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  • TrueChristian® Hypocrisy

    TrueChristian® Hypocrisy
    2026/08/27
    I received a Google Alert for “[Christians Only] WDYT of Christian Transhumanism Association?: r/TrueChristian - Reddit.” Christians only? Okay. I’m Christian. So I clicked on the link and read the thread. The “Christian” originator tells of going down the proverbial “rabbit hole” and learning about Christian Transhumanism. Although confused and inviting thoughts, he’s “pretty sure” that the common Christian Transhumanist idea of resurrecting the dead is “heresy.” An “Eastern Orthodox” commenter confirms, “just by seeing their name I know they’re at least heretics or not even Christians.” A “Christian non-nationalist” shares, “My first concern is their participatory technological language around resurrection.” He continues, “I don’t read the Bible as suggesting that this is anything other than a work of our awesome creator.” Oh, and by the way, “I’m also concerned about the apparent composition … including Mormon Transhumanists and secular-adjacent futurist writers …” And “Non-Denominational” concludes, feigning imitation of Christian Transhumanists, “We want to disrespect God’s image by enhancing human bodies essentially mutilating our own bodies that are made in the image of the God we do claim to love!” Hmm. So much nonsense. Maybe I should respond, I thought. So I tried. Jesus: Raise the dead. TrueChristian: Heresy. But it didn’t work. A bot quickly informed me that my comment had been removed. Why? I was commenting “without flair identifying [me] as a trinitarian believer.” The bot also explained how I’m not a Christian. I “may not utilize a Christian flair,” it informed me, if I “deny the Trinity or other beliefs expressed in the Nicene Creed.” And even if I choose to use the flair to identify myself as a Christian, I’m “still not allowed to post in a Christians Only thread.” The bot concluded with instructions about how to add flair below “__ followers of Christ are online.” So here we are. TrueChristian® won’t receive my message. But you, dear reader, you’re receiving it now, whether you like it or not. Of course it’s nothing new. TrueChristian® has been demonizing me for decades. And they’ll probably continue for decades more. Not so secretly, I hope so because it’s free advertising. But I do wish to call special attention to this particular exchange. It encapsulates, so well, the fundamental hypocrisy of TrueChristian®. They claim to be Christian, which above all connotes reverence for Jesus and the Bible. And yet their words implicitly reject both to an extent that would be surprising if it weren’t so common. “Do the works you see me do,” says Jesus in the Bible, as he raises the dead repeatedly. But the first concern of TrueChristian® is participatory language around resurrection. “Raise the dead,” says Jesus in the Bible, as if his example isn’t enough. But TrueChristian® is pretty sure that’s heresy. “Touch me and see,” says Jesus in the Bible, appearing bodily as if from nowhere after having been crucified. But enhancing human bodies is mutilation for TrueChristian®. So much hypocrisy. Meanwhile, I’m not a Christian because Mormons don’t revere the Nicene Creed. And Transhumanists are just yuck. Too little Nicea. Too much Jesus, Bible, and yuck. No wonder “__ followers of Christ are online.”
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  • Without Beginning

    Without Beginning
    2026/08/08
    Dorothée and I usually watch a show together before bed. Presently, we’re watching a science fiction show with a narrative that revolves around time travel. It’s entertaining, especially the recreations of historical events that bump into modern sensibilities. But it’s also incoherent in many ways. My work sometimes invites questions about time travel, for at least a couple reasons. First, although neither intended nor necessary, time travel could explain recursion in the Creation Argument of the New God Argument. When people read the idea that superhumanity creates superhumanity, they sometimes imagine the future of our human civilization creating our past and present in a simple time loop. But only procedural recursion, not temporal recursion, is required by the argument. And adding notions of temporal recursion tends to create more problems than it solves, in my estimation. Second, something like a subtle version of time travel could explain my observation that Mormon theology entails neither a finite nor an infinite regress of Gods. As the Kolob hymn puts it, “Do you think that you could ever, through all eternity, find out the generation where Gods began to be?” Such questions imply at least a third possibility: an indefinite regress. Maybe our present can create not only our future but also our past to some extent. Quantum physics may allow for an alternative to the commonsense notion that reality is determined exclusively from past to future. For example, consider observer effects in delayed-choice experiments. You send a photon along a path that requires either a wave or a particle state. But the state along the path is indefinite until you look at the photon afterwards, at which time the past state becomes definite. Did you change the past? You didn’t change the past of the photon from one definite state to another. But apparently you did change the past state of the photon from indefinite to definite. So if you didn’t change the past then you created the past, to whatever extent the past exists. That’s an unusual way to think about the past. But it’s quite like the ordinary way of thinking about the future. We aren’t changing the future from one definite state to another. We’re changing an indefinite future into a definite present. Outside of strange experiments, the past seems much more definite than the future. But what if the distant past is as indefinite as the near future? What if the distant past exists