The concept of personhood is one of the biggest challenges within transhumanism. Renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist Dr. Susan Schneider postulates that when one considers radically enhance transhumanism, one must ask if the radically enhanced creature will still be them. Will a human being with a computerized neural interface still be a human being?

After such radical changes, would you still have a relation to the person you were before enhancement? If you won’t, many argue, then human enhancement isn’t valuable to you. Transhumanism would therefore be leading you to the path of demise. You will cease to exist.

What is Personhood?

Remember that the goal of transhumanism is a post-human state. These possible future beings, as envisioned, are an embodiment of capacities that exceed those of the current humans.

A post-human can be ‘installed’ into a computer or uploaded into a cyborg. Transhumanism can be seen as reducing the self to neurological connections that capture the “patterns” of the mind and imputing them into any medium as you would an operating system. In scientific terms, this is called the computational theory of the mind.

It can be argued that the computational configuration of the brain is what makes up the person. Your memories, attitudes, values, and emotions are the pieces of information that make you, you.

Is being a human being simply being a “program”? If the computational theory holds to be true, does it allow for human enhancement while maintaining the survival of the person?

Computational theory confuses the patterns that can be mapped in the human brain with the brain itself. It reduces the brain to an overly simplistic model. This is not a true representation of the human brain.

The Downsides of Human Enhancement

1. The Flaws in Human Nature

Transhumanism does not handle the reality of evil. Leaving out evil in the human enhancement discussion makes the subscribers to this idea oblivious to their individualism. It is also a wedge that would eventually cause a separation from the community.

Evil has great religious and philosophical implications that if not handled, transhumanism stands very little chance of succeeding.

Human enhancement could lead to great problems in the future. Human beings have proven over time that even if they are fulfilled, they can still cause destruction and are capable of doing unimaginable evil.

In a nutshell, transhumanism can make humans smarter, stronger, and healthier, but on the other hand increase further the human capacity to do evil. Even if that’s not the case, there is no guarantee that the post-human will not be evil.