Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

Live Video Stream

2010-10-01T01:58:00.014-06:00

The conference is adjourned. Video archives can be found here. Thanks to all who participated.

Agenda for Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-09-23T20:45:00.001-06:00

The agenda for the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010 is now available. Terryl Givens will begin the day at 9am with a presentation on "Fear and Trembling at the Tower of Babel". Max More will present at 1pm on "Apotheosis and Perpetual Progress". James Hughes will be the final presenter at 3:40pm on "The Compatibility of Religion and Transhumanism: Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence". The conference will then conclude with a panel discussion and responses to questions from the audience. One change has been made to the lineup of speakers: Ralph Spencer Steenblik will replace Richard Amoroso, and will present on "Positive Parametricism". The full agenda, including abstracts, is below. We look forward to seeing you at the conference. Register today for a discount!

9:00-9:45 KEYNOTE

Presenter   Terryl Givens

Title   Fear and Trembling at the Tower of Babel

Abstract   An overview of the idea of divinization through history, with a discussion of why the idea has been simultaneously appealing and horrifying in myth and religion.

[Five minute break]

9:50-10:10

Presenter   Ugo Perego

Title   DNA, genealogy, and spiritual identity: overcoming the concept of race while exploring our unique heritage

Abstract   Based on the inheritance properties of DNA, it is possible to identify informative markers that have survived in our genome from past generations and therefore take a glimpse into humanity’s recent and ancient past. Similarities observed in genetic profiles can be grouped in larger clusters, called haplogroups, linked to specific geographic regions and ethnic groups. The contribution of molecular science to personal and religious identity, spirituality, family history, and the concepts of race and diversity is calling for a re-evaluation of previously accepted paradigms that are deeply rooted in many cultures.

10:10-10:30

Presenter   James Felton Keith

Title   Integrationalism: Spiritual disincentives for humanity

Abstract   Over the past 200,000 years, spirituality has dominated the human consciousness, resulting in a wide array of immaterial theologies, ideologies and mythologies. Human ability to compensate for the unidentifiable and unknown over the millennia has provided extraordinary philosophical exploration, so much that thinkers have used spirituality's lack of rigidity to endorse everything from cultivating life to death alike. In Integrationalism, I will demonstrate that any activity is justifiable in reference to spirituality; and further, ethical ambiguities and disincentives to promote trans-humanism are prevalent. Considering the ambiguities, I offer an alternative understanding to all spiritual philosophy.

10:30-10:50

Presenter   Roger Hansen

Title   Three Spiritual Exemplars for Religious Transhumanists

Abstract   This presentation will explore the lives and spiritual contributions of three of the early 20th century’s most innovative minds -- John A Widtsoe, Alfred North Whitehead, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin -- as possible inspiration for religious transhumanists. One of the three was a chemist, one a mathematician/philosopher, and one a paleontologist. One was a Mormon authority, one a religious non-joiner, and one a Jesuit priest. They were contemporaries, and each was very religious in his own way. But each had to invent his own belief system, as we all do.

[Ten minute break]

11:00-11:20

Presenter   Malcolm Dean

Title   The End(s) of Mythology

Abstract   At the boundary of the Axial Age, natural knowledge was transformed into classical mythologies and early religious systems. What actually happened to human thought five thousand years ago? Why do cultures come with mythologies? Exactly what is mythology doing? At the boundary of the 21st century, complexity science and neuroscience are recovering a world compatible with ancient thought. Ancient philosophy presents, in intuitive language and symbols, ideas that have only been "discovered" recently: complexity, scale-invariance, fractality, the observer, the horizon of information, non-linear and topological thermodynamics.

11:20-11:40

Presenter   Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Title   Positive Parametricism

Abstract   The parameter is a symbol for decentralization, for spontaneous organization. Instinctively, aggregated intelligence seeks to optimize for the most effective utilization of resources. It becomes pertinent to create and embrace systems which can accommodate and grapple with dynamic scenarios. We live in a time where technology has moved far beyond the way we live today. Problem solving must be collaborative, dynamic, and holistic.

11:40-12:00

Presenter   James McLean Ledford

Title   Christian Transhumanism

Abstract   Soon, a wise and loving culture will apply the full power of technology to spiritual growth and so enter a state of hyper-evolution. They will enjoy continually diminishing hardship, and eternal life. God's will in this matter is revealing itself in today’s quickening changes imposed by the forces that guide our society; science, technology, spirituality, and even economics. From a Christian Transhumanist point of view, humanity is about to merge with what is called the Technical Singularity and so transcend this world. Learn about love in action in the technical world; connect to understand, forgive to grow.

