A Mormon Perspective on Transhumanism

Carl Youngblood

on my slides here. Since we’re kind of an informal gathering here, feel free to raise your hand, ask questions during my discussion and Hopefully, we can have a bit of a dialogue in addition to this presentation.

Carl Youngblood

So, what I wanted to share with you today is kind of my feelings and thoughts about Mormonism as it intersects with transhumanism, as well as kind of give you an introduction to what transhumanism is and how it might relate to Mormonism.

Carl Youngblood

Just to give you a little bit of personal background about myself, I am the CTO of a construction lending company. I’ve been in software engineering for the last 10 or 11 years. Really enjoy doing that. I was born and reared LDS. Grew up most of my life here in Provo. And I continue to be an active and enthusiastic member of the LDS Church today.

Carl Youngblood

Keni will tell you that I love to talk a lot in gospel doctrine and stuff and probably raise my hand way too much, but um I went on a mission to Brazil and I really enjoyed my experience there, so much so that I decided to major in Portuguese. Which didn’t really have like a lot of a lucrative future, but I decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in computer science because I just You know, try as I might, I couldn’t pull myself away from the computer. I was actually almost mastering in Portuguese and still couldn’t stop doing computer projects. So that’s a little bit about me.

Carl Youngblood

Let me just give you an outline about what I’m going to talk about today. First, I want to kind of review some of the relevant Mormon doctrines. related to transhumanism and just some exciting things that Mormonism has to say in general. And I should stress that this isn’t necessarily the view that all Mormons have or that all f folks who call themselves Mormons might have. But it I’ve tried to strive for accuracy and kind of commonality when I um present these views, some of the common views that Mormons have. have.

Carl Youngblood

And then I’d like to talk a little bit about transhumanism and give you a brief overview of what some of the elements of transhumanism are and then talk about ways that the two ideologies or philosophies intersect. I’d also I might you know go back and forth in between and not necessarily stick to just Mormonism or just transhumanism I bounce around a little bit and then I want to kind of share you some of my own personal share with you some of my own personal debates and and thoughts and concerns as I’ve talked about this and And thought about it with my friends and just by myself. So let’s get started.

Carl Youngblood

First of all, let’s talk about the Mormon concept of the dispensation of the fullness of times. A dispensation is a period of time in which God deals with humanity and reveals knowledge and power. The present dispensation that we’re in is called the dispensation of the fullness of times. And it’s a dispensation in which All of the previous revelation and previous doctrines have been restored, and new knowledge, in addition to those previous doctrines, is being revealed. And it will also be a critical period of time in the history of the world and serve as a springboard or kind of a foundation for future dispensations. And it’s a dispensation of rapid growth and change and accelerated progress.

Carl Youngblood

I just want to read a few little clips here. Joseph Smith said that God would reveal knowledge by His Holy Spirit in the last days. And that this would be a time in which nothing shall be withheld, whether there be one God or many gods. They shall be manifest. All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers shall be revealed and set forth. So, really, a comprehensive kind of revelation of knowledge.

Carl Youngblood

This dispensation would also be a springboard for future dispensations. He said we would be. the favored people that would bring about the Latter-day Glory and would bring about the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.

Carl Youngblood

Jesus talked about how in the days, or in the last days, there would be many disruptive changes and afflictions, and also that uh this these days would be shortened or accelerated in some way. Um I have a another some words from uh someone who’s kind of near and dear to one of our uh One of those present here. This is George Q Cannon, relative, related to Lincoln’s family. And he said that a lot more things are happening in this era than even we ourselves as perhaps members of the church realize. And that the Lord is operating among the nations of the earth, and that His Spirit is going forth and it’s It’s accomplishing a lot of things that maybe we don’t even know about. And that also this work would be cut short in the last days.

Carl Youngblood

Another interesting point to bring up is that sometimes we think that the Lord’s Covenant people play a You know, an absolutely essential role, or that they are the only ones who are bringing about these changes. But the truth is that many different people throughout the world are actually Causing these changes, and that God is inspiring and revealing His truths to a whole bunch of people out there. And so, I have this quote here from Orson F. Whitney, who says that The Lord is consummating a work stupendous, magnificent, and altogether too arduous for this little handful of saints to accomplish by and of themselves.

Carl Youngblood

So let’s talk about another doctrine that relates to transhumanism, which is the doctrine of the millennium. After this period of the dispensation of the fullness of times, we have this change that occurs and this period that’s ushered in called the millennium. And this, the advent of the millennium will be very soon now. And it doesn’t really even matter how long ago you heard that. It’s still. Coming very soon now. And I’m going to talk about how transhumanism brings even additional insight into what the Lord means when he says, I come quickly. So that’ll be an interesting thing to talk about.

Carl Youngblood

It’s widely unexpected by most people. It catches most people by surprise. But some people see the signs in the The clues that tell them something is about to happen, something big. And after all these radical changes occur, Christ will return to the earth.

Carl Youngblood

During the millennium, after Christ’s return, the work of God continues, and there’s a progressive change that occurs among the inhabitants of the earth. They are transfigured. Meaning, their bodies are renewed in some way and they achieve greater health than they’ve ever had before. And also, some of the previous inhabitants of the earth who’ve already passed on are Revitalized and resurrected in some way. And these changes occur progressively.

