Ghosts in the machines?

As we approach a higher level of cybernetics and automation, strange questions arise. There already is a percentage of people with synthetic limbs and elements that make up their being. I can imagine, without difficulty, the opposite; cybernetic beings with human elements. Such examples could be skin or brain tissue. We would undoubtedly attempt to create this entity with much human likeness. Would a synthetic being begin to have desires? Moreover, when could you protest that it had a soul? What if an android could generate a soul all by itself? And if it did, what would then be the importance of being human?

Would it be our DNA? Our memories? Emotions?

Now, it can be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become, and will continuously become, more complex. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So logically and essentially, man is only an individual because of his intangible memory. Yet memory can't be defined, but it appears to define mankind.