Daily Transhumanist Spirituality
Jason Xu describes his journey to find daily spiritual practice aligned with transhumanist values, ultimately discovering Terasem—an organization whose four principles (life is purposeful, death is optional, God is technological, love is essential) resonated with his beliefs. Frustrated by the lack of transhumanist rituals comparable to traditional religious practices, Xu had previously attended Christian, Muslim, and Hare Krishna services while interpreting their teachings through a transhumanist lens. He advocates for transhumanism as a grand metanarrative that can provide meaning, arguing that strong AI and mind uploading will eventually offer a form of salvation, and that future religions will increasingly incorporate transhumanist themes as technology advances toward the singularity.
Jason Xu is a transhumanist with a deep interest in the intersection of technology, religion, and culture. Driven by a desire to find meaning and purpose in a world increasingly dominated by what he perceives as morally bankrupt cultural trends, Xu seeks to create art and rituals that celebrate and reinforce transhumanist values. He is passionate about the potential of technology to advance humanity towards a teleological end goal. ¶ Frustrated by the lack of established transhumanist communities and artistic expressions, Xu embarked on a unique spiritual journey. He explored various religious practices, including Christianity, Islam, and Hare Krishna, interpreting their rituals and beliefs through a transhumanist lens—specifically focusing on concepts such as mind uploading and ancestor simulation. This quest ultimately led him to Terasem, an organization whose principles resonated deeply with his own. ¶ Xu’s intellectual journey began in high school with an exploration of transhumanist ideas online. His desire for a deeper connection to these concepts and a community of like-minded individuals eventually led him to seek out organizations and practices that could foster a sense of shared belief and purpose. He has lived in the Bay Area for over 15 years and moved to Florida to join Terasem.
Transcript
Jason Xu
Let me start with a question. How many of you here have an identity, something, a belief system, or a set of values that you identify with?
Jason Xu
I do, and my values tend to be religious and transhumanist. I believe in a teleological end goal for all of humanity. which involves technology. And I also believe that we should have rituals and music and art that support this goal.
Jason Xu
And when I listen, turn on the radio in these times and I hear the songs, they go something like talk dirty to me. And when you think about the meaning of these lyrics, the actual meaning of the song is international sex tourism and going to different countries and being with different women. And as Americans in our culture today, we’re expected to enjoy this music and have our reptilian brains vibrate to this music. And from an intellectual perspective, that just sounds disgusting.
Jason Xu
When you think about the ultimate moral implications of this music, when I listen to Christians sing sometimes in church, I sometimes get jealous. They have songs that perfectly describe the structure of their entire belief systems all in one. For example, there’s one song that says, Living, he loved me, dying, he. He saved me. Buried, he carried my sins far away. Rising, he justified freely forever. One day, he’s rising, O glorious day.
Jason Xu
And I’m jealous that there’s not the same thing for transhumanism. There’s not a simple. piece of music or art that can capture the beauty of transhumanism and that we can repeat and enjoy every day.
Jason Xu
And this sort of anger at, you know, culture and the bad state of our artistic world has led me on a journey to eventually go to Florida and join terrorism after having lived in the Bay Area for over fifteen years.
Jason Xu
So intellectually, I first started to exper uh to like ter t like transhumanism, sorry, in high school. I explored the ideas on the internet and I really liked them.
Jason Xu
And it wasn’t until about four years later that I actually felt the real need to be in a community with people of the same beliefs. And I couldn’t really find a lot of transhumanist organizations. There were a few conferences, maybe once a year, but that was it.
Jason Xu
There was nothing to go to every day where you could you know, repeat and chant about how great transhumanism were.
Jason Xu
So my only strategy to practice my beliefs was to go to actual religions such as Christianity and Islam and the Hare Krishnas, and go to their temples and pray to their gods, but interpret everything to be about mind uploading and ultimate salvation through ancestor simulation.
Jason Xu
And this worked for a while, but I wanted something deeper that really reflected my beliefs. And one day, when I was in Mountain View, I found it when I googled the word TerraSim. I had somehow come up with found the idea through following a bunch of links through Julio Prisco’s site on um what do you call it? Turing Church.
Jason Xu
And when I went to TerraSim’s website, I was immediately struck by the four principles: life is purposeful, death is optional, God is technological, and love is essential.