Carl Youngblood

I was really looking for a quote that I got in seminary a long time ago that I just couldn’t find for this, but I believe in Doctrines of Salvation and a few other places. It’s been spoken from in various Mormon conferences that That even the resurrection itself would not be an immediate thing. It would that if folks had lost limbs or perhaps had ailments, physical ailments of some kind In this life, that they would be restored to life, and then those ailments would heal or they would improve gradually. So, it’s an interesting concept.

Carl Youngblood

So the millennium is imminent. The Savior said that this day was even at the doors. And he also said, I come quickly. It’s very unexpected. It comes as a thief in the night, and it will come at an hour that we think not.

Carl Youngblood

Brigham Young goes even further to say that In addition to it coming unexpectedly, many people may not even know it when it actually happens, which is really kind of interesting. He said, Will the saints arise from the dead? Yes. Who will know it? But a few. When the resurrection commences, I say, but few will know it. Will the saints rise from the dead before the world is converted? Yes. When the millennium is ushered in, no man or woman will know anything about it, only by the power of God. He will rule and reign, and his glory shall be in Zion, and the wicked will not know it is the hand of our God. It’s an interesting thought.

Carl Youngblood

Another doctrine that relates to transhumanism is the Mormon doctrine of immortality. One of the things that we learn is that there’s something fundamentally different about immortal bodies versus mortal bodies. We don’t know exactly what that is, but there have been some things said about that. There are also various kinds of bodies. There are bodies telestial, bodies terrestrial, bodies celestial. And there are bodies of beings who’ve been transfigured or changed in some way. but haven’t been ultimately resurrected to a complete and perfect state, whatever that might be. It’s also a gradual process, as we’ll see, like throughout the millennium. we learned that not everyone will be resurrected immediately, but that it may involve some type of work on our part to bring this to pass. And finally, we have the notion that these this work that’s being done may be an ordinance of the priesthood.

Carl Youngblood

So let’s talk a little bit about anatomical differences. Mormon said that he inquired of the Lord as to whether the three Nephites had undergone some type of change. And the Lord said that yes, they did actually go undergo some type of change or they would taste of death. So some change had to be wrought upon their bodies.

Carl Youngblood

Another doctrine that’s interesting is the doctrine of heavens or the notion of what kind of worlds might await us in the future. Future existences. There are worlds without number, the Lord tells us, and all of these are kingdoms. There are diverse types and degrees of kingdoms. So we have telestial, terrestrial, and celestial kingdoms that vary in glory and power and capabilities. And even among some of these kingdoms, there are also various intermediate steps. We learned that the celestial kingdom has three degrees or orders. And also that the progress that’s occurring in each of these kingdoms is well that each of these kingdoms is progressing, that they’re transitioning from one phase to another and from one degree of glory to another. The earth will become celestialized and higher orders of worlds will even be revealed. Let’s talk a little bit about those.

Carl Youngblood

So, I love this scripture. It says, Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power. And you know, this is just a little speck in the night sky that maybe we can’t even see without the aid of a very powerful telescope. And we’re told that there are more specks like that out in the sky than there are sands, grains of sand, on all of the oceans of the United. Of the world. So it’s pretty mind-boggling to think about it.

Carl Youngblood

Briefly, I also wanted to mention that if I don’t get to this later, that The inhabitants of the Celestial Kingdom, we’re told, will be given some method of being able to even view orders that are greater than the Celestial Kingdom. We don’t hear very much about it or know very much about these orders, but we’re told that there’s some sort of white stone given to those who inherit this level of glory through which they will be able to see kingdoms of an even higher order. Than the Celestial. That’s in DNC 130. Oh, and actually, I have it right here. I didn’t remember that. Um, so we we read that uh Through the earth, which will be celestialized, that the inhabitants of the celestial kingdom will be able to look in a way, look down on this earth, or look through this earth, and use it as a means of viewing. other existences or other orders that are below their own. And then we we learned that all the inhabitants of this kingdom will receive some type of Stone that allows them to view the orders of kingdoms that they haven’t yet gotten to. So that’s very fascinating to think about.

Carl Youngblood

Another doctrine is the doctrine of gods. Mormons generally believe in a plurality of gods. and that these gods do many things, such as create worlds and even create others who become gods themselves. Or who are gods. And if you think about it from one perspective, each of us may be on a different Phase of existence or a different level of our progression, but there’s no difference in, according to Mormon doctrine, the difference between us and God is not one of species, but of degree. Are not one of kind, but of degree. So, in essence, we are gods. And that godhood is the highest destiny of humanity. That’s something that everyone should be striving for: the betterment of self, the self-improvement.

Carl Youngblood

And what does a God do? A God serves others and a God lifts those around him or her. And that the progress towards Godhood is a progressive nature of existence and that it will continue eternally.

Carl Youngblood

Joseph Smith said, You have got to learn to become gods yourselves, the same as all gods before you have done. Jesus said something really interesting. He said, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do. That’s really interesting to think about. Greater works than the works of Jesus. That’s a fascinating thought. I don’t know if we always fully realize what it means when Jesus tells us that we are fundamentally like Him and that we can be as He is.

