We don't have to remain human. I am pretty sure that at one point, consciousness will be transferred onto machines. The economy won't justify keeping entire human bodies alive.
If we intend to upload ourselves into anything, it will need to be an organism unto itself, however artificial. A machine will not suffice. The challenge is akin to creating life de novo.
It seems easier to just quit destroying so much of the kind we already have.
Of course it is easier. But putting nature first would create the difference between how nature works and the way people think. I was wandering if we would be better off if we remove the difference by removing nature itself.
yet another Kurzweilian fallacy based on pure speculation when we hardly know anything about the nature of consciousness or how the brain works.