On Sunday, February 19, from 3:00–5:00 pm, we kick off our Spring 2023 programming with “Roads to Religion,” a two-hour open house at which visitors can meet members of 30 local religious communities collectively representing 10 religious traditions. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on the upper floor (Parents Hall) of the Olmsted Center on Drake’s campus. The room will be set up like a map of the metro area, with the participating communities located accordingly. Visitors will receive a map and guide to the communities in the hall. Food and beverages will be served by Drake’s food service. Parking is available in the Olmsted Lot, which is located on the north side of University Ave. in between 28th and 29th Streets.
Thanks to Jim Zeller for all the pics below (except the first one, which is Catalina’s):
On May 11, from 7:00–8:30pm in the Reading Room of Cowles Library, we host the third lecture of the semester, “Sexbots Playing the Imitation Game: Mormonism, Transhumanism, and the Turing Test as Trolley Prize,” by Jon Bialecki, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of California-San Diego.
Jon Bialecki, J.D., 1997, Ph.D., is a continuing lecturer in the UCSD department of anthropology. His first monograph, A Diagram for Fire: Miracles and Variation in an American Charismatic Movement, is a study of the miraculous and differentiation in American religion, with a focus on ethics, politics, language, and economic practices; it was awarded the 2017 Sharon Stephens Prize by the American Ethnological Society and Honorable Mention in the 2018 Clifford Geertz Prize by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. A second book, Machines for Making Gods: Mormonism, Transhumanism, and Worlds Without End, addresses religious transhumanism, and was published 2022 by Fordham University Press.
With recent public attention to advancements in generative text programs such as Chat-GPT and Bing/Sydney, the ‘Turing Test’ has returned as an object of discussion. What these discussions, mostly centered around anxieties concerning whether these artificial intelligences are sentient, obscure is the fact that the Turing Test is not just an answer to the question as to whether “machines can really think.” The Turing Test is also implicitly a test of what moral obligation we may owe an artificial intelligence. This talk lays bare this aspect of the Turing Test through a presentation of Mormon transhumanists’ debates regarding (admittedly hypothetical) sexbots and similar artificial life forms; Mormon Transhumanists tend to be sharply opposed to the creation of such entities — but not for the reasons that one might expect.
Here is a recording of Prof. Bialecki’s lecture:
And here is a video recording of Seth Villegas’s response to Dr. Bialecki:
On Sunday, March 19 from 11:00 am–1:00 pm (roughly), we will join the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center (33916 155th Lane, Madrid) in the annual celebration of Holi. Guests will be able to tour the temple, observe the Holi fire ritual (Holika Dahan), throw colored powered at one another, and dance. (Please dress accordingly if you are going to participate in the throwing of colors.) Lunch is available for purchase from the temple. (This event is part of the “Meet My Religious Neighbor” series, which is co-programmed with CultureALL, the Des Moines Area Religious Council, and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.)
The site visit is to the grand opening and inauguration of the community center of the Hindu Cultural and Educational Center on 1960 East Army Post Road in Des Moines. On Saturday, October 1, from 1:30 to 6:00 pm, this Bhutanese Hindu community will offer a “cultural program” including cultural songs and dances, bhajans in which visitors can participate (religious singing and dancing), guest speakers and dignitaries, and an introduction to the community. Modest but comfortable attire is recommended. Visitors will need to remove shoes and should not point outstretched legs (feet) toward the statues (murti-s) of the Gods.