Carl Youngblood

The concept of miracles is a fascinating concept in Mormon doctrine. There’s a strong notion that God doesn’t break the laws of physics when he does the things that he does. that he adheres to natural law. We also learn that God didn’t make everything that exists, but that some things existed alongside him and that He shaped these things, but that they weren’t wholly created by him. So, the concept of energy and matter, which are almost interchangeable, according to our present understanding. Of physics. And we also learned from Mormon doctrine that spirit itself is a form of matter or energy. And that this essence of whatever it is is uncreated and it’s been around alongside him. We also believe that spiritual phenomena have materialistic explanations, even though we may not understand what’s happening there. And in general, Mormons, contrary to some more conservative religious movements that you might think of, are very enthusiastic about scientific discovery and education. um advancing knowledge and things like that.

Carl Youngblood

So let’s talk a little bit about adherence to natural law. We have some great scientists in the church, one of the one of whom was uh John A. Widso, and he said that um I’m just going to read this whole thing because it’s great. A miracle is an occurrence which, first, cannot be repeated at will by man, or, second, is not understood in its cause and effect relationship. History is filled with such miracles. What’s more, the whole story of man’s progress is the conversion of miracles into controlled and understood events. The airplane and radio would have been miracles yesterday. It’s a really interesting thought.

Carl Youngblood

I won’t read this whole thing, but basically James E. Talmadge says the same thing. That the human sense of the miraculous wanes as comprehension of the operative process increases. He always uses a little bit more lofty vocabulary to say kind of the same thing, but uh If you’ve ever read Jesus the Christ, you know that. So God does not break the law, although we may not fully understand what he is doing.

Carl Youngblood

And there’s a lot of great doctrines that talk about our need to gain knowledge and progress. The glory of God is intelligence. And a man can be saved no faster than he gains knowledge. And if someone gains knowledge in this life, that they will have an advantage in future existences.

Carl Youngblood

So now I’m going to talk, those are some of the doctrines that relate to transhumanism, and you know, in a lot of ways they relate to various other aspects of Mormonism. And now I’m going to talk about transhumanism and some of the concepts that are in transhumanism. We’ll try to bring these concepts together with Mormonism.

Carl Youngblood

First of all, there is the notion of epochs or epochs of technological advancement. And then I’m going to talk a little bit about the concept of exponential growth, which will be a lot of fun, and something called the singularity. We’ll talk about what transhumans are, and we’ll talk about world simulations and something called post-humans. And in general, the movement of transhumanism, although it talks about all these really far-flung things, Their main focus as an organization and as a group of people is to kind of just recognize these trends, recognize these things as they’re happening, and prepare for these changes. So even though they’re really kind of getting far out there in a lot of ways, they’re just recognizing things that we already have clues to and they want to make sure that we approach these things with full as much preparation as we can.

Carl Youngblood

So let’s talk about epochs. An epoch is just a period of time, according to Webster’s Dictionary. And during these epochs that were first proposed by Ray Kurzweil, who’s a prominent transhumanist, there’s an acceleration of progress. And advancements in technologies. But it’s important to talk about what these technologies are. They’re not technologies such as that digital clock on the wall or this projector. They’re not only those types of technologies They could be, but in a broader sense, the technology of eyes to see with, the technology of brains to think with. the technology of grass for animals to graze on. All of these biological functions, all of these organisms were developed through a gradual process. And these are all seen as some form of technology, although they may be more primitive in some ways than what we think of as technology. So each epoch leverages the technologies that were developed during previous epochs to advance further and faster. And the technological developments of one epoch will provide for the for future epochs. According to Ray Kurzweil, the way he divides up the various time periods, he says that we’re in the fourth epoch.

Carl Youngblood

Let’s talk a little about exponential growth. Exponential growth is very unintuitive to humans, and it’s very surprising. We have a few examples from the natural world. I could probably have come up with more if I had thought really hard, but the growth of populations. Is an exponential process. Sometimes it gets limited by the available natural resources. Lately, we’ve figured out ways of overcoming these limitations, and we seem to be You know, multiplying like crazy still. There’s a great story of lily pads.

Carl Youngblood

So, some guy, let’s say, owned a pond, or he had a cabin by a pond somewhere. And he knew that if he didn’t get rid of the lily pads at this certain period of time during the spring or late spring, early summer, that his lake would just be overtaken by these lily pads. But he’s going on a weekend trip and he’s like, you know, I don’t think I need to do anything about him because there’s only two or three lily pads on the pond right now. And he comes back from his trip just a few days later, and the pond is covered with lily pads. And what happens with the way they grow is that During the early part of the growth curve, there’s very little progress. But since they multiply so rapidly, there’s this cusp at which all of a sudden the progress becomes extremely rapid and very noticeable.

Carl Youngblood

You can look at food poisoning. You might leave that burrito on the counter for six hours and eat it late after six hours and you’d be fine. But let one more hour go by, and you could get food poisoning. And the reason for that is that during that last hour, all the bacteria That had been multiplying inside that yummy burrito, got the bacteria population got big enough that it’s going to cause you some problems. Another example of exponential growth is the way contagious diseases spread.

