How to Raise the Dead
In this presentation, the speaker contends that Christ's command to "raise the dead" should be understood as a literal call to collaborative action rather than mere verbal faith. He outlines a "resurrection by family history" thought experiment: historians develop increasingly detailed and accurate models of deceased persons, with future technologies—perhaps including "quantum archaeology"—eventually producing reconstructions practically indistinguishable from the original individuals. He addresses philosophical objections about identity, continuity, and copies, arguing that technological resurrection is consistent with both Mormon theology and the Church's longstanding genealogical work.
Lincoln Cannon is an American philosopher and technologist who co-founded the Mormon Transhumanist Association in 2006, serving as its president from 2006 to 2016. He is a leading advocate of technological evolution and postsecular religion, combining software engineering expertise with degrees in philosophy and business. ¶ Cannon is also a founder and board member of the Christian Transhumanist Association. He formulated the New God Argument, a logical argument for faith in God that has become popular among religious transhumanists. His academic work includes “Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism” published in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and “Transfigurism: A Future of Religion as Exemplified by Religious Transhumanists” published in The Transhumanism Handbook (Springer Verlag, 2019). ¶ Mormon transhumanism, as articulated by Cannon, holds that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is central to the Mormon theological tradition, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Cannon’s work bridges religious faith with scientific advancement, advocating for the ethical use of technology to extend human abilities in ways consistent with a religious worldview.
Transcript
Carl, thank you so much. I want to echo what Mike Lannon and Chris just said. The association would not be half of what it is today without the work that you’ve put in over a very long period of time. Incredibly long nights and long days and There might not be anybody in the association who knows how much stress and work you’ve been through more than I know, and you know it even better than that, of course. And I appreciate very much what you’ve done. Thank you so much, Carl.
It’s a pleasure to be here with all of you. Thank you for making the time to be here. And if you’re online, thank you for taking the time to join us with the stream.
Last year at this conference, I told you that I don’t know how to raise the dead. And as it turns out, I don’t think that, that was entirely true. It’s true that I don’t know how to do all the work, but as it turns out, I have some ideas about how we might get started. And I actually also have some ideas about how we’ve already gotten started, and I’m going to share those with you.
But before I share those with you, I’m going to make sure that I can get the screen to work. Before I share those with you, I have to do some theology.
And the theology that I need to start with is acknowledging that the scriptures clearly and repeatedly teach that Christ will raise the dead. And of course that’s key here at a conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association among Christians. And some have supposed that to mean, however, That Christ would do all the work, and that we really just have to verbally affirm our trust in Christ, that we just have to verbally affirm our trust in Jesus. But our scriptures also teach that trust without action is dead, and in this case, that’s about as literal as it gets. Right? Without action, the dead stay dead.
So, whose action will it be? Presumably, Jesus could tell us to relax. After all, the Bible says that he raised the dead three times before God raised him and many others from the dead. But Jesus doesn’t tell us to relax. What Jesus does do is he commands us to raise the dead.
And as precedent in the Old Testament, of course, Elijah and Elisha raised the dead. In the New Testament, you’ve got Peter and Paul, who raised the dead. And in the Book of Mormon, you have Nephi, the brother of Lehi. Who raises the dead, in this case, his own brother.
And of course, that makes perfect sense because Jesus also commands us to take the name of Christ, as I spoke about last year. And to do the works that he’s done and greater things, he says. So the scriptures do teach that Christ will raise the dead, but those who think that that only requires verbal Expressions of trust or verbal expressions of faith are wrong because the scriptures also teach that Christ will raise the dead through us.
The Book of Mormon says that God has prepared a way for our escape from death. Consider those words. God has prepared a way for us to escape. It doesn’t say that God finished our rescue.
And in the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith echoes those ideas, claiming that God ordained before the world was that which would enable us. To redeem our dead. In other words, the scriptures would have us trust that the grace of God has provided means for us to act.
And that reminds me of the words of Captain Moroni, also from the Book of Mormon. He asks this question: Do you suppose that you could sit on your thrones And because of the exceeding goodness of God, you could do nothing, and God would deliver you. Or do you suppose that God will still deliver us while we Sit on our thrones and do not make use of the means which God has provided for us. If you have supposed this, you have supposed in vain.
The Bible says that we’ll reign with Christ and judge the world during the resurrection. It also says that we won’t all die, but will be changed. Joseph Smith said that we’ll perform the ordinance of transfiguration to make each other immortal in what he called the last times. And then Brigham Young, his successor, taught that when we’re immortal, we’ll perform the ordinance of resurrection for each other and for our dead friends and family. Joseph Smith then characterized that time when we attain to the resurrection of the dead as the time when we become gods, the same as all other gods have done before, as he put it.
So I mentioned at the beginning that I have some ideas about how the resurrection has already begun. And I call the thought experiment that I’m about to share with you resurrection by family history. Last night, I told Ben that I have specific steps about how we can go about resurrecting the dead. I told him that there were three, there are three steps, and four if you count the conclusion.
The first step for raising the dead is that a historian develops a model of a dead person. Step number two, another historian improves on the detail and the accuracy of that model. And then number three, other historians repeat number two indefinitely. So consider the ramifications of that.
