The Transfigurist

I see your God who has done everything already, and I see the Anti-Christ. Its message is that the work is done, or the work is permanently reserved for Him. Jesus accomplished His part, which, as it happens, was all that needed to be done.

In an ironic twist, Jesus is turned, and used as the pacifier to keep us from doing the work of Christ. Jesus, the model of taking on all burdens, is invoked as a reason to not take on burdens--because He already took them all on.

Jesus is twisted, and used as the pacifier to convince us that reading sacred texts, performing rituals, and obeying leaders and rules is the whole of the work. But no one believes it; we can sustain it only for a time. The texts, rituals, leaders and rules themselves point to something more, and betray the attempt to lull us. Moreover, the suspicion that we are responsible only grows with time, even as the harsh prospect that the burdens are ours is frightening.

Here is where Jesus, the Savior, the Model, offers not so much comfort as hope and faith and encouragement. The burden is great. The work is real, and daunting. And that cliché phrase that isn’t even scriptural suddenly resounds as if from Christ: It won’t be easy, but Humanity and what it may become is worth it.

-Ben Blair

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"While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel." " (Matthew 9:32-33)

While maladies such as mental illness or muteness are now rarely superstitiously reduced to demon possession, miracles of tools which can help the mute speak are emerging. These technologies are in early stages, but they can already begin to break down the barrier of muteness. Here, the autonomy and leadership of deaf communities is an asset as they can create, direct, and use these technologies to foster greater communication and connection. Here are two such approaches.

SignAloud is a gesture glove which a signer can wear which will send the signing information to a computer over bluetooth which will then interpret the signs and vocalize them.




MotionSavvy takes a different approach. Rather than wear a glove, MotionSavvy uses a sensitive motion detector. The signer can then sign above the sensor which, connected to a tablet, can then interpret the signs and vocalize them. It also has the ability to do speech to text so deaf and mute individuals can use it to communicate both ways:



While our attitudes towards and tools used to address and heal muteness have changed, the desire to help the mute speak remains just as worthy a goal for Christians and non-Christians alike.

-Caleb Jones


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"Suppose that the world’s author put the case to you before creation, saying: “I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own 'level best.' I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through. It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done. Will you join the procession? Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?”" -William James, Pragmatism

A pretend basketball game will never bring out the best efforts of participants. If it is fixed, and the end is already decided, no matter how important you tell the players the game is, they won’t, they can’t “leave it all on the court”. Or, wait. Perhaps this is wrong. Perhaps the game is real, but the tactic is to convince the players that it's not, that the end has already been decided. Now there is no real pressure, and the players, like Ender Wiggins, may do crazy things they wouldn’t consider in a real game, because that is what we must resort to now.

Jesus’s life constituted a radical expansion of morality and ethics. It was not a suspension of the ethical, a la Abraham, or the God of Moses, where Jesus did something that, except God commanded it, was evil. No, Jesus never suspended our morality, but rather deepened and broadened it beyond anything that had hitherto been suggested or tried. His life was a continual widening of circles whenever others (particularly the Pharisees) tried to draw lines and boundaries. Until the end when He recognized the burden for what it was: everything; all of it; nothing left behind; and swallowed it up.

Jesus’ mission isn't yet complete. Christ hasn’t yet overcome all evil. Christ hasn’t yet conquered all death. Those monsters are still ravaging, kicking and screaming. But, thanks in significant part to Jesus, their power and influence are diminishing. He drew the boundaries, or rather showed that there were no boundaries, and boldly proclaimed that nothing short of everything would do. And until His followers in deed join in completing His work, and overcome all evil, including death, His life will remain short of its mission.

Jesus’s mission was as much an invitation, as a completed monumental individual task. The final outcome is still in question. We have reason to hope for victory. But we may yet lose. Perhaps the greatest respect God can give humanity is this: We haven’t been put in a fixed game whose end has already been determined (or if we have, it's a ruse for a bigger, real one). And the formerly metaphysical ideas of resurrection and redemption, once left to an abstract future life, like all prophecy, are flooding into the physical, current life.

If there is still time on the clock, we do no favors to participants by telling them that their team has already won unless the game itself is pretend. No. Overcoming all evil and death will only happen when humans or their descendents, joining Christ, actually overcome them.

-Ben Blair


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"And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children." (Matthew 15:34-38)

The story of Jesus feeding the multitudes is a story of multiplying limited resources. One way our food resources have been multiplied is through modern agricultural practices. In the last 50 years wheat yields have doubled and significantly increased global food security. And while the Green Revolution, which multiplied food production, also has problems such as environmental impact, biodiversity, pollution, and nutrition, it's positive impact on hunger can't be denied. As nobel-winning  biologist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug pointed out:

“The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades.”

Decades later, facing increasing challenges of pollution, climate change, and disease, we are beginning to develop new techniques in genetic-engineering, hydroponics, aeroponics, and vertical farming which have the potential to increase food production, food security, and prevent disease. These certainly face their own challenges, but they also provide methods and tools for us to emulate the works of Jesus as they can multiply food. And as this can better lead to feeding the hungry, this is a worthy goal.

-Caleb Jones

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When Joshua led the Israelites to Canaan--a land where they could settle and grow their own food--manna from heaven ceased to appear (Joshua 5:12). God didn't disappear; after all, it was God who had kept them whole in the wilderness and delivered them to the promised land.

We couldn’t have known that people were starving or trafficked in different parts of the world 100 years ago. We likely couldn’t have known that people were starving or trafficked 5 miles from us. And if we could know, we couldn’t do much about it. Perhaps there is some excuse for evil that we recognize hypothetically, but that it is impossible to do anything about.

But what do we say about evil that we recognize, and that we understand we can do something about, but that we refuse to? Or, that we forget to, or don't think to? Or find too overwhelming?

We live in a world where we know of many evils, and we know how to address many of them, at least in initial ways. And we can recognize, triage-like, that some evil is bleeding out life and hope faster than others and so requires more intensive care, even while many evils seemingly remain far beyond our current abilities to address. The more we work to address the evils, the better we become at addressing them, and the more miracles and surprise discoveries attend our work. We will certainly make mistakes early on, and throughout, but we will also become more effective and efficient through the work if we're humble and mindful.

So what is the role of God in a world like this? Where we--the children of God--have everything we need to start to address clear evils, and most of what we need to fix them? It’s a rhetorical question.