Carl Youngblood

So I’d like to talk about a few parables both from transhumanism or well not transhumanism, but just general parables. From the various myths and parables from the gospel that show exponential growth. First, there’s the parable of the king and the sage. And the parable of the king and the sage Goes like this: There’s a sage who’s provided tons of valuable service to the kingdom. And the king says, What can I do to repay you? And the sage says, All I would like is for you to Take this chessboard that you have there, and put one grain of rice on the first square, and double that grain of rice with each successive square. Double the amount of rice on each successive square. And the king says, Oh, that’s that all you want, huh?

Carl Youngblood

And he says, Okay, done. And he orders, you know, his decree, and his servants go and start putting the rice on. During the first row, it’s not too bad. He gets up to 256 grains on the first row. But it starts to get worse as he goes on the second row. And by the third row, He’s well into the millions of grains. And by the time he gets to the 64th square, I ran this on my computer real fast. I think that’s nine quintillion, but I’m not going to try to read that whole number for you guys. But anyway, of the 64th square, that’s how much rice.

Carl Youngblood

Is in it, is trying to be put on this board. And of course, the board can’t fit that much price. In fact, a back-of-the-hand kind of paper napkin calculation that Lincoln did the other day. He came up with the conclusion that there would be, if you had even just that number of rice, not all the rice that was before it, you would have The entire earth would be covered with rice that was 50,000 rice grains deep. So, anyway, that’s a lot of rice. And the king realized he would never be able to fulfill his promise. But the sage kind of gave him a way out. He said, Just give rice to all the peasants for the rest of your reign and you’ll be okay. And we’ll call it even, I guess.

Carl Youngblood

So here are some parables of the Savior about exponential growth. We don’t think of these sometimes this way, but I think it is exponential growth. Unto what is the kingdom of God like, and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his garden. and it grew and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. Till the hole was leavened.

Carl Youngblood

What I find fascinating about these parables, in addition to just the notion of exponential growth, is how critical our efforts are. Because we might start out as a single individual or a small group of people, but like that mustard seed, we could grow into a large tree and make a great difference in the world. So sometimes, even when we think that our efforts aren’t noticed or that not much is happening, it’s really not true. We are that seed, you know, and we’re growing exponentially, even if we don’t notice it. It’s right now. And I like the leaven picture because it talks about how the kingdom may just be a little piece of leaven, but it ends up leavening the whole rest of the world. It’s a fascinating thought.

Carl Youngblood

Let’s give some technological examples of exponential growth. So I have this little graphic here from Ray Kruzweil’s book. Which is called The Singularity is Near. It’s a New York Times bestseller that I would highly recommend. And he talks about a common concept among techies called Moore’s Law. And this concept is that basically a guy named Moore, I can’t remember his first name, Gordon. Okay. He discovered as he was watching, he was working with Intel during the early days of semiconductors, and he noticed that the amount of

Carl Youngblood

Circuitry that you could fit in any given space was doubling about every two years. So two years from now, you could fit twice as much stuff In a CPU or a a computer chip as you could two years ago. And um he also noticed that This seemed to be consistent. Well, at the time he noticed it, it was still very much a theory, and it’s still kind of a theory, but But as time went by, whenever someone was saying that, oh, you know, we’ve reached the theoretical limit, we’re never going to be able to get any More condensed than we are now. It’s just, it’s crazy, you know. And every time that happened, some new technology would come out or some new way of doing things. Would be made available so that they could go through that barrier.

Carl Youngblood

And that’s, you can see here in the picture that we’ve got punch cards, and I don’t know what this is. second thing is relay relay vacuum tubes and help me out here guys transistors and then integrated circuits and those are each examples of technologies that were That kind of superseded one another that allowed for a finer density of circuitry than before. And this This concept called Moore’s Law is like transferred to a whole bunch of other fields or related fields in computer science. So frequently you hear Moore’s law being used to talk about how much more rapidly computers will the speed of computers will be. And it’s gotten a little, the time period has gotten a little shorter. It’s now about 18 months that the computer capacity and speed doubles. And that basically means that if I buy a computer for $1,000 today, if I wait two years, that same $1,000 or whatever its value is in two years. will buy a computer that’s twice as fast. And that has been consistent ever since the 50s. And you look at the million dollar supercomputers, it’s consistently followed this trend. So let’s talk a little bit about the singularity and how it relates to this exponential growth concept.

Carl Youngblood

So the singularity is imminent. It’s happening real soon now. And what it is, it’s the concept of Of that, a radical transformation will occur in our existence, in our Earth, that is so rapid and so disruptive and so surprising. That it kind of just overnight everything is transformed. And it’s a surprise. It comes as a surprise to most people, despite the clues and the signs that it’s coming. And it’s basically the period at which computers are developed that can think as well as humans. And that might sound a little far-fetched, and there’s still some who debate whether that’s even possible or not. But a lot of different things are coming together that are making that a stronger possibility than we thought in the past. And that’s one of the reasons why I really recommend Kurzweil’s book, The Singularities Near, because he kind of amalgamates a whole bunch of various Fields and theories and research that’s going on in a whole bunch of different areas. Even researchers who aren’t talking to each other about what they’re doing. And he kind of brings it together so you can see how close we are really getting to this point. So once some of the by looking at well first of all, let’s talk about what the capacity of the human brain is.

