This piece began by me wanting to
write a book review. Then I decided no, I would just write down some notes for
my own reflection. It is said that the average person only remembers about 1 percent of a book. I painstakingly typed out the excerpts below to give myself a better
chance of remembering what I had read. I’m one of those who read to remember,
not read to forget. I now share this effort with those who may not get around
to reading this excellent book.
Harari is an atheist. I am Spiritual
But Not Religious (SBNR) aka Spiritual But Not Affiliated (SBNA). I believe in energy
that does not die, the soul, and afterlives. Hence, I disagree with those parts
of the book that cover these subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4
The prologue says, “I encourage
all of us, whatever our beliefs, to question the basic narratives of our world,
to connect past developments with present concerns, and not to be afraid of
controversial issues.” – Dr. Yuval Noah
Harari
The book is full of questions:
P 3: What are we going to do with
ourselves?
What will we do with all that
power?
Excerpts:
P 3/5: Misfortune or stupidity on
the collective level resulted in mass famines. Mass famines still strike some
areas from time to time, but they are exceptional, and they are almost always
caused by human politics rather than by natural catastrophes.
P 5: Though hundreds of millions
still go hungry almost every day, in
most countries very few people actually starve to death.
P 6: For the first time in its
recorded history China is now free from famine.
P 14: Incidentally cancer and
heart disease are of course not new illnesses – they go back to antiquity. In
previous eras, however, relatively few people lived long enough to die from
them.
P 16: It is therefore likely that major epidemics
will continue to endanger humankind in the future only if humankind itself
creates them, in the service of some ruthless ideology.
P 17: Sugar is now more dangerous
than gunpowder.
Today the main source of wealth
is knowledge.
P 19: Cyber warfare may
destabilize the world by giving even small countries and no-state actors the
ability to fight superpowers effectively.
Though cyber warfare introduces
new means of destruction, it doesn’t necessarily add new incentives to use
them.
P 20: Throughout
history, if kings and emperors acquired some new weapon, sooner or later they
were tempted to use it.
P 21: Coca-Cola
poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda.
If the Jungle
Law comes back into force, it will not be the fault of terrorists.
P 22: History
does not tolerate a vacuum.
P 23: When the
moment comes to choose between economic growth and ecological stability,
politicians, CEOs and voters almost always prefer growth.
Humans are
rarely satisfied with what they already have.
P 24: Humanity’s
next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity.
We are
constantly reminded that human life is the most sacred thing in the universe.
P 25: Because
Christianity, Islam and Hinduism insisted that the meaning of our existence
depended on our fate in the afterlife, they viewed death as a vital and
positive part of the world.
Just try to
imagine Christianity, Islam or Hinduism in a world without death – which is
also a world without heaven, hell or reincarnation.
P 28: If you
ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500, the answer is yes.
Paypal
co-founder Peter Thiel has recently confessed that he aims to live forever.
P 29: But if
you believe you can live forever, you would be crazy to gamble on infinity like
that.
P 30: But life
is generally divided into a learning period followed by a working period.
P 31: In truth,
so far modern medicine hasn’t extended our natural life span by a single year.
P 32: A
relentless war against death seems to be inevitable.
As long as
people die of something, we will strive to overcome it.
P 34: For who
would like to live forever in eternal misery?
P 38: The rate
of suicide in the developed world is also much higher than in traditional
societies.
P 40: Achieving
real happiness is not going to be much easier than overcoming old age and
death.
Rather, we
become satisfied when reality matches our expectations.
John Stuart
Mill, explained that happiness is nothing but pleasure and freedom from pain.
P 41: According
to the life sciences, happiness and suffering are nothing but different
balances of bodily sensations.
P 44: Perhaps
the key to happiness is neither the race nor the gold medal, but rather
combining the right doses of excitement and tranquillity.
P 45: In order
to raise global happiness levels, we need to manipulate human biochemistry. And
this is exactly what we have begun doing over the last few decades.
People have
been quarreling about education methods for thousands of years.
P 46: The
biochemical pursuit of happiness is also the number one cause of crime in the
world.
P 47: The state
hopes to regulate the biochemical pursuit of happiness, separating ‘bad’
manipulations from ‘good’ ones.
In research
labs experts are already working on more sophisticated ways of manipulating
human biochemistry, such as sending direct electrical stimuli to appropriate
spots in the brain, or genetically engineering the blueprints of our bodies.
