Everybody seems to have a different set of ideas and ideals they associate with Transhumanism. It is not too surprising, because what do we define as "human" in the first place? Is it all about consciousness? What about emotion? Identity? The human condition as being a fleeting sentient existence in a vast and mostly lifeless space? I can see myself as a transhumanist in many regards, yet I do not subscribe to any transhumanistic mysticism, a replacement religion to fend of angst about our mortality. I am also not a mechano-fetishist, nor do I abhor humanity as is. I just have a mental framework that we could make things better with the accumulated knowledge science gifted us about our universe and our existence. Of course there is the philosophical question what it means to make things "better" in that mental framework.

Existence over non-existence? Well-being over suffering? Consciousness over automata? Is it even fair to look at human or posthuman preferences? What is the best state for the universe? How should matter be arranged? Are conscious entities performing computations a better state than just matter existing?

I guess a common mistake of many people who judge Transhumanists unfavorbly is misunderstanding the human condition in the first place. We are biological machines running consciousness software (which is basically a model of a model our self-organising brain patterns learned to better predict the output of it's own actions) come about by a slow and random process, some parts of which we are able to comprehend by now quite well. Upgrading our biological machine body or software through scientific deliberations does not make us less part of our own story, it just flips a page to the next chapter. And just as humans do not miss their previous chapters as ape, or early mammal, or reptile, or self-replicating cell, I doubt that late transhumans will likely miss their human chapter. It is, of course, difficult to comprehend now how different and worthy a transhuman existence will be. Do I think we need to rush to the next chapter? No, but we for sure are responsible for not burning down the book while it's our time in the spotlight.