-Ben Blair

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"While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat." (Luke 8:49-55)

Modern advances in medicine and technology have blurred the line between life and death as we progressively reach to the dead using our tools, technology, and desire to heal as we call them to "arise".

• We now have the ability to preserve life in vegetative or comatose states allowing doctors and family to explore many types of treatments. These states, which would have meant almost certain death -- if not interpreted as death -- in ancient times have become increasingly treatable.
• Cryonics is an emerging field with successful outcomes performed on animals. This offers hope to some who may be able to "sleep" until treatment can be found for their illness.
• Certain types of surgeries involve stopping the heart and lungs for hours at a time.
• Doctors and nurses follow rituals of defibrillator use to restore heart function.
• CPR techniques save the lives of many, bringing them back from death.
• We use the organs of the dead to preserve life for the living -- which would have been unfathomable and likely objectionable to ancient and even relatively modern peoples.
• Some engage in early, crude efforts to replicate the consciousness and intelligence of loved ones from their digital artifacts.

Certainly, along with these tools and technology come the ethical questions of how & when to administer them. But as we seek to ethically preserve life and to recover our dead we can follow the example Jesus set in healing, even when that healing crosses (and blurs) the line between life and death.

-Caleb Jones

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The approach of attesting: “Jesus understands you. Jesus will heal/comfort/lift/unburden etc. you.” can work to deceive the attesters that the burdens of others are Jesus’ to carry. This approach can, ironically, separate us rather than bind us together--because we would-be healers and healed, throw our hands up (even if in prayer) rather than extend them to another.

This approach can work to soothe and trick the evil doer into thinking he’s not responsible for the evil he carries out or facilitates (even through inaction); and if he is somehow to blame, it will be fixed by Jesus anyway. But these interpretations are misreadings that deceive us away from the work of Christ. We all have blood on our hands. Christ’s true followers are doing something about it.

-Ben Blair

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Recent trends indicate that organized religion is declining in many developed western nations (source). One way to respond to trends like that is to become zealous about defending faith. This approach often has disastrous results as religious zealousness pits its own righteous desires against others (including their own). Ultimately, it divides the Body of Christ through contention. An example of this is Peter’s defense of Jesus as he was arrested. The defense of Jesus was a righteous desire. Unfortunately, his zeal that lead to contention was out of line.

"Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him." (Luke 22:48-51, NIV)

Currently, I’m saddened and ashamed of all the ears being cut off in the name of religion today. Swords are drawn on various sides as authoritative exercises of religious institutional power cuts off members who are hurting. And swords of indignation are swung at the flaws of religious institutions. We even see this play out in families where faith can become a contentious wedge rather than a healing balm.

Contrast this with Jesus’ response to Peter and Malchus as he stops Peter and heals Malchus’ ear. Can we see in this example how Christ is perhaps calling us to put away our religious and institutional weapons and instead see and heal the suffering of others? Will we stand up to destructive zealotry and say, "No more of this!" as we then seek to be healers? With so many who are hurting today, we have a much greater need for healers and peacemakers than we do for zealots. I think we all have the responsibility to find ways to put injured ears back on and begin listening to one another.

Abraham Joshua Heschel in "God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism" makes this observation:

"It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless."

Perhaps the challenge for religion today is for it to produce more healers than zealots, to listen rather than attack or contend, and to re-commit ourselves to better emulate the works of Jesus, the Master Healer.

-Caleb Jones

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Statue on the grounds of The Bishop's Palace in Wells (photo credit: Stewart Black)

A beautiful Christmas video from the Mormon church describes a world without a savior--where we couldn’t take back mistakes; where every heartache lasted forever; where wounds never healed. Without Jesus’ acts, so the argument goes, humanity would be infinitely and permanently deficient on a divine ledger.

With Christians, I believe that Christ restores the balance on such a divine ledger. But this belief is not in reverence to past abstract metaphysical acts. If it were, I see no moral value in it. I can’t comprehend it; no one can. It’s strange to even try to be grateful. I take it the only way anyone can: I take it for granted. I trust He’s not offended by this. We can understand Jesus’ acts as past abstract metaphysical tasks (i.e. having compensated on a divine ledger), or as present motivation to join the work and take up the cross of the world. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but only one moves us.

There were wounds that didn't heal, such as polio and smallpox; but we learned to heal them. And there are mistakes that we are--if ever so slowly--learning to overcome, such as sexism, racism, materialism, and turning a blind eye to those we oppress or allow to be oppressed. And we can just now imagine a future where there will be no heartaches that will last forever; where death, the last enemy, may finally be swallowed up. But these improvements have not come about, nor will they come about simply because of ancient metaphysical acts, even if such acts were necessary.

As abstract ideas, Jesus’s acts to compensate on a divine ledger are by definition part of the setting or backstory; they are not characters in the current plot that we must continually prop up to remind the audience. It’s not blasphemy to claim that Jesus’ acts haven’t directly cured any diseases. Nor is it right to say that His acts--and the mindset that they introduced--had no influence on such progress. No, the progress has come from humans following the example of Jesus (in deed if not in word), and joining Christ by taking responsibility for wounds, mistakes, and heartaches.

There may be a metaphysical need for a savior, but the only work we need concern ourselves with is not adoring that savior from afar but with joining His current work of healing all wounds, overcoming all mistakes, and making all hearts whole, forever.

-Ben Blair

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"And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain... And [they] were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." (Mark 7:31-35, 37)

Whether through an unexplained miraculous healing in ancient times or through utilizing the efforts of those who have developed modern technology, acts like bringing hearing to those who seek it emulate the works of Jesus.







-Caleb Jones
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On this night the universe tipped its hat to humanity. The animals, the angels, and the stars all joined in proclaiming: We hereby entrust this to you. It was on this night. Though made sure in Gethsemane and on the cross, this was the moment. Not the moment of creation. Not any other moment of any other person, prophet or prophetess. This was the moment the universe gave the torch to humanity--through the child born, the son given. And Christ responded by accepting, or taking responsibility for it all, through His life and faith in the efforts of those who would follow. And His human followers in deed will continue to carry the torch until the trust is fulfilled, or it reaches a race more worthy.

