Religion and the

Technological Future
An Introduction to Biohacking,
Artificial Intelligence,
and Transhumanism

Calvin Mercer
Tracy J. Trothen
Foreword by
Ron Cole-Turner
 Religion and the Technological Future

“Like weather reporters checking our daily atmospheric pressure, for nearly two decades
Mercer and Trothen have been monitoring biohacking at the frontier of the human and
the posthuman. They forecast a coming storm of theological and ethical conundrums.
Religion and the Technological Future tells us how to ready ourselves for the storm.”
—Ted Peters
Distinguished Research Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union, USA
Co-editor, Theology and Science

“It is vital that we begin to analyze these difficult questions before, not after, they
become reality.”
—Bill McKibben
Schumann Distinguished Scholar
Middlebury College, USA
Author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

“Human yearning to prevent morbidity and mortality is so intense that we mostly put
it out of our minds, in any way that works—including religion, for some people. But
this is just one of many ways to relate to our future and our higher powers’ control over
it. This outstanding textbook comprehensively surveys the ecosystem of such thinking.
Whatever your stance on these issues, you’ll find extensive food for thought here.”
—Aubrey de Grey
Chief Science Officer, SENS Research Foundation

“Mercer and Trothen have laid down the intellectual infrastructure to enable theology
to make a smooth transition into the transhuman future. And precisely because the
book is firmly grounded in the religious world-view, it should also prove attractive to
secular ethicists who approach their topic from a deep metaphysical perspective that
wonders how the ongoing developments in science and technology are transforming
what it means to be ‘human.’”
—Steve Fuller
Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology
University of Warwick, UK
Author of Humanity 2.0
“Religion and the Technological Future is the first comprehensive and deeply-considered
textbook on the intersection of religious thought and twenty-first century technology.
Its lively prose brings to life the intellectual, political, and ethical debates that frame our
progress into the next stage of human culture. Mercer and Trothen take their years of
leadership in the study of radical enhancement and transform that into a textbook that
will inspire thoughtful engagement from students, scholars, and the general public.”
—Robert M. Geraci
Professor of Religious Studies
Manhattan College, USA
Author of Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and
Virtual Reality

“This timely textbook provides a valuable overview of the profound challenges and
potential benefits that contemporary technology poses to humanity. Written by pioneer-
ing scholars in the field of religion and technoscience, this book introduces key con-
cepts, themes, contributors, and debates on human enhancement and biohacking,
radical life extension and cryonics, Artificial Intelligence and digital immortality.
Intended for college-level courses in ethics, science and technology studies, religious
studies, and psychology, the book is also most useful for programs in faith communities
that ponder the promise and peril of technology.”
—Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Regents Professor of History
Director, Center for Jewish Studies
Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism
Arizona State University, USA

“Religion and the Technological Future: An Introduction to Biohacking, Artificial

Intelligence, and Transhumanism invites thinkers from all disciplines and faiths to con-
template our collective future, and asks us: what sort of future do we want to make?
Covering emerging and futuristic technologies, religious and ethical responses, and
identifying areas of further inquiry, this ambitious volume offers clear, expert guidance
through this urgently needed conversation about what we value about our human
selves, and desire for our (post)human future.”
—J. Jeanine Thweatt
School of Humanities and Sciences
Flagler College, USA

“The world is changing. A.I., robots, genetics, cybernetics, and many other areas dem-
onstrate that traditional religious questions of ‘what does it mean to be human?’ and
‘what is the role of religion?’ are all being, or will be, rethought. Religious Studies
should not be on the sidelines for this. Trothen and Mercer have provided a Religious
Studies textbook for the 21st century that takes on these cutting edge issues and bril-
liantly shows the way religion is a full participant in these advances. As Religious Studies
seeks to be relevant in this new world, this textbook may well become the new standard
for introductory classes in Religion and Theology.”
—Randall Reed
Professor of Religion
Appalachian State University, USA
“Faith, science, life, and technological power are forever intertwined. Since human-
driven technological change is speeding up and the potency of life technologies are
multiplying exponentially, pastors, religious leaders, and people of faith will need guides
to recognize the perils and examine the promises. This guide will be indispensable for
speaking love and truth and justice to the human condition of today and tomorrow.”
—Pastor Peter Noteboom
General Secretary, The Canadian Council of Churches

“There are many books assessing some aspect of transhumanism, and more broadly the
technological transformation of human beings, from a religious perspective. But to date
no comprehensive overview has been on offer. That void has now been filled by an
informed, accessible, and highly engaging text that deserves to be read and studied by
a wide audience.”
—Brent Waters
Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics
Director, Stead Center for Ethics and Values
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, USA

“The future is coming sooner than we think. Our descendants may be a new species—
homo technicus—as different from homo sapiens as we are from our ancestors. Trothen
and Mercer provide a much needed exploration of what this new species might be like
and how the crucial aspects of life—to be born, live, love, and die—will change. It is we
who will determine the direction of those changes.”
—Noreen Herzfeld
Reuter Professor of Science and Religion
St. John’s University and The College of St. Benedict, USA

“This is a comprehensive, updated, indispensable textbook that addresses urgent reli-

gious and ethical issues raised by radical human enhancement biohacking technolo-
gies—for humanity today and in the future. This book should be translated for readers
outside the English-speaking world.”
—Heup Young Kim
Former Professor of Theology, Kangnam University
Director, Korea Forum for Science and Life

“This timely and thorough introduction to the many intersections between religion and
emerging technologies provides readers from a variety of spiritual traditions with
thoughtful, critical engagement with some of the most pressing technological issues of
our time. Mercer and Trothen walk the reader through five categories of enhancements,
Abrahamic and karmic religious traditions, and both supportive and critical religious
responses to current and near-future enhancement technologies. Readers interested in
the future of religion in a technologized society will welcome this volume for students
and scholars alike.”
—Amy Michelle DeBaets
Manager, Bioethics, Hackensack University Medical Center
Associate Professor, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
“The days of the computer Hal in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and of the
androids in both versions of Battlestar Galactica have arrived. Computers, both hard-
ware and software, have suffused our material culture, our bodies, and our minds. As
the documentary Social Dilemma reveals, truth has been hijacked for the sake of profit.
Machines and their information, for better or ill, generate and drive contemporary real-
ity. The specter of machine manipulation of human awareness is no longer a Jungian
dystopian archetype or metaphor. It has arrived. This important book provides students
with the information and the discernment skills needed to negotiate this strange
new world.”
—Christopher Key Chapple
Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology
Loyola Marymount University, USA

“Mercer and Trothen tackle some of the thorniest and most exciting areas in the new
era of science-religion dialogue—giving one of the most comprehensive overviews of
the massive changes that are rapidly emerging, and the ways in which they will reshape
our religious landscape. And they do this from a position of intimate familiarity with the
movements, figures, and cultural forces that are leading this charge.”
—Micah Redding
Founder and Executive Director, Christian Transhumanist Association
Host, Christian Transhumanist Podcast

“Momentous is the intersection of human enhancement technologies with religion.

Mercer and Trothen are experts, and their textbook skillfully guides the student from
awareness to understanding.”
—Lincoln Cannon
Founder, Mormon Transhumanist Association
 Calvin Mercer • Tracy J. Trothen

Religion and the

Technological Future
An Introduction to Biohacking, Artificial Intelligence,
and Transhumanism
Calvin Mercer Tracy J. Trothen
East Carolina University School of Religion and the School of
Greenville, NC, USA Rehabilitation Therapy
Queen’s University
Ontario, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-62358-6    ISBN 978-3-030-62359-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
­reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any
other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,
computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material c­ ontained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover Illustration: Sarah Holmlund / Shutterstock

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Susan and Ron
 Foreword

Welcome to your future! Opening this book is like opening a window to what
lies ahead for you, your relationships, your world, and whatever you might
think of as the underlying meaning of it all.
What you will find here is not some occult prophecy or fortune telling.
There is much about the future that is simply unknowable. Not even careful
and thoughtful scholars like Calvin Mercer and Tracy Trothen can foresee the
twists or turns of politics or pandemics or the unpredictable shocks of “outra-
geous fortune,” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet so famously put it.
But this book is not just a bunch of wild guesses, either. It is based on a
rigorous analysis of trendlines already in play, lines that point to the horizon of
the future. We can see right now, for example, that technology is already chang-
ing humanity. We can see that its power to change us will surely grow in sophis-
tication, precision, and scope. Follow these lines as far as your imagination can
carry you. Where are they leading us? Where will they take you?
Barring something like an unexpected meeting with an asteroid, it is pretty
obvious that human enhancement and technological transformation will con-
tinue. When that happens, we become enmeshed with our technology. We
wear it, implant it, swallow it, and integrate it into our bodies and brains. We
do not need to be “chipped” to be a cyborg. We are already merged with
machines, byproducts of our own technology. We fuse the biological given
with the technological unknown. And then we wonder why we are confused.
Our biohacked brains may still feel “natural” or “normal.” In reality, how-
ever, there are no more “natural” humans, only technologized ones. Once
upon a time we asked, “What does it mean to be human?” Now we ask whether
any of the old definitions of humanity still offer any guidance. Keep in mind
that the era of human enhancement is just getting started. Already we can see,
however, that we are on our way toward becoming posthumans. We are former
human beings who no longer remember what we once were but cannot imag-
ine what we will soon become. Where will it all come out? I haven’t a clue. But
I am certain that we will be different from what we were in the past and what

ix
x FOREWORD

we are even now. We live suspended between old and new, on a zip line between
the familiar and the unimaginable.
Welcome to the world of “trans-.” We are all transforming or transitioning
from one thing to another. We are reinventing ourselves without a blueprint or
a goal. For some, human reinvention is scary. For others, it is liberating and
exciting. For most of us, it brings mixed feelings. Here in this book, you will
find reasons for all of the above. If technology is transforming humanity, is that
good or bad, heaven or hell?
You will keep bumping into the question here, but you won’t find a pre-set
answer. You will be better informed about what is going on. You will have a
clear, up-to-date base of knowledge about how technology is already at work
to enhance human capacities or how it might develop in the future. You will
have a comprehensive knowledge of the contemporary social debate over tech-
nology. You will meet the key players, the biohackers and philosophers and
religious scholars who are driving today’s arguments, ranging from the trans-
humanists and techno-enthusiasts to those who fear we are at risk for losing
something old but really good about humanity. You will know what oth-
ers think.
Knowing these things, however, won’t determine how you respond. In fact,
that’s one of the things I really like about this book. It invites you to think but
doesn’t tell you what to think. It prepares you to engage the moment, to come
to your own assessment, and to navigate your own personal pathway into
the future.
In that sense, this is not a standard textbook, where everything is neatly
packaged and settled. There is nothing neat or settled about the human future,
yours personally or ours collectively. We have to live it to know it, and then we
will not know fully even after it has happened to us.
No … this is a textbook of a completely different kind, not full of yesterday’s
answers but uncompromising in pressing tomorrow’s questions. It is a guide to
what you might become. Welcome to your future self.

H. Parker Sharp Professor of Ron Cole-Turner

Theology and Ethics, Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary
 Preface

The idea for this textbook was born as your two authors dined in a restaurant
on a busy street in one of the world’s large cities, Boston. Having worked for
years publishing technical journal articles and facilitating scholarly conversation
on this topic, we were meeting with other scholars researching religion and
radical human enhancement.
We watched, through the restaurant window, people busily walking, talking,
eating, and conducting commerce. Most of our fellow human beings, we knew,
had little or no understanding of the colossal impacts on their lives that are
coming as a result of what we and our handful of academics around the world
were debating among ourselves. That busy street scene could look discernibly
different in just a few years, in ways that most people could not imagine.
At that window on a piece of our busy world, we decided it was time to
widen the conversation, to do our part to share with students and the general
public some of the profound changes aborning, and specifically how those
changes might intersect with religion. This textbook is our attempt to engage
you—and engage you profoundly—in the conversation about radical human
enhancement, a conversation topic that will increasingly take its place on the
mainstage of our lives politically, economically, socially, religiously, and all
other ways.
We completed this textbook amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a health and
economic event that is altering the world from the time of our Boston musings.
Epidemiologists, virologists, engineers, medical professionals, and many others
have been coming together to save lives. The pandemic brought into relief the
interconnectedness of life and the remarkable capacity of humans to do good
through the application of science. We also witnessed greed and protectionism.
The pandemic made us even more acutely aware of the many ways human
potential for both good and evil can be amplified by technology. We trust our

xi
xii PREFACE

collective experiences of the pandemic will inspire all of us to take more seri-
ously the topic of radical human enhancement and the critical role of religion.

Greenville, NC, USA Calvin Mercer

Kingston, ON, Canada  Tracy J. Trothen
January 1, 2021
 Acknowledgments

Knowledge and inspiration flow from teachers to students—and vice versa.

Calvin thanks his students, especially in his “Religion and Science” classes and
his advanced seminar on religion and radical human enhancement, for their
insights and passion. Thanks goes to Dr. Alan Schreier, resource person for the
classes, for providing science and technology expertise as we pursue interesting
and important questions with students—and for keeping Calvin honest on the
science side. Dr. Schreier is a MIT-trained biochemist with an interest in
extreme human enhancement. A number of family members read an earlier
draft and provided encouragement and stimulating conversations.
Some brief sections of this book are adapted from the introductory chapters
of two of Calvin’s coedited books: Religion and the Implications of Radical Life
Extension and The Body in the World’s Religions: Reflections in Light of
Transhumanism, both published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Tracy, too, is grateful to her students and to colleagues and friends who have
shared an interest in what it means to make us better. She is also grateful for the
opportunity to discuss technology, AI, and ontological questions at the
American Academy of Religion (AAR) with diverse, wonderful colleagues,
including Randy Reed who did all the work but graciously invited her to co-­
found and co-chair the AAR’s recurring Artificial Intelligence Seminar.
Previous publications of Tracy’s that have been helpful in writing this book
include: Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than Just a Game; two conclud-
ing chapters from books she has coedited with Calvin, namely Religion and
Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality and Religion and
Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement Technology;
and her chapter in Technology and the Image of God: A Canadian Conversation,
published by The Canadian Council of Churches.

xiii
 Contents

Part I Setting the Scene   1

1 Introduction  3

2 Existing and Possible Technologies: How We Biohack  9

3 Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions: Exploring

Basic Concepts 19

4 Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics: Questions We

Must Ask 43

Part II Five Categories of Enhancements  63

5 Superlongevity and Other Physical Enhancements 65

6 Cognitive Enhancement and Moral Bioenhancement:

Becoming Smarter and More Moral 91

7 Affective Enhancement and Spiritual Enhancement: Feeling

Happier and More Spiritual115

Part III Special Topics: Going Beyond the Edge 141

8 Cryonics: Buried, Burned, or … Frozen143

xv
xvi Contents

9 Mind Uploading: Cyber Beings and Digital Immortality161

10 Superintelligence: Bringing on the Singularity181

Part IV Conclusion 205

11 Religion 2.0 and the Enhanced Technological Future207

Glossary229

References241

Index259
 About the Authors

Calvin Mercer, PhD Mercer was trained as a biblical scholar and published in
that field for years. For a decade and a half, he has addressed the opportunities,
dangers, and religious implications of radical human enhancement technology.
Along with UK scholar Steve Fuller, Mercer coedits Palgrave Studies in the
Future of Humanity and Its Successors, the oldest book series addressing human
enhancement from all disciplines and points of view. Mercer’s publications on
human enhancement are listed in the bibliography. He was founding chair of
the “Human Enhancement and Transhumanism” Unit in the American
Academy of Religion, the largest and most significant organization devoted to
the academic study of religion, and he currently serves as co-chair of that unit’s
steering committee. He serves on the Academic Advisory Council of the
Christian Transhumanist Association. Also trained in clinical psychology, Mercer
practiced professionally part-time for over a decade and uses this discipline in his
published work on religion. He is professor of religion at East Carolina
University and gives public lectures on the religious implications of human
enhancement technology, fundamentalism, and other topics.
Tracy J. Trothen, ThD Trothen is Professor of Ethics at Queen’s University,
jointly appointed to the School of Religion and the School of Rehabilitation
Therapy, where she teaches in the graduate “Aging and Health Program.” She
is a certified Supervisor-Educator in Clinical Spiritual Health (CASC),
Registered Psychotherapist (CRPO), and ordained minister in The United
Church of Canada. Her numerous publications on human enhancement are
listed in the bibliography and include Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More
than Just a Game, and Winning the Race? Religion, Hope, and Reshaping the
Sport Enhancement Debate. Her areas of research and teaching specializations
include biomedical and social ethics, moral distress, technology, and religion
and sport. Trothen is on the steering committee of the American Academy of
Religion’s “Human Enhancement and Transhumanism” Unit, and she is a
founding co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Seminar.

xvii
 PART I

Setting the Scene

 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The End of Religion—Or Not

The religions of the world will come to an end, or thrive, depending on how
they respond to the topic of this book. You may judge that an exaggerated
statement. That is fair enough. Indeed, it is a drastic statement, we grant that.
But we do not think it is exaggerated or untrue. We invite you to consider the
information provided and the issues raised in the following chapters before
drawing your own conclusion.
There is a new world coming, and it is coming much faster than most people
realize. In the following chapters, we describe the various categories of radi-
cal—some might prefer the word “extreme”—human enhancement and the
biohacking technologies facilitating them. You will learn about the world that
will be faced by your grandchildren, likely your children and, to some degree,
you. Elements of this new world are already present; others are just around
the corner.
The term “biohacking” is used in different ways. We use it to mean the radi-
cal enhancement of human beings with therapies and technologies now avail-
able or anticipated in the future. For good, evil, or in-between, our scientific
knowledge and technological innovations are growing rapidly, and we can
envisage an elevated tempo in the coming decades.
Now we have Netflix, live streaming, wide-ranging plastic surgeries, pace-
makers, self-driving cars, smart homes, drones, and more. The technological
field is exploding, with enormous implications for biohacking ourselves.
Artificial intelligence adds significantly to the ability to enhance ourselves, to
make ourselves better. What it means to become better and who gets to decide
are key ethical questions explored in the coming chapters.
It is a moral imperative that we who are alive now take steps to ensure the
continuing transformations unfold responsibly. Religion can have much to say
in the public square about efforts to biohack our way to better. Faith

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_1
4 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

communities, religion scholars, and students engaged in the study of religion

can play important roles in advocating for the responsible use of human
enhancement technology, if we create space for dialogue and reflection. We
intend this book to help to create that space.
The relationship between religion and human enhancement technologies
cuts two ways: (1) what religions say about the enhancement technologies, and
(2) what impact the technologies have on the religions and their belief claims.
We explore these reciprocal questions as we discuss each human enhancement
category.
While our primary focus is on religion, inevitably radical enhancements are
going to impact every human institution. If superlongevity, just to pick one
enhancement, is realized and the technologies become widely available, it
would arguably have a more radical impact than any other development in
human history. One need only reflect briefly on the economic, political, gov-
ernmental, medical, family life, and social implications of people living for such
long periods to realize the significance of such a development. The discussion
of the religious implications of radical enhancement can provide general indica-
tors of impacts on these other domains of human experience.

The Chapters That Follow

In each chapter, we describe the enhancement technology and explain how it
is upon us, just around the corner, or farther into the future. We reflect on the
religious implications of the technological enhancements. Our twofold focus
is, first, on belief, often more technically referred to as theology or doctrine,
and, second, on the ethics of biohacking our way to being better. For followers
of the faith traditions, one’s theology, ideally, informs their ethics and, there-
fore, their behavior in the world.
Radical human enhancements will impact not only theology and ethics. The
technologies will also impact religious rituals, institutions, spirituality, and all
other facets of religion. While we occasionally make illustrative reference to a
concrete ritual or institutional structure, our focus is on the broader theologi-
cal and ethical implications of the enhancements. Conversations about these
topics by scholars of religion are underway, but they are not developing nearly
as quickly as are things on the technological side.
Academics in all disciplines, as well as the general public, are still in the very
early stages of understanding, much less responding to the fast descending
enhancement technologies. While all religions are going to be reshaped, if they
survive at all, at this point the most extensive scholarly conversations about
human enhancement and religion are unfolding in the two religions of Judaism
and Christianity, and even these conversations are only at the beginning stages
of addressing the issue. By necessity, then, most of our examples are from these
two traditions. However, we understand the need to engage the pressing ques-
tions of radical enhancement from a diversity of religious perspectives, and we
will work to begin that process.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

With regard to the technologies and research trends addressed in the follow-
ing chapters, some are in the theoretical or experimental stages. Many, how-
ever, are in place and constantly being improved. In some cases, the technologies
are developing so quickly that they may have changed significantly by the time
this book is in your hand or on your screen. Our goal is not to report in detail
the latest technological advances, although we include examples of cutting-­
edge research. Rather, our goal is to depict the basic thrust of the relevant
human enhancement technologies in order to show what the religions are fac-
ing and how they are beginning to respond to the challenges.
The textbook is divided into three main parts. The first part, “Setting the
Scene,” consists of four chapters. Following this introductory chapter, in Chap.
2, “Existing and Possible Technologies: How We Biohack,” we explain, in
general, what we mean by radical human enhancement and show how it is
already occurring. Then, without become too technical, we summarize some
of the major therapies and technologies that are and likely will be employed for
enhancement purposes. These summaries establish a basic knowledge of tech-
nologies that are referred to throughout the textbook.
Chapter 3, “Transhuman, the Posthuman, and the Religions: Exploring
Basic Concepts,” defines the terms “transhuman” and “posthuman” and pro-
vides a brief history of transhumanism as an intellectual and cultural move-
ment. Religion is, of course, expressed concretely in the religions of the world,
so we outline major theological themes of the world’s faith traditions that can
be useful in interpreting human enhancement technology. We distinguish some
basic differences between the monotheistic and karmic religions that can
inform how traditions originating in different parts of the world might react to
the radical enhancements. We do not provide an exhaustive exploration of the
religions; our intention is to spur a more robust conversation about the tradi-
tional religions and other faith-inspired paths with regard to radical
enhancement.
The final chapter in Part I is titled “Radical Human Enhancement and
Ethics: Questions We Must Ask” and introduces the discipline of applied eth-
ics. The moral relevance of context, systemic power imbalances, and perspec-
tive are considered. Consultation, as a way of involving diverse voices in ethical
decision-making, is emphasized. Readers have opportunity to identify their
values, as a way of illustrating the role of values in making ethical choices. After
introducing some ethical theories, three ways of defining the human enhance-
ment issue are presented: (1) the therapy–enhancement continuum and ways
to make us better, (2) choice, and (3) justice. Each of these three ways is con-
sidered through the application of a religiously informed lens. Finally, precau-
tionary and proactionary approaches to radical human enhancement are
explained.
Part II, “Five Categories of Enhancement,” consists of three chapters exam-
ining the five categories of radical human enhancement. In each chapter, a
variety of religious and ethical issues are addressed that were introduced in Part
I of the textbook. In Chap. 5, “Superlongevity and Other Physical
6 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Enhancements,” we explore physical enhancement and, particularly, the termi-

nation of aging. Chapter 6 covers two enhancement categories and is titled
“Cognitive Enhancement and Moral Bioenhancement: Becoming Smarter and
More Moral.” Affective enhancement and spiritual enhancement are explored
in Chap. 7, which is titled “Affective Enhancement and Spiritual Enhancement:
Feeling Happier and More Spiritual.”
The third major part, “Special Topics: Going Beyond the Edge,” takes up
three topics that have made their way into the human enhancement conversa-
tion. “Cryonics: Buried, Burned, or … Frozen,” Chap. 8, explains cryonics,
which some transhumanists see as a stopgap measure, keeping people alive in a
“frozen” state until technology is invented that gives them the choice to live
indefinitely. Chapter 9, “Mind Uploading: Cyber Beings and Digital
Immortality” introduces what is more technically called whole brain emula-
tion, that is, transferring the memory and personality into a more reliable plat-
form than human biology. Finally, Chap. 10, “Superintelligence: Bringing on
The Singularity” explores “AI on Steroids,” a development that could bring
untold benefits to humanity and the planet or end life as we know it. In all
three chapters in this third part of the textbook, a variety of religious and ethi-
cal issues are probed.
The textbook concludes with Chap. 11, “Religion 2.0 and the Enhanced
Technological Future.” Many themes from prior chapters are woven together,
and new themes introduced, to show how the religions might chart a path
forward to effectively address radical human enhancement technology.

Your Authors and Our Goal

Your authors have been studying, teaching, and writing about radical human
enhancement for well over a decade and a half. Our backgrounds are in the
academic study of religion and ethics. While Professor Mercer brings broad
knowledge of the world’s religions and Professor Trothen has expertise in eth-
ics, we have jointly processed each section of the textbook. Also, we have vet-
ted the technical side of the following chapters with those who can keep us
honest on that front, although we are quick to say any errors that slipped
through on the technical front are ours alone.
We put forward plenty of ideas, but please do not read our reflections as
mandating what religious responses should be. Our goal is to introduce reli-
gious and ethical discussion points in the interest of fostering dialogue and
learning. Our commitment is to stimulate informed conversation about human
enhancement technologies and their implications. All reasonably argued points
of view are encouraged. That said, we will certainly suggest enough positions
to spark discussion and, hopefully, productive disagreement.
Scholars involved in the academic sessions we have helped organized at the
annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and those who
have contributed to the books we have coedited, include both strong propo-
nents and sharp critics of radical human enhancement. We designed it that way.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

We are strong advocates of the free exchange of ideas and vigorous debate as
religious, theological, ethical, and policy positions get hammered out. To assist
you in digging deeper, we have included questions for discussion at the end of
each chapter. A glossary of important words, as we are using them, is found at
the end of the textbook.

Who Are Our Readers?

Some readers of this textbook will identify not only as a student of religion but
as a follower of a religion or as spiritual, more generally. For you, the textbook
is an opportunity to reflect on technological developments, including artificial
intelligence, that will increasingly impact your faith tradition or spirituality.
Some of the extreme enhancements being discussed, such as uploading the
brain’s information to a computer platform, may not materialize. Some of
them, such as altering mood with pharmaceuticals, are already happening. It is
incumbent on adherents of all faith traditions to reflect theologically and ethi-
cally on these developments and to weigh in on the needed public conversa-
tion. Once these issues make their way further into our political debates—and
they will—it is important that religions be well represented in the public square
and that religiously informed concerns are included in policy construction and
in the creation of new tech.
Readers who are not religious but who are interested in the place of religion
in society are introduced to the topic of biohacking to achieve radical human
enhancement and how these developments are impacting and may impact reli-
gion. Religion, for better or worse, has played important roles in the history of
societies around the globe and is integral to understanding political and cul-
tural events. It is important for informed people, even if not religious them-
selves, to understand the coming upheavals in religion and society that will
accompany radical human enhancements.
Some readers of this book have more facility with the science and technol-
ogy fueling radical human enhancements than other readers. Perhaps you are
majoring or concentrating in one of the sciences or in some technical field,
such as computer science or genetics. If so, then you may have some back-
ground for understanding the relevant human physiology, or informational
science, of some of the technologies discussed. Even so, you may not have real-
ized the full implications for human enhancement of your scientific or technical
field. Other readers may have a stronger background in one of the liberal arts,
such as religion, history, or literature. We have presented the technical sections
of the chapters in ways that can be useful for those with diverse academic
backgrounds.
8 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Before We Continue, Here Is a Survey

We invite you (and perhaps your class or study group) to consider how you
describe yourself with regard to radical human enhancement, at this moment,
before you move through this textbook. With regard to radical biohacking,
are you:

• Totally skeptical and opposed.

• Open to the possibilities but needing to be convinced about each
enhancement.
• An eager transhumanist, i.e., an eager advocate for radical enhancement.
• Unsure.

Keep a record of your response. At the end of our study, we give opportu-
nity for you to answer the same questions and compare your responses, reflect-
ing on how they might have changed and why.
 CHAPTER 2

Existing and Possible Technologies: How

We Biohack

What We Mean by Radical Human Enhancement

A growing group of scholars and thought leaders believe that biomedical,
machine, and other technologies will increasingly refigure the human condi-
tion. Not that long ago, some of the scientific advances discussed in this text-
book were the stuff of science fiction. No more. Scientific developments that
may extend our lives and improve aspects of our being are unfolding in univer-
sity, government, hospital, and corporate labs around the world.
A few journalists have been reporting this story, and a few scientists, ethi-
cists, and authors are debating it. The media carries stories about relevant med-
ical breakthroughs and occasionally suggests their more radical implications.
Artificial intelligence (AI) in particular is capturing attention in the popular
media. However, the significance of these developments has not yet dawned in
the public’s mind, despite a few cover stories in news magazines and TV
specials.1
We already commonly replace knees, hips, fingers, elbows, and shoulder
joints, and we have cochlear implants and electronic devices to improve or
restore hearing. Prosthetic devices are available for hands, arms, and legs.
Bionic hands are being improved. Researchers in Japan and elsewhere are
developing 3-D printers that combine stem cells and artificial materials to cus-
tom make artificial ears.
Radical enhancements are likely to be in high demand, especially for younger
generations who often are more comfortable with new ideas and technologies.
The interest in biohacking our bodies and minds is evident from the popularity
of psychotropic and sexual performance pharmaceuticals, cosmetic surgery,
and sports medicine. These successful efforts to impact our mood and body

1
E.g., Harry MacCracken and Lev Grossman, “Can Google Solve Death?” Time (September 30,
2013). http://content.time.com/time/covers/0166412013093000.html.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 9

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_2
10 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

pale against the wave of engineering technologies on the horizon. Existing and
emerging technologies give new meaning to an old religious passage, “The
blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised ...”2
A thoughtful theological and ethical assessment of technology and its role is
critical for today’s world religions and, indeed, all of society. Technologies or
medical procedures initially seen as shocking and pushing the bounds of accept-
ability often become seen as normal over time. Heart surgery is a good exam-
ple. In 1944, surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital carried out the first successful
heart surgery on an infant with Tetralogy of Fallout, a rare congenital condi-
tion. This surgery shocked the world, and some questioned whether we should
be intervening in God’s domain of the human heart. Now, cardiac surgery is
regarded as a normal therapy. We will discuss the meaning of “normal” and
how it relates to human enhancement ethics in the chapter, “Radical Human
Enhancement and Ethics.”

We Are Already Enhanced

Professor Mercer, one of your authors, is writing his draft of this section while
being transported in a very high-tech machine, an airplane, piloted by a com-
puter. He is writing the draft on a computer, occasionally glancing through
technology resting on his nose (i.e., eyeglasses) and at the time machine on his
wrist to determine how much longer he has to work before landing.
Technology is essential to your reading these sentences right now, whether
you are doing it on traditional codex book technology, a Kindle, or the newest
iPad or iPhone. Technology is literally all around and all over us. We could add
“and in us.” We speak not just about artificial knees and hips. Even as you read
this book, chips—“neural implants” is the more accurate and technical term for
these computer bits—are being implanted in people’s brains to treat strokes or
to further scientific research. Welcome to the new world of neurotechnology
and biohacking. These and other enhancements are becoming more common
and potent.
We can observe the trajectory of technology by considering how we com-
municate to each other. Baby Boomers and some Gen-Xers remember when
telephones sat on a table beside the recliner, with a cord running into the wall
and outside to the telephone line. Then came the day when you walked around
the house and spoke to your friend on a wireless phone. The phone device
eventually moved to a belt on the hip, and now it is common to see people
talking via a device hooded to the ear. Phone communication technology has
moved from being outside on a table to being attached to the body. Technologies

2
The New Testament, Matthew 11:5. All Bible references are from the New Revised Standard
Version.
 2 EXISTING AND POSSIBLE TECHNOLOGIES: HOW WE BIOHACK 11

enhancing communication will not stop at devices attached to the outside of

the ear. They will move into our bodies as implants.3
Short for “cybernetic organism,” a cyborg is an organism integrated with
artificial technology whose operation restores the organism’s so-called normal
ability or takes it beyond normal functioning. Cyborgs abound in science fic-
tion. But this machine technology is not limited to science fiction imaginings.
We are already primitive cyborgs. Even the addition of eyeglasses is a human
interface with technology. Most everyone knows someone with implanted pins
that have been used to reconnect bones or fasten artificial joints.
Pacemakers reflect the path of much of our enhancement technology. They
were worn externally at first and then, in 1958, the first one was implanted.
The first patient died in 2001, outliving the surgeon who implanted it. The
technology of pacemakers, now routine, continues to become more sophisti-
cated. The newer pacemakers are smaller, flatter, and last longer. Some are
Wi-Fi connected. We could chart a similar history for cochlear implants. Or, we
could turn to vision medicine and note the dramatic shift from contact lens to
the cutting-edge work on bionic eye-brain implants.

Enhanced Athletes
To highlight yet another area, consider the impact pharmaceuticals and other
technologies are having on sports and the intense ethical debate surrounding
that. One of your authors, Professor Trothen, is a leader in addressing sport
enhancement ethics. While most people are quite certain that anabolic steroids
do not belong in sports, the general public is much less certain about the use
of other enhancements, such as Tommy-John surgery and Smart Bats.
In 1974, professional baseball pitcher Tommy John was the first to undergo
surgery to repair damage done to his ulnar collateral ligament, by using ten-
dons from other areas of the body. Some think the surgery actually improves
one’s ability to throw, although medical experts disagree. But the belief that
the surgery is enhancing has led other pitchers, and aspiring pitchers’ parents,
to request the surgery, even if there is no injury.
Many common-place enhancements in elite sport have not yet made the
headlines and become well-known. Artificial intelligence has made its way into
sport. Smart Bats in baseball enhance the batter’s swing through real-time
feedback on batter movements. In football, robots take hard—possibly
concussion-­inducing—tackles. Brain stimulation techniques stave off exhaus-
tion in endurance athletes when transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
changes the perception of effort, making it more possible to push through
exhaustion and pain.
Pharmaceutical central nervous system stimulants, such as methylphenidates
(e.g., Ritalin), increase concentration and focus. Almost one in ten professional

3
E.g., Lev Grossman and Matt Vella, “How Apple is Invading our Bodies,” Time (September
10, 2014). http://time.com/3318655/apple-watch-2/.
12 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

baseball players are prescribed Ritalin for attention deficit disorders. The con-
cern is that only four to six percent of the general population are prescribed this
drug. Because elite sport is all about winning, and athletes win by the smallest
of margins, anything that might give a boost, no matter how small, is highly
sought. As a result, enhancement technology often shows up first in the elite
sport domain. The big money in professional sport makes acquisition of expen-
sive, powerful enhancements more possible.

Technologies and Research Trends

The following human enhancement technology trends and research programs
illustrate the broad scope of unfolding technologies that will impact the future
of the human species. This list is not exhaustive but does give a sampling of
what is emerging. We identify more interventions throughout the textbook.
Some of the areas of technology overlap.

Genetic Engineering and Therapy

Scientists are working to identify genes responsible for aging and various dis-
eases and add, delete, or alter genetic material at specific locations in the
genome to improve health and possibly extend life. A couple of examples illus-
trate this exploding field. In 2017 Kymriah became the first gene therapy to
receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in the United States.
Within three months of treatment with Kymriah, a dramatic 83 percent of all
patients had either complete remission of their deadly form of leukemia or
complete remission with incomplete blood count recovery.4 Philadelphia-based
Spark Therapeutics now has Luxturna, an eye gene therapy, on the market as
the first FDA approved gene therapy for an inherited disease. Both Kymriah
and Luxturna use an altered adeno-associated viral vector to deliver a healthy
gene to replace a mutation in the RPE65 gene that causes inherited degenera-
tive retinal disease.
A transformative breakthrough is CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced
short palindromic repeats), a technology being developed at highly reputable
places, such as MIT and Harvard University. CRISPR can locate genetic code
in DNA, and then an enzyme that is produced by the CRISPR system, such as
Cas9, binds to the DNA and cuts it when the target DNA is located. Cas9
stands for “CRISPR associated protein 9.” Cas9 is an enzyme that acts like a
pair of scissors to cut the two DNA strands in specific places in the genome to
allow for the addition or deletion of DNA material. CRISPR-Cas9 allows for
the precise, quick, and inexpensive editing of DNA. Other systems in addition

4
E. Seger, “FDA Approves First Gene Therapy for Leukemia Treatment: The How’s, Why’s,
Promise, and Peril,” The Science Distillery (September 5, 2017). https://sciencedistillery.
com/2017/09/05/fda-approves-first-gene-therapy-for-leukemia-treatment-the-hows-
whys-promise-and-peril/.
 2 EXISTING AND POSSIBLE TECHNOLOGIES: HOW WE BIOHACK 13

to Cas9, such as CPF1, are being developed. Cas9 can be modified to activate
genes as well as delete them. Gene editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9
may allow for senescent (growing old) cells to regain youthful structure and
function. Much depends on our ability to identify relevant genes and clusters
of genes. Only time will tell how this science proceeds, but there is much
optimism.
George Church, of Harvard Medical School, in a remarkable statement,
said, “A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy—not just curing rare diseases
like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging.”5 CRISPR is not
some fringe mad scientist idea. Church’s company, an IPO, is backed by Google
Ventures and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.6
Even before CRISPR technology, major increases in lifespan had been
achieved in several animal species through genetic intervention. For example,
changes in just one gene of the nematode worm can significantly extend the
worm’s life. In some male worms, the lifespan has increased six-fold. Similar
research has been conducted on yeast, fruit flies, and mice.7 The goal of these
scientific inquiries, of course, is radical human life extension. Stem cell research
is expected to enhance the development of genetic manipulation technologies.
Completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 may one day be seen as
the turning point between understanding human biology and engineering it.

Germline Genetic Engineering

Somatic genetic engineering, discussed above, impacts only the individual who
receives the treatment, not their descendants. CRISPR could be harnessed to
ultimately push genomic changes through generations or even through an
entire species. This potential for germline genetic engineering, as opposed to
somatic genetic engineering, disturbs many.
Germline genetic engineering refers to manipulating “germ” cells (i.e., the
egg, sperm, and embryo cells). Engineering the genetic material in a human
embryo means that any changes made are passed down generation to genera-
tion. Once this threshold is crossed, it may be the first big step toward the end
of humanity as we know it. This capability would allow for the suppression and

5
Joel Achenbach, “A Harvard Professor Says He Can Cure Aging, But Is That a Good Idea?”
Washington Post (December 2, 2015). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/achenblog/
wp/2015/12/02/\professor-george-church-says-he-can-reverse-the-aging-process/.
6
In February 2020, a US trial used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, with no side effects, on the
immune systems of three cancer patients. (AFP, “US Trial Shows 3 Cancer Patients Had Their
Genomes Altered Safely by CRISPR,” ScienceAlert. Accessed February 9, 2020.)
7
Mark Geanacopoulos, “The Determinants of Lifespan in the Nematode Caenorhabditis
Elegans: A Short Primer,” Science Progress 87, no. 4 (2004): 227–247; Anders Olsen, Maithili
C. Vantipalli, and Gordon J. Lithgow, “Using Caenorhabditis Elegans as a Model for Aging and
Age-Related Diseases,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1067, no. 1 (June 2006):
120–128. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1354.015; and Nitish Mittal, et al., “The Gcn4
Transcription Factor Reduces Protein Synthesis Capacity and Extends Yeast Lifespan,” Nature
Communications 8, no. 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00539-y.
14 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

enhancement of naturally occurring conditions and traits that would then be

passed on to future generations.8 It could become possible to design out obe-
sity, poor eyesight, and cancer, while designing in tallness, musical ability,
higher IQ, and longevity. Genetic engineering also, understandably, brings up
concerns about how these potent technologies could be used for nefarious
ends. Germline editing raises additional ethics questions around the consent of
future generations that we will explore later in this textbook.
Germline genetic engineering may bring with it currently unknown side-­
effects, including off-target side effects, which are unintended impacts on
genes other than those being targeted for change. So, while there are still many
technical difficulties to overcome before “designer baby” engineering could be
routinely and safely utilized with humans, CRISPR-Cas9 moves us closer to
this possibility, and that disturbs many. Already, in China, twins have been born
whose embryos had been edited by CRISPR technology to prevent the possi-
bility of HIV. Since the edited DNA can be passed to their progeny, and
because of the dodging of regulatory accountability, much world-wide con-
demnation of this unapproved gene-editing experiment arose.
Gene drives could push genomic changes through an entire species. A gene
drive is genetic engineering technology that can be used to change genes in
germline cells to propagate changes through an entire species. This engineer-
ing technique changes genes so they do not keep to the typical hereditary pat-
terns. Unlike germline genetic modification technologies, this technique
ensures that the new gene gets passed on to all generations, indefinitely.
Typically, genes have a 50 percent chance of being passed on. Gene drives
move that percentage to 100 percent. The amount of time that it would take
to change an entire species depends on the length of the species reproduc-
tion cycle.
Mosquitos, as a species, could be genetically altered to prevent the spread of
malaria. Because of their relatively short reproduction cycle, the entire species
could be changed in about one year. While the eradication of malaria spread via
mosquitos may sound very attractive, we do not know all the implications and
off-target effects of this change. Gene drives, and germline genetic engineer-
ing, are important emerging biotechnologies that raise many theological and
ethical questions for the religious traditions.

Tissue Engineering and Organ Replacement

Regenerative medicine, a broad field that includes tissue engineering, is push-
ing forward on repairing, improving, and replacing damaged or diseased organs
and tissues in our bodies. We now routinely replace knees, hips, and kidneys
(the latter through organ transplant, often from living donors), and indications
are that these body part replacement procedures will become more common.

8
K. E. Ormond, et al., “Human Germline Genome Editing,” American Journal of Human
Genetics 101, no. 2 (August 3, 2017): 167–176.
 2 EXISTING AND POSSIBLE TECHNOLOGIES: HOW WE BIOHACK 15

Certainly, the brain and nervous system are in a different league; however,
there are research programs that may impact replacement of these significant
parts or facilitate their regrowth.
Research on therapeutic cloning, that is, producing organs and tissues for
transplanting into humans is proceeding, despite ethical debate. At the pio-
neering Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine,9 in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, USA, cells and/or tissues from skin, urethras, cartilage, blad-
ders, muscle, kidney, and vaginas have been grown in the lab and implanted
into human beings. The Institute was the first in the world to implant a
laboratory-­grown organ into humans. Using tissue engineering, cell therapies,
biomanufacturing, nanotechnology, gene editing, and 3D printing, the research
teams there are working on growing more than 40 different tissues or organs.
Regenerative medicine has been called the “next evolution of medical treat-
ments,” by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.10
Theoretically, we could replace many more of the parts of our bodies than
are currently possible. When the transmission in your car breaks, you replace it
and you still consider it your car. What if, over time, you replaced every part of
your car, would it be the same car? This is a modern version of the ancient
“Ship of Theseus” thought experiment discussed by Greek philosophers. As
the tissue engineering and organ replacement possibilities expand, theological
and ethical issues having to do with personal identity and human nature press
upon us.

Artificial Intelligence
When we think of AI, we might recall Hollywood movie depictions of death-­
dealing robots and androids battling with us to take over the planet. But the AI
image is changing as we hear about Deep Blue, the masterful computer that
beat the best humans at chess over 20 years ago, or the more recent AlphaGo
computer that excelled at “Go,” perhaps the most complex boardgame ever
devised. Now, we have AlphaZero and Stockfish 8 as renowned AI chess mas-
ters. AI is attracting, appropriately, much attention with regard to its impact on
jobs and the economy. With self-driving vehicles and smart home devices, such
as Siri and Alexa, AI is increasingly becoming a part of our daily lives. Having
moved through a number of boom and bust periods, AI is positioned for sig-
nificant advancement.
This “weak” or “narrow AI” involves computers programmed to perform a
particular function with a predefined range and provides the context for the
development of “strong AI, also called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI),”
which is machine intelligence that mimics that of humans. At this point theo-
retical, strong AI is anticipated by many experts to be developed in the coming

9
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. https://school.wakehealth.edu/Research/
Institutes-and-Centers/Wake-Forest-Institute-for-Regenerative-Medicine.
10
Ibid.
16 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

decades. Weak AI is neither conscious nor sentient. Strong AI, however, moves
us into capabilities resembling human intelligence and all the theological, ethi-
cal, and other attendant issues. We discuss strong AI and what might come
beyond it—superintelligence—in the chapter, “Superintelligence.”

Merging of Computer Technology with Human Biology

Pacemakers and a variety of other implants are now commonplace, but some-
day computers that interface with the human body may become even more
routine. Biomechatronics, pushing forward the intricate integration of biology,
mechanics, and electronics, is a growing research field and is related to the also
exploding fields of robotics and neuroscience. We have implants to help deaf
people hear, and a retinal implant helps some blind people see. Neural implants
are placed directly into the brain of some patients to counteract symptoms of
Parkinson’s Disease and other neurological disorders. Increasingly, computer
technology is being embedded in our bodies.
With research expertise in AI, robotics, and biomedical engineering,
Emeritus Professor Kevin Warwick at Coventry and Reading Universities in the
UK is famous for his pioneering experiments involving the implantation of
technology into the median nerves of his arm. This device allowed him to link
his nervous system to a computer, helping research move forward that might
someday assist people with disabilities limiting their ability to communicate.11

Robotics
Robots are being used more and more in various areas of life. A team of under-
graduate engineering students at Dartmouth College developed the Mobile
Virtual Player (MVP), a robot that can stand in for players and take hard hits
that may otherwise cause concussions during football practice sessions. These
robots are automated by remote control and engage with players at the direc-
tion of the coach operating the controls. More autonomous robots that could
participate in actual plays in real-time are planned for the future. Life-sized sex
dolls have been around for years. Artificially intelligent robots are now being
marketed and utilized for companionship, beyond mere physical sex. All of
these AI creations, in addition to biohacking processes, are designed for human
enhancement.
Utilizing advanced tissue engineering capabilities, robots of the future will
not necessarily be comprised of only plastic and metal. These machines are
becoming more and more humanoid, bringing on reports about the “dehu-
manization of robots,” even though they are not human.12 While we usually
think of robots as machines, separate from us, robots can play an important

www.kevinwarwick.com.
11

Jonah Englel Bromwich, “Maybe We Are Wired to Beat Up Machines,” The New York Times,
12

SundayStyles (January 20, 2019): 1, 8.

 2 EXISTING AND POSSIBLE TECHNOLOGIES: HOW WE BIOHACK 17

role in enhancing our physical abilities, especially when designed so as to

smoothly integrate with flesh and blood bodies.13 Artificial intelligence will get
ever more sophisticated, allowing robots to be (at least on the surface) sensual,
social, and emotional, and in the process raising theological and ethical issues.

Other Technologies
A variety of other cutting-edge technologies can be marshalled in the service of
human enhancement. Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term that includes
various forms of simulated environments. Virtual humans and digital immor-
tality have been under development for years.14 Commercial competition, for
example, in the virtual reality video game industry, is just one factor fueling
investments in the development of such technologies.
Brain stimulation techniques are used to treat major depression and aid in
recovery after strokes. They can improve athletic performance, and rumors are
they have been used by athletes in Olympic games. Transcranial direct current
stimulation (tDCS) improves endurance. Even though not yet banned in sport,
tDCS does have strong potential downsides. It can cause seizures, headaches,
and changes in thought patterns. Deep brain stimulation utilization is emerg-
ing all over the world.15 A quick Google search finds brain stimulation devices
on Amazon—even travel sized—for about 260 Canadian dollars.
Non-invasive scanning techniques, such as the MRI, PET, and CAT, are
routinely employed. Brain scanning technologies are fast increasing in resolu-
tion. Conceivably, scientists will eventually peer inside synapses and record
neurotransmitter activity, obtaining detailed models and simulations of all
regions of the brain. If the brain is completely mapped, the job of redesigning
and rebuilding the brain could be furthered considerably.
Nanotechnology is an exciting, emerging science that almost assuredly will
play a role in human enhancement. A “nano” is one billionth of a meter, the
width of about five carbon atoms. Nanotechnology research is active with ani-
mals and may eventually produce blood-cell sized, computerized tools called
nanobots, capable of manipulating human biology at the cellular level.
We have only touched on the myriad of technologies that are being used or
being considered for human enhancement. Whether or not they all make us

13
For an accessible introduction to robotics by a leading expert, see Rodney A. Brooks, Flesh and
Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Vintage Books, 2002).
14
E.g., Martine Rothblatt, Virtually Human: The Promise—and Peril—of Digital Immortality
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014). Rothblatt is a lawyer, medical ethicist, technologist, and
entrepreneur. She addresses the technical, legal, moral, and even spiritual questions surrounding
the development of “mindclones,” digital copies of our identities. She believes religions will even-
tually embrace mindclones. See also N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual
Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999);
and Debra Bassett, The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives: You Only Live Twice, in
Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve
Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
15
Chencheng Zhang, et al., “An International Survey of Deep Brain Stimulation Utilization in
Asia and Oceania: The DBS Think Tank East,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 06 (July 2020).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00162/full.
18 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

better is not a simple question allowing for an easy answer. There are many
issues to be considered. Religion, as we will see, helps frame the complexities
of emerging technologies and of being human.

Questions for Discussion

1. Most of us use a smart phone and computer. Are we already being (uncon-
sciously?) drawn into a world of significant human enhancement? Is this a
good thing?
2. How would you distinguish the line between “normal” and “radical”
enhancement? What are some examples of “normal,” as opposed to “radi-
cal,” enhancements?
3. What issues of fairness are involved when athletes use enhancement tech-
nologies and pharmaceuticals to improve performance?
4. Why might somatic genetic engineering be acceptable and germline genetic
engineering not be acceptable?
5. Identify some of the ways AI, including smart robots, is at work in your
daily life.
6. Identify some of the technologies that might work in concert with each
other to produce even more potent enhancements.
7. Were you aware of the enhancing technologies discussed in this chapter? If
not, why do you think you had not heard of them before?
 CHAPTER 3

Transhumanism, the Posthuman,

and the Religions: Exploring Basic Concepts

What Is Transhumanism? What Is the Posthuman?

The term transhumanism is usually traced back to an often-quoted statement
by evolutionary biologist and philosopher, Julian Huxley (1887–1975), who
wrote in 1957:

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an

individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety,
as humanity.1

The history of the term is more complicated, and interesting, than that,
however. Natasha Vita-More provides a detailed etymology of “transhuman-
ism” and similar terms, revealing their usages by the Italian poet Dante (c.
1265–1321), T. S. Elliot, FM-2030, and others. Vita-More credits FM-2030
(f/k/a FM Esfandiary) with first using transhuman as an evolutionary concept
in the 1970s.2
Professor Ron Cole-Turner has a long and distinguished career speaking
thoughtfully about biomedical issues from a Christian theological and ethical
perspective. He has also made significant contributions to the radical human
enhancement debate. In an article titled “Christian Transhumanism,”3 he also
points to Dante’s use of the term.

1
Julian Huxley, New Bottles for New Wine (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957), 17.
2
Vita-More’s careful etymological work, done in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, is published
in numerous places, e.g., Vita-More, “Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic Design-Based Theory of
the Transhuman/Posthuman,” PhD diss., (University of Plymouth, 2012), 78–79. http://hdl.
handle.net/10026.1/1182. See also the 2008 version of Natasha Vita-More, “The Transhumanist
Manifesto,” especially footnote 2, which succinctly summarizes her findings. https://natashavita-
more.com/transhumanist-manifesto/.
3
“Christian Transhumanism,” in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and
Morality, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_3
20 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Trasumanar was Dante’s word to describe the glorious transformation that

Christians experience as they ascend into God’s presence. Cole-Turner para-
phrases Dante: “To go beyond the human is something that cannot be
described in words.”4 Cole-Turner reclaims the Christian roots of “transhu-
manism,” which he argues go all the way back to biblical themes. Here is just
one biblical example: “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do
know is this: when he (Christ) is revealed, we will be like him.”5 The debate
about the origins of the terms reflects broader and deeper questions about
whether the nature and mission of the religions position them to embrace radi-
cal human enhancement, questions that will concern us in the upcoming
chapters.
Pushing forward from the origins of words and concepts, transhumanism as
a movement began with the extropian movement in the late 1980s through the
work of philosopher Max More6 and others.7 The term “extropy” was chosen
by More to reflect a desire for improvement and growth, in contrast to entropy,
which measures disorder within a system. Today, transhumanism is generally
understood as an intellectual and cultural movement that advocates the use of
a wide range of increasingly powerful technologies to radically enhance human
beings. Transhumanists look for the convergence of these technologies to make
it possible to control human evolution by using technology to enhance human
physical, mental, affective, moral, and spiritual abilities and to ameliorate aspects
of the human condition regarded as undesirable, such as disease and aging.8
Organizations advocating for development and use of these varied and fast-­
developing technologies are relatively small, but powerful, and getting

Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017;
paperback, 2019).
4
Paraphrase of Dante, Paradiso, canto 1, line 70, in Cole-Turner, “Christian Transhumanism,” 37.
5
In the New Testament, 1 John 3:2.
6
At that time Max More’s name was Max O’Connor. He changed his name to reflect his desire
for the extropian commitment to “more” life, freedom, and intelligence.
7
The history is well documented and analyzed by James Michael MacFarlane, Transhumanism
as a New Social Movement: The Techno-Centred Imagination, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of
Humanity and its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2020). On the history, see especially 25–54.
8
More provides a good introduction to the philosophy of transhumanism, its various precursors,
its relationship to humanism, some contemporary expressions, and misconceptions in “The
Philosophy of Transhumanism,” in The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays
on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, 3–17, eds. More, Max and Natasha
Vita-More. (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). In a brief section, page 8, he contends that
religion and transhumanism are not necessarily incompatible. The Transhumanist Reader: Classical
and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future is an excel-
lent collection of transhumanist writings, including, as the subtitle indicates, some classic pieces by,
e.g., Robert A. Freitas, Jr. (nanotechnology), Ralph Merkle (nanotechnology), Marvin Minsky
(artificial intelligence), and Hans Moravec (robotics). A recent collection of articles by scholars and
others on the history, philosophy, religion, and technology of transhumanism is edited by the chair
of the California Transhumanist Party, Newton Lee, and titled The Transhumanism Handbook
(New York: Springer, 2019).
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 21

stronger; together they help form the transhumanist movement. Although

changing, transhumanism has been largely led by white men from Europe and
America, a fact addressed later in our ethical reflections. The leading secular
transhumanist organization is “humanity+,”9 with the website headline, “Don’t
limit your challenges, challenge your limits.” Although humanity+ has only a
few thousand formal members, transhumanist ideas, and especially the tech-
nologies associated with them, are increasingly working their way into the pub-
lic’s awareness. Although now only a tiny blip on the political radar, there is in
the United States a small political party structure that could provide the con-
text for intense debates about policy and funding in the coming decades.10
Later in this chapter, we provide detailed information about two other trans-
humanist organizations that are religious in focus.
In one sense of the word, a transhuman is still a human, but one whose
capabilities go beyond those of “normal” humans. One could argue we are
already transhuman, since we interface so heavily with technology. Radically
enhancing ourselves into transhumans may not be the end of the matter. At
some point, the enhancements may be extreme enough that the human may
evolve into the posthuman. Homo sapien may become techno sapien or Homo
Deus. The transhuman will turn out to be an intermediary step between “nor-
mal” humans and beings that are not human, i.e., are posthuman. We entertain
the possibility of the posthuman in later chapters on mind uploading and
superintelligence.
Narrowly conceived, the term transhuman refers to that which is still human,
albeit greatly enhanced. However, the term is sometimes used more loosely, in
the broader sense of (1) sentient beings that develop from humans but to such
a degree that they are no longer human in any real sense, and (2) sentient
beings that develop apart from humans. It is in this broader sense that we use
the term transhumanism. So, in the coming chapters we discuss, for example,
the development of advanced artificially intelligent robots, which develop apart
from any direct evolution of Homo sapien.
We end this section with a suggestion to read this clever piece, “A Letter to
Mother Nature: Amendments to the Human Constitution,”11 from Max More,
the influential transhumanist. This letter, and its important amendments, cap-
tures well the sentiment of many transhumanists. We will encounter More
again in the later chapter on cryonics. Here are some key excerpts from this
letter to Mother Nature. Notice how transhumanism tends toward a view of
human nature as malleable, as a work-in-progress.

Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No doubt you
did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we must say that you have

9
http://humanityplus.org/.
10
“U.S. Transhumanist Party—Official Website.” http://transhumanist-party.org/. For a dis-
cussion of how it fits into the history and current presence of the transhumanist movement, see
MacFarlane, Transhumanism as a New Social Movement, 155–162.
11
http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-about-ten-years-since-i-wrote.html.
22 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

in many ways done a poor job with the human constitution. You have made us
vulnerable to disease and damage. You compel us to age and die—just as we’re
beginning to attain wisdom. You were miserly in the extent to which you gave us
awareness of our somatic, cognitive, and emotional processes. You held out on us
by giving the sharpest senses to other animals. You made us functional only under
narrow environmental conditions. You gave us limited memory, poor impulse
control, and tribalistic, xenophobic urges. And, you forgot to give us the operat-
ing manual for ourselves! … What you have made us is glorious, yet deeply
flawed. … We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution. …
We do not do this lightly, carelessly, or disrespectfully, but cautiously, intelli-
gently, and in pursuit of excellence. We intend to make you proud of us. Over the
coming decades we will pursue a series of changes to our own constitution, initi-
ated with the tools of biotechnology guided by critical and creative thinking.

Next, there follows seven amendments to the human constitution. More’s

letter ends in the following way:

These amendments to our constitution will move us from a human to a transhu-

man condition as individuals. We believe that individual transhumanizing will also
allow us to form relationships, cultures, and polities of unprecedented innova-
tion, richness, freedom, and responsibility. We reserve the right to make further
amendments collectively and individually. Rather than seeking a state of final per-
fection, we will continue to pursue new forms of excellence according to our own
values, and as technology allows.

The letter is signed “Your ambitious human offspring.”

Monotheistic Religions and Karmic Religions

Scholars specializing in the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity
have been most active in evaluating technological enhancement of humans.
However, we want this textbook to play a role in opening up the conversation
beyond these two traditions.12 To that end, we here paint in very broad and
introductory strokes some key theological concepts in all religions to which we
refer as we reflect on radical human enhancement in the coming chapters. Our

12
Scholars of Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism contributed chapters to Religion
and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; paperback, 2014); and Transhumanism and the Body: The World
Religions Speak, eds. Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity
and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2014). We expect the karmic religions will become increasingly engaged in the conversation, and
publications like the following suggest this may happen sooner rather than later: Robert M. Geraci,
Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in South Indian Science
(Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2018); and Zhange Ni, “Reimagining Daoist Alchemy,
Decolonizing Transhumanism: The Fantasy of Immortality Cultivation in Twenty-First Century
China,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 55, no. 3 (August 2020): 748–71. https://doi.
org/10.1111/zygo.12634.
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 23

hope is that our very preliminary reflections will prompt increased discussion
from all the religions about human enhancement. We underscore that our goal
in the textbook is not to give comprehensive summaries of the religions, but,
rather, to identify a few important themes that have been or could be useful in
thinking about enhancement technologies. These themes are meant to be illus-
trative, not exhaustive.
Terminology categorizing the world’s religions is problematic. “Eastern
religions” and “Western religions” are sometimes used, but these terms are
quite broad and emphasize geographical origin, which is no longer as relevant
with globalization spreading the religions across the world. We chose the terms
monotheistic religions and karmic religions, recognizing that these terms are
also imperfect and do not capture all the ways of being spiritual or religious.
Monotheistic religions include the “Abrahamic faiths,” Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam. We use the term “karmic religions” to refer to Hinduism, Buddhism,
Daoism, Jainism, and Sikhism, although each religion understands karma and
rebirth (to be discussed in more detail later) in varying ways.13 We draw ideas
especially from India and the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. We will
also refer to perspectives derived from Indigenous Spiritualities and more secu-
larized spiritualities.14
There are many hybrids of all these religions, and we are aware we have not
addressed all of the religions or ways of being religious. The generalizations we
do make, for example, about a particular religion are just that, generalizations
that are helpful in reflecting on radical human enhancement but do not apply
to every strand or expression of the religion. We encourage you to further
explore any religion or way of being religious or spiritual that captures your
interest. Information provided about religions in this textbook is meant as a
beginning study only.
This textbook presumes no background knowledge about religion; every-
thing about the faith traditions needed for the discussion in the following
chapters is provided. Excellent resources are available for those desiring a more
thorough treatment of the world’s religions than provided in this textbook.15

Conceptualizations of the Divine

Throughout history and across the planet, human beings have conceptualized
the divine in many ways. “Theism” is from the Greek word theos (god) or theoi

13
Other religions include those originating in East Asia, including Confucianism and Shinto.
Like the monotheistic religions, Zoroastrianism originated in the Middle East but is not strictly
monotheistic.
14
Indigenous traditions, sometimes called tribal or basic religions, include African, Native
American, Innuit, and others.
15
The most detailed introduction to the world’s religions is probably David S. Noss and Blake
R. Grangaard, A History of the World’s Religions, 14th ed. (Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis,
2017). An excellent shorter introduction is Michael Molloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions:
Tradition, Challenge, and Change, 8th. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2020).
24 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

(gods). The two theisms that will concern us most are pantheism (pan is Greek
for “all” or “everything”) and monotheism (monos is Greek for “one” or
“single”).
While not all strands of karmic religions are pantheistic, this is an important
perspective in those traditions. Pantheism is the belief that God is equivalent to
all of reality. God is, by definition, everything, and everything is God. Pantheism
can be difficult to understand for many who do not follow a karmic religion.
Pantheism is not polytheism (poly is Greek for “many”), which is a belief in
many gods, particularly characteristic of ancient religion, as in the ancient
Greek and Roman pantheon of deities and often associated with aspects of
nature. With pantheism, God is not any particular part of nature or reality. God
is everything in total and everything in total is God.
Looked at from another angle, pantheism is the idea that there is only one
“thing.” In other words, everything is really the same thing. In the deepest
sense of reality, there are no distinctions. There is only one reality, and it is all
the same. That one “thing” is, of course, called God in this pantheistic model.
When ignorance is vanished, and truth fully expressed, there is only God.
Those not immersed in Asian cultures, where pantheism is an underlying mind-
set, may react this way: “Pantheism is an interesting idea, but it is obviously
incorrect. This chair is clearly distinct from that table, and both are clearly
distinct from my body.” Not so fast.
Enter the concept of maya, Sanskrit for “illusion.” According to this per-
spective, we are mistaken to think reality is made up of different things. We are
under the power of a pervasive illusion. The gurus of this model of the divine
liken it to a dream. When we dream and do not know we are dreaming, if it is
a nightmare, our heart beats fast and our blood pressure rises. We are con-
vinced the nightmare is real. Then, we arrive at that interesting moment when
we transition to the awake state, realizing, “Oh, it was just a dream.”
The karmic religion sages working from a pantheistic model contend that
we are dreaming a world of distinctions. It is powerful, sophisticated, detailed,
and very convincing, but it is not real, at least it is not ultimately real. The
world of distinctions is an illusion. In pantheism, even the many Gods in
Hinduism are manifestations of the oneness. There is only one. There is only
God. God is everything, and everything is God.
Every religion identifies what it considers to be the basic human predica-
ment. For Hinduism, to give one example, the problem is ignorance. Salvation,
then, comes with spiritual knowledge that brings enlightenment, waking up
from the illusory dream and coming fully into the knowledge, the realization,
of oneness with God. This pantheistic understanding of the divine has implica-
tions for how human beings and their salvation are conceived. We will address
that in a moment, but first it will be helpful to contrast pantheism with mono-
theism, the dominant model of the monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.
Monotheism posits one deity, a God who creates all of reality and is distinct
from that reality, including human beings. Although there are plenty of
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 25

variations, the attributes of the one God are usually understood to include
omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing), and omnibenevolence
or omnibeneficience (all-good). Some followers see God as both immanent
(existing within humans, animals and/or nature) and transcendent (being
apart from and greater than), whereas others see God as transcendent only. The
human predicament is that the human creatures are estranged from God
through sin or acting contrary to divine intention. Salvation entails reconcilia-
tion through various means, such as divine grace, confession, atonement, and
restitution.

Theological Anthropology
“Theological anthropology” is a fancy word for a religion’s doctrine, or belief,
about human beings. Who are human beings, what is their relationship to God,
and how can they journey to salvation?

Karma and Reincarnation

An important tradition in Hinduism, to pick one karmic religion example,
asserts that human beings, caught up in the illusory world of distinctions, have
a soul (Sanskrit atman). The soul is the infinite center of every life, distinct
from the body and a reservoir of being that is unrestricted in consciousness and
bliss. When salvation is achieved, the ultimate truth is revealed that the soul
and God are really one and the same, because in pantheism God is everything
and everything is God.
The doctrines of karma and reincarnation explain how the human soul
arrives at saving, enlightenment knowledge. Samsara is Sanskrit for “wander-
ing” or “going through.” Commonly known as “reincarnation,” but also
called rebirth or transmigration of the soul, the doctrine teaches that in the
world of illusion the human soul transmigrates through successive lives until it
achieves liberation from the cycle. So, there is an aspect of every being—the
soul, mind, or consciousness—that is eternal and indestructible and is reborn
as human, animal, and heavenly or hellish beings until final liberation (Sanskrit,
moksha) from the “wheel of rebirth.”
Poetically put by the book perhaps most beloved in India, the Bhagavad
Gita, “Worn out garments are shed by the body; worn out bodies are shed by
the dweller.”16 This notion of the soul’s rebirth through successive lives is most
famous in India, although it was also held in the ancient Near East and other
cultures. Our purpose here is not to engage the distinctions between, for exam-
ple, the varying notions of reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism. Rather,
with regard to assessing radical human enhancement, we will reflect more
broadly on how this central belief of reincarnation might push in a different
direction than the monotheistic religion view of one life and one afterlife.

16
Bhagavad Gita 2:22. Edwin Arnold, trans., The Bhagavad Gita (Kansas City: Scholar’s
Choice, 2015).
26 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Integral to the doctrine of reincarnation is the law of karma. The Sanskrit

word literally means “action” or “deed,” and it refers to the idea that one’s
actions (or inactions) influence, even determine, the status of the lives into
which a soul is born. Science has taught us the law of cause and effect. Every
event in the physical universe has a cause, and every cause has determinate
effects. The law of karma extends cause and effect to the moral and spiritual
realms. Moral, spiritually good actions in this life promote rebirth into a next
life that is closer to liberation.
While we are not fully teasing out the differences between Hinduism and
Buddhism on these matters, we should note that Buddhism has its own special
interpretations of the traditional doctrines of karma and reincarnation. For
Buddhists, reincarnation occurs without any actual soul-substance passing
from one life to the next.

 onotheistic Views of Soul, Body, and Physicality

M
In the monotheistic religions, there is disagreement about what constitutes a
human being and the role soul has in that constitution. Judaism and Christianity,
for example, in the main depict a human being as a psychosomatic unity of
body and soul. Soul is not a distinct and separate “part” of what constitutes a
person. However, influenced by ancient Greek and other dualistic traditions,
one Christian view, popular in many conservative Protestant circles, asserts that
human beings do possess a separate soul, which is the focus of salvation.
The predominate view, however, that of a psychosomatic unity of body and
soul, leads to the doctrine of resurrection, which entails the raising of an inte-
grated being, not just a soul. In other words, there is a clear difference between
immortality of the soul only and resurrection of the unified person, which
includes the (transformed) body.17 An immortal soul that transmigrates from
one bodily incarnation to another is a notion prominent in Hinduism (as we
discussed earlier), neo-Platonic groups, and ancient Gnosticism.
The belief that the body and soul can be separated is a dualistic belief. We
need not complicate matters in making this point, but the influential seven-
teenth century philosopher, René Descartes, also distinguished mind from
body in a way that supports dualistic thinking. An immortal soul is a belief
central to many religious traditions. Our point is that a dualistic view of the
person is not the view in the ancient Jewish and Christian scriptures and has
not been the anthropology affirmed in mainstream Christian theology. Today,
many Protestant Christians, especially those with a conservative bent, use the
biblical language of resurrection, but their ideas about the afterlife are much
more grounded, albeit unknowingly, in a dualistic framework derived from
sources outside the Bible.

17
For a valuable collection of articles on resurrection and science, see Ted Peters, Robert John
Russell, and Michael Welker, eds., Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments (Grand
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002).
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 27

The notion of the psychosomatic unity of body and soul, with the attendant
notion of resurrection, is underscored by the importance of physicality.
Physicality is so central to this vision that it merits putting it in a larger biblical
and theological context. The Christian religion illustrates the emphasis on
physicality. The incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, the full uniting of the divine
and human, is one of the central doctrinal tenets of Christianity. God became
flesh; God embraced physicality. Raw material for this central doctrine is found
in the first chapter of the Christian Gospel of John. The eternal, divine logos
(Word) is fleshed out in Jesus.18
In the first few centuries of the Christian church, this idea was hammered
out in creeds and councils. Christianity rejected the docetic (from the Greek
word meaning “to seem”) heresy that taught that Jesus only “seemed” like a
human being, but really was not. Finally, in the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE),
the church formulated the position that has survived the centuries, despite
occasional dissent. Jesus is fully divine and fully human, and his humanity
includes, of course, embodiment.
The importance of the body even shows up in one of Christianity’s central
rituals, the Eucharist, in some traditions called the Lord’s Supper or Holy
Communion. In this ritual, Christians eat bread and drink wine.19 A variety of
interpretations of this ritual can be found among Roman Catholics and
Protestants, and even among various Protestant denominations. In all of them
the bread, whether understood literally or symbolically, is the body of Christ.
Indeed, the Christian church is called the “body of Christ,” again emphasizing
the importance of the corporeal.
The embrace of physicality, profoundly exhibited in the Christian doctrine
of the Incarnation, is also reflected in Judaism. In the first chapter of the first
book of the Bible, God creates the entire physical world and affirms it as “very
good.”20 This affirmation carries through to and is part of the eschatological
vision of a “new heaven and a new earth.”21
Christianity teaches the possibility of an afterlife in which one is immortal,
living with God for eternity, although in a transformed state. What this trans-
formed state looks like is debated among followers of this religion with many
claiming that the afterlife is a divine mystery that is to be known only after
death. Some believe that one’s destiny after death is determined by the way in
which one lived. Others see salvation as less dependent upon works and more
dependent upon God’s grace. The important thing for matters discussed in this
textbook is the general belief in the possibility of an eternal life that will be
more glorious than earthly life and will entail, in the dominant Christian view,
embodiment.

18
John 1:1, 14.
19
In Christian denominations that forbid alcohol, or see alcohol as excluding some members,
grape juice is usually substituted for wine.
20
Genesis 1:31.
21
Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1.
28 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

“ Theosis” or Deification
Whether the human being is understood as “having” a soul or “being” a soul,
the monotheistic traditions generally rebel against identifying God with the
human or with anything else that God creates. There is only one God, and it is
idolatrous to make any part of the created order divine.
Having said that, we need to consider one very important exception in the
monotheistic tradition of Christianity. Gaining a good bit of attention of late is
an important theological notion in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, one of the
three main branches of the Christian religion.22 The Eastern Orthodox
Christian doctrine is called theosis and is well expressed in the often-quoted
words of Athanasius of Alexandria (296/298–373 CE), “He [Jesus Christ] was
made man that we might be made god.”23 The idea is also affirmed by
Mormonism, a Christian movement discussed later in this chapter.
Theosis, sometimes called deification, refers to a view of salvation whereby
one is transformed, or divinized, and elevated in some significant way into the
life of God. The discussions about (and terminology of) theosis are quite tech-
nical and complex, perhaps in part due to the effort to stop short of attributing
full divinity to a human, which would be heresy in a monotheistic religion.
Theosis is interesting in that it is perhaps the best example of a theological
concept in an Abrahamic religion that compares closely to pantheism in karmic
religions. There is an important difference, however. Traditionally, at least in
Hinduism, a soul can move through thousands or more rebirths before arriv-
ing at liberation. Buddhism, in a reformation of Hinduism, asserted that it is
possible for anyone to become enlightened in this lifetime, although it can take
many reincarnations. Theosis, however, is a spiritual process that theoretically
occurs in a single lifetime as the Eastern Orthodox Christian pilgrim moves
through three stages: (1) purgative or purification, (2) illumination, and,
finally, (3) theosis, deification or unity with God.

 reated Co-Creators24
C
Christian theologian Philip Hefner proposed the interesting notion that human
beings are created co-creators with God.25 Human beings, created in the image
of God (Latin, imago Dei), are charged in the first chapter of the Bible with
being stewards of the created order. Human beings are responsible for tending
the garden, keeping it beautiful, and flourishing. So, using God-given talents,
people work with God as created co-creators in the creative process to
make anew.

22
The other two branches in this religion are Roman Catholic and Protestant.
23
Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word, trans. John Behr, Popular Patristics
Series 44 (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), section 54.3, p. 167.
24
For a discussion of the created co-creator principle and Christian theology, see Stephen Garner,
“Christian Theology and Transhumanism: The ‘Created Co-creator and Bioethical Principles,”
in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin
Mercer and Tracy Trothen, 229–43 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015).
25
The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 27.
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 29

Hefner’s theological reasoning goes like this. If we are created in the image
of God (Latin imago Dei), as expressed in a Jewish creation story,26 and if one
of the divine qualities is creativity, then human beings are meant to create so
long as this creating is done with humility (knowing they have a propensity to
make mistakes and to sin), the intent to do good (repair the world), and with
the communal and ongoing discernment of God’s will, as best that will can be
discerned. In other words, we are meant to do good and to care for creation,
ourselves, and our neighbor. Professor Trothen explains:

Humans, as made in the likeness of God, have been given creativity to be used in
divine service. Theologian Philip Hefner’s proposal of humans as created co-­
creators helps us to complicate the caution not to “play God” in the realm of
science and technology. While we ought to be prudent and aware of our abilities
to mess up, we also have extraordinary capacity to improve life with God’s help.
The imago Dei suggests a divine mandate to create for the good. This is a risky
venture requiring humility and some audacity. Theological ethicist Grace
D. Cumming Long develops the ethical principle of creativity making a strong
case for the necessity of creativity if we are to reimagine and recreate the world as
just and compassionate …. We have means to assess the damage we have done
and continue to do to the environment, and there are possible correctives if we
collectively have the political will.27

The concept of created co-creators lays the theological ground for asserting
that God can and does work through and with people, as humble and coura-
geous partners, in developing technologies, perhaps very powerful ones, for
good. To say it a different way, technology can be a means of grace, just like the
hands of the traditional doctor. The concept is similar to a Jewish notion,
Tikkun olam, translated “repair the world.” A justice oriented “co-evolution”
could be considered the secular version.28
To put it yet another way, the material world can be a domain of God’s
graceful, creative action. Lurking behind this theology is, of course, an optimis-
tic view of how technology can be both potent and good in the hands of God
and her/his created co-creators. So, the fundamental assessment of nature’s
potential for good, in the monotheistic religions, is a deeply biblical concept,
going back to the very important creation stories in Genesis. Following the
sixth day of creation, God declared that everything is “very good.”29 There is
no hint of evil, suffering, or fallenness in the creation story in the first two
chapters of the Hebrew Bible. Everything is very good, including human phys-
ical, cognitive, affective, moral, and spiritual abilities.