no more nor less than the near future? Perhaps the historians’ project, at cosmological scale, is persistently changing an indefinite past into the definite present? Imagine that we are, here and now, near the forward-moving edge of relatively high spacetime definiteness. The proximate past is highly defined by memories, records, environment, and other present constraints. But both the future and the distant past are increasingly indefinite to the extent that present constraints are sparse or absent. Reality, as we experience it, would be a region of relative definiteness surrounded temporally, and perhaps spatially, by horizons of increasing indefiniteness. It’s not controversial to claim that we know less about the distant past than the recent past. But I’m suggesting more. Experiments suggest that some aspects of the past are not merely unknown but genuinely indefinite, such that they exist only to the extent that we create them. And perhaps these indefinite aspects of the past increasingly accumulate until the distant past becomes as indefinite as the future. Again, this wouldn’t mean that we could change definite historical events. Dense networks of mutually reinforcing correlations would still ensure that the proximate past remains as stable as commonsense supposes it to be. But beyond the horizons of the densely definite, toward not only the future but also the past, reality may be knowable only to the extent that we create it. Let’s return to Mormon theology. There might be neither a first generation of Gods nor an infinite regress. The Gods themselves might not know. And that might not be ignorance as much as it is an honest account of limits on knowledge as imposed by reality – the limits of that which is actually knowable. Without beginning, the Gods find themselves making worlds without end. Looking toward the future, although constrained by the present, they see indefinite possibilities of creation. Looking toward the near past, more heavily constrained by the present, they see definite possibilities of discovery. Looking farther still, they find themselves making worlds without beginning.
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  • The Vanguardism Trap

    The Vanguardism Trap
    2026/08/22
    A friend recently described to me a “stench of fascism” in rationalist discourse. “Any theory that makes ‘clear thinking’ a scarce, trainable, testable property generates a distinction between those who have it and those who don’t,” he wrote. “And that distinction is convertible into political authority no matter what the theory says about itself.” He’s right about the mechanism. I’ve smelled it too. But there’s probably a more useful name for it. What he and I have smelled, I suggest, may be more usefully characterized as vanguardism. This is an ideology commonly associated with Vladimir Lenin, who led the Bolsheviks that became the Russian Communist Party. His vanguard claimed superior revolutionary consciousness and organizational discipline. In a broader sense, vanguardism advocates a trained elite empowered to override the judgment of the untrained many, usually in the name of stakes that are too high for untrained deliberation. Recognizing vanguardism matters because it guides our attention to focus differently, and probably more effectively. The risk of vanguardism probably isn’t so much that it would lead rationalists to ultranationalism or the particular kinds of violence historically associated with fascism. That seems orthogonal or at least less proximate to an imminent risk. The risk of vanguardism is that it would lead rationalists to advocate large-scale ceding of human agency to supposed clear thinkers who need not answer to anyone beyond themselves. In function, vanguardism is not unique to any one ideology. Plato’s philosopher-kings, Gnostic special knowledge, Calvinist election, and even misused priesthood authority in the Mormon tradition all share the same risk. A claim of privileged access can convert into a claim of governance over those who lack it. Vanguardism among rationalists may be relatively new. But the attendant risk is already being realized. Many advocate centralizing control of artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies in the name of safety. And some, in or adjacent to rationalist circles, have descended into the anti-democratic neoreactionary “Dark Enlightenment.” Some of these vanguardist rationalists, presumably a minority, may imagine superior ethics to be deducible from superior epistemics. Maybe we can dismiss them as marginal. But many other rationalists make the more subtle vanguardist mistake of supposing superior ethics to be correlated with superior epistemics. They reason that because they understand the facts, risks, and consequences most clearly, they should be empowered to adjudicate values for the rest of us. In contrast, pragmatist philosopher John Dewey observed that democracy isn’t primarily about ascertaining facts. It doesn’t compete with expertise. Rather, democracy is primarily about forming and transforming values, and thereby deciding what we should do with facts. No expert can do that without us because, although facts constrain values, values also constrain facts. In fact, values constrain not only discovery but also creation of facts. Values create more values, which are themselves a kind of fact. And values create other kinds of facts as a consequence of action on values. Moreover, the creation of facts is a consequence of plural action on values, creating realities that even the clearest thinkers, greatest experts, and superintelligent Gods cannot create without us. Ethics, actually to be ethics, must be grounded in values. More fundamentally, ethics must be grounded in desire. Facts and rationality are certainly important, even utterly necessary, as we seek to fulfill and reconcile desire. But neither is sufficient without desire. “Desire” that is asserted from