-Ben Blair

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"And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them." (Luke 4:38-39)

Certainly there are many cases where fevers are life-threatening even today, but we often think of fevers as an inconsequential symptom of illness. Today we have largely "rebuked" the fever through  antipyretic drugs and therapy. But how did this happen? And what does that tell us about the role science and technology can play in emulating the works of Jesus?

While the origin of antipyretic therapy is not known, ancient people's have long known about the antipyretic properties of plants like the leaves or bark of willow and myrtle plants. These treatments were diluted in their efficacy, however, without concentration of the ingredient with the antipyretic property. It wasn't until 1763 when the first scientific, clinical application of these properties was studied by the Reverend Edward Stone as he systematically administered willow bark to 50 patients suffering from ague (malaria) with positive results.  He submitted his findings in letter to the Royal Society of London.

In 1829 the French pharmacist Henri Leroux isolated pure salicin from white willow and demonstrated its antipyretic properties. Building on that work, in 1838 the Italian chemist Raffaele Piria hydrolyzed salicin into salicylic alcohol from which which he produced salicylic acid. Then in 1874 the Scottish physician Thomas MacLagan conducted one of the first clinical trials of salicin as he treated rheumatic fever.

With the chemical process and formulae defined and pharmaceutical application studied, industrialization began immediately. In 1829 Kolbe and Lautemann began commercially synthesizing salicylic acid which lead to its commercial form: sodium salicylate which gained widespread popularity. However, adverse side-effects limited its application.

In 1897 the German chemist Felix Hoffman who worked for Friedrich Bayer and Co., in trying to derive a substance from salicylic acid which could avoid these side-effects, succeeded in acetylating the compound's phenol moiety to produce acetylsalicylic acid into a stable form. This was then commercialized as a drug called “Aspirin” in early 1899. One theory of why the name "Aspirin" was used is that it comes from the patron Saint of headaches, St. Aspirinius.

The the turn of the century many variations of the compound had been created which include: antipyrine, antifebrin, phenacetin, acetaminophen, and pyramidon. These were followed by phenylbutazone, the fenamates, and indomethacin, developed in the 1900s. However, the exact mechanism by which these drugs exhibited their properties was unknown.

By the 1970s experiments showed that aspirin-derived drugs limited the formation of prostaglandins by disrupting the cyclooxygenase (COX) activity of prostaglandin endoperoxidase synthase. A hypothesis was formed of the existence of multiple forms of COX with various tissue distributions by observing that acetaminophen inhibits prostaglandin synthesis in the central nervous system but not in other tissues. It wasn't until 1991 that this was proven. Today, work continues to lessen or eliminate the toxicity that still remains in aspirin. And nano-technology promises even greater possibilities in drug administration on the horizon.

The history of how we have developed modern medicine is fascinating as it has relied on the joint effort of physicians, chemists, industrial technology, and biological sciences. It is through the persistent use of these tools that we have come to regularly "rebuke" fevers which was a work that Jesus exemplified so long ago. And it illustrates how technology, science, and industry are instruments for us to use as we seek to do the works of Jesus to heal the sick. Science and technology hasn't replaced God. Science and technology is enabling us to become more like God and Christ.

-Caleb Jones

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Source: 'Brief History of Antipyretic Therapy' by Philip A. Mackowiak, Oxford Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases

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We are either the children or creators of God. Either way, we have a claim on God. As a race, we have matured beyond worship as obeisance to stem violence or cruelty.

Jesus’s life focused our worship from a scattered scene of offerings and rituals to turn our attention to taking responsibility for death and evil.

Our claim is that God won’t haphazardly rain down death and evil on us. These happen because of humans or nature. And God’s claim on us is that we will make death and evil less likely, less damaging, less frequent, and less permanent; until, with Christ, we vanquish them.

-Ben Blair

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"And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. When Jesus saw him lying, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made whole? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. And straightway the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked." (John 5:5-9)

While many find peace and independence operating with their physical limitation, for many who are disabled, independence is a significant struggle. This can especially be true when use of resources, locations, and facilities is limited due to lack of accessibility. This dynamic comes through in the story of the "infirm" man Jesus encountered. His desire to seek out a form of healing available in his day was repeatedly rebuffed as others with greater access would rush in ahead of him. He felt alone and helpless saying, "I have no man" to help him.

This feeling of isolation and loss of independence can be just as powerful to heal as the physical limitation itself. This can be healed through outreach and creating greater accessible spaces, environments, and communities. However, this can also be done through creating accessible technology which can aid in overcoming the physical limitation. A walking exoskeleton is one technology which parallels this ability to heal as people begin to "take up [their] bed, and walk". This video showcases how this can restore both independence and mobility and how family, doctors, technicians, engineers, and our communities can become that man or women to bring greater healing to others enabling them to "take up [their] bed, and walk".




-Caleb Jones

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With Jesus, I am against dogmas and dogmatic thinking, religious or otherwise.

-Ben Blair


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source

In the gospel account of Matthew Jesus performed many healings of the sick:

"they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed... then saith he to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house." (Matthew 9:2-7) 

"a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. [Jesus] said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." (Matthew 9:20-22) 

"there was a man which had his hand withered... Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other." (Matthew 12:10-13)

While the explanation here of the causes of these healings is decribed in supernatural terms, it's important to note that Jesus also gave this power to mankind:

"he gave them power ... to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." (Matthew 10:1)

This mandate to use power to "heal all manner of sickness... and disease" has been a call  to many great Christian Saints through the ages as they sought to use the materials of their day to heal sickness and disease. Today this call continues in our hospitals, tools, and technologies which grow more sophisticated and more powerful. Our tools today, and the works of healing they can perform would be seen as supernatural to ancient peoples, but they are no less miraculous and remain very much at the heart of how we choose to respond to this great Christian mandate to heal.

We now stand at the cusp of revolutionizing medicine and healing as we know it through our understanding of genes and our development of gene therapies via our tools and technologies. While these tools and their mechanisms are certainly not supernatural, our radically compassionate application of them to heal the sick -- many of whom are marginalized in our societies -- is nothing short of a miracle. How will we choose to wield these powers which will also have power to destroy? How will we ensure their far, compassionate reach, especially amongst the marginalized and forgotten?

God continues to inspire compassion and charity in many who, through the use of tools and technologies of the day, seek to heal the sick. And as we see how these tools and technology "[give us] power... to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease", this great Christian mandate will live on.