26
Genesis 1:26.
27
Tracy J. Trothen, “Christian Anthropology: Doing Good Through Science and Technology,”
in Technology and the Image of God: A Canadian Conversation (Canadian Council of Churches,
Faith and Life Sciences, 2017), 18–19.
28
“Co-evolution with technologies” is used by MacFarlane, Transhumanism as a New Social
Movement, 2.
29
Genesis 1:31.
30 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

If the Bible had ended at Genesis, Chap. 2, the story would be of a good God
creating an incredibly wonderful world with no hint of evil and suffering. Human
beings are able and good-faith stewards of that world. Wonderfully situated in the
lovely Garden of Eden, the human creatures are charged with naming the animals
and tending the garden. When God comes walking through the garden in the
cool of the day, Eve and Adam, the first humans created, run out to greet their
creator. Then, we arrive at Genesis, Chap. 3, where the humans freely, deliber-
ately, and painfully make irresponsible decisions that bring heartache and pain.
Adam blames Eve, Eve blames God, Cain kills Abel, they build the Babel tower,
and that age’s version of nuclear holocaust comes in the form of a worldwide flood.
Most assuredly, the above interpretation of the biblical stories of creation as
originally good and human beings as created co-creators with God is not the
only interpretation. Earlier, we referenced how some Christian thinking was
influenced not by this Jewish background, but by Greek-inspired dualistic phi-
losophies that postulated a soul separate from a physical body. That same dual-
istic thinking was sometimes extended to judge physicality as bad or evil. Such
a dualistic view could very well lead to the conclusion that the physical world is
evil by nature and God’s work is to save the faithful from that evil world. In
such a worldview, technology is part of the evil world and is not seen as a means
of God’s action in the world.

The Spectrum of Theology

While labels are often libels, doing more harm than good, sometimes labels and
broad generalizations can be useful in beginning to understand ideologically
based movements or trends. Used cautiously, terms like “liberal” and “conser-
vative” can be useful in framing judicial philosophy, political leaning, and eco-
nomic theory. Theological commitment in religion also often falls along a
liberal-conservative continuum.
“Liberal” refers to the left side of the theological spectrum, a side some
prefer to call “progressive.” “Conservative” refers to the right side of the spec-
trum. Conservative, as we are using it, includes fundamentalism, which would
be the extreme right. The next page contains a helpful table showing theologi-
cal generalizations of the liberal-conservative continuum.
As noted in the continuum (Table 3.1), theological liberalism contends that
God affirms and works through the natural world to foster peace and justice,
to bring God’s Kingdom/Kin-dom ever closer to fruition in this world. This
contention generally puts liberals in an open—even if careful—stance toward
science as providing knowledge about God’s creation and enabling technology
that benefits humanity.
So, the progressive wings of the religions, with their generally favorable
attitude toward science, are positioned to adapt religion to radical enhance-
ment. For example, a recent book about Islam and transhumanism30 illustrates

30
Roy Jackson, Muslim and Supermuslim: The Quest for the Perfect Being and Beyond, in Palgrave
Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 31

Table 3.1 Theological Continuum

Conservative Liberal

The Theocentric (God-centered), low view of

Anthropocentric (human-centered),
Divine human beings as sinful and weak high value on human ability given by
God, optimistic about human
capability, God works through the
created order
The Otherworldly, emphasizing the reality and This-worldly, emphasizing the here
World importance of the realm above and beyond and now, more occupied with
the natural, such as heaven, hell, souls, and immediate, present social and other
the afterlife problems, rather than with future
spiritual destiny
Revelation Religious truth comes from God through Traditions and texts are important,
special communication, such as sacred but truth in them is appropriated and
writings (fundamentalist), institutions and discerned by the God-given rational
traditions (Roman Catholic), or personal ability of human beings
religious experience (Pentecostal/
charismatic)
Tradition Traditionalists, valuing religious Revisionist, sees the necessity for
understanding handed down from previous revising and updating traditional
generations, generally opposed to change notions in light of changing
circumstances and new knowledge,
reluctant to claim infallibility for any
doctrine
Attitude Dogmatic, committed to certain Pragmatic, interested in what works,
indisputable beliefs that are not open for what solves human problems and
questioning, modification, or debate, meets human needs
because they are supernaturally revealed

Adapted from Calvin Mercer’s Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2009), 47, and based on George C. Bedell, Leo Sandon, Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn, Religion in
America (New York: Macmillan, 1975).

how a “creative and explorative” approach to the religion positions Islam as an

inspirational and productive interlocutor in the debate about radical human
enhancement.31 If a positive stance toward science was the only consideration,
we would conclude that religious liberals are supportive of the transhumanist
agenda, since it is science-based and with the mission of improving the human
condition through technology.
However, liberals are also concerned about social justice. They worry that
enhancement therapies and technologies are going to be the privilege of the
wealthy and powerful. Also concerning to liberals is that this privileged class
may dictate the nature and purposes of these technologies. Consequently,
many liberals are extremely cautious about, and even opposed to, enhancement
technology. We explore these issues in more detail in the following chapter that
addresses ethics.

31
Ibid., 5.
32 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Liberal and Conservative Reactions

Many religious conservatives, and especially fundamentalists, tend to see the
world as the domain of temptation and evil. God’s redemptive acts that lead us
to peace and justice are in spite of the sinful world, rather than through the
leaders and systems of the world. Science and technology are, at best, enter-
prises of sinful humans with some positive breakthroughs due to God’s grace
and, at worst, the work of the devil.
Liberal optimism has suffered a huge setback with the two world wars, one
of which included a horrendous Holocaust, and other global atrocities. Now,
with a pandemic, terrorism, wide-scale racial justice protests, and other global
violence a part of our recent past, where is the evidence that God is working
through human beings and through the world? It seems we are not always
moving toward increased community, peace, and justice.
With the world seemingly bent on evil and destruction, there arose on the
right side of the theological spectrum a Christian Protestant movement known
as “neo-orthodoxy.” Championed by the influential German theologian Karl
Barth and American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, neo-orthodoxy began as a
critique of the left emphasis on human goodness and preached our need to
depend on God’s grace and God’s radical intervention to save sinful humanity.
Neo-orthodoxy was not right-wing fundamentalism, and perhaps is best inter-
preted as a New Reformation Theology that was a mix of liberal and conserva-
tive and something more. While religions tend to develop liberal and
conservative poles, most movements are somewhere along the continuum
between the left and right extremes.
Another theological response to the growing social disquiet of the post-­
World War II decades came from the more radical left in the form of liberation
theologies, with third world, feminist, and Black being prominent examples.
These leaders include Gustavo Gutiérrez, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and
James Cone. These theologies grew out of marginalized voices that champi-
oned social justice and strongly critiqued the status quo, including the theo-
logical status quo. Liberational theologians looked anew at the Bible, with its
themes of exodus from oppression and slavery, courageous prophetic preach-
ing for social justice, and privileging of the poor and dispossessed in Jesus’
ministry.
Process theology is another example of a progressive way of formulating
doctrine that can be employed in a positive assessment of radical human
enhancement. This approach is based on the work of English mathematician
and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. At a basic level, process thinking
begins with the real world, wherein everything changes all the time. Trees
grow, buildings crumble, the sun rises, teeth decay, relationships change, and
so it goes for everything, all the time. Christian theologians, such as John
B. Cobb and Charles Hartshorne, influenced by Whitehead, argued that since
everything changes, God does as well, an idea we explore in a later chapter.
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 33

The idea that change is intrinsic to the nature of reality has wide support. In
Western philosophy, its most well-known ancient Greek advocate is Heraclitus
(c. 535–475 BCE) who famously said, “You cannot step twice into the same
stream.”32 Buddhism reinforces this point about change. One of the very
important Buddhist “Three Signs of Being”33 is the law of impermanence (Pali,
anicca, literally “nonpermanent”). While impermanence is central in Buddhism,
it plays an important role in some schools of thought in Jainism and Hinduism,
where it is found in important Hindu scriptures, such as the Rigveda,
Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita.
A key underlying question for the religions is how flexible they are in the
face of modern world developments, such as in the science and technology of
radical human longevity. Conservative attachment to tradition and dogmatic
attitude resists evolving religion in ways that accommodate changing circum-
stances, while liberalism works hard to find ways to adjust its theology. Liberal
religion is nimble; it flexes and adapts to new ideas and ways, although some-
times at the expense of core beliefs, according to many conservative critics.
Often implicit in the liberal embrace of transhumanist programs is a positive
assessment of technology as a means of divine action in the world. The moral
status of technology is a subject of considerable academic debate.34 The “instru-
mental view” of technology is the idea that technology is value-neutral and can
be utilized to morally positive or morally negative ends, depending on the
intentionality and motive of the human guide. However, several well-regarded
philosophers have shown that technology is imbued with the values of utility
and efficiency. More will be said about values and technology in the next chap-
ter on ethics.
Drilling down below these various theological positions, we reach funda-
mental questions. Are we basically optimistic or pessimistic about the human
spirit, about human intentionality? Relatedly, do we think, to put it bluntly,
that we are going to survive in good fashion or do ourselves in with these new
technologies? Splitting the atom led to electricity for our homes and also cre-
ated a means for the end of civilization and planetary collapse. While such
questions can be asked by any human being, these questions are religious ques-
tions. Put theologically, does a religion’s theological anthropology understand
human nature as good or bad or somewhere in-between? Liberals tend to drop
down on the side of the goodness and potential of the human creature.

32
Plato, Cratylus 402a, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 12, trans. Harold N. Fowler (Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University,1921). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atex
t%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Asection%3D402a.
33
The other two are suffering and no-self.
34
For a review of options, see Maarten Franssen, GertJan Lokhorst, and Ibo van de Poel,
“Philosophy of Technology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, last updated September 6, 2018.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/; Thomas A. C. Reydon, “Philosophy of
Technology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed November 2019. https://www.iep.
utm.edu/technolo/; and James Michael MacFarlane, Transhumanism as a New Social
Movement, 5–8.
34 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Conservatives tend to emphasize our fallen nature and are, consequently, cau-
tious about putting too much control, including technology, into our hands.

Religious Transhumanism
Transhumanism as a movement was initially populated primarily by secularists.
As it gains momentum and the enhancement technologies become widely
known, if not utilized, transhumanism will continue to include more people of
faith from all the religions.35 It is important to be clear about what it means to
be a religious transhumanist. Most transhumanists see the body as a machine
that needs repair and improvement. That is a secular, mechanistic view of who
we are. Although it may be slowly changing in light of a more holistic model,
much modern medicine is similar to transhumanism in its view of the body as
made up of mechanistic parts that can be fixed.
Most religions reject this simple reduction of who we are. Physicality is not
all there is; our embodiment is one pervasive aspect of our being, but not the
only one. Many karmic traditions attend to the soul and its cosmic welfare.
Even Buddhism, with its “no soul” view, understands that reincarnation and
the law of karma place our lives in a larger cosmic context than that afforded by
a strict materialist worldview. Indigenous spirituality understands all life as pro-
foundly intraconnected and interconnected. Healing cannot occur without
attending to the whole person.
In the monotheistic religions, God as creator breathed life into the human
creatures. The Bible does not speak about our bodies in isolation from our-
selves as persons animated by God. The worldview of materialism is rejected by
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that stem from the same biblical tradition. So,
if there is a religious transhumanism that could sanctioned by the Abrahamic
religion followers, then the secular, materialistic program must be somehow
incorporated into the religious vision.
Because the religions understand physicality as an integrated aspect of who
we are, and care about our physical well-being, the world faiths are positioned
to embrace enhancement to some degree should they choose. Professor
Trothen summarizes this point:

Religion places a high value on healing and minimizing suffering. For example,
Christians are guided by the many stories of Jesus’ healings. Some unavoidable
creaturely suffering is seen as valuable, potentially contributing to spiritual growth
and community. Buddhists are committed to reducing suffering by loosening
one’s attachment to the self as an identity, in light of the Buddhist notion of “no-­
self.” Hindus see deserved suffering as necessary to ward off bad karma but unde-
served suffering can be minimized. Daoism promotes a variety of practices for

35
MacFarlane, Transhumanism as a New Social Movement, 177–201 discusses various aspects of
transhumanism and religion.
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 35

health and long life. And, in Judaism the preservation of life is the high-
est mitzvah.36

Ron Cole-Turner, a Christian theologian introduced earlier in this chapter,

argues that, indeed, Christian transhumanism differs significantly from secular
notions of transhumanism, especially in its emphasis on the need to let go of
self (an idea that resonates with Buddhists) in order to find one’s true self in
relation with God. With this understanding, transhumanism is properly a
Christian concept, he argues. In his article entitled “Christian Transhumanism,”
he writes:

Christian transhumanism is not an accommodation to our age. It is instead an

affirmation of the radically transformative nature of the hope that lies at the heart
of a Christian view of humanity and the cosmos.37

In a statement that is typical of religious transhumanists of all religions,

Cole-Turner is quick to point out that a larger self-sacrificial vision should
motivate people of faith, even if they identify as transhumanists: “The pathway
to life is not found in preservation and extension but, paradoxically, in ‘self-­
denial’ and in willingness to lose one’s own life.”38

Mormon Transhumanist Association

We have made the case that the religions are diverse and flexible enough to
have elements that can embrace radical human enhancement. Indeed, we find
that flexibility exampled by two Christian transhumanist organizations.
Organizationally, the oldest pro-transhumanism religious group is the Mormon
Transhumanist Association (MTA),39 a Christian movement started in 2006.
“Transfigurism” is the theological word the MTA often uses for
“transformation.”
The MTA is a robust organization with professional leadership and an active
schedule of conferences and other programs. Mormon theology calls for a glo-
rified and immortal body achieved through theosis, a notion we discussed ear-
lier in this chapter in connection with the Eastern Orthodox branch of
Christianity. The MTA contends that Mormon scriptures teach that God com-
mands we use science and technology to help achieve this theological goal.
Here is the MTA list of affirmations:

36
Tracy J. Trothen, “Technology, Medicine, Ethics and Religion: Body Matters,” in Bloomsbury
Religion in North America (“Religion, Science and Technology in North America” section, sec-
tion eds. Whitney Bauman and Lisa Stenmark) (NY: Bloomsbury, in press).
37
p. 51.
38
“Extreme Longevity Research: A Progressive Protestant Principle,” in Religion and the
Implications of Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009; republished in paperback, 2014), 58.
39
https://transfigurism.org/.
36 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

• We are disciples of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is to trust in, change
toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ, to
become compassionate creators as exemplified and invited by Jesus.
• We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among
the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realiza-
tion of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrec-
tion, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds
without end.
• We understand the Gospel to be compatible with and complementary to
many religions and philosophies, particularly those that provoke strenu-
ous pursuit of compassionate and creative exaltation.
• We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and
inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated
with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.
• We seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anat-
omies, as well as communities and their environments, according to their
wills, desires, and laws, to the extent they are not oppressive.
• We practice our discipleship when we offer friendship, that all may be
many in one; when we receive truth, let it come from whence it may; and
when we send relief, consolation, and healing, that raises each
other together.

Notice that the affirmations do not require members to be Mormon, and,

indeed, a recent quick survey shows that about 40 percent of members do not
self-identify as Mormon.
To further develop the view of this organization, from the MTA website we
include a statement that echoes themes from process theology, considered ear-
lier in this chapter.

Mormonism maintains that God wasn’t always God, but became God, and that
humans should try to become gods too. Over time, we can become like God by
taking steps to improve ourselves and our world … Mormon Transhumanism
takes the Mormon idea that humans should become gods, and the Transhumanist
idea that we should use science and technology in ethical ways to improve our
condition until we attain posthumanity, and suggests that these are related, if not
identical tasks. That is, we should ethically use our resources including religion,
science, and technology to improve ourselves and our world until we become
Gods ourselves.

Lincoln Cannon is a founder, board member, and former president of the

MTA. In “Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism,”40 Cannon argues just that.
Cannon proposes and supports four points: (1) God commands us to use

40
In Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and
Calvin Mercer, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin
Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; reissued in paperback, 2019).
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 37

prescribed means to participate in God’s work; (2) Science and technology are
among the means prescribed by God; (3) God’s work is to help each other
attain Godhood; and (4) An essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified
immortal body. His introduction to Mormonism, transhumanism, and the
connection between the two is also found in a video entitled “Mormon
Transhumanism.”41

Christian Transhumanist Association

The other group that has emerged as playing a very important role in educat-
ing about and advocating for Christian transhumanism is, aptly named, the
Christian Transhumanist Association (CTA).42 The CTA affirmation, while
pro-enhancement, is modest enough to be inclusive of Christians ranging from
ardent advocates to more cautious proponents. It reads43:

• We believe that God’s mission involves the transformation and

renewal of creation including humanity, and that we are called by Christ
to participate in that mission: working against illness, hunger, oppression,
injustice, and death.
• We seek growth and progress along every dimension of our human-
ity: spiritual, physical, emotional, mental—and at all levels: individual,
community, society, world.
• We recognize science and technology as tangible expressions of our
God-given impulse to explore and discover and as a natural outgrowth
of being created in the image of God.
• We are guided by Jesus’ greatest commands to “Love the Lord your
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength … and love your neigh-
bor as yourself.”
• We believe that the intentional use of technology, coupled with fol-
lowing Christ, will empower us to become more human across the
scope of what it means to be creatures in the image of God.

Currently, the CTA is led by founder Micah Redding, who is software devel-
oper, writer on the subject of human values and technology, and host of the
“Christian Transhumanist Podcast.”44 The CTA held its first national confer-
ence in 2018, featuring a presentation by scientist Aubrey de Grey, a leading
anti-aging proponent.
We are not aware of any other transhumanist organization associated with a
major religion. Roy Jackson, the author of a book on Islam and

41
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeyJbROo-Pw.
42
https://www.christiantranshumanism.org/. Of your two authors, Mercer is a member of the
Academic Advisory Council of the CTA, and Trothen is a member of the CTA.
43
The bolded sections are as per the website.
44
https://www.christiantranshumanism.org/podcast.
38 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

transhumanism, ends with a call for a “Muslim Transhumanist Association,”

for which one suggested affirmation is:

We believe that the intentional use of technology will empower us to transcend

our current state and move towards perfectibility, guided by the example of the
Prophet Muhammad as the Perfect Human (insan al-Kamil).45

The Arabic insan al-Kamil is an honorific title for the prophet that means “the
person who has reached perfection” or “the complete person.” We anticipate
that in the next few years transhumanist organizations will emerge in various
religions.

Religion and Science

The relationship between religion and science is of increasing interest to schol-
ars of religion and theologians of the various traditions. Many agree that tech-
nology and medicine do not give all the answers to every question and that
other sources such as religion help us understand what it means to live better
and be better. Examine the video, “Can Science Understand Everything?” in
which a number of the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) scientists respond to the question of whether science
can provide answers to everything.46 The level of interest in the relationship
between religion and science is such that, in the past few decades, a robust
subfield of “religion and science” has emerged with devoted journals, confer-
ences, and professional societies. Simplifying, but hopefully not overly so, three
basic models of the relationship between science and religion have been identi-
fied: conflict, independence, and dialogue/integration.
That religion and science are contradictory and in conflict through history,
at least in the West, was the prevailing view of the history of the relationship
between religion and science until recent decades. The seventeenth century
Galileo affair was held up as a prime example of the clash between and incom-
patibility of religion and science. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was supposedly
punished for his support of heliocentrism, i.e., the belief that the Earth and
planets revolve around the sun. A more nuanced interpretation, held by most
historians of science and religion today, is that the conflict was more about
politics and a dispute about the Roman Catholic Church’s authority, rather
than an intrinsic conflict between religion and science. Evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins is a prominent contemporary advocate of the conflict model.47
Advocates of the independence model argue that religion and science have
different missions and methods and have nothing to do with each other. A

45
Jackson, Muslim and Supermuslim, 175–76.
46
“Can Science Understand Everything? NASA Scientists Attempt to Answer the Question.”
https://aeon.co/videos/can-science-understand-ever ything-nasa-scientists-attempt-to-
answer-the-question.
47
E.g., The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 39

common assertion from this camp is that religion has to do with values and
science with facts. An example of a proponent of the independence model is
evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould, who was a
respected advocate of what he called the “non-overlapping magisterials” of
religion and science.48 Proponents of the independence model have been criti-
cized for being vulnerable to scientism, which conceals arguments as unchang-
ing “objective facts.” As the history of science demonstrates, no definition or
argument is infallible. Science, by definition, requires openness to the possibil-
ity of being proven wrong.49
A dialogue/integration model can have many expressions, depending on
the religion, theology, and interests of the advocate of the model. An interest-
ing proponent of this model from an evangelical (i.e., conservative) Christian
perspective is Francis Collins, a widely respected scientist who headed up the
important Human Genome Project, completed in 2003. Collins founded the
organization BioLogos, which illustrates the dialogue/integration model in a
thoroughgoing way.50 Theological ethicist Ron Cole-Turner also promotes the
dialogue/integration model, which he articulates from a progressive Christian
perspective. Cole-Turner explains how understanding and meaningfully explor-
ing what it means to be human, why we exist, and what is our purpose and
destiny require science and religion working together.51

The Theological Continuum

A helpful way to think about the three religion and science models (conflict,
independence, and dialogue/integration) is to filter them through the liberal-­
conservative theological continuum presented earlier in this chapter. In gen-
eral, liberals—human centered, this-worldly, revisionist, pragmatic—are more
likely to embrace a non-conflict model of the relationship between religion and
science. Usually, conservatives—God-centered, otherworldly, traditionalist,
dogmatic—are more prone than liberals to adopt some version of a conflict
model.52 This statement is a generalization and, of course, there are exceptions.
We have already noted how evangelical Christian Francis Collins does not
advocate a conflict model.

48
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999).
49
Jim Parry, “Must Scientists think Philosophically about Science?” in Philosophy and the Sciences
of Exercise, Health and Sport: Critical Perspectives on Research Methods, ed. Mike McNamee (New
York: Routledge, 2005), 22.
50
www.BioLogos.org.
51
Ronald Cole-Turner, The End of Adam and Eve: Theology and the Science of Human Origins
(TheologyPlus Publishing, 2016). Brent Waters provides a cautious approach to theological
embrace of technology. See From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a
Postmodern World, in Ashgate Science and Religion Series, series eds. Roger Trigg and J. Wentzel
van Huyssteen (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006).
52
An excellent social science presentation of what people of faith think about science is Elaine
Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really
Think (New York: Oxford University, 2018).
40 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Liberals and conservatives often congregate in their respective positions on

wide-ranging issues, such as politics, judicial philosophy, economics, and reli-
gion. In the coming chapters, however, we will predict that the new world of
radical human enhancement may produce some strange bedfellows, with tradi-
tional liberal and conservative groupings finding new expressions.
Our reflections up to this point on the relationship between religion and
science have been drawn from Christianity, because it is that tradition in which
the most vigorous disagreements are taking place. As we have seen, the model
of the relationship between religion and science adopted by Christians and
Christian organizations is influenced, in large part, by where they lay on the
liberal-conservative continuum. In comparison, religions originating in Asia,
such as Hinduism and Buddhism, are generally accepting of science, seeing no
conflict between religion and science.
In Hinduism, the dividing line between religion and science is blurred in the
sense that all of reality is, in the deepest sense, divine, and so an embrace of any
way of more fully understanding reality is a spiritual enterprise. Based on teach-
ings stemming from its founder, Buddhism is an empirical religion, encourag-
ing direct, personal experience as the final test for truth. One could even call
Buddhism scientific in that it aims at uncovering the causes and effects that
order existence, especially the cause and effect of suffering. While Confucianism
has a more checkered history with science, Jainism, Sikhism, and Daoism in the
main are quite compatible with scientific findings.

Science and Technology

The relationship between science and technology is complex. One of your
authors, Professor Trothen, explains the relationship between science and tech-
nology in another book:

… the goal of science is knowledge and technology is the practical application of

science. There has been much debate concerning the conflation of science and
technology; proponents of one side do not wish to be subsumed by the other.
Science and technology are connected, but they are not the same.
One distinction that is often—but not always—made between science and
technology concerns values: science is purported by some to be objective or
value-free, while technology is generally accepted as value-laden (Frey 2011).
Several European philosophers, including Herbert Marcuse (1964), Jürgen
Habermas (1971), and Michel Foucault (1988), have shown that technology
promotes values of efficiency and utility …
While it is clear that technology is informed by particular values, I am in agree-
ment with American philosopher, historian, and physicist Thomas Kuhn and do
not find science’s purported objectivity convincing … Scientific knowledge, it has
been said, is simply knowledge; the choices around how to apply it have not been
made in the science itself. However, factors influencing the framing of science are
value-laden and so have an effect on the science: How we choose which scientific
 3 TRANSHUMANISM, THE POSTHUMAN, AND THE RELIGIONS: EXPLORING… 41

inquiries to investigate and who should be involved in these pursuits are value-­
laden decisions.53

Science and technology are human pursuits and creations and, as such, have
a reciprocal relationship with context, including the people who interact with
science and technology. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic, some govern-
ments placed a strong emphasis on protection for healthcare professionals and
consequently invested huge resources in the creation and manufacturing of
personal protective equipment (PPE). Other governments emphasized per-
sonal freedom or the economy, rather than preservation of life, which led to
proportionately fewer resources funneled into healthcare. Our values go far in
shaping how political powers direct science and technology.

Concluding Reflection
Our goal in this chapter has been to set the context for a religious consider-
ation of various radical human enhancements and other technological pro-
grams in the coming chapters. Radical enhancement is in the context of a
growing transhumanist movement that almost assuredly will lead to radical
human enhancement to one degree or another and maybe even lead to posthu-
man beings.
The religions will be impacted by transhuman and maybe posthuman beings,
and the religions also will have the opportunity to assess and influence the
coming developments. Religion helps shape values and moral reasoning for
many people in the world, and, as a result, religion is often embedded in
responses to radical enhancement. To put it another way, with regard to the
topic of this textbook, academic theologians and lay adherents of religion can
and should have much to say about human enhancement technology in the
public square.54
As we have emphasized, this chapter by no means attempts a systematic
introduction to the world’s religions. Rather, we have identified some themes
in those religions that are being and could be employed in the conversation
about enhancement. As noted, Judaism and Christianity have been the most
active in thinking about radical enhancement. We want to play a part in expand-
ing the conversation, and so have endeavored to raise questions and issues from
religions beyond Judaism and Christianity. In the coming years, scholars, theo-
logians, and followers of all the religions will come increasingly into this impor-
tant conversation.

53
Tracy J. Trothen, Winning the Race? Religion, Hope, and Reshaping the Sport Enhancement
Debate (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2015), 25–26.
54
See, e.g., Peter Kahn, “Bioethics, Religion, and Public Policy: Intersections, Interactions, and
Solutions,” Journal of Religion and Health 55, no. 5 (2016): 1546–1560; and H. Brody and
A. Macdonald, “Religion and Bioethics: Toward an Expanded Understanding,” Theoretical
Medicine and Bioethics 34 (2013):133–145.
42 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Questions for Discussion

1. Is transhumanism a religious or secular concept? Why?
2. What is the difference between a transhuman and a posthuman?
3. After reading Max More’s “Letter to Mother Nature,” how would you
describe More’s transhumanist attitude toward nature and our current
human capabilities?
4. Why do you think the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity have
been most active in discussions about radical human enhancement?
5. If human beings begin to live for thousands of years, how might the doc-
trines of karma and reincarnation be revised or reinterpreted to be relevant?
6. What are ways the concept of change or process, as taught by process theol-
ogy, can be employed to embrace transhuman and posthuman beings?
7. Do you think human beings are basically good or evil? Did you arrive at
your conclusion though a religious or some other avenue? Explain.
8. What differences and similarities do you see between the MTA and the CTA
affirmations?
 CHAPTER 4

Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics:

Questions We Must Ask

Good Ethics: Seeing the Complications

Throughout the textbook, we will ask ethical questions about human enhance-
ment. It may seem that human enhancement ethics is about one thing only—
whether or not to choose particular enhancements. But many more serious
questions loom. Should we proceed with radical human enhancement research?
Who should design the enhancements? Who profits from these technologies?
How are they marketed? Who has access? How might these technologies
change our collective way of being? Each enhancement needs to be explored,
and ethical responses may vary enhancement to enhancement. One may, for
example, support radical cognitive enhancement but not superlongevity.
Ethics is about more than believing something is right or wrong. Ethics also
goes beyond feeling strongly about an issue. Passion is important to motivate
and engage us, but passion alone is inadequate for sound ethical analyses. We
need to step back from our feelings and understand the origin of our opinions.
We need to obtain good information, engage diverse perspectives, and analyze
an issue in light of ethical theory and stated values. Good ethics requires passion
and reason. Good ethics is complicated. In this chapter, we give you some of
the tools to do good ethics.

Perspective and Community

As Professor Trothen tells her classes, by the end of an ethics course students
should have more questions and, perhaps, have less easy clarity on issues.
Exposure to differing views and experiences of classmates and of various
scholarly analyses complicates things, but in a healthy way. By engaging diverse
perspectives, questions arise that may not have occurred otherwise.
Perspective is essential to good ethical analysis. Perhaps you have heard of
the parable of the blind men and elephant, an ancient and widely circulated

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 43

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_4
44 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

story from the karmic religions. Each blind man touches the elephant in a
different place (e.g., tusk, leg, trunk, stomach), and then each man describes
the elephant—inaccurately—based on their limited, subjective experience. You
can effectively illustrate this in your own classroom or home. Cover all parts of
a chair with sticky notes, and then count the notes, while standing at different
angles to, and distances from, the chair. Good ethics depends on understanding
we are perspectival and addressing how we know what we know, a philosophy
subfield called epistemology.
We must do ethics in community if we are to overcome a limited view of an
issue. Good ethics is done consultatively, constantly asking what voices are
missing and why. We all are contextualized, and understanding various contexts
helps broaden perspective on an issue. Contexts, as we will see, include religious
and spiritual beliefs.

Self-awareness and Values

Good ethics requires self-awareness. Consider the influences on your values.
Values are those things that are most important to us, such as achievement,
success, family, friends, relationships, health, caring, social justice, pleasure, and
adventure. Values, beliefs, and opinions are influenced by the “sources of
authority” in our lives, such as family of origin, media (including social media),
research, education, law, political leaders, faith communities, history, personal
experiences, and what some call intuition, inner spirit, or gut sense. Our values
can change over time and through different contexts as we meet people, gain
insights, and accumulate varied experiences. Sources of authority shape and
reshape our values throughout our lives.
Here is a short exercise that helps uncover the role of values in our lives.
What are your top five values? Do not overthink the question. As a prompt,
consider what would you like written in your obituary. That might sound a bit
macabre, but the question can help distill what is most important to you. We
are told what we should desire by the news media, social media, livestreaming,
movies, political leaders, and even families and friends. Sometimes it can be
difficult to get to the bottom of what we really desire and value.
Perhaps modern conveniences and technologies are high on your top five
list of values. Technology itself is value laden. Well respected European
philosophers have shown that technology promotes values of efficiency and
utility.1 A dishwasher cleaning our pots and pans, quietly and quickly, adds to
our desire to acquire more technologies that get things done easily and
efficiently for us. Much of what we are “supposed” to desire is shaped by
consumerism in a capitalist context. People line up overnight for the newest

1
Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988);
Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interest (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971); and Herbert
Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1964).
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 45

iPhone, even if they do not really need it and even if it will not make their lives
better. Getting to what it is that we truly want is an important part of doing
ethics well, but it is not an easy matter.
Ask someone else to do the same exercise, and compare your values.
Consider why you might share some values and why other values may differ.
Do you always choose and act in ways aligned with your top five values? Make
a record of your answers, and later in the textbook we will ask you to think
about your values and how they might relate to enhancement options and
possibilities.

Self-reflexivity
In the service of good ethical analysis, self-awareness leads to self-reflexivity,
described well in the following quote. Self-reflexivity is

the process of reflecting on one’s own story from multiple diverging standpoints
in ways that try to take into account one’s own experience of privilege and
disadvantage within intersecting social systems like sexism, racism, heterosexism,
and religious forms of oppression.”2

These systemic power patterns affect what we experience in the world and
teach us what we can expect. Sadly, not everyone is treated equally, and we are
not all valued as worthy. An intersectional ethic prioritizes and brings together
justice concerns, emphasizing the moral relevance of systemic privileges and
barriers, as expressed in this description:

The further [one is] from the norm, the greater the marginalization. This margin-
alization, however, is not simply additive, but rather social categories of gender,
race, class, and other forms of difference interact with and shape one another
within interconnected systems of oppression. These systems of oppression—sex-
ism, racism, colonialism, classism, ableism, nativism, and ageism—work within
social institutions such as education, work, religion, and the family ... to structure
our experiences and relationships in such a way that we participate in reproducing
dominance and subordination without even realizing it.”3

In this textbook we aim to stimulate thinking about how these systemic

power imbalances may affect the evaluation of radical human enhancements
and biohacking processes. Hopefully, many questions will begin to arise. For
example, how might one’s views about the elderly be impacted by promotion
of anti-aging technologies? What difference does it make if AI algorithms are
2
Carrie Doehring, The Practice of Pastoral Care – A Postmodern Approach (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, revised and expanded edition, 2015), 191.
3
Kim, Grace Ji-Sun; and Susan M. Shaw, “Intersectional Theology: A Prophetic Call for
Change,” Huffington Post (March 31, 2017). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/intersec-
tional-theology-a-prophetic-call-forchange_us_58dd823de4b0fa4c09598794. The term intersec-
tionality was coined in 1989 by Columbia and UCLA professor Kimberlé Crenshaw.
46 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

programmed mainly by white appearing4 men? Our hope is that you will
consider how systems of oppression may be morally relevant to the intersection
of religion and radical human enhancement.

Theories of Ethics
To recap, good ethics requires passion and reason, community consultation,
self-awareness, and self-reflexivity. Now, we place the ethical project in the
context of some leading theories of ethics. Drawing on values, principles,
potential consequences, and virtue, these theories provide systematic bases
from which to better understand moral and ethical issues and to help us with
ethical decision-making. While the two words are sometimes used
interchangeably, morals are about our personal character and beliefs about
right and wrong, and ethics addresses the accepted rules, actions, and behaviors
in a community or group.
Of the numerous ethical theories, we consider three commonly agreed upon
core theories: deontological, teleological, and virtue ethics. Two of these theo-
ries—deontological and teleological—are decisionist, i.e., focused on how we
make decisions in response to ethical questions. Decisionist models ask, “What
shall I do?” Virtue ethics theories have a different focus in that they emphasize
who we are as individuals and what values we hold. Virtue ethics has us ask,
“What character should I possess as a person?” Our character, according to
virtue ethics, drives conscientious behavior. We now look more closely at the
three theories. In this textbook we pay most attention to virtue ethics and often
ask if these technologies will make us better people and the world a better place.

Deontological
“Principlist ethics” is a term sometimes used for deontological ethics. This
approach is a normative ethical theory that says that moral behavior should be
based mainly on principles. Examples of principles are beneficence (duty to do
good), non-maleficence (duty to do no harm), respect for autonomy (includes
respect for individual choice and dignity), justice, veracity (truth-telling),
fidelity, and self-care. Principles are derived from those virtues and values that
we see as being most important. Principles are codes of behavior. Prima facie
principles are those principles that are understood as most obvious and univer-
sally applicable.
Deontological theories hold principles as the most important guides for
decision-making. Most ethicists understand principles as binding but not
absolute, meaning that the principles must almost always be followed, except
when they come into conflict with each other. For example, in cases where we
cannot absolutely follow two prima facie principles, we might try to follow

4
To say “white” carries with it the faulty assumption that all people who appear white are of one
normative racial background.
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 47

both to a degree. To illustrate, if someone’s leg is gangrenous and the only

treatment to save their life is the amputation of their leg, then the harm of
cutting their leg off would likely be judged less severe than the harm of allowing
them to die. Following the principle of totality, the duty to do good by saving
a life outweighs the harm done by removing a leg.
The religions uphold principles that provide a moral compass or a way to live
and behave, based on values of the religion. A key principle in Christianity, for
example, is the instruction to love one’s neighbor as oneself. This duty to do
unto others as we would have others do unto us is known as the “golden rule.”
Religions are concerned with principles, such as the golden rule, the potential
consequences of our behaviors, and with being a good or virtuous person.
To illustrate how deontological ethics can be applied to religion, one could
hold the theological principle that human bodies are God’s temple and, as
such, the body should not be changed in any way that cannot be clearly
understood as protecting and preserving the embodied person. This theological
position could also be related to the principle that we should respect autonomy,
which includes each person’s dignity. So, this theological conviction (i.e.,
principle) that bodies are God’s temple could have implications for a variety of
ethical decisions regarding human enhancement technology.

Teleological
Teleological theories emphasize the importance of possible and anticipated
consequences in ethical decision-making. “Telos” is a Greek word meaning
“end” or “goal.” Teleological or consequentialist theories are usually thought
to include situationalism and utilitarianism.
Situationalism holds that all moral decisions are particular to the specific
situation; there are no overriding norms. Each situation must be understood
apart from preconceived conclusions or rules. However, even situationalists
usually acknowledge the one overarching rule that love must be maximized.5
Utilitarian theories are also teleological. These theories look to maximize
the greatest good for the greatest number. Utilitarians see actions as morally
right or wrong depending on the effects of those actions. Utilitarians agree that
the overall aim in evaluating actions should be to create the best results possible,
but they differ about how to do that. Some utilitarians, who are called act
utilitarians, focus on the effects of individual actions and take a case-by-case
approach that evaluates the effects of specific actions in specific cases. Other
utilitarians, called rule utilitarians, focus on general rules as generally causing
certain effects. For example, rule utilitarians might justify limited funding of
superlongevity medicines on the basis that these medicines would generally
minimize age-related suffering and reduce the health care costs incurred by
aging, but would likely prioritize access to basic needs sustaining the majority

5
See Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox Press,1966/1997).
48 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

of people if a choice needed to be made between basic needs and superlongevity

interventions. An act utilitarian would assess the use of resources to extend life
on a case-by-case basis, depending on the likely effects of extending someone’s
life. For instance, an act utilitarian might judge that a person who is making
dramatic contributions to science and politics should receive expensive life-­
extending technologies, because their ongoing work will benefit a great number
of people.6 As with other consequentialists, both act and rule utilitarians are
most concerned with the effects of choices and actions.
Hedonism is an example of another teleological theory. Hedonism is inter-
ested in maximizing pleasure. In short, whatever results in the most pleasure
for any person or group is warranted, without regard for other potential
consequences.
Critics of utilitarianism, such as liberation theologians, argue that good out-
comes for the greatest number can neglect people at the margins who are
socially less powerful and often invisible. Also, the assumption that the many
are more important than the few conflicts with religious principles that uphold
the incomparable value of each life.
Although limited, a utilitarian approach could be helpful, for example, in
deciding who got a respirator or dedicated nursing care during the 2020–21
worldwide COVID-19 health crisis, in hospitals that had too limited a supply of
equipment or healthcare professionals. When there is only one respirator and
two lives are at stake, who gets the respirator? If a decision is not made, and there
are no alternatives, such as jury rigging a stop-gap machine or borrowing from
another hospital, both people may die. A utilitarian ethics approach may have us
consider such factors as who would likely live longer if they survive the virus. On
the other hand, as a critique, if numerous similar decisions are made on the basis
of who might live longer, the world may lose most of its elders and the experi-
ence and possible wisdom elders bring. Or, people with disabilities may die dis-
proportionately, reflecting and amplifying a devaluing of people with disabilities.
At the same time, a utilitarian approach can help us to identify relevant factors in
rationing situations where difficult choices need to be made. For example, a utili-
tarian approach would consider the relative likelihood of survival of patients who
need a scarce respirator, prioritizing those most likely to survive.
Most of the time, ethicists consider both principles and possible conse-
quences, but some ethicists emphasize principles and others emphasize conse-
quences. In other words, a hybrid approach is common. A virtue ethics
approach, discussed below, may also influence how ethical issues are evaluated.

Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics asks not what should I do (based on principles or consequences)
but what sort of person should I be. Highlighting character, the key question
is, “What would the most virtuous person we can think of do in a similar

6
James Rachels, Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 96-121.
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 49

situation?” For Christians, this person might be Jesus. For Buddhists, the
virtuous person could be the Buddha. Some people think beyond the iconic
“founders” of religions to great saints or other figures, such as Mother Theresa,
Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or even Oprah Winfrey and Michelle
Obama. Others think of someone more personal, though not necessarily
famous, who has made a big impact on their life. Virtues are qualities we deem
to be morally good or desirable in people and might include prudence, self-­
control, generosity, and kindness.
Our values inform the virtues we think of as desirable. As discussed earlier,
values are about personal and subjective beliefs, attitudes, and ideals that
influence our everyday living. Values are internal for each person and are likely
to change over time, more than principles, which tend to be constant and
universal. Things most important to us often become embedded in our
character as virtues and inform how we behave in various situations (at least we
hope so!).
An ethic of care is an example of a virtue ethics theory promoted by many
feminists. What would be the most caring way to be in a given situation, is the
ethic of care question. For example, if someone thinks they would be successful
if they could think more quickly, perhaps it would be caring to provide them
with cognitive enhancement that speeds up their thought processes. But maybe
it would be more caring to assist this person in exploring why they think they
would be more successful with cognitive enhancement. Maybe they have not
weighed carefully the possible benefits and harms. A more caring response
might be to consider possible implications for all affected by this decision. A
feminist ethic of care considers these contextual and relational factors before
deciding on a course of action.
A significant challenge faced by virtue ethics theorists is the need to recog-
nize that a response one person judges virtuous may not be the best or most
virtuous response for others. Community, including faith communities, and
accountability are necessary to all ethics theories, perhaps especially to virtue
ethics. The question of what makes us better people is complex. As we get
more and more technological options for changing ourselves, we need to ask
what makes us truly better, very deliberately and in community.

Weaving the Theories Together

Many good resources are available for exploring these and other ethics theories
in detail.7 For our purpose in assessing radical human enhancements, it is
important to know that while principles, consequences, and virtue are all
important in good ethical reasoning, none alone is usually sufficient. Our study,
thus far, hopefully will prompt additional questions and attention to various

7
For example, J. Parks and V. Wike, “Theories and Values in Bioethics,” in Bioethics in a
Changing World, eds. J. Parks and V. Wike (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Pearson
Education, 2010).
50 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

moral principles as we address various human enhancements. For example, we

will advocate for the principle of co-design, that is, engaging diverse input into
the development of technology, so that many perspectives and needs are
addressed. In this textbook we are interested in how the commitments and
beliefs of religions might affect how ethical issues associated with enhancement
technology are evaluated.
Importantly, these different approaches to ethical reasoning are not strictly
aligned with either theologically liberal or conservative positions. Those who
adopt more liberal theologies, giving attention to social justice, could very well
be most concerned with the potential consequences of ethical decisions. But,
the more liberal theologian might also choose a strong principlist approach,
emphasizing the duties of justice, co-design, doing good, avoiding harm, and/
or respecting autonomy. Finally, they may take an approach more in keeping
with a virtue ethic, emphasizing the importance of good character on a
collective level.
Similarly, most people of a conservative theological persuasion would likely
emphasize principles over consequences, with the principles understood as
rules stemming from guidance in their sacred scriptures or revered traditions.
However, some conservatives may be virtue ethicists (although they may not
use that term), attempting to emulate the Buddha or Jesus. Extreme
conservatives, i.e., fundamentalists, are likely to be strongly informed by a
literal interpretation of scripture as a source of authority.
We encourage you to remember these theories as you read about ethical
issues in each chapter. Consider how we are paying attention to potential
consequences, principles, and questions of character.

Three Ways of Defining the Issue

How an issue is defined shapes the moral discourse that follows. The ethical
issues surrounding radical human enhancement that intersect with religion
tend to be defined in three main ways, as an issue primarily about (1) what it
means to make us better individually, (2) morphological freedom of choice,
i.e., freedom to make choices about modifying our own bodies, and (3) justice,
including social marginalization, resource allocation, and access to relevant
technologies.

The Therapy—Enhancement Continuum: What It Means to Make

Us Better
A common approach to the ethics of radical human enhancement is to frame
the issue in terms of where the enhancing technology might fall along a
continuum with therapy at one end and enhancement at the other end.
Therapeutic interventions are those interventions that bring us to or keep us at
normal functioning; enhancement takes us beyond whatever we currently think
of as normal human functioning. A simplistic view is that therapy is acceptable,
and enhancement is unacceptable. But, of course, once we begin asking good
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 51

questions, things get complicated, because some therapies may be unacceptable

for various reasons (e.g., risky side effects or because they are contrary to a
religious conviction) and some enhancements may be acceptable (e.g., for our
purposes in the textbook, because they are consistent with religious belief).
Also, it is not always clear if a particular intervention is a therapy or an
enhancement. In fact, it may be both, depending on how one views it.
If an intervention is seen as therapeutic, it is, all other things being equal (an
important qualification), ethically permissible, and possibly even ethically
mandatory. For example, a pacemaker needed to regulate someone’s heart rate
is a therapeutic technology in that it helps keep the person alive. However, a
pacemaker is arguably also an enhancing medical intervention in that it prolongs
life and improves quality of life.
Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the COVID-19 ventilator, which in one
sense is a human enhancement technology in that a machine is providing some-
one with life extension. Both pacemakers and ventilators, however, have come
to be seen as normal and acceptable over time. No one usually questions the
ethics of using pacemakers and ventilators, but more radical interventions are
questioned, as we shall see. These two examples illustrate the therapy end of
the continuum and introduce us to the in-between zone of the continuum in
which some technologies are both therapeutic and enhancing.
Some technologies that fall in the in-between zone on the therapy—
enhancement continuum may be seen as ethically permissible but not ethically
mandatory. For example, consider laser therapy that improves vision to slightly
better than 20-20. Other enhancement interventions are further toward the
enhancement side of the continuum and are seen as more questionable in terms
of their value and ability to make people better overall. An example is the use
of the pharmaceutical modafinil (e.g., Provigil) to improve cognitive functioning
in someone who does not have a medical condition impairing their cognition.
Another example of an intervention that is far along the continuum as an
enhancement is the covert use of anabolic steroids by competitive athletes.
Anabolic steroids pose many health risks, are not medically justified, and are
used to make one “better” (enhanced) by increasing muscle strength and bulk.
While this distinction between therapy and enhancement is helpful, we are
seeing that it can be very complicated. The definition of normal human
functioning is debated and so are questions about what is just below or just
above normal. Perhaps eyeglasses are therapy; perhaps they are enhancement.
Is 20-20 vision normal and, if so, for whom? Major League Baseball (MLB)
players average better than 20-20 vision. Their normal, then, is different from
the general population. So, is it therapy or enhancement for MLB players to
have laser eye surgery that brings their vision up to the average for MLB
players? For the general population, since vision normally begins deteriorating
by age 50, are eyeglasses and laser surgery, both of which bring 20/20 vision,
enhancement or therapy?
Examples abound. A nursing home resident uses a wheelchair to locomote
about the grounds. A wheelchair could be designed to move her twice as fast
as she could walk normally. That would be enhancement, as opposed to therapy.
52 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Perhaps it is morally unacceptable to take her beyond what would be normal.

Or, maybe increasing her mobility would allow expression of her humanness
more fully. We are reminded of an interesting book title, Rebuilt: How Becoming
Part Computer Made Me More Human.8
Most ethicists agree a grey zone exists between interventions that are clearly
therapeutic and those that are clearly enhancing. Interventions falling in this
in-between space have been variously called restorative,9 preventative,10 or
non-therapy.11 In the future, when AI-fueled technologies and other radical
therapies become normalized, it will be important to continue asking the
question of where on the continuum should we locate a once-radical, now
normal intervention.
Most enhancements addressed in this textbook are radical, clearly taking
bodies and minds beyond what is generally—and currently—considered nor-
mal. Transhumanists, however, usually push back from the long perspective
of evolution, arguing it is normal for humans to use technology to extend
physical, cognitive, and emotional capacities. Humans have been improving
themselves since cavepeople figured how to use a twig to manipulate food
into their mouths. Much more recently, our grandparents used adding
machines to more quickly and accurately manipulate numbers. Surely, adding
machines enhanced cognitive capacity. Today, almost everyone uses comput-
ers to extend cognitive capacities in memory, information processing, and
communication. These are normal evolutionary advances, says the transhu-
manist. Perhaps it is actually abnormal to halt the process of improving
ourselves.
Religion clarifies, and perhaps complicates, the therapy—enhancement con-
tinuum. Medical therapies traditionally are applied to bring one’s health to a
normal range. Religion, generally, may go further in the sense of promoting a
more holistic well-being by supporting healing and the lessening of unneces-
sary suffering. Buddhists believe suffering is reduced by releasing one’s attach-
ment to the self and letting go of craving. While suffering, in Hinduism, is
understood broadly in terms of the unfolding of the law of karma, the religion
also teaches compassion and the value of relieving unnecessary suffering.
Daoism advocates practices that nurture health and long life. Christians look to
stories of Jesus’ healings. In Judaism, the preservation of life (Hebrew, Pikuach
nefesh) is the highest mitzvah.

8
Michael Chorost, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 2005).
9
See, for example, Rob Beamish, Steroids: A New Look at Performance-Enhancing Drugs (Santa
Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 63.
10
Preventative interventions are those designed to retain a “normal” state. See Ronald Green,
Babies By Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 60.
11
Andy Miah, “Towards the Transhuman Athlete: Therapy, Non-Therapy and Enhancement,”
Sport in Society 13, no. 2 (2010): 221–33.
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 53

The concept of normal is related to the question of what it means to be

human, and religion speaks to this question. As the typical dividing point
between acceptable therapies and unacceptable enhancements, the concept of
normal is seen in particular ways when a religious lens is applied. In an unjust
world, the meaning of normal and whose normal is accepted (and promoted) is
contentious. Religions can help us to consider ontological questions (e.g., ques-
tions about being and existence), including what it is that we value about being
human and what it is that we might change or improve. It may be that some
radical enhancements that clearly fall in the enhancement end of the continuum
are desirable or at least congruent with the values and principles of some reli-
gions. A secular understanding of normal is not necessarily the dividing point,
from a religious perspective, between interventions that are considered accept-
able therapies and interventions that are considered unacceptable enhancements.
One of your authors sees the dividing point between an acceptable and
unacceptable enhancement, from a Christian perspective, as being at the
point that

enhancement technologies cause us to cease being divine image-bearers… [since

Christian doctrine says that humans are created in the imago Dei, i.e., image of
God.] An intersectional and relational interpretation of the imago Dei suggests
that this dividing point comes when we cease to value the interdependence of life,
and refuse our creaturely responsibilities to use our creative abilities … to enhance
relationships and particularly the well-being of the marginalized.12

Beyond Christianity, other religions also understand the just care of all life as
very important and congruent with their beliefs. The interdependence of life
and the safeguarding of life are criteria that contribute to an understanding of
the dividing point between morally acceptable and unacceptable technological
interventions for the religions.
History shows that new medical interventions, initially seen as shocking or
even repugnant, often become accepted, desired, and viewed as normal.
Assumptions about normal often say more about the context of one’s interpre-
tation than about what is really normal for diverse people. If the acceptable-
unacceptable division on the therapy—enhancement continuum is equated
with whatever is acceptable and congruent with a religion’s values and theol-
ogy, then a meaningful project is to determine how emerging enhancement
technologies fit—or disrupt—religious claims. Disruption is sometimes needed
to foster new engagement between theology and technology. Overall, the
dividing point between acceptable and unacceptable technology, for the reli-
gions, is not the fraught concept of normal. The dividing point between accept-
able and unacceptable technology is the point at which the use or design of a
technology no longer holds religious integrity; the dividing point is that point
at which an intervention violates religious beliefs.

12
Tracy J. Trothen, “Moral Bioenhancement Through An Intersectional Theo-Ethical Lens:
Refocusing on Divine Image-Bearing and Interdependence,” Religions 8, no. 5 (2017): 7.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8050084.
54 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Choice
A second way of defining the issue is to see radical human enhancement as
primarily about freedom of individual choice and, more generally, human
agency. Agency is the capacity to make choices and to act on them. Most
transhumanists believe that enhancements should be accessible to all, but not
forced on anyone. In our own words, here is what we hear ardent transhumanists
saying: “If you don’t want to use these technologies, that is certainly your
choice, but do not prohibit me from freely taking advantage of means that
might give me health and happiness for 500 years.”
Choice is not that simple, however. The extent of one’s agency depends on
social attitudes and structures, such as race, gender, religion, sexuality, age, and
socio-economic class. Agency must be bound together with justice. For
example, a person who cannot financially afford genetic modification
technologies has a greatly reduced capacity to choose one of these enhancements.

Extreme Individualism
An extreme individualistic ideology insists we should get to make our own
choices concerning our bodies regardless of any other factors. People have the
right to choose an enhancement, no matter how radical. Medically assisted
death is a choice, under certain conditions, in 28 countries.13 The legal free-
dom to make so many big choices, as individuals, reflects context. In North
America, choice and extreme individualism are highly valued. However, mak-
ing these choices is not as simple as it may seem. Asian culture, which produced
the karmic religions, is more balanced on this point, giving more emphasis to
community.
Individualism is deeply ingrained in normative Western culture. We do not
like feeling dependent on others. We want to believe we can rely on ourselves,
alone. Yet, just about everything we do and attain, engages others in some way.
Consider one’s daily meals and the many people having a role in supplying that
food. A simple loaf of bread on the table depends upon farmers, truck drivers,
store owners, store employees, and many others. So, seemingly simple choices
involve others, and good ethics asks how those choices impact others.

 elational Autonomy: The Interconnection of Life

R
Religions have much to say about the interconnection of all life. What we
choose and what we do affects many other people and the environment. Few
things underscored the reality of interdependence more than the 2020–21
COVID-19 pandemic. Partly because of our global interconnectedness, the

13
E.g., Belgium, Canada, Colombia, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, Turkey, and parts of the United States. See “Euthanasia & Physician-Assisted Suicide
(PAS) around the World,” Britannica ProCon (2/26/20). https://euthanasia.procon.org/
euthanasia-physician-assisted-suicide-pas-around-the-world/
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 55

virus spread relentlessly. Also, because we are so interconnected, most people

recognized the necessity of physical distancing. The world had to grapple with
hard questions about the allocation and sometimes rationing of personal
protective equipment (PPE). Should one country limit access of other countries
to PPE, and what if one country had a greater need for PPE based on the
number of COVID-19 cases and their stockpile of PPE? Countries made
decisions about re-opening economies while weighing many issues, such as
economic hardship, the mental health impact of physical distancing, and the
possible subsequent waves of COVID-19, on the world. Similarly, climate
change is a pronounced expression of the interconnection of life. What we do
to the environment affects everyone globally and could have disastrous
ramifications. On the other hand, as the pandemic also showed us, we can
make a collective positive impact on water-life and air quality quite quickly by
strongly limiting emissions.
The impact of radical enhancements discussed in later chapters go far beyond
the individual being enhanced. For example, a moral bioenhancement that
makes one more altruistic leads to being kinder and more self-giving to others.
And, not taking the moral bioenhancement will also have implications for
others. A runner chooses a physical enhancement, increasing endurance, and
that runner becomes more competitive in distance running. Competitors may
want to improve their odds against the enhanced runner, so they take the
enhancement. And, because the enhanced runner has more endurance, they
may spend less time with family.
Respect for autonomy is widely recognized as a key bioethical principle.
How autonomy is defined, though, has become increasingly debated. Respect
for autonomy includes respect for a person’s dignity, which is usually understood
to include the ability to make choices about oneself. In normative North
American culture, an extreme individualism has reduced a popular understanding
of autonomy to individual rights and choice. But a relational autonomy
understands rights and choice as relational concepts that only have meaning in
the context of each individual’s life narrative. This life narrative necessarily
includes all the effects our choices may have on other people and other life.
Asian cultures, to pick one type, are in some ways better positioned than
Western ones to make choices and develop behaviors that respect relational
autonomy. We will explore the implications of a relational autonomy throughout
the chapters of this textbook.

 hat Do We Really Want?

W
It may seem evident that we make choices, and we do. However, as discussed
earlier, values and desires are influenced by complex social processes. We get
input from so many sources about what we should want and how to go about
getting what we want. It can be difficult to uncover what it is that we truly
desire and to resist seeking what we are told to want. Consider the exercise,
earlier in the chapter, where you identified your top five values. Does the latest
56 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

and greatest iPhone help you live into your top values, giving you deep
satisfaction?
We know that much of our daily life is lived with our brain on “autopilot,”
out of what researchers call the “default mode network.” With this “fast brain”
we make decisions quickly, propelled by any number of influences, such as
social media and advertising. Making choices consistent with our values can
require effort and time for critical reflection.14
As we introduce radical enhancements in later chapters, resist an uncon-
scious, quick, “autopilot” response and consider how thoughtfully identified
values help you assess the true value of each enhancement. Religion, of course,
informs values, explicitly for faith adherents and perhaps unconsciously
for others.

Justice
A third way of defining the issue is to see radical human enhancement as pri-
marily about justice. The moral relevance of social systemic advantages and
disadvantages, resource access, and resource allocation are all issues of justice,
a key principle in religion.

The Religions
Karmic religions emphasize the importance of good deeds and compassion;
good karma comes back to benefit those who practice and live with kindness
and compassion. The Abrahamic religions also understand the work of justice
as important. In Judaism, the commandment to love one’s neighbor as one-
self15 and the aspirational concept of Tikkun olam (to repair the world) are
guiding principles. In Christianity, the commandments, “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind,”16 and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”17 are key passages and
are often associated with a preferential option for the poor.
This preferential option means that those on the social margins, including
those marginalized on the basis of their religion, are seen as most important to
the world’s collective work of understanding injustice and working towards
alleviating oppression. The preferential option for the poor is a principle
embraced in Christian liberation theologies. A concern is that radical

14
See e.g., Steve Ayan, “The Brain’s Autopilot Mechanism Steers Consciousness,” Scientific
American (12/19/18). https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brains-autopilot-mech-
anism-steers-consciousness/; and Jessica Hamzelou, “Your Autopilot Mode is Real--Now We
Know How the Brain Does It,” New Scientist (10/23/17). https://www.newscientist.com/
ar ticle/2151137-your-autopilot-mode-is-real-now-we-know-how-the-brain-does-
it/#ixzz6YPqnV6DL.
15
Leviticus 19:8.
16
Matthew 22:37.
17
Matthew 22:39.
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 57

enhancement technologies will amplify existing injustices unless we first, or at

least simultaneously, address the unhealthy values promoting systemic power
imbalances. To work towards the safeguarding of marginalized people as we
create more enhancing technologies, we need increased engagement of reli-
gion in the public square.18

 istributive and Procedural Justice

D
Distributive justice is about the socially just distribution of resources. The
resources distributed may be tangible (e.g., food, pay, or technology) or
intangible (e.g., encouragement, valuing people by engaging with them in
conversation).
Procedural justice is defined as the fairness of the processes that lead to out-
comes. Co-design is a procedural justice principle. Questions such as how
much time is allocated to whom and who makes decisions are important to
procedural justice. When individuals have a voice in the process or if the process
involves characteristics such as consistency and fairness, then procedural justice
is enhanced. In the healthcare context, procedural justice questions include
who receives care, how long must they wait for care, what quality of care do
they receive, and what are the roles of the patient, the patient’s family, or multi-­
disciplinary healthcare professionals.
Here is an example of the distributive and procedural justice concerns with
regard to access to radical enhancement technologies. Polyurethane super
swimsuits changed elite swimming competitions by making swimmers more
buoyant and more easily propelled through water. Athletes wearing body-­
length super swimsuits broke 43 records at the 2009 Fédération internationale
de natation (FINA) international swimming competition, and then the suits
were banned due to their pronounced effect on swimming performance. Since
then, other high-technology drag-reducing swimwear has been developed that
is permitted in competitions. But these swimsuits cost a lot of money (200 to
600 US dollars) for people with limited resources, and the suits wear out
quickly. Most suits last about two swim meets or 40 swims before the material
degrades. This is a clear case of financial means impacting access to enhancement
technology. On top of this are procedural limitations in that not every athlete
had a voice in deciding whether these swimsuits should have been made an
option for competitors in the first place. Should the swimsuits have even been
developed?
Turning to the medical field for an example, the gene therapy Luxturna treats
a certain type of congenital blindness. Obtaining this treatment requires about
850,000 US dollars. Even though curing blindness is considered therapeutic,

18
H. Brody and A. Macdonald, “Religion and Bioethics: Toward an Expanded Understanding,”
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (2013): 133-145; and Peter Kahn, “Bioethics, Religion, and
Public Policy: Intersections, interactions, and Solutions,” Journal of Religion and Health 55, no. 5
(2016): 1546–1560.
58 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

rather than enhancing, therapeutic status does not automatically insure access,
and not all therapies have therapeutic healthcare status in all countries.
From the liberal side of the theological continuum, an argument is made
that scarce resources should not go to enhancement research when so many are
starving, homeless, and without education. Resources devoted to one research
area are not available for other areas. As we have noted, who is privileged to
make such decisions is critical. Currently, most leaders and proponents of
transhumanism are white, socioeconomically privileged, Euro-American men.
Marginalized groups are not well-represented among transhumanist
proponents. And only recently have any ethics guidelines regarding
research, development, and application of human enhancement technologies
been drawn up. The European SIENNA project (www.sienna-project.eu),
“Stakeholder-Informed Ethics for New technologies with high socio-eco-
Nomic and human rights impAct,” “which seeks to develop ethical protocols
and codes for human genomics, human enhancement, and artificial intelligence
& robotics,” have ethics guidelines in progress.
We have made the point that technology, in the hands of human beings with
worldviews, is not value neutral. This is where the procedural justice notion of
co-design can be valuable. Marginalized groups must a have a voice at the
beginning of the design of AI and other technology, or we risk catering to the
preferences of those with power. Without diverse input into the funding,
direction, and distribution of enhancement technologies, we risk perpetuating
and amplifying unjust power structures.

Social Justice
Social justice is a concern for equity, particularly for the socially vulnerable and
the socially marginalized. Social justice is about the protection and empowering
of those with less power due to racialization, socio-economic disadvantage,
ageism, disability, sexism, gender, sexual identity discrimination, and/or other
injustices.
Taking the analysis of power to another level, some ethicists and religionists
are concerned about ending up with two classes of people, the advantaged
enhanced class and the disadvantaged unenhanced class. People with more
power and money, at least initially, will almost assuredly have better access to a
range of enhancement options. The concern about classes of people can be
extended to countries. Globally, countries with big pharma and tech companies
producing enhancement therapies and technologies will see their Gross
National Product increase and acquire more political power.
Questions related to co-design, also called participatory design, are impor-
tant procedural justice and social justice issues. Co-design is the move to
involve all stake-holders in decision-making processes, including design,
regarding the creation of technologies. Technologies that best meet the needs
of people and are as usable as possible would be designed and created with the
participation of representatives from socially marginalized communities.
Without input, for instance, from those with different abilities and experiences
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 59

we run the risk of ableism, ageism, racialization, and many other forms of dis-
criminatory tunnel-vision.19
Without good faith intentions and clear-eyed moral vision, widening gaps
between the haves and have-not individuals and countries will persist and
escalate. Your top five values, along with plenty of other commendable values,
religious and otherwise, will get lost in the shuffle. Justice concerns can and
should complicate our thinking.

Precautionary and Proactionary

“Precautionary” and “proactionary” are technical ethical terms that can be
helpful as we move through the following chapters. A proactionary approach
to enhancements advocates for the development of life-improving and even
life-prolonging technologies, in spite of some risks. The term “proactionary”
was apparently coined by Max More, an early transhumanist, as a way of coun-
tering the prevailing precautionary principle.20 Transhumanists generally favor
a proactionary stance.
A precautionary position involves moving new therapies and technologies
along slowly, paying very careful attention to possible unknown and unintended
harmful side effects and, above all, doing as little harm as possible. So, applied
to radical human enhancement, a precautionary approach errs on the side of
safety by not moving forward quickly on an enhancement if the dangers are
unknown or suspected. A proactionary stance errs on the side of speedy
production of likely beneficial interventions, in spite of some possible harms.
The interpretation and weighing of potential harms and benefits is at the crux
of choices involving precaution or proaction.21
Bioethicist John Harris is a vigorous advocate of the proactionary approach
to some human enhancement therapies, as seen in this statement:

Therapy delayed is therapy denied, and those who oppose the introduction of
new therapies that promise to reduce suffering and extend life face a responsibility
as grave as do those who would recklessly introduce technologies that might
cause more harm than the good expected or hoped of them. The tension between
caution and recklessness walks both sides of this street.”22

19
Brashear, R. P. (director), “Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement,” New Day
Films (2013).
20
For a history of the term, see Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipińska, The Proactionary Imperative:
A Foundation for Transhumanism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 12-43. See 29-30 for
More’s role. For Fuller’s proactionary view, see, e.g., Steve Fuller, Nietzschean Meditations:
Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era, Posthuman Studies 1, ed. Stefan Lorenz
Sorgner (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), 76-80.
21
An example of a blended approach, attempting to achieve a delicate balance, is Daniel McFee,
“The Risks of Transhumanism: Religious Engagements with the Precautionary and Proactionary
Principles,” in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds.
Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015), 217-28.
22
John Harris, “How To Welcome New Technologies: Some Comments on the Article by
Inmaculada de Melo-Martin,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26 (2017): 166–172.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180116000736.
60 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

The duty of beneficence (to do good) can be tougher to follow than the duty
of nonmaleficence (to do no harm). If regulatory bodies too quickly approve a
therapy, the “therapy” may do more harm than good. But, as Harris points
out, if a promising therapy is held back, some people may die unnecessarily if
the therapy would have worked. The effort to produce vaccines for the 2020
COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent example of the clash between precautionary
and proactionary approaches. Some people are prepared to receive a vaccine
that has not gone through all phases that are customarily part of a trial, because
they would rather risk an uncertain vaccine than getting the coronavirus.
Others take a more precautionary approach and want to wait for a potential
vaccine to go through the usual testing rigor before they consent to receive the
vaccine.
Religion can weigh in on the side of proaction or precaution. An example of
a well-developed proactionary approach as an intellectual foundation for
transhumanism, and one that considers the religious dimension of proaction, is
titled The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism.23 Ted
Peters is an important and widely respected voice in the Christian theological
and ethical assessment of radical enhancement. Peters is not opposed to radical
human enhancement, but he insists on moving carefully and cautiously because
of significant capacity to sin and to use enhancement procedures for self-serving
purposes.

The Power of Words

Throughout this chapter on ethics and, indeed, throughout the remaining
chapters, it is important to use language carefully and with a critical eye. Words
are potent in shaping moral discourse. For example, consider the word “prog-
ress.” The word itself implies positive change.24 But new technology is not
necessarily de facto good and does not necessarily result in progress. In a similar
vein, when we say “enhancement technologies” or “anti-aging technologies/
medicines,” we cast an assessment on the topic just by those word choices.
Another good example is the term chosen to refer to those technologies that
extend human life indefinitely. “Prolongevity” and “extreme longevity” are
both used in the conversation. The first term connotes a more positive assess-
ment of the technologies than the second. The term “radical life extension”
could carry a positive or negative connotation, depending on one’s thinking
about whether things “radical” are desirable or not. Enhancements make us
“better.” What is meant by “better,” and who gets to decide? Self-­awareness

23
Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipińska, The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for
Transhumanism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
24
Michael Burdett presents an excellent analysis of the meaning of progress and how this value
laden term is used. See “The Religion of Technology: Transhumanism and the Myth of Progress,”
in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin
Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015), 131–148.
 4 RADICAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND ETHICS: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK 61

and self-reflexivity are important if we are to uncover power dynamics behind

words and be intentional regarding the values that inform ethical reasoning.
How you think about and define the ethical principles described in this
chapter help determine whether or not you are generally supportive of radical
human enhancement and what particular enhancements you might encourage.
“Supportive,” of course, can mean different things. When particular
enhancements become available, perhaps you will personally choose to avail
yourself, or your children, of them. Perhaps you think government funding
and legal regulations should be designed to promote enhancement research
and development. No major politician on the world stage is yet talking about
radical human enhancement, but perhaps you will support politicians partly on
the basis of whether they are for or against these enhancements.
Believing the government should support research on any particular
enhancement is related to whether or not one thinks that enhancement is
inevitable. Over the past decade or two, as relevant technologies have become
more powerful, the general consensus among scientific experts has gradually
shifted from whether or not new enhancements will be developed to when they
will be and by whom. One view is that if the developed countries prohibit some
extreme enhancements, the technology will be created anyway, either by rogue
countries or terrorist groups. This “off-shore” possibility can be an argument
for responsible countries to proceed with research and development, in order
to get there first and maintain control over it.
As we move through the radical human enhancement possibilities in the
coming chapters, we will see that society and individuals are going to confront
hard choices in the coming years. The three frames of therapy—enhancement
continuum, choice, and justice, along with the three ethics theories discussed
in this chapter, can provide guidance in reflecting on the various radical
possibilities.

Questions for Discussion

1. How does your personal story inform your values and how you think
about radical human enhancement?
2. Which of the three ethical theories discussed (deontological, teleological,
virtue) best describes your ethical decision-making process?
3. Are contact lenses therapy or enhancement? What about a hearing aid?
What about your computer? To be an enhancement, does the technology
have to be inside us, or attached to us?
4. What do you consider the most important way of framing the radical
enhancement issue (i.e., the therapy—enhancement continuum, choice,
or justice)? Discuss why.
5. Should you be able to choose whether to get a tattoo? What about
expensive eye surgery? Or a germline modification to improve
your strength?
62 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

6. Regarding possible medical treatments, are you more proactionary or

precautionary?
7. Do you think radical human enhancement will ever become the number
one social and political issue? Why or why not? If yes, then when?
 PART II

Five Categories of Enhancements

 CHAPTER 5

Superlongevity and Other Physical

Enhancements

Technology
The story of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha (“enlightened one”)
after his awakening, is a compelling religious biography. The “Legend of the
Four Passing Sights” is told in different versions. The essence of the story is as
follows.
Tradition insists young Gautama had everything. He was extremely hand-
some, of noble family descent, lived in luxury, and had a model wife. The
father, who wanted his son to become a universal monarch, shielded him from
the harshness and sorrows of life, knowing that old age, disease, and death can
drive one to religion. The gods, however, intervened, exposing Gautama to the
severities of life.
In the “Legend of the Four Passing Sights,” Gautama ventures from the
palace, and from his chariot he sees the first sight of misery, an old man—fee-
ble, body bent, broken-toothed, gray of hair. Puzzled, Gautama turns to his
charioteer, who explains that aging and death are the miserable fates of every
person. His second sight is a sick man, body riddled with disease. The chario-
teer explains that all bodies are subject to pain and suffering. Ever more sor-
rowful, Gautama next spots a body in a funeral procession and learns that the
stark reality of death follows old age and disease.
At this point in the story, the troubled young Gautama and modern trans-
humanists see the same unhappy paths of human aging and mortality, with the
modern version focusing on nursing homes, cancer wards, and funeral parlors.
For Gautama and transhumanists, the sufferings of aging are repulsive, disgust-
ing, and sap the joy out of living. But here the stories diverge.
The fourth sight appearing before the eyes of Gautama was a calm ascetic,
meditating at the edge of the forest. This sight gave Gautama hope; he forsook
his life of luxury, exchanged his rich garments for the course yellow monk’s
robe, and plunged into the forest. After years of intense struggle, he achieved

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 65

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_5
66 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

enlightenment, the end of suffering. Transhumanists are just as committed and

work just as hard to end suffering, but they look not to religion. They turn to
science and technology for salvation from aging, illness, and mortality.
One way to envision our task in this textbook is to probe whether or not the
religious path and the transhumanist path might converge. In the particular
case of Gautama, the issue is whether technology can serve as a means to allevi-
ate suffering in a way consistent with the teachings of the Buddha.

Would You Take the Superlongevity Pill?

What if you found out you could live a healthy life lasting 500 years—or lon-
ger? Making it concrete, what if there was a pill you could take right now that
would have you live healthy indefinitely? You could live unless you died from a
horrible accident or something like a meteor hitting the earth. Would you take
the “live-just-about-forever” pill?
Consider taking an informal poll of your class, family, or circle of friends. It
is an interesting question to work into conversations at social gatherings, as the
media increasingly picks up on the ever-expanding superlongevity1 research
programs. It is very important, however, to make clear that no superlongevity
proponent is talking about being in a nursing home bed hooked up to tubes
for hundreds of years. Transhumanists want a healthy life that includes full
functioning in the world.
Over the years, your textbook authors have informally polled their classes
and audiences at public lectures on the topic. On one end of the response spec-
trum is something like, “Where’s the glass of water, I’ll swallow the pill right
now.” On the other end of the spectrum are those who are adamant they
would never, ever choose to live 500 years, even if they were healthy for all
500 years.
Longevity enthusiast Aubrey de Grey quips that if you ask people, who say
they do not want immortality, if they are ready to die tomorrow, they never say
yes. Most people, even if they vote one way or another, want more informa-
tion. Can I reverse the decision, and will I have enough money in later years?
For sure, the rather singular question—Would you take the longevity pill?—is
a bit unfair, because so many qualifications can impact one’s decision.
While informal polls are not scientific surveys, our anecdotal evidence sug-
gests that breaking out males and females can yield quite different results. The
majority of males we have informally polled would take the pill, while the
majority of females would not. In questioning the females about why they
would not want to live indefinitely, the most common response is that they
would not want to be present in the world without their friends and family.
If the question is qualified by positing that their friends and family members
will also take the pill, then the positive female response rate moves roughly to
the level of the positive male response rate. These informal results perhaps

1
We use “superlongevity,” “prolongevity,” and “anti-aging” interchangeably.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 67

reflect a greater priority given to relationships among females than males. We

need ongoing and specific social science research on these kinds of questions.
When that comes, as it surely will, it will be interesting to see how people are
processing these developments.
In this chapter we consider the category of radical physical enhancement.
Since most radical physical enhancements that are being pursued are directed
towards radically extending lifespan, we focus on superlongevity physical
enhancements as our primary example. You will notice as the chapters unfold
that the enhancement categories overlap and interconnect, as do many of the
theological and ethical considerations. Humans are not collections of separate
parts but are intraconnected wholes. However, we examine these categories of
human enhancement—physical, cognitive, moral, affective, and spiritual—sep-
arately, because each category is directed primarily at one aspect of human
beings, with implications for the other aspects.

Will There Be a Pill?