the top down is not and cannot coherently be our desire. It would be our enslavement or annihilation. And the self-appointed clear thinkers who would centralize the power of our agency into their own, “for our good,” would be our enslavers or annihilators. Such is the risk of vanguardism. Rationalists must vigorously resist vanguardism. The model of clear thinking that would justify it is epistemically incomplete, lacking that which cannot be coherently centralized. In its stead, we can formulate, embrace, and advocate strong arguments for the hard work of formal decentralization. And we can put those arguments into practical application, restructuring the world such that our common good persists as that which emerges among us, and resists that which asserts itself over us. Decentralization, not vanguardism, is how we ensure a beautiful future for humanity, without coercion that would amount to no future at all.
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  • Finding Ourselves Making

    Finding Ourselves Making
    2026/07/29
    We often speak of identity as if it were atomic, in the strict sense of the word: a fixed kernel you either have or don’t. We imagine a self that persists whole or perishes entire, with nothing between. But identity isn’t atomic. Identity is organized. It admits of more and less. It can be distinguished or obscured, aggregated or dispersed, robust or fragile, complex or simple, and empowered or impotent. And it changes. Identity and existence are different concepts, even while overlapping. Something might exist in the most basic sense without having identity, to itself or others. From a materialist perspective, existence entails matter, or at least energy or information. Although, if something like a weak panpsychism holds, existence would also entail that which Mormon theology might associate with “spirit matter” or unorganized intelligence, something like matter experiencing itself from the inside in some dim alien way that “experience” risks overstating, even while preserving a practical moral stance for outside observers. Mind, too, is distinct from identity, though they overlap. Again from a materialist perspective, mind is (or emerges from or within) matter organized in such a way that it experiences itself as a self, implying at least some basic internal identity, or as that which Mormon theology might associate with “spirit body” or organized intelligence. Mindless matter also exists, even if retaining a weak panpsychist aspect. And of course mindless matter can still have identity projected onto it, and intentionally attributed to it, by minds. A mind can be disorganized to some extent without ceasing to exist. More generally, identity can be disorganized to some extent without ceasing to exist. And even at greater degrees of disorganization, even as identity ceases to be recognizable as such to any associated minds, at least the components of identity persist as matter or energy or information. In an 1859 sermon, Brigham Young may have given these ideas their strongest theological expression. Eternal life, he taught, gives “mankind power to preserve their identity” ( Journal of Discourses 6:333). Elsewhere in the same discourse, he characterized “the law of Christ” as “the power to keep matter in its organization.” A year earlier, Brigham stated the opposite just as plainly, saying some “will be decomposed, both soul and body, and return to their native element” ( Journal of Discourses 7:57). He continued, “I do not say that they will be annihilated; but they will be disorganized.” Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say matter stops existing. Rather, as Joseph Smith put it in his last general conference sermon, “the pure principles of element … may be organized and re-organized; but not destroyed.” Minds, spirit bodies, or organizations of intelligence can disorganize, perhaps indefinitely, while that of which they’re composed remains at least potentially intelligible, observable even if not observed by others, perhaps even experiencing itself (even if not as a self) faintly from the inside. The change associated with disorganization isn’t absolute termination of existence in the broadest sense. The change is in a quality of existence. Identity is a quality of existence. None of us owns our identity alone. As Brigham put it, “we have no character, only such as our friends and enemies give us” ( Journal of Discourses 7:57). And although that’s “only a shadow,” he insisted, “I want to preserve my identity, so that you can see Brigham in the eternal worlds just as you see him now.” Attribution detached from organization is the shadow, but attribution connected to persisting organization becomes recognition. Identities are personal psychological constructs and shared social constructs, interacting and ideally reconciling, in context of the world in which we and our community find ourselves. That isn’t a limitation on identity. Rather, that’s the mechanism of identity. Identity is reputation aggregated across observers through time, associated with a consistent identifier, without which there’s nothing to aggregate to. More observation, more consistently gathered, makes a more robust reputation. And a more robust reputation is a more robust identity. We might always aspire to a more robust identity, across more observation through time and space. And some would call that a more “true” identity or the “true self.” I can consent to the aspiration. But I distrust superlatives, including “most robust,” or “true self” understood as a negation of the self that we actually experience. The identities we have now are at least as true, because they exist at least as much, as any supposed “most robust” identity. And the identities we have now are generally more “true,” because our suppositions about actualities beyond direct experience are so often wrong. The self you’re experiencing now is the one doing the ...