This has been happening for at least thousands of years. Ancient models were stories and pictures. Modern models added audio and video. Emerging models have extended to biometrics and to simulation. And future models may incorporate data that we mine from the depths of time by what some science fiction authors have called quantum archaeology.
Given enough time, the natural consequence of our history project may be models that are practically indistinguishable from the persons who were dead. In other words, the natural consequence of our history project may be their resurrection.
I don’t know of any organization that has done more to advance the work of family history than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. and thereby advance the possibility of natural resurrection.
Howard W. Hunter was the president of the church when I was a missionary a long, long time ago, back in The pre-internet days, the dawn of the internet. And although he wasn’t president of the church for very long, that didn’t stop him from being prophetic. So in 1995, this is an observation that he made.
In recent years, we have begun using information technology to hasten the work of providing ordinances for the deceased. The role of technology in this work has been accelerated by the Lord himself, who has had a guiding hand in its development and will continue to do so. However, he says. We stand only on the threshold of what we can do with these tools. I feel that our most enthusiastic projections can capture only a tiny glimpse. Of how these tools can help us, and of the eternal consequences of these efforts.
So, in that spirit, here’s my enthusiastic projection. Here’s my tiny glimpse of how these tools can help us.
Imagine a super intelligent historian. Using the tools of quantum archaeology, she traces backward through time and through space. From effects to causes, sampling a sufficiently large portion of her present She attains a desired probabilistic precision for a portion of her past. The result of her computation is a highly detailed, highly accurate model of you. And you are resurrected.
As we imagine the eternal consequences of these efforts, some philosophical objections may come to mind. They may haunt us. I know they’ve haunted me. Chris has talked about ghosts. And Jesus actually, he commanded us to cast out devils. So in that spirit, let’s see if I can exorcise six of them. Six seems like the right number for devils. And then I’ll take some questions.
The first one, Jesus didn’t use technology to raise the dead. I’ve heard that one a lot. My response is: well, you don’t know that. Maybe you just don’t see anything in this picture that you recognize as technology. Maybe others do.
My father died over 20 years ago. I tried praying for his resurrection, and it was probably a good start, but it wasn’t sufficient. He’s still dead, as far as I know. And I’m pretty sure that holding a picture of Jesus over his tomb or standing like Jesus with my arms raised won’t be sufficient to resurrect him either. Although those actions like stories and pictures may also function as motivating prayers, something else is required. And just because technology isn’t obvious, doesn’t mean it’s absent. After all, we already live in an age of invisible technology.
Objection number two, technological resurrection assumes that body creates mind. Actually, no, it doesn’t. It does not assume that. It’s compatible with that hypothesis, but it’s also compatible with other hypotheses. For example, it may be that body individuates or concentrates or channels mind from pervasive or external sources. Technological resurrection only requires a correlation between body and mind. And that’s perfectly compatible with the idea that matter is spirit, for example, as Joseph Smith taught, and that it’s still potentially independent of any particular body. Some transhumanists call this substrate-independent mind.
A third objection, the resurrected body wouldn’t really be mine. Well, maybe the body that you have right now isn’t really yours by the same reasoning. The body that you have now is not the body you had yesterday. It’s certainly not the body that came out of your mother when you were birthed. If you’re comfortable with identifying with changing bodies throughout your lifetime, you should be comfortable with technological resurrection.
Objection four, maybe the mind in the resurrected body wouldn’t really be me. Well, by that reasoning, you might not really be you right now, which of course makes no sense at all. Seriously, you have not experienced and you do not remember a perfect continuity of consciousness throughout your life, let alone whatever might have been before that. Resurrection does not require a continuity of consciousness. It requires only whatever is psychosocially sufficient for our identity as individuals and a community. So if you’re comfortable that you’re still you after you come out of full anesthesia, you should be comfortable with technological resurrection.
Objection number five, technological resurrection would require a computer larger than our universe. Remember the principle that I just mentioned, psychosocial sufficiency? You do not care about and do not know all the details of the universe, and neither do all humans that have ever lived and lived today combined. Care about or know the details of the entire universe. We do not need all the details of the universe, or even our world, or even our bodies, to have psychosocial sufficiency in the data for resurrection. If you’re not losing sleep over prehistoric mosquitoes or the time space coordinates of your gut bacteria, you should be comfortable with technological resurrection. And if you’re not comfortable with a certain level of detail, we can expand to more. And it still would only be a tiny fraction of the universe or even our world.
And then objection number six: technological resurrection could enable multiple copies of me. Well, yes, it actually could. And the copies could go on to have individuating experiences and separate identities, and maybe you’re already a copy of God that individuated. So there’s nothing it’s not clear that there’s anything inherently bad about the possibility of copies, but it’s also clear that that could be abused, and so maybe there should be laws. And maybe there are laws among the gods about how to manage the preservation of identity. And that reminds me of things that Brigham Young talked about on a regular basis. He actually said that eternal life is the power to maintain. Your identity. And so maybe he was on to something.
Anyway, I’m done. I think my time’s up, so I can’t actually take questions right now, but I would love to talk with you at lunch or this evening and hear what questions or other objections you might have. Thank you.