Now it probably comes to no chock to people here that in time, we will be able to changes our bodies according to our wishes. But what happens when we start to tamper with what is most essential and most intimate to us, our minds?
No longer will we need to feel the way we feel, we would not even need to grasp reality in the way we currently do. As we get the tools to twist and turn anything into anything what should we strive for?
The boundaries of human behavior will be shattered as we get to redraw the lines just as we wish. What is happiness worth when we could drown ourselves in it? Natural value will go the same way as "vital spirits", "gods" and the dreams of thousands of years will suddenly feel incomprehensible.
Phylogeny, ontogeny, our origins will blur and their significance will disappear. Whatever culture once was worth to us it will be like a currency whose value has collapsed.
So should we choose to remain the same? Do our desires demand it? Once we have chosen to go on, our desires will change—how can we choose anything when there is only blackness beyond? We cannot know what our choice will mean once we have crossed over. What could stop us? Fear? We might not need fear anymore...
It's easy to draw parallels between this catastrophe and Nietzsche's "death of god", but this time it's not god who is dead, but man.
But perhaps there is reason to be cheerful, just as some were cheerful when god died.
Nietzsche - The gay science - section 343 wrote:Indeed, we philosophers and "free spirits" feel, when we hear the news that the "old god is dead," as if a new dawn shone on us; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, premonitions, expectation,—at long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an "open sea."