-Caleb Jones

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'Pool of Bethesda' by Carl Bloch

Whatever the historical rationales were, worship today that doesn’t aspire to emulation is empty. We give altogether too much effort to describing how great Jesus was as a mark of the fixed gap between us and Him. The reason Jesus is worthy of worship--the reason any being is worthy of worship--is because that being has lived, or is living in such a way that is a significant moral step ahead of us and others; it’s a mode of life worthy of not only our admiration, but our aspirations, and we work to follow that lead and close the gap. In this way, we should hope that we would worship Jesus; for worthy is the Lamb.

-Ben Blair

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"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When Jesus had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing."
As Christians we seek to do the works of Jesus. Whether clay and spittle or advanced medical tools and treatments, the tools available to us will always require people from any creed willing to do this work while the means and opportunity exist. Regardless, the ritual of giving sight to the blind is worthy of our worship, awe, reverence, and sacrifice.
Here is one way this miracle is performed today:
First Sight: Sonia & Anita from Blue Chalk on Vimeo.

-Caleb Jones
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Gerard van Honthorst

(Norwegian text "Come Now in Freedom" by Erik Hillestad. Translated by Carl Youngblood)

-Ben Blair

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The following meditations are from a variety of members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association as they individually reflect on the Christmas season and on a vision of transhumanism that can produce fruits worthy of Christ. Each meditation is the view of the individual author and does not represent the official stance of the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

The meditations vary in length from one sentence to a few paragraphs. Though each "meditation" has its own emphasis, some of the recurring themes draw from conversations had with family members, local Mormon congregation, and members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association: transhumanism, taking responsibility for death and evil in the world, the role of technology, theosis, etc. Some meditations will be purely Christian or religious in their focus while others will focus on how technology and transhumanism can play a role in advent meditations.

Meditations:

• Dec 1st - The Christmas Message
• Dec 2nd - He anointed the eyes of the blind
• Dec 3rd - Worship
• Dec 4th - He gave them power to heal all manner of sickness
• Dec 5th - On Dogma
• Dec 6th - Take up thy bed, and walk
• Dec 7th - On Claims
• Dec 8th - Jesus rebuked the fever
• Dec 9th - The Christmas Night
• Dec 10th - He he maketh the deaf to hear
• Dec 11th - The Divine Ledger and Taking up the Cross
• Dec 12th - He touched the man's ear and healed him
• Dec 13th - Blood
• Dec 14th - She is not dead but sleepeth
• Dec 15th - The role of God
• Dec 16th - They did all eat, and were filled
• Dec 17th - Christ as Invitation
• Dec 18th - The man who had been mute spoke
• Dec 19th - Jesus and the anti-Christ
• Dec 20th - Greater works than these
• Dec 21st - The Messianic Pattern
• Dec 22nd - Lift up your eyes and look at the Earth beneath
• Dec 23rd - A Faithful Position
• Dec 24th - The Lessons of Scrooge’s Ghosts
• Dec 25th - The Angels’ Announcement

Mormonism, like many religions, involves free will and an all-knowing God. The combination of these two principles can lead to serious paradoxes and cognitive dissonance when certain forms of deterministic interpretations are used - see theological explorations of free will. Even scientific attempts at defining concepts like omniscience runs into problems - see Laplace's demon for a problem approaching this classically. While my own views are certainly not flawless, I do feel that as we step away from the deterministic interpretations which were often popular in the century Mormonism arose out of, a more robust approach to reconciling free will and the knowledge of God can be found.

My current view on agency and foresight of God is very much informed by more of a quantum interpretation. That in front of all of us lies an infinity of possibilities one could express as a probability wave with some outcomes that are more likely than others. Then as I make choices it sends ripples through that wave: opening increasing some possibilities or collapsing others making them less probable (or even impossible). From moment to moment, that wave of future possibilities is in flux. And I believe that what God is eager to tune us to is, through our use of agency, maximize this probability wave's alignment with the outcomes God desires for us: intelligence, love, immortality, and eternal life.

Perhaps what God understands and comprehends (computes if you will) is the total set of outcomes or at least a set large enough to God's knowledge to be omniscience for all of God's intents and purposes. When God learned/computed, learns/computes, or will learn/compute that I don't know. Whether God learns/computes it all to minute individual degree on everything I don't know, but God could have a superimposed understanding of how these possibility waves can expand and contract at individual and (likely more importantly) societal levels such that it creates a clear enough understanding of what actions are required of God to ensure God's purposes are met: again, maximizing intelligence, love, immortality, and eternal life.

So, in this view there are an infinite number of possibilities within God's plan for all of us. This rejects classical deterministic notions of necessarily marrying "the one", binary "yes" or "no" approaches to whether something is God's will, sheds light on the fact that revelation is often contingent (e.g. Jonah), sees religion as a process rather than as a fixed destination, and highlights how God is able to call others in place of those who fall from their potential (see Matthew 3:9). We have an infinite set of possibilities ahead of us, though some that may be eternally prohibited. One could say that God may not know exactly what our choices will necessarily be and thus we have true, independent free will. However, God could have a clear enough understanding of outcomes of our possible choices and seeks to guide us to the best outcomes from where we are (practical omniscience).

This creates a perspective where our relationship to God is much more of a partnership rather than ourselves as deterministic pawns in God's plan. This partnership speaks strongly about the rather unique Mormon doctrine of co-eternality -- that we aren't automatons doomed to the prison of deterministic predestination and that we have a true in-born freedom (even radically so al la Sartre). This makes us much more masters of our own destiny where our choices are truly our own and yet to be determined. God, with sufficient comprehension of a multitude of possible outcomes, can fully project the reality of a possible set of choices and provide a warning not just based on a theory of what will likely happen but what will actually happen if that set of choices are made. God provides revelation, inspires prophets about impending possibility waves and prophets provide warnings as best as they can (limited by how they "see through the glass, darkly" as they decode revelation). But those prophecies are not deterministic edicts of doom but instead warnings to change course and exercise our free will. Revelation becomes an outstretched hand from God asking us to join with Them.

I believe this gives true free will (agency) to all, illuminates the Mormon theology of co-eternality, but also makes God the God of creation - seeing how God can know how to most optimally influence if some combination of possibility waves to maximize God's purposes.

