Mormon Transhumanist Association News

Mormon Transhumanist Association Rosetta@Home Team Rank - 1 June 2012

Mormon Transhumanist Association — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Our team ranks 146 out of 9823 teams in the world.

Association Financial Summary

Karl Hale — Wed, 30 May 2012 10:07:00 +0000

As of the end of May, 2012, the MTA has $5,410 total cash on hand with $706 in the endowment.

Our 2012 conference cost the association $3,144 beyond the participant registration fees of $440. The majority of the conference expenses went to travel reimbursement for voting members of the association for whom the association paid half of personal travel expenses. In total, the association reimbursed members $2,295 for travel to the conference.

The full report can be found at http://transfigurism.org/pages/about/finances/

Karl Hale
CFO

Mormon Transhumanist Association Channel

Lincoln Cannon — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:57:00 +0000

Now you can watch conferences and presentations, sponsored by the association or participated in by our members, on the new Mormon Transhumanist Association Channel!

Conferences

Presentations

... and more. Subscribe to the Mormon Transhumanist Association Channel today!

Conference 2012 summary posted to YouTube

bradcarmack — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:14:00 +0000

This slick seven minute summary of the Association's April conference was posted on 19 May 2012. Complete with background music and professional transitions, the video captures the spirit of the conference and speaker highlights!

Video Caption:

"The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association was held on 6 April 2012 at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers addressed the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The conference streamed live for online viewers, and recordings are now available on the Mormon Transhumanist Association channel on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3893B119820E9DC1). Please post comments and questions, and share these recordings with your friends and family. Thank you!"

Best Paper Award from April's Conference

bradcarmack — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:16:00 +0000

We had a wonderful conference this year, and all the conference presentations are available online. There were many excellent presentations and papers. We have chosen to extend a best paper award to the top 1/3rd of the papers submitted to the conference, (the top 6 papers), with an invitation for them to have their papers included in a published conference proceedings. Each paper was ranked by three (and in some cases four) reviewers. No reviewer reviewed their own paper.The decision was not just made based upon the quality of the oral conference presentation, but also upon the suitability of each talk for printed publication (the best talks are not always the best papers and visa versa).

This award goes to, in alphabetical order:

Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World”

Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary”

James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism”

Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World”

Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity”

Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”

The authors of these papers will have the opportunity to have their papers published in a "proceedings" if they so choose. This proceedings will be available online, and (perhaps) also in print form. This final proceedings should be considered a peer reviewed publication. The inclusion of their papers in the proceedings is conditional upon their acceptance, and their working with our editors to get the papers up to publishable standards, complete with a uniform format, and with sufficient citations etc. If some authors aren't interested, we will extend an additional invitation to one of the runners up.

Several very excellent papers were not considered for this award or for publication in the proceedings, because the authors have expressed a desire to extend these papers, and publish them in a journal format elsewhere. In some cases these papers were very good, and otherwise might have been chosen. We would like to extend each of these authors a special invitation to consider submitting these papers to be included in the first edition of the new MTA sponsored Journal. Whether they choose our journal to submit their excellent papers to, we wish them all the best in finding an appropriate venue for their excellent work.

Thanks again to all who participated,

James L. Carroll

Proceedings Editor

Leadership Title Changes

bradcarmack — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:03:00 +0000

The Association Board has approved the following title changes for leaders.

Brad Carmack

Chief Operations Officer

Carl Youngblood

Chief Information Officer

Karl Hale

Chief Financial Officer

Lincoln Cannon

Chief Executive Officer

Marcus Flinders

Chief Legal Officer

The board of director titles will remain unchanged, as specified in the constitution:

Brad Carmack

Director and Secretary

Bryant Smith

Director

Chris Bradford

Director and Vice President

David Foster

Director

Dorothy Deasy

Director

James Carroll

Director

Karl Hale

Treasurer

Lincoln Cannon

Director and President

Michael Ferguson

Director

Nathan Hadfield

Director

New Directors Elected

bradcarmack — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:16:00 +0000

On 1 May, 2012, two new directors will take their places on the Board of Directors: Dorothy Deasy and James Carroll. Lincoln Cannon has been elected to continue serving as a director.