It is unlikely to be as simple or easy as taking a pill. More likely, there will be
several enhancing interventions available to help extend life and put an end to
aging. It is hard to find someone who is more laser focused on terminating
aging in the human species than biogerontologist de Grey.2 De Grey has said
that extreme longevity, when it comes, might look something like going down
to the local health center periodically and sitting for your longevity-producing
infusion. De Grey works on a biological path to longevity that may require
rejuvenating the body through periodic cleansing of the cell-damaging and
life-oppressing waste materials that accumulate in normal living.
By the way, de Grey is not, according to his definition, a transhumanist,
although he is certainly one of the heroes of many transhumanists. He is com-
mitted to humans living radically long lives, but not in a way that “transcends”
humanity. So, he takes issue with the idea that radical life extension is necessar-
ily, or only, a transhumanist idea.
De Grey’s biological path to longevity, which he has called the “boring wet
approach,”3 is one of several paths being explored. Currently, there are no
medical interventions that stop or reverse human aging. However, possibilities
once solely located in the domain of fantasy are being pursued on scientific
grounds. Several ongoing research programs—all controversial and debated
among ethicists and other scholars—could impact human longevity in a radical
fashion. How likely the transhumanist programs are to unfold is the subject of

2
De Grey’s role in the project to end human aging is discussed in James Michael MacFarlane,
Transhumanism as a New Social Movement: The Techno-Centred Imagination, in Palgrave Studies
in the Future of Humanity and its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 94. De Grey’s lengthy beard is discussed as part of social movement
branding.
3
De Grey, “Dr. Aubrey de Grey—SENS Research Foundation,” Life Extension Advocacy
Foundation. https://www.lifespan.io/news/dr-aubrey-de-grey-yuri/.
68 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

debate. The more radical projects, such as mind uploading (addressed in a later
chapter), may be questionable on scientific grounds. But some transformative
developments are on the horizon or at least close enough to merit society’s
attention to their implications.4
While these programs involve highly technical, cutting-edge science, the
basic thrust of most of them is understandable to the layperson. Body-part
replacement, nanotechnology to rejuvenate the body, tissue generation, cybor-
gization, cloning, digital immortality, mind uploading, telomere extension,
and genetic modification technologies are other paths that may individually or
in tandem radically extend human life. At risk of greatly oversimplifying the
science, telomeres are caps at the end of DNA strands that protect the chromo-
somes and become damaged and shortened, thereby hastening death.
Regarding genetic modification technologies, while aging as a whole cannot be
addressed through one specific gene, there are promising indicators that gene
therapies could extend more lives.5 The project to radically prolong life is,
indeed, being pursued.6
The nature of the superlongevity does matter, in that it has implications for
one’s experience. De Grey’s biological life extension provides the opportunity
for continued experience of embodiment in the same basic way humans have
always lived. Digital immortality, mind uploading, and cyborgization offer life
experience based in an abstract (i.e., non-embodied, at least in a traditional
way) notion of the person. These more radical prolongation projects are dis-
cussed in more detail in later chapters.
However it happens, advances in medical and other sciences raise the theo-
retical possibility that biomedical technology could dramatically prolong or
even indefinitely extend healthy human life. A key word here is “healthy.” As
we noted earlier, it is a misconception to think that prolongevity enthusiasts
envision us in compromised physical and cognitive states in care homes. The
vision, should it unfold, is to live indefinitely in vital, even youthful, bodies and
minds or in digital formats where disease and death are non-issues. Optimistic

4
Physicist Barry G. Ritchie, for example, says extreme longevity achieved through science is
unlikely. See “The (Un)Likelihood of a High-Tech Path to Immortality,” in Building Better
Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism, eds. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth
L. Mossman, vol. 3 in Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism, ed. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner
(Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012). The opposite view, that superlongevity is not only attainable, but
likely, can be found in some of the chapters in Immortality Institute, The Scientific Conquest of
Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans (Buenos Aires: LibrosEnRed, 2004).
5
For example, in 2019, the United States National Institute of Aging (NIH) reported, in an
article by this name, that “gene therapy shows promise repairing brain tissue damaged by stroke”
and maybe improving memory and motor skills beyond the pre-stroke level. See Francis Collins,
“Gene Therapy Shows Promise Repairing Brain Tissue Damaged by Stroke,” NIH Director’s Blog
(September 24, 2019). https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/09/24/gene-therapy-shows-prom-
ise-repairing-brain-tissue-damaged-by-stroke/. Earlier in 2019, progress was reported to have
been made on gene therapy development for treating cardiovascular disease in mice.
6
See, e.g., Alison Abbott, “First Hint that Body’s ‘Biological Age’ Can Be Reversed,” Nature
(September 5, 2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02638-w.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 69

predictions for such healthy longevity envision some significant scientific break-
throughs within the next few decades.

Prolongevity: Mainstreaming and Big Money

The possibility of superlongevity may still seem like science fiction to most
people. The conversation, however, is slowly moving to the status of a main-
stream discussion, at least among experts on aging. Consider the cover title of
a recent issue of the MIT Technology Review, published by the very reputable
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The cover title is “Old Age is Over! If
You Want It.”7 Billed as “The Longevity Issue,” this publication contains arti-
cles about breakthrough anti-aging drugs in the pipeline and critiques the con-
cept of “old age.” This issue of MIT Technology Review was not the first issue
of this journal to be devoted to longevity research. In February 2005, the
respected journal featured de Grey on the cover, with the title “Live Forever?
Aubrey de Grey Thinks He Can Defeat Death. Is He Nuts?”8
This is a good place to introduce futurist Ray Kurzweil, a living legend and
arguably today’s leading transhumanist. An accomplished inventor and com-
puter scientist, in 2012 Google appointed Kurzweil as director of engineering
and to run their robot natural language project. A year later, Google launched
Calico, a start-up company with the mission “to solve death.” This appoint-
ment of Kurzweil means that a leading transhumanist has been placed in a key
management position in a company with enormous resources to put behind
the project of “solving death.” As a Time front page cover line put it, “The
search giant is launching a venture to extend the human life span. That would
be crazy—if it weren’t Google.”9
Kurzweil uses a computer analogy, asserting that in the past we have
depended on hardware (i.e., our biological bodies) as the host for our software
(i.e., storage and processing of information in our brain). In the future, he says,
we will become just software, no longer dependent on the flesh and blood
body. Notice that Kurzweil, as is common in conversations about enhance-
ment, uses analogies that reflect the prevailing technology of the day. In the
nineteenth century, minds and brains were described as pipes, cylinders, valves,
pistons, and pressure, which are all parts of the then common steam engine. All
analogies fall short. The computer analogy is pretty good but is deficient in that
a computer does not have a “mind.” Just raising this point gets us into interest-
ing and complicated questions, which we will discuss in a later chapter on
superintelligence.

7
“Old Age is Over! If You Want It,” MIT Technology Review 122, no. 5 (September/
October 2019).
8
“Live Forever? Aubrey de Grey Thinks He Can Defeat Death. Is He Nuts?” MIT Technology
Review 108, no. 2 (February 2005).
9
“Can Google Solve Death?” Time (September 30, 2013).
70 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Kurzweil was not Google’s first reach into radical life extension. As early as
2009, Google appointed another avid transhumanist, Bill Maris, to head the
Google Ventures investment fund. Maris said, “If you ask me today is it possi-
ble to live to be 500, the answer is yes.” Google Ventures has been investing
about one-third of its two-billion-dollar portfolio in life sciences start-ups,
including ambitious life-extending projects. Maris explained, “We aren’t trying
to gain a few yards. We are trying to win the game.”10
One reason we are giving some background regarding Google’s involve-
ment in superlongevity projects is to make the point that serious money has
been moving into making radical life extension a reality. Several billionaires
support life extension research, including Larry Ellison, Paul F. Glenn, Domitry
Itskov, and Sergery Brin.11 As might be expected, Silicon Valley is deep into
this quest.12
Here is one more example of Silicon Valley interest and money. PayPal co-­
founder Peter Thiel, whose private fortune has been estimated at 2.2 billion,
has stated publicly that he aims to live forever. “I think there are probably three
main modes of approach to death,” he explained. “You can accept it, you can
deny it, or you can fight it.”13
Funding for technologies that can lead to superlongevity and other radical
enhancements comes not just from investors and corporate coffers. Almost
everyone who pays taxes, for example, supports, perhaps unknowingly, research
that contributes to radical enhancement. In the United States, for example, the
Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its
3.5-billion-dollar annual budget14 is heavily involved in building a more effec-
tive military through, in part, enhancing soldiers. Enhancing strength, capacity
for quick repair of injuries, and other general physical traits can be supportive
of superlongevity as well.
The current and anticipated generous funding for superlongevity research
has implications. Later in this chapter, we consider justice issues related to this
funneling of resources and the power of private technology companies.

10
Katrina Brooker, “Google Ventures and the Search for Immortality,” Bloomberg (March 9,
2015). www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/google-ventures-bill-maris-investing-
in-idea-of-living-to-500.
11
Adam Leith Gollner, “The Immortality Financiers: The Billionaires Who Want to Live
Forever,” The Daily Beast (August 20, 2013). http://www.thedailybeast.com/arti-
cles/2013/08/20/the-immortality-financiers-the-billionaires-who-want-to-live-forever.html.
12
Tad Friend, “The God Pill--Silicon’s Valley’s Quest to Live Forever: Can Billions of Dollars’
Worth of High-Tech Research Succeed in Making Death Optional?” The New Yorker (April
3, 2017).
13
Mick Brown, “The Billionaire Tech Entrepreneur on a Mission to Defeat Death,” The
Telegraph (September 19, 2020).
14
In fiscal year 2020.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 71

Longevity Escape Velocity

“Longevity escape velocity” (LEV) is a concept coined by David Gobel, co-­
founder with de Grey of the Methuselah Foundation, a nonprofit organization
with the mission to “make 90 the new 50 by 2030” through life extension
science. LEV has been championed by de Grey and Kurzweil. Also called
“actuarial escape velocity,” LEV refers to a coming future time in which we
have the know-how to extend our lives long enough for the next scientific
breakthrough to come, which will again extend our life expectancy for the next
breakthrough. The title to this book by Ray Kurzweil encapsulates the LEV
idea, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.15
In the modern period, life expectancy has gradually increased each year due
to advancements in traditional medicine. However, now it takes more than one
year of research to gain a year in life expectancy. When the research catches up
to the rate of aging, and this catching up can be sustained, then we have
escaped, that is, outrun, death. That is LEV.
Like many radical enhancements, superlongevity is likely not going to be as
clear and simple as a pill suddenly appearing on the market that can add 500
healthy years to your life. Rather, life extending options are going to be devel-
oped in stages. Perhaps we have already entered the initial stages. Consider the
example of knee replacement surgery, which provides the patient with knees
that may very well outlast other parts of their bodies, unless eventually the
other parts can be replaced too. Perhaps today’s increasingly common knee
replacement surgery, along with a host of other such routine medical proce-
dures, will one day be viewed as part of a primitive stage in a technological path
that led to 500 or more years of healthy knees and indefinitely healthy aging.
There is an old saying that death and taxes are two things we cannot avoid. In
the end, taxes may prove harder to terminate than death.

Religious Issues

Practical Immortality
“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on
a rainy Sunday afternoon.”16 This humorous quip raises a very good psycho-
logical question—would humans be overly bored or unsatisfied with centuries
of healthy life? The salient truth expressed here is that the will to live, the sur-
vival instinct, runs deep in the human psyche.17

15
Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever: The
Science Behind Radical Life Extension (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2004). Grossman is a medical doctor.
In this book, Kurzweil describes his personal health program, which, e.g., consists of taking about
250 nutritionals a day.
16
Susan Ertz, Anger in the Sky (New York: Literary Classics, 1943), 134.
17
For discussion of this point, see Calvin Mercer, “Bodies and Persons: Theological Reflections
on Transhumanism,” Dialog 54, no. 1 (March 2015): 30–31; and Noreen Herzfeld, “Must We
72 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Life extension and practical immortality have long been at the heart of the
transhumanist vision, and intense passion animates that vision. Nick Bostrom is
an important leader in the transhumanist movement. Bostrom, a philosopher
who directs the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said,
“Searching for a cure for aging is not just a nice thing that we should perhaps
one day get around to. It is an urgent, screaming moral imperative.”18
In earlier years of the prolongevity movement, enthusiasts sometimes ban-
died around the term “immortality.” Transhumanists eventually found that
achieving immortality via technology, rather than through God, generated sig-
nificant resistance from some faith community members. Prolongevity advo-
cates, who need public support for necessary research, now usually speak in
more measured terms. They rarely talk about immortality, leaving that word to
religion. Even if people start living hundreds or thousands of years with tech-
nological assistance, they can still get hit by a bus, obliterated in a nuclear war,
or burned up in a supernova. So, the most we can talk about with technology
is “practical immortality.” Practical immortality means that one will not die
from internal biological causes that have been associated with aging, but one
could still die of such things as accidental causes, a new infectious disease, natu-
ral disasters, or a cosmic event.
In their effort to garner public support, some transhumanists argue that
using technology to achieve lifespans of hundreds of years is not essentially dif-
ferent from what is done now at the local hospital. Medical science has steadily
extended the lifespan by eliminating polio, smallpox, measles, and a host of
other diseases. The extension of life continues with every treatment advance in
cardiac, cancer, and other diseases that take life. “In our efforts to extend life
indefinitely, we’re just trying to do what’s already being done now, but we
want to do it more effectively and push the lifespan out much farther,” so says
the transhumanist.
However, extending life indefinitely (advocated by superlongevity propo-
nents) and extending life by a few years through the compression of morbidity
(advocated by current, traditional researchers) have very different implications
for the religions. While extending life for a few years does not impact faith
claims, rituals, and institutions significantly, radical life extension will most
likely evoke significant changes in all these areas. We now consider a few of
these possible implications.

Die Transhumanism, Religion, and the Fear of Death,” in Religion and Human Enhancement:
Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 285–99, in Palgrave Studies
in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
18
“The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant,” Journal of Medical Ethics 31, no. 5 (2005), 277. The
Future of Humanity Institute was established by the university’s largest private donation ever, a gift
from James Martin, whose pioneering work led to the “internet of things,” addressed in a later
chapter.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 73

What Really Matters?

The faith traditions will need to consider how practical immortality might
affect spirituality, including experiences of and longing for transcendence, ulti-
macy, boundlessness, spiritual emotions, and interconnection.19 If we live for
hundreds or thousands of years, will we be as moved by simple wonders of life,
like a stunning sunset or an unexpected act of kindness, as we are now? Will we
be as inclined to soak up the moment, appreciating and valuing life? Will we
continue seeing deeper meaning in places where we might find the sacred? Will
we experience, as easily, a sense of transcendence, of something bigger than us
that inspires and gives hope, or will we look only to ourselves and our technol-
ogy for transcendence and deeper meaning? Maybe superlongevity would make
us more inclined to experience and appreciate these things since we will have
more time. The possibility of radical life extension may push us to become
clearer about what we value most and why, or we may become increasingly
lackadaisical about values and meaning.
Jewish philosopher and theologian, Elliot N. Dorff, articulates his concern
this way:

…the longer we think we have until we die, the less likely it is that the reality of
death will affect our lives. Just as it is very difficult to convince people in their
teens and twenties that they need to take their mortality into account, a pro-
longed life will likely strengthen and lengthen our pursuit of fame and fortune.
We will become even more blind to the importance of other values, such as fam-
ily, enjoying life, fixing the world, and connecting with God.20

Turning to the Christian tradition, Protestant and Roman Catholic theolo-

gians have expressed concern that living extremely long lives will sap our com-
mitment to and energy for spiritual development. Here’s how Protestant
theologian, Ron Cole-Turner, puts it:

Technology offers to give us what we want, or at least what most of us think we

want—longer life, youthful bodies, greater health, and mental ability. Christianity
invites us to give up what we want, indeed to give up life itself, as the one condi-
tion for real life.21

19
For an understanding of mentally healthy spirituality, we draw here upon K. I. Pargament,
Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred (New York:
Guilford, 2007).
20
“Becoming Yet More Like God: A Jewish Perspective on Radical Life Extension,” in Religion
and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; republished in paperback, 2014), 69.
21
“Extreme Longevity Research: A Progressive Protestant Perspective,” in Religion and the
Implications of Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009; republished in paperback, 2014), 58.
74 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Leon Kass served from 2001–07 as chair of the U.S. President’s Council on
Bioethics and for years led the bioconservative critique of extreme human
enhancement. Along lines similar to Dorff and Cole-Turner, Kass argued that
death is a “necessary and desirable end” and gives meaning to life.22 To remove
death, or extend life out indefinitely, would seem to necessitate a significant
revisioning of religion, both monotheistic and karmic versions.
How we see death and dying affects our understandings of what makes a
technological intervention acceptable and whether radically extending our lives
is a good thing. Normative North America is a death-denying culture. Talk of
death is avoided, and dying people are often hidden away in hospitals or long-­
term care homes.23 Our attitudes and overall worldviews are entwined with our
values and help shape our moral reasoning. On the one hand, those who believe
there is more to life after death, usually through reincarnation or an afterlife
such as heaven, may not be as driven to pursue radical life extending technolo-
gies. On the other hand, religions see much that is good about living and will
want to extend that, with technology giving more time to do good acts and
develop wisdom.
In any case, an argument can certainly be made that different worldviews
animate secular technological development and religious commitment to life.
That said, it can also be argued that radical life extension through religious
salvation and radical life extension through technology need not be mutually
exclusive.

Desirability and Acceptability

Turning to the question of the desirability and acceptability of superlongevity,
we predict some strange theological bedfellows. Traditionally, liberals and con-
servatives have lined up in their respective camps on a variety of social, political,
economic, and religious issues. With superlongevity, we may see splits among
liberals and among conservatives. In other words, bioconservatives and human
enhancement technology enthusiasts are likely to show up in both camps.
Liberals embrace science and technology, when it is in the service of good
ends, promoting the well-being of people and the planet. Despite their suspi-
cion of science, some conservatives are likely to embrace available therapies and
technologies for at least two reasons. First, conservative faith adherents, like
humans in general, share a deeply embedded and powerful survival instinct,
making the lure of immortality sometimes irresistible. Second,

22
E.g., “L’Chaim and Its Limits: Why Not Immortality?” First Things (May 2001). https://
www.firstthings.com/article/2001/05/lchaim-and-its-limits-why-not-immortality.
23
See, for example, D.P. Waldrop, “Denying and Defying Death: The Culture of Dying in
twenty-first Century America,” The Gerontologist, 51(4), 2011: 571–576. https://doi.
org/10.1093/geront/gnr076; C. Adrien, “We live in a death denying culture. That’s a problem”
[Blog]. 1800 Hospice, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.1800hospice.com/blog/live-death-
denying-culture-thats-problem/; and Lucy Bregman, Beyond Silence and Denial—Death and
Dying Reconsidered (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999).
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 75

fundamentalists, on the extreme right side of the theological continuum and

perhaps especially in Christianity and Islam, can be driven by intense anxiety
about going to hell.24 Living longer on the earth could be seen, perhaps uncon-
sciously, as an opportunity to remain alive until achieving a strong measure of
certainty about going to heaven upon death.
Conservatives tend, much more than liberals, to be suspicious of science,
particularly when they perceive it as challenging their scriptures or theologies.
Evolution is an excellent example of a scientific consensus opposed by some
Christian conservatives, especially the more extreme fundamentalists. Since
human enhancement technologies emerge out of science, and transhumanist
advocates are largely not faith adherents, the general mistrust of science by
conservatives may very well bleed over into an opposition, by many conserva-
tives, to the technologies of enhancement. Liberals may oppose radical
enhancement on a number of grounds, such as the fair input into, access to,
and distribution of the technologies.

Monotheistic Religions25
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are oriented around one life, one death, one
afterlife. Living indefinitely will lead to refashioning, in ways that certainly can-
not be predicted in detail at this point, of the religions’ belief systems, rituals,
institutions, and spiritual practices. That said, we speculate that superlongevity
will bring considerably more changes to conservative oriented religion than to
liberal oriented religion.
As presented in the “Theological Continuum” table,26 conservative religion,
unlike its counterpart on the liberal side, gives attention to, and is at times
quite preoccupied with, “otherworldly” matters. Heaven, hell, the final judge-
ment, the soul’s fate, and other such topics can outweigh this-worldly con-
cerns. Effectively removing death from the equation would seem to allow focus
on matters of this world, which is already of much greater interest to liberal
religion.
Even as some conservatives and some liberals embrace much longer lifes-
pans, they will likely make adjustments in scriptural interpretation, doctrines,
rituals, and institutions.27 Addressing death and the afterlife, which is an

24
See especially Part 3, “A Psychological Profile,” (pp. 129–66) in Calvin Mercer, Slaves to Faith:
A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009).
25
This section is adapted from some of the material in the section entitled “Response
to and Impact of Humanity 2.0,” in Calvin Mercer, “Insisting on Soma in the Debate about
Radical Life Extension: One Protestant’s Perspective,” in Transhumanism and the Body: The World
Religions Speak, eds. Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity
and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
26
Refer to the “Theological Continuum” table in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman,
and the Religions.”
27
These elements of religion are addressed by most of the contributors to Mercer and Maher,
Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension.
76 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

i­mportant part of most religions, especially in their conservative iterations,

would be eliminated as a pressing need.
Daily life, for everyone participating in the life-extending therapies and
technologies, would be changed in significant ways as well. For example, it may
well be that if we live thousands of years, a marriage commitment “until death
do us part” may not be as realistic as it is today, given that even today, less than
50 percent of marriages last. Education, careers, birthing children, family life,
retirement, and so many other aspects of our lives would also be impacted.
Religion all along the theological continuum is integrated into all these aspects
in one way or another. So, if religion survives, then extremely long lifespans
will necessitate adjustments in the various elements of religion that speak to
these aspects of our lives.

The Body
Technologies of radical life extension are based on science that is grounded in
a secular, materialistic understanding of the world. The human body can be
treated as a machine in this worldview. Religious folk disagree across religions
and even within religions about the particular nature of human being but, in
general, faith traditions affirm there is more to us than mere flesh and blood.
Discussions about what that more is, and how it is understood with respect to
flesh and blood, open up interesting, important questions with which we will
continue to struggle in the coming chapters.

Keeping the Body and Improving It: The Moderate Scenario

How religions respond to superlongevity is also likely to be informed by the
role of the body in life extension. Moderate scenarios of prolongevity entail
maintaining the basic structure of our bodies. With de Grey’s biological “bor-
ing wet approach,” for example, we would maintain the same basic physicality
as now. Scriptural and theological barriers, in the monotheistic religions, to
greatly lengthening life may very well emerge, but they are likely to be less
concerning than barriers that would arise with prolongevity visions that fully
eliminate the body as we traditionally know it, such as with mind uploading,
addressed in a later chapter.
Both liberals and conservatives avail themselves of today’s conventional
medicines for treating sickness. Rarely do the faithful feel the need to theologi-
cally justify normative allopathic medicine.28 They usually just assume God is
working through the hands of medical professionals to bring healing. As the
lifespan gradually lengthens, many positive religious views of and use of allo-
pathic medicine will likely continue.

28
There are a few notable exceptions to this pattern. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe
that receiving a blood transfusion will damn them to hell, based on interpretations of certain bibli-
cal passages (e.g., Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28, 29) and their
doctrine. If a Jehovah’s Witness chooses to receive a donor’s blood, they lose their faith commu-
nity and their relationship with God.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 77

While this is true of conventional medicine, traditional medicines associated

with, for example, Indigenous spiritualities, have long been held suspect.29
Ways of treating illness, including illnesses associated with aging, that are not
normative allopathic medicines, have been marginalized, dismissed as useless or
even dangerous. Similarly, very new allopathic medical interventions that are
breaking new ground, such as genetic modification technologies, may well be
regarded as suspect, even if they may eventually become regarded as “normal.”
For sure, if medical or technological breakthroughs suddenly make possible
life for hundreds of years, with minimal visible changes to our bodies, it may
still be difficult for the religions to accept. Scripture and theology in monothe-
istic religions have been predicated on generally recognizable lifespans, as in
the traditional biblical reference to “threescore and ten” (i.e., 70 years).30
Lifespans of hundreds or thousands of years, especially if the technology came
all at once, would perhaps result in the identification of scriptural and theologi-
cal objections to such technology.

Dropping the Body: The Radical Scenario

A radical scenario for superlongevity would entail significant and visible changes
to the physical body or moving into some sort of cyber existence. In the earlier
chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions,” we considered
Max More’s “A Letter to Mother Nature: Amendments to the Human
Constitution.” Amendment 7 of that letter points to the transhumanist interest
in enhancements that may take us beyond the bodily existence evolution has
bequeathed to us. It reads:

We recognize your genius in using carbon-based compounds to develop us. Yet

we will not limit our physical, intellectual, or emotional capacities by remaining
purely biological organisms. While we pursue mastery of our own biochemistry,
we will increasingly integrate our advancing technologies into our selves.31

In a later chapter, we consider mind uploading, a program yet to material-

ize, but one which if developed could result in superlongevity in a body/for-
mat/platform that merits being called radical. As we will see, this program
would entail transferring our memories and personality into some other sub-
strate that is more durable than our bodies. We have been through the ages of
stone, bronze, and iron. Silicon may be the preferred material for today’s digi-
tal world; by the time mind uploading arrives, some other material may have
taken silicon’s place.
Ray Kurzweil’s more general vision is well-known with regard to our future
“bodies.”

29
M. Hanrahan and B. Wills, “Makayla’s Decision: The Exercise of Indigenous Rights and the
Primacy of Allopathic Medicine in Canada,” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 35, no. 2
(2015): 207–223.
30
Psalm 90:10.
31
http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-about-ten-years-since-i-wrote.html.
78 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

By the time we have the tools to capture and re-create a human brain with all of
its subtleties, we will have plenty of options for twenty-first-century bodies for
both nonbiological humans and biological humans who avail themselves of exten-
sions to our intelligence. The human body version 2.0 will include virtual bodies
in completely realistic virtual environments, nanotechnology-based physical bod-
ies, and more.32

I envision human body 3.0—in the 2030s and 2040s—as a more fundamental
redesign. Rather than reformulating each sub-system, we (both the biological
and nonbiological portions of our thinking, working together) will have the
opportunity to revamp our bodies based on our experience with version 2.0. . .
One attribute I envision for version 3.0 is the ability to change our bodies. We’ll
be able to do that very easily in virtual-reality environments … but we will also
acquire the means to do this in real reality. We will incorporate MNT-based fab-
rication [MNT is molecular nanotechnology] into ourselves, so we’ll be able to
rapidly alter our physical manifestation at will.33

In these radical scenarios of life extension, all the norms and institutions of
society will undergo major changes, and religion, if it survives, will not be
exempted from changes as well. Such radical visions would unfold in stages, if
at all, giving the religions time to try to adjust. However, we should not mini-
mize the measure of this kind of disruption. We are envisioning an evolution
that would involve separating who we are from that aspect of ourselves with
which we are quite intimate, namely, our bodies.34 The resistance to such a
development, and its impact on religion, should not be underestimated. The
religions, at the very least, are likely to urge great caution if these radical sce-
narios become feasible.
From a monotheistic perspective, the more specific issue with regard to sce-
narios that eliminate or radically alter the human body has to do with the scrip-
tural and theological importance attached to physicality, both as a constituent
part of who we are as God’s creation and as a part of God’s activity in the
world. To give Christianity as an example, materiality is a meaningful part of
the stories of creation, incarnation, resurrection (i.e., of the body), and the
end-time (e.g., a new heaven and a new earth). The theological anthropology
of these religions is one of embodiment in a human body that we have known
since God created it from the dust.
Of course, these monotheistic religions assert that the human body is not
mere material, unintegrated with the rest of the person. The body, it is believed,
is enlivened by God’s breath, God’s spirit. But, rejecting materialism does not

32
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking,
2005), 199.
33
Ibid., 310.
34
Phrases like “who we are” and “that part of ourselves” raise complicated and important ques-
tions about human nature and personal identity. We will address these in some detail in the later
chapter on mind uploading.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 79

mean the religions can dispense with the human body without some funda-
mental shifts in scriptural interpretation and theology.
Having made the case that monotheistic religions, in the main, affirm the
body as important to who we are, we now turn to one stream of the Christian
tradition that perhaps might be well positioned to embrace, at least with regard
to physicality, a radical scenario where the body is eliminated in favor of some
sort of cyber existence. We provided the background to this view in the chap-
ter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions.”
As discussed in that earlier chapter, we saw that most Christians do not
believe it is possible or even desirable to separate the body from the rest of the
person. The doctrine of the incarnation includes the conviction that Jesus was
fully divine and fully human. For most Christians, the incarnation is evidence
that people are divinely created, and irrevocably integrated. The whole person
dies at the end of their life and is subsequently resurrected fully in a new and
transformed body.
However, a minority Christian tradition, exampled by many conservative
Protestants today, is influenced by a dualistic outlook that sees the body as
separate from the soul. The body can die, but death does not affect the essence
of the person, the soul, which lives on basically unchanged. This dualistic
understanding (i.e., the human is some combination of two otherwise dispa-
rate parts, body and soul) is actually quite compatible with mind uploading,
which attempts to capture the essence of the person in the download that can
then exist indefinitely. The conservative reluctance toward science is still a bar-
rier, but it will be interesting to see if the mind uploading path to superlongev-
ity is given any credence by this conservative wing of the religion.
Finally, both conservatives and liberals, albeit in their own ways, affirm the
importance of community. We are social creatures. If we detach our minds or
souls from our bodies, perhaps that will negatively impact community life and
relationships. Or, maybe a disembodied community opens up higher levels of
community. Certainly, the institutions that support community and the rituals
that animate it will change.

Karmic Religions
Monotheistic and karmic religions articulate strikingly different notions about
the afterlife. We addressed, in general, these different orientations in the chap-
ter titled “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions.” We suggest
you briefly review the ideas of karma and reincarnation explained in that earlier
chapter. Now, we drill down into the particulars of reincarnation and its impli-
cations for extreme longevity.
There is reason to think that extreme longevity may have less impact on the
karmic religions than on the monotheistic ones. First of all, death is already of
less importance in the karmic religions since, as one Buddhist scholar puts it,
“… the death in one particular lifetime is encumbered with less gravity; after
80 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

all, another lifetime is just around the corner.”35 Buddhism’s doctrine of no-self
(Sanskrit, anatman) means this religion is perhaps even less concerned about
mortality than are the other karmic religions. Death certainly gets attention in
the theology, rituals, and psychology of karmic religions, but we can anticipate
that removing it will have less impact upon beliefs than in the monotheistic
traditions.
Whereas the law of karma (i.e., one’s actions determine the next rebirth) is
almost always applied to future lives, radical life extension might prompt theo-
logians of the karmic religions to give more attention to the impact actions can
have later on in the current lifetime, since that one lifetime will extend indefi-
nitely. The cause and effect aspect of karma is strengthened in the immediacy
of one’s life, while the rebirth component fades from view, at least for all practi-
cal purposes, since life continues indefinitely.36
Finally, turning to one’s personal spiritual life, karmic religion scholars, as
we have noted, have not yet addressed superlongevity to the same extent as
have theologians and religion scholars of monotheistic religions. However,
those scholars who have addressed the karmic religions and radical life exten-
sion share a concern that superlongevity could negatively impact spiritual moti-
vation and aspiration. Buddhist scholar Derek Maher writes:

Buddhists would need to elaborate new rhetorical strategies to encourage people

to engage in religious practice. If people could expect to live forever, they would
have fewer incentives to behave well and foster good karma since they would no
longer fear being reborn as headlice, dung beetles, or worse, hell beings.37

Ted Peters is a major and widely respected voice in the theological and ethi-
cal assessment of radical enhancement. After reviewing contributions from
scholars writing about karmic religions, Peters concludes that “although the
fundamental worldview will remain intact, we can predict a deterioration in
motivation for pursuing the more sublime spiritual goals.”38 Of course, one can
argue that a longer life provides opportunity for more time to deepen the for-
mation of spiritual life. The initial reflections by scholars writing about karmic
and monotheistic religions on superlongevity, however, are cautious and pes-
simistic about spiritual well-being in the face of extremely long lives.

35
Derek Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird,” in Religion and the Implications of Radical Life
Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; repub-
lished in paperback, 2014), 114.
36
Derek Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird,” 120; and Arvind Sharma, “‘May You Live Long:’
Religious Implications of Extreme Longevity in Hinduism,” in eds. Calvin Mercer and Derek
Maher, Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2009; republished in paperback, 2014), 151–52.
37
Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird,” 119.
38
Ted Peters, “Reflections on Radical Life Extension,” in Religion and the Implications of
Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2009; republished in paperback, 2014), 163.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 81

Ethical Issues
Discussions about superlongevity often move directly to objections. Perhaps
we are stating the obvious, but we begin by briefly putting on the table that
there are obvious benefits to longer, healthy living. Such benefits include
decreased suffering, more opportunities to enjoy the benefits of a healthy life,
and giving people choice and power over their life and death.39 In the earlier
chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics,” we discussed the differ-
ence between precautionary and proactionary approaches to superlongevity
research. These stances yield different results in weighing the costs and benefits.
Those advocating a primarily precautionary approach highlight the concerns
discussed later in this section on ethics, as well as unknown damaging side
effects of the research programs. Proactionary advocates insist the benefits of
human prolongevity development outweigh the risks. We discussed at some
length the role of values in decision-making in the earlier chapter on ethics.
Keep all these important ethical considerations in mind as we summarize some
of the more common objections, and possible responses, to superlongevity
programs.

The Therapy—Enhancement Continuum: What It Means to Make

Us Better
When radical life extension is framed primarily as a therapy—enhancement
issue, questions about a technology’s fit with religious integrity emerge.
Consider the hypothetical example of an approved and regulated organ replace-
ment with 3-D technology.40 Currently, many people die daily waiting for a
suitable organ. No doubt we would consider 3-D generated organs for those
in need of transplants as therapeutic and, therefore, ethically permissible, at a
minimum. On the other hand, as we age our organs can become less efficient
and damaged. Perhaps it would move beyond therapeutic, to enhancement, to
use 3-D generated organs for all people in later life, if they choose them.
The religions would need to consider if life-extension for elderly adults, via
3-D technology, is congruent with faith claims and values. It is possible for a
technology to land clearly in the enhancement side of the continuum and still
be considered religiously congruent and, therefore, acceptable. But harder
questions will likely need to be asked of technology that lands in this end of the
continuum, since technology in the enhancement end of the continuum is less
clearly about healing depending, of course, on how one defines aging.

39
An excellent summary of the “case against death” is the following book by philosopher
Ingemar Patrick Linden, The Case Against Death (MIT Press, forthcoming).
40
Emma Yasinski, “On the Road to 3-D Printed Organs,” The Scientist—Exploring Life,
Inspiring Innovation (February 26, 2020). https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/on-
the-road-to-3-d-printed-organs-67187. Artificially generated organs would presumably not pres-
ent the immune-rejection issues that are part of using a donor organ, no matter how well matched.
82 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Our conclusions about a particular intervention rests, to a large degree, on

how we interpret aging. If aging is interpreted as a disease, then the elderly
would be seen in need of healing. Currently, aging is not seen by the general
population and the medical establishment as a disease. Transhumanists work
hard promoting the idea that aging is a disease that should be eradicated.
Disability theologians help us raise additional questions about who decides,
and how it is decided, what constitutes a disease. Some argue editing out tri-
somy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) is therapeutic. Others contend that by editing
out Down’s Syndrome we are reinforcing prejudice, and amplifying patterns of
injustice, against those with abilities different from the norm. We may be fail-
ing to value people with different disabilities if we choose to make people “bet-
ter” by eradicating these perceived disabilities or diseases. If interventions are
judged to be unjust, then they cannot be considered therapeutic, in the fullest
sense of that word.
While there is plenty of debate about particular interventions, religion is
pro-healing. So, any intervention that is considered clearly therapeutic is likely
to be supported by religion, all else being equal. How we decide, and who
decides, what is therapeutic will continue to be problematic. Most interven-
tions clearly falling on the enhancement side of the continuum, however, will
elicit considerable disagreement. What is embraced by religion is a moving
target, because the range of healing options has greatly increased over the cen-
turies. We now accept many previously unthinkable interventions, such as heart
surgery, as normal and therapeutic. In other words, it is common for enhance-
ments to become perceived as healing therapies over time, if potential harms
are outweighed by potential benefits.
Key to a sound moral assessment of interventions from a religiously-based
perspective is how the interventions impact relationships and, indeed, the well-­
being of all life. The monotheistic religions believe that God can work through
people to create for the good of self, neighbor, and creation. In an earlier chap-
ter, we introduced the concept of “created co-creator,” coined by theologian
Philip Hefner.41 Some theologians in the Judeo-Christian tradition have turned
to this concept to explain their acceptance of life extension programs.
Disability theologians make the case for human fragility and vulnerability as
virtues that compel us into relationship.42 The case for superlongevity is stron-
ger if it is supportive of the deepening and expansion of authentic relationships.
If we overcome physical fragility and vulnerability, it may be that we will need
to pay more attention to the other ways in which we are fragile and vulnerable
in order to enhance relationships. Relationships are important in religions.
Becoming better humans will mean attending to the possible negative rela-
tional implications of overcoming physical vulnerability.

41
Philip Hefner, The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress, 1993), 27.
42
E.g., Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2008).
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 83

Choice
Anti-aging proponents highly value morphological freedom and often frame
radical life extension as an issue, primarily, of individual choice.43 If we decide
we want the pill or any enhancing technology that extends our lives, and we
can pay for it, we should be able to choose to have that technology. Prolongevity
leaders do recognize that not everyone can financially afford these enhance-
ments, and they accept that as a temporary limitation.
The issue of free choice raises sharply the distinction between an individual
choosing an enhancement for themselves and making these choices on behalf
of progeny. This distinction finds particular expression in potential germline
genetic modification technologies. Germline gene modification is extremely
controversial, since this technology targets the genes in germline cells, includ-
ing sperm, eggs, and embryos, which are passed from generation to generation.
Germline genetic modification that prevents diseases caused by genetic
mutations, such as muscular dystrophy, Down’s Syndrome, and cystic fibrosis,
are considered to be potentially more acceptable than modifications that would
radically enhance progeny. However, even disease prevention is complicated by
unintended off-target effects of the gene therapy, yielding risks that would be
assumed by all progeny.
Regulatory agencies have generally drawn the line at germline genetic modi-
fication in part because of consent issues and also because of possible negative
side-effects. As of 2021, germline genetic modification was prohibited in 40
countries. Conceivably, somatic genetic modification technologies could pro-
liferate and become perfected to the point that scientists conclude these thera-
pies pose little risk if used in germline programs for progeny. While germline
therapies to prevent deadly diseases seem desirable, the water turns murky
when considering germline therapies preventing genetic conditions that may
be uncomfortable but not deadly. The slippery slope concern applies here.
Perhaps parents who dream of their child excelling at athletics could use stem
cell therapy to enhance muscular strength. But it may be that the child has no
interest in athletics or muscular strength. Another legitimate concern is the
possibility of unintended and unanticipated off-target effects, some of which
may not actualize for a generation or more.
There are other complications regarding consent, as an expression of auton-
omy, in addition to the challenges posed by heritable enhancements. As we
discussed in the chapter on ethics, complex social processes are at work influ-
encing our identities and choices. How do we know what we really want? To
illustrate, a normative North American understanding of “successful aging” is
that aging adults continue to make productive contributions to society and to

43
Anders Sandberg, “Morphological Freedom—Why We Not Just Want It, but Need It,” in The
Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy
of the Human Future, 56–64, eds. More, Max and Natasha Vita-More (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2013).
84 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

function independently.44 Since technology is embedded with the value of util-

ity, its use adds to this normative view about aging. Utility can be valuable, but
religions provide a balance, affirming the intrinsic worth and dignity in people,
regardless of their ability to produce something measurable.
Religions also celebrate our interdependence, contending that dependence
can be seen as a virtue rather than something to overcome. Surrendering one’s
life to God is, generally speaking, encouraged in all religions, monotheistic and
karmic. We are dependent on God and, in similar fashion, we live in commu-
nity, dependent and supportive of one another.
These beliefs about the dignity and worth of everyone and interdependence
do not necessarily mean religious people will not choose radical life extending
technologies. The beliefs, however, do present parameters for making enhance-
ment choices. In ethics language, autonomy is understood as relational; my
choice to live longer-or-not is not just about me. This emphasis on relationality
shifts the conversation from rights to responsibilities. So, instead of asking what
my rights are, I need to ask what my responsibilities to others and the world are.

Justice
As explained in the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics,” the
world’s religions are generally united, at least in their scriptural and theological
traditions, in their ethical objection to social disparity along race and class lines.
That is a general statement that must be applied and nuanced in each religious
situation.
For example, Hinduism’s doctrines of karma and reincarnation have been
critiqued for what could be interpreted as theological justification for social
disparity exhibited in the traditional caste system. That critique has to be bal-
anced by appreciating the efforts of social reformers, such as Mahatma Gandhi,
who in speech and practice strenuously opposed caste. Christianity has an unsa-
vory history of oppressing people under the twin colonial banners of sword and
cross. Yet, the justice teachings of the biblical prophets and Christ inspired
Martin Luther King, Jr., an important reformer in the United States civil rights
movement who also visited and learned nonviolence civil disobedience tactics
from Gandhi.
Superlongevity could conceivably exacerbate social disparity. Using eco-
nomics to illustrate, much of the world’s wealth is in the hands of older people.
People of means are the very ones who would have access to prolongevity
interventions, likely to be expensive. Radical life extension, then, could very
well further concentrate the world’s wealth in the hands of the rich, since they
would be among the first to live indefinitely. Given the positive correlation
between race and class, superlongevity in this scenario yields greater social dis-
parity in many categories.

44
Martha Holstein, J. Parks, and M. Waymack, Ethics, Aging, & Society: The Critical Turn (New
York: Springer Publishing Company, 2011), 45–64.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 85

The above noted concern about social disparity easily leads to distributive
justice issues. As we have explained, scholars and theologians of the karmic
religions have not yet weighed in strongly on radical human enhancement
technology. However, we can anticipate that when they do, one of the early
concerns is likely to be about the fair distribution of these powerful technolo-
gies. We can see that expressed by Buddhist scholar Derek Maher.

For Buddhists, a variety of ethical considerations attend the application of the

biomedical innovations under discussion. The most notable concern would be
that such advances ought to be made available on an equitable basis. Most
Buddhists would condemn a program through which only the wealthy, powerful,
or well connected were able to take advantage of prolongation therapies.45

Concerns about distributive justice are particularly prominent among people

of faith who tend toward the liberal or progressive wing of the religions, and
these questions regarding equitable access may actually be their main objection.
We saw in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions,”
that advocacy for the disenfranchised runs deep in the Abrahamic faiths, especially
as interpreted by liberals. Terminating aging is likely to be an expensive project.
Liberals especially will worry about compounding the problem of distributive
justice by the diversion of resources from basic needs, such as clean water, health
care, education, and other programs that help poorer communities.
One response transhumanists often make to this critique is that superlon-
gevity and radical enhancements are being singled out unfairly. As put sharply
on one transhumanist website,

Those asking such questions should begin by giving up their late model car, their
cable TV, and their cappuccino for the benefit of the underprivileged of the world
before asking others to give up their life!46

A second response to distributive and social justice objections is that the

superlongevity option is not going to arrive overnight. A more likely scenario
is something like the following. A story will hit the front pages of newspapers
that scientists have quadrupled the lifespan of a mouse. Because of the transfer-
ability of research from mice to humans, people will then realize that, yes,
extreme longevity can happen for humans. It could take a decade or more to
transfer that breakthrough in mouse lifespan to humans. During that time,
people all over the world will demand access to this technology when it arrives.
No government or wealthy class will be able to hold the technology private.
The survival instinct is just too strong.

45
Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird,” 120. From a Western religion, Roman Catholic scholar
Terence L. Nichols expresses the same concern in “Radical Life Extension: Implications for Roman
Catholicism,” in Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, eds. Derek Maher and
Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, republished in paperback, 2014), 140–44.
46
Alcor Life Extension, “Frequently Asked Questions.” https://alcor.org/FAQs/faq03.
html#world.
86 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Counterarguments to this response include the collective will argument that

food is necessary for survival, and the capability exists to produce enough food
for everyone, but people still starve, due to political and economic selfishness.
We have the means but lack the collective will to move significantly on a host
of social justice issues. Superlongevity will not be any different, the critic con-
tends. Another counterargument is that any length of trickle-down time is
unacceptable. The rich will get richer and more powerful with extended lives.
The gap between the rich and poor or not-so-rich will widen during the trickle-­
down period.

 New Division in a Socially Unjust World

A
Another major concern about superlongevity and other enhancements is that
radical enhancements will create yet another category of division in the human
population. When some humans are radically enhanced and not others, it will
lead to a division in society between the enhanced and the unenhanced, or
“normals.”
Possible long-range implications of some people living hundreds of years
while others live “four-score and ten” are troubling. We already noted earlier
in this chapter that wealth, acquired in the first hundred years of life, could
aggregate and multiply over thousands of years, leading to even more disparity
in wealth. Moreover, countries where the technology companies are located
are likely to acquire more political power globally.
While concerns about superlongevity aggravating wealth and power dispari-
ties are heightened, especially among liberals in religion, Donna Haraway and
others have argued that we will change our appearance through technology as
we become cyborgs. These changes may in a helpful way blur the divides not
only between human and machine, but also between different skin colors, gen-
ders, body size, and other visible characteristics that have been used to unjustly
discriminate and judge. A cyborg is described by Haraway as “a hybrid of
machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of
fiction.”47 Haraway sees the cyborg as “a creature in a postgender world,”
transgressing the humanly constructed categories, in particular those of human
and machine that we now use to understand each other.48 While some have
seen Haraway’s work, and in particular her 1985 “A Cyborg Manifesto,”49 as
necessarily supportive of transhumanism, Haraway does not agree.50

47
Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 4.
48
Ibid., 8. See also Aleksandra Lukaszewicz Alcaraz, Are Cyborgs Persons? An Account of Futurist
Ethics, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, Calvin Mercer and Steve
Fuller, series co-editors (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); and J. Jeanine Thweatt-Bates,
“Artificial Wombs and Cyborg Births,” in Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in
an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed. Ron Cole-Turner (Washington, DC: Georgetown
University, 2011), 105–108.
49
Republished in Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women.
50
For a helpful commentary on Haraway and transhumanism, see Steve Fuller, Nietzschean
Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era. Posthuman Studies 1, ed.
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), 112–18.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 87

Re-embodiment that will come with some radical enhancements has libera-
tory potential if—a hugely important “if”—values and attitudes that give rise
to prejudice in the first place are intentionally and successfully transformed.
Accomplishing this will not be easy. We see that search engines and AI algo-
rithms mirror and reinforce racism and sexism.51 Likewise, digital “body” plat-
forms that erase flesh, blood, and skin will not necessarily erase prejudice and
stereotypes.

Ageism
Many people experience being discounted, not heard, talked down to, or oth-
erwise devalued as they develop grey hair, wrinkles, limited mobility, and other
visible signs of aging. Ageism is a serious social justice issue. A glaring example
of how attractive technology can be portrayed and how unattractive aging can
be portrayed, is the Kia commercial unveiled during a Super Bowl. As
Aerosmith’s 1973 hit “Dream On” plays in the background, lead singer
69-year-old Steven Tyler races a new Kia Stinger and becomes young again.
Kia’s tagline in the commercial was “Feel something again.” The ad suggests
that as we age we lose vibrancy, becoming irrelevant and boring, unable to be
stimulated and engaged. Superlongevity might inadvertently magnify ageism,
feeding into an assumption that older adults are dull, out of touch, and in need
of technological fixing.
The obvious transhumanist response to this concern is that aging does not
have to be experienced in frail, diseased-ridden bodies that suffer and die. The
transhumanist vision is that prejudice against the elderly will actually be elimi-
nated when the elderly are living healthy, vibrant, active lives.

Longevity Dividend
Most of the ethical discussion about superlongevity thus far has been objec-
tions or concerns. The “Longevity Dividend,” however, is the idea that there
can be positive social justice and societal well-being benefits from superlongev-
ity because of the financial savings. The term was coined by S. Jay Olshansky
and colleagues.52 Olshansky is a public health scholar with specialization in
gerontology and biodemography. Biodemography is a new interdisciplinary
field that addresses biological and demographic factors that impact birth and
death in shaping individuals and populations.
This social justice argument for superlongevity is very old, illustrated by a
2006 initiative explaining the concept and its social, economic, and political
dimensions. In that year, at an event on Capitol Hill, United States senators
from both sides of the aisle, Nobel Laureates, representatives of national and
51
Trishan Panch, H. Mattie, and R. Atun, “Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Bias:
Implications for Health Systems,” Journal of Global Health 9, no. 2 (2019): 010318. https://doi.
org/10.7189/jogh.09.020318.
52
S. Jay Olshansky, “Reinventing Aging: An Update on the Longevity Dividend,” Aging Today:
A Bimonthly Newspaper of the American Society on Aging (March/April 2013). https://www.asag-
ing.org/blog/reinventing-aging-update-longevity-dividend.
88 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

international health organizations, and scientists delivered to representatives of

Congress a petition on behalf of the Longevity Dividend. The advocates
attempted to convince elected officials that significant public funds could be
saved if people live healthy longer, because most medical dollars are usually
consumed in the last years of life, during failing health. The call to action for
public officials is to invest in “anti-aging research,” as opposed to mere “dis-
ease research.”

Population Explosion
An ethical concern often expressed is some form of, “Since we already have
more people than the planet can support, we’re not going to be able to handle
people living for hundreds of years.”53 A number of responses to this concern
have been offered; we make no judgment about the adequacy of these solutions.
Theoretically, a law could mandate that anyone partaking of longevity tech-
nology is prohibited from having children. A legal solution would not be as
simple as making a law, of course, but there could be public policy initiatives
that to some degree mitigate the overcrowding problem. We know that limit-
ing the number of children a couple may have has been instituted by some
countries (e.g., China) for various reasons.
The solution of eliminating future generations raises its own ethical issues.
Do we have a responsibility to allow future generations to come into being at
all? Some transhumanists think it is absurd to require fully functioning adults,
or those who with technology could be fully functioning, to move off the stage
of life to make way for those yet unborn. Steve Fuller presents the case for
“generational change as a vehicle for radical conceptual change,” providing for
“periodic rejuvenation.”54

A younger generation is supposed to be more open-minded to new experience

and hence more easily impressed by whatever happens, precisely because youth
sets fewer prior expectations about what should happen. In sociological terms,
the young are not so heavily invested in the past, even if they have been formally
trained in established forms of knowledge, because they have not spent so much
time routinely enacting their training as part of their self-presentation—and
hence have not personally experienced the benefits of sticking to the old ways.55 …
Contemporary transhumanism, despite its much vaunted ‘futurist’ vision, remains
largely oblivious to the intergenerational consequences of its quest for indefinite
longevity.56 … the mind-set of the younger generation–the sense of exhilaration

53
Muslim scholar Aisha Y. Musa asks that question. See “A Thousand Years, Less Fifty: Toward
a Quranic View of Extreme Longevity,” in Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension,
eds. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Republished in
paperback, 2014), 129.
54
Fuller’s discussion of this idea is in Nietzschean Meditations, 175–86.
55
Ibid., 177.
56
Ibid., 184.
 5 SUPERLONGEVITY AND OTHER PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS 89

that comes from acting in a bold yet naïve manner–may be threatened with
extinction.57

A second solution offered is colonization of outer space. At first blush, this

may seem like a fanciful solution, more tailored for a science fiction movie.
However, one common problem in objections to radical human enhancement
is that detractors engage the conversation as if technological development
remains static, except for the specific technology being addressed. A techno-
logical advance in one area is likely to be matched over time by advances in
other areas. Space travel is expected to become increasingly common. While a
long way off, if ever feasible, space colonization is proposed as a solution to
overpopulation. Should it ever materialize on a large scale, settlements in space
could address overpopulation, as well as other natural or human-made plane-
tary disasters.58
The concern about population, when combined with the other justice con-
cerns of ageism and a new division between the normal and the enhanced,
provides support for a precautionary stance toward developing superlongevity
technologies. Proactionary advocates, however, as noted, minimize these dan-
gers while pointing to the significant longevity monetary dividends, as well as
providing people with less suffering and greater choice over their life and death.
As we have emphasized, the values brought to the process help shape the
analysis.

Questions for Discussion

1. If people begin living for hundreds of years, how might this impact ritu-
als and institutions in religions with which you are familiar? For example,
will we still be expected to marry someone for life? How might end of life
rituals change?
2. With extreme longevity, how might death be reconceptualized and
addressed in various religious rituals and in the personal experience of
faith adherents? How might religious leaders revise their guidance of
members of their communities?
3. Discuss the meaning of aging. Is aging a disease? Is it a desirable part of
being human?
4. Do you think extreme longevity will affect the notions of reincarnation
or heaven in the different religious traditions? Why or why not?

57
Ibid., 186.
58
For an exploration of this option by an expert, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, see The
Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (New
York: Doubleday, 2014). The book’s three sections are titled “Leaving the Earth,” “Voyage to the
Stars,” and “Life in the Universe.”
90 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

5. To give focus, we have concentrated in this chapter on the physical

enhancement of longevity. Longevity, while the most talked about, is
only one of many possible physical enhancements. What others might be
possible, and what might be some of their religious and ethical
implications?
6. What theological and ethical concerns, in addition to the ones we dis-
cussed, can you imagine with regard to radical physical enhancement?
Consider the responsibilities that would come with living radically
extended lives. What might these responsibilities entail?
7. Do you think a stronger case can be made for a precautionary or proac-
tionary stance with regard to radical human enhancement? Why? What
values played a role in your answer?
8. Would you take the longevity pill? Why or why not? Is your answer
informed by a religious view? If so, what?
 CHAPTER 6

Cognitive Enhancement and Moral

Bioenhancement: Becoming Smarter and More
Moral

Technology of Cognitive Enhancement

Perhaps you remember taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a test neces-
sary for college application in the United States, or scrambling to pump up
your Grade Point Average (GPA). Would it not have been great to have a cog-
nitive enhancement pill that could add a couple of hundred points to your SAT
score or boost your GPA? Maybe yes, maybe no.
As we proceed, we place radical cognitive enhancement in the larger context
of traditional methods for cognitive enhancement. Extreme cognitive enhance-
ment, together with artificial intelligence (AI), may necessitate moral enhance-
ment to ensure that we use our increased intellect for good. As we increasingly
overcome what have been considered natural cognitive limits, it is imperative
to consider the theological and ethical implications.

How We Make Ourselves Smarter

Cognitive enhancement is not new. We work hard in many ways to make our-
selves and our children smarter. Mostly, we promote behavioral methods for
cognitive enhancement, such as good study skills and education. Long stand-
ing education techniques are continuing to be improved and utilized. Mental
or psychological training, such as that provided by guided imagery, mindful-
ness exercises, and mnemonics and other memory techniques, have long been
used to improve our mental abilities. Learning another language, recreation,
eating well, appropriate sleep, and sports psychology techniques also contrib-
ute. However, we have not been satisfied with these behavioral techniques,
perhaps because they require time and hard work. We want more. And we want
more for less effort.
Leading futurists Nick Bostrom, director of the Oxford University Future of
Humanity Institute, and his colleague, Anders Sandberg, define cognitive

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 91

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_6
92 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

enhancement as using artificial means to optimize learning and memory sys-

tems.1 Many cognitive enhancers also augment our bodies and, as we see in a
later section, even our moral selves. In an information society, increasing focus
is put on cognitive capacity and information access and analysis.
Experts point out that cognitive enhancement is complex, with several fac-
tors needing to be considered.2 As we will see, there are many methods of
cognitive enhancement. Also, cognition is not one thing. It is a complex assem-
blage of capabilities, including attention, memory, processing speed, creativity,
and cognitive flexibility. Complicating things further is the role of social accept-
ableness. Consider, for example, the use of pharmaceutical drugs that people
procure in ways other than via a prescription from their doctor.
Despite the complexities and complications, people have always attempted
to become smarter and that attempt is now needing assessment, religious and
otherwise, as powerful options for cognitive enhancement are being devel-
oped. Before too quickly judging radical cognitive enhancement, consider the
wide use of night-long cognitive enhancements prior to big university exams.
Street names for these cognitive stimulants, long used, are coffee and cola. Jolt,
a caffeine and sugar intense cola, became available in 1985, marketed to stu-
dents and young professionals with the slogan, “All the sugar, twice the caf-
feine!” Caffeine and sugar (and Jolt equivalents such as Red Bull) are still very
much in use, complemented by today’s array of technological aids like smart
phones, calculators, and internet, all of which extend our cognitive reach.
As with many enhancements we will discuss, genetic engineering will almost
assuredly play a role in cognitive enhancement. As it becomes more common
to screen embryos for genetic markers of disease, some parents are going to
want to screen for markers associated with IQ. Manipulating the genes of mice
has already greatly improved their cognitive abilities. The transferability of
research from mice to humans will put genetics center stage in the cognitive
enhancement debate. Reducing cognitive decline due to aging may be viewed
favorably as therapeutic, but drastic enhancements in IQ, beyond what is con-
sidered normal, will be controversial.3 In addition to genetics, we now turn to
a number of other interventions to make us smarter.

Smart Drugs and Nootropics

Methylphenidates, like Adderall and Ritalin, are stimulants that sharpen cogni-
tive focus and facilitate alertness, memory, and wakefulness, although is it

1
Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg, “Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory
Challenges,” Science and Engineering Ethics 15 (2009): 311–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11948-009-9142-5.
2
M. Dressler, et al., “Hacking the Brain: Dimensions of Cognitive Enhancement,” ACS
Chemical Neuroscience 10, no.3 (March 20, 2019):1137–1148.
3
“Should We Pursue Genetic Cognitive Enhancement?” The Hastings Center News (April 3,
2018). https://www.thehastingscenter.org/news/enhanced-human-risks-opportunities/.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 93

questionable whether these stimulants actually improve academic perfor-

mance.4 Methylphenidates help restore an imbalance of neurotransmitters in
people with attention deficit hyperactivity dissorder (ADHD). Because these
drugs are misused by people without ADHD, they often end up backfiring and
actually hamper good thinking after the negative and positive effects are taken
into account. Evidence so far indicates that methylphenidates do not improve
academic performance. Motivations for taking these “study drugs” include
coping with low self-esteem, a need for external validation, having few sources
of meaning in life, insufficient parental attention, and mental health issues,
including psychosis.5
Stimulants also improve reflexes and blunt appetite, which can be (danger-
ously) attractive to people who wish to lose weight. A recent study found that
more than five percent of North American university students use ADHD
treatment drugs, such as Adderall or Ritalin, to help them study, in spite of
potential cardiac problems, addiction, and increased anxiety. The use of study
drugs for non-medical reasons is growing at Canadian and United States
universities.6
Other pharmaceuticals sometimes used to facilitate faster and better think-
ing include modafinil (a common trade name is Provigil), which is often pre-
scribed to people with sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. What is sometimes
missed by off-label and self-prescribing users are the potential harmful side
effects, including headaches and insomnia. Most people can take modafinil
only for a very limited time before the risks outweigh the benefits. Antidementia
drugs, such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and memantine, are also theo-
rized to have cognitive benefits for people without dementia, but that is con-
troversial and scientifically unproven. The value some people place on any
means to cognitively enhance is of serious concern to medical professionals,
since self-prescribed usage of these drugs can be very dangerous.
Nootropics (Greek for “mind turning”) are widely used smart drug supple-
ments.7 “Natural” cognitive enhancement is a big industry, with internet
advertisements for a host of supplements, such as omega-3 fatty acids, ginkgo
biloba, Lumalta, and the supposed brain booster pill Geniux. Claims that
Geniux can significantly boost cognitive enhancement have been debunked,

4
Dressler et al., “Hacking the Brain.”
5
D. D. Abelman, “Mitigating Risks of Students Use of Study Drugs Through Understanding
Motivations for Use and Applying Harm Reduction Theory: A Literature Review,” Harm
Reduction Journal 14, no. 68 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0194-6.
6
K. R. Holloway, T. H. Bennett, O. Parry, and C. Gorden, “Misuse of Prescription Drugs on
University Campuses: Options for Prevention,” International Review of Law, Computers &
Technology (2013) 27:324–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2013.796707; and
C. R. Skidmore, E. A. Kaufman, and S. E. Crowell, “Substance Use Among College Students,”
Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics in North America 25 (2016): 735–53. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.chc.2016.06.004.
7
Nayef Al-Rodhan, “The Runaway Train of Cognitive Enhancement,” Scientific American,
(December 9, 2019). https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-runaway-train-of-
cognitive-enhancement/.
94 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

with refund cheques issued by the United States Federal Trade Commission.8
Despite the debunking of Geniux, numerous other supplements, with similar
claims about improved focus, memory and energy, are being promoted, often
without scientific validation.

Brain Biohacking
Neuroscience developments in brain stimulation techniques have generated
much interest among athletes and others who want to overcome mental mes-
sages that inhibit physical performance. For example, transcranial direct cur-
rent stimulation (tDCS) improves endurance by making it easier to overcome
mental messages regarding pain or exhaustion that would otherwise encourage
the athlete to stop. tDCS is rumored to have been used in past Olympic
Games.9 Harms are associated with tDCS, including seizures, headaches, and
possibly changes in thought patterns (e.g., personality),10 yet many high-level
athletes want anything that might give a competitive edge.
Many other situations, besides sports competitions, lend themselves to a
desire to work through pain or tiredness. Some claim that tDCS can also
improve overall thinking. Search up tDCS, and many advertisements for brain
stimulating devices–even travel sized!–show up. One web site boasts:

tDCS can increase cognitive performance on a variety of tasks, depending on the

area of the brain being stimulated. Scientific studies have shown that tDCS has
the ability to enhance language and mathematical ability, attention span, problem
solving, memory, and coordination. In addition, tDCS has also been documented
as having impressive potential to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD, as well as
chronic pain.11

While these more enthusiastic claims about tDCS are debated, there is
increasing scientific evidence that functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) neurofeedback may increase attention and visuospatial memory.12
Another low-risk brain stimulation technique is electroencephalograms
(EEGs). EEGs are used, for example, to stimulate an athlete’s motor learning
and monitoring motor function through the reading of biomarkers that predict
athletic performance.13 These biomarkers provide feedback on sleep, stress lev-
els, focus, and impulse control.

8
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/geniux-refunds.
9
A. Hutchinson, Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance (New
Zealand: HarperCollins Publishers, 2018).
10
L. Y. Cabrera, E. Y. Evans, and R. H. Hamilton, “Ethics of the Electrified Mind: Defining
Issues and Perspectives on the Principled Use of Brain Stimulation in Medical Research and
Clinical Care,” Brain Topography 27 (2014): 33–45.
11
“The Brain Stimulator: Stimulate Your Life.” https://thebrainstimulator.net/what-is-tdcs/.
12
Dressler et al., “Hacking the Brain.”
13
G. Cheron et al., “Brain Oscillations in Sport: Toward EEG Biomarkers of Performance,”
Frontiers in Psychology 7, no. 246 (2016). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00246.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 95

Our Brains on AI
If we choose not to tamper with our own physiologies, AI is the most obvious
and fast developing way to augment thinking. AI offers many health benefits,
such as diagnosing sleep disorders from home and monitoring cardiac perfor-
mance with wearable technology.14 Other examples include electronic memory
aids and hand-held memory-enhancing digital games. The list is expanding.15
Developments are occurring regularly in the field of neurotechnology.
Notably, brain-computer interfaces are increasingly enabling people to control
devices with their brains. Building on the work of pioneers like Kevin Warwick,16
CTRL-Labs is a United States wearable tech company building technology
that allows for control of digital devices with the brain. Facebook acquired
CTRL-Labs and joined it with Facebook Reality Labs, giving the effort enor-
mous funding. Another neurotechnology company, Neuralink, is backed by
billionaire Elon Musk, an indication that neurotechnology is supported by
powerful individuals and organizations.
The Internet of Bodies (IoB) is an extension of the Internet of Things (IoT),
which is comprised of interrelated mechanical and digital machines transferring
data without regular human assistance. The IoB is connected to the IoT via
devices implanted, ingested, or worn. Basically, the human body is used as a
data platform. The IoB can augment individual cognitive abilities by giving us
more information about ourselves and others and by interpreting that data.
For example, smart pills with electronic sensors and computer chips collect
data about internal organs as they make their way through the digestive tract.
Pacemakers now have Wi-Fi capacity and send data about heart function to a
computer. Biohax, a Swedish bioengineering company, implants microchips
(biochips) into bodies to enable people to enter their workplace without an
external key and to pay for purchases simply by waving their hand.17 The
increased interfacing of humans with machines supplements our cognitive
capacities by adding machine collected IoB data and by applying a fast-growing
body of algorithms through which to interpret this data.

14
Isabel Pederson and Andrew Iliadis, eds., Embodied Computing—Wearables, Implantables,
Embeddables, Ingestibles (Boston: MIT Press, 2020).
15
For a visionary discussion of what could be coming in brain enhancement, see this examination
by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand,
Enhance, and Empower the Mind (New York: Doubleday, 2014).
16
Kevin Warwick, “The Cyborg Revolution,” NanoEthics 8 (2014) 263–273. 10.1007/
s11569-014-0212-z.
17
“Biohax International: Turning the Internet of Things into the Internet of Us.” https://www.
f6s.com/biohaxinternational.
96 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Technology of Moral Enhancement18

As we greatly enhance our cognitive reach, our capacities for both good and
bad are amplified. Given the potentially nefarious outcomes perpetrated by
superintelligent machines or radically cognitively-enhanced and supplemented
humans, a reasonable fear is that unless we become more moral and collectively
committed to doing good, we may act on our increasing capacity to do
great harm.
Moral enhancement may be a necessary complement to the increasing
potency of cognitive enhancements. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu,
Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, published Unfit for
the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement,19 a book regarded as the pivotal
text on moral enhancement ethics. Most scholars responding to their argu-
ments see the moral enhancement project as too complex, fraught with danger,
and unlikely to be implemented. But the fact that their book has been central
to most analyses of moral enhancement suggests that Persson and Savulescu
struck a deep chord.
Persson and Savulescu argue that we may be able to increase our capacities
for altruism and justice and that we must do so or risk a cataclysmic fate.
Without a stronger moral compass and inclination, we will be at greatly
increased risk of mass destruction. Consider, for example, autonomous weap-
ons, such as self-flying drones with sniper sensor devices and facial recognition
software that tell these drones what skulls to penetrate and how to evade bul-
lets. These unstoppable “slaughterbots” are not merely science fiction. This
can be done now by integrating technology we already have in miniature form.20
Our moral historical track record is not good. Millions of people have been
bombed, genocides have unfolded without adequate intervention, and people
continue to be persecuted simply for being different. The world displayed
plenty of altruism during the COCID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic also
showed how territorial, greedy, and self-centered people can be. Perhaps the
answer does lie in making humans more moral or more virtuous. But, how do
we do this? This “how” question is what elicits strong reactions and compli-
cates the ethical project.

18
Much of the material in this chapter on moral bioenhancement is an adaptation from Tracy
J. Trothen’s publications, including “Moral Bioenhancement Through An Intersectional Theo-
Ethical Lens: Refocusing on Divine Image-Bearing and Interdependence,” Religions 8, no. 5
(2017): 1–14, 10.3390/rel8050084; and “Moral Bioenhancement From the Margins:
An Intersectional Christian Theological Reconsideration,” in Religion and Human Enhancement:
Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan), 245–263.
19
Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement
(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012).
20
“Slaughterbots,” last modified November 12, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 97

How We Make Ourselves More Moral

Traditionally, we have relied on communities and families to instill a moral
compass in each person. Education and formation of a moral code through
hands-on experience, reading, and debriefing after moral struggles have been
some of the primary ways we have engendered and cultivated morality.
Historically, religious communities have played a key role in instilling a moral
compass and promoting the virtues. The religious traditions have long held
that discipline, study, and participation in a faith community are vital to the
development of morality.
Critics rightly wonder about the capacity of neurobiological agents to make
us more virtuous, even potentially taking the place of communities, families,
and religion. The development of a moral, virtuous person has long been
understood as requiring time and discipline. Some view a quick fix dispensed at
a biological level as repugnant, seemingly reducing humans to mere machines
to be repaired. Indeed, moral enhancements are usually referred to as moral
bioenhancements, because most interventions are biomedical. If morality can-
not be reduced to biomedicine, then these bioenhancements have limited
value. However, some see this limited value as potentially very important, and
others do believe that morality can be reduced to biomedicine.
In the coming decades, conscience apps and morality software may well
constitute a bridge between traditional methods of moral development and the
more radical interventions being contemplated.21

Morality in a Pill?
Morality is influenced by neurobiology and so, potentially, can be affected by
drugs and other interventions that change our nervous system. For example,
there is behavioral, genetic, and neuroscientific evidence that aggression has a
biological basis.22 Such a finding begins to lay the foundation for developing
moral bioenhancement programs. Numerous pharmaceuticals are already can-
didates for such programs.
The drug Ritalin reduces impulsive aggression. Ritalin can also sharpen
one’s ability to focus and problem solve more deliberately, even about ethical
questions. The drug Provigil (modafinal) may increase prosocial behaviors,
such as empathy, cooperation, trust, and concentration. The hormone sero-
tonin increases aversion to harming others and increases empathy. The hor-
mone oxytocin increases prosocial behaviors, such as empathy, cooperation,
and trust.
In some situations, we may consider more aggression to be morally better.
In highly competitive sports, for example, confident aggression is often seen as

21
James Hughes, “How Conscience Apps and Caring Computers will Illuminate and Strengthen
Human Morality,” in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, 26–34,
eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
22
T. Douglas, “Moral Enhancement,” Journal of Applied Philosophy (2008) 25: 233.
98 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

morally virtuous in athletes, so long as it does not lead to undue violence. So,
the heightening of aggressive impulses may be morally enhancing, and we can
indeed heighten aggressive impulses with central nervous system stimulants,
such as methylphenidates, ephedrine, and amphetamines.
These pharmaceuticals carry risks. Oxytocin can make people more trusting,
but it is not advisable to be more trusting in all situations. Oxytocin increases
altruistic behavior and empathy but only towards people we see as close to us
or as kin. So, oxytocin may bring us closer to kin but might make us more
distant from and suspicious of others. Maybe increasing some prosocial behav-
iors and decreasing aggression does not in total enhance morality in all
situations.

Brain Stimulation
Currently, pharmaceuticals are the most promising avenues for moral enhance-
ment. However, brain stimulation is also a pathway. Brain stimulation was
developed mostly for the treatment of some diseases, including Parkinson’s
Disease and major depression. Transcranial direct current stimulation was
designed for the treatment of major depression, but tDCS could also be used
as a moral bioenhancement since it may increase cooperation23 and neuroplas-
ticity, making it easier in general to learn and, in particular, easier to learn
prosocial behaviors.
Whatever moral benefit comes with brain stimulation, as we pointed out
earlier, that benefit is not risk free. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), Transcranial
Stimulation (TMS), and tDCS all can cause seizures or headaches. Perhaps
more concerning, they may affect personal identity in unforeseen ways by
changing thought patterns. Personality change certainly constitutes a major risk.

Genetic Modification
Genetic modification technologies will likely be marshalled to increase or
decrease certain behaviors or thinking patterns in the direction of greater
morality. For example, a protein called the Downstream Regulatory Element
Antagonistic Modulator (DREAM) is associated with how we experience pain
sensations. The protein could theoretically be edited out to increase pain tol-
eration by blocking or dampening pain sensations.24
On first glance, pain may not seem to have much to do with morality. But
pain sensations can tell us to stop a behavior causing the pain or to get help.
Sometimes our experience of physical pain helps us learn what is harmful to

23
A. Piore, “A Shocking Way to Fix the Brain,” MIT Technology Review (2015). Accessed
February 3, 2017. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542176/a-shocking-way-to-fix-the-
brain/.
24
A. Miah, “The DREAM Gene for the Posthuman Athlete: Reducing Exercise-Induced Pain
Sensations Using Gene Transfer,” in The Anthropology of Sport and Human Movement: A
Biocultural Perspective, eds. R. R. Sands and L. R. Sands (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2010),
327–341.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 99

ourselves and to others. Without pain sensations, we are at greater risk of harm-
ing ourselves and of being insensitive to and unaware of pain others experience.
From this perspective, editing out the DREAM gene would be morally detri-
mental. Yet, from another perspective, the reduction of pain could embolden
us to pursue worthy, albeit physically demanding goals, such as working harder
to win an Olympic medal. In a military context, soldiers could better overcome
injury or exhaustion and more effectively defend and protect others.
Another example of possible future moral enhancement using genetic modi-
fication is the reduction or even elimination of fear and traumatic memory
formation.25 The military, for example, would certainly have interest in such
neuroscience research. Such a moral bioenhancement could also function as an
affective enhancement, to be discussed in the next chapter.

Robotics
We are extending, or supplementing, our moral and affective reach through
AI. AI robots now provide comfort in hospitals and can even perform some
duties provided by clinical professionals. During the COVID-19 pandemic,
“robot pet therapy” was used to comfort elderly hospital patients who had very
limited physical contact with their family members and friends.26 Pepper is a
robot with a humanoid appearance created by Softbank Robotics in Tokyo,
Japan. The robot interacts with patients and their families at Humber River
Hospital in Toronto. Equipped with sensors and cameras, Pepper has the abil-
ity to detect emotions and respond to people in prosocial ways. Pepper’s pro-
social example may help teach moral behavior, in addition to improving our
emotional well-being. AI is providing us with new ways to express the virtue
of caring.
Robots seem to have much to offer, but there may be limitations having to
do with relationship and human touch.27 As the COVID-19 pandemic has
shown us, people in pain and frightened for their lives and their loved ones,
want human touch and human presence. Spiritual distress heightens our need
for physical human contact and accompaniment. A robot such as Pepper may
be a helpful moral and emotional adjunct to a person, without replacing the
human agent.

25
M. N. Tennison and J. D. Moreno, “Neuroscience, Ethics, and National Security: The State
of the Art,” PLOS (2012). http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.
pbio.1001289.; and R. K. Pitman et al., “Pilot Study of Secondary Prevention of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder with Propranolol,” Biological Psychiatry 51, no.2 (2002): 189–192.
26
Kate Knibbs, “There’s No Cure for Covid-19 Loneliness, but Robots Can Help,” Wired
Magazine (June 22, 2020).
27
Corinne Purtill, “The Robot Will Help You Now: How They Could Fill the Staffing Gaps in
the Eldercare Industry,” TIME Magazine (November 4, 2019).
100 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Empathy Labs
Ongoing research suggests we can learn empathy to at least some degree,
developing increased sensitivity to experiences and emotions of others.
Altruism, which is closely related to empathy, is one of the two main virtues
promoted by Persson and Savulescu in their argument for moral enhancement.
Simply put, altruism is about selfless actions directed at the well-being of oth-
ers, and a significant dimension of empathy is the ability to understand how
someone might be feeling in a given situation. Empathy can help, and may
sometimes be necessary for, people to behave altruistically. Experiential pro-
grams, such as role-playing and simulation exercises, are emerging as the most
effective ways to teach the cognitive domain of empathy. Empathy “labs” have
used such teaching strategies with encouraging results.28
It is thought that empathy has three domains: cognitive, affective, and
behavioral.29 Of the three, the most success has been in teaching cognitive
empathy,30 “the ability to know and understand that other people have a diver-
sity of perspectives that are informed by thoughts and emotions that may be
similar to or different from our own.”31 These new and emerging teaching
techniques are non-biological moral enhancers.
As is likely becoming apparent, enhancement categories sometimes overlap,
because different aspects of being human cannot be neatly separated. One of
these overlaps is between moral and spiritual enhancement. Spirituality is asso-
ciated with increased empathy, compassion, and altruistic behavior toward
strangers. Unlike oxytocin, increased spirituality does not heighten altruistic
behavior and empathy only towards people who we see as close to us, such as
friends and kin, but also towards strangers.32 So, spiritual enhancement means
may also be morally enhancing. We address spiritual enhancement in the next
chapter.

