Lincoln Cannon

By: Lincoln Cannon
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • Lincoln Cannon is a technologist and philosopher, and leading voice of Mormon Transhumanism.
    2024-2025 Lincoln Cannon
    Show More Show Less
Spirituality
Show More Show Less
Episodes
  • Don't Die Can Be Good But Thriving Is Always Better

    Don't Die Can Be Good But Thriving Is Always Better
    Jan 14 2025
    Celebrity biohacker Bryan Johnson recently sent a provocative email to his followers. “I am the healthiest person on the planet,” he claims. True or not, he probably has your attention. I don’t have concerns with the sensationalism, at least not in itself. Hopefully Bryan is every bit as healthy as he claims. His data is impressive, to say the least. And I admire his courage and tenacity. But I do have some concerns with the ideology that Bryan promotes throughout the remainder of his email. He calls it “Don’t Die.” It could be a good start – better than so many alternatives vying for our hearts and minds. But, at least so far as he has yet articulated, the ideology has practical limitations that must and will ultimately impede its potential for primacy, as I’ll explain. Bryan first introduced the “Don’t Die” ideology in a 2023 book by the same name. The book repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly, touched on Bryan’s relationship with Mormonism. So, at the time, I wrote about that relationship in particular. Now, while enjoying the provocation of Bryan’s recent email, I feel to write some more general thoughts. Before I get to my concerns, however, I want to establish some personal context. I like Bryan. And I think his work is nothing short of momentous on a sociocultural level. So if you’re looking for a reason to hate him, make fun of him, or dismiss him, go away. Don’t Die Is Not the Universal Game After elaborating on his health claim, Bryan characterizes “Don’t Die” as the “oldest and most played game in human history.” He says religion, business, military, politics, and even procreation are forms of this game. “It’s the universal game,” he says. There’s an extent of truth to this. In the most general sense, survival is a necessary condition for the achievement of any goal. That which doesn’t exist doesn’t have any goals, let alone any capacity to achieve any goals. Thus, some extent of survival must be at least an instrumental goal. But survival in the most general sense doesn’t necessarily entail evasion of death. That may sound nonsensical at first. But hear me out. You’ll undoubtedly end up agreeing. In practically impactful ways, you can survive your death. And innumerable people already have. They’ve done this by teaching their children, loving their friends, creating artwork and machinery, and organizing communities that outlast their bodies. In each of these and countless other ways, people have been continuing to achieve their goals even after they die bodily. To my mind, this means that part of us can survive death. In the least, it’s our influence and creation. It’s our esthetic. We might call it our “spirit.” Now of course I’m not content with this kind of merely spiritual survival. After all, I’m a proponent of (nearly) universal resurrection, understood in the most literal sense as embodied resurrection, and pursued in the most practical sense as technological resurrection. But despite my discontent, I could not rightly claim that nothing survives bodily death. That’s simply a false idea, even if we were to concede to those who are skeptical of more elaborate notions of a spiritual afterlife. So, returning to Bryan’s characterization of “Don’t Die” as the universal game, we can see a problem. As it’s true to some extent when “Don’t Die” is understood broadly, it’s likewise false to some extent when “Don’t Die” is understood narrowly. And this problem has practical ramifications. Countless people, as recorded in history and envisioned in myth, have intentionally died in the narrow sense to facilitate achievement of their goals. A parent may sacrifice her life to save her child. A soldier may sacrifice his life to defend his country. Of particular note, the most influential ideology on Earth, Christianity, epitomizes the perpetuation and even magnification of goal achievement after bodily death. These observations reveal that narrowly construed “Don’t Die” is not the universal game, even if it’s a prevalent game. At least some of us have been playing a different game since the dawn of history, recognizing that narrow death doesn’t necessarily terminate and may even facilitate pursuit of our goals. Again, the other game might be a broadly construed “Don’t Die.” But, in that case, I think we can give it a less confusing name. Some Things Are Worse Than Death Bryan observes that, in this time of accelerating technological evolution, we’re “giving birth to superintelligence. And we “no longer know how long and how well we can live,” or “how expansive and rich existence could be.” Compared to our superhuman potential, we’re like our prehuman ancestors who couldn’t begin to conceive of contemporary science, let alone understand it. And yet we’re embroiled in “debauchery, greed and violence,” killing ourselves and each other. He’s exactly right. Maybe it...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute
  • God the Cosmic Host, and AI Creation