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  • The Veil Is Individuation

    The Veil Is Individuation
    2026/07/23
    One relatively unique aspect of Mormon theology is the concept of the veil. We typically understand the veil to be something like a curtain drawn over our premortal memory. It separates us from clear awareness of God, so that mortal life can serve as a genuine test. And we commonly imagine it descending upon us, either suddenly or gradually, around the time of our mortal birth. We associate the veil with forgetting. We forget our premortal selves, our premortal relations, and the premortal world generally. And some suppose that the forgetting is the veil itself. But I think we can profit from recognizing the forgetting to be a consequence of the veil rather than the veil itself. The veil itself, I propose, is separation. You’re a distinct center of experience, while I’m another. Each of us is unable to reach directly into the other’s mind. And the forgetting is just one consequence of this separation. More precisely, the forgetting is just one consequence of a particular kind of separation: our differentiation within and beyond the mind of God. In one sense, we were with God in the beginning as eternal matter in spiritual patterns of potential. In another sense, God created us spiritually: conceiving, calculating, and differentiating us from God within God, as our thoughts differentiate from ourselves within ourselves. Then God created us physically: evolving, cultivating, and differentiating us from God beyond God, as our actions differentiate from ourselves beyond ourselves. In terms of its function, the veil is individuation. It’s the process by which God differentiates into more Gods. It’s like human parents procreating a fertilized cell that differentiates into a body of specialized cells that become an embryo. In a sense, the embryo forgets the parents from which it differentiated. But of course, it also maintains some important connections, such as genetic inheritance and spatial proximity to the mother in her womb. Individuation isn’t necessarily a loss. To the contrary, individuation may be the ultimate creative act. Rather than diminishing the original, differentiation initiates a process by which the original may transcend itself with help beyond itself. Separation isn’t necessarily a loss. Agency, relationship, and love all require a genuine other with whom to interact. Undifferentiated unity has no one to address and no one to answer, carries no message, and enacts no love. So the veil, rather than an obstacle to communion with God, is actually a precondition to that communion in the fullest sense. Without the gap between us, there is no us. There are two ways past the veil. And they’re not symmetric. On the one hand, you can part the veil by ceasing to be individuated, which is spiritual death – maybe something like a dissolution into native element as Brigham Young envisioned. On the other hand, we can part the veil by re-integrating with God and each other in complex consensual ways, which is eternal life in a decentralized Godhood that preserves the identities that it joins. Most importantly, parting the veil isn’t just some anti-natural magical event that we must passively await. To the contrary, it’s moral work that we can do now. Each act of compassion reaches across the gap between us without diminishing either side. And that’s exactly what covenant (coming together) and atonement (being one) have always meant. As our technical capacities continue to advance, we will develop new ways of communicating. Presently, we connect our decentralized minds principally through sight and sound and their various media. But the time may come, perhaps not long from now, when we connect our minds more directly. This will present new opportunities and new risks, including the risk of dissolution into smothering consolidations of power, and the opportunity of transcendence into unprecedented degrees of networked empathy. The veil wasn’t simply the forgetting. It was our individuation. And it isn’t merely an obstacle. It’s the structured space across which we are learning to become many in one.