We extend sincere thanks to the outgoing directors: Carl Youngblood and Brent Allsop. Brent will be the project manager for the annual member survey, and Carl will continue in his role as Webmaster. See the new directors' profiles here and their bios below.

-Brad Carmack
Association Secretary

Dorothy Deasy

Dorothy Deasy is a freelance design researcher specializing in strategic qualitative projects for new product development and branding. A Christian Existentialist and a Methodist, she has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and a Masters of Applied Theology. She is developing a Spiritual Direction practice, with an emphasis on theology for a transhuman age. Dorothy is an occasional contributor for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

James Carroll

James has a PhD in computer science, and a minor in Ancient Near Eastern history. As a graduate student he taught Pearl of Great Price, Isaiah, and the Book of Mormon in the BYU Ancient Scripture department. He is serving a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory, doing ensemble machine learning research and computer assisted raidographic analysis for nuclear stockpile stewardship. His interests include machine learning, statistics, linguistics, consciousness, comparative ritual, and photography.

Recordings of the 2012 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association

Lincoln Cannon — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:53:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association was held on 6 April 2012 at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers addressed the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The conference streamed live for online viewers, and recordings are now available on the Mormon Transhumanist Association channel on YouTube. Please post comments and questions, and share these recordings with your friends and family. Thank you!

Call for papers: Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture, Technology and Human Flourishing

Lincoln Cannon — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Technology changes us, and the world around us, in countless ways. The stuff of science fiction is now, in many cases, reality, and it can make our lives longer, healthier, and more productive than ever. But technological advance is not without complication, and even ardent proponents of technology recognize that our present age of innovation is fraught with concern for unintended consequences.

The 2012 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture invites reflection about technology and how it contributes to and, at times, compromises human flourishing. How should we understand and evaluate both the promise and peril of the things we create? What implications arise for our understanding of what it means to be human and live well? How might theological considerations, in particular Christian convictions about the things we make and how we use them, illuminate our understanding of technology?

A complete call for papers including a list of confirmed speakers and possible topics can be read online at www.baylor.edu/ifl/technology.

Please share news of this announcement with your colleagues via e-mail and social media. We hope to see you at "Technology and Human Flourishing" in the fall.

Live Stream of the Mormon Transhumanist Association Conference

Lincoln Cannon — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:54:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 from 9am to 5pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The conference schedule is below, and the program is now available for download. For those unable to attend in person, the association will provide a live stream of the conference on the association website home page at http://transfigurism.org. Those who can attend in person may still register today!

MORNING SESSION 9:00am-12:00pm
Conducting: Lincoln Cannon

9:00am-9:10am BUSINESS Lincoln Cannon

9:15am-9:25am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves: Subverting Dogma in an LDS Context”

9:30am-9:40am Varden Hadfield on “How Amazing is Grace? The Role of Jesus Christ in Mormonism and Transhumanism”
9:45am-9:55am Dan Wotherspoon on “Things Mormon Transhumanist Nerds Should Keep in Mind When Interacting with Potential Non-Transhumanist Allies — Especially Ones within Their Own Tradition”
10:00am-10:10am Kathy Wilson on “From Mormon to Mystic”
10:15am-10:25am Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary”
10:30am-10:40am Evan Hadfield on “God as Universal Experience: A Buddhist and Mormon Perspective”
10:45am-10:55am Leonard Reil on “The Gods of Eternity”
11:00am-11:10am Don Bradley on “‘The Grand Fundamental Principle’: Friendship as Partaking of the Divine Nature”
11:15am-11:25am Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity”
11:30am-11:40am Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World”

11:45am-11:55am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World”

