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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2026/04/051分未満