[One hour break]

1-1:45 KEYNOTE

Presenter   Max More

Title   Apotheosis and Perpetual Progress

Abstract   Transhumanism has a strongly spiritual aspect to it. That aspect can be obscured by an emphasis on science, technology, and analytical philosophy in many transhumanist discussions. But transhumanism is both transhuman-ism and trans-humanism. The philosophy’s deep roots in humanism mean that transhumanism champions not only rationality and scientific understanding but, critically, also champions an inspiring and challenging vision of perpetual progress, dynamic optimism, and progressive self-transformation. Essential to the perspective of transhumanism is an extropic striving not for a state of final, static perfection but for endless improvement -- apotheosis as perpetual perfecting rather than perfection. I will outline a few aspects of this vision, and respond to common questions and concerns about the meaningfulness of a transhuman life and the status of the physical body.

[Five minute break]

1:50-2:10

Presenter   Dorothy Deasy

Title   Epiphany Endangered: the relevance of God in a transhuman society

Abstract   As we move further into the 21st century humanity has within reach the ability to alter the body human to such an extent as to give rise to a new post-human species. What is less clear is whether our ethical, moral and spiritual development can keep pace with our technological prowess. This paper will take the position that our faith communities are in a unique position to speak up for the need to hold both God and science together in our lives, to check human hubris and offset individual motives in exchange for ethical standards that support social justice.

2:10-2:30

Presenter   Michael Ferguson

Title   Trinitarian Archetypes: A Transhumanist Mythos

Abstract   Three streams of Darwinian processes are bio-organic, technological, and cultural evolution. In this presentation I will explore the interrelationships between these evolutionary media, and demonstrate the application of Christian archetypes for a succinct mythos that accurately encodes the transhuman worldview. Mythos is story-telling; rather than view transhuman and the religious stories as inherently destructive competitors, the opportunity for synergy is emergent from the multimodal faculties of human beings to engage story at both technical and holistic levels of cognition.

2:30-2:50

Presenter   Lincoln Cannon

Title   Trust in Posthumanity and the New God Argument

Abstract   If we will not go extinct before becoming posthumans then, given assumptions consistent with contemporary science and technological trends, posthumans probably already exist that are more benevolent than us and that created our world. If prehumans are probable then posthumans probably already exist. If posthumans probably increased faster in destructive than defensive capacity then posthumans probably are more benevolent than us. If posthumans probably create create many worlds like those in their past then posthumans probably created our world. The only alternative is that we probably will go extinct before becoming posthumans.

[Ten minute break]

3:00-3:20

Presenter   Jason Anthony

Title   Hacking Religion and the Ten Year Game

Abstract   The scientific paradigm embraces the value of cumulative progress: theories are tested, advances are made, and the field moves forward. Religious evolutions, however, seldom follow that trend. There are usually returns to fundamentalisms, forefathers or a pristine state. As we look at the future of religion over the next 10-30 years, which “returns” offer the most fruitful direction for those looking to “hack” -- or reconfigure -- religion to meet 21st century challenges? I offer suggestions, and outline the rules for the Ten Year Game -- an attempt to build a next-gen religion that thrives on opposition and crowd-sources wisdom.

3:20-3:40

Presenter   Giulio Prisco

Title   The Cosmic Visions of the Turing Church

Abstract   Following the Turing-Church conjecture, minds can be uploaded from biological brains to other computational substrates. Mind uploading research may achieve practical results within decades. Given the technology, humans may live indefinitely, colonizing the universe, and resurrecting the dead by "copying them to the future". Perhaps they will create synthetic realities inhabited by sentient minds; perhaps we are in a synthetic reality. These considerations parallel the tenets of many religions. The Turing Church will be a meta-religion, without central doctrine, characterized by common interest in the promised land where science and religion meet, science becomes religion, and religion becomes science.

[Five minute break]

3:40-4:25 KEYNOTE

Presenter   James Hughes

Title   The Compatibility of Religion and Transhumanism: Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence

Abstract   Transhumanism - the proposition that human beings should use technology to transcend the limitations of the body and brain - is a product of the Enlightenment humanist tradition. As a consequence most avowed transhumanists are secular, and many religious are skeptical or hostile towards the transhumanist project. However there are also many religious transhumanists who find the project of human enhancement at least consistent with, and sometimes a fulfillment of, their metaphysics, soteriologies and eschatologies. Transhumanism appears to be especially compatible with religious traditions that emphasize human agency and evolution to a transcendent state, such as Buddhism, or that have incorporated Enlightenment values, such as liberal Christianity. But elements of the transhumanist worldview and enhancement technologies are compatible with one element or another of most world faiths, even the most fundamentalist. We can thus expect that human enhancement technologies will be adopted creatively into the theologies of groups within all the world's faiths, producing many flavors of "trans-spirituality."