LUNCH 12:05pm-12:55pm

AFTERNOON SESSION 1:00pm-5:00pm
Conducting: Chris Bradford

1:00pm-1:05pm BUSINESS Chris Bradford

1:10pm-1:40pm KEYNOTE Giulio Prisco on “The Turing Church of Transcendent Engineering”

1:45pm-1:55pm James Driessen on “Foundations of Skeptical Operation Systems, Using Non-Classical Suspension of a Logic Gate”
2:00pm-2:10pm James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism”
2:15pm-2:25pm Eric Swedin on “Why Transhumanist Immortality is a Bad Idea”
2:30pm-2:40pm Carl Youngblood on “Compassionate Obsolescence: Coping with Technological Change”
2:45pm-2:55pm Adam Davis on “Scientific Realism and the Simulation Argument”
3:00pm-3:10pm Brent Allsop on “Ushering in the Millennium”
3:15pm-3:25pm Michael Ferguson on “Toward a Science of Spirituality”
3:30pm-3:40pm Mike Perry on “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism”
3:45pm-3:55pm Dorothy Deasy on “Post-biological Transfiguration”
4:00pm-4:10pm Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”

4:15pm-5:00pm KEYNOTE Lincoln Cannon on “The Consolation: An Interpretive Variation on the King Follett Sermon of Joseph Smith”

Register for the conference today!

Revised Schedule for the Mormon Transhumanist Association Conference 2012

Lincoln Cannon — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:05:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 from 9am to 5pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The schedule has been revised as follows: Roger Hansen will be unable to attend, and Lincoln Cannon will speak on "The Consolation: An Interpretive Variation on the King Follett Sermon of Joseph Smith". The conference is open to the public. Register today!

MORNING SESSION 9:00am-11:55pm
Conducting: Lincoln Cannon

9:00am-9:10am BUSINESS Lincoln Cannon

9:15am-9:25am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves: Subverting Dogma in an LDS Context”

9:30am-9:40am Varden Hadfield on “How Amazing is Grace? The Role of Jesus Christ in Mormonism and Transhumanism”
9:45am-9:55am Dan Wotherspoon on “Things Mormon Transhumanist Nerds Should Keep in Mind When Interacting with Potential Non-Transhumanist Allies — Especially Ones within Their Own Tradition”
10:00am-10:10am Kathy Wilson on “From Mormon to Mystic”
10:15am-10:25am Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary”
10:30am-10:40am Evan Hadfield on “God as Universal Experience: A Buddhist and Mormon Perspective”
10:45am-10:55am Leonard Reil on “The Gods of Eternity”
11:00am-11:10am Don Bradley on “‘The Grand Fundamental Principle’: Friendship as Partaking of the Divine Nature”
11:15am-11:25am Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity”
11:30am-11:40am Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World”

11:45am-11:55am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World”

LUNCH 12:00pm-12:55pm

AFTERNOON SESSION 1:00pm-5:00pm
Conducting: Chris Bradford

1:00pm-1:05pm BUSINESS Chris Bradford

1:10pm-1:40pm KEYNOTE Giulio Prisco on “The Turing Church of Transcendent Engineering”

1:45pm-1:55pm Jamie Driessen on “Machine Skepticism Using a Non-Classical Suspension of a Logic Gate”
2:00pm-2:10pm James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism”
2:15pm-2:25pm Eric Swedin on “Why Transhumanist Immortality is a Bad Idea”
2:30pm-2:40pm Carl Youngblood on “Compassionate Obsolescence: Coping with Technological Change”
2:45pm-2:55pm Adam Davis on “Scientific Realism and the Simulation Argument”
3:00pm-3:10pm Brent Allsop on “Ushering in the Millennium”
3:15pm-3:25pm Michael Ferguson on “Toward a Science of Spirituality”
3:30pm-3:40pm Mike Perry on “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism”
3:45pm-3:55pm Dorothy Deasy on “Post-biological Transfiguration”
4:00pm-4:10pm Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”

4:15pm-5:00pm KEYNOTE Lincoln Cannon on “The Consolation: An Interpretive Variation on the King Follett Sermon of Joseph Smith”

Register for the conference today!

