The Mormon Transhumanist Association has added several member blogs to those aggregated on our website home page and blog page, as well as to our feeds and social network broadcasts -- reaching nearly 20,000 persons per week!

Here are the newest additions:

Carl Youngblood, CIO and founding member of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, will be presenting at the Annual Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City at 9:45am on Thursday, July 26th. The title of his talk is "Compassionate Obsolescence: Coping with Technological Change." Additional information and registration instructions can be found at Sunstone's web site.

The fifth issue of the Transfigurist Quarterly, highlighting news and events related to the Mormon Transhumanist Association, is now available. You're invited to download and share it.

Transfigurist Quarterly Issue 5

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

As of the end of May, 2012, the MTA has $5,410 total cash on hand with $706 in the endowment.

Our 2012 conference cost the association $3,144 beyond the participant registration fees of $440. The majority of the conference expenses went to travel reimbursement for voting members of the association for whom the association paid half of personal travel expenses. In total, the association reimbursed members $2,295 for travel to the conference.

The full report can be found at [http://transfigurism.org/pages/about/finances/]

Karl Hale CFO

Now you can watch conferences and presentations, sponsored by the association or participated in by our members, on the new Mormon Transhumanist Association Channel!

Conferences

• 2012 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association
• Turing Church Workshop 2
• Turing Church Workshop 1
• Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference
• Mormonism and Engineering Conference

Presentations

• A Mormon Perspective on Transhumanism
• The New God Argument

... and more. Subscribe to the Mormon Transhumanist Association Channel today!

This slick seven minute summary of the Association's April conference was posted on 19 May 2012. Complete with background music and professional transitions, the video captures the spirit of the conference and speaker highlights!

We had a wonderful conference this year, and all the conference presentations are available online. There were many excellent presentations and papers. We have chosen to extend a best paper award to the top 1/3rd of the papers submitted to the conference, (the top 6 papers), with an invitation for them to have their papers included in a published conference proceedings. Each paper was ranked by three (and in some cases four) reviewers. No reviewer reviewed their own paper.The decision was not just made based upon the quality of the oral conference presentation, but also upon the suitability of each talk for printed publication (the best talks are not always the best papers and visa versa).

This award goes to, in alphabetical order:

Chris Bradford on “Bodies Without End: Embodiment in a Substrate-Independent World” Brad Carmack on “Mormonism Beyond the Gender Binary” James Carroll on “Epiphenomenalism, the Problem with Property Dualism” Marcus Flinders on “Taxation in a Millennial World” Karl Hale on “Worshiping an Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Deity” Micah Redding on “Transhumanism and the Christian Story”

The Association Board has approved the following title changes for leaders.

Brad Carmack Chief Operations Officer

Carl Youngblood Chief Information Officer

We extend sincere thanks to the outgoing directors: Carl Youngblood and Brent Allsop. Brent will be the project manager for the annual member survey, and Carl will continue in his role as Webmaster. See the new directors' profiles here and their bios below.

• Brad Carmack Association Secretary

IMAGE: PHOTO OF 2012 MTA CONFERENCE

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association was held on 6 April 2012 at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers addressed the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The conference streamed live for online viewers, and recordings are now available on the Mormon Transhumanist Association channel on YouTube. Please post comments and questions, and share these recordings with your friends and family. Thank you!