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Lincoln Cannon

Lincoln Cannon

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 Lincoln Cannon is a technologist and philosopher, and leading voice of Mormon Transhumanism.2025-2026 Lincoln Cannon Spiritualité
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    • Witnesses to the Creative Power of Prophecy

      Witnesses to the Creative Power of Prophecy
      Jan 23 2026
      In his poignant and personal essay, “ Hope, Fear, & Creation: Living in Response to Prophecy,” my friend Don Bradley shatters the brittle glass of fatalism that often encases religious futurism. Weaving the heartbreak of losing his son, Donnie, with the historical rigor of his research into Joseph Smith, Don crafts a conclusion that is central to the practical faith advocated by Mormon Transhumanists: Prophecy is not a forecast of unalterable doom, but rather a “blueprint for creation.” The Negated Negative Don draws our attention to the story of Jonah, noting a paradox that I’ve called the “ negated negative.” Jonah proclaims to Nineveh, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” No conditions attached, it’s a statement of fact about the future. And yet, when the people change, God “repented of the evil” and spares the city. The purpose of prophecy isn’t to be right. The purpose of prophecy is to be effective. Frightening or ominous prophecies, even if expressed without conditions, are warnings that we should render obsolete by our response. Even while revering them as inspiration from God, we must not concede to interpretations of prophecy that would shackle our agency. We are confronted today by dark visions associated with terrible risks – technological, environmental, and social. But as Don affirms, such visions are “not a statement of fate.” We have scriptural precedent for courageous hope that if we repent, if we change our behaviors that exacerbate risks, we won’t be destroyed. Forth-Telling Not Fore-Telling Don observes that Joseph Smith did not merely stumble into the fulfillment of Isaiah’s “sealed book” prophecy. But rather he acted as a “conscious collaborator” with God. This reminds me of the distinction between forth-telling and fore-telling. Too often, we treat prophecy as fortune-telling: a passive prediction of events that we must simply witness, enjoying the good and enduring the bad. But true prophecy, effective prophecy, is forth-telling. It articulates a vision that provokes contemplation and channels action to interactively co-create the future. Don rightly argues that “scripture is a script.” And we are called to perform its best verses, as moved by the sublime esthetic of the Holy Spirit. We do this, not as passive observers to the dance of the Gods, but rather as active participants. We’re invited actually to dance, to be moved and to move, to join in creation of truth through our intention and action. Mandate of the Co-Creator Ultimately, Don’s essay is a call to embrace our nature as co-creators with and in God. He concludes that we are created to “join in completing the creation of the world.” This is the heart of the New God Argument. We have a practical and moral obligation to trust in our creative potential – even our superhuman creative potential. This trust requires us to use all the means God has given us. And we should not, we cannot practically, shy away from the tools of our age. Already we use technology to build, relate, console, and heal in ways our distant ancestors imagined only God capable. And these increasingly powerful tools facilitate increasingly compelling, increasingly substantiated, visions of the future. Donnie Bradley saw the “path of light” through doubt. He saw that hope is not a passive wish, but an active project. We honor that vision by refusing to resign ourselves to the destruction of our world. We honor it when we work, using all the means provided by the grace of God, to realize visions of transfiguration, resurrection, immortality, and the creation of worlds without end. May we love and build bravely in this prophesied day of transfiguration.
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    • Pope Leo Flatters Sister Death

      Pope Leo Flatters Sister Death
      Jan 2 2026
      A few weeks ago, Pope Leo XIV of the Catholic Church criticized Transhumanism during a speech in St. Peter’s Square. Predictably, I disagree with his criticism. Below are some relevant portions of his speech, in quotes, followed by my thoughts. “Death seems to be a sort of taboo, an event to keep at a distance; something to be spoken of in hushed tones, to avoid disturbing our sensibilities and our tranquillity. This is often why we avoid visiting cemeteries, where those who have gone before us rest as they await resurrection.” This may be true of some or even many people. But it’s certainly not true of all or perhaps even most Transhumanists. Some Transhumanists, particularly cryonicists, actually choose to work in locations that function as high tech cemeteries, such as Alcor. And cemeteries, both of the cryonicist and traditional varieties (where I took a film crew to visit my father’s grave), figure prominently in a major recent documentary on Transhumanism. “… one might then think that we are paradoxical, unhappy creatures, not only because we die, but also because we are certain that this event will happen, even though we do not know how or when. We find ourselves aware and at the same time powerless. This is probably where the frequent repressions and existential flights from the question of death originate.” We certainly don’t seem to have much power over death. And maybe we’ll prove to have none at all. But Jesus plainly tells us the opposite, commanding his disciples to raise the dead. This seems like something that all of us, especially the Pope, should take more seriously, trusting that we may actually prove to have increasing power over death. “Praying, in order to understand what is beneficial in view of the kingdom of heaven, and letting go of the superfluous that instead binds us to ephemeral things, is the secret to living authentically, in the awareness that our passage on earth prepares us for eternity.” Surely life itself isn’t one of those superfluous things that we should let go, even if it seems ephemeral at times. Surely life is beneficial in the view of the kingdom of heaven. How could we possibly live authentically, in any coherent way, while characterizing life itself as superfluous or merely ephemeral? I trust that our passage on Earth is indeed preparing us for eternity. But take care not to mistake that as a euphemism for death, an “eternity” in name only. The eternity of which scripture speaks is as real as light and as warm as love. Judging from the resurrected body of Jesus Christ, immortality must be as tangible and embodied as flesh and bone. “Yet many current anthropological views promise immanent immortality …” Jesus called his disciples to raise the dead, imminently. His disciples, notably Paul, prophesied of resurrection to immortality, immanently. Perhaps a couple thousand years has made it too difficult for most of us to trust in such a calling and vision. Maybe we need new prophets, misrecognized as anthropologists, to remind us. “… theorize the prolongation of earthly life through technology. This is the transhuman scenario, which is making its way into the horizon of the challenges of our time.” Humanity has been prolonging Earthly life through technology for thousands of years. Our capacity to do so has been improving, with increasing rapidity. And there’s every reason to trust, actively and cautiously, that we can yet perpetuate this trend. If this is “the transhuman scenario” then humanity has been transhuman since the first tool we used. “Could death really be defeated by science?” Why not? Science is formalized shared knowledge. Presumably God already has such knowledge to defeat death. Why could we not possibly gain the same knowledge? We aren’t God. Sure. But we’re children of God, according to Jesus, invited to become joint heirs with him in the glory of God. So while we don’t yet have such knowledge, there’s practical reason to trust that we may gain it. Faith without works is dead, says the Bible. If we don’t trust in a way that actively expresses itself in action, then our professed “faith” amounts to nothing. If we actually have faith in the prophecies of eventual transfiguration and resurrection to immortality, as the Bible teaches, we ought to pursue them in the actively expressed action of works. Technology is just that. It’s a formalized extension of human works, made possible by the grace of God. We find ourselves in a world that we didn’t create and cannot sustain on our own. But we’ve managed to understand it and apply our knowledge of it in wondrous ways, empowering ways, and life-affirming ways through technology. Of course we can also do evil, even great evil, with the power of technology. All kinds of work, technological and otherwise, can do evil. But that doesn’t make works or their technological extensions evil in themselves. They are just works, to be used one...
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    • Predicting Future Church Presidents