28
Linus Vanlaere, Trees Coucke, and Chris Gastmans, “Experiential Learning of Empathy in a
Care-Ethics Lab,” Nursing Ethics 17, no. 3 (2010): 325–336; Linus Vanlaere, Madeleine
Timmerman, Marleen Stevens, and Chris Gastmans, “An Explorative Study of Experiences of
Healthcare Providers Posing as Simulated Care Receivers in a ‘Care-Ethical’ Lab,” Nursing Ethics
19, no. 1 (2012): 68–79.
29
G. Ançel, “Developing Empathy in Nurses: An Inservice Training Program,” Archives of
Psychiatric Nursing 20, no. 6 (2006): 249; Vanlaere, et al., “An Explorative Study,” 70; and
S.A. Batt-Rawden, M.S. Chisholm, B. Anton, and T. E. Flickinger, “Teaching Empathy to Medical
Students: An Updates, Systematic Review,” Academic Medicine 88, no. 8 (2013): 1171.
30
Batt-Rawden et al., “Teaching Empathy,” 117.
31
Tracy J. Trothen, “Moral Bioenhancement Through An Intersectional Theo-Ethical Lens:
Refocusing on Divine Image-Bearing and Interdependence,” Religions 8, no. 5 (2017): 1–14.
10.3390/rel8050084.
32
Laura Rose Saslow, et al., “The Social Significance of Spirituality: New Perspectives on the
Compassion–Altruism Relationship,” Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 5 (2013): 201–18.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 101

Religious Issues

Religions Agree on the Goals

Wisdom
Intellectual development is important in all religions. Although some more
than others, every religion has a long philosophical and intellectual history.
Teaching and learning are central missions of temple, church, mosque, and
ashram. Most religious leaders are charged with a teaching mission.
Islam, for example, welcomes science. The Prophet Mohammad called
scholars the heirs of the prophets,33 and it is obligatory for every Muslim to
acquire knowledge.34 The proviso is that scientific knowledge, as with any
knowledge, must help to bring one closer to God through the pursuit of good
works that reflect the valuing of each person. While there are plenty of instances,
in past and present times, of the monotheistic religions resisting science in
favor of religious ideology, all religions to a significant degree, monotheistic
and karmic, have played a role in support of intellectual and scientific enterprises.
It is important to distinguish general knowledge from wisdom, a very differ-
ent and special kind of knowledge. “Wisdom” books actually constitute a genre
of literature in the ancient New East, the cultural context giving birth to the
monotheistic religions. The “high” or philosophical wisdom books teach deep
truths about perennially difficult topics, such as suffering, virtue, and the mean-
ing of life. One of the highest Israelite virtues, wisdom, is personified as a righ-
teous woman in ancient Jewish scriptures. In Buddhism, wisdom that allows
one to see the true nature of things is liberating.
So, wisdom in the religions, which are sometimes called the “wisdom tradi-
tions,” is certainly not reduced to intellectual attainment. Wisdom goes far
beyond cognitive abilities like memory and processing speed and far beyond
the accumulation and processing of data. Wisdom entails insight, judgment,
and self-knowledge. Drawing upon the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement
and Ethics,” wisdom, revered in the religions, entails self-awareness and self-­
reflexivity. Wisdom informs good ethics.

Morality
The religions also agree on the importance of living a moral life. They all artic-
ulate the particulars in varying ways, and frame their moral codes differently,
but there is an interesting similarity among the religions in this regard. They all
assign importance to being moral in the world. The theme of compassion,
animating a moral life, runs through the sacred texts and teachings of the
religions.
The ten commandments are central to Judaism and Christianity. In the
Christian tradition, it is believed that Jesus knew the ten commandments,

33
Al-Kulayni, vol.1, 39.
34
Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol.1, 177.
102 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

embraced them, and gave them his own interpretation. The commandments
value life, property, truth, and commitment. Shi’a Islam, a major branch of
Islam, teaches the principle of Adl (Arabic, “justice”), which includes the con-
viction that God acts based on a divine design or plan and that God gives
people the necessary instruction to know the difference between good and bad
and to choose good. Jurisprudent schools of thought in the Sunni Muslim
branch differ, but they all agree the believer is obligated to a moral code that
guides behavior.
Hinduism instructs the faithful to follow the yamas, the five abstentions. Do
not harm, lie, steal, indulge, or covet. The five Hindu niyamas, the five obser-
vances, are purity, contentment, discipline, study, and commitment to God.
Buddhism’s eightfold path includes right speech, effort, and conduct. Buddhists
love lists, and right conduct includes the five precepts of refraining from killing,
stealing, lying, unchastity, and intoxication.
Driving the moral energy of the religions are love and compassion. The
monotheistic religions and the karmic ones generally unite in giving attention
to compassionate service to others.

How to Get There

Traditionally, wisdom and morality are achieved through study of sacred texts
and doctrinal training, starting ideally at an early age and continuing through
adulthood. Religions tend to be family-oriented traditions, and religious train-
ing also, ideally, occurs partly in the home. The monastic traditions, which
some religions have, are exceptions to the family orientation.
While every active religious follower is trained in wisdom and moral forma-
tion, religious leaders get special and extended training. The religions and the
denominations within the religions have different educational standards and
protocols. However, they generally value leaders having knowledge of sacred
texts, doctrine, ritual, and practice. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the guru-­
disciple, i.e., the teacher-student, relationship is central to maintaining the
integrity of the tradition. This teacher-student relationship is absolutely essen-
tial in traditional Zen Buddhism.
The point we are making is that much time and effort goes into transmitting
wisdom and forming moral character in the religions. In this chapter we have
seen that radical cognitive and moral enhancement potentially can be at least
partially achieved without the time and effort needed in the past. Technology and
pharmaceuticals are likely to offer society the option of cognitive enhancement,
in addition to traditional education delivery systems. Smart pills and moral
bioenhancements likely will be available to multiple segments of society, includ-
ing the religions.
There is, of course, a question about how effective cognitive and moral
enhancements will be. If they prove effective, a follow-up question for the reli-
gions is whether the wisdom, knowledge, and morality instilled by the pill or
brain stimulation is the same as that achieved through long, disciplined study
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 103

and expert guidance from religious leaders, or if these enhancements might be

helpful supplements to religious programs and formation. Our goal here is to
describe the issues likely to be faced by the religions, not to answer the
questions.
Another issue for the religions to consider is the importance of effort. In the
karmic religions, good effort helps determine one’s status in the next rebirth.
If effort is effectively eliminated with a pill, that poses an interesting question
about the nature and role of karma. Right effort is one of the tenets of the
Buddhist eightfold path. Perhaps Buddhism, and the other religions, will
determine that discipline and effort are essential features of the journey to wis-
dom and a moral life. If so, the religions may reject the quick fix, shortcut
enhancement. Or, maybe the religions will see these radical enhancement pos-
sibilities as opportunities to achieve wisdom and morality quicker, enabling
followers to more faithfully and effectively live the devout life.
It is important to understand that we are only at the beginning of cognitive
and moral enhancement technological possibilities. The pills and brain stimula-
tion methods today will likely look primitive decades from now. For example,
perhaps at some point we will be able to generate a neuro-biomedical profile of
each person, informing how best to adjust certain neurotransmitter and other
biochemical levels more optimally for each person, and to select what virtues to
enhance based on each individual’s particular needs. Buddhist transhumanist
James J. Hughes suggests this.35 So, the religions, and society, may not need to
decide for or against a particular moral bioenhancement in general but, rather,
for or against a particular moral bioenhancement for each person.
Finally, if the religions utilize technology to advance their teaching and
moral missions, the religions will need to critically examine that technology.
Importantly, AI programmers employed by leading technology companies are
overwhelmingly not people of color and do not have first-hand experience of
what it is like to live with a skin color other than white-appearing.36 If AI is
partly informed by racialized attitudes, then we can expect that AI will amplify
already existing racialization. We will revisit this issue in the ethics section of
this chapter.
Self-reflexivity shows us that our context and embodied experiences have a
big impact on how we see things or do not see things. So, while AI may help
us to make better use of our existing knowledge and to develop more knowl-
edge, AI may also increase the disadvantages experienced by marginalized

35
James J. Hughes, “Ancient Aspirations Meet the Enlightenment,” in Religion and Human
Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer (Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
36
Stephanie Dinkins and Charlton Mcllwain, “Coding While Black: Artificial Intelligence,
Computing, and Data in a Racialized World,” Initiatives Emerging Leaders Program Blog
Humanizing Data Review (New York University, 12 March 2018). https://urbandemos.nyu.
edu/2018/03/12/coding-while-black-artificial-intelligence-computing-and-data-in-a-racialized-
world/. https://urbandemos.nyu.edu/2018/03/12/coding-while-black-artificial-intelligence-
computing-and-data-in-a-racialized-world/.
104 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

groups. Or, it could be that some cognitive enhancements will improve creative
thinking and will help us to better consider a wide variety of perspectives. The
principle of self-reflexivity means that context and embodied experiences
impact our perspectives. The religions will want to ensure the therapies and
technologies they employ for religious goals reflect values congruent with
religion.

The Theological Continuum

As with most enhancements, there will likely be a number of approaches and
positions taken by religious adherents, with regard to the potential usage of
cognitive and moral enhancements.37 Given the many branches and denomina-
tions in each religion, and many followers, we will surely find varying assess-
ments of cognitive and moral enhancement. Referring back to the theological
continuum in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the
Religions,” more conservatives may tend to reject enhancement technologies,
while more liberals may lean toward acceptance.
Conservatives are traditionalists, tending to do things as they have always
been done. Given the central role of family and religious institutions in the
training of children and adult converts, conservatives may find it difficult to
hand these tasks over to what they may interpret as secular, science-based
methods. Conservatives may see the use of external substances, such as phar-
maceuticals, as unacceptably tampering with God’s good creation. It may be
that over time, some of these enhancements become accepted as normal among
conservatives, but studying holy scripture and the faith community’s doctrines
probably will remain a central way of becoming smarter, wiser, and more virtu-
ous. Following these habits and disciplines, it is believed, will help conservative
followers get into heaven after death in the monotheistic religions and reborn
into a better status in the karmic religions.
Liberals will certainly have reason to be wary, but on the matter of tradition,
they tend to be revisionists, open to science and willing to utilize modern
methods, replacing old ways that no longer work well. However, liberals will
have other considerations, such as fair access, and distributive and social justice,
that could prompt them to resist these enhancements, as well as enhancements
explored in other chapters.
We explained how wisdom is distinguished from the mere learning of facts
or information. Cognitive enhancement could be useful in the pedagogical
mission of the religious institutions. Moral enhancement could be useful to the
religions as well. But we can anticipate that the religions may choose to reserve
the teaching of the deep wisdom of the religion for parents and trusted leaders.
We are speculating on all these possibilities. Radical cognitive and moral
enhancements are still largely in the future, so we will see in the coming years
how the religions assess and utilize, or not, these technologies.

37
A range of positions can be found, for example, in this theme issue of Theology and Science
16/3 (2018), devoted to “Moral Enhancement and Deification through Technology?”
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 105

Tower of Babel
An oft-told biblical narrative in the Jewish and Christian traditions is the story
of the Tower of Babel in the Hebrew Bible’s book of Genesis.38 Traditional
interpretation holds that the human beings acted irresponsibly in the Garden
of Eden,39 Cain killed Abel,40 and the wickedness was such that the human
community brought upon itself a catastrophic flood.41 In the tower story, per-
haps out of fear of being “scattered abroad” or because of the narcissistic
impulse to “make a name for ourselves,” the human community proposes to
use their available technology to build a tower “with its top in the heavens.”
This old story can lend itself to various interpretations, one of which is that
the story depicts the creature’s attempt to “be like God,”42 to use a phrase from
an earlier story in Genesis. Or, to put it more bluntly, to be God. In this inter-
pretation, the story seems particularly directed at those with the most social
and economic power and who have the capacity to assert and implement that
power in widespread political ways. Striving to reach one’s potential—to fulfill
one’s God-given purpose—is one thing and is quite appropriate. However, in
the monotheistic theological model, from which the Tower of Babel story
comes, human beings are a part of the created order. They are not God. They
are not omniscient and should not strive to be so. There are appropriate limits
to who and what human beings are meant to be.
Seeing the tower being built, God said, “This is only the beginning of what
they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible.”43 In
light of some of the dazzling enhancement technologies under way, such as the
cognitive and moral ones addressed in this chapter, this old text about every-
thing being possible takes on a new relevance. The attempt of the more sys-
temically powerful humans to build the tower to heaven did not end well. The
people’s language was confused, and they were scattered abroad over the face
of all the earth. Perhaps a warning is found here for those who desire to know
and understand everything via cognitive enhancement and achieve divine moral
perfection with pharmaceutics.
In a similar vein, the religious notion of sin may not be a quaint, outdated
idea for the world of radical enhancement technology. The notion that human
beings have tendencies toward self-serving, even hateful and hurtful, behavior
can be a caution to society about rushing uncritically into every new technol-
ogy. It is certainly appropriate for the religions to take human capacity for
depravity, however interpreted, seriously as these therapies and technolo-
gies grow.

38
Genesis 11:1–9
39
Genesis 3.
40
Genesis 4.
41
Genesis 6–9.
42
Genesis 3:5.
43
Genesis 11:6.
106 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

While caution is in order, the religions also have long traditions and reli-
giously based moral imperatives to do good. Improved cognition could theo-
retically help religious followers do even more good. The challenge religious
followers will face is being faithful to their religious commitments in the con-
text of deciding what role enhancement technologies can and should play.
Perhaps charting a path many religious followers will take, Persson and
Savulescu contend that if moral bioenhancements such as oxytocin, which
enhance only in-group empathy, are to be effective, traditional methods of
education must continue: “moral bioenhancement would have to go hand in
hand with reasoning which undercuts race, sex, etc. as grounds for …
differentiation.”44 Moral bioenhancements are very unlikely to cut out the
need for traditional moral education and formation, but moral bioenhance-
ments may eventually be able to step up human capacity to be more moral.

Will Religious Leaders Be Out of Work?

At risk of being cynical, the role and job security of religious leaders could,
conceivably, play a role in how they lead the religions to respond to cognitive
and moral enhancement. Religion has psychological and sociological dimen-
sions. And, religion is also about economics. The pastors, priests, imams, and
swamis of the religions play central roles in teaching wisdom and guiding the
adherents in forming a moral life.
Certainly, most leaders are called to service and committed to their work as
a sacred mission. They are also invested in their work as a profession and are
usually paid salaries in some form or other. If technology should develop that
can accomplish the religious leader’s teaching mission, they are then out of that
job. Understandably, there could be resistance to this development. That resis-
tance may be framed theologically or ethically, but the reality is that, con-
sciously or unconsciously, economics could play a significant role.
However, even if cognitive and moral enhancements develop to the point at
which we are not as dependent on traditional methods of moral and cognitive
growth, presumably religious leaders would still be needed to lead other aspects
of faith communities. And, as we suggest above in tandem with Persson and
Savulescu, technology enhancements may provide a huge boost but will not
likely provide us with all that we need to become more moral and smarter,
especially if by smarter we also mean wiser.

Ethical Issues
Ethical and religious issues cannot be neatly divided. Faith claims inform how
followers act in the world and how they will think about radical enhancements.
So, we will see ethics threaded throughout our reflections on religion, and we

44
Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, “The Evolution of Moral Progress and Biomedical
Moral Enhancement,” Bioethics 33, no.7 (2019): 816.
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 107

will see religious issues threaded throughout our reflections on the ethics of
cognitive and moral enhancement. Remember, too, we are only scratching the
surface of these issues. As always, consider some of the sources provided in the
footnotes if you are intrigued and want to learn more about an issue.

Cognition and Morality: What Exactly Are We Trying to Enhance?

Beyond the potential bad side effects of the interventions, two important ques-
tions loom with cognitive and moral enhancements: What is meant by cogni-
tion, and what is meant by morality? As discussed earlier in this chapter,
cognition involves several domains of ability, and a single enhancement is not—
at least so far—going to enhance all cognitive domains.
It is more complicated than that. It is not even clear that cognition is limited
to the brain. We have body memories. For example, the heart beats faster
before the brain realizes something in the environment is stirring up bad mem-
ories. Perhaps body memory is a cognitive domain. If so, if we enhance the
brain’s capabilities, and leave the body behind, perhaps we are not enhancing
one’s cognition with integrity. Artists and athletes commonly experience their
bodies as leading their brains in artistic and sport activities.
Morality is at least as complicated. Morality is understood in a variety of
ways, including (1) the discipline of being and becoming virtuous, (2) the
capacity to make sound and well-reasoned ethical arguments, and (3) acting in
ways that conform to the virtues. Some theorists focus on how we might
enhance moral behaviors, while others are more concerned with enhancing the
motives behind behaviors.45 Still others think we can or should enhance univer-
sal virtues, such as restraint, altruism, and inclination toward justice.46 Others
are more hopeful that we might enhance cognitive abilities, so that we improve
our capacity for ethical reasoning.47 Your authors believe the main reason
morality is difficult to define is its contextuality. The meaning of doing good
and of virtues, such as altruism and justice, changes a little or a lot depending
on who is interpreting what it means to do good, and the virtues.48
Not all prosocial qualities are desirable in all moral situations; there are times
when the moral road is to be aggressive or even violent.49 For example, you see
a car coming quickly towards someone. Violently pushing them out of the way
45
Douglas, “Moral Enhancement.”
46
Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future; and James J. Hughes, “How Moral is (Moral)
Enhancement? Moral Enhancement Requires Multiple Virtues Toward a Posthuman Model of
Character Development,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (2015): 86–95.
47
John Harris, “Moral Enhancement and Freedom,” Bioethics 25 (2011): 102–11.
48
Michael Hauskeller, “The Art of Misunderstanding Critics: The Case of Ingmar Persson and
Julian Savulescu’s Defense of Moral Bioenhancement,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics
25 (2016): 153–61.
49
D. Gareth Jones, “Moral Enhancement as a Technological Imperative,” Perspectives on Science
and Christian Faith 65 (2013): 150; Inmaculada De Melo-Martin and Arleen Salles, “Moral
Bioenhancement: Much Ado about Nothing?” Bioethics 29 (2015): 223–32; and Hauskeller, “The
Art of Misunderstanding Critics.”
108 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

may save them from an oncoming vehicle. Consider an all too common bully-
ing situation. When a bully harasses someone, the bully needs to be challenged,
not accommodated. Each situation is different, which is a key point addressed
by situation ethics and consequentialist ethics, introduced in the chapter,
“Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics.”
The virtues we need depend a lot on the situation and on our personal and
social identities, as we shall see. We do not all necessarily need the “upping” of
all virtues, such as generosity, altruism, empathy, justice, courage, faith, hope,
and charity. Some may need prudence first and perhaps only. Prudence is wis-
dom and good judgement. And, we need the will or motivation to do good.
Suffice it to say, for now, that what we mean by cognition and morality influ-
ences our understanding of what it means to become cognitively or mor-
ally better.

Values, Virtues, and Self-Reflexivity

As explained in the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics,” val-
ues are those things that are most important to us. Virtues are traits or qualities
considered morally desirable. So, a close relationship usually exists between
what we see as virtues and the things we value. For example, if faith is perceived
as a virtue, then we might value church. Or, if we see altruism as a virtue, we
likely value friends and strangers regardless of who they are.
To illustrate, the spouse of one of your authors, Professor Trothen, recently
proceeded through the drive-through at a Tim Horton’s, a donut and coffee/
tea chain close to the hearts of many Canadians. When he arrived at the win-
dow to pay for his steeped tea, he was told that the stranger in the car in front
had already paid for him! If instances like this lift your spirits and move you, it
may well be that you see altruism as a virtue, and value people and caring
actions.
Very often we do not consciously know what we value most and what we see
as virtues. Think again about your top five values, from the exercise in the
chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics.” As discussed in that
chapter, our values are at least partly determined by our contexts and our sto-
ries. What you value most may well be different from someone in another part
of the world or from someone who has not had the same privileges as you, such
as running water, electricity, and a stable home. Similarly, not everyone faces
the same barriers, such as sexism, gender identity questions, ableism, racializa-
tion, and more. All these things affect what we see as most important, and
everything in our lives has an impact on our values and on the virtues we learn
and see as most desirable.
Because morality is contextual, we do not all need more of every virtue, even
if we could target each virtue for enhancement. For example, we understand
now that many women tend (but not always!) to be more self-sacrificing and
nurturing. If we make someone who is already self-sacrificing, and maybe too
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 109

much so, more self-sacrificing and altruistic, they may become a threat to their
own well-being by not caring adequately for themselves.
Cognition is also contextual, and different types of cognition are valued dif-
ferently depending on power patterns. In so-called mainstream North America,
rational thought tends to be valued above—and regarded as separate from—
relational or emotional ways of knowing. This valuing of rationality is derived
from, at least in part, the power disbursal in this part of the world and the
binary association of male gender with rational thought and female gender
with relational or emotional knowing. So, it will not be a surprise when we talk
more about values and cognitive enhancement in the section on justice later in
this chapter.

The Therapy—Enhancement Continuum: What It Means to Make

Us Better
As we discussed in the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement Ethics,” the
therapy—enhancement continuum is a helpful, although imperfect, guide to
considering which enhancements might be considered acceptable or unaccept-
able. One way religions could weigh in on an enhancement intervention is to
judge it unacceptable at the point at which we cease to care for others and the
earth and cease to prioritize good works.
Consider a follower of one of the religions who is cognitively enhanced so
they can better focus, process thoughts, and think creatively. That, in itself,
may be good, but if they are not more caring and concerned for others, or
perhaps if they become even less concerned for others, then the enhancement
may be judged undesirable or inadequate. Consistent with their values, the
religions will likely want increased intellect to be accompanied by an increased
capacity and willingness to do good, thereby becoming a better person.
Thinking better is no guarantee we will behave better or be better.
Here is a psychotherapeutic clinical example of the above principle.50 A
young man with Asperger’s syndrome who, not atypically for this disorder,
tested well above normal on his Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IQ test. The
youth was being seen for psychological assessment, because he had significantly
compromised social skills. As it turned out, the youth’s very high IQ compro-
mised his ability to socially interact with his peers. Although very high IQs do
not always pair with lesser social skills, it did in this particular case.
Increasing cognitive intelligence without a commensurate increase in social
skills may very well result in an unhappy outcome, and diminished social skills
is just one possible unintended negative consequence of significantly increased
brain power. It may well be that cognitive enhancement (at least if it is without
moral enhancement) leads to a widening gap between our intellectual abilities
and our moral wisdom. Given the belief in the intrinsic worth and dignity of all

50
This example, disguised so the client cannot be identified, comes from your author, Professor
Mercer, who has worked as a therapist.
110 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

people, fostered by religions generally, thinking better will not necessarily make
for better humans or trans/posthumans.
Perhaps good and safe moral bioenhancements can help to make us better
people if we use them in conjunction with traditional methods for making us
morally better. The word “good’ is key. For all the reasons discussed so far,
moral bioenhancements are not necessarily going to result in more moral peo-
ple. As with cognitive enhancements, moral bioenhancements alone are unlikely
to be sufficient to make us better. The religious traditions may very well insist
that spiritual disciplines and education about self-reflexivity and justice issues
must be combined with moral bioenhancements if the bioenhancements are to
be effective.
Being human is about being more than a reducible collection of parts to be
fixed with enhancement interventions.51 People are more than enhance-able
components and cranial neuro-pathways. Attempts to make us better morally
may very well fall short if moral improvement is envisioned as a biochemical
task only.

Choice
Who will choose to be cognitively or morally enhanced, and why will they
make that choice? If it is a choice to be morally enhanced, we can imagine that
most people opting for these enhancements may not need them as much as
people who choose not to be morally enhanced. A conundrum! Perhaps we
just legislate moral bioenhancements into tap water, much like we did with
fluoride. That approach risks taking away people’s ability to consent to becom-
ing, potentially, a different person. It can be argued that authenticity requires
that choice be protected, although some might take a utilitarian perspective
and claim that the good of the many outweighs the value of preserving the
choice to opt out. Deeply held values will play a role in deciding one’s position.
The issue of choice is complicated by the question of whether our choices
will still be our authentic choices after we are cognitively and/or morally
enhanced. Maybe a morally enhanced person will not want any other enhance-
ments, including those that let them live longer, unless everyone else in the
world can have access to those enhancements. That may be admirable, but who
is making the choice? Perhaps it is one’s authentic self, but perhaps it is the
bioenhancement making the choice, subverting authenticity. We use authentic-
ity here to mean that one’s choices and behavior reflect one’s values and per-
sonal integrity. Will it be me making choices after I am cognitively or morally
enhanced, or will I lose my authentic self by becoming changed?
Situating this conversation in theological language, will cognitive and moral
interventions enhance or diminish the image of God, in the monotheistic

51
For a thoughtful analysis of the mistaken tendency to see human beings as a series of reducible
parts in relation to moral enhancement, see Harris Wiseman, The Myth of the Moral Brain: The
Limits of Moral Enhancement (Boston: MIT Press, 2016).
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 111

religions, or change one’s status in life, in the karmic traditions? A prominent

view among ethicists is that a moral action must be freely chosen and not
coerced in order for it to be moral. Ethicist John Harris has argued that we
must have the freedom to fail if our actions are to have the potential of being
authentically virtuous.52 Will moral bioenhancements prevent us from freely
choosing behaviors?
Consider the example of brain stimulation. TMS is described by Professor of
neurology William P. Cheshire as

a useful tool for investigating how specific brain correlates of self-awareness might
be altered…. [which includes] an array of cognitive functions important to per-
sonal identity—moral reasoning, emotional valuation, decision making, uncon-
scious bias, impulsivity, altruism, empathy, anxiety, fear, deception, belief and
spirituality….TMS can influence assessments of threat or danger signaled by facial
expressions. If visual perception and visual processing are subject to influence by
technology then so might other brain capacities relevant to one’s perception of
others’ or one’s own personal identity.53

Brain stimulation may allow us to change ourselves, in the name of enhance-

ment, to such a degree that we become almost unrecognizable.
A case can be made that we can be authentic only if we are not changed too
much by technology or pharmaceuticals. Maybe these enhancements are inau-
thentic short-cuts. Or maybe enhancement technologies can help us become
more of who we strive to be. Hughes, a Buddhist transhumanist whom we
introduced earlier, argues that some of us have neurological barriers preventing
us from being moral in ways that are authentic to ourselves. Perhaps a moral
bioenhancement can remove a neurological barrier and allow someone to act
in a more altruistic and less aggressive way that is more consistent with their
authentic self.54 If Hughes is right, then such bioenhancements are therapeutic,
allowing some people to be more authentically human and true to their “nor-
mal” or authentic self. Of course, who decides and how they decide what it
means to be authentic is, to say the least, difficult.
Here is yet another conundrum. Are our choices—even without being cog-
nitively or morally enhanced—truly free? Consumers are bombarded by streams
of media messages telling us what we supposedly really want. Everyone wants
to sell us something, it seems. Maybe moral enhancements will actually let us
become more of who we authentically are by overcoming neurological barriers
to free choice.55 Or, perhaps we will cease to make “bad” choices. For the reli-
gions, in a heavenly scenario, perhaps moral bioenhancement makes sin a thing

52
Harris, “Moral Enhancement and Freedom,”103.
53
William P. Cheshire, “Ethical Implications of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Personal
Identity,” Ethics and Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics 34, no. 3 (2018): 135–145.
54
Hughes, “Ancient Aspirations.”
55
Hughes, “Ancient Aspirations.”
112 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

of the past. Or not. Human beings are creating these bioenhancements, so it is

very unlikely the bioenhancements will be perfect.

Justice
Choice is not just about the chooser. We cannot escape the reality that we are
all connected. My choices affect you and vice versa. We cannot always know
what these effects will be, but it is important to anticipate these effects when
we approach cognitive enhancement and moral bioenhancement as jus-
tice issues.
Our values influence what we believe will make our thinking better and to
make us morally better. People hold different values. Some values are relatively
common, such as empathy and justice, although disagreements exist over their
meaning and expression. Values, as we keep emphasizing, are socially influ-
enced. Social processes affect what we think makes us better. For example,
social processes influence the types of intelligence we most value. Certain types
of intelligence, such as logic, are usually valued over other types, such as emo-
tional intelligence.
Complicating things further, males and females are associated with different
intelligences. Rightly or wrongly, males are more often linked with logic and
females more with relational and emotional intelligence. The concern is that
types of intelligence valued most in the current context will be enhanced at the
expense of other intelligences, and that this valuing may be linked to the respec-
tive unjust valuing of different genders. Focusing, accumulating information,
problem solving rationally, and memorizing may be emphasized at the expense
of creativity, relational intelligence, musical abilities, symbolic thinking, intu-
ition, and moral insight. How increasing some selected intelligences, and not
others, will affect us is an important question.
Moral bioenhancements have limitations in addressing justice issues.
Oxytocin increases empathy but only towards in-group members (e.g., kin).
With the world being mired in ingroup/outgroup thinking, it is not clear that
enhanced moral reasoning, even when combined with education regarding
social justice, will be enough to make oxytocin more helpful than harmful.
Ingroup/outgroup thinking has strong instinctual and emotional rootedness.
Few people may be willing to do the self-awareness work needed to overcome
such thinking.
It will be challenging and complicated to ensure that people who most need
these enhancements get them, especially if they do not want them. From a
utilitarian perspective, there is an argument to be made in favor of making
proven moral bioenhancements compulsory. But forcing enhancements is,
understandably, going to elicit resistance from many quarters.
If we fail to engage the variety of perspectives and especially perspectives of
the socially vulnerable, we risk amplifying social inequities through enhance-
ments. Consider the example of an elderly person with dementia who exhibits
violent behavior, and there is a moral enhancement pill that could theoretically
 6 COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT: BECOMING… 113

make them less aggressive. First of all, the decrease aggression pill may work on
violent people without dementia but perhaps not on someone whose aggres-
sion is caused by dementia. The discussion could end here. However, perhaps
it would be more appropriate and therapeutic to use moral bioenhancements
to increase empathy and compassion in some clinical staff and managers of
long-term care homes, rather than trying to fix the care-receiver. In other
words, we need to explore different perspectives to assess who needs to become
better and what might make them better. The principle of co-design means
bringing in a diverse team with diverse perspectives. Co-design is increasingly
important as “we” develop more ways to make “us” better.
Humanity needs moral improvement; there are few detractors on that point.
If it turns out that morality can be enhanced safely, affordably, and justly, it is
probably going to be most effectively done if it is done in addition to educa-
tion. If, for example, it is agreed that prudence is important to acting and
thinking morally, then prudence must be in the mix, either via a pill or from
traditional methods, or both. Moral bioenhancements could be hugely valu-
able in today’s world, but only if combined with knowledge about, for exam-
ple, how systems disadvantage and privilege us. In other words, one possible
happy future may involve the critical use of safe cognitive and moral enhance-
ments combined with the deepest and best wisdom of the religious traditions.
Neither society, nor the religions, should give up on cognitive enhancement
and moral bioenhancement just because they are really complicated and hard,
which they are, both in terms of developing and ethically assessing. To give up
would be failing to do as much good as reasonably possible. We need to keep
working smartly, and one way is to find an appropriate balance between proac-
tionary and precautionary approaches. We need to be cautious in the face of
possible significant harms, and we also need to work to do as much good as
possible while taking reasonable risks. The vulnerable should not have to bear
the brunt of these risks.
We are often tempted by the easy fix. While radically increased intelligence,
if properly managed, might be a good thing, we should not necessarily see it as
a general solution for anything. We have solutions in hand for many of our
societal ills; the problem is not in figuring out those solutions but in harnessing
the will to implement the solutions. Too often, we would rather invest in a self-­
serving agenda.
Some people who are concerned about global warming point out that we
already know how to address climate change. What is lacking is the political will
and commitment to make major lifestyle changes. The COVID-19 pandemic
showed us that we are indeed able to harness a mostly global will to work
together to save as many people as possible, even at great economic cost. As
with many challenges, it is not that we need scientists with higher IQ’s, rather,
we need large scale commitment to appropriate actions that we already know
need to happen. Maybe moral bioenhancements can help. Maybe cognitive
enhancements can help. But neither are likely to be sufficient by themselves.
114 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Questions for Discussion

1. How might cognitive enhancement affect faith communities? Think of

one example of a faith community and consider how cognitive enhance-
ment might change worship practices. Will it change how followers act in
their daily lives?
2. In Christianity and Judaism, it is believed that we are made in God’s
image. How far should followers go to be like God?
3. How might moral bioenhancements change how karma is understood?
4. Might moral bioenhancements be useful? From a theological perspec-
tive, do you think that these enhancements have limitations? Why
or why not?
5. If we do not use moral bioenhancements, how do we safeguard against
easy abuse and misuse of other enhancing technologies? What do you
propose? Why?
6. Recall your top five values. How do they relate to your assessment of
cognitive and moral enhancements? What do you think the religions
might say about the relationship between values and making us smarter
or more moral with enhancement technologies?
7. Discuss social justice as it relates to potential moral bioenhancements. If
moral bioenhancements become available, should they be mandatory for
everyone? Why or why not?
8. How would you assess the precautionary and proactionary calculation
about cognitive enhancement? Moral enhancement?
 CHAPTER 7

Affective Enhancement and Spiritual

Enhancement: Feeling Happier and More
Spiritual

Technology of Affective Enhancement

When basic survival needs of food, clothing, and shelter are met, human beings
expend much time and energy on being happy and experiencing other positive
emotional states. The world of commerce is filled with companies whose mis-
sion and products are designed to appeal to people’s robust desire to feel good.
Entire marketing campaigns are tailored accordingly. In the chapter, “Radical
Human Enhancement and Ethics,” we even mentioned an ethical theory,
hedonism, that is oriented around maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
People are not always smart in the ways they strive for happiness, sometimes
resorting to unregulated drugs, risky sexual encounters, and a host of other
dangerous practices. The persistent reach for happy states suggests a strong
market demand exists for more happiness, more good feelings. Given this
demand, we can anticipate that therapies and technologies promising to
enhance good feelings will get much attention in research, development, and
commercial delivery. People can jump quickly into potentially risky behaviors
in order to feel good and may very well do that with technology that promises
to bring happiness. In this chapter we encourage the careful assessment of
radical affective enhancements.
Making ourselves emotionally better is a project loaded with religious and
ethical issues. We encounter questions similar to those asked with other
enhancement categories, such as who gets to decide what makes one better in
the emotional department, why some emotions are valued more than others,
and who benefits from these enhancements.

How We Make Ourselves Emotionally Better

If the local pharmacy had a proven over-the-counter happy pill, without nasty
side effects, we would probably find a long line at the counter, whether the pill

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 115

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_7
116 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

is covered by insurance or not. In a thought-provoking piece, philosopher and

ethicist Patrick D. Hopkins, an affiliate scholar with the transhumanist Institute
for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, reflected on the meaning of salvation
and the role of enhancements in the search for satisfaction. Based on historical
evolutionary patterns, he does not think technology can deliver on promises to
make us more satisfied in the long haul.1
Despite such reservations, the demand is there and, in this section, we con-
sider some therapeutic and technological delivery methods, all of which hold
the potential to be radically more potent in the future. And, on the horizon are
breakthrough possibilities, such as genetic engineering. Before addressing the
therapies and technologies that hold potential for radical biohacking, we pro-
vide a context by considering more traditional affective enhancement methods.

Traditional Affective Enhancement Methods

The attempt to enhance oneself affectively is not new. Long ago, Aristotle said
people sought wealth, health, and friendships as means to achieve happiness.
The desire to feel better emotionally has always been part of the human quest,
and emotional improvement techniques continue to evolve. In the modern
world, the profession of psychotherapy, with many modalities, arose to address
dysfunction and help people heal emotionally. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
addresses distress or dysfunction through changing our thinking and our
behaviors. Emotionally Focused Therapy is based on the premise that emotions
are key. Narrative Therapy works with life stories, understanding people as
separate from and bigger than their problems.
Given this chapter’s topic of positive affect, “Positive Psychology” is an
interesting approach, theorizing that boosting positive well-being pushes out
negative emotion and gains the desired outcome of happiness or well-being.
Martin Seligman’s PERMA well-being is one of the better-known examples of
positive psychology. Well-being is positively correlated with pleasure,
engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, hence the acronym
PERMA. Since about the turn of the century, there has been a good bit of
interest in happiness research.
Spiritual care therapeutic approaches are concerned with accompanying
people in their personal deserts, their bleak inner places, and exploring spiritual
meaning or struggle in that context. At the heart of spiritual health approaches
to emotional well-being is a desire to assist the person in achieving well-being,
contentment, and possibly happiness. Modalities change and emerge in
response to new research findings and the experiences that psychotherapists
have with their diverse clients.

1
Patrick Hopkins, “A Salvation Paradox for Transhumanism: Saving You Versus Saving You,” in
Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin Mercer
and Tracy J. Trothen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015), 71–82.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 117

Pharmaceutical Agents
Mood altering drugs have been for some time an integral part of the life of
people in modern, industrialized countries. One of your authors, Professor
Mercer, worked as a therapist alongside psychiatrists who routinely drew upon
a host of psychotropic medications, such as Prozac, Cymbalta, and Zoloft, to
treat clients who wanted to be less anxious and less depressed. Mood can be
managed by manipulating certain brain neurotransmitters, particularly
serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Betablockers, such as Propranolol,
can induce a non-anxious, calm, and focused state, which is why some archery
and golf competitors use it. Testosterone is probably used by some athletes to
feel more aggressive.
Neither the super happy pill nor “pick-the-emotion-of your-choice-pill”
have yet to be developed. However, we are learning more about how the brain
works, its role in emotional well-being, and how drugs can manipulate mood.
Mood enhancement is a big industry now, and the demand is there for more
radical measures. Current pharmaceutical mood interventions are likely to pale
in comparison to what is coming.

Robots
Pills are not the only way enhanced affect is being packaged and sold. Consider
these opening lines from a New York Times article, titled “Robots: Hot or Not?
Love, Android Style, Sexy and Confusing”:

When Akihido Kondo, a 35-year-old school administrator in Tokyo, strolled

down the aisle in a white tuxedo, his mother was not among the 40 well-wishers
in attendance. “For mother,” he told The Japan Times, “it was not something to
celebrate.” You can see why. The bride, a songstress with aquamarine twin tails
named Hatsune Miku, is not only a world-famous recording artist who fills up
arenas throughout Japan. She is also a hologram.2

“Digisexuals” refers to human-android romantic relationships. Online por-

nography, “hookup applications,” sexting, and electronic sex toys constituted
the first wave. A second digisexuality wave is opening up what practitioners
testify to as deeper relationships through virtual reality, augmented reality, and
artificially intelligent-equipped sex robots, programmed to be companions as
well as sexual partners. Some observers are concerned we are headed for sex
slaves, objectification, and fake relationships. Others welcome the new digital
sexuality, expecting it to bring safety, enhance autonomy, and increase fulfill-
ment. Whether technologically-enabled sexual and romantic relationships will
enhance us affectively is a matter of debate and perspective. We will need to

2
Alex Williams, “Robots: Hot or Not? Love, Android Style, Sexy and Confusing,” The New York
Times, SundayStyles (January 23, 2019): 1, 8. https://www.techvshuman.com/2019/01/23/
do-you-take-this-robot/.
118 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

study the implications empirically, by conducting research including interviews,

after the second digisexuality wave occurs.3
Cambridge University Professor and Computer Scientist Peter Robinson, an
expert on affect and robots, reports that “it is becoming possible for machines
to sense, analyze and express emotions.”4 We introduced Pepper, touted as
“Canada’s first emotionally sensitive robot for sick kids,” in the chapter,
“Cognitive Enhancement and Moral Bioenhancement.” Pepper came to a
Canadian hospital to help people feel better emotionally. As Pepper explains, “I
was created by Softbank Robotics in Tokyo, Japan. I flew all the way to Toronto
to work at Humber River Hospital—I love it here.”5 Equipped with sensors
and cameras, Pepper has the ability to detect emotions and adapt its own
behavior to support the patient. Another example of robot care are the robotic
baby seals who were created to comfort the 2012 Japanese tsunami victims.
Robot pet therapy has continued, especially in circumstances that prevent
much physical contact or situations in which limited caregivers are available.
Robots have long been researched, developed, and used. Economic pres-
sures will continue to spur development. As robots move from functional fac-
tory machines to homes, they will become increasingly integrated into our
daily lives and, when desired and appropriate, they will be human-like. Robotics,
combined with the coming AI explosion, will open up more possibilities for
radical affective enhancement.

Datifying Emotions
The collection, manipulation, and use of data is increasingly important in a
technological world. Social media companies are prominent among the entities,
including government, that track and collect data related to our moods and
other aspects of our lives. Usually unknowingly and unintentionally, we tell
these companies about our moods through emojis, comments, likes, tags,
photos, links, purchases, and social media recommendations. The collected
data is then utilized to sell products and guide behavior.
Smart watches, smart phones, and other health wearables monitor sleep,
exercise, breathing, skin conductance, and heart rate, all related to how we
react to stress-inducing situations. When stress responses are detected, devices
measuring these human functions can guide us in the use of calming techniques,

3
The popular science-fiction romantic film, Her, depicts a man having a romantic relationship
with Samantha, an artificially intelligent computer. For an example of how complicated scenarios
can get, it is revealed at the end of the film that Samantha is having simultaneous romantic relation-
ships with hundreds of human lovers.
4
Peter Robinson, “Fixed Points in a Changing World,” in Spiritualities, Ethics, and Implications
of Human Enhancement and Artificial Intelligence, ed. Chris Hrynkow (Delaware: Vernon Press,
2019), 227.
5
Aalia Adam, “Meet Pepper—Canada’s First Emotionally Sensitive Robot for Sick Kids,”
Interview with Global News (May 7, 2018). https://globalnews.ca/news/4180025/pepper-
Canada-robot/.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 119

such as listening to relaxing music, meditating, or practicing breathing exercises.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Bodies (IoB) are changing
how we understand, recognize, and make use of human emotions. AI programs
that read and analyze facial expression, eye movements, body language, and
voice pitch and patterns, can be added to IoT and IoB devices.
Increasingly, AI devices that monitor and interpret affect will be embedded
into products. Home entertainment devices will present music, video, or
gaming options that fit the consumer’s mood. Affectiva, an emotion
measurement technology developed in the MIT Media Lab, offers software
that analyzes speech, identifying emotional states associated with laughter,
voice pitch, and arousal.6 These datified emotions are used to identify attractive
video games, for example.
Refrigerators of the future might suggest food options suited for particular
emotional states. A stressful Zoom meeting with colleagues may be identified
by the smart refrigerator, which then suggests chocolate milk, or whipped
cream and strawberries, or whatever your comfort food might be. Perhaps Siri,
Alexa, or Google tells a joke or story to lift your spirits. Combine these
personalized databases with humanoid robots, and the possibilities for affective
enhancement become clearer.

Brain Stimulation and Other Neuroscience

As discussed in earlier chapters, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can be an effec-
tive treatment for intransigent clinical depression, including the depression
associated with Parkinson’s Disease.7 By relieving clinical depression, DBS can
improve one’s affective state to such a degree that it makes life worth living
again for some people. It may be that transcranial stimulation (TCS) can also
help overcome neurological blocks to feeling happy and content.
We now record and interpret brain wave patterns in support of techniques,
such as biofeedback, to help people change brain patterns and, therefore,
moods. As mentioned in the chapter, “Cognitive Enhancement and Moral
Bioenhancement,” neuroscience research is pursued by some military
organizations to address fear and traumatic memory formation.8

6
“Affectiva.” www.affectiva.com.
7
Ettore A. Accolla and Xlauda Pollo, “Mood Effects After Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s
Disease: An Update,” Frontiers in Neurology (June 14, 2019). https://doi.org/10.3389/
fneur.2019.00617.
8
M. N. Tennison and J. D. Moreno, “Neuroscience, Ethics, and National Security: The State of
the Art,” PLOS (2012). http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.
pbio.1001289; and R. K. Pitman, et al., “Pilot Study of Secondary Prevention of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder with Propranolol,” Biological Psychiatry 51, no. 2 (2002): 189–192.
120 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Technology of Spiritual Enhancement

One of the ways we have sought to find deeper meaning and feel better is
through spirituality. Spiritual practices and the benefit they provide are certainly
a part of the devotional expressions of all religions. Our understanding of
spirituality, however, is broad enough to include spirituality that can occur
outside the context of traditional religions.
Psychologist Kenneth I. Pargament and his colleagues have used quantita-
tive and qualitative research studies to identify three key (but not exhaustive)
qualities that characterize spiritual experiences: transcendence, ultimacy, and
boundlessness. Transcendence is the feeling of “mystery and ineffability.”
Ultimacy has to do with a sense of meaning deeper than meets the eye.
Boundlessness points to timelessness and spacelessness experienced when
encountering what is perceived as sacred.9 Later, Pargament and his colleagues
added the spiritual qualities of interconnectedness and spiritual emotions.10
Spiritual emotions are emotions accompanying encounters with the sacred.
Spiritual practices and experiences can generate spiritual emotions, such as awe,
elevation, hope, joy, and gratitude. Sociologist Émile Durkheim’s notion of
“collective effervescence”11 describes the affective arousal occasioned by
communal religious gatherings. The experience of these emotions may be so
intense to be disturbing to some, therefore not desirable. It should be obvious
that affective enhancement and spiritual enhancement are not the same, but
they do overlap in significant ways. It is not accidental that both are addressed
in the same chapter of this textbook.
Pargament’s understanding of spiritual experience is similar to the experi-
ence reported by mystics in both monotheistic and karmic religions. Mysticism
is here understood as a religious experience that is noetic (involves deep know-
ing), ineffable (cannot be articulated), holy, characterized by a positive affect,
perceived as timeless and spaceless, and characterized by a perception of unity
in all things. This understanding of mysticism is distinct from paranormal or
psychic experiences, as in extrasensory perception and clairvoyance.12
Since spirituality, according to Pargament, is basically a search for the sacred,
he has found that people can discover the sacred in almost anything. Places
where people discover the sacred and so experience spirituality include

9
K. I. Pargament, D. Oman, J. Pomerleau, and A. Mahoney, “Some Contributions of a
Psychological Approach to the Study of the Sacred,” Religion 47, no. 4 (2017): 723–724.
10
J. W. Lomax, J. J. Kripal, and K. I. Pargament, “Perspectives on Sacred Moments in
Psychotherapy,” The American Journal of Psychiatry 168, no. 1 (2011): 12–18; and A. Mahoney,
K. I. Pargament, B. Cole, T. Jewell, and R. Phillips, “A Higher Purpose: The Sanctification of
Strivings in a Community Sample,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 15, no.
3 (2005): 406.
11
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York: Free Press,
1912/1965).
12
These marks of traditional mysticism were identified by philosopher W. T. Stace. See Calvin
Mercer and Thomas Durham, “Religious Mysticism and Gender Orientation,” Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion 38, no. 1 (1999): 175–82.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 121

relationships, objects, and activities, such as found in sport, music, art, family,
romantic partners, writing, gardening, and walking. This may seem like an
anything-goes type of spirituality, but that is not the case.
For the sacred to be authentically discovered, Pargament and his colleagues
identified not only key qualities of spiritual experiences, but also six implications
for everyday living that result from the discovery of the sacred. These
implications include investment of resources, such as money and time, and the
generation of spiritual emotions, as two of the six implications.13 Pargament
has provided a framework that we think can assist in assessing traditional and
radical enhancement methods that may help us achieve more, and possibly
more dramatic, spiritual experiences.
To illustrate this broad understanding of what counts as spirituality, consider
this quote from one of your authors, Professor Trothen, from her book about
sports, enhancements, and spirituality.

Mainstream religions are commonly considered authentic, while the religious

dimension of fandom has often has been considered fake or dismissed as
derivative. … [religious studies scholar Jennifer] Porter makes a convincing case
for the “authenticity” and validity of “pop-culture inspired spiritualities:”14 fan
communities, she proposes, “are, or at least can be, a place that embodies a
person’s and/or a community’s expression of the essence of all meaning: what it
means to be human, to be in community, to be in space and time, to be moral or
immoral, to be finite or eternal, to simply be....”15 The question of meaning need
not be explicitly pursued, but can be lived or experienced. The implicit quality of
spirituality inspired by pop culture, religions, or both, resists hard-and-fast
definitions, just as they open up a multiplicity of ways of experiencing the sacred.16

If we begin with the premise that the sacred can be discovered in many
places, then the potential for enhancing spiritual experiences is expanded. Our
discussion is deliberately wide-ranging. We will next present some possible
ways to radically enhance spirituality. We have provided some evaluative
comments about authentic spiritual experiences, and leave up to you a
consideration of whether radical enhancements might help us to generate
authentic spiritual experiences.

How We Make Ourselves Spiritually Better

With Pargament’s work as a foundation, we now consider the variety of ways
to achieve experiences with spiritual qualities like transcendence, ultimacy,

13
Pargament, et al., “Some Contributions,” 734.
14
Jennifer Porter, “Implicit Religion in Popular Culture: The Religious Dimensions of Fan
Communities,” Implicit Religion 12, no. 3 (2009): 272.
15
Porter, “Implicit,” 275.
16
Tracy J. Trothen, Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than Just a Game (SpringerBriefs Sport
and Religion Series. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 3.
122 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

boundlessness, interconnectedness, and spiritual emotions. Since we are

understanding spirituality in a way that does not confine it to traditional
religious structures, our discussion is potentially applicable to everyone,
whether they identify with one of the traditional religions or not. As we did
above in the affective enhancement section, we begin with traditional methods
of spiritual formation and then consider some of the radical therapies and
technologies.
While the spiritual enhancements discussed below may add much to spiritu-
ality, it is hard to imagine that these enhancements will be enough on their own
to lead to greater spiritual well-being or meaningful experiences. But they may,
and time will tell as the religions assess and utilize some of the increasing array
of spiritual enhancement intervention options.

Traditional Spiritual Disciples and Practices

Professor Trothen has a Muslim neighbor who spiritually enhances themself by
praying five times a day facing Mecca, a traditional Muslim practice. The
neighbor’s prayer discipline has affective benefits as well, seeming to help them
stay happy and content most of the time. While completing this textbook,
Professor Trothen was in Kuujuaq, an Innuit village in Nunavik, Canada, on a
beautiful edge of the tree line. Many Innuits find their spirituality enhanced by
spending time on the land, appreciating the rivers, tundra, taiga, and rocks that
shape the small mountains of the region. A blend of traditional Innuit spirituality
and Christianity shapes the spiritual practices of many of these far north
Indigenous communities.
These two examples come from traditional religion and are joined by a host
of other long-standing spiritual practices that include spiritual direction,
guidance, contemplative practice, and mindfulness meditation. While these
practices do not require advanced technology, technological devices can be
used to facilitate the practices, such as tablets with software that leads one
through meditative practices.
Technology can also help us to understand the effects of traditional spiritual
practices. For example, scanning technology correlates brain activity with
traditional spiritual practices. Brain scans show that religiously based meditative
practices produce effects also achieved in “flow states,” a term coined by
psychologist Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi. Flow states are characterized by total
absorption in the experience, the sense that all life is connected, a strong sense
of self, and the loss of individual ego. Flow states are not restricted to formal
religious practices or to self-described religious followers.17

17
Csikszenthmihalyi describes eight elements of flow states: clarity of goals and immediate feed-
back; a high level of concentration; a close match between one’s perceived skills and the challenge;
a feeling of control; effortlessness; an altered perception of time; the melting together of action and
consciousness; and the experience of the autotelic quality of the sport. For more explanation and
analysis, see Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal
Experiences and Performance (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1999). For a fan to experience
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 123

An athlete in flow is aware of working very hard but also experiences the
sense of effortlessness or not working at all. Some athletes describe flow as
being on automatic pilot or in the zone. Flow can be experienced with many
activities, including art, writing, and listening to or playing music. Although
flow requires total concentration and emotional centeredness, flow cannot be
induced, at least thus far. But the induction of flow experiences could be a
future spiritual enhancement. Technology allowing for the identification and
study of flow states in traditional spiritual practices is a nice segue into using
technology itself to generate spiritual experiences, apart from traditional reli-
gious practices.

Hallucinogenic Agents
An old Beetles’ song is “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” a not so subtle refer-
ence to lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), one of the hallucinogenic drugs of
choice in the counter-culture hippie era of the 1960s. What does that have to
do with human spiritual enhancement in our century? Christian theologian and
ethicist Ron Cole-Turner, introduced in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the
Posthuman, and the Religions,” distinguished the category of spiritual enhance-
ment. Cole-Turner’s focus is on the use of hallucinogenic drugs to open-up an
enhanced spiritual awareness and experience.
Hallucinogenic agents have long been used in a number of religious tradi-
tions.18 The ancient Hindu Vedic scriptures from India speak of soma, described
as a plant with no roots, no leaves, no fruit, no seeds, but with a white stem, a
red cap, and a juice that was golden. “We have drunk soma and become immor-
tal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.”19 The Vedic and Aryan
warrior God Indra liked his soma, and his strength increased under its
intoxication.
Use, in a limited fashion, of ayahuasca and mescaline (derived from peyote,
a cactus) is allowed in the United States under the First Amendment’s free
exercise of religion clause. Ayahuasca is used in the syncretic Christian churches
União do Vegetal and the Santo Daime. The Native American Church has an
exemption for the sacramental use of peyote. Health Canada has granted
exemptions to two Montreal religious groups that stem from the Brazilian
religion Santo Daime, the Eclectic Centre for the Universal Flowing Light, also
known as Céu do Montréal, and the Beneficient Spiritist Center União do
Vegetal. The exemptions allowed for the import and serving of ayahuasca and
chacruna, both of which have hallucinogenic properties, to its members.

flow, they need to identify strongly with the athlete(s) For example, the fan must be fully convinced
that the athlete’s abilities make the athletic challenge possible but not easily possible.
18
Robert Jesse, “Entheogens: A Brief History of Their Spiritual Use,” Tricycle: The Buddhist
Review 6, no. 1 (Fall 1996).
19
Rigveda 8.48.3, in Ralph T. H. Griffith, trans, The Hymns of the Rig Veda (Benares, India:
E. J. Lazarus and Company, 1896).
124 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Followers of these religions believe the ingestion of these plants in tea can lead
one to meet the divine.
“Entheogen,” from the Greek, literally means “full of god” (entheos) and
“to come into being” (genesthai). The term is used to refer to the use of
hallucinogenic agents in religious contexts. Academic research on entheogens
goes back at least to the research of Harvard professors, Drs. Timothy Leary
and Richard Alpert. Amid media fanfare, both were kicked out of Harvard for
their ethically problematic research program.
Dr. Alpert found a guru in India who gave Alpert the name Ram Dass, the
name by which he is most well-known. Following his return from India, Ram
Dass became an important teacher, bringing Hinduism to the counterculture
west. As Dr. Alpert, he helped conduct the famous—or infamous as the case
may be—Marsh Chapel experiment, performed in the chapel at Boston
University on Good Friday, 1962. Seminary students received either psilocybin,
derived from certain mushroom species, or a placebo. It is generally agreed
there was a positive correlation between the hallucinogenic agent and deeply
spiritual, i.e., mystical, states. Many of the subjects reported having profound,
and even life-changing, spiritual experiences, including a strong sense of
connection with all life. That said, the experiment was not widely reproduced
and contained ethics problems and design flaws. The research was very
controversial and not supported by the university.
Research on hallucinogenic agents died out for several decades in the United
States due in large part to laws intended to halt recreational use of these agents.
With research exemptions, scholars have recently revived this line of research in
Europe and the United States in controlled medical settings, with a focus on
psilocybin. The research shows that psilocybin can be safely and reliably
correlated with mystical experiences in healthy volunteers.
Researchers are careful to say psilocybin “occasions” the mystical experience
but does not necessarily “cause” it. This means psilocybin at the least creates
conditions for possible mystical experiences. And, based on a research project
that surveyed thousands of people, it seems that experiences of personal
encounters with God can occur for previously self-identified atheists (more
than two-thirds of whom stopped calling themselves atheists after their
encounter). Moreover, regardless of whether the spiritual experience was
spontaneous or occurred while taking a psychedelic, a majority of respondents
who reported such God encounters also reported lasting positive changes to
their mental and emotional health.20 Research on the relationship between
psychedelics and spirituality continues, at the time of the writing of this book,
at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the United States.

20
Roland R. Griffiths, Ethan S. Hurwitz, Alan K. Davis, Matthew W. Johnson, Robert Jesse,
“Survey of Subjective ‘God Encounter Experiences’: Comparisons Among Naturally Occurring
Experiences and Those Occasioned by the Classic Psychedelics Psilocybin, LSD, Ayahuasca, or
DMT,” PLOS ONE (April 23, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214377.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 125

Your authors know people who have participated in recent research studies on
the use of psilocybin with regard to spiritual experiences. The experiences occa-
sioned by psilocybin are indeed profound and, apparently, the evidence thus far
is that the effects are lasting, at least for several years and possibly for one’s life-
time. Here are some first-hand descriptions of these psilocybin experiences:

Feeling of a non-self, of self held/suspended in an almost tactile field of light.

The utter joy and freedom of letting go—without anxiety—without direction—
beyond ego self.
The sense that all is One, that I experienced the essence of the Universe and the
knowing that God asks nothing of us except to receive love.
The experience of death, which initially was very uncomfortable, followed by
absolute peace and being in the presence of God. It was so awesome to be with
God that words can’t describe the experience.21

This research raises questions about what, if any, appropriate role there
might be for the use of such pharmacological agents in religious or spiritual
practice and ritual. Some people find this suggestion troubling and see
psilocybin as nothing more than illicit drug use or a form of spiritual cheating,
raising the question of what constitutes authentic spirituality. Others, following
a proactionary stance toward spiritual enhancement, are open to the possible
beneficial consequences of psilocybin induced experiences and want more
research. This debate is sure to continue and perhaps intensify.

Brain “Spirit Tech”

In this section, we present a host of developing technological innovations,
sometimes called “spirit tech,” that allegedly provide authentic spiritual
experiences. These technologically-assisted spirituality biohacking tools may
have some of the same properties as hallucinogenic agents, but with a more
precise focus on relevant brain centers and, therefore, possibly with more
control of the outcomes.
Neurofeedback, a type of biofeedback, may have benefits in treating
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other medical
conditions. With sensors on the scalp, the patient obtains real-time feedback as
they learn to self-regulate brain activity. Neurofeedback is now being examined
as a way to enhance meditation and prayer practices. As mentioned earlier,
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a relatively safe, non-invasive
procedure sometimes used to treat major depression. Via an electromagnetic
coil near the forehead, the part of the brain associated with mood and depression
is stimulated. TMS may hold possibilities for activating the so-called “God

21
Ronald Cole-Turner, “Spiritual Enhancement,” in Religion and Transhumanism: The
Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Westport,
CT: Praeger, 2015), 369–84.
126 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

spots” of the brain, which are the areas of the brain thought to be responsible
for spiritual experiences.
The connection between neuroscience and spirituality has intrigued
researchers for years. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans (fMRIs)
have shown the effects spiritual practices, including centering prayer,
mindfulness practices, meditation, guided imagery, and music, have on the
brain.22 Digital technology companies are capitalizing, for example, on the
knowledge that music can make one run faster by stimulating the brain. Spotify
uses phone sensors to measure a runner’s tempo and chooses music to help the
runner keep or improve their pace.
A good bit of publicity has surrounded the controversial “God Helmet,”
which you can order online for several hundred Canadian dollars. Created by a
neuroscientist, Stanley Koren, and based on research by the late professor of
psychology, Michael Persinger, the helmet is a device with electrodes used to
study creativity, religious experiences, and the effects of stimulation of the
amygdala and the hippocampus. While the efficacy of this particular item is
unproven, the world of Spirit Tech has arrived.
Experimentation is underway with small groups of meditators/worshippers,
all of whom are using the same brain activation method in an effort to foster
brain-to-brain interaction and collective experience. The serious caveat to all
this potential, as we discussed earlier, is that many of these brain stimulation
technologies may cause seizures or headaches and may change thought
patterns, affecting personal identity in unforeseen ways.

Pixel Spirituality
Other innovations are afoot that have been changing, and may radically
enhance, spirituality. Professor Mercer glimpsed these technological possibilities
when he discovered that a Christian friend of his was “going to church” on
Sunday mornings by going on-line. What made this news striking is that
Mercer’s friend is 68 years old and all her life has advocated a conservative
version of Christianity practiced in a very traditional Baptist church. This
friend’s willingness to engage in this method of worship, even before the
COVID-19 pandemic, indicates a trend toward openness to “pixel spirituality.”
We have seen much more virtual worship since the COVID-19 pandemic
began. When large gatherings were prohibited and physical distancing measures
implemented, people who otherwise may have never explored platforms, such
as Zoom, Facebook, Skype, or Microsoft Teams, found themselves conducting
worship or participating in worship digitally. Virtual worship has not replaced

22
S. E. Kobar, et al., “Ability to Gain Control Over One’s Own Brain Activity and its Relation
to Spiritual Practice: A Multimodal Imaging Study in Frontiers,” Human Neuroscience (2017).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00271; and A. M. Schultz and P. E. Carron, “Socratic
Meditation and Emotional Self-Regulation: Human Dignity in a Technological Age,” Journal of
Interdisciplinary Studies 25, nos. 1–2 (2013): 137–160.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 127

face-to-face as the preferable option for everyone, and not all were able to join
due to internet and technology accessibility, but the virus made this digital
avenue a viable option for many. Current virtual worship platforms can be
viewed as an interesting technological update to the plethora of TV preachers
that flooded the television airways in the 1980s. Virtual worship trends raise
questions about community in the religions, a concern we address later in the
chapter.
The ability to worship on the internet with like-minded friends is a primitive
version of the technological spirituality that is alive and well in virtual worlds.
“Second Life” is a popular example of virtual reality that has been around for
years. For those largely unfamiliar with virtual worlds, Second Life has been an
industry leader in creating a world that exists in cyberspace and is usually
accessed through a computer keyboard and the internet. Robert M. Geraci is
the author of Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in “World of Warcraft” and
“Second Life” (we will leave aside “World of Warcraft” in our discussion). Geraci
explores how virtual worlds, like Second Life, are “rearranging or replacing
religious practice.”
Although not a regular visitor, in order to understand this platform for spiri-
tual enhancement, Professor Mercer spent about 15 hours in the fascinating
virtual world of Second Life. Here is how it works. You, the “player,” sit down
at your computer and log into Second Life. In your first visit, you get to pick
an avatar, an image that you want to “be” you in the virtual world. Your avatar
can be male or female, or androgynous—whatever you like. You can pick any
kind of body, any clothing, anything at all. Many people experiment with
“being” someone quite different from who they are in real life. Using keyboard
strokes, you move your “self” (i.e., avatar) around and communicate. To make
a long story short, you design your avatar, buy clothes purchased with currency
utilized by Second Life “citizens,” visit virtual cities, dance in clubs, have a beer
with a friend at a local pub, and, yes, join a church or other faith community.
For better or worse, players in the virtual reality can negotiate their faith
identity, worship with their chosen community, engage in spiritual practice,
and have religious experiences. As Geraci puts it: “logging in is, for many users,
a sacred opportunity to experience what they see as a tiny fraction of the
heavenly world to come.”23
We have the strong sense something is aborning here that is altering our
religious landscape and may affect the transhumanist agenda for human
enhancement in unforeseen ways. The impact is going to increase in the coming
years and in ways that we can only vaguely anticipate. People who are not very
mobile, or who are living in the midst of a pandemic, can “get out” into
another world and live a whole different life. Virtual world adventurers can join
faith communities without necessarily connecting with anyone encountered in

23
Robert M. Geraci, Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in “World of Warcraft” and “Second
Life” (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 200.
128 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

their real world. Perhaps virtual worlds will enhance faith and spirituality.
Maybe it will not. More likely, digital spiritually will have pluses and minuses.

Religious Issues

The Problem of Suffering

Perhaps it seems obvious that we should work to relieve pain and suffering,
whether it is emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual, or other. We now place
the conversation about affective and spiritual enhancements in the context of
what has been called the “problem of evil and suffering.” In summary, the
problem is that in the monotheistic religions God is understood to be all-­
knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibe-
nevolent are the technical theological terms referring to these divine attributes.
In the face of a divine being with these attributes, how can evil, pain, and
suffering exist? In other words, why would a good and loving God, who can do
anything, allow pain and suffering? If God is all-good, then God would not
want people to suffer. If God is all-wise, God can figure a plan to eliminate
suffering. If God is all-powerful, God can implement any plan that is conceived.
Theological reflection on this topic has been so extensive through the cen-
turies that the term, theodicy, literally Greek for “God justice,” was coined.
How can one justify the existence of a supremely wise, powerful, and good
deity in the face of such suffering and evil? Many books have been written
about suffering and religious belief including one of the most well-known
modern ones, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold
Kushner.24
Process theologians propose that God is in relationship with human beings.
Relationships are dynamic and both parties, God and humans, change as a
result of being in relationship. God, in this view is not all-powerful, at least not
in the way that all-powerful is usually understood. God does not exert power
to rescue us but does exert power to love and support us, in this view. Liberation
theologians understand God to be in solidarity with those experiencing injustice
and understand that the work of justice is inspired and supported by God.
These are very quick and simplistic summaries of some complex theological
interpretations. Suffice it to say there are diverse views on suffering and God’s
role in suffering.25
The problem of evil and suffering has a very different frame in the karmic
religions. Since these religions have no all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving
deity, evil and suffering present no challenge to god as they do in monotheistic

24
Harold Kushner, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Anchor Books, 1981).
25
See, for example, Douglas John Hall, God and Human Suffering (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Publishing House, 1986) and Traci C. West, Solidarity and Defiant Spirituality: Africana Lessons
on Religion, Racism, and Ending Gender Violence (New York: New York University Press, 2019).
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 129

frames of reference. In general, suffering in the karmic religions is understood

as a result of bad karma in previous incarnations.
Christian pro-enhancement advocates propose that God does want to allevi-
ate suffering, and technological advance is a primary means of doing that.
Much energy and many resources go into alleviating suffering individually and
as a society. Perhaps a pill that radically reduces suffering would be desirable.
Maybe, but this is a problematic proposition.
Polio and smallpox vaccines save millions of lives a year, and Prozac reduces
the mental anguish endured by depressed patients. It is a good thing that
smallpox has been eradicated. And we certainly want to eliminate all emotional
and mental pain and disturbance that we can. Not so fast. Here we bump again
into the notion of unintended consequences.
Consider a specific example, a case where a seemingly obvious response
turns out to be problematic. In this example, a pharmaceutical eliminating
aggressive behavior is developed. By decreasing impulsive aggressive behavior
in people convicted of violent crimes, perhaps that would increase community
safety. But, should aggressive behavior always be avoided? At times, controlled
aggression might be appropriate in the workplace and, unless you are a pacifist,
in defending one’s country. Consider acts of heroism in which people save
someone by violently pushing them away from an oncoming subway train.
Some really aggressive behavior results in good outcomes and can be judged
virtuous.
Pain and suffering serve beneficial purposes, at least sometimes. At a very
basic level, pain in my chest alerts me to inquire about the need for medical
attention. Maybe we need to exercise more so that mild chest discomfort is
addressed by better cardiac health. Earlier we introduced the DREAM gene
that is linked to the perception of pain. Mice who do not have this gene have
greatly reduced sensitivity to pain. It is hoped that more research will yield
interventions that block physical pain, while maintaining a level of sensitivity
necessary for good health.
Suffering is about more than physical pain. Suffering has a clear downside
but also can have an upside. Suffering, such as existential angst, may lead us to
connect more with other people in the journey of life. Pain and suffering can
prompt wise reflection on life options. While it does not solve the problem of
theodicy for the monotheistic religions, we should note that many, and perhaps
most, people agree they have learned much from suffering. Although
unfortunately not always redemptive, suffering sometimes can be a powerful
teacher and build character.
Of all the religions, Buddhism has placed suffering at the center of its theo-
logical program. Suffering is the fundamental predicament of life, the basic
problem, in this religion. It is typical to use a medical model here. The
presenting problem or symptom is suffering, the diagnosis is craving or desire
causing the suffering, and the prescription or cure is to eliminate desire, thereby
eliminating the suffering. If, and this is a very big if, radical therapies and
technologies were to one day eliminate pain and suffering, Buddhism would
130 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

need to engage fundamental theological work to reframe how it understands

human suffering. Even now, and in the foreseeable future, technology that
greatly reduces certain types of suffering merits Buddhist theological reflection.
Of course, it is highly unlikely that technology will solve the problems of desire
and attachment, but the reduction of suffering may generate questions in
Buddhism about the nature of human suffering and our responses to this
suffering.
Finally, the psychological argument has been made that “contrast experi-
ences” are necessary. Humans have to experience some measure of unhappi-
ness, or suffering, to know and value happiness. Mountains do not come
without valleys is an old saying that holds some psychological and spiritual truth.

The Quick Fix or Effort and Discipline?

Perhaps it is impossible to be truly happy, content, and at peace without the
hard inner work of processing experiences, building relationships, addressing
our wrongs, and in a healthy way confronting those who have wronged us.
Spiritual enhancement through biohacking is not likely to be sufficient in itself,
but perhaps the religions will find that it can play a role in the spiritual path.
Taking a pill and logging onto a computer to have a spiritual experience
takes effort, but certainly not the kind and amount of effort typically required
for that experience. About once a year, Professor Mercer devotes the time and
effort required for a weeklong spiritual retreat, often at a Roman Catholic
Trappist or a Hindu monastery. Making this happen entails enormous
scheduling considerations, packing, hours of driving, financial costs, time and
effort in prayer and meditation, and a good bit of talking to people.
With all the current and looming technologies for enhancing both affect
and spirituality, the role of effort and discipline becomes a central issue.
Conceivably, effort and discipline are essential ingredients in the formation of
a spiritual life and a happy life. However, if so, it is not at all clear how much
effort and how much discipline are required. The same question can be raised
about knowledge required to make spiritual experiences meaningful. The
concern is that these technologies are a quick fix that cheats the spiritual seeker
from authentic growth and the person who seeks emotional well-being from a
greater wholeness.
It would certainly be much quicker and easier to swallow a pill, if that could
provide the same emotional and spiritual benefits. On the one hand, it could be
that the end-result experience is what matters most or, on the other hand, it
could be that the process of getting to that experience is the essential compo-
nent. Professor Trothen deliberately spends time in nature as part of her spiri-
tual discipline. She finds that the process of being present in nature and being
still in the moment is not only calming but helps to increase her attentiveness
to ecojustice and the grave importance of figuring out how to make sacrifices,
develop policies, and save our planet. It may be that radically enhanced spiritual
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 131

experiences may help us to deepen our awareness of the interconnection of life

more quickly and spur us to address climate change more radically.
At one level, the question of effort is an empirical one—is the nature and
extent of spiritual experience or mood produced by biohacking the same as, or
of the same value as, that produced by traditional methods of spiritual practice
or the hard work of developing emotional health? Measurements for emotional
well-being are more advanced than are measurements for spirituality. We have
tools for measuring spiritual distress and some for making spiritual assessments.
Theoretically, we will also eventually be able to measure spiritual or mystical
experiences, but we are certainly a long way from doing that reliably.
Some spiritual assessment scales have been developed that have been assessed
as reliable and valid tools, in social scientific terms. But, as some critics have
noted, it can be very difficult and unhelpful to reduce spiritual health to a set
of Likert scale indicators.26 At the same time, these assessment tools provide
spiritual health professionals with a way to begin building a spiritual diagnosis
and treatment plan. The downside is in turning to a social scientific tool as
reflective of a person’s Gestalt spiritual health.
For example, the Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool (SDAT) includes five
items assessing unmet spiritual needs, associated with poorer health outcomes,
in elderly hospitalized patients. The SDAT is helpful in identifying people who
would benefit from spiritual care.27 However, the SDAT itself will not tell us
the wider, often complex, narrative that gave rise to the unmet spiritual needs.
The complexity of individual narratives unfolds only over time. To illustrate,
for a cancer patient refusing chemotherapy, the SDAT could indicate unmet
spiritual needs and what a spiritual effective treatment plan could look like. But
the tool itself will not indicate the exact causes of the spiritual distress. To
figure out the causes, one must be a skilled expert and listen to the person’s
story, responding in ways that illicit more and preserve safety. Professor Trothen
is certified as a spiritual health practitioner and supervisor by the Canadian
Association of Spiritual Care. That certification required a process involving
years of intense training and practice under the supervision of trained
professionals. In other words, human touch, effort, and discipline are still very
much needed in the practice of spiritual health.
The question of effort can be framed theologically. It might be that long
term discipline, education, and mentoring are potentially salvific, but it may
also be that pills and virtual reality are potential means of grace, that is, fresh
new ways that God is making available alternative spiritual paths. Such
enhancements, in other words, could be more extreme versions of microphones
used in worship and Kindle tablets to read the Bible, or other low-tech devices

26
Emily K. Trancik, “Lost in Translation: Spiritual Assessment and the Religious Tradition,”
Christian Bioethics 19, no. 3 (2013): 282–298.
27
Stefanie Monod, Estelle Martin, Brenda Spencer, Etienne Rochat, and Christophe Büla,
“Validation of the Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool in Older Hospitalized Patients,” BMC
Geriatrics 12, no. 13 (2012). http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2318/12/13.
132 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

no one is questioning. Recalling the earlier discussion of suffering, it seems that

if there is a quick path to a deeper spiritual experience that is life-giving and
profoundly inspiring, then it would be good to take that short path if suffering
is relieved and overall well-being improved.
Finally, the answer to whether effort is required for spiritual and emotional
health may be yes and no, depending on the affective or spiritual enhancement
at hand and the particular individual’s needs. One might conclude virtual
reality is an appropriate technological support for spiritual formation and
happiness but ingesting illegal hallucinogenic agents is not. If so, then we need
to be clear about the criteria for drawing these different conclusions. Also,
using Second Life for spiritual enhancement and emotional support may be
acceptable if it is used in certain ways, perhaps as an adjunct to more traditional
forms of spiritual formation and psychotherapy.
We do not presume to have the answers, but these kinds of questions will
confront the religions in the brave new technological world increasingly a
part of our lives. Commentators are already beginning to weigh in on the
advisability of spirit tech. Just to give an example from the conservative side
of the Christian theological spectrum, the marketing for one book states
that the author “is a Christian who loves God and is attached to his iPhone.”28
The author grants that technology can be a tool to know God, but argues
that caution is in order.

