Lincoln Cannon and Joseph West of the Mormon Transhumanist Association have presented a revised version of the New God Argument at the annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. See the Transcript of the New God Argument at SMPT.
Mormon Transhumanists, and to some extent all Mormons, are open to the possibility of natural Gods existing and evolving within the physical universe described by science. We can also evolve to posthuman Godhood, with the capability to simulate complex realities and "run increasingly detailed world simulations. Unabated, increasing detail would eventually obfuscate differences between our world and computed worlds, to the point that "simulation" and "virtual" would be poor descriptors." The New God Argument concludes that "posthumans probably create many worlds like those in their past" and, in particular, "posthumans probably created our world".
The authors emphasize that "the New God Argument justifies faith in God as revealed in Mormon tradition. Joseph Smith proclaimed that God was once as we are now, became exalted, and instituted laws whereby others could learn how to be gods, the same as all gods have done before."
Whet I really loved is the final justification of the New God Argument with the words of "the most unlikely and unwilling proponent of the New God Argument, the talented evolutionary biologist and leading voice of the New Atheist movement":... Richard Dawkins!!!
Giulio, the source of the Joseph Smith paraphrase is a speech he delivered a few months before he was killed, at what was arguably the culmination of the development of his ideas. For those interested, here's a link: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/King_Follett_Discourse
ReplyDeleteWhile on the subject, I'll add that Joseph Smith is only one of many historical religious figures with transhumanist inclination. Two other examples, from other faith traditions, are Nikolai Fyodorov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov) and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin). I'd even be willing to argue that transhumanism was a religious idea before it became secular, as evidenced by doctrines of theosis expressed within many religions going back into ancient times. One example is St Athanasius, in his work "Incarnation of the Word of God", who summed up the religious transhumanism of ancient Christianity in these words: "God became man that man become God."
Hi Lincoln. As you say, these ideas are very old, but I think they are also very new, and a suitable foundation for future spirituality. I just uploaded a new post that you may find interesting:
ReplyDeleteIn Whom we live, move, and have our being