Results from Mormon Transhumanist Association Member Survey 2011

Lincoln Cannon — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:53:00 +0000

The Mormon Transhumanist Association has released results of its 2011 member survey. The survey results provide aggregate statistics of members' views on religion and politics, satisfaction with the association, and demographics.

In 2011, the association grew from 120 members to 143 members, and 71 members participated in the survey. Notable statistical changes since 2010 include:

Membership in Utah decreased from 40% to 31% (membership outside the United States increased from 13% to 17%)
Membership identifying as "no opinion" in cultural politics decreased from 14% to 5% (membership identifying as conservative in cultural politics increased from 7% to 13%)
Membership identifying as progressive in economic politics increased from 21% to 41% (membership identifying as moderate in economic politics decreased from 33% to 23%)
Membership reporting a divorced marital status decreased from 14% to 4% (membership reporting a married marital status increased from 58% to 64%, and membership reporting a remarried marital status increased from 7% to 10%)
Membership reporting incomplete college education decreased from 26% to 13% (membership reporting postgraduate education increased from 42% to 47%, and membership reporting incomplete postgraduate education increased from 7% to 11%)

Schedule for the Mormon Transhumanist Association Conference 2012

Lincoln Cannon — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:47:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 from 9am to 5pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The conference is open to the public. Register today!

Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. Previous conferences sponsored by the Mormon Transhumanist Association include the 2010 Transhumanism and Spirituality conference and the 2009 Mormonism and Engineering conference.

MORNING SESSION 9:00am-11:55pm
Conducting: Lincoln Cannon

9:00am-9:10am BUSINESS Lincoln Cannon

9:15am-9:25am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves: Subverting Dogma in an LDS Context”

9:30am-9:40am Varden Hadfield on “How Amazing is Grace? The Role of Jesus Christ in Mormonism and Transhumanism”
9:45am-9:55am Dan Wotherspoon on “Things Mormon Transhumanist Nerds Should Keep in Mind When Interacting with Potential Non-Transhumanist Allies — Especially Ones within Their Own Tradition”
10:00am-10:10am Kathy Wilson on “From Mormon to Mystic”
10:15am-10:25am Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary”
10:30am-10:40am Evan Hadfield on “God as Universal Experience: A Buddhist and Mormon Perspective”
10:45am-10:55am Leonard Reil on “The Gods of Eternity”
11:00am-11:10am Don Bradley on “‘The Grand Fundamental Principle’: Friendship as Partaking of the Divine Nature”
11:15am-11:25am Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity”
11:30am-11:40am Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World”

11:45am-11:55am KEYNOTE Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World”

LUNCH 12:00pm-12:55pm

AFTERNOON SESSION 1:00pm-5:00pm
Conducting: Chris Bradford

1:00pm-1:05pm BUSINESS Chris Bradford

1:10pm-1:40pm KEYNOTE Giulio Prisco on “The Turing Church of Transcendent Engineering”

1:45pm-1:55pm Jamie Driessen on “Machine Skepticism Using a Non-Classical Suspension of a Logic Gate”
2:00pm-2:10pm James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism”
2:15pm-2:25pm Eric Swedin on “Why Transhumanist Immortality is a Bad Idea”
2:30pm-2:40pm Carl Youngblood on “Compassionate Obsolescence: Coping with Technological Change”
2:45pm-2:55pm Adam Davis on “Scientific Realism and the Simulation Argument”
3:00pm-3:10pm Brent Allsop on “Ushering in the Millennium”
3:15pm-3:25pm Michael Ferguson on “Toward a Science of Spirituality”
3:30pm-3:40pm Roger Hansen on “Putting a Ghost in the Machine”
3:45pm-3:55pm Mike Perry on “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism”
4:00pm-4:10pm Dorothy Deasy on “Post-biological Transfiguration”
4:15pm-4:25pm Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”

4:30pm-5:00pm KEYNOTE Lincoln Cannon on “History, Status and Plans of the Mormon Transhumanist Association”

Register for the conference today!

