Conjunctions: Grammatical, Temporal and Social

Chris Bradford

In 2007, the Mormon Transhumanist Association published Transfiguration: Parallels and Complements Between Mormonism and Transhumanism in Sunstone Magazine. And today I’d like to add some thoughts about conjunctions. I’ll be speaking about three different kinds of conjunctions: grammatical, temporal, and social.

Chris Bradford

Grammatical conjunctions are constructs that connect two ideas in a particular relation. The conjunction that’s used conveys information about the relationship that’s asserted between the ideas. For example, and, or, but, and for convey very different meanings individually.

Chris Bradford

And in Western culture today, it typically sees the conjunction between science and religion as an or. Science or religion, not both. But I prefer and Mormonism promotes a different aesthetic, a yes and aesthetic.

Chris Bradford

Take for example These quotes from Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. By proving contraries, truth is made manifest. And here the word prove means to test or to try. That is to work through apparent contradictions to find truth.

Chris Bradford

Or One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may. We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up Or we shall not come out true Mormons.

Chris Bradford

So, in the spirit of this yes and aesthetic, I want to talk about some conjunctions in my experience between Mormonism and transhumanism. And I’ll frame my remarks in an overall context of social conjunctions, connections between people.

Chris Bradford

I suggest that social conjunctions provide the core framework for human values. Both in the sense that values are really only meaningful in a social context, and in the sense that social conjunction, connection between people, is the core human value. Mormonism is well known for its emphasis on family as well as its humanitarian outreach, and both of these are examples of social conjunction. However, this is hardly isolated to Mormonism.

Chris Bradford

Should Ray Kurzweil achieve his goal of living long enough to live forever, I doubt he will be truly happy without a renewed social conjunction with his deceased father. His aspirations go beyond personal immortality. They extend to social immortality.

Chris Bradford

In Mormonism, we say that we without our dead cannot be made perfect. or whole. So while social conjunction provides the overall context of my remarks, I want to structure them by discussing three kinds of temporal conjunction.

Chris Bradford

And the first of those is A past to present connection. Some of the things that I value from both science and religion that connect the past to the present, from science, evolution Evolution gives us a sense of our connectedness to our distant biological and environmental past, and to each other, both human and non-human, through a shared history. It helps us make sense of why and how certain characteristics develop, and we are learning how to predict evolutionary outcomes.

Chris Bradford

From religion, choral music. Choral music provides both the aesthetic and the function of community, because singing in a choir requires blending and harmony, listening and practice. My oldest son, who is in our barbershop group, is the low bass to my soprano. My wife and I sing in a community choir. that focuses primarily on sacred music and primarily from the Baroque era. And this gives me a strong sense of connection to the aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities of our predecessors. And for me this functions in a in a large portion the way that Scriptures do. That is, it it creates a tie to the past. We heard a little bit about this from Joseph West, about that authenticity of being connected to the past and to an established community. Also, my own predilections, my own inclinations tend to be progressive, and I find that there’s a balancing effect in participating in this choral tradition that’s very valuable.

Chris Bradford

Now there are many examples of aesthetically and morally questionable choral music and scripture, but much choral music is beautiful both musically and in its message, and much scriptural writing is also beautiful. Both as literature and in its message. Also, the temporal and the social conjunction that’s produced by choral music and scripture can expand social boundaries. For example, Mormonism adopted hymns from other Christian denominations. Denominations, as well as scripture, and then added to that. And this fits very well with this yes-and aesthetic that I noted earlier from Joseph Smith. And I think it is quite telling that we have a barbershop group at a Mormon transhumanist conference. I can’t imagine many other transhumanist conferences that would provide a similar entertainment.

Chris Bradford

From both science and religion. History and the quantified self movement. I work for a family history company, and Mormonism, of course, places a very strong emphasis on family history. The New York Times recently published an article about the effect of family stories with this finding, quote Children who have the most self-confidence have what the researchers call a strong intergenerational self. They know they belong to something bigger than themselves. And in a similar vein, DNA analysis can provide us with a sense of connection to our ancestors and those who share our DNA, including non-humans, and help us define our sense of personal and communal identity.

Chris Bradford

Now the quantified self movement may seem to focus on individual identity, but the very fact that we can speak of the quantified self-movement indicates that there’s something more going on. Life recording produces archives, but also information to share with others. And as was also noted earlier, Mormons are encouraged to keep a record of their own lives. that functions as personal scripture and as something that our descendants can learn from.