Carl Youngblood

Through various means, scientists, neuroscientists and others have tried to come up with how many calculations your brain is doing. At any given time. And there are a lot of ways they’ve done that, and Kurzweil talks in more detail, but for example, like the eye is able to do a lot of recognition of lines and curves and shapes and colors. And that all a lot of that occurs actually in your eyeball and not in your brain. A lot of it’s done in your eye and then it goes to the brain for further processing. And they’ve been able to figure out how rapidly the human eye can do that, and then they figure out the weight of the eye and how much of its matter is devoted to that process. and they figure a rough they get a rough idea of what the processing power of a g a given you know mass of of of your flesh is, I guess. And then they can extrapolate that. And that’s going to be vague. It’s going to be off by a few orders of magnitude. But by that calculation, even if it’s off by a few orders of magnitude, Ray Kurzweil thinks that by the year 2012

Carl Youngblood

We will have $1,000. We’ll buy the equivalent computing capacity of a single brain. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that this computer can think like a human. It just means it has the raw horsepower to be able to do it if it knew how. And going forward, though, with this exponential growth that we just talked about, by 2045, if Moore’s Law continues as it has for the last 50 years. A single $1,000 of today’s money will buy a computer with the equivalent capacity to all the human brains in the entire world.

Carl Youngblood

And what’s amazing about that, I mean, I can’t, honestly, I can’t think of all the things that computer could do. But if you think about just a lot of research that’s being done in biology and other areas. to crunch incredible, incredibly difficult calculations to figure out the way cells transform, transfer energy, the way proteins are formed. That are curing diseases with this technology, but they use thousands and thousands of computers connected together to be able to calculate all this. You could have a computer like this. This computer could calculate all of that like that. It wouldn’t even take a fraction of a second. And this singularity continues to progress and move rapidly.

Carl Youngblood

Some of the goals of the Singularity, or some of the things that people will be striving to do during the Singularity, is to enhance their lives and restore life. Another thing to talk about briefly is that we’re not necessarily talking about coming up with inventing artificial intelligence

Carl Youngblood

What’s actually going on right now is scientists, although some are still studying artificial intelligence in kind of an abstract way or in a way that is completely disconnected from the way people think. A lot of scientists are studying the way people think. And instead of trying to d develop a computer that can think better than a human, they’re just trying to figure out how humans do what they do. and study studying the brain. And they’re scanning the brain, scanning the brain waves, also talking about even having the ability to put Really tiny devices inside your brain to scan it from the inside at a higher resolution or level of detail. And Just today, I mean, there’s already a lot of progress going on in this field. People can control a mouse cursor with their brain using software that’s available today. And a computer can now think, can scan your thought patterns when you’re thinking various things, and then later on you can go in there and it can tell you what you’re thinking to a certain degree. And the level of uh detail about what it can see in the brain is getting finer and finer and higher uh resolution all the time. So by scanning the brain and imitating what the brain does, a computer could theoretically be able to do think the way people think. And that’s what a lot of researchers are doing right now.

Carl Youngblood

Kurzweil talks about how a lot of technologies start out really really What’s the word? I want to say crappy, but I don’t know if you could say that in a presentation. I’m sorry. Crude. Crude. Okay, thanks. Because of the exponential nature of progress in the information-based technologies, performance often shifts quickly from pathetic to daunting. The range of intelligent tasks in which machines can now compete with human intelligence is continually expanding. So a lot of times the first technology will come out and everyone will say, oh, this is terrible, it doesn’t work at all, you know. And then a few generations later, all of a sudden it’s doing a lot. I’ve spoken on the phone with some computers who do a pretty good job of figuring out what I’m saying to them. There’s this great service that just came out called Jot, where you can call it up, you can talk as fast as you want, you can say all sorts of slang, and it will email you what you said in like five minutes. It’s amazing. Just leave a message with it, and that’s totally impressive.

Carl Youngblood

Another concept in transhumanism is the concept of transhumans. And we want to talk about what that is. A transhuman is just. An individual who’s in this process of changing from what is presently defined as human to something that’s far greater. And that’s called post-human. And basically, it involves the application of technology to the human condition. So Kurzweil points out a few periods or a few upcoming trends that we’ll see that will bring about this transformation.

Carl Youngblood

First, there’s a a genetics revolution and we’re already getting into that today. Um Congress is just talking about protecting your your genes so that a company can’t turn down your insurance policy because you have a gene for some reason. Disease, and it’s a very serious issue that’s already happened. Then the nanotech revolution is the ability to create smaller and smaller devices, even at the molecular level. where you could have machines that are very tiny that could do all sorts of beneficial things to your body. And then there’s the robotics revolution, which is that technology will become advanced enough That some things that we currently use bodies to do or use our limbs or whatever to do, we may be able to do with some non-biological situation And this doesn’t necessarily mean like the Borg, you know, with the eyeball and or the crazy eyepiece and this scary kind of. cold and calculating and unfeeling technology. We should think of technology just like we talked about earlier. Even our bodies are technology. And just like Mormons believe that everything has a mechanical explanation or a natural explanation, even our bodies and the way they function are things that are given to us. that we use to achieve various goals. And these things will not be strange to us. As technology advances, it will look very natural. and it may even be completely indistinguishable from uh from our own our own bodies.