Transhumanism on Mormon Matters Podcast

Lincoln Cannon — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:36:00 +0000

Lincoln Cannon and Chris Bradford were guests on the Mormon Matters podcast, with host Dan Wotherspoon and panelist Tyson Jacobsen. They discuss the future, especially as it is and promises to be even more impacted by technological advancements, along with several other major themes in Transhumanist debates. They also discuss the relevance of religion in a world increasingly dominated by science and secularism, and they pay particular attention to how Mormon and other religious concepts and terms can be given new life when informed by Transhumanist themes. They also examine the type of actors the world needs as it hurdles toward completely unprecedented forms of life and sociality.

AAR Call for Papers on Transhumanism and Religion

Lincoln Cannon — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:04:00 +0000

The call for papers for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) is now open with a deadline of 11:59 pm, March 13. You are invited to submit a proposal for the Transhumanism and Religion Group. The AAR annual meeting is November 17-20, 2012 in Chicago. Below are the call and the mission statement of the Transhumanism and Religion Group. If you do not hold AAR membership and would like to submit a proposal as a guest, please go to the following link and follow instructions:

http://www.rsnonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=975&Itemid=1071

Call for Proposals

This Group welcomes papers on any aspect of transhumanism and religion and seeks perspectives from a variety of religious traditions. Papers may identify and critically evaluate any implicit religious beliefs that might underlie key transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, are there operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology at play in transhumanist quests? Papers might consider how transhumanism challenges religious traditions to develop their own ideas of the human future; in particular, the prospect of human transformation, whether by technological or other means. Papers may provide critical and constructive assessments of an envisioned future that place greater confidence in nanotechnology, robotics, and information technology to achieve virtual immortality and create a superior posthuman species. We welcome feminist analyses and more overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse and encourage original research.

Mission

“Transhumanism” or “human enhancement” refers to an intellectual and cultural movement that advocates the use of a variety of emerging technologies. The convergence of these technologies may make it possible to take control of human evolution, providing for the enhancement of human mental and physical abilities deemed desirable and the amelioration of aspects of the human condition regarded as undesirable. These enhancements include the radical extension of healthy human life. If these enhancements become widely available, it would arguably have a more radical impact than any other development in human history — one need only reflect briefly on the economic, political, and social implications of some of the extreme enhancement possibilities. The implications for religion and the religious dimensions of human enhancement technologies are enormous and are addressed in our Group. We are interested in encouraging and providing a forum for a broad array of input from scholars, including Asian and feminist. For more information, or to be placed on a very occasional mailing list, contact Calvin Mercer at mercerc@ecu.edu.

Future Day: A Holiday Devoted to the Future

Lincoln Cannon — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:44:00 +0000

Future Day is a future-oriented holiday. Events will take place in several locations around the world on March 1st, including Hong Kong and Australia. A virtual event will be taking place in Second Life. Thanks to Ben Goertzel for creating the concept and Adam Ford for his work in coordinating it!

See article on Future Day at H+ Magazine.
See information about the Second Life Future Day event.

Future Day - A Holiday Specifically Devoted to the Future

What excites you about the future? What frightens you? How might the future change the way we live? And how might we change the way we live in the future?

The future is unknown. With the benefit of hindsight, we often wish we had more foresight. Have you ever wanted to go back in time and fix something? So why do we need a Future Day?

The human species is at a unique stage in history - scientific and technological progress is moving fast and is accelerating dramatically. Ray Kurzweil predicts that technological paradigm shifts will become increasingly common, leading to "technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history".

But what kind of change can we expect? There are many transformative technologies that look like they will have huge impacts on the way we live. What sort of future do you want? If you think through the possibilities of a particular technology, you can better appreciate the consequences of using it. Future Day is a celebration of imaginative and rational thinking about the future where you can participate. In the words of Howard Bloom, author of Global Brain: “Future Day is designed to center the impossible in the public mind once a year as a temptation too delicious to resist.”

