So, just as a first attempt to introduce a 'positive' to what seems to me a rather negative OP.
Do the potentials/possibilities offered by future/projected transhumanism, offer you any 'excitement' or new 'vision?' If transhumanism offered, you a much more robust body and a longer lifespan? Would you participate?
Let's say tech moved to a point where humans could be offered an organic implant that allowed them to live under water as well as on land? Would that interest you?

What value is there to the self if we are nothing more than physical beings, and it is likely everything is predetermined? — TiredThinker

The answer depends on what you mean by "value": to what or to whom? under what circumstances? moral, aesthetic, religious, economic, political, or social value?

Your question also implies that there is some unquestionable "value" if we are somehow "more than physical beings". What warrants this?

And what warrants the assumption that "everything is predetermined" or that being "likely"?

To my knowledge all mutations are either bad or don't change anything, and super rarely anything good and evolving. — TiredThinker

I don't find any article which would support that good mutation are super rare, DNA mutations are either bad, good or change nothing:

What are the consequences of mutations?
Mutations are a source of genetic diversity in populations, and, as mentioned previously, they can have widely varying individual effects. In some cases, mutations prove beneficial to an organism by making it better able to adapt to environmental factors. In other situations, mutations are harmful to an organism — for instance, they might lead to increased susceptibility to illness or disease. In still other circumstances, mutations are neutral, proving neither beneficial nor detrimental outcomes to an organism. Thus, it is safe to say that the ultimate effects of mutations are as widely varied as the types of mutations themselves.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/dna-is-constantly-changing-through-the-process-6524898/

What value is there to the self if we are nothing more than physical beings, and it is likely everything is predetermined? — TiredThinker

Objectively, none whatever. Who would be measuring it? Value is subjective. The average earthworm seems satisfied to be physical being; so do most doves and bats and whales. I know I'm okay with it. I find the physical world beautiful, endlessly interesting and most of the time, quite pleasant to live in. I don't mind having no objective value, as long as I'm having worthwhile experiences.

To my knowledge all mutations are either bad or don't change anything, and super rarely anything good and evolving. — TiredThinker

That's the big chance genes live for. Imagine bearing the mutation that starts a whole new species! But, who cares? That's not why creatures reproduce. They either can't help it or get actual joy out of it. Or aggravation. Either way, life experience and a sense of not having wasted their time.

What use is an identity that doesn't evolve and in fact continues to become less and less functional by our own standards? — TiredThinker

Yeah. I'm dealing with old age myself. It's no fun, but memory is some consolation.

What do you mean by transhumanism? If you ask age researchers, at best they think they "might" be able to stop human aging in 20 years, by then I might be dead. But that doesn't promise that we will know enough about our DNA to reprogram all the DNA in all of our cells so they will avoid cancer and other diseases. I think to this day they still haven't mapped out, let alone gained full understanding of the Y chromosome. I don't think technology and biology research are making the appropriate pace to give me any sense that my only biological identity can be protected.

If our only identity is genetic ultimately, and it constantly is deleteriously changed over time, what value does it have? And as far as predetermined I think most in this forum are comfortable with a lack of freewill which I think science can't prove to the contrary?

You got to keep your memories? I can't remember half the people I work with daily and I'm in my 40s. I suspect blood plasma dilution or senolytics are the only true treatment for brain issues, but that is likely a ways off research wise.

If our only identity is genetic ultimately, and it constantly is deleteriously changed over time, what value does it have? — TiredThinker

DNA identifies organisms as members of specific species. It's "value" is reproductive and as a hereditary genetic archive.

And as far as predetermined I think most in this forum are comfortable with a lack of freewill which I think science can't prove to the contrary?

Appeal to popularity is fallacious. "Free will", such as we exercise and experience it, is both conditional in function and limited in scope/effect (i.e. determined) – compatibilism. "Predetermined" is mumbo jumbo and should not be confused with determinism.

What do you mean by transhumanism? — TiredThinker

Transhumanism is of interest to me, so I can provide you with a simple definition and some links to visit, if you're wanting to dive down that rabbit hole. Okay, the word "Transhumanism" (according to this website) is,

... a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.

This is to say that Transhumanism is "applied extropy". With entropy as its opposite. The world's Transhumanists are working with emerging technologies to inspire the next stage of human evolution; it's pretty much that simple.