What's interesting to think about is the combination of agencies from collections of people and that it gets even more complex than just comprehending the individual probability waves of free will for individuals. At a basic level you have the combination of wills through friendship, family, marriage, tribe, nation, etc. With each combination there is the possibility of the probability waves of free will aligning and magnifying possibilities (either good or bad). And there is also the possibility of the waves clashing canceling out possibilities which may be mutually tempering or which may lead to conflict.

Ultimately, I see God as a Society which has found a way to unite the wills of many to maximize towards righteous ends. This can be called Zion, the Kingdom of God, or heaven. And I find it interesting that Christ mentions the sacredness of this kind of combination ("where two or three are gathered in my name -- there I am").



A really fascinating quote from Wilford Woodruff in early Mormonism creates an interesting perspective on this whole idea of wills combining. This idea came about during a conversation he had with with Orson Pratt and Albert Carrington. Woodruff notes this in his journal on that day:

"June 26, 1847: During our travels today I walked most of the way with Professors Pratt and Carrington and our conversation turned upon the subject of the original formation of God, angels, man and devils, the begetting of spirits in the eternal worlds, and who by the begetting of children on the earth, the death of man and children and the resurrection of all. Each one gave his views, opinions, and reasoning and many interesting remarks were truly made." (source)

What I wouldn't give to have been on that walk with them!

Here's his musing on this notion of a combination of wills he discussed with Pratt and Carrington as being a possible environment out of which God emerges and which God encourages:

"It may reasonably have been the case with the first being formed which may be called God. An eternity was filled as it were with particules [sp] of intelligences who had their agency, two of these particles in the process of time might have joined their interest together exchanged ideas & found by perusing this course that they gained double strength to what one particle of intelligence would have & afterwards were joined by other particles & continued until they organized a combination or body through a long process & as they had power over other intelligences in consequence of their combination, organization & strength and in process of time this being- or God seeing the advantage of such an organization desired company or a companion and having some experience got to work & organized other beings by prevailing on intelligences to come together & may form something better than at the first and after trials of this kind & the most perfect way sought it was found to be the most expeditious & best way to receive there formations or bodies either spiritual or temporal through the womb." (Journal, June 26, 1847)

This perspective can create fertile ground which gives place for genuine free will of the individual, allows for God's omniscience (even if it is merely functional omniscience), and underscores the Mormon theology of co-eternality. It can go a long way in reconciling these principles which, through the lens of determinism, are often pitted against each other in paradox. And as I'm much more inspired by our taking responsibility for our own destiny while we seek a relationship with God rather than abdicating our responsibility to God, an approach such as this gives me more faith and a determination to create and be the good in the world.

Religion for Peace and Violence

In October 2002, Russell M. Nelson spoke these words:

Now, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what does the Lord expect of us? As a Church, we must “renounce war and proclaim peace.” As individuals, we should “follow after the things which make for peace.”

I was a graduate student watching as the United States President was leading us to war on what was evident at the time, and confirmed beyond doubt in later years, bad or false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. I was motivated to work for peace and to understand how we might achieve peace. How should we respond to religiously justified violence?

In this period I went to a debate, moderated by a political science professor, between representatives of two politically active student groups. The topic was whether we should go to war to stop Saddam Hussein’s abuses of power, or whether we should stay out of Iraq. Mostly it wasn’t a very subtle debate, and while better informed than your average political discussion with friends, I didn’t get much out of it. Except for this. I submitted a question that the moderator selected for further debate. I asked, what ways might we peacefully intervene to resolve the problems? Neither side had anything to say to that. It was intervene militarily or stay out (or use coercive economic pressures, but both sides agreed that was failing). However, the moderating professor indicated pleasure in the question, and I went to talk with him afterward. He recommended a book to me: Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer.

Terror in the Mind of God takes you into the thoughts of perpetrators and proponents of religious violence through interviews with proponents of a variety of violent ideologies and with some who perpetrated the acts. One thing stuck with me from reading this book:

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you
- David Bowie, 1947-2016 (Thanks Major Tom!)

I find space launches so incredibly inspiring. We are ready for launch to the Moon, then to the planets, and then to the stars - we just need to restart the countdown and enjoy the long road to the stars. Our robotic probes are exploring the solar system, and manned space exploration could restart sometime in the next decade, but the road to the stars will be long. Therefore, we need to find and keep inspiration.

The spectacular achievements of the Apollo program in the sixties gave us the mistaken impression that the road to space would be easy and quick. As a child of the sixties I spent most of my life regretting that we didn't build those cities on the Moon and the planets. I was 11 when I watched on TV the first man walking on the Moon, 15 when I watched the last, and it's very unpleasant to realize that I'll probably be 75 or older (or not be) when we go back to the Moon.

Now I realize that the Apollo adventure was too far from our supply lines to be sustainable. But we are still doing space, and someday (not soon) we will go back to the Moon, and then to Mars, to the planets, and to the stars. In the meantime, we can enjoy our little steps in space, admire the view and think that, as crew members of Spaceship Earth, we are part of the wonderful adventures of humankind among the stars.

So I have made this resolution: I will have fun following our robotic missions to the planets, without letting the fun be spoiled by the knowledge that probably I won't see much more than that.

"[Colonizing] other worlds is not something that takes ten years, or even a hundred," wrote Annalee Newitz (Newitz 2013]. "It might take much longer than that before humans are living on Mars, or in orbit around Saturn. But we are undeniably on the path toward a future where humans live in space. Our ancestors, who dared to learn from the planets and stars, led us onto this path. And now we are actually seeing those planets up close, for the first time in the history of our species."

"Enjoy this small but incredible slice of time that you get to live through, and remember that Galileo would be weeping with envy and relief to know we made it this far," added Newitz. "Just because it takes centuries doesn't mean we aren't making progress."

"We're riding a slow, powerful wave that will bear future generations to the stars."

I often disagree with Newitz, an author who too often dismisses all radical futurist visions in the name of the dull political correctness now unfortunately fashionable in "liberal" circles, but I admit that she has the right attitude here. The road to space is long and difficult, and will probably take generations, but we are enjoying the first few miles as crew members of Spaceship Earth.

"As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study [Bainbridge 1976], space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century," said Sir Arthur C. Clarke in a 2007 IEEE Spectrum interview titled "Remembering Sputnik" [Clarke 2007]. It appears that Sir Arthur was right - the youthful Apollo adventure of the sixties was an inspiring prelude of things to come, but space travel will become a reality only in this century.

