."

Lincoln: A robot doesn't need to make a copy of itself that is more intelligent. It only needs to become more intelligent and make copies of itself. Robots can already make copies of themselves. Robots can already learn. We should expect their abilities in these areas to continue to improve. In the least, if we (and robots) continue to improve algorithms, robots will make themselves smarter the same way that humans became smarter: evolution. The principles and creative power of natural selection apply to technological evolution, and the inheritance-variation-selection cycle is orders of magnitude faster than biological evolution.

Michio: "Fourth, although hardware may progress exponentially, software may not . . . Engineering progress often grows exponentially . . . [but] if we look at the history of basic research, from Newton to Einstein to the present day, we see that punctuated equilibrium more accurately describes the way in which progress is made."

Lincoln: Software is already progressing at faster than exponential rates. Despite bureaucracy, even the government reports algorithms are beating Moore's Law.

Michio: "Fifth, . . . the research for reverse engineering the brain, the staggering cost and sheer size of the project will probably delay it into the middle of this century. And then making sense of all this data may take many more decades, pushing the final reverse engineering of the brain to late in this century."

Lincoln: Progress in reverse engineering the human brain will probably match our experience with mapping the human genome: slow beginning to fast ending, as tools continue to improve exponentially. Because of the nature of exponentials, even if estimates of the complexity of the human brain are off by a few orders of magnitude, the additional amount of time required will be measured in decades - not centuries or millennia.

Michio: "Sixth, there probably won’t be a 'big bang', when machines suddenly become conscious . . . there is a spectrum of consciousness. Machines will slowly climb up this scale."

Lincoln: Machines may already be conscious to some extent. How do you know I'm conscious? Prove it.

Predicting the weather near Kolob

Lincoln Cannon at lincoln.metacannon.net — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:33:00 +0000

While camping in Zion National Park last week, some friends and I discussed prediction capacities and limitations, considering cases such as weather forecasting and prophecy.

One friend argued that, due to weather forecasting limits, we will never be able to predict weather beyond a couple weeks. As we try to forecast further into the future, the resources (computing and otherwise) required increase faster than the accuracy they enable, eventually rendering the pursuit impractical -- and perhaps even approaching an impassable asymptote. This seems to be true of predictions generally: the value of forecasted details (quantitative or qualitative) increases slower than the cost of their enabling resources.

Another friend observed that important events in Mormon history happened on dates that match those of important events in Jewish history, suggesting that God predicted events thousands of years in the future. For example, Joseph Smith may have received the gold plates on Rosh Hashanah.

Could posthumans, monitoring and administrating our world from an external vantage point, accurately predict our weather in high detail one month in the future? It seems posthumans would have access to vastly more and superior resources, but that doesn't address the practical problem of decreasing marginal returns from prediction investments. Maybe posthumans could predict our future perfectly because our world is running in something like a giant DVR that can be forwarded and reversed, but that doesn't answer the question of whether they could predict the recording before watching it through the first time.

Whatever their other capacities and limitations might be, posthumans would certainly have at least one powerful predictive tool: engineering. Passive prediction of an event thousands of years in the future may be impossible, but active prediction could stage the event. Passive forecasting of the weather one month in the future may be impossible, but perhaps the forecast can be created. Foretellings become forthtellings, and predictions become productions.