Book excerpt: Every new technology invites its own sets of hopes and fears, and raises as many questions as it answers revolving around the same theme: Will technology fundamentally alter the essence of what it means to be human? This volume draws inspiration from the work of the many luminaries who approach augmented, alternative forms of intelligence and consciousness. Scholars contribute their thoughts on how human augmentic technologies and artificial or sentient forms of intelligence can be used to enable, reimagine, and reorganize how we understand our selves, how we conceive the meaning of "human", and how we define meaning in our lives.