In this century, people could walk on the Moon again and build the first sustainable planetary colonies. That's the plan of NASA and other space agencies, a plan that seems likely to be achieved in the next decades, because it belongs to the realm of the possible. But of course the most visionary scientists and engineers are already venturing into the realm of the presently impossible, and developing plans to reach the stars. Alpha Centauri, the closest star system, beckons from a distance of more than 4 light years. That's quite a long road indeed, and requires long-term thinking.

"In a way, a Centauri probe isn't modern," says Paul Gilster in Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration [Gilster 2004]. "Paradoxically, it may require medieval thinking, the sort of thinking that built cathedrals in Chartres and Salisbury and Cologne." A space scientist quoted in the book says that we as a culture may have to start thinking in terms of centuries. "The average worker on a medieval cathedral didn't live to see it completed." I highly recommend Gilster's book and Centauri Dreams website among the best reference works on interstellar spaceflight.

In 1994 Marshall T. Savage wrote The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps [Savage 1994], a wonderful call to arms to restart the countdown and get serious about space colonization, with a detailed step-by-step plan for humans to "explode into space and engulf the star-clouds in a fire storm of children, trees, and butterfly wings."

"Because of us, landscapes of radiation blasted waste, will be miraculously transmuted: Slag will become soil, grass will sprout, flowers will bloom, and forests will spring up in once sterile places. Ice, hard as iron, will melt and trickle into pools where starfish, anemones, and seashells dwell - a whole frozen universe will thaw and transmogrify, from howling desolation to blossoming paradise. Dust into Life; the very alchemy of God."

Savage appreciated that restarting the countdown is a cultural issue more than an engineering problem. Only a "human laser" formed by people acting "in synchronous harmony [creating] a coherent beam of intent" can get us to the stars. It appears that Savage's human laser, which was beginning to shine bright in the sixties, has stopped working. The question is how to fix it.

See Frontiers of Propulsion Science [Millis 2009] (see also [Millis 2011] for a summary) for a description of advances in propulsion and candidate research steps that will lead to discovering if, or how, radical propulsion breakthroughs might finally be achieved.

Back to Clarke's observation - "space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century" - there's a case to be made that interstellar travel shouldn't arrive for many more centuries, because our frail flash and blood bodies aren't appropriate interstellar gear. In fact, even with suitable propulsion technologies, manned interstellar missions would be hugely expensive due to the need to ensure the survival and safety of the humans on-board and the need to travel at extremely high speeds.

One solution is to do without the wetware bodies of the crew, and send only their minds to the stars - their "software" - uploaded to advanced circuitry, augmented by AI subsystems in the starship’s processing system. I have argued [Prisco 2012] that an e-crew - a crew of human uploads implemented in solid-state electronic circuitry - will not require air, water, food, medical care, or radiation shielding, and may be able to withstand extreme acceleration. So the size and weight of the starship will be dramatically reduced.

Mind-uploading technology for software e-crews could make interstellar colonization practical, while delivering equally important spinoffs in neuroscience, computer science, and longevity, including indefinite life extension. The astronauts' memories, thoughts, feelings, personality, and "self" would be copied to an alternative processing substrate - such as a digital, analog, or quantum computer. A software mind running on an appropriate substrate can be much more resistant and long-lived than a mind caged in a biological brain, and it can be housed in a similarly resistant and long-lived robotic body. Robots powered by human uploads can be rugged, resistant to the vacuum and the harsh space environment, easily rechargeable, and much smaller and lighter than wetware human bodies.

Eventually, human uploads augmented by AI subsystems will be implemented in the solid-state circuitry of the starship’s processing system. Boredom and isolation will not be a problem for e-crew members, because the data processing system of a miniaturized starship will be able to accommodate hundreds and even thousands of human uploads.

If strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developed, perhaps smarter than humans, why should we bother to upload humans? One answer is that most of us will want human minds on our first journey to the stars. However, I agree with Ray Kurzweil's speculation that we will merge with technology, so many future persons will not be “pure" humans or pure AIs, but rather hybrids, blended so tightly that it will be impossible to tell which is which.

Ultimately, I think space will not be colonized by squishy, frail and short-lived flesh-and-blood humans. As Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Childhood’s End [Clarke 1953], perhaps “the stars are not for Man” - that is, not for biological humans 1.0. It will be up to our postbiological mind children, implemented as pure software based on human uploads and AI subsystems, to explore other stars and colonize the universe. Eventually, they will travel between the stars as radiation and light beams.

In Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction [Newitz 2014], Newitz shows an open mind about sentient AI, artificial life, mind uploading and all that. "It’s possible that we’ll become cyborgs, beings who are half biological and half machine," she writes. "No matter what scenario you think is most likely - synbio, uploads, or natural selection - our progeny may look nothing like us." Newitz just thinks (and so do I) that:

"We may be at the start of a long, slow journey whose climactic moment comes thousands of years from now."

Should we then forget the stars and wait for tomorrow's technologies? I don't think so, and one reason is that tomorrow's technologies won't arrive tomorrow, or next week, or in the next decade.

I have been a transhumanist since I was a child, persuaded that humanity would transcend Earth and all limits. In the nineties I discovered organized transhumanism and became a card-carrying, unrepentant, in-your-face transhumanist. One little caveat though: I never believed that progress would be easy and fast. After two decades I am still persuaded that 1) we will transcend Earth and all limits, but 2) not anytime soon.

I am confident that things like radical life extension, artificial life, sentient Artificial Intelligence (AI) and super-human AI, mind uploading, and interstellar colonization, will happen someday, but probably after my time. I never considered the hyper-optimistic predictions of Ray Kurzweil and others as even remotely plausible, and I don't see a Singularity in 2045 (or ever). I am afraid things will take the time they must take, with all the twists and turns and roadblocks and setbacks that happen in the real world.

Getting things to almost work is much, much easier than getting things to work. Engineers know that even if you do 90 percent of the work in 10 percent of the time, then you will have to spend the remaining 90 percent of the time to do the missing 10 percent of the work. Same, of course, for money. Which means that 90 percent wasn't really 90 percent, because it left out all the boring details that take 90 percent of the money and the time - boring details like sustainability, operational robustness, error recovery, fail-safe operations and all that, without forgetting social acceptance, financial and political aspects.