Jason Xu
So TerraSem was recently featured in Time here, as you can see by the article Rapture of the Nerds by Jessica Roy. So it’s become somewhat popular on the Internet, and people are talking about it a lot.
Jason Xu
And if you go to Terrorism’s website, terrorismfaith. net. you’ll see a list of the entire truths of Tarasim, which is kind of like their Bible, which details what their exact beliefs are, their rituals. which occur daily, monthly, weekly. In fact, today is one of their monthly rituals. And also their practices, such as their kundalini yoga, as you can see here.
Jason Xu
When I read about Terror Sim on that day in Mountain View, waiting at the Caltrain, I was deeply struck and impressed that this type of organization had already existed. that what I had been looking for was here all along. So I made the decision to spend seven months of my life in Florida.
Jason Xu
I before I I got interested in terrorism, I was deeply existentialist because I had trouble finding meaning in life and existentialism Pride did the best answers because it said that we exist without purpose and that we have to find our own purpose. And my interest in transhumanism was somewhat a reflection of that. I didn’t believe in ultimate immortality. I just believed in living longer and better because we wanted to create our own goals and ultimately create our own destinies and not have some pre-existing religious teleology imposed upon us.
Jason Xu
But eventually, as I have told you, I turned around and I eventually became more teal teleological. And this wasn’t a reflection of the change in my belief system. but it was a reflection in the style which in which I approached my beliefs. I wanted something which was more relevant to my daily life, which inspired me more and brought me more happiness because I could practice my values on a daily basis.
Jason Xu
I think that transhumanism should provide answers to existential problems. I mean, it provides answers to existential questions because it presents them as engineering problems.
Jason Xu
For example, we often fill a soft fill off. philosophize about death, but in transhumanism we view death as simply the end of the lifespan of an organism. There is no real deeper Meaning behind death, except that our consciousness stops and we are made of matter, and the universe is materialistic and deterministic.
Jason Xu
In TerraSem, I had the I had been leading monthly gatherings about our beliefs, and they were on Google Hangout. And we would gather every day where we would perform music and art, we would read through the truths of Terra SM, we would discuss them, and we would do yoga.
Jason Xu
And I believe the future of religion is that it is a grand metanarrative for all of humanity to find meaning in. I believe that religion will become more diversified. People will be creating their own religions like terrorism, which will inspire other people, and different things will work for different people. Some people will like to interpret music their own way and make the lyrics about transhumanism, and other people will want Christian versions of transhuman. Buddhist versions of transhumanism, and they can form their own subgroups, but different subgroups can also talk to each other and meet up.
Jason Xu
in Christian circles there’s usually small groups. In inner varsity Christian uh the Christian campus community, there are subgroups often based on race such as African Americans, Asians, and et cetera. And there’s no reason why the same thing can’t exist within transhumanism.
Jason Xu
So to conclude, I believe that strong AI and mine uploading will provide a future form of salvation. and we can base a culture, a belief system, and a daily ritual practice upon this.
Jason Xu
I believe that future religion will incorporate transhumanist themes greatly and that as we approach the singularity, as we get better and better AI and better technology, more and more people will turn towards transhumanism. As a religious solution.
Jason Xu
Thank you.
Jason Xu
Questions? Lincoln?
Lincoln
What’s the best website to go to to learn more about Terrorism?
Jason Xu
Well, there is terrorism. org, which has a bunch of terrorism websites, but the best one is terrorismfaith. net.
Speaker 2
Yes. Could you describe a little further the um the the ritual and ceremony aspect A and B if uh like in many traditional religions, there’s something required of the adherents. I see. So uh second question is the
Jason Xu
The answer to the second question is there’s nothing required of the adherence to the adherence. Everything in Terrorism is optional. All the beliefs are essentially suggestions such as make a video if you want to join and do yoga and you know, on and on.
Jason Xu
And the and for the p beliefs and practices, um, yoga is one of the main practices. We in Terrasim we do Khundalini Yoga monthly. Um there are five of them, one for um every four hours. Except for the 2 a. one.
Jason Xu
And there is also reading of the truths of terrorism, discussion of the truths of terrorism, which you can also find online at terrorismfaith. net slash Beliefs and also sharing of art and music at every terrorism gathering. And one of them is tonight.
Jason Xu
Yes. And there are other minor beliefs, but those are the major rituals performed.