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  • How to Know God

    How to Know God
    2026/06/07
    The scriptures say a lot about God. God is the greatest intelligence (Abraham 3:19). God has a tangible body (D&C 130:22). God works within a community of Gods (Abraham 4:1). And God is present in and through the world itself (D&C 88:6). God is courageous (Moses 7:28). God is compassionate (1 John 4:16). And God is creative (Moses 1:33). Crucially, God is not (or at least particular Gods are not) static. In other words, in at least some important ways, God changes. Of that, Jesus Christ is the principal example. “He received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness” (D&C 93:13). At least, that’s what scripture says. But can we know any of that for ourselves? Can you know God? And, if so, how can you know God? When such questions arise, Mormons often appeal to Moroni 10:4-5. “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” What does that mean? Of course there’s the face value meaning: you can know anything “by the power of the Holy Ghost” after sincerely, intently, and faithfully asking God. But what does it actually look like, in practice, to ask in that way? And what is an answer “by the power of the Holy Ghost”? Often, Mormons interpret this to mean that we can know something is true by praying and feeling good about it. I think that can be a good start. But it’s a bad stop. Good feelings can sometimes be misleading. Even more broadly, when you close your eyes and set aside appeals to authority, what do you know? Honestly, what do you actually know? I suggest you know, at least, that which you’re feeling and thinking now. Regardless of the extent to which these immanent experiences may actually reflect anything that transcends you, you know the immanent experiences. Regardless of the extent to which your interior world accurately maps onto any exterior world, you know the interior world. If you’re feeling good, you know that. Suffering you know equally well. Your hopes and dreams, however fleeting they may be, you know as perfectly as they can be known. Your doubts too are known to you, even if ironically, as fully as knowledge can attain. That, I contend, says something about how we ought to interpret the Moroni passage. And, in turn, it says something about how we can ultimately know God most dependably. After explaining that God changes, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, the scripture continues (D&C 93:19-20): “I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness. For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.” That “fulness” that we may receive is the same that Jesus received. It is glorification in Christ, who is glorified in God. By extension, it’s a fullness of Godhood. And that, the scripture says, is what and how we ought to worship – the worship of emulation, rather than anything like obsequious groveling. The scriptures say a lot more about the practical consequences of such worship, of emulating and becoming God. God organizes us to gain intelligence and bodies, in community, expanding our presence in and through the world (Abraham 3:22-26). We increase in capacity for courage and compassion until, as God is, “so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17-18). Then we are Gods (D&C 76:58-60), made “equal in power, and in might, and in dominion” with God (D&C 76:95) by whom, through whom, and in whom “the worlds are and were created” (D&C 76:23-24). We will “see as [we] are seen, and know as [we] are known” (D&C 76:94). We will “comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him” (D&C 88:45-50). And “when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (Moroni 7:48). Consider. How could it be otherwise? How could God not know God? How could we not know ourselves, at least as dependably as we know anything at all? And if we recognize in our own experience, in our own feelings and thoughts, that which we esteem as Godhood, how could we not know God? To recognize God in ourselves, we must know God. This is simply true by definition. The first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ is faith. I understand that faith, in its most basic form, to be an active working trust in, or the courage to act on, Jesus’ claim that we, together with him, can overcome suffering and death. Joseph Smith, in his last general conference sermon, pressed us to understand that first principle, ...
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  • 29 Thoughts on April 2026 General Conference

    29 Thoughts on April 2026 General Conference
    2026/04/05
    Yesterday and today, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met for our worldwide general conference. The Saturday morning session was a solemn assembly in which we sustained our new Church president, Dallin H. Oaks. Oaks succeeded former Church president Russell M. Nelson upon the latter’s death, as is our custom. The act of sustaining a new Church president is an expression of support, not a vote. Often, while watching, I share my thoughts and feelings about conference in posts on social media. My intent is to promote deeper engagement with the conference. To that end, I generally express both affirmations and constructive criticisms. Below is a list of my posts during this conference. Elder Kearon points out that sustaining votes for persons called to fill positions in the Church don’t entail that we intend always to agree with them. They entail our willingness to support those persons in those positions. Still thinking about the structure of the solemn assembly, which implicitly emphasizes Church hierarchy and its predominantly male composition. Perhaps we should re-examine the extent to which doctrine demands this structure. Sister Yee says that “ministering is the essence of who God is,” implying that we become more like God as we minister to each other. Sister Yee says God needs help with