    God the Cosmic Host, and AI Creation
    Dec 10 2024
    It’s getting harder to be an atheist. A quarter century ago, it wasn’t so hard. But things have changed – quite dramatically. It has become increasingly difficult to remain an atheist while coherently aspiring to a thriving future for humanity. Now keep in mind that I’m not talking about atheism toward any narrow conception of God. It remains pretty easy to be that kind of atheist. I’m talking about atheism toward that which functions as God in the general sense, whether or not you can bring yourself to use the label “God.” In function, God always has been and is at least a superhuman projection. The main reason that atheism is getting harder is accelerating technological evolution. We can now do things that our ancestors would have considered God-like. We can even do things that some of our younger selves, if we’re old enough, would have considered God-like. And, more clearly than ever, we can see how this is likely to become increasingly the case – as long as we don’t destroy ourselves. Most Transhumanists have great hope, generally of the active sort, that humanity can and will evolve into superhumanity – something approximating God in function. But some, like me a quarter century ago, remain stubbornly atheist regarding the notion that such superhuman intelligences already exist. I changed, for various esthetic and pragmatic reasons, as I became familiar with the ideas that would eventually coalesce into the New God Argument. It was simply incoherent, logically and probabilistically, to trust in a superhuman future for humanity while being skeptical that superhuman intelligence already exists. Nick Bostrom As the reality and potential of AI has become increasingly obvious, the logical and probabilistic incoherence of trusting in an eventual human merger with AI while maintaining atheism toward that which functions as God seems to be reaching a breaking point. The latest evidence for this comes from secular Transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom. He recently published a paper entitled “ AI Creation and the Cosmic Host.” In it, he argues that we have moral and practical reasons for “an attitude of humility” toward “the cosmic host.” This is the same Nick Bostrom who published the most popular formulation of the Simulation Argument. His formulation was important in my early transition from closet atheism back to enthusiastic belief. I used his argument as a basis for developing a generalized simulation argument, which became part of the New God Argument. And the argument has become profoundly influential among religious Transhumanists generally. Now Nick is doubling-down on the hypothesis that superhuman intelligence already exists. And it exists, not just inconsequentially far away, but immanently. Superhuman intelligence may have simulated our world, he suggested in the Simulation Argument. And “human civilization is most likely not alone in the cosmos but is instead encompassed within a cosmic host.” The Cosmic Host Is God Nick points out, so that I don’t have to, that the comic host could be not only galactic civilizations or simulators, but also “a divine being or beings.” He even allows for “nonnaturalistic members of the cosmic host.” That’s more generous toward theism than I would be, given that I consider anti-naturalism to be even more incoherent than atheist Transhumanism. In any case, I call the cosmic host “God,” and consider it to be quite natural, despite being miraculously powerful from humanity’s perspective. Nick says that the existence of God (my word) is probable. He bases this conclusion on the combination of the probabilities of a few possibilities: the simulation hypothesis, the immense size of the universe, the multiverse hypothesis, the “supernatural” God hypothesis, and potential future superhumanity. The most salient of these possibilities are potential future superhumanity and the simulation hypothesis. The former is essential to the Faith Assumption (or what some have begun calling the “Courage Assumption”) of the New God Argument. The latter is even more salient when generalized to the creation hypothesis, agnostic to any particular engineering mechanism, which would thereby include the multiverse hypothesis to the extent that such could be engineered. This generalization is essential to the Creation Argument of the New God Argument. Influence of God Nick suggests that God might not control all aspects of the cosmos. For example, life might be too sparse in some regions, making control practically difficult or impossible. Or God may intentionally refrain from controlling all aspects of the cosmos. Perhaps such control would undermine God’s purposes or the potential of other agents within the cosmos. If you’re Mormon or familiar with Mormonism, this should sound familiar to you. As the story goes, God created our world and relinquished power over it so that we could exercise agency and learn to become like...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute
  • Blockchain Defenses Against the Singleton