Carl Youngblood

Um one company that people often point to at as being good at technology, making technology that’s not so um Unfriendly to people is Apple, although I think it’ll get a lot better than this. But you know, and this may seem a little strange and bizarre, but we see that this is already happening. Today we have things like LASIK surgery, pacemakers, prosthetics. We even see cosmetic surgery and various other ways in which humans are okay with using technology to assist them. And when it comes to life or death, often we’ll choose a pacemaker instead of death, you know, or something like that. And we love to have Grandpa with us for an extra 10 years. Years or whatever can happen. So, as I said, technology need not be unnatural.

Carl Youngblood

This is a famous person in the transhumanist movement. He’s a professor of philosophy at Oxford University and also director of the Future of Humanity Institute. His name is Nick Bostrom. He says transhumanists view human nature as a work in progress. A half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the end point of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means, we shall eventually manage to become post human, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have.

Carl Youngblood

Another concept that I’d like to talk about is simulations. So, Bostron proposed an argument called the simulation argument. It’s a little complicated or a little strange at first, but it basically says that Someday our civilization may get become advanced enough that they can simulate the things we experience every day. We’re getting we have really kind of primitive simulations right now in Maybe some games that kids play, or maybe games that 30-year-old men play. And they’re really crude, but it’s getting better. There may come a time when we can simulate a world so well that you wouldn’t even know it was any different from the things you and I are experiencing right now

Carl Youngblood

And we could, and basically, this argument says either we will get to that point, or he says either we’ll never get to that point, or we probably live in a simulation right now. And I’ll explain how he makes that leap. The way he makes the leap is that if we ever achieve a simulation that’s that detailed, that it’s so detailed that it’s indistinguishable from our own world. we should assume that we’re probably not the only or the first civilization to do to accomplish this. And if another civilization has accomplished this, or if many other civilizations have accomplished this This, then it’s highly likely that we are living in a simulation ourselves.

Carl Youngblood

But I should point out that it doesn’t mean that what we’re experiencing right now isn’t real. it’s not important, or that uh we could we should just go, you know, jump off a cliff tomorrow because it’s all fake or whatever. Um the love we experience for one another, the feelings of both, you know Discouragement and joy and enthusiasm, all of these things are real. All of our experiences are real. Our intelligence is real. Our identity is real. So there’s nothing unreal about these simulations.

Carl Youngblood

It also this opens up other possibilities like the implementers of these simulations could be actually appearing to violate the the laws of physics in that simulation. They could maybe flip a switch and say, you know, move a mountain or something like that. And an interesting aside about this whole thing that I’d like to discuss with anybody here further is that in some ways it bolsters the traditional religious point of view, this argument. Because it allows for things that appear to be completely unexplainable, and it allows someone to say, Well, God can do whatever He wants, He can make something change if He needs to. So that’s an interesting point that maybe in some ways weakens some of the other ideas about how we believe that God uses natural law to go about his things.

Carl Youngblood

The one thing that I find is interesting though, one other thing quickly, is that it’s important that we have faith and that we don’t know. That we live in such a simulated world, and I think. I think that there may be some good reasons why we might not know if we live in this type of simulation, or why anyone who’s in a simulated Simulation might not know. Because if you knew, you would almost be seeking to transcend this present existence, and you might. Just like in Truman in the Truman show, you might just go like poke holes in the edge of the, you know, I don’t know, you might just, um, it might just cause other problems. So um Let’s see.

Carl Youngblood

Post-humans, the concept of post-humans, are humans that are so advanced that they no longer fit the definition of humanness. They have unimaginable mental capacities, superhuman physical capacity. They create worlds and simulations themselves, perhaps. They continue to progress eternally, and they impose ever-increasing order and intelligence on the universe. They take the universe, the raw chaotic matter, or whatever its state it’s in, and they make it better. You know, they build bridges, they do all these things that people do all the time. And hopefully, most of the time, they try to make it better. As we’ve experienced, it doesn’t always make things better everything we try to do. But in general, the march of civilization is upward and onward.

Carl Youngblood

Let’s talk a little bit about parallels between the transhumanist view and the Mormon view. So the dispensation of the fullness of times is kind of like the fourth epoch that Kurzweil points to. And the day of transfiguration, or the change that comes about with the return of the Savior, is very similar to the singularity in that. It’s this period of extremely rapid change and incredible transformation. Also, there’s this immortality that will occur during the millennium, and transhumans are also seeking to extend their lives. And the concept of creating worlds parallels the concept of simulations. Heavens might be, or future existences, might be thought of as a simulation in some way. And then of course we have the Mormon concept of gods and achieving godhood and post-humans resemble these These gods.

Carl Youngblood

I’ve thought of this great quote by C. S. Lewis, where he said, It’s an incredible thing, basically paraphrasing, he said, it’s an incredible thing to realize that every person you meet every day might one day be somewh a creature you would be strongly tempted to worship. Um the notion that the people that we snub and exploit, the people that we love and and talk to could be some day so glorious and and amazing that we would uh be just um we would be overwhelmed and um And I think that, that really is the state that we’re in, that we all have that capacity and potential.

Carl Youngblood

So we have this great quote from Orson Pratt. about how in the dispensation of the fulness of times the great temple of science must be erected upon the solid foundations of everlasting truth. Its towering spires must mount upward, reaching higher and still higher. until crowned with the glory and presence of Him who is eternal.

