Project Rabbit Hole

It seems to me that the church really hasn't been creative in using the technology available to it to more effectively complete its mission regarding genealogy and work for the dead.

Getting names from records is a challenge. Written historical records are relatively scarce, and long stretches of time simply have no documentation. What records do exist are often inaccurate. Names, dates, places get jumbled, typoed, confused. On top of all that, parents of record are often not the true biological parents. And with thousands of people doing genealogical research, you can be sure there is a lot of redundant effort. A sizable percentage of the temple work is done for people who didn't exist, are the children of other people, or were married to other people, or have had their work done multiple times.

The solution to this is to stop generating names for temple work from genealogical research and to produce genetic identities instead. Using a code system to spell out the variable traits unique to a particular individual, a computer program could methodically go through and systematically create each possible DNA combination for all of humanity. (Perhaps not as daunting as you might think. We share 90 percent plus of our DNA with chimpanzees, and have common among ourselves, so there is less than 10 percent of our genetic code that would have to be varied. About 108 billion people have been born to date.)

In computing this is called "brute force" cracking of passwords, and can be remarkably effective. Still, given the size of the human genome, it might take several hundred years to get everybody. On the other hand, unlike historical records, it provides a defined identifier for everybody, and looks both forward and backward, so the church could do not only baptism for the dead but also baptism for the not yet born. Only a single computer would be needed as it would produce temple identities faster than the temple work could be done, saving the millions of dollars that are now spent on genealogy.


(Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke; http://downlode.org/Etext/nine_billion_names_of_god.html )

a) please stop giving the cult good ideas. They're dangerous enough already.

b)generating all possible human DNA combinations is likely possible (though, as you point out, a huge task)...but that doesn't link up any "possible combination" to actual human beings. Unless every person ever born is required to take a DNA test. And no DNA tests are going to be forthcoming for dead people. And that doesn't account for any new mutations. And so on...:)

Every baby born in the US over the last 20 years or so has been given a mandatory DNA test.

How many passed the test?

Heartless Wrote:
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> Every baby born in the US over the last 20 years
> or so has been given a mandatory DNA test.

Nonsense.
I've had 3 kids in the last 21 years -- none of them had any such thing.