By value I mean that in a godless universe one must value concepts, memes, and social constructs of reality. Posthumans will be united by a network of shared beliefs and feelings (concepts and qualia). Togetherness won't necessarily get rid of the ego and self, however. The ego will still be able to ask "why do I exist?" and "what is the point of all this?"

As Thomas Kuhn famously wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

"A scientific theory is usually felt to be better than its predecessors not only in the sense that it is a better instrument for discovering and solving puzzles but also because it is somehow a better representation of what nature is really like."

The representations that the posthumans will come up with may be close to solving the puzzle, but if stuck within paradigms of knowledge, of epistemology - and, one could argue, ontology - then the posthuman will surely ask: "why do I exist?" They will be left with value over faith and interconnected value of scientific discovery.

We exist in a pre-posthuman world which is quite similar to what I am conjuring up. The only thing lacking is the speed of cognition and the amount of scientifically educated minds. With the onset of posthumans, the knowledge of scientific paradigms should increase if learning entails "downloading" of information.

The concept of model-dependent realism coined by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Milodinow in their new book The Grand Design shows that we may be faced with theories that need to coexist with each other instead of a theory of everything, Hawking's lifelong goal. There is no doubt that posthumans will want a theory of everything as we do in our pre-posthuman world. If Hawking is right, the ego or self in the posthuman world will have to live with overlapping theories of reality.

The Grand Design also suggests that the universe did not need a god or divine creator to exist. According to Hawking, reality can spontaneously exist out of nothing because of laws dealing with M-Theory and gravity. Theories in physics which can explain how the universe can spontaneously come about have enormous implications for epistemology, ontology, and ethical theory. We are left in the end without a god, creating our own theories which can only be adopted by the mind's ability to acknowledge and believe in value over faith.

The conclusion that god does not exist does not lead to nihilism though, because there is still existence for a self to experience. As long as this existence exists, the self, no matter how interconnected it may be with other minds, will hold on to the concept of value over faith. In a posthuman world, science will indeed replace god, and scientific value will be the norm.