The impression that real AI seems always 20 years away indicates that perhaps we just don't know enough to estimate the development time-line for something that is actually 200 years away. A good analogy is Leonardo's flying machines. Leonardo understood that machines could fly, and produced sketches of flying machines, but the actual development of flying machines took centuries and required different technologies.

Becoming an interstellar species will take centuries, and developing transhumanist technologies will also take centuries. The Catch-22 situation is that we need transhumanist technologies to colonize the stars, but we need a powerful overwhelming drive to fully develop transhumanist technologies, and space colonization can give us the drive. So I think we should start colonizing the planets and moons of our solar system, now.

Watching the sky and knowing that other people are living and working there would be a powerful pointer to future, even more daring cosmic journeys, that could contribute to the mental health of the zeitgeist and give us a renewed confidence in the relevance of our lives on this little planet. Not everyone can be a space explorer, but we are all partners and stakeholders in the cosmic future of our species and its "manifest destiny" among the stars. This is a powerful meme that could result not only in much more support for space and advanced technologies, but also in a more positive and proactive attitude on other pressing issues, at a moment of our history where we need positive thinking, confidence and optimism.

I often think that I would be happy to do the most menial, boring and repetitive work if I could do it on a starship. Imagine that you are part of a mission to the stars - wouldn't you be happy to clean toilets if that's the most useful task you can do? I most certainly would, and knowing that I am meaningfully participating in the mission to the stars would give me all the motivation I need, even if the mission takes centuries to reach a destination that I will never see. I would consider the mission as a a journey on sacred road. But on second thought, isn't that my current situation, and yours? We are all crew members of Spaceship Earth and parts, big or small, of our sacred journey to the stars.

So this is my proposal. We should consider our first timid steps into outer space as the beginning of our journey on the sacred road to the stars.

In Dan Simmons' Phases of Gravity [Simmons 1989], three Apollo astronauts remember their lunar mission sixteen years later. All three have been deeply touched by their adventure in space. One has taken an easy path and become a fundamentalist Christian televangelist, but the other two compare the mission to a sacrament, a sacred journey to places of power. The novel hasn't been widely acclaimed like other Simmons' works, but I think it shows Simmons at his best. The first steps on the sacred road to space are there to be seen, represented by a young woman, a seeker of places of power who believes in the richness and mystery of the universe.

In a visionary essay on "Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0" [Bainbridge 2009], renowned sociologist William Sims Bainbridge writes:

"[W]e need a new definition of spaceflight that will energize investment and innovation. I suggest a return to the traditional view: The heavens are a sacred realm, that we should enter in order to transcend death."

Other scientists and philosophers, including the late psychologist Albert Harrison, have expressed similar views. In "Russian and American Cosmism: Religion, National Psyche, and Spaceflight" [Harrison 2013], Harrison explores the influence of religion on technology and society as we take the first steps to the stars.

Harrison traces the roots of the Russian and American space programs in the works of visionary, spiritually oriented "prophets" of space exploration, and concludes that the United States has its counterpart to Russian Cosmism, for which no term seems more appropriate than American Cosmism. "Even Fedorov’s idea of reassembling the dust of all the people who ever lived has a Western counterpart: Frank Tipler's proposal to achieve resurrection and eternal life through computer emulations," notes Harrison. In "Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion and Folklore" [Harrison 2007], Harrison discussed Cosmist scientific visions, plans for expanding throughout the universe, and transcendence in space, including immortality and resurrection through computer emulations.

I am persuaded that humanity's expansion into interstellar space, and the new technologies that will emerge along the way, will lead our post-human descendants to become part of the galactic community of Gods, participate in the development of transcendent space-time engineering technologies, and eventually achieve Fedorov's Cosmist vision of universal resurrection. I have articulated my vision for humanity's future as:

- We will go to the stars and find Gods, build Gods, become Gods, and resurrect the dead from the past with advanced science, space-time engineering and "time magic."
- God is emerging from the community of advanced forms of life and civilizations in the universe, and able to influence space-time events anywhere, anytime, including here and now.
- God elevates love and compassion to the status of fundamental forces, key drivers for the evolution of the universe.

Expansion into interstellar space is central to this vision. Like the medieval builders of cathedrals, we probably won't live to see even the first milestones on the sacred road, but we can find meaning and inspiration in contemplating the long road ahead and the transcendent places of power at the end of the road. I am persuaded that only a powerful Cosmist mythology can give future generations the strenuous spiritual stance required to advance on the sacred road to the stars. Both established religions and new "space religions" have an important role to play.

That's it. Space supports religion by building the sacred road to the stars. Religion supports space by offering awesome visions of what we will find at the end of the sacred road: we will find God, transcendence, and universal love.

The images taken by NASA's New Horizons probe show a big heart on the surface of Pluto. Like a Twitter emoji sent from outer space, Pluto's heart is beckoning to us and daring us to venture to the edges of the solar system, and then beyond, to spread love and compassion to the stars.

I will now describe some ideas that have been proposed for visionary missions to the stars, which could be feasible before the end of this century and at the same time can serve as space-age cathedrals to provide a powerful spiritual inspiration to the next generations.

Cathedrals in Space

The FOCAL mission proposed by the Italian space scientist Claudio Maccone [Maccone 2009] is not intended to reach other stars, but to establish an observatory in deep interstellar space, at about three light days from Earth, or 550 Astronomical Units - 550 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. This is the distance of the gravitational focus of the Sun, where the Sun's gravitational lens effect predicted by Einstein's General Relativity provides a huge amplification of signals from the opposite direction (the Sun must be between the observatory and the target).

Unlike optical lenses, in which the light diverge after the focus, gravitational lens effects continue in a focal line after the focus, and therefore a gravitational lens observatory would still work at distances greater than the focus. A gravitational lens observatory only works in one direction, but the signal amplification would be quite dramatic, of the order of 100 millions [Matloff 2005] or higher. For one particular frequency that has been proposed as a channel for interstellar communication, signal amplification would reach a staggering factor of 1.3 quadrillion.[Chorost 2013].

The Sun's gravitational focus is much farther than the orbit of Pluto, and therefore a FOCAL mission would qualify as an interstellar mission - a first outpost on the road to the stars, dedicated to important scientific research. In fact, the spectacular amplification of all electromagnetic radiation at the solar focus would permit astronomical observations of unprecedented precision, and could possibly permit detecting faint signals from, and then establishing permanents communication channels with, alien civilizations out there among the stars. Perhaps we need a gravitational lens router in place is we want to join the Galactic Internet of advanced civilizations.