4:25-TBD

Discussion panel with keynote speakers and audience Q&A

Speaker Selection for Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-08-28T10:24:00.001-06:00

Speaker selection for the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010 has been completed. As announced previously, the keynote speakers will be Terryl Givens, James Hughes and Max More. Additional speakers are listed below, along with biographical information. Don't miss this excellent speaker lineup. Register today!

Richard L Amoroso

Richard L Amoroso is director of Noetic Advanced Studies Institute, centered on "cosmology of mind". Amoroso is also executive editor of Noetic Press, including the peer reviewed Noetic Journal; author of over 30 technical volumes and over 100 scientific papers on astrophysics, quantum theory, medicine, philosophy of mind and transcendence.

Jason Anthony

Jason Anthony is a religion journalist and games designer. He served as editor of America's oldest religious magazine, and has written widely about the national faith landscape. His experiences at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 led him to explore next-gen religion through his project, the Ten Year Game.

Lincoln Cannon

Lincoln Cannon is president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, and co-author of the New God Argument. He's a professional software engineer, Internet marketer and information technologist. He holds a masters degree in business and a bachelors degree in philosophy from Brigham Young University.

Malcolm Dean

Malcolm Dean's research in Cognitive Thermodynamics provides a consistent and scalable physics of cognitive, cultural, and religious systems. Dean is a Research Affiliate of UCLA's Human Complex Systems program and a member of the Brain Research Institute's Higher Cognitive Affinity Group.

Dorothy Deasy

Dorothy Deasy is a Methodist who came to God late in life. Her study of the Historical Jesus led to an awakening experience that initiated her spiritual journey. She is in the process of getting her Master’s of Applied Theology from Marylhurst University.

Michael Ferguson

Michael Ferguson is a PhD student at the University of Utah, specializing in neuroimaging. He completed undergraduate training in biochemistry at Brigham Young University, and attended medical school at SUNY Health Sciences Center. He is passionate about the human brain and the potential for transhuman aesthetics to promote prosocial dynamics.

Roger D Hansen

Roger D Hansen has graduate degrees from USU in Civil and Environmental Engineering and an undergraduate degree in History from BYU. He has worked for 30 years as a water resource planner. His blog (rogerhansen.org) is titled “Tired Road Warrior” which explains a lot about his current emotional status.

James Felton Keith

James Felton Keith is an author, economics analyst, engineer, and entrepreneur. Keith's education is rooted in mathematics. He's Chairman of the Enxit Group and a specialist at the Land Policy Institute. His 2010 book Integrationalism: Essays on the rationale of abundance is raising eyebrows in analytic philosophy and ecology communities.

James Mclean Ledford

Author of Technical-Jesus.com and Hyper-Evolution.com, two websites dedicated to Christian Transhumanism. James is also a Nuclear Operations Instructor with 20 years of experience teaching the science, technology, and procedures necessary to safely operate Nuclear Reactors; where effective learning and teaching is critical.

Ugo A Perego

Ugo A Perego is Senior Researcher at Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received a PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Pavia, Italy, and has authored and co-authored numerous publications on the use of DNA to reconstruct ancient population migrations and recent family histories.

Giulio Prisco

Giulio Prisco is a technology consultant, physicist, computer scientist, writer and futurist. He is a director of the IEET and the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, and was executive director of the World Transhumanist Association. As a founder of the Turing Church, Prisco proposes transhumanist "cosmic visions" as alternatives to major religions.

Travel, Lodging and Tourism for Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-08-21T10:31:00.003-06:00

The Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010 will be held in the Gould auditorium of the Marriott Library on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Friday, 1 October 2010.

The conference web site is now updated with travel and lodging information. The travel information includes maps of the University of Utah campus and the Marriott Library, as well as public transportation routes. For attendees that wish to lodge near the University of Utah campus, we recommend Chase Suites Hotel, Marriott University Park Hotel, Skyline Inn or University Guest House. Register for the conference, and make your travel and lodging arrangements today.

While you're in Salt Lake City, consider visiting some of the historical, outdoor and entertainment attractions in the area. If you have questions or require assistance, don't hesitate to contact the conference organizers. We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Keynote Speakers for Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-08-02T14:38:00.000-06:00

Max More will replace Natasha Vita-More as a keynote speaker at the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010. Below is more information about each of the exciting keynote speakers. Register for the conference today!

