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Register now for the 2015 Annual Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, to be held 3 April 2015 at the Salt Lake City Public Library. We look forward to an inspiring and thought-provoking lineup of music and presentations, including keynote speakers Kristine Haglund and Ralph Merkle.

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I marvel at the creativity I witness from my son’s young and fresh mind. His curiosity and originality unbounded, he darts between Youtube toy reviews, LEGO experiments, and Minecraft explorations. At age 4, he has no limits and can dream up amazing things. Of course he’s impressionable: every subsequent waking hour of his life is shaped by the media of the previous hour. But just as much as he is shaped, he then builds himself as a shaper, a maker.

The Mormon Transhumanist Association will celebrate Future Day on 1 March with a screening of AI Artificial Intelligence at 8pm in Provo UT.

About Future Day

Mormon Transhumanist Association Humanitarian Managers Roger Hansen and Hank Pellissier were recently in Uganda, checking up on the multiple Association-funded projects that are operating there.

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We all, as individuals and members of societies, dedicate a lot of effort to finding ways to cope with the idea of death.

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Unlike traditional Christians, Mormons are philosophical materialists. They imagine a unified cosmos consisting only of matter, bounded by space and time, operating under natural law. Founder Joseph Smith is quoted as saying,

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In my previous post, I talked about Fred Brooks’ insights on the transcendent properties of the creative process -- particularly from his experience with software engineering. He describes the joy of the creative process this way:

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As a teenager growing up in the 1970’s who was interested in all things science and technology related while also a Mormon with strong Mormon roots, I had to come to grips with what appeared to be some basic incompatibilities between scientific truth and religious truth.

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Around the turn of the century, there were critics who felt that the Internet was being over hyped. For example, art critic Robert Hughes writing about the information highway in Digital Time (1995) claimed that “We will look back on what is now claimed ... and (wonder) how we ever psyched ourselves into believing all the bull-dust about ... fulfillment through interface and connectivity. But by then we will have some other fantasy to chase. Its approaches equally lined with entrepreneurs and flack who will be the beneficiaries.”[1] Hughes died in 2012, so he was able to see the evolution of the worldwide web. I wonder if he had changed his mind?

We cordially invite you to submit papers, artwork, photography, poetry, and music for the 2015 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, which will be held on April 3, 2015, in Salt Lake City, Ut. The aim of this conference is to address the many issues and topics that lie at the intersection of technology and religion, and their impacts on society, and culture including art, music, entertainment, and on society in general. Contributions need not focus only on specifically Mormon religious issues.