Ben Goertzel, the AI researcher who launched the idea of Future Day, expresses his motivation for conceiving the holiday in terms of the concept of the attention economy. “In the more technologically advanced parts of the world, " he notes, "we are entering a regime in which material scarcity is less of a problem than attentional scarcity. We are in a situation where the focusing of attention, individually and collectively, is of prime importance. My hope is that Future Day can serve as a tool for helping humanity focus its attention on figuring out what kind of future it wants, and striving to bring these visions to reality."

"Let’s raise a toast to our power to work toward dramatic new solutions to the problems of today -- and let's have fun in the process. Let's celebrate the amazing opportunities we have right now to work towards a beneficial future!, says Adam Ford. “Future Day is important since it reminds us that a great future does not create itself. In order to realize our hopes and dreams, we have to actively work to make them happen. One of my dreams is to see a day when disease, and the suffering associated with it, is obliterated.” - Sonia Arrison, author of 100+.

Join the conversation on Future Day March 1st to explore the possibilities about how the future is transforming us. You can celebrate Future Day however you like, the ball is in your court — feel free to send a photo of your Future Day gatherings to info@futureday.org, and your jubilation may wind up being commemorated on the Future Day website, Humanity+ website, the Second Life Event, and at Facebook page!

“Future Day is a day for action! If all matter in the universe is comprised of patterns, let’s redesign what doesn’t work and form new methods for approaching the future with fluidity. Let’s grow neuromolecular wings for deeper perceptions in our flight in fostering a world of diversity and compassion.” - Natasha Vita-More, Chair, Humanity+

About Humanity+:
Humanity+ is affiliated with the Mormon Transhumanist Association. To learn more about Humanity+, go to the website, and to join Humanity+, go here!

Christian Scholars Conference Call for Papers on Transhumanism

Lincoln Cannon — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:50:00 +0000

Transhumanism, a small but growing international movement advocating various technologies of human enhancement, has often been lampooned as a pseudo-religion, a "rapture of the geeks" or a "robot cult." Yet those within the movement characterize it as a secular, rational humanist philosophy. Further complicating the matter is the recent appearance of syncretistic, transhumanist versions of various faiths. How should we characterize the movement known as transhumanism? What difference does this make in shaping a Christian theological and ethical response to the movement? Papers may address specific intersections of Christian doctrine and transhumanism, the relationship of faith and science (especially as expressed within the transhumanist movement), or elucidate specific aspects of transhumanism relevant to Christian theology or ethics.

http://www.lipscomb.edu/csc/About-the-CSC

Submissions go to Chris Doran at cdoran@pepperdine.edu. Deadlines are fast approach, but some may be flexible. For questions, contact information is on the website.

Speakers and Topics for MTA Conference 2012

Lincoln Cannon — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:46:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 from 9am to 5pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The conference is open to the public.

Previous conferences sponsored by the Mormon Transhumanist Association include the 2010 Transhumanism and Spirituality conference and the 2009 Mormonism and Engineering conference.

Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion.

Here is a preliminary list of speakers and topics:

