Can we choose who we will become before we know who we are?

E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge:

Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.  There is no genetic destiny outside our free will, no lodestar provided by which we can set course.  Evolution, including genetic progress in human nature and human capacity, will be from now on increasingly the domain of science and technology tempered by ethics and political choice.  We have reached this point down a long road of travail and self-deception.  Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.