Posthumanism on NPR: Threat or Menace?

Over the past two weeks NPR has addressed the posthumanism phenomenon at least twice.  The first was a preview of an MIT-produced opera [!], "Death and the Powers" by Tod Machover, here.  A week later there was a review of the recently-published "What Technology Wants" [sic] here. Transhumanism, for those who are yet all-so-human, is the latest utopian eschatological fantasy: among other blessings secured by technology, human beings will sooner or later be able to upload their consciousnesses into a computer and thus live forever (or at least as long as no one switches off the power).  This will be great because the raptured uploaded will be freed from the limits of the body and free to contemplate or fantasize for eternity (after all, according to the posthumanists, neuroscience teaches that all experiences are mental, intra-cranial for now but soon to be cloud-based).

Sounds great, eh?  But consider the benefits of embodied life: we don't contemplate or fantasize all the time.  Most of the time, we're busy doing what it takes to stay alive and to enjoy the pleasures (and avoid the pains) that embodied, social life can bring.

Without the limits of the body and the necessity of society, just what would uploaded consciousnesses think about?  The mind in the computing cloud could enjoy only pleasures and would not require the actual presence of another to have the experiences of companionship.  If the uploaded consciousness were male, we need not speculate long on what might busy the electrons of silicon.  Deep thoughts about the good, the true, and the beautiful?  I doubt it.  Were it female?  Well, I have no idea.

The embodied existence of human beings makes us what we are, for better or for worse.  There's no reason to believe that taking us out of our bodies will make us any better.