Chris Bradford

Also from both science and religion, I value fiction, art and drama. From research done at the University of California, Berkeley, Through a series of studies, we have discovered that fiction at its best isn’t just enjoyable, it measurably enhances our abilities to empathize with other people and connect with something larger than ourselves. This is an effect that goes beyond fiction. All art aspires to help us transcend ourselves. Drama, similarly, requires putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, and this fosters compassion and understanding rather than cynicism. For example, when I think about putting myself in the shoes of my church leaders and compare their accounts of their religious experiences with my own, I am more inclined to be charitable in my reactions to them.

Chris Bradford

Mormonism’s religious practices culminate in a ritual temple drama in which we are instructed. to put ourselves into the role of our primal parents and to consider ourselves as every man and every woman. Joseph Smith and early Mormons connected the past to the present by enacting the sacred past in the present, sacralizing the present, and putting themselves in the shoes of their spiritual predecessors.

Chris Bradford

The second temporal conjunction is present to future connections. And the concept of sealing in Mormonism enacts the sacred future in the present. From the doctrine and covenants, we have, and that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory.

Chris Bradford

And while this is couched in terms of location here and there, I think it’s best. Understood in terms of time. The same sociality that exists among us now will exist among us then. The relationships that we anticipate in eternity are pulled into the present. And this sense of eternity affects how Mormons think about their marriages, for example, in the present, thinking of them as eternal in nature. The temple endowment ceremony reminds participants that ultimately faithful saints can be sealed up to eternal life here on this earth. The eternal promises are enacted in the present.

Chris Bradford

Human psychology regarding the future is fascinating. We saw some of this, I think, in Aubrey DeGray’s remarks about discounting future benefits in preference to Present benefits. And there are actually, it seems there are two sort of opposing biases that we have. That is present bias, and then something that I’m going to call deferred magical thinking, which he sort of touched on with the, well, everything’s going to be okay. In heaven, right?

Chris Bradford

So, present bias is our tendency to overvalue present goods relative to future ones. For example, most people, given the choice between receiving $50 now or $100 in one year, Choose the $50 now because of this overvaluing.

Chris Bradford

And deferred magical thinking, what I’m calling, is this tendency to envision this bright future without any clearly defined path to travel to get there. And in religion, this can be seen in cases where, as Blair Hodges puts it, religious problems are outsourced to the next life. For example, in the next life, we’ll learn that all the suffering we see and experience really has a purpose.

Chris Bradford

Now in software development, we also see this to some extent. We’re learning now that the power of Moore’s law doesn’t magically solve hard computational problems. We still need to develop new algorithms and new ways of developing software. There is no magic wand.

Chris Bradford

So, both Mormonism and transhumanism are concerned with balancing present-focused and future-focused thinking. As an example of how behavioral economics makes us more aware of present bias, speakers of futureless languages that is, languages that speak of past, present and future all in the same way, such as Chinese Are 30% more likely to report having saved money in any given year than futured language speakers? And Keith Chen’s explanation in a recent TED Talk is that when we speak about the future as more distinct from the present, it feels more. Distant, and so we’re less motivated to save money now because of the in favor of monetary comfort later. Mormonism’s conjunction of sacred past, present and future counteracts these contrary biases, as does transhumanism’s emphasis on exponential thinking that helps us to project the consequences of present conditions into the future. I wonder what the savings habits of transhumanists are.

Chris Bradford

Brigham Young expressed his idea of the relationship between the present and the future this way. You may now be inclined to say, We wish to hear the mysteries of the kingdoms of the gods who have existed from eternity, and of all the kingdoms in which they will dwell. We desire to have these things portrayed to our understandings. Allow me to inform you that you are in the midst of it all now, that 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. If you and I do not by this means make that better kingdom which we anticipate, we shall never enjoy it. We can only enjoy the kingdom we have labored to make.

Chris Bradford

The third temporal conjunction is future to past connections. The simulation argument connects our future To our past. As the New God argument outlines, what we expect our future will be like is almost certainly what our past was like. If we anticipate creating many worlds like the one we now experience, it is highly unlikely that this would be the only world not so created. And if this world is a created one, what of the creators and their relation to us? And if we become creators, what kind of creators will we be?

Chris Bradford

In the LDS temple ceremony, the gods speak of creating this world, like unto the other worlds we have heretofore created. The idea of God’s ways being one eternal round in Mormonism encompasses the idea that we follow in the footsteps of our Creators. to do in our future what they have already done in our past.

Chris Bradford

As Joseph Smith put it You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one. From grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.

Chris Bradford

Both the religious and transhumanist approaches foster a sense of connectedness to our postulated creators and to the beings we may create in the future. along with a recognition that only a superior social conjunction can achieve the complementary visions of Mormonism and transhumanism, otherwise we will destroy ourselves.

Chris Bradford

In conclusion, Mormonism and transhumanism intersect in a yes and aesthetic that fosters a sense of human transcendence, humanity in conjunction, past Present and future. Thank you.