Transhumanists share the belief that an outcome in which humans have radically advanced intelligence, near immortality, deep friendships with AI creatures, and elective body characteristics is a very desirable end, both for one's own personal development and for the development of our species as a whole. This chapter employs science fiction thought experiments to discuss the most important philosophical element of the transhumanist picture ‐ its unique perspective on the nature and development of persons. Examining the enhancement issue from the (...) vantage point of the metaphysical problem of personal identity presents a serious challenge to transhumanism. The reduplication problem suggests that sameness of pattern is not sufficient for sameness of person. Perhaps one should react to the reduplication case in the following way: one's pattern is essential to one's self despite not being sufficient for a complete account of one's identity. (shrink)

Suppose it is 2025 and being a technophile, you purchase brain enhancements as they become readily available. First, you add a mobile internet connection to your retina, then, you enhance your working memory by adding neural circuitry. You are now officially a cyborg. Now skip ahead to 2040. Through nanotechnological therapies and enhancements you are able to extend your lifespan, and as the years progress, you continue to accumulate more far-reaching enhancements. By 2060, after several small but cumulatively profound alterations, (...) you are a “posthuman.” To quote philosopher Nick Bostrom, posthumans are possible future beings, “whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards” (Bostrom 2003c). At this point, your intelligence is enhanced not just in terms of speed of mental processing; you are now able to make rich connections that you were not able to make before. Unenhanced humans, or “naturals,” seem to you to be intellectually disabled—you have little in common with them—but as a transhumanist, you are supportive of their right to not enhance (Bostrom 2003c; Garreau 2005; Kurzweil 2005). (shrink)