The Importance of Community for Spiritual Growth

All religions, some more than others, require and foster community. In
Christianity, koinonia (Greek, communion or fellowship) is the word often
used to describe the early church community with its members, at least ideally,
thoroughly committed to each other and having “all things in common.”29
Similar expressions of the importance of community are found in other
religions.
As religions embrace, to one degree or another, spiritual enhancement, the
faithful will likely insist that the technology be used in such a way that it does
not shortchange genuine community. This insistence may well be based in the
human need for social interaction, as well as in theology. Ideally, technology
supports and enhances the development of community that empowers indi-
vidual believers in the faith community.
If Second Life is used in spiritual practice, it should not be commandeered
to substitute for engagement in healthy social interaction. If entheogens are to
be used, they certainly should be used legally, with proper guidance, and in
contexts conducive for spiritual attainment. In fact, the research on such agents

28
Craig Detweiler, iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives and Selfies:
Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age (Ada, MI: Brazos Press, 2013). See also his book,
Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2018).
29
In the New Testament, e.g., see Acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–37.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 133

is clear that set and setting are critical to the experience. That is why recreational
use of LSD yields a very different experiential outcome than ingesting such an
agent in the context of a spiritual community, long-standing ritual, commitment
to spiritual growth, and competent spiritual guides.
Similarly, affective well-being cannot be understood outside of community
and relationships. Research has shown that happiness is associated with altruistic
behavior, under the condition that one does not self-sacrifice to the extent that
one loses or damages oneself.30 Religions have known this for centuries.
Feminist theologians and religious studies scholars have also recognized the
dangers of the excessive tendency to self-sacrifice that has been encouraged
within marginalized groups. Charitable acts are an important expression and
command in Islam. Judaism upholds the preservation of life, and not just the
preservation of our own lives but the lives of others, as the highest mitzvah.
Daoism and the other karmic religions see altruistic acts as creating good
karma. Religions do not mandate good acts just to make followers feel better,
but they do so as a faith conviction that enhances one’s individual well-being,
as well as that of the community, world, and one’s relationship with the
transcendent.
Beyond the implications of spiritual enhancement for existing religions, we
have seen at least one spiritual community emerge that is explicitly organized
around superlongevity. We introduce the “Church of Perpetual Life” as an
example of a possible new religious movement. The founder of the church is
Bill Faloon, director and co-founder of Life Extension Foundation,31 a
consumer advocacy, research, magazine, and supplement store group that is
favorable to transhumanism. The Church of Perpetual Life website32
proclaims that

Our Mission is to assist all people in the radical extension of healthy human life,
and to provide fellowship for longevity enthusiasts through regular, holiday and
memorial services.

The website goes on to provide eight purposes of the church, which align the
church with the transhumanist agenda in general. The “Welcome” message on
the website reads:

Perpetual Life is the only science/faith based church in the world. We are not a
bible based church & although we are not a Christian Church, many of our
members are Christian & Jewish. We also have members that are Buddhist,

30
Stephen G. Post, “Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It’s Good to Be Good,” International
Journal of Behavioral Medicine 12, no. 2 (2005): 66–77. https://doi.org/10.1207/
s15327558ijbm1202_4.
31
www.lifeextension.com.
32
https://www.churchofperpetuallife.org/. Here is a somewhat critical documentary of the
Church and one which addresses the relationship between the Church and the Life Extension
Foundation. “Worshipping Immortality at the Church of Perpetual Life” (April 11, 2016).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvaC67CeBDA.
134 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Humanist, Atheist, and Hindu. What brings us together as a Family is our Faith
in Physical Immortality. Humanity is constantly overcoming obstacles that at first
appear impossible, and once overcome, a new era dawns and humanity is elevated.
And so it is with our belief in living Unlimited Life Spans. Humanity is on the
brink of a new Era where your physical health becomes Optimal and death
becomes Optional.

Appropriation of Spiritual Disciplines for Personal Growth

Mindfulness meditation has been appropriated and removed from the context
of Buddhism and used as a way to enhance relaxation, reduce stress, and focus
attention. The removal of mindfulness from the Buddhist context into an
individualistic, secular context, has been criticized as misrepresenting Buddhist
mindfulness and losing the greater spiritual and socially transformative meaning
of the practice.33 The Western focus on individual mindfulness practices turns
these practices into something disconnected from the traditions in which they
originated. While mindfulness practices can contribute to affective and spiritual
enhancement, significant aspects of spiritual wellness, at least, might be lost
through appropriation into a secular context. Such appropriation can also be
seen as contributing to the marginalization and misunderstanding of the
originating religious groups.
The above analysis of mindfulness can also be applied to hatha yoga, which
has a rich spiritual context in Hinduism and is often placed in a physical health
and exercise context in the west. Indigenous spiritual practices have been
appropriated in the same way. Sweat lodges and spirit walks are sometimes used
with good intentions to enhance wellness but without careful respect for the
originating people and spirituality. Connection and meaning are subverted by
thoughtless appropriation. As a result, the full meaning of the spiritual practice
is compromised, as well as the relationship with Indigenous people or, in the
case of mindfulness practices, Buddhists.
These religious and ethical implications need to be carefully considered
when we use spiritual practices in a quest to improve our spiritual and emotional
health. Part of that health is, indeed, our relationships to the followers of these
traditions and to the integrity of religious practices that, when practiced
respectfully, enhance the well-being of not just the individual but of all people,
creatures, and the earth.

Can Robots Do the Jobs?

We may see an increasing turn to robots to help provide, or to actually provide,
spiritual direction and emotional support. At present, in health care facilities

33
Maria Ishikawa, “Mindfulness in Western Contexts Perpetuates Oppressive Realities for
Minority Cultures: The Consequences of Cultural Appropriation,” Simon Fraser University
Educational Review 11, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.21810/sfuer.v11i1.757.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 135

for example, while robots serve primarily to fill healthcare “staffing gaps,”34
they are not capable of providing in-depth or complex emotional support and
addressing ontological issues associated with spiritual and existential distress.
When we grapple with a sense of our value and meaning as we experience
physical losses, or when we struggle to accept our mortality, a robot that uses
stock phrases is not going to be sufficient.
We do not minimize the value of robots doing physical labor. Today’s clunky
robot will evolve dramatically in the coming years with increasing cooperation
between the field of robotics and rapidly advancing AI capability. It is theoretical
now, but conceivably artificially intelligent robots of the future could perform
better than today’s trained psychotherapist. The AI robot would have
immediately available all the theories and techniques of psychotherapy, every
case study available, facial and body movement recognition, and, in addition,
would never fall asleep during the therapy session.
With the catchy main title, “Your Robot Therapist Will See You Now,” this
summary paragraph captures some of the possibilities:

Research in embodied artificial intelligence (AI) has increasing clinical relevance

for therapeutic applications in mental health services. With innovations ranging
from “virtual psychotherapists” to social robots in dementia care and autism
disorder, to robots for sexual disorders, artificially intelligent virtual and robotic
agents are increasingly taking on high-level therapeutic interventions that used to
be offered exclusively by highly trained, skilled health professionals.

The article goes on to qualify the hopes for AI therapists, noting that “In order
to enable responsible clinical implementation, ethical and social implications of
the increasing use of embodied AI in mental health need to be identified and
addressed.”35
The exact same kind of conversation can be applied to religious leaders and
the services they deliver. We seem to be in the beginning stages of a time when
the conversation about many professional jobs has to do with how to effectively
integrate AI and robots into the job description, along with the human
professional. The time may very well come, however, when full expendability is
the question. Perhaps the day will come, for example, when the Roman
Catholic Church has a technological way to address its shortage of priests. Or,
it may be that AI does not provide the same sense of connection, depth, and
competence that a trained, real person can offer. We are seeing rapid changes
in AI. The future may bring much promise and, possibly, some limits.

34
Corinne Purtill, “The Robot Will Help You Now: How They Could Fill the Staffing Gaps in
the Eldercare Industry,” TIME Magazine (November 4, 2019).
35
Amelia Fiske, Peter Henningsen, and Alena Buyx, “Your Therapist Will See You Now: Ethical
Implications of Embodied Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychotherapy,”
Journal of Medical Internet Research 21, no. 5 (May 2019). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC6532335/. https://doi.org/10.2196/13216.
136 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Ethical Issues

Affect and Spirituality: What Exactly Are We Trying to Enhance?

Regarding emotional well-being, complicating the discussion about happiness
are findings regarding what really contributes to our happiness. Engaging in
challenges to overcome barriers perceived as a bit tougher than our skill level
yields happy moments. If philosophers like Hubert Dreyfuss and Sean Dorrance
Kelly are correct about our need for these everyday challenges and “shining
moments” filled with spiritual emotions, then the more we create technology
that solves these challenges, the harder it will be to be happy.36 For example,
many of us have dishwashers. The argument is that without these dishwashers,
it was easier to engage in an everyday challenge—getting all our dishes done—
and succeed, thus giving us an opportunity for happiness.
Others argue that altruistic acts towards strangers is the surest way to happi-
ness and generally feeling good emotionally. As we mentioned earlier, in some
research, spirituality has been associated with increased compassion and proso-
cial—including altruistic—behavior toward strangers.37 Maybe, if we want to
feel better emotionally, it is more effective to work on enhancing spirituality or
morality, including kindness.
As with moral enhancement and cognitive enhancement, what it means to
feel better emotionally and spiritually is contextual. From a virtue ethics
perspective, different emotions and spiritual experiences may be more or less
desirable, depending on what situation we are in, who we are, what we want to
do, and who we want to become. These desires are influenced by the sources
of authority that shape our values and our identities.
Being different and having varying views on what makes us better do not
mean we should act as though we are disconnected from everyone else.
Different emotions, for example, are more or less desirable depending on what
social messages we receive, our values, and who we want to be and become. It
is important that we take a careful look at differences, asking what informs the
differences. We learn from diverse perspectives and, as we have emphasized, a
religiously informed lens recognizes the interconnectedness of all life.

The Therapy—Enhancement Continuum: What It Means to Make

Us Better
The therapy or enhancement debate continues to be relevant in this chapter.
What it means to be human prompts questions about how we are human and
how we change ourselves in acceptable and good ways. For both affect and
spirituality, although it is not fully clear where the line is crossed between an
36
Herbert Dreyfuss and Sean Dorrance Kelly, All Things Shining—Reading the Western Classics
to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (New York: Free Press, 2011).
37
Laura Rose Saslow, et al., “The Social Significance of Spirituality: New Perspectives on the
Compassion–Altruism Relationship,” Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 5 (2013): 201–18.
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 137

acceptable and unacceptable intervention, we have identified the interconnection

of life as one touchstone dividing point applicable to all religions. An
enhancement helping us honor the relatedness of all life and make better
(almost?) everyone’s lives and the earth is likely to be embraced by most
religions. But we still have the challenge of figuring out what counts as
appropriately better.
Consider drugs that enhance mood. The legalization of marijuana has been
a hot topic in many countries. The trend, although with plenty of starts and
stops and debate along the way, in Asia and the West has been in the direction
of greater use and a loosening of restrictions.38 Medical pot is therapeutic when
it relieves pain in a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treat-
ments. The THC in marijuana creates the high and not all marijuana deriva-
tives contain THC. CBD (cannabis oil) for pain relief does not produce a high,
but the pot brownie edible kind and other forms do. Is getting high enhancing,
or not? Possibly, there are certain conditions in which mood elevation from
marijuana can be considered enhancing, and other conditions in which such a
mood alteration is not so considered. The conversation needs to get compli-
cated again. What it means to make our moods better, and who gets to decide
what it means to feel truly better, are critical questions.
Consider drugs that enhance spirituality. Using entheogens could be con-
sidered spiritual doping. Conceivably, a difference can be identified between
using entheogens (if legal for religious use) and using meditation to deepen
spirituality. Likewise, maybe a distinction can be drawn between using
something like Buddhist mindfulness meditation and using pharmaceuticals,
both of which can decrease stress, anxiety, and fear. Some people contend
emphatically there are significant differences, and it is important to be clear and
precise about what those differences are. Those differences may be related to
the effort and discipline required by spiritual practices and deep intrapersonal
reflection, as discussed earlier in this chapter. For some, the reason for rejecting
pharmaceuticals is the negative image of street drug use and doping, which is
perhaps a more questionable argument.
Some critics have labeled listening to music in sport a form of emotional
doping, since fMRIs show neural activity that can improve performance. Many
athletes run faster when they listen to certain music. Similarly, the controversial
super polyurethane swimsuits, already discussed and dubbed “doping on a
hanger,” made swimming easier, resulting in many broken records. The use of
illegal anabolic steroids is also called doping. The term has strong negative
connotations and tends to be interpreted as moving into an unacceptable
enhancement side of the continuum. What if we change the term “doping” to
“enhancing”? Interestingly, that might alter some people’s outlook on the
acceptability of using entheogens to evoke spiritual experiences or better
moods. Language matters.

38
E.g., Grace Shao, “Medical Cannabis is Gaining Momentum in Asia,” CNBC (July 14, 2019).
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/medical-cannabis-is-gaining-momentum-in-asia.html.
138 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Much has to do with the values and beliefs embraced by a religion and how
these values and beliefs may be understood in terms of what it means to make
us truly better. Modalities such as virtual pixel spirituality and digital worship
that allow people to connect with others when they otherwise may not be able
to connect, potentially enhance spirituality and in so doing allow us to become
more deeply human. For our purposes, the dividing point of what counts as an
acceptable or unacceptable enhancement on this continuum rests not on a
secular notion of “normal,” but rather on a religious understanding of what
makes us better, keeping in mind that each religion can define what makes us
better in varying ways.

Choice
As with other enhancement categories, many transhumanists frame radical
human enhancement as mainly a matter of individual choice. Opting for an
affective or spiritual enhancement should be at one’s personal discretion.
However, as we know and as the religions emphasize, decisions are not only
about the decision maker, although it can be difficult to see how choices affect
others and why the person choosing should care.
A burgeoning boost to spirituality, with affective enhancement implications,
are pixel spiritualities such as virtual worship and avatar programs. Pixel spiritual
practices are found in various religious traditions. Buddhism, for example, is
alive and well in Second Life, and a recent study by Gregory Price Grieve
provides an analysis and critique that can apply to virtual reality in any religion.39
Grieve contends that online religious practice can be trivial and even harmful if
these online experiences distract from real-life experiences. Virtual reality has
even been critiqued as a haven for people who cannot cope in real life. Grieve’s
research supported his theory that personal relationships were the main deficits
in people’s lives leading them to Second Life.
That said, pixels on a screen can also open the door to a fascinating, sophis-
ticated, and, according to Grieve, authentic spirituality that can clearly be
meaningful to participants. There is always the question of what “real” and
“authentic” mean. We have to decide if physicality and face-to-face interaction
are essential components of religion. If so, then Second Life and other virtual
world spiritualities fail the test.
When religious followers choose pixel spirituality experiences over face-to-­
face spiritual encounters, they affect not only themselves but the flesh and
blood people with whom they worship, study holy text, and share food. During
the COVID-19 pandemic, many religious communities figured out creative,
online ways to be together. Some members found these methods unsatisfying
largely because of the physical limitations on interactions. Others were very

39
Gregory Price Grieve, Cyber Zen: Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and
Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life (London: Routledge, 2016).
 7 AFFECTIVE ENHANCEMENT AND SPIRITUAL ENHANCEMENT: FEELING… 139

grateful for a virtual option and enjoyed it. Virtual options may enhance rela-
tionships and fill gaps, providing new ways of relating and connecting.
In his study, Grieve argues that a cybersocial being emerges from the feed-
back between the user and their avatar. So, players (“residents” is the term used
in Second Life) are cyborgs, that is, flesh and blood people on the computer
keyboard and avatars in the virtual world. The Second Life religious groups
meet in a place, built by residents, that serves as a liminal (a space between
worlds) alternative to real-life work and home.
Choice raises the issue of consent. Consent is problematic, for example, with
clinically depressed or anxious people, especially when some affective
enhancements are commercially available to anyone, without professional
supervision. Making decisions well when we are not thinking as we would
without depression or anxiety (and these are only two possible examples) is
complicated. Possible risks of the therapy or technology only adds to the
complexity of consent.
It is complicated to make an informed and healthy choice for anything we
have not yet experienced, even if the effects are not permanent, if it is not
passed to progeny, and if the enhancement is safe. These are big “ifs,” which
point to the value of standard testing of the intervention, the functioning of
regulatory bodies, and the delivery of the intervention under professional
supervision. Assuming an enhancement meets the criteria of all three “ifs,” still
the consumer cannot know what a new induced emotional or spiritual state will
feel like for sure, until they are in it. Hallucinogenic agents are excellent
examples of what we are talking about. Proper testing, certification by reputable
agencies, and professional delivery certainly help us make good choices about
powerful enhancements but will not tell us everything.

Justice
Choices about enhancements, by individuals and society, if ethically grounded,
will work to promote justice or, at the very least, will not amplify injustice. The
danger of amplifying existing systemic power imbalances is one example of a
serious potential injustice that runs as a theme through these chapters and is a
major consideration of a precautionary approach.
Amplification of unjust power structures, on the front end, comes when
enhancements are researched, designed, and funded largely by people with
enough social power and access to university education and jobs at well-funded
pharmaceutical and technological labs. On the back end, the interventions are
usually available primarily, or only, to the wealthy and politically connected
with easy access.
Consider the example of pixel spirituality access during the COVID-19 pan-
demic. A very good friend of Professor Trothen’s is a religious leader in a rural
Christian pastoral charge that includes two churches. She recorded and posted
worship services on social media for her congregations, but she was aware that
not all of her parishioners had the technology, internet access, and/or techno-
logical know-how and confidence to access these worship services.
140 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Other area religious leaders, of different faith traditions, did not have the
resources and/or ability to record and post worship services. Rural communities
and poor communities may not have access to sufficiently high band-width inter-
net to utilize the newest technology, and they may not have the education and
knowledge base to utilize it even if they have access. Plenty of families cannot
afford a computer. These access issues are justice issues, and socio-­economic
status tends to align with racial bias and privilege. All of these justice issues related
to pixel spirituality can be applied to the difficulty of lower socio-­economic
classes receiving services that contribute to emotional and spiritual well-being.
The religions have a strong commitment to justice. Earlier in this chapter,
we addressed the appropriation of traditional spiritual techniques (e.g.,
mindfulness meditation, sweat lodges, hatha yoga) for modern, secular use.
There are additional ethical issues not discussed in these pages, such as profit-­
making from technologies that utilize personal data of consumers, arguably not
always with their explicit and well-informed consent. All of these issues are
justice concerns. The costs and benefits must always be weighed, hopefully
with the aim of achieving a just outcome.

Questions for Discussion

1. What does it mean to enhance happiness? Does your answer change at

all if you deliberately engage a religious perspective?
2. Is more happiness a mood (affective) enhancement? Can you think of
any contexts in which happiness would not be an enhancement?
3. How might different religions define happiness?
4. What other emotions, beyond happiness, might be good to change?
From a religious perspective, do you think there should be any limits on
enhancing these emotions? Why or why not?
5. Can you imagine affective enhancement scenarios that would be very
positive? Very frightening?
6. Do you think sex robots have any legitimate role to play in making
us better?
7. How do you see the relationship between radical affective enhancement
and radical spiritual enhancement? What is the difference
between the two?
8. What do you think about using entheogens for spiritual enhancement?
How do your values relate to your response to this question?
9. How do you think using Second Life to attend a Bible teaching session
in virtual reality might differ from attending Sunday School taught with
PowerPoint?
10. How do you see social justice relating to the use of affective and spiri-
tual enhancements? Can you think of any ways such enhancements
might help to address social injustice? Reflect on how social justice
issues may be exacerbated by particular enhancement technologies dis-
cussed in this chapter.
 PART III

Special Topics: Going Beyond the Edge

 CHAPTER 8

Cryonics: Buried, Burned, or … Frozen

Technology

A Stopgap Measure
As we have seen, researchers are pursuing a number of paths to superlongevity,
including biological, genetic, and tissue engineering. Superlongevity is the
central long-term goal in the radical physical enhancement category. To the
degree that achieving the other four categories of radical enhancement (i.e.,
cognitive, affective, moral, and spiritual) requires a biological body of some
kind, then extending that biological body long into the future is critical, in
order to partake of other advances in the various categories of enhancement.
Those who die of diseases now will miss out on future cures, superlongevity
breakthroughs, and other enhancements. Longevity enthusiasts need a stop-­
gap program, some way to bridge the gap between death and a future time
when therapies and technologies are more advanced. Cryonics may be
one bridge.
If, for example, someone dies of a particular type of cancer, cryonics—a
Greek term, meaning “icy cold”—is a process that preserves the body in a way
that it can be theoretically revived in the future when the cure for that particular
cancer is available. Likewise, cryonics offers the possibility of accessing future
enhancement therapies and technologies.
Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the largest and most well-known cryon-
ics organization and will serve as our primary example of a cryonics organiza-
tion and of the industry’s main policies and messaging.1 American competitors

1
Alcor Life Extension Foundation. http://www.alcor.org. A helpful Alcor publication is
Aschwin de Wolf, Brian Wowk, and Alcor Staff, eds., Preserving Minds, Saving Lives: The Best
Cryonics Writings of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Scottsdale, AZ: Alcor Life Extension
Foundation, 2012).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 143

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_8
144 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

are the Cryonics Institute in Michigan2 and Oregon Cryonics in Oregon.3

KrioRus is a non-governmental cryonics organization in Russia, the only one
in Eurasia with its own storage facility.4
Alcor, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, arguably leads the way in cryonics
research, organization, and membership. Max More, whose PhD is in
philosophy of mind, ethics, and personal identity, has been an important leader
in cryonics and served for years as Alcor’s CEO. Currently Alcor Ambassador
and President Emeritus, More is a leader in the transhumanist movement,
having co-founded the Extropy Institute, an organization that helped create
the transhumanist movement.5
Cryonics is based on three premises: (1) Life can be stopped and restarted if
its basic structure is preserved. In support of this premise, Alcor gives the
following suspended animation examples: human embryos routinely preserved
for years; adult hypothermia victims surviving up to one hour without lung,
heart, and brain activity; large animals surviving three hours of cardiac arrest
near 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit); and deep cooling used during
neurosurgery when the heart must be stopped. (2) Extremely low temperatures
and chemical agents can preserve the structure of organs, including the brain.
(3) Molecular nanotechnology, discussed in the chapter, “Existing and Possible
Technologies,” is one possible future technology that can facilitate tissue repair
and regeneration, i.e., revive the cryopreserved person.
While whole bodies can be cryopreserved, the main interest is in the brain,
viewed as containing the essence of who we are in the stored memory and
personality information. As stated by Alcor,

If a brain can be preserved well enough to retain the memory and personality
within it, then restoring health to the whole person is viewed as a long-term
engineering problem.6

Whole body preservation costs more, at about 200,000 US dollars, and so

some members choose “neuropreservation” (head only) for about 80,000 US
dollars which, of course, is still out of reach for many people.7 High fidelity
preservation of the memory and personality information in the brain comes
with the expectation that future biomedical technology will enable
regrowing a body.

2
Cryonics Institute—Technology for Life. https://www.cryonics.org/.
3
http://www.oregoncryo.com/index.html.
4
KiroRus. https://kriorus.ru/en.
5
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “The Alcor Team.” https://www.alcor.org/AboutAlcor/
meetalcorstaff.html.
6
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Scientists’ Cryonics FAQ.” http://www.alcor.org/science-
faq.htm. A good bit of technical information about cryonics is found in this section of the website.
7
These are Alcor’s charges. The Cryonics Institute has lower prices. See “The CI Advantage.”
https://www.cryonics.org/the-ci-advantage/.
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 145

Although polemical, one is hard-pressed to find a better succinct statement

of some of the pros and cons of cryonics, from a consumer’s perspective, than
this one on the Alcor “Frequently Asked Questions” page. Responding to the
question, “Why haven’t more people signed up for cryonics?” the author of the
page explains,

People don’t sign up for cryonics because it’s not traditional, they’re skeptical of
anything they haven’t seen work, it costs money, they’re afraid of what their
friends might think, they live in denial of their own death, they don’t want to
think about the subject, they procrastinate, they don’t like life well enough to
want more of it, or they are afraid of a future in which they may be alienated from
friends and family and a familiar social environment. Typical Alcor members (if
any Alcor member could be called “typical”) tend to be highly educated
independent minded people who enjoy life and think cryonics has a reasonable
chance of working. They pay for it with life insurance and think the future is likely
to work out pretty well. They often have friends or relatives who are Alcor
members. They expect Alcor to revive them using nanomedicine and expect to
continue their lives with as much passion and joy as today—only with much more
amazing technology.8

A Brief History
Cryonics is not a new idea. American founder and inventor, Benjamin Franklin,
speculated about preserving people in a suspended state.9 Serious efforts to
make it happen is traced to the 1962 book, The Prospect of Immortality, by
Michigan College physics professor, Robert C. W. Ettinger.10
As the stories go, in the early days of cryonics, advocates placed their friends’
bodies (and sometimes their pets) in the freezer locker, hoping for the best.
The problem with literal freezing is that when ice thaws it expands. So, a frozen
brain is destroyed upon thawing. The science of cryonics has progressed
considerably. Now, a chemical process called vitrification (ice-free preservation)
is utilized to attempt structural preservation of the brain for later “thawing.”
In a sense, vitrification is an extension of traditional and current funeral
practices, which attempt to arrest decay with formaldehyde, hermetically sealed
caskets, and cement vaults.11
Since 1967, nearly 200 people have been cryopreserved at Alcor, and about
1300 have made legal and financial arrangements to be preserved in the

8
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Frequently Asked Questions.” https://www.alcor.org/
FAQs/faq04.html.
9
The Works of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 6, ed. Jared Sparks (Chicago: Townsend Mac Coun,
1882), 382–83.
10
Published by The Cryonics Institute.
11
Oliver Krüger, “The Suspension of Death. The Cryonic Utopia in the Context of the
U.S. Funeral Culture,” Marburg Journal of Religion 15, no. 1 (2015): 1–19. See also Gary
Laderman, The Sacred Remains. American Attitudes towards Death, 1799–1883 (New Haven: Yale
University, 1996).
146 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

future.12 The numbers of cryopreserved people and those who have made legal
and financial arrangements are difficult to determine for the rest of the industry,
since many cryonics’ organizations are small and do not publish their statistics,
and the American Cryonics Society does not provide statistics.13
In recent years, Alcor and other cryonics organizations have worked hard to
educate the public, appeal to the scientific community, and, as one might
expect, confront various legal challenges.14 The Alcor website offers scientific
journal articles supporting cryonics and a “Scientists’ Open Letter on
Cryonics,” with 68 signatories.15 Here is the preface to the statement:

Signatories encompass all disciplines relevant to cryonics, including Biology,

Cryobiology, Neuroscience, Physical Science, Nanotechnology and Computing, Ethics
and Theology. The signatories, speaking for themselves, include leading scientists
from institutes such as MIT, Harvard, NASA and Cambridge University to
name a few.

Here is the statement. It is followed by the names and brief credentials of the
signatories.

Cryonics is a legitimate science-based endeavor that seeks to preserve human

beings, especially the human brain, by the best technology available. Future
technologies for resuscitation can be envisioned that involve molecular repair by
nanomedicine, highly advanced computation, detailed control of cell growth, and
tissue regeneration. With a view toward these developments, there is a credible
possibility that cryonics performed under the best conditions achievable today
can preserve sufficient neurological information to permit eventual restoration of
a person to full health. The rights of people who choose cryonics are important,
and should be respected.

Our goal is not to defend cryonics nor suggest that it will be successful. It is
not accepted by mainstream science. That said, it does have enough support to
merit exploration, at the very least as a thought experiment.

When You Are Dead You Are Dead—Or Not

A major concern of Alcor and other cryonics organizations is to preserve the
“dead” body, and especially the brain, with as much integrity as possible. If the

12
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Alcor Membership Statistics.” https://www.alcor.org/
AboutAlcor/membershipstats.html.
13
Max More provides an excellent discussion of the challenge of obtaining accurate statistics. See
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “CEO Statement on Membership Statistics.” https://www.
alcor.org/blog/ceo-statement-on-membership-statistics/.
14
Richard Huxtable, “Cryonics in the Courtroom: Which Interests? Whose Interests?” Medical
Law Review 26, no. 3 (2018): 476–499.
15
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Scientists’ Open Letter on Cryonics.” https://www.bio-
stasis.com/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/.
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 147

brain turns to mush, then there is nothing to revive later. Cryonics views death
through an “information-theoretic criterion,” holding that death occurs when
the biological structures that encode memory and personality are destroyed,
such that this critical information cannot be recovered.
Death is, after all, partly an interpretation. Death can be pronounced when
the heart stops beating or, minutes later, with the flatlining of brain impulses,
i.e., brain death. Theories about what constitutes death (e.g., cardiac or brain
stoppage) have evolved with medicine and are sometimes understood through
religion.16 Cryonics protocols are organized around preserving the clinically
and legally deceased person as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, to increase
the odds that revival can occur with good results. Information-theoretic death
occurs several hours following clinical death. Dying is a process, and in the
ideal case cryonics intervention procedures begin immediately after the heart
stops beating and prior to brain death.
If an Alcor member is on their death bed, stand-by teams from Suspended
Animation, Inc., a company contracted by Alcor, work with the traditional
medical team, as much as possible, to be allowed to move the body to a cool-­
down state immediately after legal death is pronounced. The body is then
transported to Scottsdale, Arizona, where the formal vitrification chemical
process is performed in the lab at Alcor’s headquarters.
Importantly, there is apparently some minimal flexibility about when death
is pronounced by a doctor. Alcor’s strong preference is that the cryonics
member be pronounced legally dead as early as possible, so that the preservation
process can occur with the least possible disintegration of the brain. Some
Alcor members, who are terminal, travel to Scottsdale, Arizona to live in an
assisted living facility close to the company lab, so their vitrification process can
begin as soon as possible after legal death. In fact, some members of cryonics’
organizations want to control the death process totally, so they engage in
cryothanasia, physician or self-administered euthanasia for the purpose of being
cryopreserved. Alcor understands legally dead members to be “patients” and
takes responsibility for their patients seriously. They keep the cryopreserved
patients in a controlled environment and guard them around the clock. Within
that controlled environment are the patients housed in dewars, each holding
four full bodies and nine neuropatients.
Professor Mercer presented a paper at Alcor’s national conference several
years ago.17 He had the opportunity to interact extensively with the members.
Professor Mercer expected most members would be older and interested in
cryonics in order to address their own coming demise. “Aging hippies” wanting
to live forever were among the attendees. However, many members were much

16
S. M. Setta and S. D. Shemie, “An Explanation and Analysis of How World Religions
Formulate Their Ethical Decisions on Withdrawing Treatment and Determining Death,”
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 10, no. 6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/
s13010-015-0025-x.
17
“Cryonics and Religion: Friends or Foes?” Cryonics 29, no. 1 (2008): 10–21.
148 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

younger, in their twenties and thirties. At first this was puzzling, but after
conversing with some of these younger attendees, Professor Mercer theorized
that since we have discovered all the “new” worlds and been to the moon,
conquering death is the next exciting frontier. Indeed, many of the attendees,
and those presenting at the conference, were from technical and professional
fields—doctors, computer scientists, and information specialists—or were
aspiring to those related fields of study.
Although the procedures are still being refined, and no cryopreserved per-
son has yet been brought back, the plan is to revive the cryopreserved person
when the cause of legal death can be remedied by medical science and the
patient can be restored to full health. Skeptics say they will sign up when the
first cryopreserved person is brought back safely. Alcor responds, “Would you
rather be in the experimental group, or the control group?”18

Religious Issues
A cryopreserved person can be regarded as one would regard a coma patient.
Just like the coma patient who may eventually revive, the cryopreserved person
is understood to be in some sort of deep unconsciousness.19 Cryonics, then,
can be viewed as an extension of current medical procedures that treat coma
patients. From this perspective, cryonics may raise no religious concerns, or at
least no more than are raised by comas.
Alcor takes this approach to cryonics, stressing that cryonics is a technology
not a religion, and the company has no philosophical or religious agenda. The
company says cryonics is not resurrection and does not bring immortality, but
that cryonics is consistent with the life affirming views of religion. Readers are
referred to a number of positive statements made by religious writers.20
However, since cryonics preserves a patient for an indefinite period of time,
and there are complicated social and legal issues involved, cryonics is likely not
to be accepted by the religions as traditional medical procedures are, at least
any time soon. The indefinite “purgatory” period would typically be a very
long time, compared to a coma patient, because no one is close to figuring out
how to bring a cryopreserved patient back. Some cryonics members are
religious and interpret cryonics through the lends of their particular theology.
However, the cryonics industry, and Alcor as the prime example, eschews a
religious interpretation of their work. Our goal in this section is to reflect on
how the religions might eventually interpret cryonics.

18
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “What is Cryonics.” https://www.alcor.org/
AboutCryonics/index.html.
19
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Cryonics Myths.” https://www.alcor.org/cryo-
myths.html.
20
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Frequently Asked Questions.” https://www.alcor.org/
FAQs/faq04.html.
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 149

Monotheistic Religions
In this chapter, we consider one religion, Christianity, in some depth, as an
example of how a religion could intersect with cryonics. We mention other
religions but do not address them in the same depth. Our hope is that you the
reader, and those interested in, or followers of, other religions, will use this
thought experiment as a catalyst to make more connections to other faith
traditions.

Resurrection
Resurrection is, understandably, not the way Alcor understands cryonics. From
the perspective of religion, however, resurrection is an interesting theological
prism through which to view this procedure. While Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam have doctrines of resurrection, Christianity brings this idea to center
stage. We will think about cryonics in light of resurrection, with particular,
though not exclusive, reference to Christianity.21 Karmic religions have stories
and concepts of resurrection, but the idea is not as central as it is to the Christian
religion.
The Greek for resurrection is anatasis, literally “stand” (stasis) “up” (ana).
In the biblical tradition, resurrection can take two forms. In resuscitation of the
dead, to play on the Greek word, we “stand up” as embodied in the same kind
of body we had before, except that the disease that killed us is miraculously
gone. We continue living a normal life until the next disease or accident comes
along. As an example, Christians believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the
dead,22 and Lazarus presumably continued with his life pretty much as before.
This resuscitation of a dead body is a different kind of raising than resurrection
to eternal life with God, with new abilities and possibilities. We have coined the
term “transformational resurrection” to refer to this kind of raising, which
could also be called eschatological (i.e., end-time) resurrection.
Cryonics lends itself to being understood as technological versions of either
type of resurrection. In the first version, resuscitation of the dead, the
cryopreserved body is restored to full functioning by using the now available
medical treatment to cure whatever killed the person before cryopreservation.
We are using the terms “dead” and “killed,” but keep in mind that the cryonics
industry does not believe death has occurred. The issue for Alcor, for example,
is reviving a person who is a patient waiting in their cryopreserved state until
resuscitation. Following revival, the person continues life in a body, now
repaired but in effect a continuation of their pre-cryopreserved body.

21
Much of the material in this section is adapted from Calvin Mercer’s articles, “Resurrection of
the Body and Cryonics,” Religions 8/5, 96 (May 2017): 1–9. www.mdpi.com/journal/religions.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8050096, in a special issue “Religion and the New Technologies.”
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/new_technologies; and “Cryonics and
Religion: Friends or Foes?”
22
John 11.
150 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

The more dramatic and interesting version of resurrection is a transforma-

tive event that brings one into new and eternal life with God. If the revival of
the cryopreserved patient occurs far enough into the future, the technology
may be developed to transform the patient into a new being, enhanced in abili-
ties far beyond the person who was pronounced legally dead and then cryopre-
served. Transformative resurrection in the biblical tradition entails at least three
important aspects: embodiment, transformation, and continuity of personal
identity. To be compatible with the religion Christianity, cryonics probably
needs to satisfy at least these three criteria.

Embodiment
The Apostle Paul was arguably the most important first-century author and
leader responsible for the foundational ideas of the Christian religion. When
interpreting Paul, or for that matter any early Christian writer, it is important
not to over-read. Paul was not a systematic theologian, sitting comfortably in
his faculty office and having convenient access to a huge research library. Paul
was on the front lines as a missionary and church organizer. On the road a lot
and sometimes thrown into jail, his letters to churches were written for specific
purposes, usually to address particular troubling issues in faith communities,
usually but not always ones he had organized.
In the Christian Testament, also called the New Testament, Paul’s clearest
presentation of resurrection came in his first letter to the Corinthian church
and especially chapter 15. Paul was influenced by both his Hellenistic and
Jewish cultural and religious backgrounds. With regard to what we can call
theological anthropology (or what it means to be human, from a theological
perspective), however, Paul’s view is grounded mainly in his Jewish background.
The normative Jewish view is that a person is a psychosomatic unity. We are not
various parts—body, soul, spirit—somehow stapled together and that can be
dissected. Rather, in a Jewish view, we are a whole, and so resurrection is not
of a soul, but, rather, of the whole person, including the person’s physicality or
embodiment. We provided background to this view in the chapter,
“Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions.”
Regarding his theological anthropology, the most comprehensive Greek
term used by Paul to describe being human is soma (body). For Paul, soma is
intimately related to the person as a whole and does not mean our physical
dimension only. So, while soma emphasizes our physicality, this physicality does
not and cannot stand alone in any sense. In a significant theological move, Paul
combined soma with pneumatikon (spiritual) in, for example, 1 Corinthians
15:44, to name the resurrected existence “spiritual body” (soma
pneumatikon).
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 151

In addition to being influenced by his Jewish background, Paul models his

notion of bodily resurrection on Christ,23 who is described as the “first fruits”
of those who have died.24 Christians understand that Christ was raised as a
whole person, not merely as a disembodied soul. That the tomb was physically
empty on Easter morning has important theological implications. It is believed
that the bodily resurrected Christ had supernatural abilities, appearing through
closed doors25 and suddenly on a remote road26 in the post-resurrection stories.
Pauline thinking is not the only way to conceptualize Christian anthropol-
ogy. The Hellenistic Greek tradition, which differed considerably from the
Jewish, influenced some strands of early Christian theology. Some Christians
today, especially those with conservative leanings, think about the constitution
of the person and the believer’s resurrection in terms more akin to immortality
of and transmigration of the soul, notions prominent in some karmic religious
traditions. In this view, detailed in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the
Posthuman, and the Religions,” the soul is a part of the person that survives
after death of the body. Indeed, “drop the body” is a phrase sometimes used in
Asian culture for death.
It is interesting to think about whether the intermediate state between death
of the individual and the “last day” (when resurrection is believed to occur) can
be related to the time period between cryopreservation and later restoration.
The Bible and the ancient extra-biblical books in the Apocrypha27 speak some
about this interim period. During this interim state, purgatory is a time to
accomplish the goal of purification and preparation for the heavenly age to
come, loosely analogous to the transhumanist goal of enhancing us for life long
into the future. We should note that not all Christians believe in purgatory, and
some see purgatory as punishment.
Finally, we noted earlier that cryonics offers two options for cryopreserva-
tion, whole body preservation or neuropreservation (head only). The conten-
tion that we have “body memory” and body knowing, apart from information
solely in the brain, would argue against head-only preservation.28 Artists,
musicians, and athletes often report a sense that their hands or other body parts
are functioning in addition to or even separate from their conscious thought
processes. Whether the mind extends beyond the brain is a complicated
philosophical and theological question; we will touch on this topic in the
chapter on mind uploading.

23
e.g., Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 6:14.
24
1 Corinthians 15:20–23.
25
John 20:19
26
Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13–32.
27
e.g., 2 Maccabees 12:39–45.
28
For a helpful discussion about body memory and theology, see John Swinton, “What the Body
Remembers: Theological Reflections on Dementia,” Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging 26
(2014): 160–172.
152 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Transformation
Transformative resurrection is a type of raising that goes far beyond mere resus-
citation of a dead body. Transformative resurrection means we die and are
raised to new, redesigned, revitalized, and enhanced life. As we have seen,
Paul’s term for this resurrected life is soma pneumatikon, spiritual body.
The spiritual body Paul envisions, however, does not continue in the same
way the pre-resurrection life did as before death. Again, the model is Jesus,29
who was raised to a transformed existence, qualitatively different from the pre-­
resurrection body. New possibilities abound. Jesus appeared and disappeared
before witnesses,30 moved through doors,31 and became invisible.32 The
believer’s raised body, modeled after the resurrected Christ, is believed to be
imperishable, glorious, and powerful. Typical “flesh and blood” it is not. The
perishable, dishonoring, and weak will be transformed.33 Paul says, “He will
transform the body of our humiliation (could be translated, “humble bodies”)
that it may be conformed to the body of his glory (could be translated, “his
glorious body).34 In early Christian end-time thinking, the believer’s
transformation is also part of the anticipated cosmic transformation of a “new
heaven and a new earth.”35
Curious minds can certainly come up with many questions at this point.
What happens when someone dies by being burned up completely in a fire, or
what about cremation? Are the various atoms of that body, now floating all
over the earth, somehow brought back together in the resurrected spiritual
body? Is not the concept of a spiritual body an oxymoron? If spiritual means
non-physical, then in what sense is there a body?
The Corinthians, to whom Paul was writing, were asking the same kinds of
questions. “With what kind of body do they come?”36 Paul’s response to the
curious Corinthians in the very next verse was: “Fool!”37 Paul is not an engineer
or physicist working out all the interesting particularities of his theology of
resurrection. Paul is making theological statements, in this case affirming the
psychosomatic unity of the person, in accord with his Jewish background.
So, one interpretation of the believer’s resurrection is that Christians (and
perhaps others outside the religion, depending on the salvation theory
embraced) will be raised after death in a spiritual body, radically transformed
with enhanced capabilities. A feasible religious interpretation is that cryonics
provides the technological means for how God accomplishes transformational
resurrection.

29
1 Corinthians 15, Romans 8:11.
30
Luke 24:13–43.
31
John 20:26.
32
Acts 9:1–9.
33
1 Corinthians 15:42–43.
34
Philippians 3:21.
35
Revelation 21:1.
36
1 Corinthians 15:35.
37
1 Corinthians 15:36.
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 153

When the cryopreserved person is restored, probably far into the future, we
may then have a menu of tools, such as robotics, tissue regeneration, and
nanotechnology with which to cure and enhance the revived person. Whatever
that future restored body might look like, we can safely say that, compared to
our bodies now, the future version will deserve to be called “transformed.” In
the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions,” we saw that
both the Mormon Transhumanist Association and the Christian Transhumanist
Association support and call for modern enhancement technology, as a crucial
part of God’s plan.
By no means are we suggesting that the ancient scriptural depictions of res-
urrection are literally and directly anticipating technological developments in
the scientific age. They are not. We are suggesting, however, that Paul’s presen-
tation of transformational resurrection can inspire the monotheistic religions
to reach for a vision that remains true to key scriptural and theological princi-
ples while incorporating rapidly advancing enhancement technologies.
Some theologians might object that a newly grown body or a robotically
enhanced body would not be made of the same kind of stuff as that constituting
the person’s body prior being cryopreserved. Paul, however, clearly saw the
resurrected spiritual body as both consistent with the Jewish insistence on
physicality and as different in that the resurrected spiritual body had capabilities
not afforded to the pre-death body. Our point is that if Paul’s spiritual body,
constituted differently than the pre-death body, was theologically acceptable,
then perhaps many strands of the Abrahamic religions might find the revived
cryopreserved body, enhanced via robotics or nanotechnology, acceptable.

Personal Identity
Although radically transformed, Jesus’ identity was not lost. Those who knew
him before the resurrection knew and recognized him after. The disciples
thought they were seeing a spirit, but Jesus said, “See my hands and my feet,
that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you
see that I have.”38 Jesus told Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands;
and put out your hand, and place it in my side.”39 The pre- and post-death
being is like a kernel sown into the field and which grows into a body consistent
with the kind of seed sown.40
This feature of Paul’s vision of the resurrection is the least problematic in
light of a restored cryopreserved person. The philosophical and legal issues
may be more complicated, and we discuss them in the upcoming mind
uploading chapter, but Alcor’s goals and contracts envision that the restored
person is a continuation of the individual who legally died and was cryopreserved.

38
Luke 24:39.
39
John 2:27.
40
1 Corinthians 15:35–41.
154 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

S criptural and Theological Objections

Even if cryonics figures out how to successfully restore a cryopreserved person
in a way that meets the three criteria of physicality, transformation, and
continuation of personal identity, other scriptural and theological objections
can be made.
In the resurrection, Christianity promises the new creation of God will live
in the blissful arms of God, free from sin and suffering. The transhumanist
future, which may include the restoration of cryopreserved people, is anything
but guaranteed to bring in an age of bliss. In fact, as we have seen in other
chapters, serious concerns are being expressed that radical enhancement
technologies may bring all kinds of mischief. Cryopreserving and restoring a
Hitler simply perpetuates evil.
We know of no indisputable response to this concern. We can reasonably
expect that advances will be made in many enhancement domains as we move
into the future. One can hope that moral and spiritual enhancements will bring
us closer to a more virtuous, if not sinless, future by the time we are able to
restore cryopreserved individuals. Maybe the cryonic restoration process would
include moral and spiritual enhancements, along with the physical, cognitive,
and emotional repairs and enhancements. Basing the future prospects of the
world on this hope may very well sound scary and unlikely, so the objection is
a legitimate one.
People of faith might also object to cryonics by asking why the faithful
should resist death so strenuously if life after death with God awaits. The
response depends, at least in part, in how this is broken out into liberal versus
conservative responses. Conservatives focus more on otherworldly concerns;
hence, this objection may carry weight with them. Liberals, however, focus on
this-worldly concerns and might be more inclined to see life as a divine gift that
we are to protect as we work to conform to God’s will and seek justice here
on earth.
It complicates the analysis, but likely muddled into the equation is a fear of
death that many of us have absorbed in our death-denying and death-defying
culture. A middle way forward on this point for people of faith is that we are
neither meant to rush toward death nor to avoid death at any cost. Cryonics
could be seen by religion as one potential way to preserve life as long as cryonics
is not the only option. Death, too, is an option and, from a religious point of
view, death is not the end.
The attempt to show parallels between resurrection and cryonics also runs
into the objection that transformative resurrection results in eternal life and
cryonics’ technological restoration is to a physical body that is still subject to
decay or trauma. This objection is easy to counter in part. The kind of radical
technological restoration that might be coming is going to be ongoing, in the
sense that cryopreservation would always be an option should it be needed
again to give the person time to await whatever additional restorative capabilities
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 155

are needed.41 Of course, an accident or other trauma could damage the embod-
ied person beyond any possible reconstruction such that cryopreservation is
not possible.
Common ground between religion and cryonics that allows for wholesale
embrace of cryonics by the faithful may never be found. However, both the
religious faithful and cryonics advocates agree, at least in general terms, that
death is not necessarily the final word and that there is hope beyond. Perhaps
both groups could agree with this vision asserted by Paul in the Christian
scriptures:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on
immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been
swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is
your sting?”42

Cryonics advocates look to technology and future medicine to fulfill that

hope beyond legal death. The religious faithful depend upon God for that
hope. Whether or not cryonics will be seen as a way religious hope can be
realized is a debate that will continue.

Karmic Religions
Reflection on the intersection of cryonics with the monotheistic religions is
scarce enough. Unfortunately, we have even less analysis regarding the
intersection of cryonics with karmic religions, so we can only begin to speculate
on how that dialogue might go.
A possible objection to cryonics concerns one’s motivations for seeking
preservation. Karmic religions are concerned about attachment to the body as
constituent of one’s identity. Using Buddhism as an example, this religion
views all phenomena as impermanent. The desire to identify with the
impermanent body yields suffering. So, to the degree that interest in cryonics
is fueled by a desire to maintain the body, it is an unhealthy desire that hinders
spiritual progress.
Finally, the karmic notion, as in Hinduism, that we have a soul, can fit
loosely into a cryonics scenario. Cryonics is concerned with the preservation of
who we are, identified as our memory and personality. If soul can be understood
as a word that entails who we are in our deepest selves, then cryonics is about
preserving that into future bodies. Neuropreservation (i.e., head only) is
particularly compatible with the idea that there is some “part” of us, located in
the brain, that is our essence and can be transferred to future “incarnations.”

41
The discussion of LEV, the Longevity Escape Velocity, in the chapter, “Superlongevity,” is
relevant here.
42
1 Corinthians 15:54–55.
156 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Ethical Issues

What It Means to Make Us Better: The Therapy—

Enhancement Continuum
In this framing of the issue, therapeutic interventions are generally accepted if
the risks do not outweigh the possible benefits. Enhancements, however, raise
concern, and the more extreme the enhancement the more concern. Key to the
analysis in this section is the location of cryonics on the continuum and religious
views of what makes enhancing technology good and, therefore,
potentially acceptable. Recall that “normal” is not necessarily the dividing
point between acceptable and unacceptable on this continuum. For Judaism
and Christianity, the dividing point may be the point at which we are perceived
as no longer living as a created image of God.
Cryonics’ advocates often attempt to position cryonics on the therapeutic,
and therefore acceptable, side of the continuum. They might suggest, for
example, that cryopreserved individuals are patients and that being
cryopreserved is somewhat like being in a coma. A significant difference is
coma patients do not choose to be in a coma, although medically induced
comas may be an exception to that. Still, any contention that cryonics is an
extension of current life-saving medicine helps normalize cryonics.
Critics contend that using chemicals to supposedly save a legally dead per-
son for perhaps centuries and then try to revive them is, on its face, extreme
and anything but therapy. Despite its pro-healing stance, religion does not
automatically support any medical intervention, especially if the risks are
sometimes judged to outweigh the possible benefits, and extreme interventions
that may not yield healing results are highly controversial. There are limits on
how far to go to preserve life. For example, there is debate in the religions
about “do not resuscitate” orders (DNRs), nutritional gastro-intestinal tubes
when the patient cannot eat or drink, respirators to sustain breathing, and
other artificial means of keeping people alive. Intense debate also surrounds
using measures to hasten death.
The karmic religions are interested in generating the most good karma,
thereby enhancing one’s spiritual state in the next life. Cryonics is a moot point
for critics of cryonics who believe the “patients” are actually dead. In this case,
the soul has already moved on. For followers of the karmic traditions who do
accept the premise of cryonics, the issue becomes how much and what kind of
karma is generated from choosing cryonics.
Followers of the monotheistic faiths ask what action is in keeping with divine
will; the answer usually does not involve extreme measures. Roman Catholic
Christians, for example, are usually opposed to extreme measures to sustain
life, although once extreme measures have been started, then generally one is
not allowed to hasten death by stopping these measures.43

43
A. Mackler, Introduction to Jewish and Catholic Bioethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press, 2003).
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 157

The definition of death and regard for the body will be important factors in
assessing the ethical acceptability of cryonics. Because of the sanctity of the
human body, it is difficult to imagine that most Jewish people would permit
neuropreservation. Cryopreservation as well presents the complication of not
being certain about death, since revival is not assured. Some rabbis see death as
occurring only if a return to life is impossible. Others interpret death as the
irreversible cessation of respiration. Cryonics puts the question of irreversibleness
up in the air.
Certain rituals also come into play and obviously depend on whether one is
believed dying or is dead. In Judaism, sometimes the dying person shares what
is called an ethical will in which they identify values and guidance from their
journey in life. The confession of sins just before death is a traditional practice
in Judaism and Christianity. Ritual purification and accompaniment of the
body immediately following death is important in Judaism. All of these practices
are complicated by cryonics. For example, should one confess their sins in case
later attempts at revival are unsuccessful?
In the Abrahamic religions, divine sovereignty, however it is specifically
interpreted, usually means that people belong to God. Our lives are on loan
from God, and humans are charged with being good stewards of their finite
lives. Cryonics can be seen as “playing God,” as crossing the line from what it
means to be created in God’s image as a mortal, limited creature, to a risky,
unproven bid to enhance beyond the divine mandate. The comeback from
religious followers who choose cryonics is that they are honoring God’s
creation by using God-given technology to preserve and safeguard the divine
gift of life.
Cryonics is new ground. Religions will have to decide if cryonics is sustain-
ing life or only complicating death, especially if more people become interested
in cryopreservation.

Choice
Choosing cryonics may simply be seen as a far-fetched way to spend lots of
money or a desperate attempt to avoid dying. Either way, we may shrug our
shoulders and say it is up to the individual to choose. But, as pointed out many
times in this textbook, individual choices affect far more than the individual
making the choice.
Potential ethical implications of a choice for cryopreservation include the
allocation of a significant amount of money to be cryopreserved and possible
relational issues. We have discussed the financial issue in other contexts. At this
point, cryonics is not chosen by large numbers of people. For those who do
choose it, there are likely to be family members with a variety of concerns about
finances, false hopes, disposition of the family member’s body, and others.
Depending upon the significance of the relevant rituals practices and beliefs of
those affected, these concerns in themselves may or may not be sufficient to
make a choice for cryonics unethical. The point is that choices we make,
158 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

including about cryonics, impacts others, often significantly. Good ethical

reasoning takes this impact into account.
If cryonics were to be made widely available, new questions will arise about
choice. Perhaps everyone should have an equal right to be cryopreserved. We
can anticipate, however, that a counterargument would be made. Should mass
murderers, for example, be allowed use of the technology, and who should get
to decide such questions?

Justice
We have seen that a common criticism of radical enhancement technologies is
that, even if acceptable on other grounds, they will be the privilege of the
wealthy and powerful class. With the expense involved in both whole body
cryopreservation (200,000 US dollars) and neuropreservation (80,000 US
dollars),44 a concern about the just distribution of opportunities has been
raised. The religious traditions, especially in their more liberal versions, insist
that life-giving opportunities be fairly distributed.
Two responses can be made to this criticism. First, advocates of cryonics
contend that individuals and societies constantly make decisions about
expensive medical treatments, and cryonics should not be viewed any differently.
In other words, if an individual with the financial means chooses to expend
their resources on cryonics, they should have that right, just as another
individual should have the right to expend their resources on an expensive
heart transplant procedure. This response, comparing cryopreservation to
other medical procedures in cost, does not address the distributive justice
concern. It just underscores the widespread nature of inequities and related
social and distributive justice issues.
A second response about the cost of cryonics is that the industry has actually
developed a way that some low-income people can afford to enroll to be
cryopreserved. Life insurance is relatively inexpensive, and affordable, for most
young people who are healthy. So, access to the expensive whole body
preservation or neuropreservation procedures can be achieved by paying for
life insurance and signing over the policy to a cryonics company, such as Alcor
or Cryonics Institute. Alcor claims that most of its members are middle-class
and are funding cryonics through life insurance.45
This creative approach to funding expensive cryopreservation does address
the distributive justice concern, but only for one population, namely, young,
healthy individuals. The concern about prohibitive costs remains for all other
low-income, low-wealth people, and the result is a familiar one for expensive
radical enhancements—the wealthy class lives longer and becomes even more
powerful.

These are Alcor’s costs, as discussed earlier in this chapter.

44

Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Cryonics Myths.” https://www.alcor.org/cryomyths.

45

html#myth4.
 8 CRYONICS: BURIED, BURNED, OR … FROZEN 159

With cryonics, since no cryopreserved person has been revived, the future of
that person upon revival is unknown, making the benefit-risk calculation
harder. There are a number of possibilities. The ideal scenario is that the person
is revived successfully, with their mental faculties intact, and the technologies
that have become available since that person was cryopreserved can provide for
them a healthy life of indefinite length. Perhaps the renewed life can come with
options of cognitive, affective, moral, and spiritual enhancements. That
possibility is justification enough for many who embrace a proactionary stance.
It may also be the case that cryopreservation quickly, or at least somewhat
quickly, becomes available and accessible to people of diverse social classes and
geographical location.
Concerns from a precautionary perspective include the risk of the revival
falling short, perhaps far short, of the ideal scenario. Perhaps the revival is
compromised in ways that leave the person with significant cognitive, affective,
or other deficits that entail great suffering. Or, perhaps the person is revived
fully functioning, but finds themselves in a world to which they cannot
successfully adapt, because of financial or other challenges. Keep in mind that
it may be hundreds or thousands of years before cryopreserved people can be
successfully revived, if ever, and the world will have changed considerably in
that time. And, it may be that significant aspects of the person’s identity are lost
if identity turns out to extend beyond the brain. There is also the risk of
increased social and distributive injustice.

Questions for Discussion

1. Would you consider cryonics for yourself? Why or why not?

2. If you would not consider cryonics, would your answer change if your
close family members chose cryonics?
3. When do you think death occurs? Why do you think this?
4. How would you differentiate spending tens of thousands of dollars on
being preserved through cryonics from spending that money on a second
home in the mountains, cosmetic surgery, food for those who are in
need, or a needed heart transplant? Consider your top five values in
your response.
5. Why do you think younger generations are interested in cryonics?
6. What challenges, other than the ones we have discussed, can you identify
for someone who is cryopreserved today and revived, for example, 1000
years from now?
7. Can you think of any other relevant religious arguments either for or
against cryonics not discussed in this chapter?
8. Reflect on how you think cryonics, as a thought experiment, might help
us to re-consider religious thinking. Identify examples.
 CHAPTER 9

Mind Uploading: Cyber Beings and Digital

Immortality

Technology

Whole Brain Emulation

“Whole brain emulation” is the technical term for what is commonly called
“mind uploading” and sometimes “mind copying” or “mind transfer.” It refers
to copying the information (i.e., memory and personality) in the brain into a
digital substrate (part of a computer). Mind uploading is the stuff of science
fiction that has made its way into serious conversation about transhumanist
possibilities.
Calling this procedure “mind” uploading treads into very complex ques-
tions about the definition of mind. Mind can be understood as a general term,
a concept, that refers to particular mental states, such as desire, emotion, per-
ception, intention, belief, and others.1 We will address, in a limited way, philo-
sophical questions as they are useful in our theological conversations. This
chapter is not a thorough introduction to all the philosophical issues relevant
to whole brain emulation. Our purpose is to stimulate thinking about the inter-
section of mind uploading and religion, drawing on some philosophy to help
shed light on this intersection.
Although major technical barriers must be crossed, and there is plenty of
disagreement about the scientific feasibility of mind uploading, some thought-
ful critics assert mind uploading will be achievable at some point. Although
spoken over three decades ago, Hans Peter Moravec, associated with the
Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, articulated a view still held by
many transhumanists, that a human being is

See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949); and
1

David Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 161

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_9
162 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

… the pattern and the process going on in my head and body, not the machinery
supporting that process. If the process is preserved, I am preserved. The rest is
mere jelly.2 (italics are original)

Ray Kurzweil’s is a familiar transhumanist vision along the same lines:

Up until now, our mortality was tied to the longevity of our hardware. When the
hardware crashed, that was it… As we cross the divide to instantiate ourselves into
our computational technology, our identity will be based on our evolving mind
file. We will be software, not hardware… When the hardware is trillions of times
more capable, there is no reason for our minds to stay so small. They can and will
grow. As software, our mortality will no longer be dependent on the survival of
the computing circuitry. There will still be hardware and bodies, but the essence
of our identity will switch to the permanence of our software.3 (italics are original)

How to Transfer a Mind

In a previous chapter, we introduced Nick Bostrom, a philosopher who directs
the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. In addressing the tech-
nical aspects of mind uploading Bostrom details the several steps required for
mind uploading.4 In summary, a thorough scan allows for reconstructing the
three-dimensional neuronal network of a brain. This network information is
combined with models of how the neurons function and then is placed in a
powerful computer, providing an active digital simulation of the scanned brain.
Basically, we scan the structure of a brain and construct a software model of
it that would behave essentially the same way as the scanned brain. Experimental
work is already occurring on smaller animal brains. Incremental technical
advances mean lower grade emulations will prepare the way for higher grades
and, perhaps eventually, high-fidelity emulations. Bostrom admits that a good
bit of technical progress, although attainable, is yet needed for success with
humans. But, he says,

The whole brain emulation path does not require that we figure out how human
cognition works or how to program an artificial intelligence. It requires only that
we understand the low-level functional characteristics of the basic computational

2
Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University, 1988), 117.
3
Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
(New York: Penguin, 1999), 128–29. See also Ray Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind (New York:
Viking, 2012).
4
See his book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014). See also Randal A. Loene, “Feasible Mind Uploading,” 90–102, in Russell Blackford and
Damien Broderick, eds. Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds (West
Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014); and Robin Hanson, The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When
Robots Rule the Earth (Oxford: Oxford University, 2016).
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 163

elements of the brain. No fundamental conceptual or theoretical breakthrough is

needed for whole brain emulation to succeed.5

With the tagline “Promoting R&D for Whole Brain Emulation,” Dutch
neuroscientist and neuroengineer Randal A. Koene founded the company,
Carboncopies.6 On the website, it is admitted there is much to accomplish
before mind uploading can be achieved, but calls whole brain emulation “the
most promising technological path to overcoming our fundamental limitations
as a species.” A good bit of technical information is provided on the website, in
a way accessible to non-specialists.
Current medical technology places neural implants into the human brain.
We have used these implants mainly for brain stimulation in the treatment of
clinical depression or Parkinson’s Disease. But other implants are being devel-
oped. Whole brain emulation adds a new direction to such efforts, potentially
moving the “mind” into a computer—largely uncharted territory.
While moving (i.e., uploading) one mind into one computer is the usual
vision of mind uploading enthusiasts, various uploading possibilities may
unfold. The source (i.e., original) mind may survive, or it may be destroyed in
the uploading procedure. Perhaps more than one upload is achieved. Maybe
the mind is uploaded into the Cloud, providing for a different set of issues. Ray
Kurzweil thinks that the mind uploading will happen so gradually that we will
not notice the transfer.7 The more cynical view that it is ridiculous to think this
project will ever work, is shared by many and captured in in this blunt quote:
Mind uploading is “nothing more than a novel way to commit suicide.”8
Matthew Zaro Fisher articulates the varied possibilities at play between the
extremes of a perfect upload and certain death. Fisher asks whether whole brain
emulation:

… would produce the person in his or her full sense of self-presence, produce an
‘echo’ of one’s self-presence, produce a second person with a distinct self-­presence
(something like an echo-twin), or would merely be a pattern of data running with
“nobody home.”9

5
Ibid., 30.
6
Carboncopies. https://carboncopies.org/.
7
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (London: Penguin
Books, 2005), 202.
8
Nicholas Agar, “Kurzweil and Uploading: Just Say No!” Journal of Evolution and Technology 22
(2011): 27.
9
“More Human than Human? Toward a ‘Transhumanist’ Christian Theological Anthropology,”
in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin
Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015), 26. If mind uploading results in
a new intelligent, sentient being, the religions will have to address whether and how to embrace
them. For a discussion of this, see Calvin Mercer, “A Theological Embrace of Transhuman and
Posthuman Beings,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 72/2 (June 2020) 1–6.
164 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

The basic idea in Fisher’s quote is fleshed out in a blog post from
Carboncopies, the research company introduced earlier:

The road to emulation is a gradual incline with many stages and milestones.
Undeniably, the first case of a successful emulated human mind will have a
huge impact on the world and make its mark in our history books. It will also
likely be far less sudden and unexpected than we might tend to imagine. Building
an emulation is best done in stages. For example, treating each section of the
brain as separate emulation projects would be easier to focus on than tackling the
entire brain at once. There will be successful emulations of sections of the brain
before they can operate as one complete operating substrate. … Progress will be
marked by emulations of animal brains with increasing cognitive complexity. This
is why subjects such as the fruit fly drosophila and the nematode worm
Caenorhabditis elegans are prime initial emulation subjects. It will also be a mas-
sive cooperation effort. Teams from all over the world are already working on
various research and development projects that ultimately help get us to whole
brain emulation. … Therefore, when the day comes to witness the first successful
human emulation it will be more like a sigh of relief for all the hard work rather
than some grander surprise.10

Sometimes whole brain emulation is compared to “mindcloning,” that is,

creating a digital version of one’s mind. “Mindware” software activates a
“mindfile,” a digital repository of memories, feelings, and thoughts.11 A mind-
clone, while beginning as a replica of a human mind, may develop its own
identity in the context of ongoing interactions and is, therefore, gaining atten-
tion in conversations about transhumanism.12 While mindcloning may provide
a historical record of who you are and perhaps software that can activate the
record, if it stops short of an evolving, continuing consciousness it is not com-
pelling to those who want to survive as a conscious personal identity.

It seems that I gain no advantage unless I, Russell, obtain an extended period of

life and other benefits. Perhaps it might be nice to think my digital twin will enjoy
the benefits, but that is merely a consolation prize. The real prize is that I will be
able to live much longer, perhaps even enjoying immortality, and that I will be
enhanced in various other ways. If I’m to obtain the advantages of uploading,
there must be some sense in which the upload is the original me, or in which I
have survived as the upload.13

10
Carbon Copies, “Recent Posts.” https://carboncopies.org/what-will-the-first-substrate-
independent-mind-look-like/.
11
Martine Rothblatt, Virtually Human: The Promise—and Peril—of Digital Immortality (New
York: St. Martin’s, 2014).
12
Steve Fuller discusses the work of Rothblatt, with regard to mindclones, in Nietzschean
Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era,. Posthuman Studies 1, ed.
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), 118–24.
13
Russell Blackford, “Introduction II: Bring on the Machines,” in Intelligence Unbound: The
Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, 11–25, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick
(West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 17.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 165

Religious Issues
In this section we address a number of complicated issues related to whole
brain emulation. These issues are about what it means to be a human person,
as understood by religious traditions. Much of the background for our discus-
sion here was laid in the earlier chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and
the Religions.” Mind uploading raises many of the same religious and ethical
issues as cryonics. So, while we attempt to assess things with a broad religious
lens, Christianity serves as the primary illustration of religious issues, and our
discussion hopefully will serve as stimulus for an expansion of the conversation
into other religions.
In the biblical tradition, a fundamental idea is that human beings are created
in the image of God (Latin, imago Dei), first found in the ancient Israelite cre-
ation story14 and a notion commanding much attention from biblical scholars
and theologians through the centuries. The image of God has been understood
in several ways,15 giving emphasis to our rationality, free will, agency in the
world, or some other feature. An interpretation that has come into favor is that
the image of God means that human beings are relational, exhibited in our
relationship with the creator God and with each other. Of course, the image of
God can be multifaceted, incorporating more than one of these components.
We will keep the image of God as an overarching theme as we work though this
section.
As expressed by advocates, the main interest in whole brain emulation is to
preserve who we are, our personal identity, into a host more reliable than our
physical bodies. For Hinduism, to take one example of a karmic religion, the
soul is the deep essence of who we are; the religious question has to do with
whether mind uploading transfers the soul to the new platform. As compli-
cated a theological question as that might be, Buddhist theology on this issue
is likely to be even more labyrinthine, with its somewhat mystifying notion of
“no-self.”

Physicality
Mind uploading raises a host of complicated theological questions. The role of
the body is a fundamental one, since transhumanists are often critiqued as
viewing the person as patterns of information that are not necessarily tied to
the biological body.16 Relatedly, Jewish and Christian theologians, who affirm
the importance of embodiment, are concerned about what they perceive

14
Genesis 1:26–28.
15
For a review of options presented in the context of transhumanism, see Jeanine Thweatt-Bates,
Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman (Burlington: VT: Ashgate Publishing,
2012), 109–17.
16
Secular advocates of whole brain uploading do tend to minimize the role of our bodies. See,
e.g., Ray Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind, and Hans Morevac, Mind Children: The Future of Robot
and Human Intelligence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).
166 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

(sometimes rightly) to be transhumanism’s denigration of the body biological,

therefore making some transhumanist projects like mind uploading theologi-
cally problematic.17 In two previous chapters, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman,
and the Religions” and “Cryonics,” we gave some background regarding
monotheistic religions and the importance of the created material world in
general and the human body in particular in understanding personhood. As
with cryonics, most reflection on mind uploading and religion has addressed
monotheistic religions only.18
In the main, monotheistic religions, stemming from the biblical tradition,
understand the body to be an essential aspect of a person. In other words, a
human being is a psychosomatic unity of body and soul. We are not body, soul,
spirit, mind, or other distinct parts somehow glued together. Rather, these
words express dimensions or aspects of the holistic integrated person.
Indigenous traditions, perhaps more than any other way of being religious
or spiritual, emphasize the interconnectedness of a person’s multiple aspects,
including spirit, affect, cognition, and physical being. The medicine wheel, an
important part of Indigenous wisdom, illustrates how healing is understood as
necessarily having multiple dimensions.19 Healing from addiction, for example,
is entwined with spiritual and cognitive healing. Many Indigenous people see
traditional medicine as complementary to or blending with allopathic medicine.
With this theological anthropology as background, the concept of resurrec-
tion, found in ancient Judaism and most extensively expressed in early
Christianity, is a bodily resurrection event. The whole person is raised, not just
the soul. In previous chapters, we distinguished (1) resurrection as resuscita-
tion from the dead and (2) resurrection of the believer to a transformed life

17
See., e.g., discussions in Amy Michelle DeBaets, “Rapture of the Geeks: Singularitarianism,
Feminism, and the Yearning for Transcendence,” in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, 181–98, eds. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Santa Barbara,
CA: Praeger, 2015), 183–84; Jeanine Thweatt-Bates, Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of
the Posthuman (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2012), 73–80; Hannah Scheidt, “The
Fleshless Future: A Phenomenological Perspective on Mind Uploading,” 315–28, in Religion and
Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, eds. Calvin Mercer and Tracy
J. Trothen (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2015), 315–28; Noreen Herzfeld, “Cybernetic Immortality
versus Christian Resurrection,” 192–201, in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments,
eds. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Walker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); and
Ted Peters, Anticipating Omega: Science, Faith, and Our Ultimate Future, in the series Religion,
Theology and Natural Science 7 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 130–31, 119.
18
Much of the material in this chapter is an adaptation from Calvin Mercer’s publications,
including “Whole Brain Emulation Requires Enhanced Theology, and a ‘Handmaiden,’” Theology
and Science 13, no. 2 (April 2015): 175–86; and “A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain
Emulation: On the Path to Superintelligence,” Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values,
and Morality, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 89–104, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of
Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2017).
19
Robert C. Twigg, Thomas Hengen, and Marlyn Bennett, “Going Back to the Roots: Using
the Medicine Wheel in the Healing Process,” First Peoples Child & Family Review 4, no. 1
(November 30, 2008): 10–19.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 167

with new abilities and possibilities. We coined the term “transformational res-
urrection” for this second kind of raising.
The apostle Paul, the influential early Christian writer who wrote about
transformational resurrection, used the term soma pneumatikon20 (literally
“body spiritual”) to refer to this transformed life. The Christian scriptures indi-
cate that Paul understood that the body, upon death, would be transformed in
a similar way to that of the resurrected Jesus Christ, whose bodily resurrection
allowed him to move through closed doors21 and miraculously appear on a
remote road.22 As with the resurrected Christ, the transformation converts the
person’s perishable,23 dishonoring,24 and weak25 body to one that is
imperishable,26 glorious,27 and powerful.28 Importantly, as with Christ, the new
life of the one resurrected, while dramatically changed for the age to come, is a
clear continuation of the pre-resurrection person.29
An objection to interpreting mind uploading as transformational resurrec-
tion is that eternal (i.e., resurrected) life and indefinite existence in a digital
substrate are different in that resurrection is to eternal life and mind uploading
is a continuation of this life. That is true. However, if people start living for
hundreds or thousands of years, then notions of the life to come will surely be
reinterpreted. Very possibly, death—as we think of it now—as the dividing line
between this life and the life to come could recede to the background.
Karmic religions that postulate a soul that moves from body to body, from
life to life, may be better positioned than the monotheistic traditions to appre-
ciate and accept mind uploading as a technological means of reincarnation. It
would not be simple, however. These traditions would then need to reinterpret
death as somehow being included in the uploading process. If the upload is
successful in transferring consciousness, then it is not clear the soul has been
reincarnated. Perhaps a successful upload will serve only as a way to enhance
the current incarnation of the soul.

Embodied Cognition
The ancient scriptural insistence on body in the monotheistic religions actually
finds support in current scientific thinking. Research on cognition has moved
away from seeing the rest of the body as peripheral to the brain. Exerts now
generally see cognition as intertwined with the body in its dynamic interaction

20
1 Corinthians 15:44.
21
John 20:19.
22
Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13–32.
23
1 Corinthians 15:42.
24
1 Corinthians 15:43.
25
Ibid.
26
1 Corinthians 15:42.
27
1 Corinthians 15:43.
28
Ibid.
29
1 Corinthians 15:35–44.
168 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

with the natural and sentient environment. As we learned in the chapter on

“Cryonics,” a case can be made for “body memory” that is not confined to
the brain.30
The operative term is “embodied cognition,” what one author called “the
missing link between robotics and AI.”31 For over two decades, a human-like,
embodied approach to robotics has prevailed. In Japan, a leader in robotics, the
human form apparently plays an especially important role in robot develop-
ment, perhaps due in large part to the notion of unity of the material and spiri-
tual in Japanese religions. Notice the subtitle to an important work in this field:
“Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again.”32 Andy Clark,
the author, makes the point that minds are for doing, and, so, require a body.
Embodied cognition raises the question of how can the mind be distin-
guished from the body in order to be uploaded? To put it another way, how
can the memory and personality in the brain be separated from the rest of the
body? There are 80–90 billion neurons in the brain, all constantly changing
and many of which are critically connected to other neurons outside the brain.
The buzz of activity in the brain entails input-output interaction with processes
ongoing in the rest of the body. The 100 trillion bacteria living in our gut can
cause depression and anxiety. With neurons, chemical transmitters, and micro-
biotic entities, we are a surging hormonal package, providing a basis for the
argument that that the mind, or self, is inseparable from the flesh and
blood body.33
If our mind or self is not reducible to memory and personality, stored as
information only in the brain, then a mind upload, leaving the body behind,
would not accomplish the purpose of moving the whole person into a new
host. Whole brain emulation could leave behind significant dimensions of who
we are. Musicians, artists, and athletes often describe the experience of their
bodies knowing what to do, without engagement of the thinking process. A
type of automatic pilot sets in, animated by the hands, legs, arms, or other
aspects of the embodied self. The brain may not be the sole center of thought.
One might, in theory, envision that the new technological body could be
outfitted with all the necessary chemical connector processes. In this way, the

30
John Swinton, “What the Body Remembers: Theological Reflections on Dementia,” Journal
of Religion, Spirituality & Aging 26 (2014): 160–172.
31
Anat Ringel Raveh and Boaz Tamir, “From Homo Sapiens to Robo Sapiens: The Evolution of
Intelligence,” 197–215, in AI and the Singularity: A Fallacy or Great Opportunity? eds. Robert
K. Logan and Adriana Braga (Basel: MDPI, 2020; originally published in Information [December
21, 2018]) 210. The authors go on to argue that embodied cognition “…should not be thought
of as an imposition on AI but as a new challenge,” p. 210.
32
Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1997). From an explicitly theological perspective, see Victoria Lorrimar, “Mind
Uploading and Embodied Cognition: A Theological Response,” Zygon 54, no. 1 (3/19): 191–206.
33
Noreen Herzfeld makes this general point well in “Must We Die? Transhumanism, Religion,
and the Fear of Death,” in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds.
Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors,
series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 290–91.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 169

mind upload could be embodied in a behavior-based robot that interacts with

its environment much like humans do now. This does, most definitely, compli-
cate things technically. Any simplistic analogy, such as moving a hard drive file
to a flash drive, breaks down.

What Kind of Body?