the “staggering task of answering prayers.” Amen, sister. That’s practical faith. Love the artwork of Minerva Teichert, particularly the pioneer woman raising her arm, that Elder Gilbert references. It channels a substantial Earthy determination. Elder Gilbert addresses those “trapped in traditions,” illustrating with a story about people slow to join the Church, to honor another religious tradition. But this also applies to us in the Church, trapped in traditions that inhibit fuller emulation of God. Assuming technological change continues to accelerate biomedical interventions, Elder Bednar has the best chance of becoming the last president of the Church to receive the calling based on the death of a predecessor. Elder Bednar quotes D&C 93, emphasizing that Jesus, like us, did not begin with a fullness, but progressed from grace to grace – again like us. This is the heart of theosis, exemplified by Jesus in Christosis. Elder Becerra speaks of tithing, suggesting it gates emergence from poverty. I think a communal case can be made for this, particularly when tithing is understood broadly. But I suspect many individual cases contradict this. Characteristically, President Eyring speaks of peace, encouraging prayer to facilitate that. He’s right, probably even for you, if you will. Look at the science. Elder Ortega compares theosis to climbing a mountain, where the direct path is rarely the fastest or safest. I’d add that there are also many ways up a mountain. Elder Caussé is something of a celebrity in my home. My French wife is currently posing for a photo offering him (on the TV) a piece of baguette. Oh la la. Elder Caussé points out that, although we may serve those we love, we also tend to come to love those we serve. This is a salient practical observation. Investment in cooperative ecosystems reinforces emotional attachment to those ecosystems. Elder Matswagothata has presence — captivating presence. The second he smiled, I wanted to listen to him. Elder Soares warns against the philosophies of men. Scripture advocates love of the wisdom of God, which is the philosophy of God. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is aspiration to anything less than divine wisdom. Good to see Elder Uchtdorf as the opening Easter speaker for the second day of General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s one of my favorites. Elder Uchtdorf says the Easter story of Jesus changed the world forever. This is objectively true, even from a non-religious perspective. No ideology in human history has come even close to the number of Christians. Elder Uchtdorf says he saw “with spiritual eyes” that Jesus is resurrected. When I was young, Church members commonly supposed that apostles must see Jesus more literally than “spiritual eyes” may suggest. That seems not to be as commonly supposed today. President Freeman says that God’s promises will be fulfilled in us, regardless of the bad days through which we must pass, if we trust. That’s how prophecy works. It’s not about fortune-telling. It’s forthtelling. We make it so. Elder Rowe quotes Jesus, “that which you have seen me do, that you should do.” The Bible says Jesus consoles, heals, and raises the dead. Do Christians take Jesus seriously? Do we aim to console, heal, and raise the dead? Elder Rowe again quotes Jesus, “be converted that I may heal you.” Consider the conditional or causal structure of that invitation. What is it about change that mediates healing? Elder Rasband echoes thoughts and feelings of previous speakers, celebrating ...
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  • In Memory of Mike Perry

    In Memory of Mike Perry
    2026/04/19
    Dr. R. Michael (Mike) Perry was a gentle, principled, and thoughtful man who devoted decades of his life to Alcor and the cryonics movement. He also engaged broadly in the religious Transhumanist movement, including membership in the Christian Transhumanist Association, Terasem, Church of Perpetual Life, Society for Venturism, and Society for Universal Immortality. I first met him when he joined the Mormon Transhumanist Association, in its early years. He went on to present at Association conferences, serve as an advisor, and become a beloved friend. In conversation with me, Mike expressed inclinations toward naturalistic atheism. But he engaged Mormon thought with genuine curiosity and intellectual courage, even occasionally arguing that the hope of technological resurrection is not only compatible with religious intuition but even its fulfillment. At one Association conference, he presented his theory of “parallel recreation,” reasoning from informational realism and multiverse frameworks toward universal immortalism. It was, as I recall, during that presentation that I first heard him refer to Jesus’ biblical charge to “raise the dead” and claim that Christians “should take him more seriously.” I had the privilege of spending time with Mike just last weekend at the 20th anniversary retreat of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. He shared one of his digital music compositions for the gathered attendees, who listened with nothing short of reverence and erupted in applause afterward. At another time, as he and I sat together and caught up on each other’s lives, he spoke with enthusiasm about his plan to retire from paid work at Alcor and continue serving there for free. That detail says everything about who he was. Mike is now an Alcor patient, cryopreserved and in the care of the community that he helped build. This is an ending – a big one. But for those of us who share his hope in universal resurrection, this isn’t the last ending in his story. With him, we trust that the story need never have a last ending. Mike, I’m grateful for our time together, for your work and example, and for our friendship. See you in the resurrection. [ Visit the webpage to view the media. ]
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