If you would like to learn more about Transhumanism, I would recommend visiting H+Pedia (which I help maintain), r/Transhumanism on Reddit and this Wikipedia article.

What do you mean by transhumanism? — TiredThinker

I favour the definition as: The belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology.

If you ask age researchers, at best they think they "might" be able to stop human aging in 20 years, by then I might be dead. — TiredThinker

Wow! where did you get that from? within 20 years? No chance! But I hope you are correct, that would be a serious gamechanger and I would love to be alive when it happened.
I was not suggesting that there is much chance of significant increased lifespan for you or I, I was asking you if that future possibility for our species filled you with any positivity or is your concern regarding your own termination all that matters. If it is, then perhaps that's a reason for the general negativity of your OP here. I see myself as a part of the story of our species, but it is the totality of the story that matters to me most, much much more than the brief part I played in it. That thought makes me very contented.
We all prioritise in many different ways. Even your handle/identifier 'tiredthinker' seems pessimistic whereas mine, 'universeness,' seems more positive (perhaps only to me!).

You got to keep your memories? — TiredThinker

Yes, I've been lucky that way. No serious brain issues, other than the constant search for things I just put down five minutes ago. The rest of the machine is rusting shut or falling apart, but the top is still largely functional. I didn't replicate, so my contribution to the genome is nil. I have done no great harm to anyone, some small benefit to my immediate environment: I did some competent work, had an infinitesimal influence on 20th century politics, made people laugh and taught youngsters. My contribution to human history is minimal. I prefer that obscurity to being commemorated with a statue that some future generation will pull down and smash to bits.
Few regrets, even fewer complaints.

Organisms are not completely determined through their genetic makeup but have different life experiences due to the particular environment in which they emerge. For humans, that environment includes forms of living together that produce language, shared values, and instruments to sustain life through work. While the genetic code may mark out the limits of what is possible in life, it does not include all that is happening. I agree that life would be stupid if it did.

Identity is clearly a development of the environment of humans living together and its methods of continuing skills from generation to generation. We don't know very much about how these behaviors relate to Life as the activity exhibited by all organisms. But the importance of upbringing and education in the outcome of every individual is there for everyone to see and has been for time out of mind. When Le Rochefoucauld observed that "education is a second amour propre", it was an acceptance of our behavior as "natural", not an attempt to establish a separate domain. When one gets to the viewpoint of Vygotsky, the unique experience of the individual emerges directly from surviving the human environment as one of the conditions of life.

Regarding the extent genetics predetermine outcomes, it should be noted that there is an emerging science of Epigenetics that shows how environmental factors can alter what is expressed through DNA. The realm of Ecology, as the collision of the many elements of Life, is getting more complicated, not less.

If we don't live to see the destination, we have no right to be proud of the seeds we plant. I want to know the value of our own biological identity and would prefer to think it evolves instead of breaks then ceases.

I have no issue with obscurity myself. I don't like the idea of oblivion is all.

Epigenetics isn't that new. Yamanaka Factors can actually wipe them off the DNA making the cell behave younger than it is. But the DNA still has errors and may still be more prone to cancer.

What is the difference between Predetermined and Determinism?

You are saying free will and determinism aren't mutually exclusive?

Forgive me if I don't take that as a response to my observations regarding the role of "identity."

It isn't an issue with the value—each of us are one of a kind, wholly unique, something the universe will never see again—but with how we value. We tend to put value on nothings, for instance the non-physical and supernatural, but in doing so devalue what is present and real.

You are saying free will and determinism aren't mutually exclusive? — TiredThinker

Yes, that's why I had provided the link

"Free will", such as we exercise and experience it, is both conditional in function and limited in scope/effect (i.e. determined) – compatibilism. — 180 Proof

What is the difference between Predetermined and Determinism? — TiredThinker

The latter refers to efficient causation and the former to teleology (i.e. (occult) purpose).

I have no issue with obscurity myself. I don't like the idea of oblivion is all. — TiredThinker

I don't think we get a lot of choice, really. You can make shit up; pretend you'll go to heaven if you've been a good little Christian, or the Happy Hunting Ground or Valhalla or Paradise or Sto'Vo'Kor, but it's all fairy tales. You're not expected to like winking out like a star or snuffing out like a birthday candle... either of which is better than some other analogies I could draw....