    Blockchain Defenses Against the Singleton
    Dec 5 2024
    Singletons — centralized powers — are the greatest threat to the future of humanity. You think hacking of U.S. telecommunications by China is bad now? Next time it may be a superintelligent A.I. And it will use everything it knows to manipulate, control, and enslave you. Think the U.S. Government will save us? Not in its current form. Giving the executive branch more power to fight back only makes matters worse. And it almost certainly won’t willingly give up power. In its current form, it’s the world’s juiciest target for superintelligence. The solution is the opposite of a singleton arms race. The solution is more and greater formal decentralization of power. This isn’t a call for anarchy. And it’s not a fantasy of libertopia. Formal decentralization retains rule of law, while spreading authority. Formal decentralization already exists in separation of powers between the three main branches of the U.S. Government. It already exists in separation of powers between federal and state governance. It’s not a new idea. But it’s still only getting started. New and greater expressions of decentralized governance are possible. They could more robustly protect us from internal abuses of power and assaults from external singletons. But we have work to do. The extent of decentralized power we now enjoy required supporting technologies, such as the printing press and eventually radio and television. Without them, we could not have scaled decentralization as we have. Greater decentralization will also require new technologies. Fortunately, we have already been experimenting with new decentralized technologies since the dawn of the Internet. Probably the most notable example is blockchain, which has resulted in countless experiments in decentralized governance. Some people ridicule blockchain, disparaging it as nothing more than gambling, scams, and money laundering. They’re right that all the problems exist. But they’re deeply incorrect to stop their assessment with those observations. Despite the darkness, despite persistent attempts to undermine and destroy, blockchain has also produced a paradigm shift in finance that facilitates and expedites worldwide transactions. And it’s beginning to do the same in other areas, such as communications and law. Blockchain has created real value in a Wild West context. It has learned to survive without and often despite centralized authorities. It has done so out of necessity. And it has become the world’s greatest experiment in decentralization of power. Here we are on the eve of superintelligence. Singletons will surely rise to unprecedented power. Our security and privacy, our agency, is at risk like never before. But we may have the tools we need to protect ourselves, if we continue to choose formal decentralization. The bright side of blockchain isn’t merely new investment opportunities. The bright side is potential for utterly necessary new forms of governance. I don’t know what the specific details will prove to be. But, to the best of my knowledge, nothing else is more promising. Addressing Some Concerns Some are concerned about the development of excessively techno-centric communities. This concern is always relative. Our distant ancestors, if they could see us, would probably consider almost all of us, including the more technophobic among us, to be excessively techno-centric. But there’s an extent to which this concern is also always worth keeping in mind. Please don’t understand me to be advocating for the dominance of anything like “crypto communities.” I’m interested in communities that have crypto features rather than crypto communities. Technology must serve us, not consume or enslave us. Some are concerned about memecoins and spambots. I agree that crypto has many challenges, and plenty of substantial ethical failures throughout its history. But, in a sober sense, these risks can and should be perceived as features. No experiment in decentralized governance will ever work without navigating the extremes of humanity. And blockchain is providing a timely opportunity to do so in a relatively virtual space before AI upends everything around us. Keep in mind that memes on centralized networks are already quite bad. And, because of the centralized powers behind them, they’re far more dangerous. Some observe that the portability and composability of personal data could solve a lot of problems with centralization. That’s true. However, no individual can solve this problem alone or even separately in large numbers. The networks through which we must operate can gaslight us, no matter how independent we perceive ourselves to be. There’s an age-old question about whether individuals or communities are more important. Even the chicken or egg question is an example of this, where eggs are a communal artifact. In my opinion, the answer is that they are equally important. Some understand decentralization to imply a passive ...
    Show More Show Less
    Less than 1 minute

What listeners say about Lincoln Cannon

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available