Terryl Givens

Terryl L. Givens was born in upstate New York, raised in the American southwest, and did his undergraduate and graduate work in Comparative Literature (Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill, 1988), working with Greek, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English languages and literatures. As Professor of Literature and Religion, and the James A. Bostwick Professor of English at the University of Richmond, he teaches courses in Romanticism, nineteenth-century cultural studies, and the Bible and Literature. He has published in literary theory, British and European Romanticism, Mormon studies, and intellectual history.

Dr. Givens has authored several books, including The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy (Oxford 1997); By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford 2003); People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (Oxford 2007); The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2009); and When Souls had Wings: Pre-Mortal Life in Western Thought (2010). Current projects include a biography of Parley P. Pratt (with Matt Grow, to be published by Oxford in 2011), a sourcebook of Mormonism in America (with Reid Neilson, to be published by Columbia in 2011), a history of Mormon theology, and a study of the idea of human perfectibilty in the Western tradition. He lives in Montpelier, Virginia.

James Hughes

James Hughes Ph.D., the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Interim Director of Institutional Research and Planning. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future , and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. Since 1999 he has produced a syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio.

He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. Dr. Hughes speaks on medical ethics, health care policy and future studies worldwide, and appears often on radio and television.

Max More

Max More, PhD, is a strategic philosopher widely recognized for his thinking on the philosophical and cultural implications of emerging technologies. Max’s contributions include founding the philosophy of transhumanism, authoring the transhumanist philosophy of extropy, and co-founding Extropy magazine and Extropy Institute, an organization crucial in building the transhumanist movement since 1988.

Max is been concerned that our escalating technological capabilities are racing far ahead of our standard ways of thinking about future possibilities. Through a highly interdisciplinary approach drawing on philosophy, economics, cognitive and social psychology, and management theory, Max developed a distinctive approach known as the “Proactionary Principle” a tool for making smarter decisions about advanced technologies by minimizing the dangers of progress and maximizing the benefits.

Max has a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from St. Anne’s College, Oxford University (1984-87). He was awarded a Dean’s Fellowship in Philosophy in 1987 by the University of Southern California and received his PhD in Philosophy from USC in 1995.

Call for Papers for Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-06-18T10:46:00.003-06:00

Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference
1 October 2010
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah

The 2010 Transhumanism & Spirituality conference will take place in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah on 1 October 2010. Keynote speakers for the conference include Natasha Vita-More, James Hughes and Terryl Givens. Vita-More is the founder of Transhumanist Arts, Sciences & Culture, and is on the board of directors for Humanity+. Dr. Hughes is the founder of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology (IEET) and a former executive director for the World Transhumanist Association from 2004 to 2006. Dr. Givens is a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, and a scholar of deification paradigms throughout Western civilizations.

The host school, the University of Utah, is pursuing an aggressive science and technology agenda through the state-funded Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) investment initiative. The University spun out 23 companies in the 2009 fiscal year, and 82 companies over the past four years—more than any other US school during that period except for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In addition to being a fast-rising technology hot spot, Salt Lake City is also a major hub in both the American and global spiritual landscape. Most well-known as the headquarters of the Latter-day Saint religious movement, Salt Lake City hosts a rich diversity of spiritual traditions. Settled by Mormon pioneers, the history and culture of Salt Lake City are inseparable from its spiritually-driven founding, making Salt Lake City an exceptionally appropriate host city for the 2010 Conference on Transhumanism & Spirituality.

With renowned keynote speakers and world-class facilities, the 2010 Conference on Transhumanism & Spirituality provides an international forum for presentation and discussion of key concepts shaping the transhumanist movement.

We call for scholarly papers on the intersection between transhumanism and spirituality. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

technological enhancement of ritual or meditation
affects of emerging technology on established religious traditions
theological and mythological analogs in transhumanist thought
historical figures or precedents exemplifying a spiritual transhumanism
relevance of religion and theism in posthuman futures
transhumanist ethics and esthetics

Proposals must be submitted no later than 11 July 2010. A proposal may be either a full paper or an extended abstract, submitted with the understanding that it will be suitable for a presentation time of 20-30 minutes. Please send proposals in a standard format to admin@transfigurism.org and include the author's full name and contact information, as well as the title of the proposal.

The conference committee will choose a limited number of proposals for presentation at the conference, based on the applicability of and compatibility between received proposals. Authors will be notified of acceptance no later than 1 August 2010.

For more information, visit the conference web site at transhumanism-spirituality.org.

Announcement of Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010

2010-06-18T08:51:00.003-06:00