Carl Youngblood

And then Kruzweil says, The matter and energy in our vicinity will become infused with intelligence, knowledge creativity, beauty, and emotional intelligence, the ability to love, for example, of our human machine civilization. So in a sense we can say that the singularity will ultimately infuse the universe with spirit. Sounds very religious, even though he’s

Carl Youngblood

Somewhat of a secular person. Nick Bostrom says, in some ways, the post-humans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation. They created the world we see. They are of superior intelligence. They are omnipotent in the sense that they can interfere in ways that violate its physical laws. Interfere in the workings of our world, even in ways that violate its physical laws, and they are omniscient in the sense that they can monitor everything that happens.

Carl Youngblood

Now I’d like to talk about, besides parallels between the two ideas, I’d like to just talk about ways that the ideas complement or improve one another. Things we can learn from them and things they might be able to learn from us. So, Mormonism can complement the transhumanist view in a few ways. I’ll just advance and talk about these.

Carl Youngblood

There’s the notion of the a brazen or a defiant desire versus a sanctified desire. And often transhumanists are seen as people who are trying to play God, who are trying to interfere with the natural order of things. And Mormonism provides a good response for that in saying that our ultimate goal is to achieve godhood, and that the definition of God is an eternal progression. And ever improvement over our present state. And there’s a strong notion in Mormon theology that God will not fix things for us, but we have to do them. We have to put forth the effort first, and he may help us, but if we put forth no effort, they won’t happen. In fact, I really wish I had a little more time, but Actually, I have it right here from our article. Brigham Young said, You are in just as good a kingdom as you will ever attain to, from now to all eternity, unless you make it yourselves. by the grace of God, by the will of God, which is a code of laws perfectly calculated to govern and control eternal matter. So there’s a very strong notion in Mormon doctrine that we are, it’s really up to us. God loves us and will do what he can to help us, but if we don’t do it ourselves, then we haven’t achieved God’s purpose in the first place, which is to make it so that we become like him, or to help us become Like him.

Carl Youngblood

So, our greatest desire ought to be the desire to become as God, and love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and it ought to be manifested by those who call themselves the sons of God. Often transhumanists are seen sometimes as supercilious or a little bit elitist, like we’re gonna they they’re disdainful of tradition, of things that have shackled people in the past and seek for ways of just, you know, very ic iconoclastic, breaking down barriers, um, why are things like this? Let’s change them. And uh sometimes they fail to value or to appreciate some of the traditions that have got us to where we are in the People still value and appreciate. And that could be said a lot in this attitude exists in many different organizations. But Mormonism teaches that we should have a respect, even a reverence. For our ancestors, for the things they went through, for the struggles they went through, that we should respect tradition but seek ever to improve upon that. Perdition. And Joseph said, if I esteem my brother to be in error, do I criticize him, ridicule him? No, of course not. He’s just going to turn away from me if I need Rather, I should love him and do what I can to help him to believe the way I do. And then finally, he said, Mormonism brings this notion of universal access and bringing these technologies and these benefits to the poorest of the poor. And that it is not given that one person, one man should possess That which is above another.

Carl Youngblood

There’s also, I sort of ran out of time when preparing these slides. I had some other quotes. From the way transhumanism can benefit Mormonism. But I have them here. First of all, the notion of superstitious versus reasonable hope. So, often, in relation to some of the most fundamental or most earth-changing doctrines of Martinism, such as salvation, resurrection, all of those things, we have really no idea how these things work. And we have faith in them in the sense that we believe they’ll happen someday, but it’s almost completely passive faith. We do nothing about it because we have no concept as to how it’s going to happen. And transhumanism can change this faith to be a little more active, realizing that perhaps we’re not going to get there unless we do something about it. And also, that there are some small baby steps we can take that will get us a little closer to it. So,

Carl Youngblood

So that’s the one one benefit. Another benefit is the concept of idle versus working faith. Which I kind of talked about there, which is kind of tied together with the superstition versus reasonable, a rational explanation, and as well as the need for us to work towards it.

Carl Youngblood

And then finally, a lot of us think that there’s going to be terrible calamities in the last days, and there still may be. We may be unable to avoid these things. But what I think transhumanism gives us is a hope that perhaps the future may be more glorious than we’ve anticipated and that That we don’t need to just focus on the negative, but there’s maybe some things we can do to actually affect the outcome A good example is the way the people of Nineveh were, you know, Jonah prophesied to them. He’s probably one of the worst missionaries in the world. He did prophesy to them, and he said that they needed to repent or they would be destroyed. But it’s one of the few examples in Scripture in which the people actually did repent. And they were not destroyed. So, something about prophecy is still conditional on our behavior. And I think that even the prophecies of the last day may turn out to be, the last days may turn out to be like this. And so we may be able to accomplish some of the goals of the Millennium through other more hopeful means. This is part of the reason these ideas or these inspiration that we draw from these concepts

Carl Youngblood

were some of the motivations for forming the Mormon Transhumanist Association. And this, I would like to read briefly the affirmation of the association, some of the things we believe in. We seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anatomies, as well as communities and their environments, according to their wills, desires, and laws. To the extent they are not oppressive, we believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation. Including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end. Notice it says we believe that they are among the means ordained of God. There are other means ordained of God as well, such as charity, faith, hope, other things like that. That. We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.