P 48: To attain
real happiness, humans need to slow down the pursuit of pleasant sensations,
not accelerate it.
This Buddhist
view of happiness has a lot in common with the biochemical view.
P 49: For what
is the point of running after something that disappears as fast as it arises?
With each
passing year our tolerance for unpleasant sensations decreases, and our
cravings for pleasant sensations increases.
You may debate
whether it is good or bad, but it seems that the second great project of the
twenty-first century – to ensure global happiness – will involve re-engineering
Homo sapiens so that it can enjoy
everlasting pleasure.
P 50: Up till
now increasing human power relied mainly on upgrading our external tools. In
the future it may rely more on upgrading the human body and mind, or on merging
directly with our tools.
P 52: Breaking
out of the organic realm could also enable life to finally break out of planet
Earth. Not even the toughest bacteria can survive on Mars. A non-organic artificial intelligence, in
contrast, will find it far easier to colonise alien planets.
Technologies
for upgrading humans pose a completely different kind of challenge.
P 53: Many
scholars try to predict how the world will look in the year 2100 or 2200. Any
worthwhile prediction must take into account the ability to re-engineer human
minds, and this is impossible.
(Mena note: Why impossible? Because the mind is a part of the soul factor?)
P 56: In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.
(Mena note: Why impossible? Because the mind is a part of the soul factor?)
P 56: In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.
P 65: What is
the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything?
The more we
know, the less we can predict.
For what is
the use of new knowledge if it doesn’t lead to novel behaviours?
P 67: Knowledge
that does not change behavior is useless.
P 68: Historians
study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.
P 75: If you
start with a flawed ideal, you often appreciate its defects only when the ideal
is close to realization.
P 76: Homo sapiens does its best to forget
the fact, but it is an animal.
P 97: The
twenty-first century will be dominated by algorithms. ‘Algorithm’ is arguably
the single most important concept in our world. If we want to understand our
life and our future, we should make every effort to understand what an
algorithm is, and how algorithms are connected with emotions.
An algorithm
is a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve
problems and reach decisions. An algorithm isn’t a particular calculation, but
the method followed when making the calculation.
P 99: The
algorithms controlling humans work through sensations, emotions and thoughts.
P 100: What we
call sensations and emotions are in fact algorithms.
P 101: 99% of
our decisions -- including the most important life choices concerning spouses,
careers and habitats -- are made by the highly refined algorithms we call
sensations, emotions and desires.
P 118/9: The
traditional monotheist answer is that only Sapiens have eternal souls. Since
pigs and other animals have no soul, they live only for a few years, and then
die and fade into nothingness. The belief that humans have eternal souls
whereas animals are just evanescent bodies is a central pillar of our legal,
political and economic system. It explains why, for example, it is perfectly
okay for humans to kill animals for food, or even just for the fun of it. There
is zero scientific evidence that in contrast to pigs (animals), Sapiens have
souls.
P 124: The
most up to date theories also maintain that sensations and emotions are
biochemical data processing algorithms.
P 125: We won’t
be able to grasp the full implications of novel technologies such as artificial
intelligence if we don’t know what minds are.
(Mena note: Minds are a part of the soul factor.)
(Mena note: Minds are a part of the soul factor.)
To be frank,
science knows surprisingly little about mind and consciousness.
P 128: One of
the wonderful things about science is that when scientists don’t know
something, they can try out all kinds of theories and conjunctures, but in the
end they can just admit their ignorance.
P 129: The
better we understand the brain, the more redundant the mind seems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4&fbclid=IwAR32pnjdedWbJOlLEWPNcj7XX6XfIAmLUAGFpRDmpj5d6GuDLsySDEHgZYg
(Mena note: This video begs to differ. There is a section where it's shared that people are found with very little brain matter and they live normal lives.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4&fbclid=IwAR32pnjdedWbJOlLEWPNcj7XX6XfIAmLUAGFpRDmpj5d6GuDLsySDEHgZYg
(Mena note: This video begs to differ. There is a section where it's shared that people are found with very little brain matter and they live normal lives.)
P 134: As
private individuals, many biologists and doctors may go on believing in souls.
Yet they never write about them in serious scientific journals.
P 136: Some
scientists concede that consciousness is real and may actually have great moral
and political value, but that it fulfills no biological function whatsoever.
P 139: Since
there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual worlds is
infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is
almost zero.
