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The feminist philosopher Donna Haraway observed that the cyborg is not just a creature of speculative fiction, but of modern social reality.1 She saw the myth of the post-human cyborg as a feminist alternative to the dualist myth of the human. In the traditional construction of a human, we imagine that the person is conceptually separable from his bodily mechanisms. This is baked into modern intuition, because we say, for example, that a human “has” a body or brain, not that a human “is” a body or brain. A cyborg is not a traditional human in that sense. It is a person inseparably welded and wired to her embodiment. A cyborg is an indivisible and indistinct union of person and mechanism, and it is impossible to locate the true boundary between woman and machine.

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As a programmer, my greatest creative outlet is writing code. While searching deep inside an interconnected web of bits and logic to hunt down that perpetual last bug may seem to someone from the outside to be anything but creative, there is a unique type of creativity that is found in writing software. A new sense of awe and joy is found in the deeply felt human experience of curiosity, exploration, and creation when we see those things not as uniquely human and ephemeral but as things which can make us one with nature, the universe, each other, and God.

Dear members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association,

You're invited to participate in the association's 2014 survey, which will help association leadership better represent you and your interests. As in previous years, we've designed the survey such that you can complete it in less than 5 minutes! Here's the link:

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Mormonism is, above all other things, an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. It's not so much a religion about Jesus as it is an aspiration to live the religion of Jesus. This Gospel is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse both our bodies and our minds in the role of Christ, to become gods and saviors, to console, to heal, and to raise each other up together. This is the heart of Mormonism. This Gospel of Jesus Christ underlies Mormon Transhumanism.

The Mormon Transhumanist Association will co-publish an ebook anthology in Spring 2015, tentatively titled:

The Poorest of the Poor will find Pasture - religion, the future, and the charitable impulse

The first line of the title is from Isaiah 14:30 (New International Version). The prophet is forecasting a future in which poverty is eradicated. Isaiah - messenger of the Deity - foretells an end to economic inequity because God is outraged by the injustice:

The Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA) is dedicating itself to a humanitarian cause - alleviating poverty in Uganda. 67% of Ugandans live below the poverty line, and 24.7% are trapped in extreme poverty. Additionally, there are 2.5 million orphans in Uganda; UNICEF estimates that 45% are parentless due to AIDS. The new MTA staff members in this activity are Hank Pellissier (Manager of Humanitarian Projects) and Roger Hansen (Assistant Manager of Humanitarian Projects).

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DOROTHY DEASY

Dorothy Deasy, a director of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, was interviewed by The Columbian on the topic of religion and Transhumanism.

In the interview, she discusses the importance of bridging religious ideals with how we will relate to rapidly changing technology, doing our best to guide technology in directions that are beneficial for society, and avoiding abuses that may arise from some conceptualizations of advancing civilization.

Read "Conversations abound about what it means to be human" at The Columbian.

Lincoln Cannon, president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, will present at the Venturists' Cryonics Convention, held 7-9 November 2014 in Laughlin, Nevada.

Is Death (and taxes) No Longer Inevitable?

Larry Page, the CEO of Google, has invested billions of dollars of his company’s capital into a new company called Calico, which has the goal of finding cures for aging and death.

Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D., the world’s foremost scientific gerontologist, says that the first person to live 1,000 years has probably already been born.

In the interest of ongoing transparency, the Board of Directors of the Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to release the following leadership performance review. Each member of the Board independently evaluated the performance of the Board as a whole and the performance of CEO Lincoln Cannon, who is appointed by the Board to manage the Association. Secretary of the Board, Dorothy Deasy, gathered and compiled the evaluations into a single review, which follows.