"[Radio] bridges between any pair of stars in the Galaxy can be built if the gravitational lenses of both stars are exploited by placing two FOCAL relay satellites on the opposite side of each star, so that a perfect (or nearly perfect) alignment between these four points in space is kept, said Maccone [Maccone 2012]. "Only now (2011) are humans realizing that radio bridges between couples of stars in the Galaxy can indeed be constructed. But, then, some other extraterrestrial civilization in the Galaxy might already have understood this a long time ago."

Consequently, a sort of Galactic Internet might already be in use in the Galaxy now! But humans will be unable to benefit from this Galactic Internet until they reach the minimal focal sphere of their own star, the Sun (i.e., until a human FOCAL probe reaches 550AU or more).

Once we learn to digitize consciousness and move it from biological brains to digital storage and back, the galactic communications network will become a galactic transportation network.

It appears that a planet much bigger than the Earth could be located at a distance suitable for a gravitational lens observatory. The existence of the planet - dubbed Planet Nine - is suggested by astronomical observations [Gilster 2016], but it hasn't been definitely confirmed yet. If confirmed, Planet Nine would be the prefect stepping stone to the stars, close enough to be reachable with moderate improvements of today's technology, but far enough to be considered as an interstellar destination. Establishing a base on or orbiting Planet Nine (if it's really there) should be considered as an important priority for the first phase of interstellar exploration, especially if the base can double as a gravitational lens observatory.

Imagine:

A base on the icy surface of a Planet Nine's moon, with an incredibly powerful observatory to probe the deepest mysteries of the universe and perhaps listening to alien civilizations far away. The gravitational lens observatory permits scanning whole distant galaxies to search for faint signals from advanced civilizations.
If that's the first place of power on the road to the stars, I can't wait to get there or, more realistically, I want to do whatever I can to give a small contribution to the preliminary work.

The awesome Breakthrough Starshot project, announced in April 2016, wants to send the first robotic probe to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, in only a few decades [Prisco 2016]. If things go according to plans (things seldom do, but optimism feels good), some readers will be alive when the first data and images come back from the Alpha Centauri system. Breakthrough Starshot is not the first interstellar probe project, but it's the first with sufficient funding for a thorough feasibility study. In fact, initial $100 million funding was provided by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, an early Internet enterpreneur and successful investor who already funded other visionary science projects. The project is also supported by physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook creator Mark Zuckergerg.

The key elements of the project are based on technology either already available or likely to be attainable in the near future under reasonable assumptions, and the Alpha Centauri mission is expected to require a budget comparable to the largest current scientific experiments. If so, the total funding needed would be of the order of $5-10 billion, which seems ambitious but possible.

The star probe will be a highly miniaturized system on a chip, propelled by a 4-meter lightsail built with advanced nano-engineered metamaterials. The probe and its lightsail, both weighing only a few grams, will be pushed by light beams from high-power (100 gigawatt) lasers on Earth, accelerated to 20 percent of the speed of light, and reach Alpha Centauri in two decades. There is no room for a deceleration system, so the mission will be a high-speed fly-by with the goal of returning data and images.

Among the many Starshot system design challenges, data return is expected to be one of the hardest, because there is little room for a communication system to send data back to Earth. Therefore, several experts have proposed combining the project with a FOCAL gravitational telescope pointed to Alpha Centauri, which would permit receiving the faint signals sent back from small, low power transmitters. It appears, pending further study, that a Starshot probe could work as a FOCAL telescope, staying on the focal line without slowing down.

It's also worth noting that precursor Starshot missions, powered by preliminary, scaled-down versions of the laser propulsion system, could reach Planet Nine (again, if it exists) in relatively short times and gather useful data for a Planet Nine outpost. It appears that there could be useful synergies between the different projects aimed at Alpha Centauri, Planet Nine, and gravitational lens astronomy - we could use the same masonry for many cathedrals in space.

Real thinking and feeling Artificial Intelligence (AI) of human (or more than human) level could be developed in a few decades, in time for the Starshot launch. Sending a real AI instead of dumb unthinking software to Alpha Centauri would be equivalent to sending a person (think for example of Samantha, the AI in Her [Prisco 2014]). Even more interestingly, mind uploading technology, which could developed in this century, would permit sending human astronauts as software entities living in the star probe processors.

Martine Rothblatt, a billionaire technology entrepreneur and a visionary thinker, proposed to send "mindclones" - software entities based on recorded human personalities - to the stars, embedded in advanced on-board data processing systems [Rothblatt 2014]. "Software functions on space probes sent to nearly every solar planet, oblivious of the biologically deadly vacuum of space," says Rothblatt.

"The proverbial thousand-plus years it would take to send a spacecraft to one of the dozens of Earthlike planets discovered by the Kepler satellite observatory might be bearable for a large mindclone community on board that spacecraft, maintaining radio contact with the Earth."

At the 2012 Public Symposium of the 100 Year Starship (100YSS), an initiative, initially sponsored by DARPA and NASA, intended to make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system to another star a reality over the next 100 years, Rothblatt proposed to extend the invitation to create a mindclone bound to the stars to everyone [Rothblatt 2012].

Imagine:

A large software e-crew of human uploads and AIs on a starship en route to new worlds around another star. Boredom isn't a problem for crew members, whose subjective time is spent with many good friends in incredibly rich virtual reality environments. There are lots of things to do, and preparations to make for the arrival in the target star system. Once there, the uploads will interface with sensors and robotic bodies to explore the new planets, and build receivers for colonists beamed from the Earth on light waves.

Wouldn't you want to go? I would definitely go if I could have the chance. Sadly, this possibility isn't likely to materialize in my lifetime. However, like the medieval builders of cathedrals, I look forward to doing whatever I can to contribute to the preliminary work, here on Earth, to open the sacred road to the stars.

References

Bainbridge, William Sims. The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study. Wiley, 1976.
Bainbridge, William Sims. Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0. IEET, 2009.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bainbridge20090820/
Chorost, Michael. The Seventy-Billion-Mile Telescope. The New Yorker, 2013.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-seventy-billion-mile-telescope
Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End. Ballantine, 1953.
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Image: Carlisle Cathedral, from Wikimedia Commons.