P 169: The
value of money is not the only thing that might evaporate once people stop
believing in it. The same can happen to laws, gods and even entire empires.
P 170: Yet we
don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that
give meaning to our lives. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning
only within the network of stories they tell one another. Meaning is created
when many people weave together a common network of stories.
P 171: Each
round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you
have little choice but to believe what
everyone else believes.
P 174: Nobody
in twelfth-century England knew what human rights were.
P 177: Hence
if we want to understand our future, cracking genomes and crunching numbers is
hardly enough. We must also decipher the fictions that give meaning to the
world.
P 181: Animals
live in a dual reality. Sapiens, in contrast, live in triple-layered reality.
P 187: We
encountered the term 'algorithm' when we tried to understand what emotions are
and how brains function, and defined it as a methodical set of steps that can
be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions.
P 195: As
bureaucracies accumulate power they become immune to their own mistakes.
Instead of changing their stories to fit reality, they can change reality to
fit their stories.
P 198: In
practice, the power of human cooperation networks depends on a delicate balance
between truth and fiction. You cannot organize masses of people effectively without
relying on some fictional myths. So if you stick to unalloyed reality, without
mixing any fiction with it, few people will follow you.
P 199: Really
powerful human organizations are not necessarily clear-sighted.
P 201: Even
when scriptures mislead people about the true nature of reality, they can
nevertheless retain their authority for thousands of years.
P 205: History
isn’t a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we
choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.
P 206: Corporations,
money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us;
why do we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in their service?
P 207: In the
twenty-first century we will create more powerful fictions and more totalitarian
religions than in any previous era. Being able to distinguish fiction from
reality and religion from science will therefore become more difficult but more
vital than ever before.
P 209: Thanks
to computers and bioengineering, the difference between fiction and reality
will blur, as people reshape reality to match their pet fictions.
P 210: How
does modern science relate to religion?
P 214: Just as
the gap between religion and science is narrower than we commonly think, so the
gap between religion and spirituality is much wider. Religion is a deal,
whereas spirituality is a journey.
P 215:
Spiritual journeys are nothing like that. They usually take people in
mysterious ways towards unknown destinations.
P 218: From an
historical perspective, the spiritual journey is always tragic, for it is a
lonely path fit only for individuals rather than for entire societies.
P 219: Science
always needs religious assistance in order to create viable human institutions.
Scientists study how the world functions, but there is no scientific method for
determining how humans ought to behave.
P 220: Science
studies facts, religion speaks about values, and never the twain shall meet.
P 229: We have
no scientific definition or measurement of happiness.
P 231: The
uncompromising quest for truth is a spiritual journey, which can seldom remain
within the confines of either religious or scientific establishments.
P 255:
Modernity accordingly inspired people to want more, and dismantled the age-old
disciplines that curbed greed.
P 257:
Humankind was salvaged not by the law of supply and demand, but rather by the
rise of a revolutionary new religion --
humanism.
P 258: The
modern deal offers us power, on
condition that we renounce our belief in a great cosmic plan that gives meaning
to life. Yet when you examine the deal closely, you will find a cunning escape
clause.
This escape
clause has been the salvation of modern society, for it is impossible to
sustain order without meaning.
Throughout
history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing
in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who
pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who
continue to believe in God and His all-encompassing plans.
P 259: The
humanist religion worships humanity and expects humanity to play the part that
God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in
Buddhism and Daoism.
Whereas
traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans,
humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give
meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within
their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the
meaning of the entire universe.
This is the
primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless
world.
P 260: Meaning
and authority always go hand in hand. Whoever determines the meaning of our
actions – whether they are good or evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly –
also gains the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.
P 261: For
centuries humanism has been convincing us that we are the ultimate source of
meaning, and that our free will is therefore the highest authority of all.
P 262: The DSM
diagnoses the ailments of life, not the meaning of life. Most psychologists
believe that only human feelings are authorized to determine the true meaning
of human actions.
P 272: As the
source of meaning and authority relocated from the sky to human feelings, the
nature of the entire cosmos changed.
Angels and
demons were transformed from real entities roaming the forests and deserts of
the world into inner forces within our own psyche.
You experience
hell every time you ignite the fires of anger and hatred within your heart; and
you enjoy heavenly bliss every time you forgive your enemies, repent your own
misdeeds and share your wealth with the poor.
P 275: In the
Middle Ages, without a god I had no source of political, moral and aesthetic authority.