Adam Davis on “Scientific Realism and the Simulation Argument”
Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary”
Brent Allsop on “Ushering in the Millennium”
Carl Youngblood on “Compassionate Obsolescence: Coping with Technological Change”
Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World”
Chris Bradford on “Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves: Subverting Dogma in an LDS Context”
Cory Funk on “The Utility of Belief and Agnosticism”
Dan Wotherspoon on “Things Mormon Transhumanist Nerds Should Keep in Mind When Interacting with Potential Non-Transhumanist Allies — Especially Ones within Their Own Tradition”
Don Bradley on “‘The Grand Fundamental Principle’: Friendship as Partaking of the Divine Nature”
Dorothy Deasy on “Post-biological Transfiguration”
Eric Swedin on “Why Transhumanist Immortality is a Bad Idea”
Evan Hadfield on “God as Universal Experience: A Buddhist and Mormon Perspective”
Giulio Prisco on “The Turing Church of Transcendent Engineering”
James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism”
Jamie Driessen on “Machine Skepticism Using a Non-Classical Suspension of a Logic Gate”
Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity”
Kathy Wilson on “From Mormon to Mystic”
Leonard Reil on “The Plurality of Gods: An Uncomfortable Doctrine”
Lincoln Cannon on "The History, Status and Plans of the Mormon Transhumanist Association"
Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World”
Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”
Michael Ferguson on “Toward a Science of Spirituality”
Mike Perry on “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism”
Roger Hansen on “Putting a Ghost in the Machine”
Varden Hadfield on “How Amazing is Grace? The Role of Jesus Christ in Mormonism and Transhumanism”

Early registrants are eligible for discounts. Register today!

http://transfigurism-2012.eventbrite.com

Transfigurist Quarterly Issue 3 is out!

bradcarmack — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:12:00 +0000

You can now access the third issue of Transfigurist Quarterly, a publication covering the activities of the Association, here.

Also, please remember the 31 January 2012 submission deadline of the Call for Papers for the upcoming Association Conference (6 April 2012, SLC Public Library, Utah).

Thank you,

Bradley Carmack
MTA Secretary

2012 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association

Lincoln Cannon — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:13:00 +0000

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The conference will be open to the public. Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion.

Travel Assistance Available

The association may cover up to 50% of your travel costs to attend the conference if you meet the following criteria:

1) You must be a voting member of the association. If you are not currently a voting member, you may become one on the "Join" page of the association web site.

2) You must present a paper at the conference. More information about this is available in the call for papers, which appears below.

3) You must live at least 300 miles from Salt Lake City, and indicate a need for travel cost assistance. You may contact association leadership about this by email at admin@transfigurism.org.

Call for Papers

When: April 6, 2012
Where: Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, Utah
Submission Deadline: January 31, 2012

The Mormon Transhumanist Association invites papers for its 2012 conference focused on one of three themes: Mormonism, Transhumanism, and Transfigurism.

Papers should be suitable for a reading time of 10–12 minutes (1200 words maximum). Longer papers may be submitted, with the understanding that they will be revised for presentation. Papers will be published in book form in the proceedings of the conference.

Among the suggested topics are:

Mormonism:
Religion, Anti-Religion and Fundamentalism; Authentic Mormonism; God, Gods and Godhood; Trusting and Being Christ; From the Fullness of Times to the Millennium; Immortality and Eternal Life in Worlds without End

Transhumanism:
Transhuman-ism and Trans-humanism; Evolution and the Great Filter Argument; Moore’s Law, Kurzweil’s Law and the Technological Singularity; Simulation Argument; Solar Energy; Genome Sequencing; Synthetic Biology; 3D Printing; Genetics and Biotech; Nanotech and Molecular Machines; Robotics and Artificial Intelligence; Substrate Independent Minds; Helping humans adapt to the pace of technological change

Transfigurism:
Rejecting Fundamentalism; Rejecting Anti-Religiosity; Transfigurist Science; Transfigurist Politics; Transfigurist Art; Promoting Benevolence; Promoting Creativity; Engineering Transfiguration; Engineering Resurrection; Engineering Renewal of this World; Engineering Worlds without End; The Faith Assumption; The Angel Argument; The Benevolence Argument; The Creation Argument; The New God Argument

Please send submissions in RTF, PDF, or MS Word format to admin@transfigurism.org, by email attachment. Include author's full name, contact information, title and word count for the paper.

Some funding is available to reimburse portions of travel for presenters. Please indicate interest in being considered for travel support in the submission email.

Authors will be notified of acceptance by February 15th, 2011.

For more information, visit our web site at http://www.transfigurism.org, or contact MTA Vice President Christopher Bradford at christopher.bradford@transfigurism.org.