Carl Youngblood

So briefly, I wanted to talk about in, I hope I have just maybe five more minutes. It’s been about just almost an hour. But I’d like to talk for just maybe five more minutes about Just some things that I’ve run into as I think about a lot of these things, some issues or concerns that I have that maybe you’ve thought of. First of all, maybe you have the question, well, why do this if the church isn’t involved yet in this kind of a movement? And perhaps it is involved in some ways, but it seems to be somewhat in advance of in advance of what the church is doing. To that, I would say that we’re told that we should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and that we should do much of our own free will and choice. bring to pass righteousness. And that um that there are many ways in which members of the church um can help uh in the in the community, in the world, that are not part of their Uh Sunday activities or whatever whatever other activities might be associated with their participation in the church. And also, as we said, there’s some things we need to actually do on our own that no one will do for us. Also, some people ask, how can I help?

Carl Youngblood

Can my contribution even be significant? Well, one of the things you can help is just by getting awareness out for this concept so that other people realize these possibilities and realize how close we might be to some of these changes, how significant and important they might be to be aware of these changes so that we can adapt to them and Be prepared for them and choose positive outcomes. And then also the talk of exponential growth and how even that one individual can make such a difference in the long run.

Carl Youngblood

One thing though that’s really important to me that this sort of this whole notion of transhumanism brings up is the need for transit the importance of transitory grace And this is something that in our discussions we’ve often talked about. Well, sometimes we’ll use this argument where we always argue on the basis of future possibilities, where we say Oh well, eventually this is all going to get taken care of because technology is advancing so rapidly that your cancer is going to get cured in a few years. You might die before then, but or I don’t know or like our son has a has a lazy eye and has to take some put a patch on every day to help his Bad eye to practice and see better. And eventually that might be cured, but for right now, he has to go through a lot of struggles to make it through. And I think that it is unwise and it’s inconsiderate to just relegate all of these real needs that we have right now. To these future fixes that will occur. And I think that we’re all in desperate need of help right now. And I believe that God is there to provide help. That for us, and that this notion of future redemption and our growth and improvement should never be a substitute for. higher beings of higher orders to assist to bring to pass all of these things. And I do think that that’s the nature of the Order of the Kingdom. The strong help the weak, and I think that, that that power continues to be available. And it almost brings into starker contrast how important that is. Also, I think we have a tendency sometimes with transhumanism or with just a general faith in science to marginalize the miraculous.

Carl Youngblood

We think, oh, it’s just a car. Or, oh, it’s just a computer, you know? Duh, mom. You know, what do you, you know, I don’t know, just the way kids, some, just a lot of things that we do. That we take for granted. And really, if we think about all of these things, they are miracles. They’re miraculous. They would have been completely miraculous to, you know, if we brought a computer back to the Middle Ages or something. And all the miracles that continue to occur today that we still don’t have explanations for continue to be amazing and powerful. To us.

Carl Youngblood

There’s also a conflict that I have between burying one’s cross and sacrificing now. For a greater future, serving, sacrificing now, versus the fulfillment and possibly even indulgence that might result from some of these technological improvements. And that’s just something I continue to struggle with. I think that sometimes I see people see these technologies as something that will allow them to do things that are more self-destructive than they are. Helpful, and I think that that’s a real concern that we should continue to address. And that also There are some things that we can’t fix right now, and that we have to still be willing to bear our crosses. And you know what? Even when the millennium comes and when that great day happens. We’re probably going to think of something else we don’t yet have, or something else we haven’t yet figured out, and we’re probably going to need to bear a cross or sacrifice A little. Let’s see. Also, one other thing I wanted to bring up is that

Carl Youngblood

It’s important to use real data when you assess a problem or analyze a problem. Often we approach problems ideologically and we think something just rubs us the wrong way and we think that’s wrong. But if you look at the actual data, the problems that we’re seeing or the ideas that are insulting to us are like 5% of the problem, and the rest of the problem is this very practical problem that if we just had more information. We would see it’s out there. And I can’t think of a really great example right now, but I was watching a program on the drug trafficking problem. And it just showed how they found that the data in all these of crime drug-related crimes in all these disparate cities Had the same curve, and the index of the crimes was occurring the same in these cities that were completely apart from each other. And they realized that it was related to the purity of the drugs that were being imported at the time that that drug was being trafficked and at the various times. And so if you had that data, you could suddenly realize what part of the problem to pack away at. But if you just think from a completely ideological, perhaps say libertarian philosophy, oh, we just gotta let everyone Do whatever they want and it’ll all work out. Or the other extreme, we’ve got to control, we’ve got to crack down at every point. We could focusing on a problem totally ideologically instead of looking at what the real data shows. Can cause us to spin our wheels and waste a lot of time.

Carl Youngblood

And that’s basically what I have to share with you today. And I’d like to open up for any questions that we could talk about briefly. Any questions? Thoughts? Please, if you’ve been thinking about something.

Speaker 2

Can I have Dan respond quick? Oh. And then open up for questions after a couple of different perspectives. That’d be great. Okay. Thank you. Everyone wants to stand up at least.