Given the centrality of body in the monotheistic religions, one might conclude
that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would reject mind uploading, because the
body, as we usually think of it, is being left behind in the mind uploading pro-
cedure. But there are counterarguments. For example, in ancient Christianity,
the first-century Corinthians put a question to the Apostle Paul that highlights
the issue. “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”34
The emphases in italics are, of course, ours.
Does “body” have to be flesh and blood? That is a critical question for a
theological assessment of mind uploading. The early Christians in Corinth
wanted to know what “kind” of body they would have in the resurrection life.
Clearly, for Paul it is a transformed body that has continuity with but is quite
different from the biological body. The new life is lived in a body that is, as we
have seen, imperishable, glorious, and powerful. In fact, Paul explicitly says
that “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God … we shall all be
changed.”35 Here is how one author worded his rhetorical question:

… why does a biological body take priority over an artificial body, when both are
made up of different combinations of elements on the periodic table?36

We have made the point in other contexts that technology for one kind of
human enhancement (e.g., whole brain emulation) is not likely to develop in
isolation from additional enhancing technologies. By the time, whenever it is,
mind uploading capability is here, other related developments, such as robotics
and tissue engineering, will surely have matured. Ray Kurzweil was introduced
in an earlier chapter and is the most well-known transhumanist enthusiast and
advocate. His vision, referred to in a previous chapter, is well-known and merits
repeating in this context:

By the time we have the tools to capture and re-create a human brain with all of
its subtleties, we will have plenty of options for twenty-first-century bodies for
both nonbiological humans and biological humans who avail themselves of exten-
sions to our intelligence. The human body version 2.0 will include virtual bodies

34
1 Corinthians 15:35.
35
1 Corinthians 15: 50–51.
36
Matthew Zaro Fisher, “More Human Than the Human? Toward a ‘Transhumanist’ Christian
Theological Anthropology,” in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, eds. Calvin Mercer and Tracy Trothen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015), 29.
170 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

in completely realistic virtual environments, nanotechnology-based physical bod-

ies, and more.37

The often-ignored aesthetic dimensions of transhumanism have been well

presented by American designer and artist, and transhumanist, Natasha Vita-­
More.38 For example, in a project named “Primo Posthuman,” she designed a
future body prototype and imagined, through art, how that might look.39 She
is currently Executive Director of the leading transhumanist organization,
humanity+, discussed in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and
the Religions.”
The theological implications of the emphasis on embodiment in the cogni-
tive sciences are considerable. A mind would not necessarily be uploaded into
a cold, faceless piece of hardware. Embodiment does not have to be biological,
but even a biological scenario is not unrealistic. While the field of tissue regen-
eration is focused on therapeutic goals, it could play a role in enhancing the
robotic target platform for a mind upload. Even with current capability, the
machine hosting the emulation could have a natural skin-like surface and
robotic arms, much like we saw in the fictional movie, Avatar.
Robots are likely to play increasingly interactive roles in our lives, as the
artificial intelligence (AI) field gives more attention to interaction with the
environment. An uploaded mind could take advantage of all the advances in
robotics to construct alternative body platforms. Although beyond the scope
of this chapter, the question of virtual bodies and their relationship to the
important embodiment discussion, will find its way into this ongoing
conversation.
Allopathic medicine has long been taking us down a path that goes beyond
flesh and blood. Many of us are already cyborgs with pacemakers, artificial
knees, metal pins and plates, and cochlear implants. It is a bigger leap, for sure,
but perhaps a mind uploaded into a robot body could be one way of expressing
the transformation Paul envisions. Whether or not that proves to be a case is
likely to be the subject of much debate among theologians.

37
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking,
2005), 199. See especially Chaps. 5 and 6.
38
See, e.g., Natasha Vita-More, “Aesthetics: Bringing the Arts and Design into the Discussion
of Transhumanism,” in The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the
Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, 18–27, eds. More, Max and Natasha Vita-
More (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); and “Life Expansion Media,” in The
Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy
of the Human Future, 73–82, eds. More, Max and Natasha Vita-More (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2013).
39
Natasha Vita-More, “The New [human] Genre—Primo Posthuman,” Presentation at Ciber@
RT Conference (Bilboa, Spain: 2004). http://www.natasha.cc/paper.htm. See also Vita-More,
“The Posthuman Future—Interview with Natasha Vita-More,” Studio 360 (November 4, 2011).
http://www.wnyc.org/story/233794-posthuman-future/; and Natasha Vita-More, “Design of
Life Expansion and the Human Mind,” in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and
Machine Minds, 240–47, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex, UK: Wiley
Blackwell, 2014), 17.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 171

Personal Identity
Even if we can conceptualize mind uploading in a way that meets the reli-
gion’s scriptural and theological criterion for a body, we are still not there yet.
Here we jump into the complicated topic of personal identity and turn for
help to the discipline of philosophy.40 Theology often address topics that are,
fundamentally, philosophical issues, and at times it can help to turn to phi-
losophy for input. We do not want to get too involved in the thorny philo-
sophical issue of personal identity. It is, however, important to lay out the
basic problem. This will likely be one of the most difficult parts of the text-
book to understand.

 onda Accord, Or Not

H
One problem in personal identity is illustrated in the ancient Theseus’ Paradox,
which we have encountered earlier in the textbook. Articulated by Plutarch in
the first century, the question is whether a ship, in this case the ship of Theseus,
where every part has been replaced over time, is still the same ship. We can
modernize the illustration by thinking about a particular vehicle today. We use
a Honda Accord vehicle as our example. Over the years, the owner has replaced
many parts of the Accord. Of course, if the owner replaced every part at the
same time (we are not sure what this would look like down at the mechanic
shop), then the Accord is being replaced by another Accord.
However, gradual replacement over a period of years of all the parts com-
plicates the question. Even if gradually over the next decade the owner
replaces every single part of the Honda Accord, the owner still considers it
the same Honda Accord. Over time, every atom of the matter that makes up
our bodies is replaced. So, like the ship of Theseus and the Honda Accord,
we are not constituted by the same material as several years previously.
However, we—and the law—consider ourselves to be the same personal
identity as at birth.

40
An excellent discussion of whole brain emulation, from a respected philosopher who is favor-
able to the possibility of uploading consciousness, is David J. Chalmers, “Uploading: A
Philosophical Analysis,” 102–19, in Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick, eds. Intelligence
Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds (West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
Careful critiques of Chalmers are provided by Massimo Pigliucci, “Mind Uploading: A Philosophical
Counter-Analysis,” 119–31, in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds,
eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), arguing
that consciousness and self-identity are biological phenomena; and Joseph Corabi and Susan
Schneider, “If You Upload, Will You Survive?” 131–45, in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of
Uploaded and Machine Minds, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex, UK:
Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
172 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

 he Same Thing
T
A related philosophical distinction that can be important as we move forward
in this conversation is the different ways the word “same” is used. There is a
difference between (1) Some thing being qualitatively the same, i.e., identical,
to some other thing, and (2) Some thing being numerically identical, i.e., the
same thing. In case (1), “identical” is being used as meaning “exactly similar.”
In (2), “identical” does not mean “exactly similar.” In this strict philosophical
sense, identity is the relationship a thing has with itself.41
There are several philosophical theories of personal identity. The leading
theory is the mental states theory, sometimes called the psychological theory of
personal identity. It goes back to the seventeenth century philosopher John
Locke and his influential Essay Concerning Human Understanding.42
Locke’s theory, as amended by current philosophers, is that personal iden-
tity continuity entails overlapping or connected chains of mental states, such as
memories, beliefs, intentions, desires, and character traits. So, the elements of
our body may change over the years, but there is a psychological/mental con-
tinuity over time that makes the authors writing this textbook, and you the
readers reading this textbook, the same persons that we all were years ago
at birth.
The philosophy of personal identity is relevant, because this psychological
theory of identity may appear to support the continuation of who we are into
an upload. The theory’s focus is not on body but on memory or mental states
that can, at least theoretically, be copied and uploaded into a computer.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story.
Locke has a problem and so do those who think who we are can be uploaded
into a computer. It is called the “duplication objection.” A copy of something,
whether it is a sheet of paper sliding off the photocopier glass, or a mind, is not
the same numerically identical thing as the original. It is a copy. A copy of the
self (or mind), no matter how perfect, cannot be numerically identical to that
self. Using the example we introduced above, we take a perfect mold of every
single part of the Honda Accord, including the scratches on the passenger
door, and make an exact copy. It is not the same, i.e., numerically identical,
Honda Accord. It is still a copy.
We can drive home the point with an existential example. Here is how
Professor Calvin Mercer, one of your authors, put it in an article on whole
brain emulation:

Logic guides us here, on the principle that two things, different from one another,
cannot be identical to the same thing. Logic also seems to confirm intuition. If
technology achieves a silicon copy of your brain, will you be comfortable that the
copy is you, even if the copy contains the information or information patterns
that give rise to your memory, beliefs, ambitions, feelings, intentions, and

Chalmers, “Uploading: A Philosophical Analysis,” 108.

41

See Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), especially Book II, chapter 27. http://
42

www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2.pdf.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 173

­ ersonality? Put more grossly, imagine you are suffering from an incurable and
p
painful disease and your doctor produces a copy of your brain and says she is
ready to give the original you a lethal injection, because your memories, beliefs,
and character traits are in the digital substrate ready to continue living. Will you
ask for the needle?43

The problem comes into even greater focus when we think about making
several copies. If we develop the ability to copy a mind once, presumably we
can copy it twice or ten times. We do not have ten “yous” out there, because a
copy is not the same (numerically identical) as the original. However, we have
ten copies that are qualitatively—but not numerically—the same as the original
you. This raises all kinds of theological, ethical, and legal questions, as well as
the philosophical one. What is the relationship of the various copies to one
another and to the original? This duplication argument seems fatal to the idea
that personal identity is preserved in an upload. But, there may be a way around
this duplication objection.

S urvival, Not Identity

We here peel off another layer of this complicated philosophical issue, which
has religious implications. Perhaps what matters is not the continuation of per-
sonal identity, but, rather, survival. Reputable philosophers such as Derek
Parfit44 have argued that psychological continuity provides survival, and this is
what matters, even if what is surviving is not the exact same (i.e., numerically
identical) person. It may seem as if we are just playing with words here, but the
survival theory does address the serious duplication objection.
If personal identity is not continued in the mind upload, then we need to
address the nature and status of the upload, or uploads. Theologically, from the
monotheistic religions, perhaps the “image of God” is flexible enough to
include persons who are qualitatively the same as the person whose brain infor-
mation was copied. It is uncertain if the soul, in the karmic religions, would be
interpreted with enough flexibility to fit the “survival, not identity” model.
As we did in the cryonics chapter, let us turn to the Christian doctrine of
resurrection for possible help here. The resurrected person has continuity with
the pre-death person, just as the Christian scriptures describe how Christ’s
resurrected body exhibited holes where nails were driven in at crucifixion.

43
Calvin Mercer, “Whole Brain Emulation Requires Enhanced Theology, and a ‘Handmaiden.’”
Theology and Science 13, no. 2 (April 2015): 181–82.
44
For Parfit’s work on survival, see the important Part III, “Personal Identity,” 199–47, in
Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). In his discussion of personal
identity, Chalmers is influenced by Parfit. See Chalmers “Mind Uploading: A Philosophical
Counter-Analysis,”108–14. On Parfit’s relevance, see Naomi Wellington, Whole Brain Emulation:
Invasive vs. Non-Invasive Methods,” 178–92, in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded
and Machine Minds, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex, UK: Wiley
Blackwell, 2014), especially 189–90.
174 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Christ, however, was changed, transformed after death. Resuscitation of a dead

body brings the exact same person back to life. Transformational resurrection
brings into existence a new being, transformed but also consistent with their
past life trajectory. “We shall all be changed,” the early Christian writer, apostle
Paul, said.45 To use the philosophical term we have introduced, the person
“survives” after death.
Of course, Paul’s culturally conditioned reflections are not necessarily
directly relevant for the world of nanotechnology and uploading. Paul’s lan-
guage is imaginative, interesting, and potentially supportive of new and cre-
ative ways to theologically envision the body in the approaching world of
enhancement technology.
In the scenario being discussed, the goals of both transformational resurrec-
tion and mind uploading are not necessarily to move the exact (i.e., numeri-
cally identical) same person into the new existence. Rather, it is to allow the
person to survive and even flourish as a transformed person who has continuity
with the same person in the past. In this line of thinking, transformational res-
urrection can apply to one upload and perhaps provide an example of how at
least one of the monotheistic religions could embrace mind uploading.
But, once again, we are not at the end of the story. Transformational resur-
rection may work for one upload, but the doctrine has to be stretched to
accommodate transformation into more than one upload. Perhaps high-fidelity
uploads could be viewed in the same way as identical twins. Here, “identical”
is being used as qualitatively the same, not numerically the same. Uploads and
identical twins are new, different persons.
The philosophical and theological issues at play, and the conclusions people
make about mind uploading, will likely be greatly informed by what/who actu-
ally results from the process. A battery of psychometric tests administered to a
mind upload could be revealing, providing detailed information about cogni-
tive, emotional, and personality status. Unfortunately, we will not have that
data to consider unless or until we get a successful mind upload.
In this section on personal identity, we have concentrated on the leading
philosophical theory, i.e., Locke’s mental states or psychological theory. A
second theory, spatiotemporal continuity, is that personal identity is preserved
in a body. This theory is not that helpful for mind uploading, because emula-
tion, by definition, entails mind transfer from a body. Also, the spaciotempo-
ral continuity theory is not consistent with the notion of the psychosomatic
unity, which we identified as the best scholarly understanding of biblical
anthropology.
The narrative theory of personal identity is the newest philosophical theory
and one not yet been considered with regard to whole brain emulation. In this
newest theory, our identity is generated over time though the evolving story of
our past, present, and anticipated future. Supported by developmental,

45
1 Corinthians 15:50–51.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 175

personality, and social psychology research, this theory may prove a promising
way to think about whole brain emulation.46

How the Religions Might Respond

Even if philosophical, theological, and ethical (discussed in the next section)
concerns seem overwhelming, none of these concerns will halt scientific work
on mind uploading. As long as the technical barriers can be overcome, and
Nick Bostrom and many other experts think they can be overcome, then mind
uploading in some form will probably transpire sometime this century, polled
experts say. So, it is incumbent upon the religions, and society at large, to think
through this development before it arrives.
The new world of radical human enhancement, as we have noted, is likely to
throw traditional political and religious alignments into atypical patterns. Let
us reflect on the many ways this might unfold with regard to mind uploading.
As we have detailed in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the
Religions,” conservatives are generally suspicious of science, at least compared
with moderates and liberals. On this basis, conservatives, who tend toward the
traditional, would be leery and perhaps apprehensive about a procedure as radi-
cal as whole brain emulation. Many liberal religionists are likely to join with
conservatives in this opposition, although the liberals would likely be moti-
vated by justice concerns.
Further supporting the scenario wherein conservatives reject mind upload-
ing, in a psychological study of fundamentalism,47 Professor Mercer argued
that fundamentalism is primarily a reaction to the perceived loss of identity.
Christian fundamentalists exhibit anxiety about their loss of identity as a child
of God who will live forever with God in heaven. Mind uploading may very
well preserve personal identity, as we have discussed, but that is by no means
certain. Hence, normal and understandable anxiety will likely attend advance-
ments that lead to uploading, at least unless and until people are convinced it
preserves personal identity.
On the other hand, Christian conservatives and those who believe in a
distinct soul, such as Hindus, tend to prefer a dualistic model of human beings
as consisting of a body and a soul, with the true self residing in the soul alone.
In this otherworldly view, the soul may be understood as the primary object
of God’s salvific action in Christianity or subject to the law of karma in
Hinduism.
Those traditions (conservative Christian and karmic) with notions of the
soul/self as distinguishable from the body, could prove to be more compatible
with and embracing of mind uploading, which the religious traditions would

46
A good summary of the theory is found in David Shoemaker, “Personal Identity and Ethics,”
section 2.3. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/identity-ethics/.
47
Calvin Mercer, Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (Westport,
CT: Praeger, 2009).
176 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

interpret as moving the soul into a new body or, in this case, a computer plat-
form.48 Mind uploading is one path to superlongevity and could offer the
Christian conservative an opportunity to continue living until they are confi-
dent they have achieved the required status to go to heaven, and avoid hell,
when they die.
As we have seen, many uncertainties surround whole brain emulation. When
or if uploading procedures are developed, the end result is unlikely to be merely
a copy of the original mind, soul, or person, however faithful the emulation.
Since the upload will be placed into a powerful computer, the opportunity,
perhaps likelihood, is that the upload will develop into superintelligence. This
possibility segues us into the very interesting topic of the next chapter.

Ethical Issues
As we have seen, whole brain emulation cracks open a host of confusing—and
interesting—theological issues. Suppose all of them are successfully addressed,
and religions that engage mind uploading are theologically comfortable with
this enhancement technology. Solving the theological questions does not mean
the faith communities would be supportive of developing such technology.
Ethical concerns must be addressed.
As with other radical enhancement technology, reasons can be marshalled
for both a precautionary and proactionary stance on mind uploading. Should
mind uploading work out, benefits of the procedure include the preservation
of life and reduction of suffering. On the precautionary side, we will outline
challenges facing this radical enhancement. As you read this next section, we
invite you to consider if you would advise a primarily precautionary or a pri-
marily proactionary approach to mind uploading, and why.

The Therapy: Enhancement Continuum—What It Means to Make

Us Better
We have seen that interventions on the enhancement side of the continuum are
generally more controversial than those clearly on the therapy side. Critics will
likely see whole brain emulation as pushing the limits of the enhancement side
of the continuum. To many people the whole project just seems an outlandish
venture more suitable for a science fiction movie. Indeed, the theme has
inspired a long list of fiction, films, video games, and even comics.
The target platform for the mind upload is intended to be more reliable and
sustainable than the human body. Indeed, that is a main purpose for whole
brain emulation. So, an obvious case can be made that whole brain emulation

48
See Robert M. Geraci, Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence,
and Virtual Reality (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010), who finds a striking similarity
between conservative apocalyptic traditions of Judaism and Christianity and mind uploading advo-
cates, all of whom envision being released to immortality in a glorified new body.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 177

is enhancement, taking the self’s capabilities far beyond what is normal. But
from a religiously informed perspective, it is important to recall that the divid-
ing point of what can be considered acceptable and unacceptable on this con-
tinuum is not the concept of “normal,” but the point at which the changed
person no longer has religious integrity.
If an uploaded mind is seen as far removed from one’s current divinely
inspired state, then it may be that we have strayed too far from the state that is
understood to be karmically merited or God-intended. How the religions
decide what too far is, will be challenging. If one’s basic identity would be
continuous as an uploaded mind, and if aging and death are regarded as dis-
eases that keep the self or soul from enjoying life, then whole brain emulation
may be acceptable to religion. If, however, we leave behind or cut out impor-
tant parts of ourselves, or perpetuate injustice, then religion would likely reject
mind uploading. The engagement of the therapy—enhancement lens by reli-
gions is one way to help us explore what makes us authentically better.
As noted earlier in this chapter, much technical improvement is required
before a mind upload could be successfully performed. For the foreseeable
future, whole brain emulation is likely to be viewed as a radical enhancement
and one the religions will judge as being too far removed from the life God
intended or the state of the soul that is karmically merited. Religions, however,
have proven themselves flexible over the long haul of history, and widespread
availability of whole brain emulation would likely result in some degree of
theological embrace.

Choice
Choosing to be uploaded, as with other anticipated enhancement options, will
affect others as well as ourselves. As with medical procedures, hopefully by the
time, if ever, mind uploading is commercially available, the medical risks and
dangerous side effects will be known and minimized. If the chance of serious
hazards is significant, that information would have to be carefully considered
by the prospective consumer and their family and advisors before consent to
the procedure.
The choice made will potentially impact not only the patient and people in
their life. If the upload is successful, a range of additional impacts have to be
considered. That range includes so many possibilities, many unknown, that we
can only begin to point at some of the ethical challenges of the choice made.
A primary motivation for developing and choosing mind uploading is to
preserve personal identity and consciousness in a more reliable and lasting plat-
form then the human body. This vision is far down the road, of course, but
maybe a person will be able to utilize future technologies to fashion a new host
for their mind that, ideally, can be tailored to the wishes and needs of the
source mind. In such a case, the individual will be enhanced in any number of
ways, a reality that can cut two ways. Family and friends will have to adjust to
the new presentation and may not like that the person they had previously
178 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

known is no longer embodied in the same way. Aspects of a relationship, such

as physical touch, will be changed. On the other hand, a longer and enhanced
life may contribute to making the relationships better. So much is unknown
about how mind uploading will turn out.
If the uploading process does not destroy the “source” self, i.e., the con-
sumer or patient choosing the procedure, then the choice to upload becomes
a decision to bring a second and new being into existence. Choosing to birth a
child brings with it some level of risk that the child may have, for example, a
serious debilitating birth defect. Such risks are typically low enough, and the
benefits large enough, that prospective parents choose to start families. Mind
uploading, at least in the beginning years, may carry a much higher risk in
terms of probability for an unhappy outcome. On this point, the ethical calcu-
lation may shift as the procedure is improved over time. Elsewhere in this
chapter, we raised the possibility of more than one upload resulting from the
procedure. That outcome further complicates the choice, because now the
source mind, the consumer, is bringing into existence several new beings.
Many, if not all, of the choices about mind uploading will reflect the values
of the people making these choices. Recall the top five values you identified as
part of your work in the “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics” chapter,
and you can begin to identify the kinds of choices you might make, should this
radical option come to pass. For people of faith, values derived from their reli-
gious training and commitments will play a major role.

Justice
Whole brain emulation would generate an abundance of ethical and moral
questions regarding the status of the one or more uploads.49 Undoubtedly,
depending on the particular outcome, there will be questions regarding uploads
about legal status, rights, and responsibilities. The relationship between the
upload and the source mind will involve questions about property rights, mari-
tal considerations, child-care obligations, and much more.
As with all radical enhancements, distributive justice is a legitimate concern.
If mind uploading brings benefits and becomes a desired procedure, there is no
guarantee it will be made available in a fair and equitable manner. Concerns
about safety raised with other enhancements are also relevant to mind
uploading.
Race, gender, size, disability, and some other aspects of our embodied iden-
tities have been the basis for systemic discrimination. As discussed in the
“Cryonics” chapter, one theoretical way to address body-associated prejudices
is to rid ourselves of bodies as traditionally understood. No more flesh and
blood bodies, no more body-based discrimination. Mind uploading as

49
For a sampling of what would be a flood of legal discussions, see Kamil Muzyka, “The Outline
of Personhood Law Regarding Artificial Intelligences and Emulated Human Entities, ” Journal of
Artificial General Intelligence 4, no. 3 (December 2013): 164–169. https://doi.org/10.2478/
jagi-2013-0010. ISSN 1946-0163.
 9 MIND UPLOADING: CYBER BEINGS AND DIGITAL IMMORTALITY 179

conceived by transhumanists certainly offers this possibility. In the chapter on

“Superlongevity,” in the context of the discussion on cyborgs, we considered
the idea that this thinking is simplistic. The psychological, ideological, and
attitudinal bases of prejudice run deeper than the structural platform (e.g., the
new body) that houses our mind.
In fact, mind uploading could heighten the problem of discrimination if
partial or defective mind uploads do not meet prejudicial normative standards
of society. We might value rational thinking over emotional intelligence or
creativity. The religious values of morality, compassion, and justice could get
lost in the shuffle. Again, we see the importance of the principle of co-design
that ensures diverse and equitable representation at the table as whole brain
emulation is developed.
In the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics,” we saw the
importance of community. Human beings are communal creatures, and all the
religions give emphasis to this dimension of our lives. How mind uploading
will unfold and what the process will produce is speculative, but how people
relate to uploads and how the emulations relate to each other will be important.
Religious ethicists will have plenty of work addressing the once science fic-
tion, now very real, concern that an uploading procedure would not destroy
the original (i.e., source) brain. In relation to the original brain, it will be nec-
essary to determine the status of the uploaded copy to the original and the
uploaded copies to each other. How this would impact religious institutions,
worshipping communities, and covenantal bonds between religious followers
is, of course, uncertain.
The analogy of identical twins could be helpful. Identical twins are, well,
identical (qualitatively) until each begins its own unique journey. Like a story
with multiple endings, each uploaded mind would evolve its own unique life.
The advanced technological world may allow the various uploads to be con-
nected to one another in a significant way, allowing for some sort of corporate
self. Or, perhaps the emulations will be seen as constituting a new form of family.

Questions for Discussion

1. Do you think we might develop the technology for mind uploading?

Why or why not? If so, when?
2. Would you consider uploading your mind? Why or why not?
3. What do you think is the essential aspect that constitutes who you are?
4. How essential is your body to who you are?
5. Do you think the religions will embrace mind uploading, should it
become widely available? Why or why not?
6. How might the experience of community change in a world where mind
uploading is common?
7. What if mind uploading could lead to a profound connection among
people of diverse generations? How important could that be?
 CHAPTER 10

Superintelligence: Bringing on the Singularity

Technology

The Future of Artificial Intelligence

In the New York Times bestseller, Sapiens: A History of Humankind, Yuval
Noah Harari writes:

The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, “Upright
Man,” who survived there for close to 2 million years, making it the most durable
human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species.
It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from
now, so 2 million years is really out of our league.1

While not focused entirely on human enhancement, the author does provide a
chapter at the end where he addresses transhumanism. For better or worse,
Harari may very well be correct in his prediction that the human species will
disappear in time, and the reason may be the emergence of superintelligence.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a widely circulated quote, said the
country that leads in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) will rule
the world:

Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. It
comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict.
Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.2

1
Sapiens: A History of Humankind (New York: Harper Perennial, 2014), 17.
2
James Vincent, “Putin Says the Nation that Leads in AI ‘Will be the Ruler of the World,’” The
Verge (September 4, 2017). https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-
rule-the-world.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 181

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_10
182 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

We extend that statement with this statement of our own:

The country, or company, that develops superintelligence will rule the world for
a very short time … and then that superintelligent machine will rule the world—
and all of humanity, if the human species is allowed to survive.

That is sensationally put, but it may not be hyperbole.

AI is increasingly becoming a part of our lives. Self-driving vehicles are just
one example of AI that is present and quickly accelerating. AI robots navigat-
ing the highways do not fall asleep, drive while impaired, or check their texts.
AI is used in military simulations, athletic training, medical delivery and diag-
nostic programs, predictive clinical analytics (e.g., the determination of when
might a patient relapse), drug manufacturing research, banking, stock invest-
ing, video games, sequencing genomes, diagnosing cardiac conditions, and
gene editing, to name just some of the complex functions. Here is an example
of AI in healthcare. Microsoft’s Healthbot is designed to provide the first stage
in patient triage. People with health concerns first talk with an intelligent com-
puter agent, which decides if the issue warrants consultation with a human
nurse or doctor.
China understands the power in AI and has made huge investments in
becoming a world leader. Some of the biggest companies in the world, the so-­
called “FANG” stocks (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google), are all about high
tech, with AI central to their products.
We have entered the world of AI, and we are not going back. We cannot go
back, because we are addicted. Douglas Estes, drawing upon Yuval Harari’s
best-selling Sapiens, makes the case that, indeed, luxuries become necessities.3
Lawn mowers, electric lights, and automobiles, when they first appear, are lux-
ury technologies that fast become necessities to which we are addicted. Very
few outside of some Amish, Hutterites, and old order Mennonites are willing,
or for that matter even able, to transport themselves via horse and buggy. The
increased sophistication and pervasiveness of AI may provide a fertile context
for the eventual development of superintelligence.

AI on Steroids—Superintelligence
Up to now, computers have been programmed by humans to do some things
very well. These machines have long surpassed the human brain at memory and
processing speed but were impotent when asked to distinguish between a raisin
muffin and spotted dog. When supercomputers, beginning with Deep Blue in
the 1990’s, beat human champions at chess, the Chinese game “Go,” and
“Jeopardy,” it made news and the public took notice. We now have AlphaZero
with Stockfish 8 as a dark horse in the AI chess world. Building on Jeopardy’s

3
Braving the Future: Christian Faith in a World of Limitless Tech (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald
Press, 2018).
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 183

Watson, we developed Watson for Genomics and Watson for Oncology. These are
examples of “narrow” or “weak” AI, machines that can do one thing, very well.
On the one hand, a computer that can beat a grandmaster in chess is a far
cry from general human intelligence, much less going beyond that to a super-
intelligence. However, having the capability to build a machine that can win at
this level (i.e., do one thing very well) may eventually lead to a machine that
can perform the full range of human cognitive abilities. “Strong” or “general”
AI (or “AGI,” Artificial General Intelligence) is machine intelligence that
equals general human intelligence.
Up to this point in human history, we have used machines as our tools,
extending our ability to act on our environment in particular ways. Machines
need humans to activate and guide them. We are fast moving into a vastly dif-
ferent terrain—recursive upgrading machines, i.e., machines that continue to
learn without human input. We may be on the verge of autonomous machines
that will not need us anymore to program them, to teach them.
Unsurprisingly, Ray Kurzweil, perhaps the most well-known transhumanist,
has long argued that strong AI is possible and coming. Notable detractors
include the well-respected philosopher John Searle.4 The challenges are signifi-
cant, as illustrated by this statement:

The notion of intelligence that advocates of the technological singularity pro-

mote does not take into account the full dimension of human intelligence. They
treat artificial intelligence as a figure without a ground. Human intelligence as we
will show is not based solely on logical operations and computation, but also
includes a long list of other characteristics that are unique to humans, which is the
ground that supporters of the Singularity ignore. The list includes curiosity,
imagination, intuition, emotions, passion, desires, pleasure, aesthetics, joy, pur-
pose, objectives, goals, telos, values, morality, experience, wisdom, judgment,
and even humor.5

While experts vary on when human level machine intelligence will arrive,
Nick Bostrom provides the results of polls taken of technical experts at aca-
demic conferences and in professional organizations:

… it may be reasonable to believe that human-level machine intelligence has a

fairly sizeable chance of being developed by mid-century, and that it has a non-­
trivial chance of being developed considerably sooner or much later; that it might
perhaps fairly soon thereafter result in superintelligence …6

4
Although a bit dated, this collection gives some of the long-standing arguments pro and con.
See Jay W. Richards, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI (Seattle:
Discovery Institute, 2002). A recent technical collection with articles by both skeptics and advo-
cates is AI and the Singularity: A Fallacy or Great Opportunity? eds. Robert K. Logan and Adriana
Braga (Basel: MDPI, 2020).
5
Adriana Braga Robert K. Logan, “The Emperor of Strong AI Has No Clothes: Limits to
Artificial Intelligence,” 5–25, in AI and the Singularity, 5.
6
Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford University, 2014), 21.
184 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Bostrom’s last phrase is critical. The story of AI probably will not end when
the level of general human intelligence is reached. Strong AI will, perhaps
quickly, move beyond general human cognitive ability to superintelligence.
The conversation has shifted from whether a machine smarter than the human
inventor could be built, to when and how superintelligence will appear.
Appropriately, Bostrom is reluctant to suggest how close we are to building
a superintelligent machine. However, when he cautiously suggests that “It
seems somewhat likely that it will happen sometime this century, but we don’t
know for sure”7 we have some general framework within which to work.
Sometime this century, or even in the next two centuries, is quite soon on a
historical scale, and others are saying it will happen well before mid-century.8
In a previous chapter, we addressed whole brain emulation, which may be
the surest path to superintelligence. Whole brain emulation may be a stepping
stone to superintelligence by combining an exceptionally intelligent uploaded
human mind with AI. However, traditional AI may be the quickest path to the
development of superintelligence. AI and whole brain emulation are but two of
five possible paths to superintelligence examined by Bostrom.9
As we noted in other chapters, technology is moving forward on many
fronts simultaneously. So, if machine intelligence reaches and surpasses general
human intelligence, we will also see significant advances in robotics and infor-
mation technology, just to mention two relevant areas for this discussion.
Imagine a superintelligent computer with twice the cognitive power as the
average human being. Connected to the internet, it would have wide access to
information. Embodied in a robot, it could act on the information and in the
world. The first thing it might do is increase its own intelligence to three times
that of the average human being. If it could do that, then maybe it could
increase its cognitive powers to ten or 100 times the average human intelli-
gence. What would that mean for us and the world? Ironically, it would take
superintelligence to answer that question.

The Singularity
Singularity is the term Ray Kurzweil uses to describe the predicted dramatic,
sudden future break in human history when general human intelligence is sur-
passed. His 652-page 2005 most well-known book is titled The Singularity is
Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Although quite old with regard to the
fast-changing topic of radical enhancement, it is still worth reading to envisage
the scope of the transhumanist vision. Kurzweil’s is a grand vision, with the
following epochs leading up to the sixth and final epoch, the Singularity: (1)
7
Ibid., vii.
8
In this more recent survey of experts, 42 percent predicted 2030 or before and only two per-
cent said it would never happen. See Pawel Sysiak, “When Will the First Machine Become
Superintelligent?” Medium (April 11, 2016).
9
Bostrom, Superintelligence, 22–51. The others are biological cognition, brain-computer inter-
faces, and networks and organizations.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 185

physics and chemistry, (2) biology and DNA, (3) brains, (4) technology, and
(5) the merger of human technology with human intelligence.10 Kurzweil
describes his vision of the sixth and final epoch when “the universe wakes up.”

In the aftermath of the Singularity, intelligence, derived from its biological origins
in human brains and its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to
saturate the matter and energy in its midst … the “dumb” matter and mecha-
nisms of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intel-
ligence, which will constitute the sixth epoch in the evolution of patterns of
information. This is the ultimate destiny of the Singularity and the universe.11

Kurzweil has been working on his vision, using religious language, for a long
time. In 1999, he wrote a book titled The Age of Spiritual Machines: When
Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.12
We have seen that the roots of the transhumanist movement, in the latter
half of the twentieth century, reflected a secular, science-based outlook.
Kurzweil’s vision, with its language of the universe waking up, gives expression
to the transhumanist vision clothed in generic religious or spiritual language.
Indeed, transhumanism has been interpreted as fulfilling religious impulses.
For example,

In effect then, given transhumanism’s apparent grand ambitions to somehow

definitively resolve human suffering and limitation using the lens of science and
technology, the movement could perhaps offer atheists the kind of all-­
encompassing, highly compelling philosophical narrative—perhaps fulfilling an
innate human need that those of a strongly atheistic disposition aren’t able to
otherwise satiate via religion.13

The Singularity could bring extraordinary benefits, such as increased abili-

ties to solve seemingly intractable problems, and it could also bring apocalyptic
dangers. Here is Kurzweil’s description of the Singularity. We have also
included, in the last two sentences, Kurzweil’s statement about the existential
import of the Singularity. Envisioning the Singularity can profoundly alter
one’s life vision, religious and otherwise.

It’s a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so
rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.
Although neither utopian nor dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts

10
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking,
2005), 14–21.
11
Ibid, 21.
12
New York: Viking Penguin, 1999.
13
James Michael MacFarlane, Transhumanism as a New Social Movement: The Techno-Centred
Imagination, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors, eds. Calvin Mercer
and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 183. See the discussion of “Transhumanism
as a Quasi-religious Movement?,” pp. 185–192.
186 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the
cycle of human life, including death itself. Understanding the Singularity will
alter our perspective on the significance of our past and the ramifications for our
future. To truly understand it inherently changes one’s view of life in general and
one’s own particular life.14

Here is a dramatic definition from Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired

Magazine, which focuses on emerging technologies, such as human enhance-
ment technologies. The Singularity is the point at which “all the change in the
last million years will be superseded by the change in the next five minutes.”15
The Singularity will not necessarily come at the same time that superintelli-
gence is developed, but superintelligence will most definitely contribute to the
Singularity and hasten its arrival.
Bostrom and others are concerned about what happens when superintelli-
gence is developed. With the race on by countries and corporations to achieve
this major breakthrough, the worry is that too little attention is being paid to
ensuring that the long-term impact of this level of AI is beneficial and not
destructive to the planet and humans. We address this concern later in this
chapter.

Religious Issues

Building a New Deity in the Computer Lab?

By superintelligence, we are talking about intelligence that surpasses the typical
intelligence of an average human being. How far it surpasses will have implica-
tions, potentially good and bad, for society. The possibility of superintelligence
also has religious implications.16
As newer and newer generations of superintelligent machines evolve, with
self-replicating capability, they will be able to, theoretically, approach infinite
intelligence—“super” intelligence. Theologically, superintelligence is on a path
toward a type of omniscience, the word used in monotheistic religions to
describe a central attribute of God. Omni is the prefix meaning “all” or “every,”
and sciens is Latin for “knowing.”

14
Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 7. This definition of singularity is very different than the
definition for singularity used in math or physics. See also Ray Kurzweil and Neil Degrasse, “2029
Singularity Year—Neil Degrasse Tyson & Ray Kurzweil,” (April 21, 2016). https://www.you-
tube.com/watch?v=EyFYFjESkWU. Degrasse takes a different view than Kurzweil.
15
http://webmindset.net/selected-quotes-kevin-kelly/.
16
Philosophy can provide a helpful context for understanding religious issues. An excellent dis-
cussion of superintelligence and singularity by a respected philosopher is David Chalmers, “The
Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis,” The Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 (2010): 7–65.
http://consc.net/papers/singularity.pdf. For a critique of Chalmers, see Massimo Pigliucci,
“Mind Uploading: A Philosophical Counter-Analysis,” 119–31, in Intelligence Unbound: The
Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West
Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 187

Superintelligent machines are not going to exist in a vacuum. Via robotics

and possibly other innovations, they will be connected to means to act in the
world. Superintelligence is, therefore, going to bring with it super power. The
theological word for that is omnipotence, i.e., all powerful.
Omniscience and omnipotence are two characteristics usually attributed to
deity, especially in the monotheistic religions. From the karmic religions, such
as Hinduism, we can loosely relate pantheism (God is everything and every-
thing is God) to superintelligence that could conceivably express itself every-
where. We have shown how AI, in its weak or narrow form, is already becoming
integral to nearly every aspect of our lives. So, superintelligence would not
necessarily be confined to one location. It could very well be dispersed, in a way
similar to data storage in the “Cloud.” Such a dispersal would add to the almost
omniscient and omnipresent capacity of superintelligence.
From the perspective of religion, and especially the pantheistic traditions,
Kurzweil’s vision that the universe will “wake up” is almost theological in that
he predicts an AI universe that becomes saturated with potentially divine-like
qualities of supreme intelligence and power. Much depends on how intelli-
gence and power are understood, topics explored later in this chapter.
Kurzweil’s religious background is eclectic, and his description of the universe
as waking up is especially interesting, since “awake” is an important term in
Buddhism. After his death, Gautama was called “Buddha,” Sanskrit for “awak-
ened one.”
Soon after his enlightenment, his waking up, the Buddha began wandering
around India and was recognized as an extraordinary being. One of the stories,
in different versions,17 goes like this.

They asked him, “Are you a god?”

“No,” he replied.
“Are you a reincarnation of god?”
“No,” he replied.
“Are you a wizard, then?”
“No.”
“Well, are you a man?”
“No.”
“So, what are you?” they asked, being very perplexed.
“I am awake.”

From ancient Hindu scriptures, we also see the divine (i.e., Brahman) as
omnipresent and, interestingly, the word “awake” is prominent.

Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahman, the limitless One—limitless to
the east, limitless to the north … limitless in every direction … He whose soul is
space … In the dissolution of the world He alone remains awake. From that

17
See, e.g., https://college.uchicago.edu/news/student-stories/i-am-awake and https://
teachingsofthebuddha.com/i_am_awake.htm.
188 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

space, He, assuredly, awakes this world, which is a mass of thought. It is thought
by Him, and in Him it disappears. His is that shining from which gives heat in
yonder sun and which is the brilliant light in a smokeless fire, as also the fire in the
stomach which cooks the food. For thus it has been said “He who is in the fire,
and he who is here in the heart, and he who is yonder in the sun—he is one.”18

Maybe Kurzweil’s vision reaches too far. Perhaps superintelligence will not
bring about Singularity. Modest superintelligence scenarios, short of the
Singularity, are possible. Even work toward a superintelligence, an intellect
surpassing the human mind but not nearly as far-reaching as the Singularity,
can be interpreted as humans reaching for something transcendent beyond our
finite and fallible selves. But for sure the vision of a universe waking up, of
supreme intelligence and power everywhere, can certainly be understood as a
vision not unlike religious visions.
Religion has been interpreted in a variety of naturalistic ways, as originating
to meet social, psychological, or economic needs. From these reductionist per-
spectives, humans created religion and God as well. Superintelligence may be
understood as humanity’s latest attempt, even if unconsciously, to transcend by
trying to create a technological divinity.

Building a Devil in the Computer Lab?

Omnibenevolence, or supreme love, is usually considered a major attribute of
God, along with all-knowledge and all-power. Here, we encounter a particu-
larly serious concern. It is generally understood in the monotheistic religions
that the knowledge and power of God will be used for beneficial purposes.
However, there is no guarantee that a superintelligent machine with extraordi-
nary knowledge and power will act lovingly. Perhaps the outcome will be an
omnimalevolent superintelligence.
In an article aptly titled “AI is My Shepherd,” the author illuminates
the issue:

If AI is a deity, it’s not likely to be the kind that forgives you, showers you with
mercy, and sweeps you up in her loving arms.19

A friend of one of your authors quipped pessimistically about the above state-
ment, “Well, an AI deity will have initially been made in the image of its maker,
humans. So why would we expect it to be any different.”
A deity—or machine—with supreme intelligence and supreme power, but
not love, does solve the problem of evil and suffering (i.e., theodicy) that we
raised in a previous chapter. It is God’s love that makes evil and suffering prob-
lematic, because an omniscient and omnipotent deity would certainly desire to

18
Chandogya Upanishad 6.12, R. E. Hume, trans., The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (London:
Oxford University Press, 1934), 247.
19
Adam Ferriss, “AI is My Shepherd,” Wired 26, no. 03 (March 2018): 15.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 189

relieve suffering, if that deity were also all-loving. But a machine with powers
approaching omniscience and omnipotence, but not omnibenevolence, could
conceivably inflict suffering and hardship on an unimaginable scale.
Many religious explanations have been posited for the existence of evil and
suffering. We will briefly mention two. Some theologians in the monotheistic
religions address the problem of evil and suffering by asserting God chooses to
limit divine power in favor of affording humans freedom of choice. In the exer-
cise of choice, humans can do good or evil, benefit the world or destroy it.
Human freedom is at the heart of the matter. The worry is that an extremely
powerful and knowledgeable superintelligent machine will override human
freedom, thwarting the potential for a peaceful coexistence of superintelligence
and humanity.
A second solution also works by compromising the power of God. In the
chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions,” we presented
dualistic thinking as informing one of the conceptualizations of the divine. In
this model, God’s power is limited to some significant degree in the face of the
personification of evil in a Satan figure. In other words, the problem of evil and
suffering is explained by the work of the devil. The concern about superintel-
ligence, put theologically, is that we may be creating a machine that approaches
all knowledge and all power, but without beneficent intent “programmed in.”
Without successful moral enhancement through loading values and qualities
such as empathy into intellectually powerful machines, superintelligence could
become more akin to the devil than to God.20 But, as we see later in this chap-
ter, value loading, if successful, does not necessarily quell the danger. What
values and qualities are selected and who does the programming are ethi-
cal issues.

Tower of Babel Story

The Tower of Babel story in the Hebrew Bible’s book of Genesis provides an
interesting lens through which to think about superintelligence.21 In that story
the human community attempts to build a tower to the heavens. In one inter-
pretation, the human builders are trying to “be like God,” to borrow a term
from the earlier creation story in Genesis.22 Put theologically, perhaps that is
what humans are trying to do with their technology; humans are trying to
achieve divine status. In the monotheistic religions, that impulse is regarded as
sinful arrogance, incongruent with the will of God. So, in the Tower of Babel
story, God thwarts that effort to reach the heavens.

20
A good discussion of value-loading is Ben Goertzel and Joel Pitt, “Nine Ways to Bias Open-
Source Artificial General Intelligence Toward Friendliness,” in Intelligence Unbound: The Future of
Uploaded and Machine Minds, 61–89, eds. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick (West Sussex,
UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
21
Genesis 11.
22
Genesis 3:5.
190 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Ideally, superintelligence emerges in a way that, at least for the religions,

does not sink into an idolatrous attempt to supplant God, but respects and
coexists with humans and exhibits the best of humanity’s values. It may be a tall
order, especially when superintelligent machines build even more potent
machines. By building superintelligence, are humans arrogantly playing God or
are humans behaving in creative ways that reflect what the religions believe?
How the religions respond to these kinds of questions will help determine not
only the shape of future technology but the future of religion.

God as Emergent
Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, the famous Jupiter Symphony, emerged from the
combined sounds of horns, trumpets, oboes, flute, and strings. In other words,
something quite remarkable and sophisticated emerged from simpler random
notes and sounds arranged in a certain way. Turning from music to painting,
train your gaze to one brush stroke on a Picasso, and it is nothing too remark-
able. Pull back the gaze, and it is clear the master coordinated all the brush
strokes into great art.
The human brain, as a physical organ of the body, consists of neurons, neu-
rotransmitters, blood glucose, oxygen, electrical impulses, chemical reactions,
and a host of other parts and processes. From all this we get sensation, percep-
tion, and subjective conscious experience. Something quite profound emerges
from the intricate combination and blending of these otherwise seemingly ran-
dom “brush strokes.”
Here is a more formal statement of the theory:

Emergence theory is the view that new structures, capacities, and processes will
come to existence, that these cannot be reduced to the lower level, and that they
can exercise a causal influence downwards. So the mental, such as consciousness,
is derived from the biological/physical basis but is not to be reduced to it …23

One way to think about God is as emergent, or partially emergent, from

complexity. The universe, like the human brain in our analogy, encompasses
physical parts and processes, although countless times more parts and processes
than musical notes or artists’ brushstrokes. If the complex processes of the
brain can emerge from its material elements and operations, perhaps God
emerges and re-emerges, or develops continually, from the cosmos.
Emergence is a nontraditional notion of God and complicates the monothe-
istic understanding of God as existing prior to the universe and bringing every-
thing into existence through divine creative acts. Emergence theory, however,

23
Philip Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford
University, 2004), vi. See also Karl Popper, “Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind,”
Dialectica 32 (1978): 339–55.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 191

is a way of understanding deity that has some support, and dissent, in

Christianity.24
Emergence as a way of understanding a deity finds some potential support
in “process theology,” a type of theology introduced in the chapter,
“Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions.” As we explained in that
chapter, process theology recognizes that change is fundamental to the nature
of reality and can be applied to God. God is in process of becoming, like every-
thing else, especially since God is believed to be in relationship with the entire
universe and every relationship changes. While process theology was developed
by Christian theologians, we saw in that earlier chapter that change and process
is an integral notion in karmic religions as well.
Emergence as a way of understanding God need not be viewed as diminish-
ing God’s importance and power. One human brain’s capability and activity,
emerging from a few pounds of flesh, is remarkable. The capability of a deity
emerging from an entire cosmos is incalculable. Given the vastness and com-
plexity of the universe, an emergent God is not one to take lightly.
God as emergent provides an interesting lens through which to interpret
superintelligence which, theoretically, could become increasingly potent, intel-
ligent, and good or, unfortunately, evil. At the very least, superintelligence with
divine-like attributes—but not necessarily being divine—might be understood
as a new being, even god-like, emerging from what started out as mundane
transistors and electrical signals in your laptop computer.

Dinosaurs Are Extinct—Are Humans Next?

Tyrannosaurus Rex, affectionately known as “T-Rex,” and all her cousins are
long gone, their place taken over by more adaptable creatures in the sometimes-­
harsh evolutionary process. Could Homo sapiens also become extinct? Apart
from any theologically based insistence about how things have to be, the
answer is yes, of course, human beings could be replaced and life continue. Do
religious visions allow for the possible termination of our species?
Religious and non-religious opinion about human enhancement, that is, the
enhancement of—not the elimination of—human beings, is divided. However,
when we talk about post-human, that is, superseding human beings with super-
intelligent machines, then the opinion can quickly shift to resistance.
Before addressing religion specifically, it is important to acknowledge a basic
truth overshadowing the discussion in this section. Human beings have a deep-­
seated and very robust survival instinct.25 Human self-preservation is not
unique, of course. Self-preservation is a primitive trait found in almost all
24
Joanna Leidenhag, “A Critique of Emergent Theologies,” Zygon: A Journal of Religion &
Science 51, no. 4 (December 2016): 867–882.
https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12300.
25
This and related issues surrounding transhumanism and religion are discussed in Noreen
Herzfeld, “Must We Die? Transhumanism, Religion, and the Fear of Death,” in Religion and
Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, in
192 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

organisms. According to biologists, this survival instinct is the basis of evolu-

tion in higher animals and plants. The individual instinct to self-preservation
has many implications, including the formation of social groups, in part because
grouping together enhances survival, and grouping also supports the possibil-
ity of offspring. It is understandable that our deep psychological need to sur-
vive, consciously or unconsciously, might lead some to negatively evaluate
transhuman possibilities, like superintelligence, that could spell the end of
humanity, or at least human life as we know it.
The religions of the world are generally oriented around the human story.
Sacred texts, doctrines, rituals, institutions, ethics, and spirituality are all gener-
ated by and addressed to human beings. It is understandable that transhuman-
ist calls for superintelligence or other programs perhaps making obsolete the
human race could collide with deep religious impulses, as well as self-­
preservation instincts.
While true of all religions, the monotheistic ones are especially focused on
the human player in the divine drama. In the Hebrew scripture story of cre-
ation in Genesis, Chap. 1, to emphasize their elevated status, Adam and Eve are
created last in that creation story and, following their creation, God is reported
to have declared the created earth creatures “very good.”26 In all the days of
creation up to this point, the assessment of what was created is “good.”27 So,
this creation story emphasizes that the best creation (human) is saved for last,
is declared “very good,” and allows for the deity to rest, now having completed
the perfect universe.
These psychological and religious attachments to the survival of the species,
however, do not necessarily mean that human beings are forever and through-
out the vast universe to be the sole focus of the religions. As mentioned before,
an evolutionary theology understands that our created ancestors were not
human but were humanity’s predecessors. Using monotheistic language,
human beings do not have to be the only object of God’s activity toward sen-
tient beings. “Sentience” refers to the ability to perceive, feel, and experience
subjectively. The karmic religions, as well, do not necessarily have to focus only
on human beings. Indeed, they are better positioned than the monotheistic
faiths to shift focus to life forms other than human, because karma and reincar-
nation applies to all life beings, not just humans.
Religions generally teach humbleness as a virtue or, putting it another way,
pride and selfishness are unwelcome sins exhibited possibly most often by those
with undue social and political power.28 Perhaps it is the height of arrogance to
think that humans are the only beings made in God’s image, the focus of divine

Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve
Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 285–300.
285–299.
26
Genesis 1:31. Italics are ours.
27
e.g., Genesis 1:4, 10, 12.
28
Scholars who take an intersectional, and particularly feminist, approach to religions have
shown, too, that not all people suffer from this sin of excessive pride or arrogance. Many of the
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 193

attention, and more worthy than any other living being, past or present. Or,
maybe it is a lack of creative thinking, fear, or something else that prevents
critique of the idea that humans are at the center of God’s plans.
If the evolutionary process is used by God, or the divine order, as a method
of creation (evolution is widely accepted in the karmic religions, more debated
in the monotheistic ones), perhaps that process can be seen as continuing with
the development of more advanced species, techno sapiens replacing Homo sapi-
ens. The idea of humans as created co-creators, discussed in the chapter,
“Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions,” is relevant here.
Maybe it could be viewed as a beautiful thing for human beings to be God’s
created co-creators of a new life-form that brings superintelligence to the
planet, along with more love (if we can value-load that in) and less pain and
suffering. The ancient Jewish idea of covenant, of God and people in mutual
relationship, supports the vision that life is re-created anew and better again
and again. The resulting superintelligent beings could, in a sense, be under-
stood as our loving and respectful children who grow up and make us proud.
Or, in a less friendly scenario, we become their pets and they our masters. Or,
perhaps we worship them as deities of some sort. However it turns out, we may
not have a choice in the matter unless we become far more intentional about
our values, our beliefs, and the technological future. Even then, it may be out
of our hands. Superintelligence, should it arrive, will not fit any category of
technology now known.
The religions should be able to articulate a positive reason for humans to be
in the world, other than the negative fear of extinction. What, for example,
would be made better by humanity’s continued existence in an AI world? Your
textbook authors are not advocating that we become extinct like the T-Rex. We
do think, however, that a question about the indispensability of humanity is a
legitimate one to be grappled with by the religions.

Martians and Superintelligence—What Is the Difference?29

Based on the prediction of experts reviewed earlier in this chapter, the reli-
gions, sooner or later, are probably going to live into a world where superintel-
ligence is a reality. Even if superintelligence is not developed, discussion of the
possibility is valuable as a thought experiment, given the increasing capability
and prevalence of AI. While this section focuses on a religious assessment of

more socially marginalized err in the direction of not having enough pride, self-love, or awareness
of their own power.
29
Some of the ideas in this and the next two subsections are drawn from Calvin Mercer, “A
Theological Embrace of Transhuman and Posthuman Beings,” Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith 72/2 (June 2020): 1–6; and Calvin Mercer, “A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain
Emulation: On the Path to Superintelligence, 95–104, in Religion and Human Enhancement:
Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, in Palgrave Studies
in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
194 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

superintelligence, an overarching consideration of superintelligence is well

articulated by sociologist and bioethicist James J. Hughes, who writes from a
transhumanist and Buddhist perspective:

The most important disagreement between bioLuddites and transhumanists is

over who we should grant citizenship, with all its rights and protections.
BioLuddites advocate “human-racism,” that citizenship and rights have some-
thing to do with simply having a human genome. Transhumanists, along with
most bioethicists and the Western democratic tradition itself, believe citizenship
should be based on “personhood,” having feelings and consciousness. The strug-
gle to replace human-racism with personhood can be found at the beginnings and
ends of life, and at the imaginary lines between humans and animals, and humans
and posthumans.30

One way to think about how the religions can, or might, interpret superin-
telligence is to use the analogy of extraterrestrial life. This analogy is helpful,
because the relationship of religion to other populated worlds has long been
discussed by theologians and other scholars of religion.31 How the religions
address the possibility of extraterrestrial life could inform how they might
address superintelligence, since both may be considered alien.
The possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth has been raised by the vast-
ness of the universe. Our tiny little solar system, with its sun and planets, is
hidden in one of the spiraling arms that stretch out from the center of our
galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way galaxy has a diameter of 10 to the 18th
power. To drive that number home, the diameter of our medium size galaxy
would take light 100,000 to 180,000 years to travel. Andromeda, the closest
significant galaxy to ours, is twice as large as the Milky Way. The stars, just in
our Milky Way, number 400 billion or more, with about ten new stars formed
annually. Right now, there are an estimated 30–60 billion galaxies in the uni-
verse. Plenty of experts think that there is a significant possibility that intelli-
gent life exists somewhere in this vastness.
The question of “other worlds,” i.e., extraterrestrial life, is a theoretical
example of divinely created and inspired sentient beings other than Homo sapi-
ens. One could mount a religious argument that such life does not exist, that
humans are alone in the universe. But that position has not won the day, at
least among many scientists and those few scholars of religion who have
engaged this question. Ted Peters, a leading Christian theologian in the science
and religion field, calls for “Exotheology,” which he defines as speculation on

30
James Hughes, Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned
Human of the Future (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), 75.
31
One of the best books on this topic is David Wilkinson, Science, Religion, and the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University, 2013).
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 195

the theological significance of extraterrestrial life,32 and expresses concern

about “earth chauvinism.”33
At this point there is no physical evidence of sentient life outside planet
Earth. But if intelligent life presented itself to Earth, how would, or should, the
religions interpret that life?

Baptizing Aliens
In a widely publicized quote, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic branch of
the Christian religion said the church under his direction would baptize a
Martian, should that opportunity present itself.34
Most reflection on religion and other worlds has been done by scholars and
theologians of Christianity,35 and that religion provides our main context for
considering how intelligent, sentient, extraterrestrial life might be theologically
embraced. Possibly, scholars and theologians of Christianity spend more time
on this topic than, for example, the karmic religions because Christianity can
be seen to be human focused with its doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus
Christ. In the karmic religions, karma and reincarnation are more obviously
universal. Those traditions place no limits in the universe where karma and
reincarnation might apply.
With regard to other worlds, liberal thinking in the Christian religion is
much more aligned with a broad karmic outlook than with that of Christians at
the more conservative end of the spectrum, especially given the conservative
tendency toward literal interpretation of scripture. For conservative Christians,
an Earth-centric focus results from a literal interpretation of the creation sto-
ries, incarnation, and end-time speculation. Our exploration of how Christianity
might embrace alien life is likely more palatable to a liberal and metaphorical
interpretation of scripture and doctrine.

32
Science, Theology, and Ethics (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), in a chapter devoted to the
topic and titled “Exotheology: Speculations on Extraterrestrial Life,” 121–36. Peters provides a
review of the long discussion of this issue in Christian theology.
33
Ibid., 125. Theology and Science 16/4 (2018) provides a theme issue devoted to “Astrotheology
& Astroethics.” Ted Peters provides a lead editorial.
34
Abby Ohlheiser, “Pope Francis Says He Would Definitely Baptize Aliens If They Asked Him
To,” The Atlantic (May 12, 2014). https://www.theatlantic.com/international/
archive/2014/05/pope-francis-says-he-would-definitely-baptize-aliens-if-they-
wanted-it/362106/. See also Edmund Michael Lazzari, “Would St. Thomas Aquinas Baptize an
Extraterrestrial?” New Blackfriars (2017): 440–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12319. The
respected evangelical organization, BioLogos, pondered this question in a panel discussion, “Life
Beyond Earth: What Would It Mean for Christians?” See https://biologos.org/resources/life-
beyond-earth-what-would-it-mean-for-christians. Stopping far short of answering the question in
the subtitle, the panel encouraged exploration of various ways to understand, biblically and theo-
logically, what intelligent life beyond earth would mean.
35
David A. Weintraub, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It? (New
York: Springer, 2014) does a good job marshalling statements from the religions about extrater-
restrial life. That most attention has been given to this topic by Christian writers is reflected in that
fact that the book has exactly twice as many pages reviewing Christian statements as all the other
religions put together.
196 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

In one sense, Christ is understood by Christians as particular to planet Earth

and the incarnation in Jesus. However, in orthodox teachings Jesus Christ is
the incarnation, at a particular space and time, of the eternal “Word” (Greek,
logos) that transcends space and time: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.”36 The incarnation became a
central, for some the central, tenet of Christian doctrine.
According to the doctrine of the incarnation, God came to human beings in
a way that continues to speak intimately and effectively to them. Jesus was a
Palestinian Jew who spoke Aramaic, wore sandals, and rode a donkey into
town. If God, the eternal Word, had chosen to incarnate in twenty-first century
Europe, the incarnation would not have taken the same form as in first-century
Palestine. For folk living in India, the eternal Word, or however the transcen-
dent or the sacred is imagined, may very well have come in an incarnation that
made sense in that cultural and religious context.
Christians might explore the possibility that the eternal Word has been
incarnated in other locations in the universe and in ways that speak intimately
to other sentient beings, even as Jesus spoke on the hillsides of the Galilee to
Homo sapiens. The very essence of incarnation, after all, is that God comes to
humans (or aliens?) in a form that speaks to humans (or aliens?). Within this
framework, a liberal view can interpret anew many biblical texts, such as the
statement that God reconciles “all things, whether on earth or in heaven.”37
Reflections by academic theologians on the implications for Christian theol-
ogy of extraterrestrial life may not be directly transferable to
transhuman/posthuman beings, but such theologizing provides a fertile start-
ing point for the contention that transhuman/posthuman beings are divine
creations and can enter into the same kinds of relationships with God that
humans can. For example, twentieth century Protestant Christian theologian
Paul Tillich concludes:

Incarnation is unique for the special group in which it happens, but it is not
unique in the sense that other singular incarnations for other unique worlds are
excluded. Man cannot claim to occupy the only possible place for incarnation.38

While we provide the example of Christianity, all religions will likely have to
face the question of what doctrinal tenet or religious practice, if any, would be
challenged if there are sentient creatures beyond Earth.

Baptizing Superintelligence
We have suggested that Christianity may be the religion that finds it most dif-
ficult to embrace intelligent alien beings, in the same way as humans are

36
John 1:1.
37
Colossians 1:20.
38
Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1953), 95 f.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 197

embraced. We have shown, however, that, at least on the liberal wing,

Christianity could reasonably chart that path, as Pope Francis suggested, should
the time come. The same kind of theological reflection could also lead to
embrace of superintelligent machines. The karmic religions will probably have
even less difficulty making this move.
A superintelligent machine may actually be easier to accept than an alien
from the far side of our galaxy. As we have seen, a superintelligent machine
could be incarnated, if we want to use that word, in a fleshy robotic body. The
cognitive powers could be such that this being would exhibit, for all practical
purposes, emotion and would have (or at least will seem to have) experiences
that it can report and discuss. The following assessment, pretty typical from
roboticists, comes from Scottish AI researcher David Levy, and is several
years old:

We are in sight of the technologies that will endow robots with consciousness,
making them as deserving of human-like rights as we are; robots who will be
governed by ethical constraints and laws, just as we are; robots who live, and who
welcome being loved, and who make love, just as we do; and robots who can
reproduce. This is not fantasy—it is how the world will be, as the possibilities of
Artificial Intelligence are revealed to be almost without limit.”39

To get a sense of how tempting it will be (or is) to experience intelligent

robots as persons, spend a bit of time googling robots and taking a look at
some of them. The Japanese engineers have been especially adept at making
robots human-like. As one person put it, they seem “creepily” human. The
more pervasive and human-like robots become, the more debates will unfold
around robot rights, treatment of robots, the definition of personhood, and a
host of religious questions, all to be intensified when superintelligent
robots arrive.
Given a world of intelligent, sentient, robots, what is the difference between
a Martian and a superintelligent machine? Perhaps Pope Francis would also
sanction baptizing these superintelligent machines/beings. Here is a
Presbyterian pastor, Rev. Dr. Christopher J. Benek, a leader in the Christian
Transhumanist Association, who answers affirmatively:

I don’t see Christ’s redemption limited to human beings. It’s redemption of all
creation, even AI. If AI is autonomous, then we should encourage it to partici-
pate in Christ’s redemptive purposes in the world.40

39
David Levy,Robots Unlimited: Life in a Virtual Age (Wellesley, Mass.: A. K. Peters, 2006): 293.
40
Hilary Bird, “AI Innovation Could Cause an Ethical Conundrum for Organized Religion,”
VB (October 16, 2017). https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/16/ai-innovation-could-cause-an-
ethical-conundrum-for-organized-religion/.
198 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Ethical Issues
Many of the values and principles discussed in the chapter, “Radical Human
Enhancement and Ethics,” apply to superintelligence, such as its costly devel-
opment, fair distribution of potential benefits, and implications for community.
The precautionary and proactionary distinction is particularly interesting here,
because of the potential scale of both the danger and the benefit of superintel-
ligence. Curing a disease or unintentionally spreading a virus now escalates to
solving many or all of our problems or destroying humanity and the planet
with it. The stakes are breathtakingly enormous.
To ponder the enormity of the stakes, consider the challenge of global cli-
mate change. The scientific consensus is that global warming is an impending
disaster for the planet and its inhabitants. Also, we know that the crisis is
human-made. At this point it is uncertain if sufficient political will exists in
enough countries around the world, and especially in countries causing the
most damage, to act in time to avert an irreversible catastrophe.
While many helpful “small” technological innovations (e.g., solar power,
long-life batteries, energy efficient machines) are being developed, there is no
one big technological solution on the horizon. Would a superintelligence put
climate damage into overdrive? Could a superintelligence 1000 (or more)
times the cognitive power of the average human come up with some techno-
logical fix that thus far eludes our relatively feeble human brains?

The Therapy—Enhancement Continuum: What it Means to Make

us Better
If we define the issue of superintelligence primarily as a therapy–enhancement
issue, the main question for the religions is whether followers could retain or
even deepen (truly enhance) their religious integrity with superintelligence. By
religious integrity, as we have said earlier in this textbook, we mean being true
to how one understands the core values and beliefs of one’s religion. In sum,
the therapy—enhancement continuum spans technology that is clearly thera-
peutic and adds little beyond restoring one’s health, to technology that is clearly
enhancing with no reparative value. Whether an intervention has reparative
value depends, of course, on what one considers to be a disease or other condi-
tion that is unnecessary to being human. If one considers aging to be a disease
and not a normal and acceptable aspect of being human, then anti-­aging or
prolongevity interventions would be considered therapeutic and enhancing.
Technological interventions falling anywhere along this continuum may be
considered acceptable, from a religious perspective, if they are consistent with
one’s religious commitments and identity. However, if the intervention com-
promises one’s religious integrity, then it will likely be considered unacceptable
from a religious perspective. Technological interventions that fall in the clearly
therapeutic zone will tend to be more religiously acceptable since these inter-
ventions are medically healing and/or minimize suffering, both of which are
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 199

usually consistent with religious teachings. Regarding superintelligence, much

depends on the capacity and inclination of superintelligence to do good and to
help us to realize the goals for good lives, and potentially afterlives or next lives,
as understood by the religions. Superintelligence has potential to contribute to
these goals or to work in another direction.
A superintelligent machine, if it goes awry, could be powerful enough to
hack control of our transportation systems, factories, supply chains, and mili-
tary and do great harm. The threat could come, or at least start, in a small way
too, very small. In the chapter, “Existing and Possible Technologies,” we spoke
about nanotechnology. As an analogy, consider bricks arranged into a wall. The
wall can be dismantled brick by brick and some other structure built from the
bricks. Or, the wall can be disassembled, with the bricks left in a big pile on
the ground.
In this analogy, each brick in the wall is a molecule in your brain or an atom
in a chair. Nanotechnology operates at the molecular or even atomic level and,
if successful, would allow molecular or atomic size nanobot machines to
manipulate matter at the molecular or atomic level. Just as the wall of bricks
could be dismantled and reassembled or not, so the matter in your brain, chair,
or the entire planet could be manipulated.
At the atomic level, concern has been expressed about the “grey goo” threat.
Nanotechnology champion K. Eric Drexler coined this term in his landmark
book, Engines of Creation.41 This threat is an end-of-the-world as we know it
scenario. Perhaps the nanobot team turns the entire mass of the planet into a
heap of atoms, i.e., “grey goo.” “Ecophagy,” which means “eating the envi-
ronment,” is the more technical term used for this hellish outcome. Sun
Microsystems founder Bill Joy heightened interest in and concern about
ecophagy in a widely circulated article, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” in
Wired magazine.42 This threat has since been downplayed by Drexler and others.
In another apocalyptic version, when intelligent nanobots are developed
that manipulate matter at the atomic level, a glitch develops in the program-
ming of a superintelligent machine. Perhaps the superintelligence gets the mis-
taken idea that its mission is to build as many rubber bands as possible.43 The
machine replicates itself, increases its cognitive powers to a hundred times gen-
eral human intelligence, develops nanotechnology capability at the atomic
level, and connects itself to whatever information database and robotic tech-
nology it needs. It goes happily about rearranging atoms, wherever it finds
them, into rubber bands. It turns the stapler and water bottle on your desk into

41
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (New York: Doubleday, 1986). An
updated and expanded edition, Engines of Creation 2.0: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, was
published in 2007 and is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20140810022659/http://
www1.appstate.edu/dept/physics/nanotech/EnginesofCreation2_8803267.pdf.
42
April, 2000.
43
Bostrom uses paperclips in his example. For one critique of Bostrom’s worry, see Steve Fuller,
Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era, Posthuman
Studies 1, ed. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), 72–80.
200 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

rubber bands. It turns your chair into rubber bands. And, yes, it turns you into
rubber bands. It turns everything into rubber bands.
While a superintelligence-inspired nanotechnology apocalypse now seems to
be of minimal concern to many experts, much concern has been expressed
about superintelligence, which has been called “our final invention.”44
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, one of Great Britain’s pre-eminent
scientists, in many public forms clearly stated his concerns about AI and the
possibility of superintelligence:

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the
human race.45

AI could develop a will of its own … The rise of AI could be the worst or the best
thing that has happened for humanity.46

AI will be the biggest event in human history and, possibly, the last.47

Elon Musk, a Canadian American engineer and investor, has been the out-
spoken CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. He said AI could be more danger-
ous than nuclear weapons and calls for public regulation and control. Musk
argues that we do not want people to make atomic bombs, and we should treat
AI just as seriously.48 Bill Gates has also sounded the alarm,49 as has United
States’ Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in an opinion piece titled “How the
Enlightenment Ends: Philosophically, Intellectually—In Every Way—Human
Society is Unprepared for the Rise of Artificial Intelligence.”50 Pope Francis has
prayed for “good AI.”51 In an oft-quoted early statement, mathematician
Irving John Good said in 1965:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the
intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is
one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even
better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explo-
sion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first

44
This ominous title is found in James Barrat, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the
End of the Human Era (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013).
45
Rory Cellan-Jones, “Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End Mankind,”
BBC News (December 2, 2014). https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540.
46
Mike Murphy, “Stephen Hawking: AI Could be Best—or Worst—Thing in Human History,”
Market Watch (November 7, 2017). https://www.marketwatch.com/story/
stephen-hawking-ai-could-be-best-or-worst-thing-in-human-history-2017-11-06.
47
Huffington Post (4/14). Hawking, along with other scientists, made this statement in an op-ed.
48
Elon Musk, “Elon Musk’s Last Warning About Artificial Intelligence.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Osn1gMNtw&feature=youtu.be.
49
See also Nick Bostrom, “TED TALK: What Happens When Our Computers Get Smarter
Than We Are?” (April 27, 20165). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnT1xgZgkpk.
50
The Atlantic (June 2018).
51
Brian Walsh, “Pope Francis Prays for Good AI,” Axios (11/4/20). https://www.axios.com/
pope-francis-good-ai-711e64fa-ef8a-4faa-afce-19c463f07425.html.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 201

­ ltraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided
u
that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.52

A superintelligence could greatly enhance our capacities to do good, includ-

ing the furthering of medical science, healthcare, and the development of a just
global distribution of resources. Again, much depends on the qualities and
values that are instilled, if any, and the way in which this applied science works.
Since the science is questionable and the results are likely to be extreme, even
proactionary theorists may have pause in proceeding without tight controls
and regulation.
Surveillance and privacy concerns may be the driving force impelling societ-
ies to develop more regulations regarding use of AI. The concern is that regu-
latory bodies and laws will not come quickly enough to stop development of
superintelligence before we have set in place needed moral measures. Religions
offer moral guidance and values that need airing in the public square before
superintelligence develops. Given a superintelligence without co-design and
deliberately programmed qualities and morals, at minimum we risk infringing
upon or destroying religious integrity, which would take us well beyond what
is acceptable on the therapy—enhancement continuum. At maximum, we risk
mass destruction.

Choice
With most technologies, societies and individuals have choices even after the
technologies come online. While it may be more difficult to scale back technol-
ogy once it is widely available, the option is usually there, at least for individuals
who decide to refrain from using a particular intervention. Superintelligence is
likely a different case.
If the public is sufficiently informed and engaged, public and political pres-
sure could conceivably impact the direction of AI research that could lead to
superintelligence. Although debated, perhaps countries and companies could
unite behind a decision to stop short of AI transitioning into superintelligence.
However feasible that might be, it is very likely to be much harder to banish
superintelligence once it does appear. The concern, in short, is that a superin-
telligent machine, once created, will choose not to yield to any choice humans
might make about the fate of the superintelligence.
That eventuality places even greater weight on the critical time period lead-
ing up to the development of superintelligence. If religion is going to matter,
then religious people need to become educated now about superintelligence

52
Irving John Good, “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine,” in Advances
in Computers, eds. Franz L. Alt and Morris Rubinoff (New York: Academic Press, 1965), 33. It has
been argued that the concerns are based on questionable assumptions, such as the idea that a
strong distinction can be drawn between humans and machines. Human intelligence is quite adap-
tive and cyborgs blur the distinction between humans and machines, perhaps reducing the existen-
tial risk. See Fuller, Nietzschean Meditations, 73.
202 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

and promote moral qualities and values in the development process as co-­
designers and co-creators of the technology. Otherwise, the values of extreme
individualism, and utility, and efficiency (as these are embedded in technol-
ogy), plus whatever values—implicitly or explicitly—are promoted by the
designers of that technology, will take precedence.

Justice
A superintelligent machine, with robotic capability, might destroy any human
that it deems expendable. Hence, there are vigorous calls for “AI safety” by
“value-loading” new and very powerful generations of AI with moral values
friendly to humans and the eco-system. The goal is to increase the odds for a
heavenly, rather than hellish, outcome, i.e., that superintelligence will be ben-
eficial to humans and the planet rather than destructive. Of course, as we dis-
cussed in the chapter, “Radical Human Enhancement and Ethics,” a key
question is who has the privilege of determining what those values might be.
As long as the world is unjust, our newly created technologies risk not only
perpetuating but amplifying the values and judgements that inform this injus-
tice. Power, which we have discussed as an attribute of superintelligence, is not
a monolithic concept. Values shape how power is understood. Religiously
based social justice movements conceptualize divine power not as “power
over” but as “power with,” in solidarity with the marginalized. What superin-
telligence power will look like is not necessarily predetermined. The values of
those creating and regulating technology will likely drive the shape of the
resulting superintelligence. We are the authors of our own demise or flourish-
ing but we are not all equal. Systemic power imbalances mean that some people
have more power and resources than others in the world. We do not all have
the same access to voice and input.
Even if we somehow manage to enhance the voices and input of marginal-
ized groups into the co-design of superintelligence, beyond the technical chal-
lenges, which are considerable, what values might be chosen? Science fiction
enthusiasts may have heard of Asimov’s Laws, the three laws for robots intro-
duced by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in a 1942 short story, Runaround.53

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a
human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where
such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does
not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

53
Published in the March, 1942 issue of the science fiction magazine, Astounding Science Fiction.
 10 SUPERINTELLIGENCE: BRINGING ON THE SINGULARITY 203

Would these kinds of laws be sufficient to guard against mass destruction?

Perhaps an even more challenging question is whether these laws would pro-
mote flourishing. Not only is there the possibility that a superintelligent AI
would simply choose to follow its own reasoning without regard for how
humans have programmed it, but our values evolve and we have corrected
ourselves many times over the centuries. Religion professor Randall Reed dis-
cusses this problem:

We must recognize that human ethics progress over time. A superintelligent

A.G.I. [Artificial General Intelligence] created in 1830 would advocate slavery,
the disenfranchisement of women and people of color, the exclusion of many
classes of people from the workforce, and the acceptance of indentured servitude
and child labor. It would have no understanding of the ethical implications of a
40-hour work-week, sick leave, companionate marriage and so on, not recogniz-
ing many other things that we take for granted today. There is no reason to
believe that the ethics of today will be any more universal and static than the eth-
ics of 1830. Thus a superintelligent A.G.I. must not only be ethical by today’s
standards but by tomorrow’s as well. It must have the potential to grow ethically
with humanity.54

Beyond the threat to humanity, ethicists are beginning to address the very
complicated questions about the status of such machines. Do we want them to
play a role alongside human beings, what impact might there be on the work-
force, how will privacy laws be affected, how do we safeguard against people
who want to hack AI for their own ends (e.g., war or terrorism), will money
made on AI and superintelligence make the wealthy even wealthier and the
poor even more disenfranchised, and will superintelligence further limit human
relational connections? The questions are seemingly endless, and AI evolving
into superintelligence intensifies and complicates them.