      Predicting Future Church Presidents
      Dec 30 2025
      Jeffrey R. Holland, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died early in the morning on Saturday 27 December 2025. Those who follow my occasional thoughts on general conference may recognize that he was among my favorite Church leaders. I’m sad to see him go. But some things, some sufferings, are worse than death. Before he died, President Holland was in line to become the next president of the Church. Succession is highly predictable. When a president dies, the most senior living apostle, based on date of ordination, becomes the next president. He was the senior member. Since President Holland died, the most senior living apostle is now Henry B. Eyring, who also serves as the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church. Assuming he lives longer than the current president, Dallin H. Oaks, President Eyring would become the next president. Who would be after that? And how long would they serve? These questions are usually answered with vibes and rumors. But we can do better. In this article, I present two forecasts for future presidents of the Church. The first forecast, based strictly on actuarial tables from the Social Security Administration of the U.S. Government, is skeptical about the possibility of accelerating technological evolution. The second forecast is optimistic about the possibility of accelerating technological evolution, facilitating mortality escape velocity by 2065. Not included are what I would characterize as pessimistic and conservative forecasts, the former implying practical annihilation of human civilization, and the latter implying something between the skeptical and optimistic forecasts. Briefly, achieving mortality escape velocity wouldn’t mean that people stop dying immediately or completely. And it wouldn’t entail an eventual superlative immortality. It would just mean that progressive technological interventions begin to make it more likely than not that most people will live long enough to benefit from emerging technologies that facilitate indefinite life extension and, as needed, life restoration. And it would only entail an eventual practical immortality, when it becomes harder to stay dead than alive, at least for those who desire to stay alive. For each forecast, I performed Monte Carlo simulations with 200,000 trials. In each trial, I simulated death times for all fourteen apostles based on their ages and the mortality assumptions of the forecast. I then determined presidency succession by identifying who outlived whom, with the most senior surviving apostle becoming president upon the death of the previous president. From these simulations, I calculated the probability that each apostle becomes president, along with median start years, durations, and end years of service, conditional on becoming president. Skeptical Forecast Below are the results for the first forecast, the skeptical forecast based only on the actuarial tables. The first three columns show order of seniority, name, and age in 2025. The fourth column, P(P), shows the fraction of simulations where the apostle becomes president. The subsequent columns show median start year, median duration, and median end year of service, conditional on becoming president. [ Visit the webpage to view the table. ] Reflections On moral grounds, I reject a pessimistic forecast of technological change. We must survive the changes that are coming. For similar reasons, I also reject a skeptical forecast. We must continue to apply available technologies to improve our world, our relations, and our bodies – not merely to survive, but to thrive. These are practical and moral imperatives. On the other hand, there are considerable moral hazards with the optimistic forecast of technological change. It’s actually only optimistic if we manage to navigate it without destroying ourselves or worse – perhaps becoming enslaved to artificial superintelligence, for example. These hazards would also apply to conservative forecasts to some extent. It’s not enough to imagine optimistic outcomes. We must work, intelligently and cooperatively and strenuously, toward optimistic outcomes, which requires maintaining our agency throughout the process. So, given my technological and moral views, while acknowledging real risks, I expect the future of Church governance to look something like the optimistic scenario presented above. In my mind, there’s a real and significant possibility that Elder Bednar, in particular, may become practically immortal while serving as president of the Church. But others might, if technological evolution is slower or faster. I also think there’s a real and significant possibility, particularly if mortality escape velocity becomes obvious, that Church leaders will choose to modify or altogether discontinue succession by seniority. Emeritus status is already assigned to general authorities of the Church below the apostleship tier. And ...
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