I could not tell what was right, good or beautiful. Who could live like that?
Today, in contrast, it is very easy not to believe in God, because I pay no
price for my unbelief. I can be a complete atheist and still derive a very rich
mixture of political, moral and aesthetic values from my inner experience.
P 278:
Experiences and sensitivity build up one another in a never-ending cycle. I
cannot experience anything if I have no sensitivity, and I cannot develop
sensitivity unless I undergo a variety of experiences.
P 279: We
aren’t born with a ready-made conscience. If we pay attention, our moral
sensitivity sharpens, and these experiences become a source of valuable ethical
knowledge about what is good, what is right and who I really am.
P 288: If you
want to understand war, don’t look up at the general on the hilltop, or at
angels in the sky. Instead, look straight into the eyes of the common soldiers.
P 311: The
entire twentieth century looks like a big mistake.
P 315: History
is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by
the backward-looking masses.
P 319: In the
early twenty-first century the train of progress is again pulling out of the
station – and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called
Homo sapiens. Those who miss this train will never get a second chance.
In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.
In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.
P 321: Ask
yourself: what was the most influential discovery, invention or creation of the
twentieth century? Now ask yourself: what was the most influential discovery,
invention or creation of traditional religions such as Islam and Christianity
in the twentieth century?
P 323: If the
whole universe is pegged to the human experience, what will happen once the
human experience becomes just another designable product, no different in
essence from any other item in the supermarket?
P 342: Most
experiments have indicated that there is no single self taking any of these
decisions. Rather, they result from a tug of war between different and often
conflicting inner entities.
(Mena note: Many lives, many identities?)
(Mena note: Many lives, many identities?)
P 348: The
important thing is that we always retain the feeling that we have a single
unchanging identity from birth to death (and perhaps even beyond).
(Mena note: Again, the soul factor?)
(Mena note: Again, the soul factor?)
P 349:
Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more
tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to
these sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.
P 351: It is
much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the
suffering.
P 380: The
crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new
jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.
P 386: So if
you wish to obey the old adage and know thyself, you should not waste your time
on philosophy, meditation or psychoanalysis, but rather you should
systematically collect biometric data and allow algorithms to analyse them for
you and tell you who you are and what you should do. The movement’s motto is
‘Self-knowledge through numbers’.
(Mena note: Cue Astrology, Numerology, etc.
as algorithms.)
P 402: If we
are not careful the result might be an Orwellian police state that constantly
monitors and controls not only all our actions, but even what happens inside our
bodies and our brains.
In the
twenty-first century the individual is more likely to disintegrate gently from
within than to be brutally crushed from without.
P 411: Just as
the spectrum of light and sound are far broader than what we humans can see and
hear, so the spectrum of mental states is far larger than what the average
human perceives.
P 414: Different
socio-economic realities and daily routines nurtured different states of
consciousness.
(Mena note: Why rich people think
differently from poor people, for example.)
P 423:
Humanism always emphasized that it is not easy to identify our authentic will.
Many people
take great care not to probe themselves too deeply.
P 424:
Technological progress has a very different agenda. It doesn’t want to listen
to our inner voices. It wants to control them.
P 427: The
most interesting emerging religion is Dataism, which venerates neither gods nor
man – it worships data.
P 428: Dataism
declares that the universe consists of data flows.
P 429: The
work of processing data should therefore be entrusted to electronic algorithms,
whose capacity far exceeds that of the human brain. In practice, this means
that Dataists are skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom, and prefer to put
their trust in Big Data and computer algorithms.
P 439: Mixing
godlike technology with megalomaniacal politics is a recipe for disaster.
Politicians find
it convenient to believe that the reason they don’t understand the world is
that they don’t need to understand it.
P 443: If
humankind is indeed a single data-processing system, what is its output?
Dataists would say that its output will be the creation of a new and even more
efficient data-processing system, called the Internet-of-All-Things. Once this
mission is accomplished, Homo sapiens
will vanish.
P 444: Humans
are merely tools for creating the Internet-of-All-Things, which may eventually
spread out from planet Earth to pervade the whole galaxy and even the whole
universe. This cosmic data-processing system would be like God. It will be
everywhere and will control everything, and humans are destined to merge into
it.
Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm.
P 445:
Remember that according to current biological dogma, emotions and intelligence
are just algorithms.
Like other
successful religions, Dataism is also missionary. Its second commandment is to
link everything to the system, including heretics who don’t want to be plugged
in.