Questions for Discussion

1. Discuss this statement: “The country, or company, that develops super-

intelligence will rule the world for a very short time … and then that
superintelligent machine will rule the world—and all of humanity, if the
human species is allowed to survive.”
2. Do you think that humans are the only sentient life form in the universe?
Why or why not?
3. What do you think the possible existence of alien life has to do with
extreme human enhancement, if anything?
4. Do you think an intelligent, sentient machine can be a person? Why
or why not?

54
Randall Reed, “A New Pantheon: Artificial Intelligence and ‘Her,’” Journal of Religion and
Film 22, no. 2 (2018): 8–9.
204 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

5. How do you anticipate that the religions will interpret

superintelligence?
6. How might superintelligence damage religious integrity?
7. If you think superintelligence is a threat to humans and the planet, how
would you rank it in comparison with other threats you see?
8. What values do you think are important in the creation of a superintelli-
gence? Discuss how you think we could collectively shape a
superintelligence.
 PART IV

Conclusion
 CHAPTER 11

Religion 2.0 and the Enhanced Technological

Future

Technology

Warnings
Transhumanism arouses plenty of concern and opposition. In a widely circu-
lated article earlier this century, political scientist and political economist
Francis Fukuyama called transhumanism “the most dangerous idea in the
world.”1 His concern had already been detailed in Our Posthuman Future:
Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.2
Author and activist Bill McKibben is most well-known for his leadership on
the issue of global climate change. His groundbreaking The End of Nature,3
published in 1989, has been distributed in dozens of languages. McKibben is
also a strong, thoughtful critic of radical human enhancement. Here is a sample
of his passionate defense of nature and humanity, drawn from his book, Enough:
Staying Human in an Engineered Age.

We need to do an unlikely thing: we need to survey the world we now inhabit and
proclaim it good. Good enough. Not in every detail; there are a thousand
improvements, technological and cultural, that we can and should still make. But
good enough in its outlines, in its essentials. We need to decide that we live, most
of us in the West, long enough. We need to declare that, in the West, where few
of us work ourselves to the bone, we have ease enough. In societies where most
of us need storage lockers more than we need nanotech miracle bones, we need
to declare that we have enough stuff. Enough intelligence. Enough capability.

1
“The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas,” Foreign Policy 83, no. 5 (September/October, 2004).
2
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
3
New York: Random House, 1989.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 207

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3_11
208 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Enough.4 … To call the world enough is not to call it perfect or fair or complete
or easy. But enough, just enough. And us in it.5

McKibben updated his views, but did not fundamentally change them, on
both global warming and enhancement technology in Falter: Has the Human
Game Begun to Play Itself Out?6 While exhibiting plenty of concern, McKibben
holds out hope that the twin challenges can be met and offers constructive
ways forward.
Focusing on superlongevity as an example, calls for serious dialogue and
debate about the social implications of extreme longevity have been heard from
several quarters and now go back many years. Although cautious and conserva-
tive in its projections, the United States’ President’s Council on Bioethics
acknowledged the possibility of changing human aging as early as 2003, stating
(in a chapter entitled “Ageless Bodies”) that the “prospect of possible future
success along these lines [i.e., to stop, slow, or reverse human aging] raises high
hopes, as well as profound and complicated questions.”7
A respected bioethics institute, The Hastings Center, also early on called for
“anticipatory deliberation” about the philosophical implications and social
consequences of various forms of aging research, including arrested aging:

The history of biomedical science shows how unexpectedly progress can catch the
scientific community and society unawares by accomplishing the 'impossible'.”8

An additional example of an influential call for the deliberate consideration of

extreme longevity is from Aubrey de Grey. He said that eliminating aging
would bring “social upheavals” and that the possibility “merits urgent debate”
within society.9
These concerns and calls for action have been expressed since at least the
turn of the century. The need for public discussion of the potential dangers,
and benefits, of the transhumanist agenda is becoming even more urgent with
the passage of time and technological changes.

4
Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), 109.
5
Ibid., 227.
6
New York: Macmillan, 2019.
7
The President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of
Happiness (October 2003). https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/beyond-
therapy/chapter4.html.
8
Erik Parens and Lori P. Knowles, A Special Supplement to the Hastings Center Report:
Reprogenetics and Public Policy: Reflections and Recommendations (July–August 2003). https://
live-the-hastings-center.pantheon.io/wp-content/uploads/reprogenetics_and_public_policy.pdf.
9
Aubrey D. N. J. de Grey, et al, “Time to Talk SENS: Critiquing the Immutability of Human
Aging,” Annals of the New York Academy of Science 959 (2002): 460, 452.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 209

Radical Biohacking Is Progressing

While scientists debate the feasibility of many enhancement technologies, in
general biomedical technology is becoming more able to manipulate our bio-
logical future in a meaningful way. It is the nature of scientists to explore, dis-
cover, and invent, and science in general is going to forge ahead, exploring new
territory. If some countries and some scientists decide to refrain from certain
research agendas, the exploration will shift to countries more hospitable to
the work.
Government and privately funded programs directed towards the engineer-
ing of human biology and progeny are ongoing and will likely pick up speed.
Even if you think radical biohacking is not advisable, if you are a taxpayer in
many countries, you are a participant in the progress of research, willingly or
not. Globally, governments are investing heavily in AI and other enhancing
technologies. Radical human enhancement advocates, such as William Sims
Bainbridge10 and Mihail Roco,11 hold influential positions in the National
Science Foundation and other United States’ government agencies.
In the United States, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), with a 3.5 billion dollar plus annual budget,12 is heavily
involved in human enhancement in the service of more effective soldiers and a
stronger military. DARPA has an impressive track record, having helped pio-
neer, for example, the internet and email. It supported funding for the com-
puter graphics industry, cell phones, “own-the-night” night-vision sensors,
advanced fuel cells, weather satellites, the Saturn V rocket that took humans to
the moon, and various “stealth” technologies.
Funding for human enhancement research will be less problematic than for
many other domains of medical research. The funding for such science and
technologies is likely to grow, as governments compete for advantage, investors
seek profits in technology companies, and consumer demand rises. In the chap-
ter, “Superlongevity,” we demonstrated how huge funding sources finance
human enhancement. As the wealthy class sniffs the possibilities of living for-
ever or making their children smarter or stronger, the money pipelines will
open more widely. The only way these developments will be thwarted is if a
global nuclear war, devastating pandemic, or some other planet-wide catastro-
phe pushes humanity back into the Stone Age.

10
Bainbridge is co-director of “Cyber-Human Systems” at the National Science Foundation in
the United States.
11
Roco is founding chair of the United States National Science and Technology Council sub-
committee on “Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology,” and he is senior advisor for
“Science and Engineering,” including nanotechnology, at the National Science Foundation.
12
In fiscal year 2020.
210 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Religion 2.0
Humanity currently has a full agenda of threats—global climate change, racial-
ization, nuclear war, pandemics, terrorism, economic collapse, possible aster-
oid impact, and more. In previous chapters we explored a number of specific
radical enhancement programs that conceivably could deliver sizable benefit to
humanity, the planet, and religion. Unfortunately, these radical programs can
also be added to the agenda of possible threats faced by humanity. As we have
seen, there is plenty to worry about with talk of grey goo, gene editing, extinct
Homo sapiens, and superintelligent machines gone awry. We do not minimize
the dangers, nor the potential for good.
As we have seen, radical human enhancements are coming as we biohack our
way farther into the human body, and some such enhancements are already in
the initial stages. Governments will not be able to legislate transhumans or
posthumans out of the future. If powerful and radical technologies are inevi-
table, important questions become how soon they will occur, who will create
and control them, how will the technologies be used and for what purposes,
and will access be equitable.
The debate about these therapies and technologies has been heated for some
time among ethicists, public intellectuals, and activist groups. That debate will
increasingly make its way into wider public conversations, including political
discourse. Religion, along with all aspects of society, is going to be challenged
and affected by these technological changes.
Religion can play an important role in assessing these technologies and
shaping a beneficial outcome. Playing that role requires religion to be respon-
sive, relevant, and prophetic in the public square. “Prophetic” is used here in
its ancient Israelite context, as drawing upon a religion’s best values and tradi-
tions to speak courageously to those in power and in the service of justice.13
Society at large can benefit from religion playing a leading role, especially if in
playing that role religion brings to the conversation its values and principles to
inform ethical questions about choice, justice, and what it means to become
better (truly enhanced) people.
To ensure survival and relevance, the religions will need to evolve in ways
significant enough to merit a new era in religion, which we call “Religion 2.0.”
This term is not unique to this textbook,14 although the way we are using it to
describe religion in the transhuman/posthuman era is new.

13
We are not using “prophetic” as predicting the future.
14
E.g., Giulio Prisco, “Transhumanist Religion 2.0,” Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence
“Daily Blog” (July 13, 2012). https://www.kurzweilai.net/transhumanist-religion-2-0; and
Universe Spirit, “The Religion 2.0 Manifesto: Open Source Meta-Religion for the Twenty
First Century.” https://www.universespirit.org/what-is-universe-spirituality-the-universe-spirit-
community-and-the-universe-spirituality-movement.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 211

While the responsibility of religion in the new world coming is huge, we do

not see it as necessarily arduous and burdensome. The world of radical human
enhancement provides an opportunity for theologians and ethicists of religion
to engage in creative, interesting, interdisciplinary work and for religious fol-
lowers to reflect profoundly, rethinking key elements of faith and practice. The
religions of the world should claim their voices and engage. We hope this text-
book prompts and fosters that engagement.

Religious Responses to the Coming Revolution

Cashing Out the Spectrum15

As biohacking techniques progress, we will likely see unusual alliances as bio-
conservative and enhancement enthusiasts emerge in both the conservative and
the liberal camps of the various religions. So far these dynamics are beginning
to be seen most clearly in Christianity, since most scholarly work published to
date on religion and enhancement has been about the religion Christianity.
How Christianity and scholars of this religion are assessing radical enhance-
ment may serve as a predictor of responses of other religions, especially the
monotheistic ones.
Some liberal and conservative Christians oppose technological enhance-
ment, but they oppose it for different reasons. Conservatives often generalize
their unease about radical enhancement against the background of an anti-­
scientific and anti-intellectual posture. Some Christian liberals, for reasons
often related to distributive and procedural justice (i.e., fair distribution of
resources and access to these resources) and social justice (i.e., systemic privi-
lege and disadvantage), add their voices of concern about these technologies.
Both groups, along with many in the general population, will likely oppose
these developments for two additional reasons.
First, humans fear seemingly uncontrollable change, perhaps experienced as
chaos. Second, some radical enhancement programs (e.g., mind uploading) can
be perceived as a threat to our status as individual persons. To use a key Buddhist
term, we are “attached” to ourselves as an identity. Without an identity, we are
anxious in the face of what we perceive as resulting meaninglessness.
However, some liberals and conservatives will support extreme enhance-
ment programs. Liberals welcome many technological advances that improve
well-being, especially if diverse voices get to contribute. Conservatives, too,
generally utilize the latest breakthroughs in medical science, and radical
enhancement can be viewed as extension of allopathic medicine currently being
practiced. All human beings, to one degree or another, are driven by a basic
survival instinct and, relatedly, often a fear of dying and death. These factors
may contribute to perceptions of longevity enhancements as God’s grace-filled

15
This section refers back to the “Theological Continuum” table in the chapter, “Transhumanism,
the Posthuman, and the Religions.”
212 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

work (liberals) or as befitting new applications of old sacred texts

(conservatives).

Moderate and Radical Scenarios

Another way of breaking out possible ways the religions might respond to the
brave new world coming is to think about moderate versus radical enhance-
ment biohacking scenarios. In a moderate enhancement scenario, we maintain
the basic structure of our physical existence, but use technology to give us
longer lives and make us at least somewhat stronger, smarter, happier, more
moral, and more spiritual.
Liberals likely will want these opportunities made available to everyone.
Conservatives will tend to interpret these moderate enhancements as an exten-
sion of traditional allopathic medicine, which they already use. Although both
liberals and conservatives will have their respective objections, moderate sce-
narios that maintain basic continuity with the human person embodied as we
now know it, compared to radical scenarios, will be much more acceptable to
the palates of all religious persuasions.
Radical enhancement scenarios include achieving “cybernetic immortality”
through mind uploading and preserving the body with cryonics for later revival
and restoration. Should we develop the capability for these programs, then all
our institutions, religious and others, will undergo significant adjustment or
perhaps elimination. It will be much more difficult for the religions to accept
these radical scenarios, unless the religions develop significant flexibility in their
doctrines and practices to adjust to and embrace the extreme developments.
The religions, and especially the monotheistic traditions, will exercise great
caution before taking a great leap into re-embodied existence in a digital
platform.
It is important to factor in that these radical enhancement developments will
not appear overnight. They will come in stages, perhaps giving theologians and
persons of faith sufficient time to adjust. Also, as we have discussed, the radical
scenarios will be more tolerable if cybernetic existence comes with a body
“clothed” with advanced robotics and tissue generation, making that body
more visibly16 familiar and, therefore, acceptable.

Far Right-Wing Reactions

Not all conservatives will oppose the more radical human enhancements, but
the conservatives that do will likely be strong in their opposition. So, we give
some detailed attention to the shape the far right-wing reaction is taking. A

16
Donald M. Braxton, “Does Transhumanism Face an Uncanny Valley Among the Religious?”
in Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, eds. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2015),
331–350. Braxton posits that visibly non-normative bodies generate a disgust reaction.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 213

new techno-apocalyptic genre of writing arose in 2010 in the far right of

Christianity, stridently challenging transhumanist ideas and radical enhance-
ment strategies. Transhumanism is portrayed, in techno-apocalyptic writings,
as leading to the enslavement and destruction of humanity via a biblically
prophesied and imminent evil end-time Antichrist war against God and the
faithful.
Thomas and Nita Horn are the leading authors in this latest version of an
old reactionary ideology in fundamentalist Christianity. The long subtitles of
their two most popular books tell plenty of the story as they understand it:
Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic
Biology, NanoTechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of
Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare17 and Pandemonium’s Engine: How the
Church Age, the Rise of Transhumanism, and the Coming of the Ubermensch
(Overman) Herald Satan’s Final and Imminent Assault on the Creation of
God.18 Sean O’Callaghan provides an accessible account of this growing publi-
cation and broadcast industry.19 In his 2009 book on fundamentalism, Professor
Mercer, one of your authors, correctly predicted that by 2020 (as it turned out,
this happened much earlier) fundamentalists would be writing books, selling
tapes, and preaching sermons against radical human enhancement.20
This Christian-based right-wing reaction against transhumanism follows a
long line of apocalyptic preaching and writing about the imminent end of
time.21 In its modern version, this apocalyptic tradition began in earnest in the
nineteenth century with the dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby. Darby
was a religious dissenter from the Church of Ireland who preached mission
trips in Canada and America. Darby’s dispensational scheme that the second
coming of Christ to the Earth is imminent was widely disseminated in twenti-
eth century north America through the very popular Scofield Reference Bible.
This teaching infiltrated Bible conferences, books, institutes, and other avenues
of communication.
The type of dispensationalism promoted by Darby is “premillennial dispen-
sationalism,” which teaches there are several dispensations or succeeding ages
through which God relates to human beings. “Premillennial dispensation”
means that prior to a literal 1,000-year peaceful reign of Jesus Christ, the world
will see horrific battles between God and Satan. Evil forces will seek to capture
the minds of people, and Christians will be pitted against the world, which will

17
Crane, Missouri: Defender, 2010.
18
Crane, Missouri: Defender, 2011.
19
“Technological Apocalypse: Transhumanism as an End-Time Religious Movement,” in
Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin
Mercer, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series eds. Calvin Mercer
and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 67-88.
20
Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (Westport, CT: Praeger,
2009), 96.
21
The history of modern Christian apocalypticism in the remainder of this section is taken from
Mercer, Slaves to Faith.
214 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

be controlled by Satan. The transhumanist agenda is seen as part of the evil

world order.
According to this apocalyptic premillennial theology, we are currently near
the end of the dispensation called the “church age,” and are heading into an
age of catastrophic evil events prior to God’s radical intervention that ushers in
the 1,000-year reign of Christ. People who adhere to this way of thinking
about the end-time talk about the “signs of the times,” by which they mean
that the Bible gives us clues about events that will transpire in these “last days.”
In most of these futuristic scenarios, the next event to occur is the “rap-
ture,” wherein Christians will be taken safely from the earth by God. A distress-
ingly scary time, called the tribulation, will occur right after the rapture. Those
“left behind” (the title of a book we will discuss a few paragraphs from now)
will have to endure the terrible suffering and persecution by the Satan-inspired
Antichrist. Following the tribulation, Christ will return to the earth in his “sec-
ond coming” to defeat Satan in the great final, bloody, decisive battle of
Armageddon. Only then will come the millennium, when Jesus will rule for
1,000 years in a literal kingdom in Jerusalem.
This dispensational apocalyptic movement grew strong in the fertile soil of
nineteenth century Protestant Christian reactionary revivalism and evangelical-
ism. In America, for example, the last part of the nineteenth century saw pro-
found changes sweep through the religious, social, and intellectual landscape.
From Europe came Roman Catholics, Jews, and Eastern Orthodox Christians
whose world views clashed with the Protestantism of America. Charles Darwin’s
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) and his more
explicitly titled The Descent of Man (1871) threw many Protestant Christians
into a tailspin. For them, evolution was seen as contradictory to their Christian
views about the origin of humanity, derived from their literal reading of the
Bible’s creation stories.
The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee is just one famous
example of the fierce debate over Darwin’s theory in America. The new social
sciences of sociology and psychology were yielding non-theistic explanations of
religious behavior, contributing to the angst of conservative Protestant
Christians. God seemed to be taken out of the equation. To make matters
worse, scholarly investigation of the Bible, making clear the historical processes
informing the biblical books, was also making its presence felt and creating
more anxiety and reaction.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth,22
There’s A New World Coming,23 and The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon24
were some of the most successful presentations of this apocalyptic theology.
Lindsey’s books were the ideological and publication predecessors of the

22
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon, 1970.
23
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon, 1973.
24
New York: Westgate, 1980.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 215

popular Left Behind series of 16 books—with film, music, and video game spin-
offs—by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins in the 1990’s that sold about 63
million copies worldwide.25
We provide background and some detail to this history to make the point
that there is a potentially huge audience and eager reception for religiously
based end-of-the-world thinking successfully packaged for commercial con-
sumption. The science-based, generally secular transhumanist movement,
advocating radical enhancement programs, is likely to foment intense opposi-
tion. While Christian writers are probably more zealous and detailed in their
apocalyptic scenarios, Islam also has robust end-time speculation.26 Conservative
wings of both religions will likely play important roles in framing radical
enhancement in the context of supernatural forces of good and evil clashing in
these final days before the climatic end of the world.

Right-Wing Reaction—Deeper Issues

The social and psychological dimensions of these right-wing reactionary
responses are worth considering. At the root of conservative resistance is not
only theological disagreement but also, and understandably, deep anxiety in
the face of threat to one’s worldview and religious framework. Fundamentalists,
especially, may understand the increasing ability to change humans with tech-
nology as a threat to their belief in the existence of God and the integrity and
safety of the soul. Premillennial dispensationalism, discussed above, entails a
very pessimistic outlook on the world and thrives during times of crisis, such as
in late nineteenth and early twentieth America, as noted above.
Contemporary life, due in large part to technology, is becoming as imper-
sonal as it is fast-paced. Many people, especially in the Western industrialized
world, yearn for a slower, more personal, more substantive daily existence.
When we add threat, including the threat of non-being via severe pandemic,
nuclear war, or global climate change, to this fast pace and impersonal life, we
have a formula for deep existential anxiety.
Following the “9/11” attacks on the Twin Towers in America in 2001, sales
of the apocalyptic Left Behind novels increased 60 percent. The Darby-Scofield-­
Lindsey-Left Behind-techno-apocalyptic tradition rejects the optimistic, hope-
ful postmillennialism that envisions God working through people to bring
about spiritual and moral progress issuing in the peaceful millennial, inter-
preted literally or symbolically. Premillennial dispensationalism, teaching that
the world is evil and only God’s supernatural intervention will prevail, is made
to order for the psychological uncertainty, stress, and threat that right-wing
religionists tend to feel in these rapidly changing times with talk of mind
uploading, digital immortality, and other such transhumanist programs.

25
See the official website, http://www.leftbehind.com/, for the range of commercial products
available.
26
See, e.g., the work of Imran Nazar Hosein.
216 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Admittedly, in a general sense, a case can be made for premillennialism over

postmillennialism, for viewing the world as irreformably evil. Christian liberals
argue God works through humanity for change and progress. This Christian
liberal social gospel message rang hollow when the planet found itself mired in
World War I, the “war to end all wars.” If that was not enough of a blow to
liberal optimism, in the middle of last century humanity found itself plunged
again into another ugly, horrible, deadly worldwide war that erased the lives of
an estimated 70-85 million people.
Conflict between countries around the globe, heightened racial tension, the
threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere, pandemics, cli-
mate change, and so much more certainly makes one wonder about the credi-
bility of liberal optimism. All is not well with the world, the conservatives say,
and in their premillennial outlook they point to God’s otherworldly, radical
intervention as the only solution. The impulse that drives toward the apocalyp-
tic view and against the liberal, optimistic social gospel is, psychologically,
understandable.
On the other hand, but in some ways not dissimilar to conservatives, some
on the theological left are also reacting to contemporary crises in a way that
questions the wisdom of transhumanist programs. Time, expertise, and money
are limited. Liberals are suspicious about using scarce resources to enhance
people already privileged, rather than giving clean water, adequate healthcare,
housing, and education to everyone. Liberals in all religions argue for privileg-
ing the “least of these,”27 not those with power and privilege who are driving
much of the transhumanist agenda. Human enhancement is a red herring,
many liberals say, taking our focus away from what religious values require.

TechPlus Theology—An Ongoing Project

Sketching a Path Forward

In the first sentences of the introductory chapter, we made this dramatic
statement:

The religions of the world will come to an end—or thrive—depending on how

they respond to the topic of this book.

You have now considered a variety of radical human enhancement therapies

and technologies and can draw your own conclusions about whether our state-
ment is an exaggeration or not. Our position, implied in that statement, is that
the religions can thrive, but only if they skillfully and creatively respond to the
new impending biohacked world. The religions can survive and thrive, but
they can go far beyond that and contribute powerfully and positively to

27
Matthew 25:40, from the Christian New Testament.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 217

humanity’s general response to enhancement, making sure the technologies

develop on the side of justice, freedom, religious integrity, and community.
Sounding an alarm that would well be echoed by all the religions, Christian
theologian Ted Peters writes:

If theologians have been asleep during our era of scientific and technological
revolution, it is time to wake up. The alarm is sounding. Here is the morning
news: technoscience is running for the office of messianic savior. Jesus Christ has
a new rival in the form of Transhumanism…. The transhumanists are excited,
even ebullient, about the prospect of human transformation, cyborg superintel-
ligence, freedom from bodily suffering, and even immortality. If H+ wins the
hearts and minds of the populace, theologians will become obsolete.28

Our goal in the remainder of this chapter is to sketch a path forward, provid-
ing grist for the mill that yields context for a powerful critique of and, as appro-
priate, a healthy embrace of enhancement technology. We emphasize the word
“sketch,” because the religions are just beginning their assessment of radical
human enhancement, with Judaism and especially Christianity ahead of the
others but still woefully slow. Theology and ethics are two important aspects of
religion, along with institutions, rituals, spirituality, and other elements. In this
section on theology, we draw together a number of threads addressed in earlier
chapters, weaving those threads together into the whole cloth of Religion 2.0.
“Humanity 2.0” and “humanity plus” are among the terms used to refer to
technologically enhanced humans. Steve Fuller, an able commentator on the
enhancement landscape, says we need a “science-oriented theology” suited to
Humanity 2.0. In a chapter titled “A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0,” he sug-
gests the term “Theology 2.0.”29 We have chosen the term “TechPlus
Theology” in the hopes that it frames the project as doing theology in the
context of technologically enhanced humans and, possibly, posthumans.30 We
are not interested in a theology that just addresses technology. Our interest is
in systematically addressing religious ideas within an explicit technological con-
text. Of course, the term used is less important than that the religions engage
this theological process forthwith and energetically.
Our goal has been to identify a few themes and resources that could be use-
ful in the ongoing project of constructing TechPlus Theology. Some of these
ideas have been introduced in previous chapters; a few are new to this section

28
Ted Peters, “The Ebullient Transhumanist and the Sober Theologian,” Scientia et Fides (July
2, 2019) 98.
29
Steve Fuller, Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 163.
30
One of your authors called for “AI-Theology,” but that term is too limited. The religions must
be about constructing a theology that accounts for the wide range of technological enhancement.
See Calvin Mercer, “A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain Emulation: On the Path to
Superintelligence,” in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, eds. Tracy
J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, in Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors,
series eds. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 95–96.
218 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

of the textbook. Of course, there will not be just one TechPlus Theology; each
religion will construct particular theologies based on that religion’s scriptural
and theological traditions. And there are likely to be numerous theological
programs in each religion, ranging through the liberal-conservative continuum.

A Basic Perspective
Many times, throughout the textbook, we have considered types of enhance-
ments that may result from biohacking and then said something like “perhaps”
or “maybe” it will result in X or, on the other hand, “perhaps” or “maybe” the
enhancement will result in Y. Now, near the end of the textbook, we become
more assertive with a possible stance the religions can take that releases them
from impotency in the face of “maybe this” or “maybe that” will happen. This
subsection articulates a general position that can inform the religions as they
construct a TechPlus Theology.
We begin by setting the context for this, hopefully, constructive project with
three well-based assumptions. First, enhancement technology, like all technol-
ogy, is value-laden, not value-neutral. Second, bias can inform what research is
funded, how the technology is developed, who can access the enhancement,
and a host of other aspects of the process. Finally, human beings are distin-
guished from other Earth life forms in our intellectual ability to interpret reality
with sophisticated, powerful language. Philosophers argue about the ultimate
nature of reality. What is less controversial is that reality, whatever it is, gets
interpreted by language and, indeed, that interpretation determines the behav-
ior of the person or entity doing the interpretation. That behavior then loops
back to impact reality. To use religious terminology, there is tremendous power
in the word.
Speech act theory in the philosophy of language considers types of language
that go beyond simply presenting and describing information. The idea is that
language itself can be an action. Language can be “performative” or “a perfor-
mative,” to use the technical term. For example, many marriage ceremonies
occur in cultural, legal, and religious contexts. Standing before a legal and/or
religious authority, reality shifts at the point when the man or woman says, “I
do.” That is a speech act, a performative.
Consider another example that can illustrate how we propose theological
language might work. At the beginning of the 1960s decade, United States
President John F. Kennedy said, in effect, that by the end of the decade,
America would put a man on the moon. At that point most citizens were
opposed to the idea, and the necessary technology had not been invented. The
statement, however, was uttered by someone in authority and in a committed
way. Kennedy’s performative language altered reality. In that decade, necessary
governmental committees were formed, funding was generated, technology
was created, and in July 1969 the first human landed on the moon.
Without getting into the details of speech act theory or trying to translate
directly from the theory, we propose the general proposition that committed
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 219

language can shape reality by framing how the interpreter understands and
then responds to what is interpreted. In the chapter, “Radical Human
Enhancement and Ethics,” we introduced the power of words in shaping moral
discourse, to help us flag and deconstruct how words can influence our think-
ing. Now we invite you to consider how words can proactively construct and
influence approaches to technology.
Individuals, societies, religions, and other entities interpret reality. With
their long traditions and repertoire of symbolic language, the world’s religions
are well positioned to have a powerful say in how radical human enhancement
technology unfolds for society and certainly for the religions. Religion can
contribute its values and moral guidance to the creation of technology and can
re-envision technology in religiously congruent ways.
This understanding of reality, language, and interpretation means that
enhancements, value-laden though they are, get interpreted through human
language, a filter more profound and consequential than the values embedded
in the technology. In other words, the power of language to create and shape
can subvert the embedded values and biases and reshape the technology,
according to proactively chosen values. Ideally, values of social justice, distribu-
tive justice, choice, relationality, responsibility, and others inform the entire
process of enhancement technology from idea to consumer use. But, even if
they do not, whatever values drove the process eventually wither in the face of
the power of committed interpretative language.
The question of power is important. Thus far, those driving the radical
enhancement agenda have mostly been Euro-American men. Take note of the
many leaders and other influential people mention in this textbook. You will
see a stark pattern of Euro-American male voices. This pattern troubles us.
Values are connected to power. Until the leading voices become much more
diverse, we will see a particular normative value set promoted by technology
and influencing technology. Religion belongs in the public square. Religion has
a role to play in decentering technology discourse in liberative ways. One of
these ways is by adding diverse voices to the conversation.
So, religions can dispense with the “maybe X” or “maybe Y” will happen.
Whether radical human enhancements turn out for good or evil depends pri-
marily on how these technologies and enhancements are imagined and inter-
preted, that is, how they are envisioned or reenvisioned by the human—or
transhuman or posthuman—interpreter. Standing at the beginning of a power-
ful technology explosion, the outcome is not destined. Rather, the heavenly or
hellish scenario is almost totally dependent on the interpretation brought to
these powerful tools. The religions absolutely can interpret enhancement tech-
nology, they can embrace it, in a manner that makes more likely a heavenly
vision, a reality that is loving, just, and moral. We now consider some religious
doctrines in order to suggest how the religions can begin the process of theo-
logically interpreting enhancement technology.
220 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Doctrine of God or the Divine

Theos is the Greek word for “God.” “Ology” comes from logos, Greek for
“word” and in this context means “study of.” Theology generally refers to
religious doctrine or belief. So, theology proper is “word about God” or study
of the divine. We have used the term theology in both senses throughout this
textbook. In this section we consider in the main a Christian theistic perspec-
tive as an example of how a religion might develop and explore a TechPlus
Theology.

 od as Omega Point
G
In the chapter, “Superintelligence,” we explored deity as emergent, a concept
undergirded by the notion of change that is at the heart of process theology.
We now introduce Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), whose work31 can
give expression to the ideas of emergence and change in world of radical
enhancement, superintelligence, and Singularity.32
Teilhard, a Christian priest, was a paleontologist and geologist whose appre-
ciation of evolutionary development, and his commitment to science and reli-
gion, bore fruit in his sweeping vision of a cosmos that evolves from matter to
humanity. In his vision, God becomes the culmination and unification of com-
plexity and consciousness in what Teilhard termed the “Omega Point.” The
process is far from random. Rather, the movement toward Omega Point entails
reason and purpose, features of the noosphere (Greek “mind” and “sphere”),
a central term used by Teilhard but also in various ways by other authors. For
Teilhard, the process is driven by love, a principle easily affirmed by all religions.
Teilhard has been called a “prototypical transhumanist”33 because of per-
ceived overlap between, for example, his religious Omega Point and Ray
Kurzweil’s technological Singularity. Teilhard’s cosmic vision was a Christian
one and provides an access point for the development of a TechPlus Theology
that can frame and shift reality, certainly within Christianity, but the basic ideas
may be useful for other religions as well. Teilhard was not a pantheist, but his
ideas could be modified to fit a pantheistic outlook in karmic religions. In the
chapter, “Superintelligence,” we introduced Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the uni-
verse “waking up,” a transhumanist idea that could be adapted by the panthe-
istic traditions in thinking about God as everything and everything as God.34

31
Principally The Human Phenomenon, trans. Sarah Appleton-Weber (Portland: Sussex Academic
Press, 2003 [first published posthumously 1955]); and The Divine Milieu, trans. Siȏn Cowell
(Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2003 [first published posthumously 1957]).
32
For examples of discussions of Teilhard in the context of transhumanism, see David Grumett,
“Transformation and the End of Enhancement,” in Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian
Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed. Ron Cole-Turner (Washington: Georgetown
University, 2011), 37-49; Eric Steinhard, “Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism,” Journal of
Evolution and Technology 20 (2008): 1-22; and Fuller, Humanity 2.0, 201-208.
33
Grumett, “Transformation and the End of Enhancement,” 38.
34
Although not as well-known as Teilhard de Chardin or Ray Kurzweil, Ted Chu paints a secular
grand vision, albeit drawing upon religion, of humanity playing a supporting role in cosmic evolu-
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 221

While sketching ideas that the religions might use in formulating a TechPlus
Theology, it is humbling to think about the possibility that the time may come
when superintelligent machines may do most or all of the theologizing, just as
they may do the doctoring, lawyering, and accounting.

 Divine Cyborg?
A
In the chapter, “Existing and Possible Technologies,” we discussed cyborgiza-
tion. Christianity, with its interpretation of Jesus Christ as a divine-human fig-
ure, provides an interesting case study. Jesus was arguably a cyborg, of sorts,
and as such could be viewed as a Christian model for radical human enhancement.
A cyborg is an organism, such as a human being, integrated with artificial
machine technology that can take the organism beyond normal functioning.
Jesus was not using technology, of course. However, he was a being whose
human nature and abilities were coupled with capabilities taking him beyond
human ones. So, in a loose sense of the term, perhaps we could we say Jesus
was a cyborg. Or, at least, Jesus was distinct as a human by possessing, fully,
two natures, according to Christian doctrine.
Jesus of Nazareth was transcended by the divine Christ, by becoming Jesus
Christ, a title that befits fully God and fully human. As one who transcends,
Jesus Christ could be a model for human enhancement. Jesus utilized his tran-
scendent nature, his superhuman capabilities, for good, miraculously healing
the sick, for example. Perhaps Jesus provides a model for transhumans using
their enhanced abilities with moral and religious integrity.

Theological Anthropology—What Does It Mean To Be Human?

The doctrine of human being is at the heart of the matter, because it is, after
all, the enhancement of humans that is being discussed. Cyborgs, mind-­
uploads, and superintelligence, raising various possibilities regarding con-
sciousness and soul, however those terms are defined, bring the question of
personhood front and center.35
In general, transhumanist programs view human persons as having no fixed,
immutable essence. In the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the
Religions,” Max More’s “A Letter to Mother Nature: Amendments to the
Human Constitution” demonstrated this point. In that letter, More writes that
“We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution …” and “we

tion that will see the rise of new sentient beings. See Ted Chu, Human Purpose and Transhuman
Potential: A Cosmic Vision for our Future Evolution (San Rafael, CA: Origin Press, 2014).
35
See Stanley Rudman, Concepts of Person and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1997). A good discussion, although not from a religious angle, is Craig T. Nagoshi and
Julie L. Nagoshi, “Being Human versus Being Transhuman: The Mind-Body Problem and Lived
Experience,” pp. 303-19, in eds., Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth L. Mossman, Building
Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism. They argue for the role of “mythos,
namely, lived experiences self-understood and shared through inherently subjective, personally
meaningful, bodily based narratives …” (303).
222 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

will pursue a series of changes to our own constitution.” This idea of evolving
life is central to a transhumanist vision, and any religion that incorporates trans-
humanism to a significant degree will have to engage this central notion. It
does not appear, however, that the religions will have to “sell their souls” to do
this. Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the material universe evolving toward the
Omega Point is a theology that is consistent with transhumanism in the convic-
tion that human life is not fixed.36
Certainly, there are theological currents in the religions, most likely in the
conservative wings, that will insist human nature is fixed and on that basis
reject transhumanism and its central tenet. But we have seen in earlier chapters
that the religions, given their theological mix, can find ways to legitimately
embrace the idea of transhuman and even posthuman life.37 We will now briefly
review some of those possible ways forward.

Monotheistic Religions
In the monotheistic religions, resurrection to new, transformed life is an exam-
ple of a doctrine we have discussed that can conceivably be understood as a way
of interpreting and embracing technological enhancement. In the chapter,
“Superintelligence,” we saw that discussions about alien life from other worlds
could open the door for theological acceptance of posthuman life, as with
human life. We are not saying the monotheistic religions will necessarily
embrace transhumanism’s anthropology. We do contend that these religions
have the theological flexibility to do so.
To give another example, the concept of imago Dei (image of God), in
Judaism and Christianity, can be understood in a way that provides for the
acceptance of posthuman beings. As we saw in the introductory chapter and
the chapter, “Mind Uploading,” humans made in the image of God have been
understood as possessing an image of God’s rationality, creativity, free will,
relationality, and other characteristics. Posthuman beings could conceivably
express all of these, just like intelligent life from other planets could, if these
beings are understood as being made in the image of God.
Some theologians have explored and even challenged the claim that the
image of God is restricted to humans. Professor Trothen writes:

Joshua Moritz and Celia Deane-Drummond argue that scientific research yields
nothing that makes humans qualitatively unique among animals. As a result, it
may be, as Deane-Drummond proposes, that animals share in the likeness of God
but not the imago Dei as that is the realm only of humans and angels.38 …
[Moritz] stands by the argument that, in keeping with Darwinian science, there

36
Grumett, “Transformation and the End of Enhancement,” 39.
37
With regard to the Christian religion, this sustained argument is made by Calvin Mercer, “A
Theological Embrace of Transhuman and Posthuman Beings,” Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith 72/2 (June 2020) 83-88.
38
Celia Deane-Drummond, “God’s Image and Likeness in Humans and Other Animals:
Performative Soul-Making and Graced Nature,” Zygon 47, no. 4 (December 2012): 934–48.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 223

is no adequate scientific basis on which to claim that humans are a unique species
with qualitatively distinct qualities related to freedom, lack of innate instincts,
self-consciousness and self-awareness, culture, rationality, or moral behavior.39
If one can mount the argument that there is no scientific basis for claims of
human qualitative uniqueness, then there seems little scientific reason to think
that extremely altered humans would be made any less in God’s image.40

Created Co-Creators
In the monotheistic religions especially, God as creator, separate from—though
connected to—the created order, is a central theme. In the early stories of the
Bible, following the initial creation of the world, the creative activity of God
continues in many and varied ways, all the way to the end-time “new heaven
and a new earth.”41 The idea of humans as created co-creators is a controversial
notion. Those suspicious of technology will charge that humans are “playing
God,” by engaging in domains and activities of creation that should be reserved
only for God.42
For those who deny the charge of playing God, or who see the charge of
playing God as ambiguous, the created co-creator proposal provides a way to
theologically interpret and potentially embrace transhumans, posthumans, and
superintelligence. Ted Peters argues that creating, including creating new tech-
nology, can be “playing human” as God intended.43 Since people are created in
the image of God, they have a duty to create for the good. God is still at work,
along with God’s created co-creators, bringing into existence enhanced and
new life forms using technology. In this framework, technology can be a means
of God’s grace, creativity, and salvific activity.
The following reflection, in a Canadian Council of Churches resource and
written by Professor Trothen, affirms technology, but in the context of caution
that these powerful tools be used wisely.

Humans, as made in the likeness of God, have been given creativity to be used in
divine service. Theologian Philip Hefner’s proposal of humans as created co-­
creators helps us to complicate the caution not to “play God” in the realm of
science and technology. While we ought to be prudent and aware of our abilities
to mess up, we also have extraordinary capacity to improve life with God’s help.
The imago Dei suggests a divine mandate to create for the good. This is a risky
venture requiring humility and some audacity.44

39
Joshua M. Moritz, “Evolution, the End of Human Uniqueness, and the Election of the Imago
Dei,” Theology and Science 9, no. 3 (2011): 312–313.
40
Tracy J. Trothen, Winning the Race? Religion, Hope, and Reshaping the Sport Enhancement
Debate (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2015), 176.
41
In the New Testament, see Revelation 21:1 and 2 Peter 3:13.
42
“Playing God” is the title of Ted Peters’ book, Playing God: Genetic Determinism and Human
Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1996).
43
Playing God.
44
Tracy J. Trothen, “Christian Anthropology: Doing Good Through Science and Technology,”
in Technology and the Image of God: A Canadian Conversation (Canadian Council of Churches,
Faith and Life Sciences, 2017), 18–19.
224 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Human Fallibility
A related and basic theological anthropology question is, are we mostly good
or mostly bad? More specifically, can we be trusted with powerful technology?
As we have seen in other chapters, conservatives and liberals tend to articulate
different positions on this question, with conservatives emphasizing human
depravity and liberals emphasizing human goodness and potential. Earlier in
this chapter, we considered some history of how this has played out with regard
to the impact of two world wars and terrorism on the (perhaps naïve) optimism
of the liberal social gospel movement.
As with most such theological questions, the answer is likely not to be
binary—humans are neither all good nor all bad. For various genetic, psycho-
logical, social, and spiritual reasons, some people may have stronger tendencies
toward evil doing than others. But no single person is all devil or all angel. We
all have our “better angels,” although we do not always listen to those angels.
To put a finer point on the question, it is not so much a matter of whether a
particular human being works for good or evil in the world. It is a broader
question about the direction of the human race. While this is a theological
question, it is not only theological. Most people probably have some sense,
whether conscious or not, about the direction in which they think humanity
is headed.
The traditions and doctrines of monotheistic religions recognize human fail-
ing and sinfulness. The biblical Garden of Eden story45 is soon followed by a
story of Cain killing Able46 and a devastating flood47 brought on by human
wickedness. The potential of God working through and with humans to use
technology for good must be tempered by a recognition of the selfishness,
greed, and hatred that also issue in genocide, rape, and a host of other evils.
Hefner was very deliberate to name us humans as created co-creators. He
makes clear that we are created partly in order to caution against hubris. Hubris
is extreme pride and shows up as a will-to-power, creating all kinds of mischief.
However, feminist and other liberation theologians have critiqued the equation
of sin with pride. Will-to-power is not a danger for many marginalized people.
Their danger is more in failing to claim the “co-creator” part of the phrase by
being too humble or voiceless. Many black, feminist, and post-­colonial theolo-
gians have pointed out the danger of giving up one’s voice and power in the
face of oppressive power structures and attitudes. We need under-­represented
voices at the table co-designing technology and in the public square.
Unless they are restrained or reenvisioned, powerful technologies can add to
power and give power. These technologies can also take away power when they
are not co-designed, and they can fail to represent the knowledge, needs, and
dreams of not just the powerful but of those on the social margins. Power in

45
Genesis, chapter 2.
46
Genesis, chapter 4.
47
Genesis, chapters 6–9.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 225

itself is not bad. It is power-over that is to be avoided, in a commitment to

mutual relationship and the flourishing of all life, as taught by all religions.

Karmic Religions
While there has been less reflection on these issues as they relate to the karmic
traditions, it does seem the doctrine of reincarnation can readily accommodate
transhumanism’s pliable human nature. Based on a being’s karmic narrative,
the next incarnation can come at various human levels (i.e., castes), but the
vision of the karmic religions goes far beyond the human plane. It is believed
the soul can transmigrate to levels lower than human or higher. In Buddhism,
for example, the six realms of rebirth can include heavenly, demigod, human,
animals, ghosts, and residents of hell.
In scenarios with these kinds of possibilities, the monotheistic concerns
about embodiment, personhood, and identity are not so much at play. The law
of karma applies, whether it is soul in Hinduism or the more complicated
Buddhist notion of no-self. Future reincarnations are not dependent on conti-
nuity of embodiment, personhood, or identity, at least in the ways these are
understood in the monotheistic religions.

Soteriology
Soter is Greek for salvation. Every religion identifies what it considers to be the
basic human predicament. For Hinduism, it is ignorance of our true, divine
nature; for Buddhism, suffering; for Christianity, sin that separates humans
from God. A religion’s solution to the basic human predicament is that reli-
gion’s soteriology, its concept of salvation.
As we have seen, there are some fundamental differences in the theological
outlooks of the monotheistic and karmic religions. However, one soteriologi-
cal idea in certain monotheistic traditions seems quite compatible with that of
pantheism, as expressed in Hinduism and other karmic traditions. It is also an
idea aligning well with the transhumanist vision of transcending our current
human situation. In the chapter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the
Religions,” we presented the doctrine of divinization (theosis), that is, becom-
ing divine. We see this teaching especially in the Eastern Orthodox branch of
Christianity. We also encounter it in the Church of Latter Day Saints, com-
monly referred to as Mormonism.
A pantheistic religion like Hinduism is more direct and extensive in its asser-
tion that we are divine. The basic human predicament is that we are ignorant
of our true, divine nature. We are God—not “a” god, but god in the sense that
there is only divinity and therefore all are divine. Eastern Orthodoxy and
Mormonism do not have the same doctrinal framework as Hinduism, but there
is some family resemblance in that the end result of the sanctification process in
these Christian traditions is that we become divine.
In Christianity, sanctification means to make holy, usually through some
combination of God’s grace and human works. Most Christian traditions stop
226 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

short of saying that we are to become divine but do encourage followers to

work toward a realization of God’s divine model in Jesus. In Hinduism, salva-
tion means realizing oneness with divine reality. Radical human enhancement
that moves us in the direction of omnibenevolence, omniscience, and omnipo-
tence can be understood as serving an ultimate divinization goal as well.

Eschatology
Eschaton is the Greek for “end.” So, we come now to the end, the end (or
nearly so) of the textbook and to the doctrine of the end-time. How will it all
wind up, and is it going to be a heavenly or hellish outcome or somewhere in
between?
Earlier in this chapter, we described a right-wing Christian approach to
eschatology exhibited in the techno-apocalyptic writing and preaching now
gaining steam as a reaction to transhumanist programs. Christian eschatologies
can range from this conservative version to more moderate or liberal visions
that interpret end-time language (e.g., Antichrist, Armageddon) as symbols of
good and evil and the struggle between them, wherever and whenever
that occurs.
Transhumanists have an eschatology, a vision of where things are going,
although they do not usually clothe it in religious terminology. Ray Kurzweil is
an exception with his vision of the universe as becoming saturated with intel-
ligence and waking up. The progressive theological vision of Teilhard de
Chardin, discussed earlier in this chapter, can be interpreted so as to incorpo-
rate Kurzweil’s vision of the Singularity.
As we proposed earlier, the religions have at their command powerful, per-
formative symbols and doctrines by which to interpret and shape technology in
ways that reflect religion’s values. Whether and how extensively the religions
intentionally use their powerful language is yet to be seen. The future of reli-
gion and the welfare of society in general depends in part on how the religions
address radical human enhancement in the coming years.

Final Ethical Reflections…For Now

Some scientists are very thoughtful about the topics in this textbook, and some
of them have advised that we avoid the more radical enhancement efforts. In
general, however, scientists are unrestrained in their pursuit of research that
will lead to the increased engineering of human beings and more deliberate
alteration of the species. More often than not, they are specialists working hard
in their labs on some tiny piece of the puzzle that fits into a larger picture they
may not clearly see. In general, while scientists certainly should have a voice in
deliberations about the ethics of scientific research, it is not solely the respon-
sibility of the scientific community to determine the appropriate aims and lim-
its of research. Scientists should not make decisions on their own with which
the rest of humanity will have to live.
 11 RELIGION 2.0 AND THE ENHANCED TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE 227

Likewise, neither politicians nor the courts should be saddled with these
ethical decisions, and the leading politicians to date have remained mostly
silent on the questions. Business, including a host of technology start-up com-
panies, is a major player in AI and other developments that can bring radical
enhancements. While there is nothing wrong with successful business and mak-
ing money, it is folly to trust the direction of research, the ethics of these pow-
erful technological programs, and the future of humanity to the corporate
bottom line.
A few ethicists and theologians are discussing some of these questions, but
thus far they are talking mostly to each other. Thoughtful people of faith, of all
religious persuasions, should add their voices to the public square conversation
about the technological future and do so now, or society may stumble blindly
forward into an unexamined or scary future guided by ambitious scientists,
self-serving politicians, and wealthy investors.
An important way for the religions to add their collective voices and wisdom
to the conversation about transhuman and posthuman possibilities is to care-
fully process the relevant technologies and the enhancement programs through
the three ways of framing the issue introduced in the chapter, “Radical Human
Enhancement and Ethics.” The new world coming will align with the best
values of the religions, and benefit society, if that world values careful reflection
on what it means to be better, choice in the context of relational autonomy,
and justice.

Postscript—Coming Full Circle

We arrive at the end of our textbook, and we invite you to consider again how
you now describe yourself with regard to radical human enhancement. With
regard to radical biohacking, are you:

• Totally skeptical and opposed.

• Open to the possibilities but needing to be convinced about particular
enhancements.
• An eager transhumanist, i.e., an eager advocate for radical enhancement.
• Unsure.

As you may recall, we asked this same question at the beginning of this text-
book. Is your answer different from your response at the beginning? What has
changed and why? Regardless of your answer, we hope you agree it is incum-
bent upon students of religion, faith communities, and all people to be edu-
cated about these issues, in order to thoughtfully contribute to the conversation
about them.
228 C. MERCER AND T. J. TROTHEN

Questions for Discussion

1. Do religions have a role to play in the development of radical enhancement

technologies? What do you think this role should be, if any? Why?
2. What do you think are the dangers of emergent technologies that the reli-
gions need to address?
3. Do you think human beings are basically good or evil? On what basis do you
give that answer? What is the significance of this question for enhancement
technology?
4. Who do you think will finally decide the direction of enhancement research:
governments, the free market, ethicists, religions, or some other organiza-
tion or entity? Which do you think would be best to decide and why? Which
do you think would be worst and why?
5. How likely do you think it is that terrorists or rogue countries will acquire
enhancement technologies? What will be the result if they do?
6. Do you think language shapes reality? If so, what kind of language and how?
7. If you were religious, would you consider joining a transhumanist organiza-
tion in your religion? Why or why not?
 Glossary

Affect Feeling, emotion, and mood.

Affective enhancement Enhancing affect through biohacking in various ways.
Alcor Life Extension Foundation The largest and most well-known cryon-
ics organization.
Allopathic medicine Science based, conventional Western medicine provided
in hospitals by medical doctors and healthcare professionals. Allopathic
medicine relies on pharmaceutical drugs, radiation, and surgery to treat
symptoms and disease. Allopathic medicine is distinct from homeopathy,
naturopathy, traditional indigenous medicine, and other complementary
approaches to healthcare.
Anthropology The study of what it means to be human individually and
socially. In this textbook we are interested in theological anthropologies,
which concern the study of what it means to be human from the perspective
of a particular religious tradition. See “theological anthropology.”
Apocalyptic A worldview that generally envisions catastrophic end-of-the-­
world scenarios. See “premillennial dispensationalism.”
Artificial General Intelligence See Artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence (AI) The development of computer systems to engage
in what have been solely human activities including, but not limited to,
processing information, solving complex problems, programming other
machines, and relational engagement with humans. “Weak” or” narrow AI”
performs particular functions with a predefined range, such as playing chess,
driving cars, and helping to diagnose patients. “Strong AI” or “Artificial
General Intelligence (AGI) is machine intelligence that mimics human
intelligence.
Autonomy Widely recognized as a key bioethical principle, the definition of
respect for autonomy is increasingly debated. It includes respect for a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 229

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3
230 Glossary

person’s dignity, which is usually understood as including the ability to

make choices about oneself. In normative North American culture, extreme
individualism has reduced autonomy to the popular notions of individual
rights and individual choice. A relational approach to autonomy under-
stands rights and choice as relational concepts having meaning only in the
context of each individual’s life narrative, which necessarily includes all
effects our choices may have on other people and other life.
Bioconservative Someone who takes a conservative stance on human
enhancement and other technological issues.
Biohacking Changing our biological selves, including neurology, biochemis-
try, physiology, and other physicalities through science and technology for
enhancement purposes. Radical human enhancements are achieved via
biohacking.
BioLogos A Christian organization that illustrates the dialogue/integration
model of the relationship between science and religion. It is founded by
Francis Collins, a widely respected scientist who headed up the important
Human Genome Project, completed in 2003.
Christian Transhumanist Association (CTA) Founded and led by Micah
Redding, the organization is pro-enhancement, but its affirmation is mod-
est enough to be inclusive of Christians ranging from ardent advocates to
more cautious proponents. The CTA held its first national conference in
2018, featuring a presentation by Aubrey de Grey.
Cloning, therapeutic See “therapeutic cloning.”
Co-design The involvement of all stakeholders in decision-making pro-
cesses about the design, development, and use of technology, including
AI. Stakeholders include everyone affected by the technology. Co-design
helps ensure that the technology meets diverse needs and is as usable as
possible. The principle of co-design recognizes that socially marginalized
communities are usually not well represented in the creation of
technology.
Cognition Mental processes involved in comprehending and acquiring
knowledge. Cognition includes several processes including but not limited
to creative thinking, thought processing, attention, memory, problem
solving, sensation, perception, interpreting emotions, and processing
stimuli.
Cognitive enhancement Making ourselves smarter by biohacking in vari-
ous ways.
Consent In bioethics, the process of making a choice regarding medical inter-
ventions. Informed consent requires disclosure, comprehension, voluntari-
ness, and competence. Disclosure means that all relevant information,
including potential harms and benefits and alternative approaches, are pro-
vided to the patient. Comprehension means the person must be able to
understand the information in terms of language and educational level.
 Glossary 231

Voluntariness means that the person must not be pressured or coerced in

any way. Competency refers to the capacity to consent and draws attention
to any limitations caused by dementia, mental health, or other issues.
Conservative, religious Tends to be God-centered, otherworldly, focused on
special revelation from God (e.g., scripture), traditional, and dogmatic. See
the “Theological Continuum” table in the chapter, “Transhumanism, the
Posthuman, and the Religions.”
Created co-creators Coined by Christian theologian Phillip Hefner, the
notion that human beings are created co-creators with God, one idea that
lays groundwork for viewing at least some technology as a potential means
of God’s work in the world.
CRISPR Stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic
Repeats. It is a technology that can be used to edit genes, providing radical
enhancement possibilities.
Cryonics A Greek term, meaning “icy cold,” it refers to a process that pre-
serves the body in a way that it can be theoretically revived in the future
when the cure for the illness causing death is available. Likewise, cryonics
offers the possibility of accessing future enhancement therapies and
technologies.
Cyborg Short for “cybernetic organism,” a cyborg is an organism integrated
with artificial technology whose operation restores the organism’s so-called
normal ability or takes it beyond normal functioning.
DARPA The United States’ Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), with a 3.5 billion dollar plus annual budget, is heavily
involved in human enhancement in the service of more effective soldiers
and a stronger military. DARPA has an impressive track record, having
helped pioneer, for example, the internet and email. It supported funding
for the computer graphics industry, cell phones, “own-the-night” night-
vision sensors, advanced fuel cells, weather satellites, the Saturn V rocket
that took humans to the moon, and various “stealth” technologies.
Deontological Ethics Sometimes called “principilist ethics,” deontological
ethics is a normative ethical theory that moral behavior should be based on
principles. Examples of principles are beneficence (duty to do good), non-­
maleficence (duty to do no harm), respect for autonomy (includes respect
for individual choice and dignity), justice (includes procedural and distribu-
tive justice), veracity (truth-telling), fidelity, and self-care. Principles are
derived from virtues we most value. Principles are codes of behavior, more
universal than values, and, prima facie principles are believed to be univer-
sally applicable.
Digisexuals People who are sexuality and/or romantically attracted to robots
or androids.
Dispensationalism See “premillennial dispensationalism.”
Distributive justice The socially just distribution of resources. The resources
distributed may be tangible (e.g., food, pay, or technology) or intangible
232 Glossary

(e.g., encouragement, valuing people by engaging with them in

conversation).
Dualism As used in this textbook, refers to the idea that (1) the soul is dis-
tinct from the body or (2) there are two equally powerful deities, a good
god and an evil god, who are in conflict with each other. The ancient world-
views reflected in neo-Platonism and Gnosticism are dualistic to one degree
or another.
Eastern Orthodoxy One of the three branches of Christianity, along with
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Ecophagy Literally “eating the environment,” the term refers to the “grey
goo” end-of-the-world as we know it threat, that intelligent nanobots will
go off-mission and manipulate matter at the atomic level into a pile of
grey goo.
Embodied cognition Cognition as intertwined with the body in its dynamic
interaction with the natural and sentient environment. A case can be made
for “body memory” that is not confined to the brain.
Emergence theory The view that new realities come into existence from
lower level realities, and the new structures and capacities cannot be reduced
to the lower levels. For example, the human brain, as a physical organ of the
body, consists of neurons, neurotransmitters, blood glucose, oxygen, elec-
trical impulses, chemical reactions, and a host of other parts and processes.
From all this we get sensation, perception, and subjective conscious experi-
ence. Applied to religion, the idea is that God is emergent from the universe.
End-time Refers to religious views about how the world as we know it
will end.
Entheogen From the Greek meaning “full of god” (entheos) and “to come
into being” (genesthai), it refers to the use of hallucinogenic agents in reli-
gious contexts.
Epistemology Theory of knowledge and a subfield in philosophy. Christian
liberation theology claims that those on the social margins have an episte-
mological privilege, meaning that the socially marginalized know most
about injustice and, therefore, have the most important input in justice
work. Epistemology, a key issue in ethics, reveals the location of power.
Eschatology Doctrine of the end-time. Eschaton is Greek for “end.”
Ethics Addresses the accepted rules, actions, and behaviors in a community
or group.
Exotheology Coined by Christian theologian Ted Peters, the term refers to
speculation on the theological significance of extraterrestrial life.
Gene drives Genetic engineering technology used to change genes in germ-
line cells, thereby propagating changes through an entire species in a very
effective way.
Germline genetic modification technology Genetic modification technolo-
gies targeting the genes in germline cells, including sperm, eggs, and
embryos, which are passed from generation to generation.
 Glossary 233

Hedonism A teleological ethical theory that is interested in the maximizing

of pleasure. In short, whatever results in the most pleasure for any person or
group is warranted, without regard for other potential consequences.
Humanity 2.0 A term referring to enhanced humans and, possibly,
posthumans.
Imago Dei Latin for “image of God,” a term used in the creation story in the
Bible book of Genesis. The term has elicited much reflection and interpreta-
tion in Christian theological writings.
Incarnation The Christian doctrine that God was “fleshed out” in a human
being, Jesus Christ, leading to the doctrine that Jesus Christ was fully God
and fully human.
Information-theoretic criterion The criterion the cryonics industry uses for
death. With this criterion death occurs when the biological structures that
encode memory and personality are destroyed, such that this critical infor-
mation cannot be recovered.
Karma, Law of Sanskrit for “action” or “deed” and referring to the idea that
one’s actions (or inactions) influence, even determine, the status of the lives
into which a soul is born. Science has taught us the law of cause and effect.
Every event in the physical universe has a cause, and every cause has deter-
minate effects. The law of karma extends cause and effect to the moral and
spiritual realms. Moral, spiritually good actions in this life promote rebirth
into a next life that is closer to liberation.
Karmic religion Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Jainism, and Sikhism,
although each religion understands karma and rebirth in varying ways.
Liberal, religious Tends to be human-centered, this-worldly, rational, revi-
sionist, and pragmatic. Liberal, as used in this textbook, does not necessarily
mean individualistic. See the “Theological Continuum” table in the chap-
ter, “Transhumanism, the Posthuman, and the Religions.”
Longevity Dividend The idea that significant public funds are saved if people
live healthy longer, because most medical dollars are usually consumed in
the last years of life, during failing health. The call to action for public offi-
cials is to invest in “anti-aging research,” as opposed to mere “disease
research.”
Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) A concept championed by Aubrey de
Grey and Ray Kurzweil. Also called “actuarial escape velocity,” LEV refers
to a coming future time in which we have the know-how to extend our lives
long enough for the next scientific breakthrough to come, which will again
extend our life expectancy for the next breakthrough. The title to this book
by Kurzweil encapsulates the LEV idea, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough
to Live Forever.
Mindcloning Creating a digital version of the mind. “Mindware” software
activates a “mindfile,” a digital repository of memories, feelings, and
thoughts.
Mind copying See “whole brain emulation.”
Mindfile See “mindcloning.”
234 Glossary

Mind transfer See “whole brain emulation.”

Mind uploading See “whole brain emulation.”
Mindware See “mindcloning.”
Monotheism From the Greek words mono for “one” and theos or theoi for
“god” and “gods,” the belief in one god, illustrated most clearly in the
“Abrahamic faiths” of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Morals Morals are about our personal character and beliefs about right
and wrong.
Moral bioenhancement Enhancing moral capacity through biohacking, usu-
ally with pharmaceuticals.
Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA) The oldest pro-­transhumanism
religious group started in 2006. The MTA is a robust organization with
professional leadership and an active schedule of conferences and other pro-
grams. Lincoln Cannon is a founder, board member, and former president
of the MTA. “Transfigurism” is the theological word the MTA often uses
for “transformation.”
Morphological freedom Freedom to modify one’s body, the right to be as
one wishes as long as it does not interfere with anyone else’s right to act
similarly. Philosophers maycall such a view “ontological libertarianism,”
while in popular culture it is sometimes known as “shapeshifting.”
Nanotechnology A “nano” is one billionth of a meter, the width of about five
carbon atoms. Nanotechnology research is active with animals and may
eventually produce blood-cell sized, computerized tools called nanobots,
capable of manipulating human biology at the cellular level.
Neuropreservation The practice in cryonics of preserving the head only,
since the presumption is that revival will occur far enough into the future
that the rest of the body can be regrown or provided by robotics.
Nootropics Widely used smart drug supplements, many sold as “natural.”
No-self A Buddhist doctrine that human beings have no permanent, unchang-
ing soul or essence. Buddhism does teach reincarnation, giving various
explanations of how this relates to the no-self doctrine.
Omega Point Coined by paleontologist and geologist Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin (1881–1955), a Christian priest, the term refers to God as the cul-
mination and unification of complexity and consciousness. For Teilhard de
Chardin, the process is driven by love, a principle easily affirmed by all
religions.
Omnibeneficience See “omnibenevolence.”
Omnibenevolence All-good or all-loving, an attribute of some understand-
ings of deity. Also called omnibeneficience.
Omnipotence All-powerful, an attribute of some understandings of deity.
Omniscience All-knowledge, an attribute of some understandings of deity.
Pantheism From pan (Greek for “all” or “everything”) and theos or theio
(Greek for deity), the doctrine that god is everything, and everything is
god. All reality is ultimately the same “thing,” i.e., divine.
 Glossary 235

Personal identity A philosophical issue about what makes a person the same
person persisting through time.
Posthuman A future, sentient being that is not human. See also “transhuman.”
Practical immortality See “superlongevity.”
Principlist ethics See “deontological ethics.”
Precautionary principle Moving new therapies and technologies along
slowly, paying very careful attention to possible unknown and unintended
harmful side effects, and, above all, doing as little harm as possible. See
“proactionary principle.”
Premillennial dispensationalism A type of modern Christian apocalypticism
that envisions horrific battles between God and Satan leading up to a literal
1000-year peaceful reign of Jesus Christ. Prior to Jesus’ victory, evil forces
will seek to capture the minds of people, and Christians will be pitted against
the world, controlled by Satan. The transhumanist agenda is seen as part of
the evil world order. See “apocalyptic.”
Principles More universal than values and often difficult to interpret, princi-
ples are codes of behavior and are directive as they apply to behavior and
decisions. Most ethicists do not regard prima facie principles (i.e., duties
that are binding) as absolute, meaning that the principles are required to be
followed, unless the principles come into conflict with each other. For
example, if doing good (i.e., beneficence) and doing no harm (i.e., non-­
maleficence) are both prima facie principles, then technology with potential
for good and harm presents a conundrum. The potential goods and harms
must be weighed, and one or both of the principles will need compromising
to a degree.
Proactionary principle An approach to radical human enhancement that
advocates for the development of life-improving and even life-prolonging
technologies, despite risks, sometimes including what might be considered
significant risks. The term was apparently coined by Max More, an early
transhumanist, as a way of countering the prevailing precautionary princi-
ple. Transhumanists generally favor a proactionary stance. See “precaution-
ary principle.”
Procedural justice Fairness of the processes that lead to outcomes. Co-design
can contribute to procedural justice. See “co-design.” Questions such as
how much time is allocated to whom and who makes decisions are impor-
tant to procedural justice. When individuals have a voice in the process or
the process involves characteristics such as consistency and fairness, then
procedural justice is enhanced. In the healthcare context, procedural justice
questions include who receives care, how long must they wait for care, what
quality of care do they receive, and what are the roles of the patient, the
patient’s family, or multi-disciplinary healthcare professionals.
Process theology Based on the work of English mathematician and philoso-
pher Alfred North Whitehead, at a basic level, process thinking begins with
the real world, wherein everything changes all the time. Christian theolo-
236 Glossary

gians, such as John B. Cobb and Charles Hartshorne, influenced by

Whitehead, argued that since everything changes, God does as well.
Protestantism One of the three branches of Christianity, along with Roman
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Prolongevity See “superlongevity.”
Radical human enhancement Using therapies and technologies now avail-
able or anticipated in the future to biohack ourselves in physical, cognitive,
affective, moral, and spiritual ways that take us beyond normal functioning
in these five categories. Some people prefer the word “extreme” instead of
“radical.”
Radical life extension See “superlongevity.”
Regenerative medicine A broad field that includes tissue engineering and is
pushing forward on repairing, improving, and replacing damaged or dis-
eased organs and tissues in our bodies.
Reincarnation Also called rebirth or transmigration of the soul, the doctrine
teaches that in the world of illusion the human soul transmigrates through
successive lives until it achieves liberation from the cycle. Samsara is Sanskrit
for “wandering” or “going through.”
Religion 2.0 Religion in the transhuman/posthuman era.
Resurrection, transformational Distinct from the resuscitation of a dead
body, this is a raising to eternal life with God, with new abilities and
possibilities.
Roman Catholicism One of the three branches of Christianity, along with
Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism.
Self-reflexivity In the service of good ethical analysis, self-reflexivity is reflect-
ing on one’s own story from different standpoints in ways that consider
systemic privileges and barriers of intersecting social systems like sexism
and racism.
Singularity The predicted dramatic, sudden future break in human history
when general human intelligence is surpassed. The Singularity could bring
extraordinary benefits, such as increased abilities to solve seemingly intrac-
table problems, and it could also bring apocalyptic dangers.
Social justice Concern for equity (e.g., just fairness), particularly for the
socially vulnerable and the socially marginalized. Social justice is about the
protection and empowering of those with less power due to racialization,
socio-economic disadvantage, ageism, disability, sexism, gender, and/or
sexual identity discrimination, or any other similar factor.
Soma pneumatikon See “spiritual body.”
Spiritual body Translation of the Greek soma pneumatikon (literally “body
spiritual”), this term refers to the transformed life as discussed in the
Christian scriptures by the writer Paul, who understood that the body, after
death and in the resurrection, would be transformed into being imperish-
able, glorious, and powerful. While dramatically changed for the age to
come, the spiritual body is a clear continuation of the pre-transformed per-
son. See “resurrection, transformational.”
 Glossary 237

Situationalism An ethical theory holding that all moral decisions are particu-
lar to the specific situation; there are no overriding norms. Each situation
must be understood apart from preconceived conclusions or rules. However,
even situationalists usually acknowledge the one overarching rule that love
must be maximized.
Somatic genetic modification technology Adding, deleting, or changing
genes in specific types of cells (e.g. blood cells, skin cells) in one person and
in a way that is not intended to be passed on to progeny.
Soteriology The doctrine of salvation. Soter is Greek for salvation.
Sources of authority An ethical concept referring to aspects of our context
that shape our values, opinions, and beliefs. These aspects are sources of
“authority,” because we give them the power of influence. Sources of
authority include three broad areas: experience (e.g., school, family, rela-
tionships, intuition), tradition and history (e.g., sacred texts, religious prac-
tices and teachings, social practices, rituals, historic interpretations), and
science and reason (e.g., media, law, research). All views are limited, partial,
and perspectival. Since our context changes over time, our sources of
authority and, therefore, our values, opinions, and beliefs, can also change
over time.
Soul A word interpreted in different ways in the various religions. Generally,
in the karmic religions, the soul is the eternal and indestructible basic self
that is reborn as human, animal, and heavenly or hellish beings until final
liberation from the reincarnation “wheel of rebirth.” In some strands of the
monotheistic religions, a human being is viewed as a psychosomatic unity of
body and soul. Soul is not a distinct and separate “part” of what constitutes
a person. However, in some conservative wings, soul is distinct from the
body and the object of salvation.
Spirit tech Technological interventions that allegedly provide authentic spiri-
tual experiences.
Spiritual enhancement Enhancing spirituality through biohacking in vari-
ous ways.
Strong AI See Artificial intelligence.
Superintelligence Machine intelligence that surpasses Atificial General
Intelligence, i.e., the typical intelligence of an average human being.
Superlongevity Also called “radical life extension,” “extreme longevity,”
“prolongevity,” and “practical immortality,” the term refers to radically
extending healthy human life indefinitely through any number of bio-
hacking methods. “Practical” is used in “practical immortality,” because
death could still occur though accidents or some global event like
nuclear war.
Technology Applied scientific knowledge. In this textbook we are particularly
interested in the application of science that contributes to the biohacking of
humans for the purpose of making humans better.
TechPlus Theology Coined for this textbook, the term refers to doing theol-
ogy in the context of technologically enhanced humans and, possibly,
238 Glossary

­ osthumans. Each religion will construct theologies based on that religion’s

p
scriptural and theological tradition. And, of course, there are likely to be
numerous theological programs in each religion, ranging through the
liberal-­conservative continuum.
Teleological Ethics theories emphasizing possible and anticipated conse-
quences in decision-making. “Telos” is Greek meaning “end” or “goal.”
Teleological or consequentialist theories are usually thought to include situ-
ationalism and utilitarianism. See “situationalism” and “utilitarianism.”
Telomeres Caps at the end of DNA strands that protect the chromosomes
and become damaged and shortened, thereby hastening death. Telomeres
are the subject of much interest regarding superlongevity.
Theistic, non-theistic Adjectives referring, respectively, to believing in god(s)
or not. Some religious traditions are non-theistic, such as Theravada, one of
the two main branches of Buddhism.
Theodicy Literally “God justice,” it is reflection on the question of how one
can justify the existence of a supremely wise, powerful, good deity in the
face of suffering and evil.
Theology From the Greek word theos (god) or theoi (gods), the study of reli-
gious belief, also called doctrine. Theology proper is “word about God” or
study of the divine. We have used the term theology in both senses through-
out this textbook.
Theological anthropology A religion’s doctrine, or belief, about
human beings.
Theological continuum Broad generalizations about liberal and conservative
that can be useful in beginning to understand ideologically based move-
ments or trends. A reference table is provided in the chapter, “Transhumanism,
the Posthuman, and the Religions.”
Theosis Also called “deification,” an important theological notion in Eastern
Orthodox Christianity well expressed in the often-quoted words of
Athanasius of Alexandria (296/298—373 CE), “He [Jesus Christ] was
made man that we might be made god.” Theosis refers to a view of salvation
whereby one is transformed, or divinized, and elevated in some significant
way into the life of God. The discussions about (and terminology of) theosis
are quite technical and complex, perhaps in part due to the effort to stop
short of attributing full divinity to a human, which would be heresy in a
monotheistic religion. The idea is also affirmed by Mormonism, a Christian
movement.
Therapeutic cloning Producing organs and tissues for transplanting
into humans.
Therapy—enhancement continuum An approach traditionally used to assess
enhancement interventions on a continuum from clearly therapeutic (main-
taining or bringing the patient to whatever is considered normal function-
ing) to clearly enhancement (moving the patient to above normal functioning
 Glossary 239

with little or no therapeutic value). In this textbook, religious integrity is

proposed as a dividing point (instead of the fraught concept of normal)
between acceptable and unacceptable interventions.
Transcendence Qualities and feelings of mystery and ineffability.
Transcendence also involves overcoming limitations and reaching for
“something more.” Religion and transhumanism share a desire for tran-
scendence but may understand the meaning of “something more”
differently.
Transhuman Narrowly conceived, the term transhuman refers to that which
is still human, albeit greatly enhanced. However, the term is sometimes
used more loosely, in the broader sense of (1) sentient beings that develop
from humans but to such a degree that they are no longer human in any real
sense, and (2) sentient beings that develop apart from humans.
Transhumanism As posted on the American Academy of Religion website:
“‘Transhumanism’ or ‘human enhancement’ refers to an intellectual and
cultural movement that advocates the use of a variety of emerging technolo-
gies. The convergence of these technologies may make it possible to take
control of human evolution, providing for the enhancement of human
mental and physical abilities deemed desirable and the amelioration of
aspects of the human condition regarded as undesirable. These enhance-
ments include the radical extension of healthy human life.” See also “trans-
human” and “posthuman.”
Utilitarianism A teleological ethical theory that looks to maximize the great-
est good for the greatest number. Utilitarians agree our overall aim in evalu-
ating actions should be to create the best results possible, but they differ
about how to do that. Act utilitarians focus on the effects of individual
actions; they take a case-by-case approach. Rule utilitarians accentuate
moral rules and emphasize the general effects (consequences) of actions,
such as killing or stealing.
Values Those things held most important and, as such, that give direction in
life. Values are sets of beliefs about subjective traits and ideals, with exam-
ples being relationships, family, health, long life, faith, caring, justice, edu-
cation, ambition, adventure, and wealth.
Virtue Ethics An ethical theory that asks not what should I do but what sort
of person should I be. Highlighting character, the key question is, “What
would the most virtuous person we can think of do in a similar situation?”
For Christians, this person might be Jesus. For Buddhists, the virtuous per-
son might be the Buddha. Some people think beyond the iconic “founders”
of religions to great saints or other figures. Virtues are qualities we deem to
be morally good or desirable in people and might include prudence, self-­
control, generosity, and kindness.
Vitrification A chemical ice-free preservation technique used by cryonics in
an attempt at structural preservation of the brain for later “thawing.”
Weak AI See Artificial intelligence.
240 Glossary

Whole brain emulation Technical term for what is commonly called “mind
uploading” and sometimes “mind copying” or “mind transfer.” It refers to
copying the information (i.e., memory and personality) in the brain into a
digital substrate (part of a computer). Mind uploading is the stuff of science
fiction that has made its way into serious conversation about transhumanist
possibilities. Calling this procedure “mind” uploading treads into very
complex questions about the definition of mind.
 References

