We're sailing forth into even deeper philosophical waters now, and into a realm where personal opinion plays a big role. But I'd say two things here. One is th

We're sailing forth into even deeper philosophical waters now, and into a realm where personal opinion plays a big role. But I'd say two things here. One is that, in practice, I doubt that I could be really be happy as a disembodied mind. I am, in fact, rather emotionally attached to my substrate. We enjoy being human -- that's what our brains were designed for, after all -- and even when we're cybernetically enhanced we tend to use that power in amusingly human ways, like World of Warcraft: An incredibly complex electronic simulation of a bunch of people gathering in small bands and tribes to go hunting and kill big animals. The other thing is that humans have long since moved beyond cell colonies. We and our technologies -- books, artifacts, traditions, tools that we can make and pass on to others -- have been creating more durable, predictable institutions for centuries. Of course, an institution, like a university or a corporation, is no longer particularly similar to an individual human, just as an ant colony is not similar to an individual ant. I regard this as further evidence that having a human nature is inextricably linked to being embedded in a mortal human body.