Schedule

For all who wish to attend, a Catholic mass will be served in the chapel at the Meritage to kick off the conference.

Drinks, small bites, live music, poetry from Dana Gioia, and conversation with fellow participants—writers, technologists, founders, and builders—outdoors in a beautiful vineyard.

Enjoy dinner at the steakhouse, farm-to-table Italian restaurant, or the casual lounge on the property, or any number of the other great restaurants nearby.

A rare opportunity to experience Carl Theodor Dreyer’s cinematic masterpiece—a profound meditation on faith, doubt, love, and the possibility of the miraculous. Widely regarded as one of the greatest spiritual films ever made, Ordet offers a haunting exploration of belief, death, and resurrection.

Begin the day with a guided athletic session outdoors with renowned fitness professional David Jack, or a silent meditation in the resort’s beautiful cave beneath the hillside.

Luke Burgis, Founder & Director of the Cluny Institute and author of Wanting and The One and the Ninety-Nine, will introduce the conference theme, drawing specifically on Pope Leo XIV's encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas" to present a vision for productive engagement across cities, cultures, and technologies.

As declining birth rates reshape societies across the globe, questions of fertility reveal deeper crises beyond economics or demography alone. Shadi Hamid (journalist, Washington Post), Catherine Pakaluk (author, Hannah’s Children), Ruxandra Teslo (geneticist), and Clay Routledge (psychologist) will come together to explore fundamental questions around reproduction, the decision to have (or not have) children, and how struggles around this issue point toward broader existential, spiritual, and cultural challenges.

Entrepreneur Bryan Johnson (Venmo), one of the most provocative figures on human longevity, will give a special keynote about his attempts to use AI to live forever. Followed by audience Q&A.

Benedictine monk and professor of biomedical ethics, Fr. Luke Dysinger will give a talk about the paradoxical nature of death.

At a time of deep social fragmentation, loneliness, and institutional decline, what forms of community are capable of shaping meaningful lives? Luke Burgis (author, Wanting and The One and the Ninety-Nine), Freya India (author, Girls), and Ben Klutsey (Mercatus Center) probe “the cult of the One” and how we might find and enter into deeper relationships—from dating to professional and religious life, and beyond—in the 21st century.

Orthodox priest, translator, and author Fr. Mark Roosien on the strange religious history of scientific attempts to defeat death.

Dine outside with fellow founders, creatives, technologists, entrepreneurs and more, accompanied by a string quartet.

1. Models of Desire: Machines, Mimesis, and the Future of Wanting

How are emerging technologies like AI affecting us at the level of desire? Luke Burgis (author, Wanting), Toby Kurth (pastor), and Rebecca Lowe (philosopher), and Hollis Robbins come together to discuss desire, imitation, and agency in the age of AI, drawing on the work of René Girard.

2. What Is It Like to Be Alive? Memory, Perception, and the Texture of Conscious Experience

As artificial intelligence reshapes the conditions of thought, communication, and daily life, deeper questions emerge about consciousness itself: perception, memory, embodiment, and what distinguishes human experience from simulation. Tao Lin (author), Victoria Trumbull (philosopher), and Jordan Castro (novelist) examine the nature of subjective life in a technological age, exploring how literature, philosophy, and attention can illuminate what it means to be alive.

San Francisco's premier debate society joins us to host a full-room debate. Is technology the antidote, or the cause, of suffering?

Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe and publisher of Stripe Press, joins us to talk about the need for a new aesthetic for the 21st century. In 1925, Ortega y Gasset said "modern art, on the other hand, has the masses against it, and this will always be so since it is unpopular in essence; even more, it is antipopular." So, what are new directions forward? What is new and also beautiful?

Closing keynote by Fr. Harrison Ayre about the mystery of Zoë.

Cocktails outdoors in the Napa hills.

VIP ticket holders will join our speakers and Cluny’s team for an exclusive dinner in the cave beneath the hillside.

Chat by the fire, walk the beautiful Meritage grounds with new friends, or enjoy the spa, pools, and other amenities.

An exclusive VIP breakfast on the Vineyard Terrace.

A special condensed version of Cluny Institute’s award-winning Foundations of Agency workshop, led by philosopher of education Jeff Frank. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, theology, and practical frameworks for human formation, this immersive session explores the deeper roots of human agency, and teaches practical tools for shaping perception, practicing judgment, and closing the gap between thought and action, in order to live a maximally meaningful life.

Enjoy the resort's pools, sauna, spa, and many other amenities.