Kurzweil is not the only one who thinks we are on the cusp of an era when human beings will be able to direct their own evolution.“I believe that we’re now seeing the beginning of a paradigm shift in engineering, the sciences and the humanities,” says Natasha Vita-More, chairwoman of the board of directors of Humanity+, an organization that promotes “the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities.”

Still, even some transhumanists who admire Kurzweil’s work do not entirely share his belief that we will soon be living entirely virtual lives.“I don’t share Ray’s view that we will be disembodied,” says Vita-More, who along with her husband, philosopher Max More, helped found the transhumanist movement in the United States.“We will always have a body, even though that body will change.”

Based on our past experience, we know that most of these things are unlikely to happen in the next 30 or 40 years.George Annas, Boston University

In the future, Vita-More predicts, our bodies will be radically changed by biological and machine-based enhancements, but our fundamental sensorial life – that part of us that touches, hears and sees the world – will remain intact.