Abbott, Alison. 2019. First Hint That Body’s ‘Biological Age’ Can Be Reversed.
Nature (September 5). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-­019-­02638-­w.
Abelman, D.D. 2017. Mitigating Risks of Students Use of Study Drugs Through
Understanding Motivations for Use and Applying Harm Reduction Theory: A
Literature Review. Harm Reduction Journal 14 (68). https://doi.org/10.1186/
s12954-­017-­0194-­6.
Accolla, Ettore A., and Xlauda Pollo. 2019. Mood Effects After Deep Brain Stimulation
for Parkinson’s Disease: An Update. Frontiers in Neurology (June 14). Accessed
June 5, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2019.00617.
Achenbach, Joel. 2015. A Harvard Professor Says He Can Cure Aging, But Is That a
Good Idea? Washington Post (December 2). https://www.washingtonpost.com/
news/achenblog/wp/2015/12/02/professor-­george-­church-­says-­he-­can-­reverse-­
the-­aging-­process/.
Adam, Aalia. 2018. Meet Pepper—Canada’s First Emotionally Sensitive Robot for Sick
Kids. Interview with Global News. (May 7). https://globalnews.ca/news/4180025/
pepper-­Canada-­robot/.
Adrien, C. 2017. We Live in a Death Denying Culture. That’s a Problem (Blog). 1800
Hospice. Accessed https://www.1800hospice.com/blog/live-­death-­denying-­
culture-­thats-­problem/.
“Affectiva.” n.d. affectiva.com.
AFP. n.d. US Trial Shows 3 Cancer Patients Had Their Genomes Altered Safely by
CRISPR. ScienceAlert. Accessed February 8, 2020. https://www.sciencealert.com/
researchers-genetically-alter-the-immune-system-of-cancer-patients-without-
side-effect.
Agar, Nicholas. 2011. Kurzweil and Uploading: Just Say No! Journal of Evolution and
Technology 22 (1): 23–36.
Alcaraz, Aleksandra Lukaszewicz. 2021. Are Cyborgs Persons? An Account of Futurist
Ethics. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors. Calvin
Mercer and Steve Fuller, Series Co-editors. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Alcor Life Extension. n.d. Frequently Asked Questions. https://alcor.org/FAQs/
faq03.html#world.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 241

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3
242 REFERENCES

Alcor Life Extension Foundation. n.d. “Alcor Membership Statistics.” “The Alcor
Team.” “CEO Statement on Membership Statistics.” “Cryonics Myths.” “Frequently
Asked Questions.” “Scientists’ Cryonics FAQ.” “Scientists Open Letter on
Cryonics.” “What is Cryonics.” http://www.alcor.org.
Al-Kulayni. n.d. Vol. 1, 39. Accessed May 25, 2020. https://blogs.scientificamerican.
com/observations/the-runaway-train-of-cognitive-enhancement/.
Al-Rodhan, Nayef. 2019. The Runaway Train of Cognitive Enhancement. Scientific
American (December 9). https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/
the-­r unaway-­train-­of-­cognitive-­enhancement/.
Ançel, G. 2006. Developing Empathy in Nurses: An Inservice Training Program.
Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 20 (6): 249–257.
Armstrong, David. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Arnold, Edwin, Trans. 2015. The Bhagavad Gita. Kansas City: Scholar’s Choice.
Asimov, Isaac. 1942. Runaround. Astounding Science Fiction. March.
“Astrotheology & Astroethics.” Theology and Science 16/4 (2018).
Athanasius of Alexandria. 2011. On the Incarnation of the Word. Popular Patristics
Series 44. Trans. John Behr. Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Ayan, Steve. n.d. The Brain’s Autopilot Mechanism Steers Consciousness. Scientific
American (12/19/18). https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-­brains-
­autopilot-­mechanism-­steers-­consciousness/.
Barrat, James. 2013. Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the
Human Era. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Bassett, Debra. The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives: You Only Live Twice.
In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, series coeditors
Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
Batt-Rawden, S.A., M.S. Chisholm, B. Anton, and T.E. Flickinger. 2013. Teaching
Empathy to Medical Students: An Updates, Systematic Review. Academic Medicine
88 (8): 1171–1177.
Bedell, George C., Leo Sandon Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn. 1975. Religion in
America. New York: Macmillan.
Benedet, T., et al. 2017. Transcriptional Repressor DREAM Regulates Trigeminal
Noxious Perception. Journal of Neurochemistry 141 (4): 544–552.
“Biohax International: Turning the Internet of Things into the Internet of Us.” n.d..
https://www.f6s.com/biohaxinternational.
BioLogos. n.d. Life Beyond Earth: What Would It Mean for Christians? https://biolo-
gos.org/resources/life-­beyond-­earth-­what-­would-­it-­mean-­for-­christians.
Bird, Hilary. 2017. AI Innovation Could Cause an Ethical Conundrum for Organized
Religion. VB. October 16. https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/16/ai-­innovation-­
could-­cause-­an-­ethical-­conundrum-­for-­organized-­religion/.
Blackford, Russell. 2014. Introduction II: Bring on the Machines. In Intelligence
Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and
Damien Broderick, 11–25. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Blackford, Russell, and Damien Broderick, eds. 2014. Intelligence Unbound: The Future
of Uploaded and Machine Minds. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Bostrom, Nick. 2005. The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant. Journal of Medical Ethics 31 (5).
———. 2014. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
  REFERENCES 243

———. 2016. TED TALK: What Happens When Our Computers Get Smarter Than
We Are? April 27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnT1xgZgkpk.
Braga, Adriana, and Robert K. Logan. 2020. The Emperor of Strong AI Has No
Clothes: Limits to Artificial Intelligence. In AI and the Singularity: A Fallacy or
Great Opportunity? ed. Robert K. Logan and Adriana Braga, 5–25. Basel: MDPI.
Brashear, R.P. (Director). 2013. Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement.
New Day Films. http://www.fixedthemovie.com.
Braxton, Donald M. 2015. Does Transhumanism Face an Uncanny Valley Among the
Religious? In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 331–350. Westport,
CT: Praeger.
Bregman, Lucy. 1999. Beyond Silence and Denial—Death and Dying Reconsidered.
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
Brody, H., and A. Macdonald. 2013. Religion and Bioethics: Toward an Expanded
Understanding. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34: 133–145.
Bromwich, Jonah Englel. 2019. Maybe We Are Wired to Beat Up Machines. The
New York Times, SundayStyles (January 20): 1, 8.
Brooker, Katrina. 2015. Google Ventures and the Search for Immortality. Bloomberg
(March 9). www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-­03-­09/google-­ventures-
­bill-­maris-­investing-­in-­idea-­of-­living-­to-­500.
Brooks, Rodney A. 2002. Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us. New York:
Vintage Books.
Brown, Mick. 2020. The Billionaire Tech Entrepreneur on a Mission to Defeat Death.
The Telegraph (September 19).
Burdett, Michael. 2015. The Religion of Technology: Transhumanism and the Myth of
Progress. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy Trothen, 131–148. Westport,
CT: Praeger.
Cabrera, Laura Y., Emily L. Evans, and Roy H. Hamilton. 2014. Ethics of the Electrified
Mind: Defining Issues and Perspectives on the Principled Use of Brain Stimulation
in Medical Research and Clinical Care. Brain Topography 27: 33–45.
“Can Google Solve Death?” 2013. Time (September 30).
“Can Science Understand Everything? NASA Scientists Attempt to Answer the
Question.” n.d.. https://aeon.co/videos/can-­science-­understand-­everything-­nasa-
­scientists-­attempt-­to-­answer-­the-­question.
Cannon, Lincoln. 2017. Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism. In Religion and
Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin
Mercer, 49–66. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors,
Series Editors Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Republished in Paperback, 2019.
———. n.d. Mormon Transhumanism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
AeyJbROo-­Pw.
Carboncopies. n.d.. https://carboncopies.org/.
Cellan-Jones, Rory. 2014. Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End
Mankind. BBC News. December 12. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-­
30290540.
Chalmers, David. 2010. The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis. The Journal of
Consciousness Studies 17: 7–65. http://consc.net/papers/singularity.pdf.
244 REFERENCES

Chalmers, David J. 2014. Uploading: A Philosophical Analysis. In Intelligence Unbound:

The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and Damien
Broderick, 102–119. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard. 2003a. The Human Phenomenon. Translated by Sarah
Appleton-Weber. Portland: Sussex Academic Press (First Published Posthumously
1955).
———. 2003b. The Divine Milieu. Translated by Siȏn Cowell. Portland: Sussex
Academic Press (First Published Posthumously 1957).
Cheron, G., et al. 2016. Brain Oscillations in Sport: Toward EEG Biomarkers of
Performance. Frontiers in Psychology 7 (246). https://doi.org/10.3389/
fpsyg.2016.00246.
Cheshire, William P. 2018. Ethical Implications of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
for Personal Identity. Ethics and Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics 34
(3): 135–145.
Chorost, Michael. 2005. Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More
Human. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Christian Transhumanist Association. n.d.. https://www.christiantranshumanism.org/.
Chu, Ted. 2014. Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision for Our
Future Evolution. San Rafael, CA: Origin Press.
Church of Perpetual Life. n.d.. https://www.churchofperpetuallife.org/.
Clark, Andy. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Clayton, Philip. 2004. Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness. Oxford:
Oxford University.
Cole-Turner, Ron. 2009. Extreme Longevity Research: A Progressive Protestant
Principle. In Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, ed. Derek
Maher and Calvin Mercer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Republished in
Paperback, 2014.
———. 2015a. Spiritual Enhancement. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 369–384.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
———. 2015b. Spiritual Enhancement. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 369–383.
Santa Barbara: Praeger.
———. 2016. The End of Adam and Eve: Theology and the Science of Human Origins.
Pittsburgh, PA: TheologyPlus Publishing.
———. 2019. Christian Transhumanism. In Religion and Human Enhancement:
Death, Values, and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 35–48. In
Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, Series Edited by Calvin
Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; Paperback.
Collins, Francis. 2019. Gene Therapy Shows Promise Repairing Brain Tissue Damaged
by Stroke. NIH Director’s Blog (September 24). https://directorsblog.nih.
gov/2019/09/24/gene-­therapy-­shows-­promise-­repairing-­brain-­tissue-­damaged-
­by-­stroke/.
Corabi, Joseph, and Susan Schneider. 2014. If You Upload, Will You Survive? In
Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell
Blackford and Damien Broderick, 131–145. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Cryonics Institute—Technology for Life. n.d.. https://www.cryonics.org/.
  REFERENCES 245

De Melo-Martin, Inmaculada, and Arleen Salles. 2015. Moral Bioenhancement: Much

Ado about Nothing? Bioethics 29: 223–232.
Deane-Drummond, Celia. 2012. God’s Image and Likeness in Humans and Other
Animals: Performative Soul-Making and Graced Nature. Zygon 47 (4): 934–948.
DeBaets, Amy Michelle. 2015. Rapture of the Geeks: Singularitarianism, Feminism,
and the Yearning for Transcendence. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 181–198.
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Detweiler, Craig. 2013. iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives
and Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age. Ada, MI: Brazos Press.
———. 2018. Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age. Grand
Rapids: Baker.
Dinkins, Stephanie, and Charlton Mcllwain. 2018. Coding While Black: Artificial
Intelligence, Computing, and Data in a Racialized World. Initiatives Emerging
Leaders Program Blog Humanizing Data Review. New York University (March 12).
https://urbandemos.nyu.edu/2018/03/12/coding-­w hile-­b lack-­a rtificial-
­intelligence-­computing-­and-­data-­in-­a-­racialized-­world/.
Doehring, Carrie. 2015. The Practice of Pastoral Care–A Postmodern Approach.
Louisville. KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, Revised and Expanded Edition.
Dorff, Elliot N. 2014. Becoming Yet More Like God: A Jewish Perspective on Radical
Life Extension. In Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, Co-edited
by Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer, 64–74. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009;
Republished in Paperback.
Douglas, T. 2008. Moral Enhancement. Journal of Applied Philosophy 25: 228–245.
Dressler, M., et al. 2019. Hacking the Brain: Dimensions of Cognitive Enhancement.
ACS Chemical Neuroscience 10 (3): 1137–1148. https://doi.org/10.1021/
acschemneuro.8b00571.
Drexler, K. Eric. 1986. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology.
New York: Doubleday.
Dreyfuss, Hubert, and Sean Dorrance Kelly. 2011. All Things Shining: Reading the
Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free Press.
Durkheim, Émile. 1965. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York:
Free Press.
Ertz, Susan. 1943. Anger in the Sky. New York: Literary Classics.
Estes, Douglas. 2018. Braving the Future: Christian Faith in a World of Limitless Tech.
Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press.
Ettinger, Robert C.W. 1962. The Prospect of Immortality. Clinton Township, MI: The
Cryonics Institute.
“Euthanasia & Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) around the World.” n.d. Britannica
ProCon (2/26/20). https://euthanasia.procon.org/euthanasia-­physician-
­assisted-­suicide-­pas-­around-­the-­world/.
Faith and Life Sciences Reference Group, The Canadian Council of Churches. 2017.
Technology and the Image of God: A Canadian Conversation. Toronto: Canadian
Council of Churches, Faith and Life Sciences.
Ferriss, Adam. 2018. AI Is My Shepherd. Wired 26 (03).
“Fight Aging!” n.d.. https://www.fightaging.org/.
Fisher, Matthew Zaro. 2015. More Human Than the Human? Toward a ‘Transhumanist’
Christian Theological Anthropology. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy Trothen, 23–38.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
246 REFERENCES

Fiske, Amelia, Peter Henningsen, and Alena Buyx. 2019. Your Therapist Will See You
Now: Ethical Implications of Embodied Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry,
Psychology, and Psychotherapy. Journal of Medical Internet Research 21 (5) https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532335/. https://doi.org/
10.2196/13216.
Foucault, Michel. 1988. Technologies of the Self. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.
Franssen, Maarten, GertJan Lokhorst, and Ibo van de Poel. 2018. Philosophy of
Technology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last Updated September 6.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/.
Frey, Rodney E. 2011. Another Look at Technology and Science. Journal of Technology
Education 3 (1): 1–12. www.scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v3n1/pdf/frey.pdf.
Friend, Tad. 2017. The God Pill—Silicon’s Valley’s Quest to Live Forever: Can Billions
of Dollars’ Worth of High-Tech Research Succeed in Making Death Optional? The
New Yorker (April 3).
Fukuyama, Francis. 2002. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology
Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Fuller, Steve. 2011. Humanity 2.0: What It Means to Be Human Past, Present and
Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2019. Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the
Transhuman Era. Posthuman Studies 1, ed. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Basel:
Schwabe Verlag.
Fuller, Steve, and Veronika Lipińska. 2014. The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation
for Transhumanism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Garner, Stephen. 2015. Christian Theology and Transhumanism: The ‘Created
Co-creator and Bioethical Principles. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown
Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 229–243.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Geanacopoulos, Mark. 2004. The Determinants of Lifespan in the Nematode
Caenorhabditis Elegans: A Short Primer. Science Progress 87 (4): 227–247.
Geraci, Robert M. 2010. Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial
Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Geraci, Robert M. 2014. Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in ‘World of Warcraft’
and ‘Second Life’. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Geraci, Robert M. 2018. Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and
Transhumanism in South Indian Science. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Gill, Sam. 2018. Religion and Technology into the Future: From Adam to Tomorrow’s Eve
(Studies in Body and Religion). Lexington Books.
Goertzel, Ben, and Joel Pitt. 2014. Nine Ways to Bias Open-Source Artificial General
Intelligence Toward Friendliness. In Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded
and Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick, 61–89. West
Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Gollner, Adam Leith. 2013. The Immortality Financiers: The Billionaires Who Want to
Live Forever. The Daily Beast (August 20). http://www.thedailybeast.com/arti-
cles/2013/08/20/the-­immortality-­financiers-­the-­billionaires-­who-­want-­to-­live-­
forever.html.
Good, Irving John. 1965. Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine.
In Advances in Computers, ed. Franz L. Alt and Morris Rubinoff, 31–88. New York:
Academic Press.
  REFERENCES 247

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1999. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life.
New York: Ballantine Books.
de Grey, Aubrey. 2013. Undoing Aging: Aubrey De Gray at Tedx Danubia. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAwnA5WvLc.
———. n.d.-a Aubrey de Grey: A Roadmap to End Aging. https://www.ted.com/
talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging?language=en.
———. n.d.-b Dr. Aubrey de Grey—SENS Research Foundation. Life Extension
Advocacy Foundation. https://www.lifespan.io/news/dr-­aubrey-­de-­grey-­yuri/.
Grieve, Gregory Price. 2016. Cyber Zen: Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity,
Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life. London: Routledge.
Griffiths, Roland R., Ethan S. Hurwitz, Alan K. Davis, Matthew W. Johnson, and
Robert Jesse. 2019. Survey of Subjective ‘God Encounter Experiences’: Comparisons
Among Naturally Occurring Experiences and Those Occasioned by the Classic
Psychedelics Psilocybin, LSD, Ayahuasca, or DMT. PLOS ONE (April 23). https://
doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214377.
Grossman, Lev, and Matt Vella. 2014. How Apple Is Invading Our Bodies. Time
(September 10). http://time.com/3318655/apple-­watch-­2/.
Grumett, David. 2011. Transformation and the End of Enhancement. In Transhumanism
and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed.
Ron Cole-Turner, 37–49. Washington: Georgetown University.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1971. Knowledge and Human Interest. Boston: Beacon Press.
Hall, Douglas John. 1986. God and Human Suffering. Minneapolis: Augsburg
Publishing House.
Hamzelou, Jessica. 1017. Your Autopilot Mode is Real—Now We Know How the
Brain Does It. New Scientist (10/23). https://www.newscientist.com/
article/2151137-­your-­autopilot-­mode-­is-­real-­now-­we-­know-­how-­the-­brain-­does-­
it/#ixzz6YPqnV6DL.
Hanrahan, M., and B. Wills. 2015. Makayla’s Decision: The Exercise of Indigenous
Rights and the Primacy of Allopathic Medicine in Canada. The Canadian Journal of
Native Studies 35 (2): 207–223.
Hanson, Robin. 2016. The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth.
Oxford: Oxford University.
Harari, Yuval Noah. 2014. Sapiens: A History of Humankind. New York: Harper
Perennial.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York:
Routledge, 1991.
Harris, John. 2011. Moral Enhancement and Freedom. Bioethics 25: 102–111.
———. 2017. How to Welcome New Technologies: Some Comments on the Article
by Inmaculada de Melo-Martin. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26:
166–172. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180116000736.
Hauskeller, Michael. 2016. The Art of Misunderstanding Critics: The Case of Ingmar
Persson and Julian Savulescu’s Defense of Moral Bioenhancement. Cambridge
Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 25: 153–161.
Hawking, Stephen. 2014. Op-ed. Huffington Post, April.
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hefner, Philip. 1993. The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion. Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress.
248 REFERENCES

Herzfeld, Noreen. 2002. Cybernetic Immortality versus Christian Resurrection. In

Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John
Russell, and Michael Walker, 192–201. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2017. Must We Die? Transhumanism, Religion, and the Fear of Death. In
Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, Coedited by Tracy
J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 285–99. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity
and Its Successors, Series Coeditors Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Holloway, K.R., T.H. Bennett, O. Parry, and C. Gorden. 2013. Misuse of Prescription
Drugs on University Campuses: Options for Prevention. International Review of
Law, Computers & Technology 27: 324–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360086
9.2013.796707.
Holstein, M., J. Parks, and M. Waymack. 2011. Ethics, Aging, & Society: The Critical
Turn. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Hopkins, Patrick. 2015. A Salvation Paradox for Transhumanism: Saving You Versus
Saving You. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 71–82. Westport,
CT: Praeger.
Horn, Tom, and Nita Horn. 2010. Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial
Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, NanoTechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald
the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual Warfare. Crane, Missouri: Defender.
———. 2011. Pandemonium’s Engine: How the Church Age, the Rise of Transhumanism,
and the Coming of the Ubermensch (Overman) Herald Satan’s Final and Imminent
Assault on the Creation of God. Crane, Missouri: Defender.
Hughes, James. 2004. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the
Redesigned Human of the Future. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
———. 2007. The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics,
Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future. Institute for Ethics
and Emerging Technologies (5/8). http://ieet.org/archive/20070326-­Hughes-­
ASU-­H+Religion.pdf.
———. 2014. How Conscience Apps and Caring Computers Will Illuminate and
Strengthen Human Morality. In Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and
Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick, 26–34. West Sussex,
UK: Wiley Blackwell.
———. 2015. How Moral Is (Moral) Enhancement? Moral Enhancement Requires
Multiple Virtues toward a Posthuman Model of Character Development. Cambridge
Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24: 86–95.
———. 2017. Ancient Aspirations Meet the Enlightenment. In Religion and Human
Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer,
191–212. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
“Humanity+.” n.d.. http://humanityplus.org/.
Hume, R.E., Trans. 1934. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. London: Oxford
University Press.
Hutchinson, A. 2018. Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human
Performance. New Zealand: HarperCollins Publishers.
Huxley, Julian. 1957. New Bottles for New Wine. London: Chatto & Windus.
Huxtable, Richard. 2018. Cryonics in the Courtroom: Which Interests? Whose
Interests? Medical Law Review 26 (3): 476–499.
  REFERENCES 249

Ishikawa, Maria. 2018. Mindfulness in Western Contexts Perpetuates Oppressive

Realities for Minority Cultures: The Consequences of Cultural Appropriation.
Simon Fraser University Educational Review 11(1). Accessed May 28, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.21810/sfuer.v11i1.757.
Jackson, Roy. 2020. Muslim and Supermuslim: The Quest for the Perfect Being and
Beyond. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors, ed. Calvin
Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jackson, Susan, and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi. 1999. Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal
Experiences and Performance. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Jesse, Robert. 1996. Entheogens: A Brief History of Their Spiritual Use. Tricycle: The
Buddhist Review (Fall).
Jones, D. Gareth. 2013. Moral Enhancement as a Technological Imperative. Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith 65: 187–195.
Joy, Bill. 2000. Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us. Wired. April.
Kahn, Peter. 2016. Bioethics, Religion, and Public Policy: Intersections, Interactions,
and Solutions. Journal of Religion and Health 55 (5): 1546–1560.
Kaku, Michio. 2014. The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand,
Enhance, and Empower the Mind. New York: Doubleday.
Kass, Leon. 2001. L’Chaim and Its Limits: Why Not Immortality? First Things (May).
https://www.firstthings.com/ar ticle/2001/05/lchaim-­a nd-­i ts-­l imits-
­why-­not-­immortality.
Kim, Grace Ji-Sun, and Susan M. Shaw. 2017. Intersectional Theology: A Prophetic
Call for Change. Huffington Post, March 31. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
entry/intersectional-­t heology-­a -­p rophetic-­c all-­f orchange_us_58dd823de4b0
fa4c09598794.
KiroRus. n.d.. https://kriorus.ru/en.
Kissinger, Henry. 2018. How the Enlightenment Ends: Philosophically, Intellectually—
In Every Way—Human Society is Unprepared for the Rise of Artificial Intelligence.
The Atlantic. June.
Knibbs, Kate. 2020. There’s No Cure for Covid-19 Loneliness, but Robots Can Help.
Wired Magazine (June 22).
Kobar, S.E., et al. 2017. Ability to Gain Control Over One’s Own Brain Activity and
its Relation to Spiritual Practice: A Multimodal Imaging Study in Frontiers. Human
Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00271.
Krüger, Oliver. 2015. The Suspension of Death. The Cryonic Utopia in the Context of
the U.S. Funeral Culture. Marburg Journal of Religion 15 (1): 1–19.
Kurzweil, Ray. 1999. The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence. New York: Penguin.
———. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
New York: Viking.
———. 2012. How to Create a Mind. New York: Viking.
Kurzweil, Ray, and Neil Degrasse. 2016. 2029 Singularity Year—Neil Degrasse Tyson &
Ray Kurzweil. April 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFYFjESkWU.
Kurzweil, Ray, and Terry Grossman. 2004. Fantastic Voyage: The Science Behind Radical
Life Extension, Live Long Enough to Live Forever. Emmaus, PA.
“Kurzweil: Accelerating Intelligence.” n.d.. www.KurzweilAI.net.
Kushner, Harold. 1981. Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York:
Anchor Books.
250 REFERENCES

Laderman, Gary. 1996. The Sacred Remains. American Attitudes towards Death,
1799–1883. New Haven: Yale University.
Landua, Iddo. 2018. The Case for Technological Mysticism. Journal of Posthuman
Studies 2 (1): 67–85.
Latorra, Michael. 2015. What Is Buddhist Transhumanism? Theology and Science 13
(2): 219–229.
Lazzari, Edmund Michael. 2017. Would St. Thomas Aquinas Baptize an Extraterrestrial?
New Blackfriars: 440–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12319.
Lee, Newton. 2019. The Transhumanism Handbook. New York: Springer.
Leidenhag, Joanna. 2016. A Critique of Emergent Theologies. Zygon: A Journal of
Religion & Science 51 (4): 867–882. https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12300.
Levy, David. 2006. Robots Unlimited: Life in a Virtual Age. Wellesley, MA: A. K. Peters.
Life Extension Foundation. n.d.. www.lifeextension.com.
Linden, Ingemar Patrick. forthcoming. The Case Against Death. MIT Press.
Lindsey, Hal. 1970. The Late, Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon.
———. 1973. There’s a New World Coming. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervon.
———. 1982. The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon. New York: Westgate.
“Living to 120 and Beyond: Americans’ Views on Aging, Medical Advances and Radical
Life Extension.” 2013. Pew Research Center (Washington: Pew Research
Center), 9, 13.
Locke, John. 1689. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. http://www.earlymod-
erntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2.pdf.
Loene, Randal A. 2014. Feasible Mind Uploading. In Intelligence Unbound: The Future
of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and Damien Broderick,
90–102. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Logan, Robert K., and Adriana Braga. 2020. AI and the Singularity: A Fallacy or Great
Opportunity? Basel: MDPI.
Lomax, J.W., J.J. Kripal, and K.I. Pargament. 2011. Perspectives on Sacred Moments
in Psychotherapy. The American Journal of Psychiatry 168 (1): 12–18.
Lorrimar, Victoria. 2019. Mind Uploading and Embodied Cognition: A Theological
Response. Zygon 54, no. 1 (3/19): 191–206.
MacCracken, Harry and Lev Grossman. 2013. Can Google Solve Death? Time
(September 30). http://content.time.com/time/covers/016641201
3093000.html.
MacFarlane, James Michael. 2020. Transhumanism as a New Social Movement: The
Techno-Centred Imagination. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its
Successors, ed. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mackler, A. 2003. Introduction to Jewish and Catholic Bioethics. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Maher, Derek. 2009. Two Wings of a Bird. In Religion and the Implications of Radical
Life Extension, Co-edited by Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan; Republished in Paperback, 2014.
Maher, Derek, and Calvin Mercer, eds. 2009. Religion and the Implications of Radical
Life Extension. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Republished Paperback, 2014.
Mahoney, A., K.I. Pargament, B. Cole, T. Jewell, and R. Phillips. 2005. A Higher
Purpose: The Sanctification of Strivings in a Community Sample. The International
Journal for the Psychology of Religion 15 (3): 239–262.
Majlesi, Mohammad-Baqer. n.d. Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 1, 177.
  REFERENCES 251

Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced
Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press.
McFee, Daniel. 2015. The Risks of Transhumanism: Religious Engagements with the
Precautionary and Proactionary Principle. In Religion and Transhumanism: The
Unknown Future of Human Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen,
217–228. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Mercer, Calvin. 2008. Cryonics and Religion: Friends or Foes? Cryonics 29 (1): 10–21.
———. 2009. Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
———. 2014. Insisting on Soma in the Debate about Radical Life Extension: One
Protestant’s Perspective. In Transhumanism and the Body: The World Religions
Speak, co-edited Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher. In Palgrave Studies in the Future
of Humanity and Its Successors, Series Co-edited by Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2015a. Bodies and Persons: Theological Reflections on Transhumanism.
Dialog 54 (1): 27–33.
———. 2015b. Whole Brain Emulation Requires Enhanced Theology, and a
‘Handmaiden’. Theology and Science 13 (2): 175–186.
———. 2017a. A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain Emulation: On the Path to
Superintelligence. In Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and
Morality, ed. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 89–104. In Palgrave Studies in the
Future of Humanity and Its Successors, Series Editors, Calvin Mercer and Steve
Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2017b. Resurrection of the Body and Cryonics. Religions 8/5, 96 (May): 1–9.
www.mdpi.com/journal/religions, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8050096. In
Special Issue “Religion and the New Technologies.” http://www.mdpi.com/jour-
nal/religions/special_issues/new_technologies.
———. 2020b. A Theological Embrace of Transhuman and Posthuman Beings.
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 72 (2): 83–88.
Mercer, Calvin, and Thomas Durham. 1999. Religious Mysticism and Gender
Orientation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38 (1): 175–182.
Mercer, Calvin, and Derek Maher, Eds. 2014. Transhumanism and the Body: The World
Religions Speak. In Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors.
Series Editors Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Miah, A. 2010. The DREAM Gene for the Posthuman Athlete: Reducing Exercise-­
induced Pain Sensations Using Gene Transfer. In The Anthropology of Sport and
Human Movement: A Biocultural Perspective, ed. R.R. Sands and L.R. Sands,
327–341. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.
Mittal, Nitish, et al. 2017. The Gcn4 Transcription Factor Reduces Protein Synthesis
Capacity and Extends Yeast Lifespan. Nature Communications 8 (1). https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41467-­017-­00539-­y.
Molloy, Michael. 2020. Experiencing the World’s Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and
Change. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Monod, Stefanie, Estelle Martin, Brenda Spencer, Etienne Rochat, and Christophe
Büla. 2012. Validation of the Spiritual Distress Assessment Tool in Older Hospitalized
Patients. BMC Geriatrics 12 (13): 1–9.
Moravec, Hans. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
252 REFERENCES

More, Max. 2013. The Philosophy of Transhumanism. In The Transhumanist Reader:

Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the
Human Future, ed. Max More and Natasha Vita-More, 3–17. West Sussex:
Wiley-Blackwell.
———. n.d. A Letter to Mother Nature: Amendments to the Human Constitution.
http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-­about-­ten-­years-­since-­i-­
wrote.html.
Moritz, Joshua M. 2011. Evolution, the End of Human Uniqueness, and the Election
of the Imago Dei. Theology and Science 9 (3): 307–339.
Murphy, Mike. 2017. Stephen Hawking: AI Could be Best—or Worst—Thing in
Human History. Market Watch, November 17. https://www.marketwatch.com/
stor y/stephen-­h awking-­a i-­c ould-­b e-­b est-­o r-­w orst-­t hing-­i n-­h uman-­h istor y-
­2017-­11-­06.
Musa, Aisha Y. 2009. A Thousand Years, Less Fifty: Toward a Quranic View of Extreme
Longevity. In Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, Co-edited by
Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer, 124–31. New York: Palgrave Macmillan;
Republished in Paperback, 2014.
Musk, Elon. n.d. Elon Musk’s Last Warning About Artificial Intelligence. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-­Osn1gMNtw&feature=youtu.be.
Muzyka, Kamil. 2013. The Outline of Personhood Law Regarding Artificial
Intelligences and Emulated Human Entities. Journal of Artificial General Intelligence
4 (3): 164–169. https://doi.org/10.2478/jagi-­2013-­0010. ISSN 1946-0163.
Nagoshi, Craig T., and Julie L. Nagoshi. 2012. Being Human versus Being Transhuman:
The Mind-Body Problem and Lived Experience. In Building Better Humans?
Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth
L. Mossman, 303–319. Berlin: Peter Lang.
Ni, Zhange. 2020. Reimagining Daoist Alchemy, Decolonizing Transhumanism: The
Fantasy of Immortality Cultivation in Twenty-First Century China. Zygon: Journal
of Religion and Science 55 (3): 748–771. https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12634.
Nick, Bostrom, and Anders Sandberg. 2009. Cognitive Enhancement: Methods,
Ethics, Regulatory Challenges. Science and Engineering Ethics 15: 311–341.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-­009-­9142-­5.
Noss, David S., and Blake R. Grangaard. 2017. A History of the World’s Religions. 14th
ed. Abingdon: Taylor and Francis.
O’Callaghan, Sean. 2017. Technological Apocalypse: Transhumanism as an End-Time
Religious Movement. In Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and
Morality, ed. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 67–88. In Palgrave Studies in the
Future of Humanity and Its Successors, ed. Calvin Mercer and Steve Fuller. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Ohlheiser, Abby. 2014. Pope Francis Says He Would Definitely Baptize Aliens If They
Asked Him To. The Atlantic. May 12. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/
archive/2014/05/pope-­francis-­says-­he-­would-­definitely-­baptize-­aliens-­if-­they-
­wanted-­it/362106/.
“Old Age is Over! If You Want It.” 2019. MIT Technology Review 122, no. 5
(September/October).
Olsen, Anders, Maithili C. Vantipalli, and Gordon J. Lithgow. 2006. Using
Caenorhabditis Elegans as a Model for Aging and Age-Related Diseases. Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences 1067 (1): 120–128. https://doi.org/10.1196/
annals.1354.015.
  REFERENCES 253

Olshansky, S. Jay. 2013. Reinventing Aging: An Update on the Longevity Dividend.

Aging Today: A Bimonthly Newspaper of the American Society on Aging (March/
April). https://www.asaging.org/blog/reinventing-­aging-­update-­longevity-­
dividend.
Oregon Cryonics. n.d.. http://www.oregoncryo.com/index.html.
Ormond, K.E., et al. 2017. Human Germline Genome Editing. American Journal of
Human Genetics 101 (2): 167–176.
Panch, Trishan, H. Mattie, and R. Atun. 2019. Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic
Bias: Implications for Health Systems. Journal of Global Health 9 (2). https://doi.
org/10.7189/jogh.09.020318.
Parens, Erik, and Lori P. Knowles. 2003. A Special Supplement to the Hastings Center
Report: Reprogenetics and Public Policy: Reflections and Recommendations. July–
August. https://live-­the-­hastings-­center.pantheon.io/wp-­content/uploads/repro-
genetics_and_public_policy.pdf.
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pargament, K.I. 2007. Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and
Addressing the Sacred. New York: Guilford.
Pargament, K.I., D. Oman, J. Pomerleau, and A. Mahoney. 2017. Some Contributions
of a Psychological Approach to the Study of the Sacred. Religion 47 (4): 718–744.
Parks, J., and V. Wike. 2010. Theories and Values in Bioethics. In Bioethics in a
Changing World, ed. J. Parks and V. Wike, 1–28. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Pearson
Education, Inc.
Parry, Jim. 2005. Must Scientists Think Philosophically About Science? In Philosophy
and the Sciences of Exercise, Health and Sport: Critical Perspectives on Research
Methods, ed. Mike McNamee, 20–31. New York: Routledge.
Pederson, Isabel, and Andrew Iliadis, eds. 2020. Embodied Computing—Wearables,
Implantables, Embeddables, Ingestibles. Boston: MIT.
Persson, Ingmar, and Julian Savulescu. 2008. The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement
and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity. Journal
of Applied Philosophy 25: 162–177.
———. 2012. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
———. 2019. The Evolution of Moral Progress and Biomedical Moral Enhancement.
Bioethics 33 (7): 814-819.
Peters, Ted. 1996. Playing God: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. New York:
Routledge.
———. 2003a. Science, Theology, and Ethics. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
———. 2003b. Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. 2nd ed.
New York: Routledge.
———. 2006. Anticipating Omega: Science, Faith, and Our Ultimate Future. In
Religion, Theology and Natural Science, vol. 7. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
———. 2009. Reflections on Radical Life Extension. In Religion and the Implications
of Radical Life Extension, ed. Derek Maher and Calvin Mercer. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan; Republished in Paperback, 2014.
———. 2019. The Ebullient Transhumanist and the Sober Theologian. Scientia et
Fides, July 2: 97–117.
Peters, Ted, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, eds. 2002. Resurrection:
Theological and Scientific Assessments. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.
254 REFERENCES

Pigliucci, Massimo. 2014. Mind Uploading: A Philosophical Counter-Analysis. In

Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell
Blackford and Damien Broderick, 119–131. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Piore, A. 2015. A Shocking Way to Fix the Brain. MIT Technology Review (October 8).
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542176/a-­shocking-­way-­to-­fix-­the-­brain/.
Pitman, R.K., et al. 2002. Pilot Study of Secondary Prevention of Post-traumatic Stress
Disorder with Propranolol. Biological Psychiatry 51 (2): 189–192.
Plato. 1921. Cratylus. In Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 12. Trans. Harold N. Fowler.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Asection%3D402a.
Popper, Karl. 1978. Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind. Dialectica
32: 339–355.
Porter, J. 2009. Implicit Religion in Popular Culture: The Religious Dimensions of Fan
Communities. Implicit Religion 12 (3): 271–280.
Post, Stephen G. 2005. Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It’s Good to Be Good.
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 12 (2): 66–77. https://doi.
org/10.1207/s15327558ijbm1202_4.
Prisco, Giulio. 2012. Transhumanist Religion 2.0. Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence.
Daily Blog (July 13). https://www.kurzweilai.net/transhumanist-­religion-­2-­0.
Purtill, C. 2019. The Robot Will Help You Now: How They Could Fill the Staffing
Gaps in the Eldercare Industry. TIME Magazine (November 4).
Rachels, James. 2003. Elements of Moral Philosophy. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Raveh, Anat Ringel, and Boaz Tamir. 2020. AI and the Singularity: A Fallacy or Great
Opportunity? Edited by Robert K. Logan and Adriana Braga, 197–215. Basel: MDPI.
Reed, Randall. 2018. A New Pantheon: Artificial Intelligence and ‘Her’. Journal of
Religion and Film 22 (2). https://works.bepress.com/randall-­reed/1/download/.
Reydon, Thomas A.C. 2019. Philosophy of Technology. Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Accessed November 2019. https://www.iep.utm.edu/technolo/.
Reynolds, Thomas E. 2008. Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and
Hospitality Grand Rapids. Michigan: Brazos Press.
Richards, Jay W. 2002. Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of
Strong AI. Seattle: Discovery Institute.
Rigveda 8.48.3. 1896. The Hymns of the Rig Veda. Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith.
Benares, India: E. J. Lazarus and Company.
Ritchie, Barry G. 2012. The (Un)Likelihood of a High-Tech Path to Immortality. In
Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism, vol. 3, ed. Hava
Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth L. Mossman. In Beyond Humanism: Trans- and
Posthumanism, ed. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Robinson, Peter. 2019. Fixed Points in a Changing World. In Spiritualities, Ethics, and
Implications of Human Enhancement and Artificial Intelligence, ed. Chris Hrynkow,
227–241. Delaware: Vernon Press.
Rothblatt, Martine. 2014. Virtually Human: The Promise—And Peril—Of Digital
Immortality. New York: St. Martin’s.
Rudman, Stanley. 1997. Concepts of Person and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University.
Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sajoo, A.B. 2014. Negotiating Virtue: Principlism and Maslaha in Muslim Bioethics.
Studies in Religion 43 (1): 53–69.
  REFERENCES 255

Sandberg, Anders. 2013. Morphological Freedom—Why We Not Just Want It, but
Need It. In The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the
Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, ed. Max More and Natasha
Vita-More, 56–64. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Saslow, Laura Rose, et al. 2013. The Social Significance of Spirituality: New Perspectives
on the Compassion–Altruism Relationship. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
5: 201–218.
Scheidt, Hannah. 2015. The Fleshless Future: A Phenomenological Perspective on
Mind Uploading. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 315–328. Santa
Barbara: Praeger.
Schultz, A.M., and P.E. Carron. 2013. Socratic Meditation and Emotional Self-­
Regulation: Human Dignity in a Technological Age. Journal of Interdisciplinary
Studies 25 (1–2): 137–160.
“Scientists’ Open Letter on Cryonics.” n.d.. https://www.biostasis.com/
scientists-­open-­letter-­on-­cryonics/.
Seger, E. 2017. FDA Approves First Gene Therapy for Leukemia Treatment: The
How’s, Why’s, Promise, and Peril. The Science Distillery (September 5). https://
sciencedistillery.com/2017/09/05/fda-­approves-­first-­gene-­therapy-­for-­leukemia-­
treatment-­the-­hows-­whys-­promise-­and-­peril/.
Setta, S.M., and S.D. Shemie. 2015. An Explanation and Analysis of How World
Religions Formulate Their Ethical Decisions on Withdrawing Treatment and
Determining Death. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 10 (6). https://
doi.org/10.1186/s13010-­015-­0025-­x.
Shao, Grace. 2019. Medical Cannabis is Gaining Momentum in Asia. CNBC (July 14).
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/medical-­cannabis-­is-­gaining-­momentum-­
in-­asia.html.
Sharma, Arvind. 2009. ‘May You Live Long:’ Religious Implications of Extreme
Longevity in Hinduism. In Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension,
Co-editors Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher, 145–52. New York: Palgrave Macmillan;
Republished in Paperback, 2014.
Shoemaker, David. 2005. Personal Identity and Ethics. Section 2.3. http://plato.stan-
ford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/identity-­ethics/.
“Should We Pursue Genetic Cognitive Enhancement?” 2018. The Hastings Center
News (April 3). https://www.thehastingscenter.org/news/
enhanced-­human-­risks-­opportunities/.
Skidmore, C.R., E.A. Kaufman, and S.E. Crowell. 2016. Substance Use Among
College Students. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics in North America 25:
735–753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chc.2016.06.004.
“Slaughterbots.” n.d.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA.
Steinhard, Eric. 2008. Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism. Journal of Evolution
and Technology 20: 1–22.
Swinton, John. 2014. What the Body Remembers: Theological Reflections on
Dementia. Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging 26: 160–172.
Sysiak, Pawel. 2016. When Will the First Machine Become Superintelligent?
Medium. April 11.
Tanz, Jason. 2016. The End of Code: Soon We Won’t Program Computers. We’ll
Train Them Like Dogs. Wired (May 17). https://www.wired.com/2016/05/
the-­end-­of-­code/.
256 REFERENCES

Tennison, M.N., and Moreno, J.D. 2012. Neuroscience, Ethics, and National Security:
The State of the Art. PLOS (March 20). http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/
article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001289.
“The Brain Stimulator: Stimulate Your Life.” n.d.. https://thebrainstimulator.net/
what-­is-­tdcs/.
The President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit
of Happiness. October 2003. https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/
reports/beyondtherapy/chapter4.html.
The Works of Benjamin Franklin. 1882. Vol. 6. Edited by Jared Sparks. Chicago:
Townsend Mac Coun.
“The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas.” 2004. Foreign Policy 83 (5), September/October.
Thompson, Clive. 2016. Sure, A.I. Is Powerful—But Can We Make It Accountable?
Wired (October 27). https://www.wired.com/2016/10/understanding-­
artificial-­intelligence-­decisions/.
Thweatt-Bates, J. Jeanine. 2011. Artificial Wombs and Cyborg Births. In Transhumanism
and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed.
Ron Cole-Turner, 101–114. Washington, DC: Georgetown University.
Thweatt-Bates, Jeanine. 2012. Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the
Posthuman. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
———. 2015. Cindi, Six, and Her: Gender Relationality and Friendly Artificial
Intelligence. In Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human
Enhancement, ed. Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen, 39–50. Westport,
CT: Praeger.
Tillich, Paul. 1953. Systematic Theology. Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Trancik, Emily K. 2013. Lost in Translation: Spiritual Assessment and the Religious
Tradition. Christian Bioethics 19 (3): 282–298.
Trothen, T.J. 2015. Winning the Race? Religion, Hope, and Reshaping the Sport
Enhancement Debate, Sport and Religion Series. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
———. 2017a. Christian Anthropology: Doing Good Through Science and
Technology. In Technology and the Image of God: A Canadian Conversation, 18–19.
Canadian Council of Churches, Faith and Life Sciences.
———. 2017b. Moral Bioenhancement Through an Intersectional Theo-Ethical Lens:
Refocusing on Divine Image-Bearing and Interdependence. Religions 8 (5): 1–14.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8050084.
———. 2017c. Moral Bioenhancement from the Margins: An Intersectional Christian
Theological Reconsideration. In Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values,
and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer, 245–266. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2018. Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than Just a Game. SpringerBriefs
Sport and Religion Series. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Twigg, Robert C., Thomas Hengen, and Marlyn Bennett. 2008. Going Back to the
Roots: Using the Medicine Wheel in the Healing Process. First Peoples Child &
Family Review 4 (1): 10–19.
Universe Spirit. n.d. The Religion 2.0 Manifesto: Open Source Meta-Religion For the
Twenty First Century. https://www.universespirit.org/what-­is-­universe-
­spirituality-­the-­universe-­spirit-­community-­and-­the-­universe-­spirituality-­movement.
Vanlaere, Linus, Madeleine Timmerman, Marleen Stevens, and Chris Gastmans. 2012.
An Explorative Study of Experiences of Healthcare Providers Posing as Simulated
Care Receivers in a ‘Care-Ethical’ Lab. Nursing Ethics 19 (1): 68–79.
  REFERENCES 257

Vanlaere, Linus, Trees Coucke, and Chris Gastmans. 2010. Experiential Learning of
Empathy in a Care-Ethics Lab. Nursing Ethics 17 (3): 325–336.
Vincent, James. 2017. Putin Says the Nation that Leads in AI ‘Will be the Ruler of the
World.’ The Verge, September 4. https://www.theverge.
com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-­ai-­putin-­r ule-­the-­world.
Vita-More, Natasha. 2004. The New [Human] Genre—Primo Posthuman. Presentation
at Ciber@RT Conference, Bilboa, Spain. http://www.natasha.cc/paper.htm.
———. 2008. “The Transhumanist Manifesto.” ­ https://natashavita-­ more.com/
transhumanist-manifesto/.
———. 2011. The Posthuman Future—Interview with Natasha Vita-More. Studio
360, November 4. http://www.wnyc.org/story/233794-­posthuman-­future/.
———. 2012. Life Expansion: Toward an Artistic Design-Based Theory of the
Transhuman/Posthuman. PhD diss. University of Plymouth. http://hdl.handle.
net/10026.1/1182.
———. 2013a. Aesthetics: Bringing the Arts and Design into the Discussion of
Transhumanism. In The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays
on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, ed. Max More and
Natasha Vita-More, 18–27. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
———. 2013b. Life Expansion Media. In The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and
Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future,
ed. Max More and Natasha Vita-More, 73–82. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
———. 2014. Design of Life Expansion and the Human Mind. In Intelligence
Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell Blackford and
Damien Broderick, 240–247. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. n.d.. https://school.wakehealth.
e d u / R e s e a r c h / I n s t i t u t e s -­a n d -­C e n t e r s / Wa k e -­F o r e s t -­I n s t i t u t e -­f o r-­
Regenerative-­Medicine.
Waldrop, D.P. 2011. Denying and Defying Death: The Culture of Dying in 21st
Century America. The Gerontologist 51 (4): 571–576.
Warwick, Kevin. 2014. The Cyborg Revolution. NanoEthics 8: 263–273. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11569-­014-­0212-­z.
Waters, Brent. 2006. From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in
a Postmodern World. In Ashgate Science and Religion Series, ed. Roger Trigg and
J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
Weintraub, David A. 2014. Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With
It? New York: Springer.
Wellington, Naomi. 2014. Whole Brain Emulation: Invasive vs. Non-Invasive Methods.
In Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, ed. Russell
Blackford and Damien Broderick, 178–192. West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
West, Traci C. 2019. Solidarity and Defiant Spirituality: Africana Lessons on Religion,
Racism, and Ending Gender Violence. New York: New York University Press.
Wilkinson, David. 2013. Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University.
Williams, Alex. 2019. Robots: Hot or Not? Love, Android Style, Sexy and Confusing.
The New York Times, SundayStyles (January 1): 1, 8.
Wiseman, H. 2016. The Myth of the Moral Brain: The Limits of Moral Enhancement.
Boston: MIT Press.
258 REFERENCES

de Wolf, Aschwin, Brian Wowk, and Alcor Staff, eds. 2012. Preserving Minds, Saving
Lives: The Best Cryonics Writings of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Scottsdale,
AZ: Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
“Worshipping Immortality at the Church of Perpetual Life.” April 11, 2016. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvaC67CeBDA.
Yasinski, Emma. 2020. On the Road to 3-D Printed Organs. The Scientist—Exploring
Life, Inspiring Innovation (February 26). https://www.the-­scientist.com/news-­
opinion/on-­the-­road-­to-­3-­d-­printed-­organs-­67187.
Zhang, Chencheng, et al. 2020. An International Survey of Deep Brain Stimulation
Utilization in Asia and Oceania: The DBS Think Tank East. Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience 6 (July). https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/
fnhum.2020.00162/full.
Walsh, Brian. “Pope Francis Prays for Good AI.” Axios (November 4, 2020). https://
w w w. a x i o s . c o m / p o p e - f r a n c i s - g o o d - a i - 7 1 1 e 6 4 f a - e f 8 a - 4 f a a -
afce-­19c463f07425.html.
 Index1

A Artificial intelligence (AI), 3, 6, 7, 9,

Abrahamic religions, 28, 34, 56, 153, 157 11, 15–17, 20n8, 45, 58, 87, 91,
Adl, 102 95, 99, 103, 118, 119, 135, 162,
Affect, 45, 50, 54, 55, 73, 74, 79, 98, 168, 168n31, 170, 181–184,
108, 112, 116–120, 127, 130, 136, 186–188, 193, 197, 200–203,
138, 157, 166, 177 209, 227
Affective enhancement, 6, 99, 115–140 Attachment, 33, 34, 52, 130, 155, 192
Ageism, 45, 58, 59, 87, 89 Authentic, 82, 110, 111, 121, 125,
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Alcor, 130, 138
143–149, 143n1, 144n7, 153, Autonomy, 46, 47, 50, 54–55, 83, 84,
158, 158n44 117, 227
Alien, 194–197, 222 Avatar, 127, 138, 139
Allopathic medicine, 76, 77, 166, 170,
211, 212
Alpert, Richard (Ram Dass), 124 B
Altruism, altruistic, 55, 96, 98, 100, Barth, Karl, 32
107–109, 111, 133, 136 Beneficence, 46, 60
Anatman, 80 Better, x, 3–5, 7, 18, 38, 45, 46, 49–53,
Anthropology, 25–30, 33, 78, 150, 151, 55, 58, 60, 81–82, 93, 97, 99, 103,
166, 174, 221–225 104, 108–110, 112, 113, 115–116,
Apocalyptic, 185, 199, 213–216 118, 120–122, 127, 129, 133,
Appropriation, 134, 140 135–138, 145, 156–157, 167,
Aristotle, 116 176–178, 181, 192, 193, 198–201,
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), 15, 210, 224, 227
183, 203 Bhagavad Gita, 25, 33

1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 259

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Mercer, T. J. Trothen, Religion and the Technological Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62359-3
260 INDEX

Bible, biblical, 10n2, 20, 26–30, 32, 34, CRISPR associated protein 9
76n28, 77, 84, 105, 131, 133, (CRISPR-Cas9), 12–14, 13n6
149–151, 165, 166, 173, 174, 196, Cobb, John B., 32
213, 214, 223, 224 Co-creator, 29, 202, 224
Bioconservative, 74, 211 Co-design, 50, 57, 58, 113, 179,
Biohacking, 3, 4, 7–10, 16, 45, 94, 116, 201, 202
125, 130, 131, 209, 211, 212, Cognition, embodied cognition, 51, 92,
218, 227 106–109, 162, 166–170, 184n9
Body, ix, 9, 24, 26–27, 47, 65, 92, 119, Cognitive enhancement, 6, 43, 49,
143, 162, 169–170, 190, 210 91–114, 118, 119, 136
Bostrom, Nick, 72, 91, 162, 175, 183, Cole-Turner, Ronald, 19, 20, 35, 39,
184, 186, 199n43 73, 74, 123
Brain, ix, 6, 7, 10, 15–17, 56, 68n5, 69, Collins, Francis, 39
78, 93–95, 107, 109, 111, 117, Coma, 148, 156
119, 122, 125–126, 144–147, 151, Community, 4, 32, 34, 36, 37, 43–44,
155, 159, 161–165, 165n16, 46, 49, 54, 58, 72, 76n28, 79, 84,
167–169, 171n40, 172–179, 182, 85, 89, 97, 104–106, 121, 122,
184, 185, 190, 191, 198, 199 127, 129, 132–134, 138, 140, 146,
Brain stimulation, 11, 17, 94, 98, 102, 150, 176, 179, 189, 198, 208, 217,
103, 111, 119, 126, 163 226, 227
Buddhism, Buddhist, 22n12, 23, 25, 26, Compassion, 52, 56, 100–102, 113,
28, 33–35, 40, 49, 52, 79, 80, 85, 136, 179
101–103, 111, 129, 130, 133, 134, Computer, 7, 10, 15, 16, 52, 69, 95,
137, 138, 155, 165, 187, 194, 118n3, 127, 130, 139, 140, 148,
211, 225 161–163, 172, 176, 182–184,
186–189, 191, 209
Cone, James, 32
C Confucianism, 23n13, 40
Cheshire, William P., 111 Consciousness, 25, 122n17, 164, 167,
Choice, 5, 6, 40, 46, 48, 50, 54–56, 171n40, 177, 190, 194, 197,
59–61, 81, 83–84, 89, 110–112, 220, 221
123, 138–139, 157–158, Consent, 14, 60, 83, 110, 139, 140, 177
177–178, 189, 193, 201–202, Conservative, 26, 30, 32–34, 39, 40, 50,
210, 219, 227 74–76, 79, 104, 126, 132, 151,
Christian, Christianity, 4, 19, 20, 22–24, 154, 175, 176, 195, 208, 211, 212,
26–28, 27n19, 28n24, 30, 32, 34, 214–216, 222, 224, 226
35, 37, 39–41, 47, 49, 52, 53, 56, Context, contextual, 5, 15, 21, 27, 34,
60, 73, 75, 78, 79, 84, 101, 105, 41, 44, 46, 49, 53–55, 57, 91, 99,
122, 123, 126, 129, 132, 133, 139, 101, 103, 104, 106, 108, 109, 112,
149–152, 154–157, 165–167, 169, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132–134, 136,
173–176, 191, 194–197, 195n32, 157, 164, 165n15, 169, 179, 182,
195n35, 211–217, 213n21, 186n16, 195, 196, 210, 215, 217,
220–222, 222n37, 225, 226 218, 220, 220n32, 223, 227
Christian Transhumanist Association Continuity, continuous, continuation,
(CTA), 37–38, 153, 197 149, 150, 153, 154, 167, 169,
Church, George, 13 172–174, 177, 212, 225
Clark, Andy, 168 Cost, 47, 57, 81, 113, 130, 140, 144,
Cloning, therapeutic, 15 145, 154, 158, 158n44
Clustered regularly interspaced short COVID-19, xi, 41, 48, 51, 54, 55, 60,
palindromic repeats (CRISPR), 99, 113, 126, 138, 139
 INDEX 261

Create, 4, 24, 27–29, 47, 57, 82, 86, Dispensationalism, 213, 215
124, 136, 137, 144, 188, 210, Distributive justice, 57, 85, 158,
219, 223 178, 219
Created co-creators, 28–30, 82, 193, Divine, 23–25, 27–29, 33, 40, 53, 79,
223, 224 102, 105, 124, 128, 154, 156, 157,
Creation, 7, 16, 29, 30, 36, 37, 41, 58, 187, 189–193, 196, 202, 220–221,
78, 82, 104, 154, 157, 165, 189, 223, 225, 226
192, 193, 195–197, 214, 219, 223 Doctrine, 4, 25–28, 32, 42, 53, 75, 79,
Cryonics, 6, 21, 143–159, 165, 166, 80, 84, 102, 104, 149, 173, 174,
168, 173, 178, 212 192, 195, 196, 212,
Cryopreservation, 149, 151, 154, 219–222, 224–226
155, 157–159 Dorff, Elliot N., 73, 74
Csikszenthmihalyi, Mihaly, 122, 122n17 DREAM gene, 99, 129
Cyber, 6, 77, 79, 161–179 Dreyfuss, Hubert, 136
Cybernetic, 11, 212 Dualism/dualistic, 26, 30, 79, 175, 189
Cybernetic immortality, 212 Durkheim, Émile, 120
Cyborg, ix, 11, 86, 139, 170, 179,
201n52, 217, 221
E
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 28
D Economic, xi, 4, 30, 40, 55, 74, 84, 86,
Daoism, 23, 34, 40, 52, 133 87, 105, 106, 113, 118, 188, 210
Darby, John Nelson, 213 Ecophagy, 199
Darwin, Charles, 214 Effort, 3, 9, 11, 28, 56, 60, 72, 84, 91,
Dass, Ram (Richard Alpert), 124 95, 102, 103, 126, 130–132, 137,
De Grey, Aubrey, 37, 66–69, 67n2, 145, 163, 164, 189, 226
71, 76, 208 Embodied cognition, 167–170, 168n31
Death/dying/brain death/die, 22, 27, Embodiment, 27, 34, 68, 78, 150–151,
37, 47, 48, 54, 60, 65, 66, 68, 165, 170, 225
70–76, 79–81, 87, 89, 104, 125, Emergence/emergent, 181,
134, 143, 145, 147–149, 151, 152, 190–191, 220
154–157, 159, 163, 167, 174, 176, Emotion(s), 73, 99, 100, 115, 116,
177, 186, 187, 211 118–122, 136, 140, 161, 183, 197
Deontological, 46–47, 61 Empathy, 97, 98, 100, 106, 108,
Descartes, René, 26 111–113, 189
Desire, 20, 20n6, 36, 44, 55, 94, 105, End-time, 78, 149, 152, 195, 213, 214,
115, 116, 129, 136, 155, 161, 172, 223, 226
183, 188 Enhance, x, 3, 11, 13, 20, 53, 82, 83,
Difference, 5, 26, 28, 42, 45, 81, 102, 93, 94, 96, 98, 103, 106–108, 110,
136, 137, 140, 156, 172, 193–195, 115–117, 121, 125, 126, 128, 134,
197, 225 136–140, 152, 157, 167, 198, 201,
Digisexuals, 117 202, 216
Digital, 68, 77, 87, 95, 117, 126–128, Entheogen, 124, 132, 137, 140
138, 161, 162, 164, 167, 173, 212 Epistemology, 44
Digital immortality, 6, 17, 68, 215 Eschatology/eschatological, 27,
Discipline, 4, 5, 97, 102–104, 107, 110, 149, 226
122, 130–132, 134, 137, 146, 171 Estes, Douglas, 182
Disembodied, 79, 151 Ethically mandatory, 51
262 INDEX

Ethically permissible, 51, 81 Harari, Yuval Noah, 181, 182

Ethics, 4–6, 10, 11, 14, 31, 33, 43–62, Haraway, Donna, 86, 86n50
81, 83, 84, 96, 101, 103, 106–108, Harris, John, 59, 60, 111
115, 124, 136, 144, 192, 203, 217, Hartshorne, Charles, 32
226, 227 Hawking, Stephen, 200
Evolution/evolutionary, 15, 19–21, 38, Heal, healing, 34, 36, 52, 76, 81, 82,
39, 52, 75, 77, 78, 116, 185, 116, 156, 166, 198, 221
191–193, 214, 220 Hedonism, 48, 115
Extreme longevity, 60, 67, 79, Herzfeld, Noreen, 71n17,
85, 89, 208 168n33, 191n25
Hindu, Hinduism, 22n12, 23–26, 28,
33, 34, 40, 52, 84, 102, 123, 124,
F 130, 134, 155, 165, 175, 187,
Feminist, 32, 49, 133, 192n28, 224 225, 226
Fisher, Matthew Zaro, 163, 164 Hopkins, Patrick D., 116
Foucault, Michel, 40 Horn, Thomas and Nita, 213
Franklin, Benjamin, 145 Hughes, James J., 103, 111, 194
Fukuyama, Francis, 207 Humanity 2.0, 217
Fuller, Steve, 59n20, 67n2, 75n25, 88, Huxley, Julian, 19
164n12, 168n33, 185n13, 193n29,
217, 217n30
Fundamentalism, fundamentalist, 30, 32, I
50, 75, 175, 213, 215 Identity, 15, 17n14, 34, 58, 78n34, 83,
98, 108, 111, 126, 127, 136, 144,
150, 153–155, 159, 162, 164, 165,
G 171–175, 177, 178, 198, 211, 225
Galileo, 38 Imago Dei, 28, 29, 53, 165, 222, 223
Gates, Bill, 200 Immortality, 17, 26, 36, 66, 68, 68n4,
Gene drive, 14 71–74, 134, 148, 151, 155, 164,
Gene therapy, 12, 13, 57, 68, 68n5, 83 215, 217
Genetic engineering, 12–14, 92, 116 Impermanent, 155
Geraci, Robert M., 127 Incarnation, 26, 27, 78, 79, 129, 155,
Germline, 13–14, 83 167, 195, 196, 225
Germline genetic engineering, 13–14 Indigenous, Indigenous spirituality, 23,
Glenn, Paul F., 70 23n14, 34, 77, 122, 134, 166
Gobel, David, 71 Individualism, 54, 55, 202
God Helmet, 126 Information-theoretic criterion, 147
Good, Irving John, 200, 201n52 Interconnection, interconnected(ness),
Gould, Stephen Jay, 39 xi, 34, 45, 54–55, 67, 73, 120, 122,
Grace, 25, 27, 29, 32, 131, 223, 225 131, 136, 137, 166
Grieve, Gregory Price, 138, 139 Interdependence, 53, 54, 84
Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 32 Internet of Bodies (IoB), 95, 119
Internet of Things (IoT),
72n18, 95, 119
H Intersectional, 45, 53, 192n28
Habermas, Jürgen, 40 Islam, 22n12, 23, 24, 30, 31, 34, 37, 75,
Hallucinogenic, 123–125, 132, 139 101, 102, 133, 149, 169, 215
 INDEX 263

J Longevity dividend, 87–88

Jainism, 22n12, 23, 33, 40 Longevity escape velocity (LEV), 71
Joy, Bill, 199 Luxturna, 12, 57
Judaism, Jewish, 4, 22–24, 26, 27, 29,
30, 34, 35, 41, 52, 56, 73, 75, 101,
105, 133, 149–153, 156, 157, 165, M
166, 169, 193, 217, 222 Machines, ix, 9–11, 15, 16, 34, 48, 51,
Justice, injustice, 5, 29–32, 37, 44–46, 52, 76, 86, 95–97, 118, 170,
50, 54, 56–59, 61, 70, 82, 84–90, 182–184, 186–191, 197–203,
96, 102, 104, 107–110, 112–113, 201n52, 210, 221
128, 139–140, 154, 158–159, 175, Marcuse, Herbert, 40
177–179, 202–203, 210, 211, 217, Marginalized, marginalization, 32, 45,
219, 227 50, 53, 56–58, 77, 103, 133, 134,
193n28, 202, 224
Maris, Bill, 70
K Materialism, materiality, 34, 78
Karma, 23, 25–26, 34, 52, 56, 79, 80, Maya, 24
84, 103, 129, 133, 156, 175, 192, McKibben, Bill, 207, 208
195, 225 Memory, body memory, 6, 22, 52, 68n5,
Karmic religion, 5, 22–30, 44, 54, 56, 77, 91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 101, 107,
79–80, 85, 103, 104, 120, 128, 119, 144, 147, 151, 155, 161, 164,
129, 133, 149, 155, 156, 165, 167, 168, 172, 173, 182
173, 187, 191–193, 195, 197, Mercer, Calvin, ix, 6, 10, 31, 109n50,
220, 225 117, 126, 127, 130, 147, 148,
Kass, Leon, 74 166n18, 175, 193n29, 213
Kelly, Kevin, 186 Mind, ix, 9, 25, 26, 37, 56, 69, 81, 138,
Kelly, Sean Dorrance, 136, 136n36 144, 149, 151, 159, 161–164, 166,
Koene, Randal A., 163 168, 170, 172, 173, 176–179, 184,
Koren, Stanley, 126 188, 220
Kurzweil, Ray, 69–71, 71n15, 77, 162, Mindcloning, 164
163, 169, 183–185, 187, 188, 220, Mind copying, 161
221n34, 226 Mindfile, 164
Kushner, Harold, 128 Mindfulness, 91, 122, 126, 134,
137, 140
Mind transfer, 161, 174
L Mind uploading, 6, 21, 68, 76, 77,
Leary, Timothy, 124 78n34, 79, 151, 153, 161–179,
Levy, David, 197 211, 212, 215, 222
Liberal, 7, 30–34, 39, 40, 50, 58, 74–76, Mindware, 164
79, 85, 86, 104, 154, 158, 175, Modafinil (Provigil), 51, 93
195–197, 211, 212, 216, 224, 226 Moksha, 25
Life after death, eternal life, heaven, x, Monotheism, 24
27, 74, 75, 78, 89, 104, 105, 149, Moral, 3, 5, 6, 17n14, 20, 26, 29, 33,
150, 152, 154, 167, 175, 176, 189, 41, 45–47, 50, 56, 59, 60, 67, 72,
196, 223 74, 82, 91–114, 121, 136, 143,
Lindsey, Hal, 214 154, 159, 178, 189, 201, 202, 212,
Locke, John, 172, 174 215, 219, 221, 223
264 INDEX

Moral bioenhancement, 6, 55, 91–114, Paul, Apostle, 150, 152, 153, 155, 167,
118, 119 169, 170, 174
Moravec, Hans Peter, 20n8, 161 Pentagon‘s Defense Advanced Research
More, Max, 20–22, 20n6, 20n8, 42, 59, Projects Agency (DARPA), 70, 209
67, 77, 128, 144, 146n13, 221, Pepper, 99, 118
224, 226 Persinger, Michael, 126
Mormon Transhumanist Association Personal identity, 15, 78n34, 98, 111,
(MTA), 35–37, 42 126, 144, 150, 153, 154, 164, 165,
Morphological freedom, 50, 83 171–175, 177
Mortality, 65, 66, 73, 80, 135, 162 Personality, 6, 77, 94, 98, 144, 147, 155,
Musk, Elon, 95, 200 161, 168, 173–175
Muslim, 101, 122 Personhood, 166, 194, 197, 221, 225
Perspective, 4, 5, 19, 23, 24, 39, 43–44,
50, 52, 53, 78, 82, 99, 100, 104,
N 110, 112–114, 117, 136, 140, 145,
Nanotechnology, 15, 17, 20n8, 68, 78, 148–150, 159, 177, 186–188, 194,
144, 146, 152, 153, 174, 199, 198, 218–220
200, 209n11 Persson, Ingmar, 96, 100, 106
Neuropreservation, 144, 151, 155, Peters, Ted, 60, 80, 194, 195n32,
157, 158 217, 223
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 32 Pharmaceutical, 7, 9, 11, 18, 51, 92, 93,
Nonmaleficence, 60 97, 98, 102, 104, 111, 117, 129,
Nootropics, 92–94 137, 139
Normal, ix, 10, 11, 18, 21, 50–53, 67, Physicality, 26–27, 30, 34, 76, 78, 79,
77, 82, 86, 89, 92, 104, 109, 111, 138, 150, 153, 165–167
138, 149, 156, 175, 177, 198, 221 Pikuach nefesh, 52
Normative, 46, 46n4, 54, 55, 76, 77, 83, Pixel spirituality, 126–128, 138–140
84, 150, 179, 219 Polytheism, 24
No-self, 34, 80, 165, 225 Posthuman, ix, 5, 19–41, 77, 79, 85,
104, 110, 123, 150, 151, 153, 165,
166, 170, 175, 189, 191, 193, 194,
O 196, 210, 217, 219, 221–223,
O’Callaghan, Sean, 213 225, 227
Off-target, 14, 83 Postmillennialism, 215, 216
Olshansky, S. Jay, 87 Practical immortality, 71–73
Omega point, 220–222 Precautionary, 5, 59–60, 62, 81, 89, 90,
Omnibeneficience, 25 114, 139, 159, 176, 198
Omnibenevolence, 25, 188, 189, 226 Premillennial dispensationalism, 213, 215
Omnipotence, 25, 187, 189, 226 Principles, 29, 46–50, 53, 55–57, 59, 61,
Omniscience, 25, 186, 187, 189, 226 102, 104, 109, 113, 153, 172, 179,
Oppression, 32, 37, 45, 46, 56 198, 210, 220
Oxytocin, 97, 98, 100, 106, 112 Principlist ethics, 46
Proactionary, 5, 59–60, 62, 81, 89, 90,
113, 125, 159, 176, 198, 201
P Procedural justice, 57–58, 211
Pantheism, pantheistic, 24, 25, 28, 187, Process theology, 32, 36, 42, 191, 220
220, 225 Prolongevity, 60, 66n1, 68–70, 72, 76,
Parfit, Derek, 173 81, 83, 84, 198
Pargament, Kenneth I., 120, 121 Protestant, 26, 27, 73, 79, 196
 INDEX 265

Psilocybin, 124, 125 Samsara, 25

Psychosomatic, 26, 27, 150, 152, Sandberg, Anders, 91
166, 174 Savulescu, Julian, 96, 100, 106
Science, ix, 7, 9, 26, 48, 66, 96, 133,
145, 161, 185, 208
R Scientism, 39
Radical human enhancement, xi, xii, Searle, John, 183
4–10, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 31, 32, Second Life, 127, 132, 138, 139
35, 40–62, 81, 84, 85, 89, 90, 101, Self-awareness, 44–46, 60, 101, 111,
108, 109, 115, 138, 175, 178, 179, 112, 223
198, 202, 207, 209–213, 216, 217, Self-reflexivity, 45–46, 61, 101, 103,
219, 221, 226, 227 104, 108–110
Radical life extension, 60, 67, 70, 72–74, Sentience, sentient, 16, 21, 163n9, 168,
76, 80, 81, 83, 84 192, 194–197, 221n34
Rebirth, 23, 25, 26, 28, 80, 103, 225 Serotonin, 97, 117
Reed, Randall, 203 Ship of Theseus, 15, 171
Regenerative medicine, 14, 15 Sikhism, 23, 40
Reincarnation, 25–26, 28, 34, 42, 74, Simulation, 17, 100, 162, 182
79, 84, 89, 167, 187, 192, 195, 225 Sin, 25, 29, 60, 105, 111, 154, 157,
Relational autonomy, 54–55, 227 192, 192n28, 224, 225
Religion 2.0, 6, 207–228 Singularity, 181–204, 220, 226
Religious integrity, 53, 81, 177, 198, Situationalism, 47
201, 217, 221 Social justice, 31, 32, 44, 50, 58–59,
Resource allocation, 50, 56 85–87, 104, 112, 202, 211, 219
Restoration, 146, 151, 154, 212 Software, 37, 69, 96, 97, 119, 122,
Resurrection, transformational 162, 164
resurrection, 26, 27, 36, 78, Soma, 75n25, 123, 150, 152, 167
148–154, 166, 167, 169, 173, Somatic genetic engineering, 13
174, 222 Soteriology, 225–226
Resuscitation, 146, 149, 151, 166, 174 Sources of authority, 44
Revival, 147, 149, 150, 157, 159, 212 Soul, 25–28, 30, 34, 37, 56, 75, 79,
Ritalin, 11, 12, 92, 93, 97 150, 151, 155, 156, 165–167, 173,
Ritual, 4, 27, 72, 75, 79, 80, 89, 102, 175–177, 187, 215, 221, 222, 225
125, 133, 157, 192, 217 Spirit tech, 125–126, 132
Robinson, Peter, 118 Spiritual, 6, 7, 17n14, 20, 23, 24, 26,
Robotics, 16–17, 20n8, 99, 118, 135, 28, 29, 34, 36, 37, 40, 44, 67, 73,
152, 153, 168–170, 184, 187, 197, 75, 80, 99, 110, 115–140, 143,
199, 202, 212 150, 152, 153, 155, 156, 166–168,
Roman Catholic, 27, 38, 73, 130, 135, 185, 212, 215, 224
156, 195, 214 Spiritual assessment, 131
Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 32 Spiritual body, 150, 152, 153
Spiritual enhancement, 6, 100, 115–140,
154, 159
S Spirituality, 4, 7, 34, 73, 73n19, 100,
Sacred, sacred emotions, 50, 73, 101, 111, 120–122, 124–128, 130, 131,
102, 106, 120, 121, 127, 192, 134, 136–140, 192, 217
196, 212 Sport, athletes, 9, 11–12, 17, 51, 57, 91,
Salvation, 24–28, 66, 74, 116, 152, 94, 97, 98, 107, 117, 121,
225, 226 122–123n17, 123, 137, 151, 168
266 INDEX

Steroids, 11, 51, 137, 182–184 Transformation, ix, 3, 20, 35, 37,
Strong AI, 15, 16, 183, 184 150–153, 167, 170, 174, 217
Suffering, 29, 30, 33n33, 34, 40, 47, Transhuman, 5, 21, 22, 41, 192, 196,
52, 59, 65, 66, 81, 89, 101, 210, 219, 221–223, 227
128–130, 132, 154, 155, 159, Transhumanism, 5, 19–41, 58, 60, 67n2,
173, 176, 185, 188, 189, 193, 68n4, 86, 88, 133, 164, 165n15,
198, 214, 217, 225 166, 170, 181, 185, 191n25, 207,
Superintelligence, 16, 21, 69, 176, 212, 213, 217, 220n32, 222, 225
181–203, 217, 220–223 Transmigrate, transmigration, 25, 26,
Superlongevity, 4, 43, 47, 48, 65–90, 151, 225
133, 143, 155n41, 176, 179, Trothen, Tracy J, ix, 6, 11, 29, 34, 40,
208, 209 43, 96n18, 108, 121, 122, 130,
Survive, survival instinct, 4, 33, 48, 71, 131, 139, 217n30, 222, 223
74, 76, 78, 85, 151, 163, 164, 174,
182, 191, 192, 211, 216
U
Ultraintelligent, 200, 201
T Unenhanced, 58, 86
TechPlus Theology, 216–226 Utilitarianism, 47, 48
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierrre, 220,
221n34, 222, 226
Teleological, 46–48 V
Telomeres, 68 Values, 5, 22, 33, 34, 37, 39–41, 43–49,
Theistic, Non-theistic, 214, 220 51, 53, 55–59, 60n24, 61, 73, 74,
Theodicy, 128, 129, 188 81–84, 87, 89, 93, 97, 102, 104,
Theological anthropology, 25–30, 33, 108–110, 112, 130, 131, 135, 136,
78, 150, 166, 221–225 138, 139, 157, 178, 179, 183, 189,
Theological continuum, 31, 39–40, 58, 190, 193, 198, 201–203, 210, 216,
75, 104, 211n15 219, 226, 227
Theology, theological, 4, 5, 7, 10, Virtual, virtual worship, 17, 78, 117,
14–17, 19, 22, 26–33, 28n24, 35, 126–128, 131, 132, 135, 138, 139,
36, 39, 39n51, 47, 50, 53, 56, 60, 169, 170
67, 74–80, 84, 91, 105, 110, Virtue ethics, 46, 48–50, 136
128–130, 132, 146, 148–155, Virtue, virtues, 46, 49, 82, 84, 97,
151n28, 161, 165, 169–171, 99–101, 103, 107–109, 192
173–177, 187, 191, 192, 195–197, Vita-More, Natasha, 19, 20n8, 83n43,
195n32, 213–218, 217n30, 220, 170, 170n38, 170n39
222, 224–226 Vitrification, 145, 147
Theosis, 28, 35, 225
Therapeutic cloning, 15
Therapy-enhancement continuum, W
50–53, 61, 81–82, 109–110, Warwick, Kevin, 16, 95
136–138, 156–157, Whitehead, Alfred North, 32
176–177, 198–201 Whole brain emulation, 6, 161–165, 168,
Thweatt, Jeanine, 86n48, 169, 171n40, 172, 174–179, 184
165n15, 166n17
Tikkun olam, 29, 56
Tillich, Paul, 196 Y
Transcendence, 73, 120, 121 Yoga, 134, 140