If we don't live to see the destination, we have no right to be proud of the seeds we plant — TiredThinker

I would suggest that as contributors (hopefully benevolent contributions), we do have the right to maintain positive 'hope' for the future of our species, based on the 'seeds we plant.' Perhaps a sense of pride is warranted as well. It's a matter for the individuals involved, in the same way that it's a matter for you, to feel that such hope for the future and pride in the achievements of our current and ancestral population is not warranted.

I want to know the value of our own biological identity and would prefer to think it evolves instead of breaks then ceases. — TiredThinker

It confirms your individuality, your uniqueness. Carl Sagan said 'The size of the universe is beyond human understanding.' Yet in all that vastness of time and space, YOU are unique.
We are still physically evolving, and our current and future science and tech will change us in ways that the label transhuman hardly covers. We have more control over death now than we have ever had in the past due to our current level of health care and medical intervention. This improves with each new med tech breakthrough. This control over death and how and when we die, will eventually become as close to 100% as we can make it. Death will become almost 100% your choice.
It's just unfortunate that you and I were probably born too early in the story to have that choice.
So, enjoy it while you can! The alt is to live life at or closer to a curse, this will merely increase your metal suffering, and your time will still pass, regardless of how you choose to live or die.

Free will aside. Can we ever be more than a clear computer program? Even computers accumulate errors and fail, and they too don't evolve from their original source code.

I didn't say I couldn't be content with dying eventually. My emphasis is on the value of living based on our DNA's decline. Even if it is unique at all times, even a rock in a stream meets that criteria. What value can something that can't (to my knowledge) continue to better itself have?

What are your answers to the questions you pose?

I'm not following you. I don't understand the question.

What value can something that can't (to my knowledge) continue to better itself have? — TiredThinker

You seem to be congested by a 'futility' vibe. A human can improve themselves whilst they are alive and they can leave a legacy that can assist others for a very, very long time, that's why you know who Socrates is, despite the fact he left no physical writings himself and he stopped existing thousands of years ago. Can you not be content with that and the hope of increased longevity/choice in the future of our species? The latter is probably beyond your reach, but the former isn't.

We don't know our purpose so we can't consider what we leave behind when we die as either good or bad. Sure we know the legacy of famous people who died, but again we don't know our purpose as a species and therefore good or bad can't be determined. I am asking about individual single life betterment. Our DNA degrades. I don't think that is in question. And it is our biological identity. It doesn't decide everything about us, but if we can't prove an identity that transcends the physical than what do we have? And if what we physically have clearly continues to break or become less adaptive what value can even it have?

Whose "purpose"? "Value" to whom? "Purpose" and "value" belong to intentional agents and do not belong to subpersonal, nonintentional phenomena or processes. Your questions of "purpose" and "value", TiredThinker, seem misplaced and don't make sense to me.

As I discern our condition, a human being involuntarily values herself (re: Spinoza's conatus) and recognizes in early childhood that other human beings also value themselves. That we are an eusocial species of individuals with aptitude for empathy, our socialization consists in learning to value each other to varying degrees, some more or less, as persons like ourselves (re: theory of mind, moral customs and legal conventions). In this context, we institute practices for purposes related to individual and collective survival, reproduction and further devepment of our practices.

In this way we begin to recognize ourselves as ancestors who value our individual and collective descendants insofar as we prioritize the purpose of the well-being of our descendants with our individual and collective practices.

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present. — Albert Camus

Whatever survives us cannot mean anything to us now, only that we struggle to make the most of individual and collective possibilities for well-being.

Isn't empathy and goals for society betterment a self serving self preservation tactic that biology put into place which also degrades when we do? Old people aren't fighting no wars for us or able to protect others of the species as well anymore.

Old people aren't fighting no wars for us or able to protect others of the species as well anymore. — TiredThinker

Civilian and military leaders have been "old" – elders – as far back as I can recall, so I've no idea what you're talking about. "Old people" don't have to "fight" of "protect" "the species" when there are far more younger bodies available to do so. Thus, global civilization is a structural 'plutocratic gerontocracy' in the main, always has been, just look at the faces on most national currencies, for instance. While the laboring masses are mostly youths and middle aged, mostly they are not strategic decision-makers, investment planners, political military business or cultural managers and leaders. You're statement is quite mistaken, I'm sure.