We mustn’t
leave any part of the universe disconnected from the great web of life.
Conversely, the greatest sin would be to block the dataflow. What is death, if
not a condition in which information doesn’t flow? Hence Dataism upholds the
freedom of information as the greatest good of all.
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
P 446: Dataism
is the first movement since 1789 that created a genuinely novel value: freedom
of information. This novel value may impinge on humans’ traditional freedom of
expression, by privileging the right of information to circulate freely over
the right of humans to own data and to restrict its movement.
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
P 447:
Dataists believe all good things – including economic growth – depend on the
freedom of information. So if we want to create a better world, the key is to
set the data free.
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)
P 449: Just as
free-market capitalists believe in the invisible hand of the market, so
Dataists believe in the invisible hand of the dataflow.
Humans want to
merge into the dataflow because when you are part of the dataflow you are part
of something much bigger than yourself.
Human
experiences have been the most efficient data processing algorithms in the
universe.
P 454: All
truly important revolutions are practical. Ideas change the world only when
they change our behavior.
P 456: After
Darwin, biologists began explaining that feelings are complex algorithms honed
by evolution to help animals make correct decisions. When you listen to your
feelings, you follow an algorithm that evolution has developed for millions of
years. Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom
managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment.
For millions
upon millions of years, feelings were the best algorithms in the world.
P 457: Dataism
now commands: ‘Listen to the algorithms! They know how you feel.’
But where do
these great algorithms come from? This is the mystery of Dataism.
P 458: The
seed algorithm may initially be developed by humans, but as it grows its own
path, going where no human has gone before – and where no human can follow.
At present we
have no idea how or why dataflows could produce consciousness and subjective
experiences. But maybe we’ll discover that organisms aren’t algorithms after
all.
P 459: Is
there perhaps something in the universe that cannot be reduced to data?
If Dataism
succeeds in conquering the world, what will happen to us humans?
P 460: Dataism
thereby threatens to do to Homo sapiens what Homo sapiens has done to all other
animals.
P 461: We
cannot really predict the future, because technology is not deterministic.
P 462: In the
twenty-first century censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant
information. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.
Parts I question:
P 119: Yet the
life sciences doubt the existence of soul not just due to lack of evidence, but
rather because the very idea of soul contradicts the most fundamental
principles of evolution.
P 120: If you
really understand the theory of evolution, you understand that there is no
soul.
P 121: The
theory of evolution rejects the idea that my true self is some indivisible,
immutable and potentially eternal essence. According to the theory of
evolution, all biological entities are composed of smaller and simpler parts
that ceaselessly combine and separate. Something that cannot be divided or
changed cannot have come into existence through natural selection.
(Mena note: The soul is energy and energy
can be transformed.)
P 122: That’s
why the theory of evolution cannot accept the idea of souls, at least if by
‘soul’ we mean something indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal. Such
an entity cannot possibly result from a step-by-step evolution.
But the soul
has no parts.
(Mena note: Metaphysicians would disagree.)
P 123: Hence
the existence of souls cannot be squared with the theory of evolution.
Evolution means change, and is incapable of producing everlasting entities.
This terrifies
large numbers of people, who prefer to reject the theory of evolution rather
than give up their souls.
P 329: To the
best of our scientific understanding, determinism and randomness have divided
the entire cake between them, leaving not even a crumb for ‘freedom’. Free will
exists only in the imaginary stories we humans have invented. Just as evolution
cannot be squared with eternal souls, neither can it swallow the idea of free
will. For if humans are free, how could natural selection have shaped them?
P 330: If by
‘free will’ we mean the ability to act according to our desires – then yes,
humans have free will, and so do chimpanzees, dogs and parrots. But the million-dollar
question is not whether parrots and humans can act upon their inner desires –
the question is whether they can choose their desires in the first place.
P 332:
However, once we accept that there is no soul and that humans have no inner
essence called ‘the self’, it no longer makes sense to ask, ‘How does the self
choose its desires?’ In reality, there is only a stream of consciousness, and
desires arise and pass away within this stream, but there is no permanent self
that owns the desires, hence it is meaningless to ask whether I choose my
desires deterministically, randomly or freely.
Doubting free
will is not just a philosophical exercise. It has practical implications.
P 338: Science
undermines not only the liberal belief in free will, but also the belief in
individualism. The single authentic self is as real as the eternal soul, Santa
Claus and the Easter Bunny.